Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

“So,” said the little boy, “you’re me, huh?”

Martin shrugged. “Not really, not so much . . . I guess I’m . . . what became of you.”

The boy tightened his lips and narrowed his eyes, considering it, then said: “Same thing . Y’know, Mom and Dad are gonna be real mad at you.”

“They’re both dead.”

“Dumb bunny —I know that. But they’re still gonna be so mad .” Then, switching gears and the subject, as six-year-old boys are wont to do, he pointed toward the roof. “Do you think it can fly?”

Martin looked up. “I don’t know.”

“I think it’d be cool to be able to fly. I wanna be an astronaut.”

“You never really got over that.” Martin looked back down. The boy was gone.

Nice seeing you again, as well.

“Hey, you!”

The boy now stood on the roof, next to the camera creature, waving both his hands; the creature was hopping up and down, its wings fluttering—which, Martin supposed, might have been its way of waving. Martin raised up a hand, bending the fingers down, then up again. “I’m gonna learn to fly someday,” shouted the boy. Martin whispered, “Sure you will.”

Time to go .

Oh, yeah . . . the first batch of pills was really starting to kick in, and if he wanted to do this right, if it was to be timed correctly so that he didn’t end up just puking his guts out or merely brain-dead, Martin knew he had to find a room and take the next batch before 10:30 rolled in and—had he remembered to bring the pudding cups? . . . the pudding cups were important. Did he remember? . . . Yes, yes he had. You had to grind the pills into powder and mix them in the pudding and then chow down. Coated your stomach so you didn’t throw up.

Ah . . . but did you bring a spoon?

Busy, busy, busy, so many details and other things to keep track of.

He opened his eyes, checked his coat pockets, found a bunch of plastic spoons he’d secured together with a rubber band, and smiled at his being so well-organized.

Looking back up to the roof, it didn’t surprise him that the creature and little boy were no longer there. Still, he was grateful for the gift, for having been allowed to see them.

Lowering his head, Martin saw that only one building had any lights on at this hour, and most of those were restricted to a few rooms on the ground floor. He would later wonder if he hadn’t subconsciously driven this way on purpose; there were, after all, at least three other routes he could have taken to get on the freeway from downtown. But then he’d have missed the Great Rooftop Detritus Dance of the Hopping Beaked Camera. Sounded like an attraction P.T. Barnum would have hawked, back in the day.

It occurred to Martin that he’d never been to a circus. Oh, well . . . .

He stared at the lighted office window, realized what it was, and began moving toward it, stopping only long enough to grab the grocery bag and watercolor from the front seat of his car. As for the car itself—fuck it. He had the keys in his pocket, zippadee-doo-dah. The bag was the important thing. And the yummy pudding. And the spoons. Mustn’t forget about the spoons.

He tried to remember the last time he’d tasted cotton candy, or eaten a funnel cake, wondered where in hell that thought had come from, then decided it didn’t matter.

Entering the small building that housed the offices of the Cedar Hill Crisis Center, he stood quietly at the front desk while the receptionist directed a phone call to one of the counselors elsewhere on the floor. When she finished transferring the call, she began turning toward the other woman sitting farther back at another computer console, but that woman shook her head and pointed toward Martin, who the receptionist hadn’t noticed.

“Yes?” said the receptionist. Not Good evening or May I help you? ; just a simply, weary, wary “Yes?”

Martin considered just turning around and leaving—the receptionist seemed like she didn’t want to be bothered—but he was suddenly so tired , from the top of his head all the way down to the ground tired , he just needed to stand still for a few moments, and since he was already standing here he might as well say something, right? It seemed the polite thing.

“‘I have been half in love with . . .’” He couldn’t seem to

( You do remember that poem, right? ) recall the rest of it. The receptionist scooted her chair back ever so slightly. “I beg your pardon, sir?” “I suddenly have no idea why I came in here. I’m sorry. Is this a bad time?”

Jesus! Was it hot in here? He could feel the sweat rolling down his face. He tried lifting one of his hands to wipe it away but neither of his arms would respond to his brain’s commands. Maybe his body had turned into a camera box and he didn’t have arms any more. Did that mean he had wolf’s feet and wings? Maybe he could fly if he gave it a shot. Cool beans. He could go to a circus now—hell, he could probably join a circus, get in on some of that cotton candy and funnel cake action.

He blinked, looked at the woman in front of him, and said, “Yes . . . ?”

The receptionist tilted her head slightly, looking between Martin and the other woman as she spoke. “Look, we, uh . . . we don’t really deal with walk-ins here. If . . . uh, if you want, I can give you our call-in number . . . there’s a pay-phone right across the street, or if you have a cell—”

“—I haven’t had any phone calls or messages for five days,” he replied. “Not since I started my vacation from work. I know that doesn’t constitute much of a crisis, but it got me to thinking . . .” He finally managed to get one of his arms to respond, and reached up toward the sweat on his face. “. . . got me to wondering how long I’d be missing before anyone took serious notice. This wasn’t self-pity, you understand? It was just . . . y’know, a question. One of those dumb little weird little silly little questions that crosses your mind sometimes.” It hadn’t been self-pity, that was true; it was, rather, one of those dazzlingly dreary moments of clarity wherein you realize that just maybe you’ve been skimming across the surface of life, leaving barely a ripple in your wake, because to do otherwise would mean opening yourself up to the kind of genuine human intimacy that you profess to long for but that secretly scares you to death; so one day you wake up and realize that you’ve seen a lot of good movies and read a lot of dandy books and listened to a lot of sock-o music and it all amounts to zilch because, ultimately, none of those things are real , they exist only to help with the delusion that the time you spend apart from the rest of the human race is being used wisely and well; after all, you’re reading , you’re watching , you’re listening , you’re enjoying , right? That gives a life meaning, right? So what if you don’t have anyone to share it with at the end of the day because you’ve been too much of a coward to make an honest or lasting connection with anyone; at least it all helped fill the time. That ought to count for something.

“See, the thing is,” he continued, “I . . . uh . . . I wanted to call someone, I really did, but there’s nobody home anymore . . . and DeVito’s is gone . . . .”

The receptionist was no longer looking at him but staring dead-on at the other woman. Martin noted this but thought nothing of it. At last his hand reached his face to wipe away the sweat, but his forehead was dry, so were his temples and the bridge of his nose, so that must mean that he was . . . what? . . . crying?

Odd; he didn’t feel like he was crying. Huh. Wasn’t that interesting? Live and