Peter Beagle - A Fine and Private Place

The bushes crackled again, and the big man stood in the light, buckling his belt. His head turned slowly from side to side, like a cannon, as he looked for Mr. Rebeck. "You there, buddy?" his cannon-voice tolled into the night. "You there?" He seemed anxious.

"I'm over here," Mr. Rebeck called. His common sense gave him up as senile, locked up for the night, and went home.

"Good," the man said. He came toward Mr. Rebeck, who was sure that he could hear the ground shake.

Mr. Rebeck remained where he was, holding the bottle as tightly as he could. A feeling of unreality shook him violently and left him feeling a little sick. "What am I doing here?" he said aloud. "I'm Jonathan Rebeck. I'm fifty-three years old. How did I get here?"

The man took the bottle from Mr. Rebeck's hand. He drank from it, his Adam's apple bobbing like a bell buoy.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared down at Mr. Rebeck. Big as a truck, big as a bulldozer, he was, and he rocked up and down on his heels and scowled at Mr. Rebeck, and his shadow moved with him on the hard pavement.

Then, quite suddenly, he scratched his head. His right hand came all the way up from where it hung by his side and burrowed into his coarse hair, digging into his scalp with a sandpapery sound. He blinked. The two gestures made him look young and uncertain of his strength.

"What'm I gonna do with you?" he asked. It was a direct question, and he waited for an answer.

"I don't know," Mr. Rebeck said. He felt suddenly angry and put-upon. "That's your job. I'm not going to help you."

"I got no more rum," the big man said defensively. He pressed the bottle he held against his thigh, as if trying to hide it. "This's all I got left. I need it."

"All right," Mr. Rebeck said. "I don't want it."

He wasn't all that big, Mr. Rebeck decided. Very big for a man, yes, but familiarity and the head-scratching had taken him out of the bulldozer class. In the light from the wide-open door of the caretaker's office Mr. Rebeck saw that the man's eyes were dark blue and, at the moment, puzzled. He felt somewhat better. He had expected the man's eyes to be colorless and no more expressive than tree trunks.

"Ah, what the hell," the man said finally. "You come with me." He went toward the office, looking back occasionally to make sure Mr. Rebeck was following him. At the door he waved Mr. Rebeck to a stop and vanished into the small building. Mr. Rebeck heard something crash to the floor, heard the man's short, inventive obscenity, and the sound of a filing-cabinet drawer sliding open. He waited where the man had left him and thought, He must be new and unsure of himself, so he has gone to call his relief. In a few minutes there will be a man here who knows what to do with trespassers. People who knew what to do always impressed Mr. Rebeck in spite of himself.

A yell of triumph in the office, another crash, and the man was in the doorway, holding up a fresh bottle. "Found the sonofabitch," he exulted. "Lying right under m' very nose." He held the bottle against his nose and giggled. "Lucky I had a very nose. Here." He offered the bottle to Mr. Rebeck. "Here. While I think what to do with you."

Mr. Rebeck did not take the bottle. He tightened the belt of his bathrobe and demanded, "Are you the guard on duty?"

The big man nodded. "Me. On duty from midnight to eight. Then I go home."

"Well, for heaven's sake," Mr. Rebeck said indignantly, "guard something! What kind of a guard goes around offering drinks to everybody he meets?"

The big man treated the question seriously. "Don't tell me," he said. He closed his eyes tightly, screwed up his forehead, and murmured possible answers to himself.

"A generous guard," he suggested. "A dumb, generous guard. Right?"

Mr. Rebeck was a neat man and a respecter of property. The man's attitude pained him. "Damn it," he said, "for all you know I might be a thief. How do you know I'm not trying to steal something?"

Deep, rum-warmed laughter chugged out of the man. "Nothing to steal. Thieves don't come messing around cemeteries. What for?"

"Body-snatchers do," said Mr. Rebeck, unwilling to concede the point. "Grave-robbers do. Maybe I'm a grave-robber."

The blue eyes inspected him seriously. "Have to be a pretty small grave. You only got one pocket."

Somebody was going to have to awaken this man to a sense of his responsibilities. It was lucky that he had come along, Mr. Rebeck thought. He set his feet firmly and tapped his open palm with a forefinger.

"You're not supposed to make decisions," he said patiently. "You're not supposed to decide who's a thief and who isn't. That's not your job. Are you listening to me?"

"Yeah," said the man. He shook the bottle in Mr. Rebeck's face. "Look, you want this or you don't?"

"Give it to me," Mr. Rebeck said warily. He was glad that the man did not seem about to arrest him, but the man's cavalier dismissal of his duties saddened and faintly disgusted him. He thought of all the nights when he had sneaked fearfully into the lavatory, tiptoeing, desperately willing the door not to squeak, hearing his doom in every echoing step he took, afraid even to glance at the lighted building on the other side of the road because he might somehow draw the guard's attention. I could have come marching down in army boots, he thought bitterly, singing drinking songs and throwing rocks at his door, and he wouldn't even have turned in his sleep. He realized now that he had enjoyed the furtive excursions and was sorry that there would be none ever again.

He drank from the bottle, not choking, although it was his first drink in nineteen years. The chocolate-charcoal flavor of the rum warmed the back of his throat as it went down. "Thank you," he said, and offered the bottle to the big man.

The man shook his head. "Yours," he said, shoving the bottle back at Mr. Rebeck with enough force to send him staggering. "Until I finish mine."

"Well, that's fair enough," Mr. Rebeck said, and drank again. Then, remembering his manners, he held out his hand to the man. "My name is Jonathan Rebeck," he said.

"Campos," said the big man. He shook Mr. Rebeck's hand with the taut gentleness of a man who knows his own strength and released it almost at once. "Let's sit down somewhere with this stuff."

"Very well," Mr. Rebeck said. "But I want one thing clear. You're a fine fellow, and you set a fine table, but you are the worst guard I ever saw. Let there be no pretensions between us."

"None," Campos agreed. "None of them. Only I always thought I was a pretty good guard."

"You're a terrible guard," Mr. Rebeck said earnestly. He touched Campos's arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. But some things must be said."

"I'm a terrible guard," Campos mused aloud. He shrugged lightly. "Well, learn something new every day. Come on, sit down."

They sat down together in the grass in front of the caretaker's office. Campos immediately jumped to his feet and dashed into the office, returning almost instantly with a leather-covered portable radio clutched against his chest.

"My music," he explained. He put it down on the ground, turned it on, and tuned it until he found a station that played classical music. Then he leaned back against the wall of the building and grinned at Mr. Rebeck. "Great stuff," he said. "Listen to it all the time."

Mr. Rebeck settled himself beside him. "It's very pretty," he said comfortably. He held the bottle in his lap, rolling it between his palms.

"Listen to it all the damn time," Campos said. "Ever since I been working here."

"How long has that been?"

"Year now. Walters got me the job."

Mr. Rebeck was uncautious. "That's the man with light hair?"

"Yeah." Suspicion flared for a moment in Campos's blue-ink eyes. "How come you know what Walters looks like?"