Gene Wolfe: Free Live Free

“I’m sorry about that tile, I really am. Had no notion anybody might be down there that time of the night.”

“You dropped it then, sir?”

“I’m responsible,” the old man said. “You’ve got it. I was trying to show that girl something.”

“Show her what?”

“I don’t mean to get you riled, Mr. Stubb, but I don’t believe that’s your affair. Besides, that dinner of yours is about cooked. You’re lucky they haven’t shut off the electric yet. Better take her out now.”

Stubb glanced at his bare wrist. “I suppose you’re right, sir. I left my watch upstairs.”

“Hope you locked your room. Anyway, she’s done. I wind her.”

Stubb turned off the oven and carried the foil-covered tray to the table. “Sure you won’t have any?”

The old man shook his head.

“Mr. Free, what you were doing up there isn’t my business, I admit. But I’ll make it my business—if you want me to.”

“They’re going to tear this place down. I told you about that.”

“Uh-huh.” Stubb selected a drumstick and bit into it.

“They shut off my gas an hour ago. Tomorrow the electric will go off too, and the wreckers’ll come. I want you to help me hold out. I told you about that.”

“I know you did,” Stubb said. “I will.”

“If we can keep the walls standing, that’s all the help I need. If we can’t, nothing’s going to do me good.” Free paused. “Reckon to die, but old Ben Free don’t die without a fight.”

“You love this place.”

“Suppose I do. Should it shame me, Mr. Stubb?”

“Everyone’s got to love something.”

The old man nodded. “That’s so, I believe. I love this country, I suppose, or I used to. Loved a wife and daughter once. What do you love, Mr. Stubb?”

Stubb chewed and swallowed. “I don’t know. My work, maybe, when I can get it. I haven’t got a woman or a house.”

“You’re a detective, I think you said?”

“I’m an operative, sir. To be a private detective, I’d have to be licensed. As it is, licensed private investigators hire me to do the work they’ll bill their clients for. If you think of a doctor and the clerk who sells you the aspirin he tells you to take, you’ll about have the right idea.”

“I believe I’d be clearer thinking about a farmer and his hired man. The farmer, he owns the land. He says, ‘Time to plow for winter wheat,’ and the hand, he plows and sows. He takes his wages and the farmer takes the crop.”

“You’ve got it, sir.”

“Thought I had.” The old man pushed back his chair. “I’ll make you some tea to go with your dinner.”

“I’d be finished before you could get the water hot, Mr. Free. I’m all right.”

“I’ll get you a glass of water anyhow. I was a hand once myself.” Free chuckled. “A hand for a bunch of letters.”

Stubb nodded politely.

“Up in the High Country, that was.” The old man waved at the ceiling. “That’s where I come from to start with.”

“Uh huh. How’d you get here, Mr. Free?”

“Oh, by my own doing. Come here and many another place too. Nobody made me. I’ll let it run for a minute, so it’ll be cold.”

“Fine.”

“You’ll say I was a fool. Well, you’d be right, too.”

Stubb swallowed again. “I’ve done some pretty dumb things myself.”

“Adventure, that’s what I wanted. Save the world. I come up here looking for a new world, but in all them years I never caught the sight of it, and now I guess I wouldn’t hardly care to. Danger? Plenty of that, here and there. Love? I got some, but not enough to pay, if you catch my meaning. Pain, lonesomeness. Plenty of each. I’d like to go back, but it’s too late. I’m old.”

“A bus ticket doesn’t cost much, Mr. Free.”

“I have my ticket, Mr. Stubb. There won’t no bus take you there, but I have my ticket. I saved it and I’ll save it still, though it can’t do me any good. It’s still where I left it, there in the wall.”

“In a wall?”

Free nodded. “I was fearful I’d lose it, you see, and I hid it there. Listen to me, Mr. Stubb, and I’ll tell you what don’t many know. Most of them that went lost theirs. Some used them and went back. I’m the only one I ever got the smell of that didn’t do either. ‘Cept you could say I lost mine too, ’cause I can’t use it now.”

“I haven’t got the slightest idea what the hell this ticket is, sir,” Stubb said. “But if you want me to, I’ll try and help you find it.”

The old man sighed and put a glass of water on the table. “Maybe you could. If they don’t tear the place down, we’ll see.” He leaned on the back of his chair, supporting his weight on his arms.

“And if the Serpentina woman’s giving you some kind of trouble, I’ll do what I can to help you with that. All you have to do is ask.”

“She’s more like you than you think, Mr. Stubb. I believe she’d help too, in her way.”

“Serpentina’s a good name for her, if you ask me, sir. If she bit a rabbit, it would die. I know the type.” Stubb took a swallow of water and began to scrape up what remained of his mashed potatoes with his fork.

“Where I come from there was rabbits all over,” the old man said softly. “Bears too, and deer. Here, I’ve never seen a one. Or any other wild creature, ’cept maybe a pigeon or a rat. You people don’t know how poor you are.” He straightened up, squaring shoulders that were still wide. “The creatures are all gone now, Mr. Stubb, as I soon shall be. Murdered.”

Stubb leaped up. By the time he reached the door, the parlor beyond it was empty. So was Free’s bedroom.

Returning to the kitchen, he removed his glasses and produced an almost clean handkerchief. When he had wiped the lenses thoroughly, he took a notebook and an automatic pencil from his shirt pocket and, twisting his face in a laborious grimace, wrote something in an almost microscopic hand. That done, he scanned the earlier pages, tearing out some and wadding them into balls he dropped into the empty tray.

The task complete, he carried the tray and its load of paper and chicken bones to the garbage container. A mouse ran from behind it as he dropped the tray in. Stubb froze; the mouse stopped to contemplate him, sitting up like a little kangaroo. Slowly, Stubb fished out a penknife and opened a blade at each end. The second clicked as it sprang into place, and the mouse resumed its dash for safety. Stubb threw, but missed by a foot.

Outside, new snow sparkled under the stars. He kicked it to find the shards of tile, then turned up his collar and walked, occasionally halting to peer upward.

The woman behind the register looked up and smiled when he came in. “My best customer.”

“Right. Am I the only one tonight?”

“The only soul. Leastways, there hasn’t been nobody in since you was here last. Need somethin’ else?”

“Forgot to get a paper,” Stubb said.

“These’s yesterday’s now. You want to wait twenty minutes, the new ones’ll come.”

“Maybe.” Stubb picked up a paper.

“How ’bout some coffee? On the house.”

“Sure, it’s cold outside.”

“The company gives it to us so we can give it to the prowl-car mens. Havin’ them come in for it keeps the place from bein’ stuck up so much. We get to drink it ourselves and give it out, only we’re not supposed to make the first pot till after midnight. What you lookin’ for?”

“Story on the new freeway,” Stubb told her.

“A moment,” Barnes called. “Just a moment.” In the dark he had mislaid the picture. He scrabbled for it—not finding it dove for the light switch, located the picture, hung it over his peephole, and threw open the door.