Stephen Brust - The Gypsy

Maybe that's what he wanted, more than the food. The laughing around a table.

He dumped the can of Dinty Moore stew into a pan and put it over a burner. It smelled like dogfood, cold. Hell, it looked like dogfood, but heated up it was okay. A little too peppery, but okay. And the peas came out the color of an old fatigue jacket, but it was okay. It was okay. It was all okay, just take it easy,don't get worked up.

He took his beer to the couch, turned on the television. News. He clicked through the channels, not wanting to hear about an old gypsy woman found stabbed to death in a cheap hotel. He found the Jetsons, a quiz show, "Sesame Street," more news, and a Jesus for sale program. He went back to the quiz show, A woman was jumping up and down and screaming while holding onto the host's arm. She'd just won a refrigerator. It was frost-free, with a no-fingerprint surface, a drink dispenser, and an ice maker.

The Gypsy said, "Too bad there wasn't a no-fingerprint surface on the knife."

"Yeah," Stepovich agreed. He took another pull off his beer.

"You bring me the message from the old woman?"

"Yeah. I got it here somewhere." Stepovich slapped his pockets for the letter, but he couldn't find it. He found a rock crystal and pulled it out instead."Scullion found it in her scarf. Inside her bag. It was addressed to you." Stepovich held it out, but the Gypsy wouldn't take it from him.

"That's your name on there, not mine," said the Gypsy. He was carving on a stick with his knife, and the shavings were going all over the floor. Jennie would be mad. Stepovich held the crystal close to his eyes, trying to see whose name was really on it."Don't bother," said the Gypsy, making long curling shavings. "All it says it, 'Find out who killed me.' " A raven hopped up and pecked at the shavings. The Gypsy shooed him away with a wave of his knife.

"Not my job," said Stepovich, taking another pull off his beer,

"No one's job," agreed the Gypsy. "No one gives a shit anymore." He got up and took the blackened coffee pot from the fire. It was made of that old blue enameled ware, the kind that has black speckles on it. Stepovich wondered why it didn't burn him. The Gypsy poured himself coffee into a heavy china mug.He stirred it with his finger. He sipped at it, and the rising steam from the mug floated up toward the crescent moon. He pointed at the coach, where a dark figure waited, holding reins that drifted off into fog. Or was it a knitted scarf? "You just want to leave?"

Stepovich frowned, wondering. Did he want to leave? "What about the old woman?" he asked.

"Not your job. Remember?" The Gypsy smiled kindly. "We can leave any time you want. How about now?" He scratched his chest through his yellow shirt. Stepovich could see that a few threads of the blue embroidery were coming undone. Jennie could fix that in a minute. He knew she could, but she wouldn't. She didn't fix things anymore.

Something else was cooking on the fire, something that boiled over the lip of the old kettle and fell in slow drips into the fire. The flames leaped up to catch the drips, eager to devour, and a terrible stench and smoke arose. The smoke stung Stepovich's eyes."Where does the coach go?" he gasped, rubbing his eyes and trying to see the Gypsy through the smoke.

"The one place you can't get to from here," the Gypsy said. He stood up and put his knife away. "Do you want to go?"

"It's the only place I want to go," Stepovich said,and stood up.

The corner of the coffee table hit him on the cheekbone, and the sharp pain almost stunned him. He got slowly to his hands and knees, staggered to the kitchen, dragged the pot off the stove and turned the burner off. He clicked on the fan in the range hood. It squealed annoyingly, but he let it run. The stew that was left in the pot looked disgusting, thick and stringy. He scraped it into a bowl and got some bread to go with it. And another beer. He set it all out on the coffee table, turned off the fan and went to look in the bathroom mirror.

Well, it was going to swell, but at least it wasn't going to be a black eye. He looked at himself. Square jaw. Blue eyes. The kind of hair they called sandy,just starting to slip back at his temples. He'd lost weight in the last two years. Steadily. At his last cop physical, the doctor had complimented him on it."Looking fine, Stepovich," the man had said, prodding his belly muscles. "You'd put a lot of younger men to shame. Work out regularly?" Yeah, he'd told the doctor. Sure. Real regular. For a while, it had been the only way he could stop thinking. Now even that didn't work.

He went back to the couch. The quiz show was gone. Three people were in a living room, and the studio audience was laughing uproariously while one of the characters struck an offended pose and the other two simpered. Stepovich opened his beer,drank, had two spoonfuls of the burnt stew. He reached to the other end of the coffee table, dragged the phone toward him. He punched in the number,then hung up before it could ring.

He wondered what she'd do if he ever really did it.Just called her up and said, "I'm sorry, it was a big mistake,1 love you, can I please come home?"

He ate more stew. Probably get another restraining order. Probably send the kids to her mother.

He drank some beer. It hadn't been a mistake. They both knew that. The divorce had been right. And he didn't love her. He loved something else, the idea of being married and having the kids and all. That's what he loved. If he went home right now, they'd probably have a fight before two hours were up. No. He'd screwed it up too badly. Screwed it up once by walking out when she dared him to. Screwed it up again by following her everywhere, always trying to talk to her, phoning her up at midnight, being outside the building when she got off work, by following her as she drove home each day. She'd thought he was going to hurt her, had gotten the restraining order, had filed harassment charges, had nearly made him lose his job.

So now it was this. Send her a check, talk to the kids on the phone. Eat alone, sleep alone, because you're too damn tired to go through all that dating shit. So zone out on the tube, after exercising for three hours so you can sleep, then fall asleep and dream about goddamn gypsies.

He set down the empty bowl. Well, he was through with the last part. He was going to take the knife back to the cemetery, tonight. Somehow he was sure that would get the Gypsy out of his mind.

Beasts and demons laugh and yell.

The lonely midwife sings;

They dance around like puppets,

But the Lady works the strings.

"THE FAIR LADY"

Cigany left the diner without paying; simply got up and walked out before they noticed him, turned the corner around a building and was gone. He was cleaner, though he wished he could jump into a river,and there were two pieces of tasteless chicken in his stomach along with a great deal of city water.

As he walked, scenes from his most recent past began to return to him. The holding tank, for one; where they put you before they knew where to put you. That, he had figured out. He wasn't certain how he had escaped it, or what the cost had been. Moreover,he wasn't certain why they had arrested him. He didn't think he'd done anything, but, then, it was always like that. A pal from Ireland once sang him a song about being born in the wrong place. He smiled at the memory. But he, Cigany, had been born in the right place, and then had left. Why?

His head began to hurt, and he reached for, for something he couldn't remember. Pills of some sort?He had had this sort of headache before, he knew; in fact, now that he thought of it, he almost remembered getting it every time he ate-that strange pulsing in his head, and then his vision would waver, and then the pain.