Gene Wolfe: Free Live Free

“I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

“I ain’t mad!”

“Okay. Like some of my waffle?”

“I got plenty,” the old man said. “Thanks to you.”

“You won’t forget about fixing the hot water for me?” Shifting her cigarette to her left hand, the fat girl forked waffle into her mouth.

“Course not. You think I’m mad. I ain’t mad, I just ain’t blind. Never will be, neither. Won’t live that long.”

“Really.” The word was nearly drowned in maple syrup.

“I s‘pose you’ll be feelin’ better when you’ve had that bath?”

The fat girl nodded and swallowed. “Maybe I ought to tell you when I’m out? I mean, so you can turn off the heater and all that stuff.”

“Your room’s right over mine,” the old man said. “I’ll hear the boards creakin’.”

“Ah, there you are, Mr. Free,” Barnes said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Not in the right spots, I reckon. Me and Miz Garth was out to breakfast.”

The fat girl smiled at Free. “I’m going to go upstairs now and get ready for that soak. I’ll be seeing you.” On the second step she turned and blew him a kiss.

“Got to fix up the hot water,” Free said. “Promised I would, and it’ll take a bit for it to get hot.”

“Of course.” Barnes drew his threadbare topcoat around himself more tightly. “I’ll come along and help, if I can.”

“Don’t need no help, but you can come. You want to see me?”

Barnes nodded. “It’s rather … I can’t say personal. Private, right? Perhaps we should go—”

Free interrupted him. “You come with me, then. I got to go pipe up that heater, and down there’s about as private as anyplace.” He shouldered his way past Barnes and without looking back to see if he were following strode off toward the rear of the house.

“I think I should explain that I’m not really here on my own behalf,” Barnes began, hurrying after him. “Madame Serpentina asked that I talk with you.”

“If she’s cold, I can’t help it—they shut off my gas. You tell her if she’s got any more complaints to make them herself. I’ll listen, and I don’t bite much. I got nothing to work with here, but I’m doin’ the best I can.”

“I’m sure you are, Mr. Free. And believe me, all of us appreciate it more than you know.”

The old man pulled a rusty key from his pocket and opened a door. Warm, stale air, musty with time and decay, poured out. He started down creaking wooden steps into the dark.

“Aren’t you going to turn on the lights?” Barnes called after him.

“Ain’t none.” Free’s voice seemed to float like a ghost in the blackness. “Never has been. Come on down, Mr. Barnes. Just keep a hold of that railin’.”

Hesitantly, Barnes came.

“Some steps’s broken. Got to be careful.” There was a rasping noise and the flare of a match. “She’s a deep one, I guess you can see. Just keep on comin’.”

The stair had been repaired often and badly. Or perhaps it had never been repaired at all, only built of such odd scraps as had come into the builder’s hands. Some treads were no more than two or three unplaned sticks laid side by side; some showed paint at their edges, fragments of letters and pictures.

The match flickered and went out.

“Naught to worry about, Mr. Barnes. I never strung none because I didn’t want no one coming down here, but I been up and down them steps a hundred times. Good thing, too—they’ll be shuttin’ off the electric any minute. S’pose they caught us down here? You say that witch asked you to talk for her?”

A second match flared. For a moment, Free’s big, hunched body was interposed between Barnes and the light, then the golden radiance of a candle appeared.

Barnes managed to say, “She was up on the roof with you.”

“I know that. She got up on that little wall that goes around it. It was a damn fool thing to do.”

“She said you—ah—confided certain important facts.” Barnes’s foot touched the grimy surface of the floor, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

“She did, eh? I hadn’t reckoned she’d pass that on.”

“Madame Serpentina and I are friends.” Barnes cleared his throat. “You might say we’ve a relationship, if you know what I mean. I’m sure she didn’t tell me anything you asked her to hold confidential.”

“I know, but I ain’t sure you do. There wasn’t anything like that.”

In the flickering light, the ancient furnace seemed a monster, lifting tentacles as thick as a man’s body to the overhanging dark. The monster was dead, its rotting flesh weeping asbestos, corroding the old-fashioned cabinet that spun wiring in its shadow.

“I didn’t mean anything improper—”

“Neither’d I. Just thought you thought maybe I said somethin’ I didn’t want spread around. I didn’t. I’ll be on my way to meet with my daughter ’fore sundown, I reckon, so what do I care? You like women, don’t you, Mr. Barnes?”

“Like them?” Taken off guard, Barnes considered for a moment. “Not really. I want them, and since I can’t have them, usually, I don’t like them. But I want them, I suppose you could say that. I admire Madame Serpentina.”

“Do you now?” Free said. A length of hose ran from a small propane tank into the mouth of the monster. Stiffly, he bent and reached inside.

“She has pride, intelligence, and vivacity. Her profile is wonderful, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman with finer eyes.”

Free looked over his shoulder. “Interestin’ you should say that. Because, Mr. Barnes, I been just now wonderin’ about yours. The black part in a man’s eye usually gets big in the dark, just like a cat’s. When I lit this here candle, I noticed only one of yours acted so. Your one there looks about the way it always did, I believe.”

“It’s glass,” Barnes admitted. “You don’t think it looks too unnatural, Mr. Free?”

“Never noticed it till now.”

“I’m glad of that. Sometimes I think I see people looking at it when I’m making a call. Appearance is very important in sales, and someday, when money’s easier, I’ll buy a better one. The best are made in Germany, but they cost a bundle.”

“It looks fine,” the old man told him. “It’s the most natural thing about you.”

“It would be better if the others, especially Madame Serpentina—”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be gone anyway, just like I told you. When I got you people in here, I kind of hoped they’d leave the old place stand because folks was still livin’ here. It ain’t goin’ to work, though, and I know it. I look at my walls, and I can see that big, black ball comin’ through ’em.”

“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Free,” Barnes said. “I know the others will too.”

“I believe that, Mr. Barnes.”

“I know that none of you—except for Madame Serpentina—think a hell of a lot of me. Just a bunch of talk, a hand-pumper and a back-slapper. But I don’t walk away from my friends, Mr. Free. Not unless I’m forced to.”

Free nodded. “You’re a bigger man on the inside than on the outside, Mr. Barnes. I knew it when I seen you hadn’t got nothing for yourself last night ’fore you brought our grub to us. There’s a few like you.”

Barnes smiled and squatted beside the old man. “I’m glad you feel that way, Mr. Free, because it’s going to make it quite a bit easier to talk to you. When you were up there with Madame Serpentina, you told her—this is what she says—about something valuable you hid away and more or less lost some years ago.”

Free nodded. “Quite a few years. I’m surprised, though, she told you. I guess I said that.” He had picked up a screwdriver, and his hands were busy. He did not look at Barnes.