Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

Nat heard a thump, much like the first, followed by the tinkle of crystals raining down, and then:

“Ow.”

Followed by: “Iz? Are you all right?”

“I was until you landed on my ankle.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Spiderwebs in my mouth.”

The match went out.

“Nat?”

“Yeah?”

“We can’t see you.”

He lit another match. Two left in the pack.

“That’s better. Doesn’t he look like the Cheshire Cat?”

Nat leaned through the hole as far as could, held out the match at arm’s length, saw what must have been their faces, two pale ovals tilted up in the dark. “No one’s hurt?”

“We’re fine.”

“It’s kind of soft.”

“Like a bed.”

“What’s down there?”

“Hard to tell.”

“But it’s promising.”

“Oh, yes.”

Silence.

“Wait right there,” Nat said. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“For help.”

“Who said anything about help?”

“How are you going to get out?” Nat said.

He heard a soft crash, followed by tinkling glass, then silence.

“Could this be-?” one of them said.

“Not a-?”

“Mais oui.”

“Like a sign.”

He heard them laughing together. “What’s going on?” he called.

“Nat? Come on down.”

“What?”

“We’ve got a candle.”

“From above.”

“A big fat one.”

“So?”

“What do you mean-so?”

“I mean what about getting back up?” Nat said.

Pause. Nat heard them talking, but too low to distinguish the words. “Just toss the matches down, if you’re going to be like that,” one of them said. Had to be Grace. She must have realized it was a chandelier before she jumped, must have thought she could hang on to it and somehow lower herself down. But still: she’d leaped into darkness, an unknown darkness. He’d seen it.

“Grace?” he said.

“Yeah?”

The match went out. One left. “How will you find them in the dark?” Nat said.

“No clue,” said Grace. “Wasn’t my idea.”

“If everyone just shuts up,” Izzie said, “we’ll hear them land.”

A dumb idea. Nat heard a giggle: Grace’s giggle, surely. Then came silence, a deep silence down there under the campus. He thought of the land above, the way he’d seen it on the drive out of town in the Rolls, ancient and austere. An uncomfortable thought from down where he was, beneath it, although he didn’t know why. They weren’t lost, or anything like that.

“Trust me,” Izzie said; had to be Izzie.

“Was that you, Izzie?”

“Who else?”

Only one left. A dumb idea. Nat dropped the matchbook through the hole, just let it go. He felt the friction strip as it slid off his fingertips.

“Freedy?”

He grunted.

“If you’re going to be staying for a while, and of course you’re always welcome, as I’m sure you know-we’re a family, after all, it only takes two, and-”

“Just spit it out.”

“I wondered whether you were considering getting some kind of job. For contributing to the communal pot, to coin a phrase.”

Freedy stared at her across the kitchen table-he was only trying to drink his coffee in peace, for Christ sake, but there she was, head twisted a little, having trouble with the clasp on a huge hoop earring-he stared at her and said nothing. No comment. No comment, at first because he thought he’d heard her asking him to pay for her dope, then when he understood, because it didn’t deserve comment. She was his so-called mother. And look at her. Didn’t she owe him, owe him big-time? And why was it so fucking cold in the house?

Click. The clasp snapped into place. Couldn’t she see how ridiculous she looked, like some gypsy wanna-be? He checked out his own reflection in the little mirror framed with seashells hanging over the sink. No gypsy there: a fuckin’ animal, but with a brain, as the ponytail showed.

She was saying something: “… when you used to help out in the maintenance department, up at the college?”

Was she still on the job kick? “I remember a lot of things.”

A good line. She waited for him to say more, sitting absolutely still. She was good at sitting absolutely still. He remembered a lot of things, but nothing at that moment. Outside the window, an icicle broke off and dropped with a faint thud in the snow.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she said. “The maintenance.”

He thought of answering, No comment. No comment was what people with brains said. But she was pissing him off. “Are you telling me to look for a job?”

“Not telling, Freedy. Nothing like that. And just something temporary. As temporary as you like.”

As temporary as he liked. Was there some meaning in that, some hidden meaning? Freedy was mulling over that when he was hit, from out of nowhere, by an amazing idea, the kind of idea that proved his braininess. It tied things together so nicely, at the same time backing her right against the wall. He showed her that smile of his-a ten-thousand-dollar smile, according to a friend of Estrella’s who worked for a dentist, and said: “Then I’ll need my birth certificate, won’t I?”

“Birth certificate? Why?”

“Job application, what else?” Complete bullshit, of course-all they ever asked for was your license and social, but did she know that? Not a chance: never held down a real job in her life. So now he had her. No surprise there. They weren’t on the same field, not when it came to brainpower. His brainpower came from elsewhere.

She did have one little surprise for him. Freedy had expected the birth certificate would be lost, or unavailable, or not around for some reason or other, but after a minute or two in her bedroom, she came back with it. “Here you go, Freedy.”

He scanned it. Freedy hated official forms. They never made any sense. Like this one, with all these boxes and lines and different size print, even print in different whatever they were called, like old English or something. Standard Certificate of Live Birth: what the hell was that? Like they had certificates of dead births? Didn’t have them for abortions, which he knew for a fact because of Estrella’s. He’d had to drive her. Hours in the waiting room, hours on the freeway going back-flipped-over truck blocking the lanes, he could still see the blood on the pavement-but no certificate.

Freedy’s eyes roamed the stupid form, picked out his own name, and farther down hers, Starry Knight, and down below that was what he was after, must have taken five minutes to find it: FATHER. Full name: Unknown.

Huh? Freedy didn’t say huh — if he did it was real quiet-but that was what he thought. He’d set such a nice trap for her, because Walrus’s real name should have been there, right? Maybe not real name, but the legal one, the way Starry Knight was her legal name. And it wasn’t. The space was blank. Meaning? He looked up at her. She was watching him.

“Don’t lose it, Freedy. It’s the only proof of your existence.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Yes, Freedy.” Her hand came up a little off the table, as though for defense. “You know the way bureaucrats think.”

“That makes it funny?” But he didn’t know what she was talking about.