Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"What I was telling you..." Ellen said, once they were out of the child's earshot, "...that's not all the story. There's a lot more, believe me. But I'm not quite ready to tell it yet."

"When you are, I'm ready to hear," Grillo said. "You can find me at the hotel."

"Maybe I'll call. Maybe I won't. Anything I tell you is only part of the truth, isn't it? The most important piece is Buddy, and you'll never be able to write him down. Never."

This parting thought went with Grillo as he drove back through the Grove to the hotel. It was a simple enough observation, but one that carried much weight. Buddy Vance was indeed at the center of this story. His death had been both enigmatic and tragic; but more enigmatic still, surely, was the life that had preceded it. He had enough clues to that life to intrigue him mightily. The Carnival collection crowding the walls of Coney Eye (the True Art of America); the moral mistress who still loved him, the hooker wife who most likely did not, nor ever had. Even without that singularly absurd death as a punchline it was one hell of a story. The question was not whether to tell it but how.

Abernethy's view on the subject would be unequivocal. He should favor supposition over fact, and dirt over dignity. But there were mysteries here in the Grove. Grillo had seen them, breaking out of Buddy Vance's grave, no less; taking to the sky. It was important to tell this story honestly and well, or he'd simply be adding to the sum of confusions here, which would do nobody any favors.

First things first; he had to set the facts down as he'd learned them in the last twenty-four hours: from Tesla, from Hotchkiss, from Rochelle and now from Ellen. This he set to doing as soon as he got back to the hotel, producing an initial draft of the Buddy Vance Story in longhand, poring over the tiny desk in his room. His back began to ache as he labored, and the first signs of a fever brought sweat to his brow. He didn't notice, however—at least not until he'd generated twenty odd pages of cross-referenced notes. Only then, stretching as he rose from his work, did he realize that even if the Balloon Man hadn't bitten him, its creator's flu had.

On the trek up from the Mall to Jo-Beth's house it became very clear to Howie why she'd made so much of events between them—particularly that shared terror in the motel—being the Devil's doing. It was little wonder, given that she worked alongside a highly devout woman in a store stocked from floor to ceiling with Mormon literature. Difficult as his exchange with Lois Knapp had been it had given him a better sense of the challenge that lay before him than he would have had without it. Somehow he had to convince Jo-Beth that there was no crime against God or man in their affection for each other; and nothing demonic lurking in him. As pitches went, he could envisage easier.

As it was, he didn't get much of a chance at persuasion. At first even his attempts to get the door opened to him failed. He rapped and rang for fully five minutes, knowing instinctively that there was somebody in the house to answer. It was only when he stood back in the street and started to holler up at the blinded windows that he heard the sound of the safety chains being taken off the door and returned to the step to request from the woman who peered through the sliver at him, Joyce McGuire presumably, a word with her daughter. He'd usually been successful with mothers. His stammer and his spectacles gave him the air of a diligent and somewhat introspective student; quite safe company. But Mrs. McGuire knew appearances deceived. Her advice was a re-run of Lois Knapp's.

"You're not wanted here," she told him. "Go back home. Leave us alone."

"I just need a few moments with Jo-Beth," he said. "She's here, isn't she?"

"Yes, she's here. But she doesn't want to see you."

"I'd like to hear that from her if you don't mind."

"Oh would you?" said Mrs. McGuire, and, much to his surprise, opened the door.

It was dark inside the house, and bright on the step, but he could see Jo-Beth standing in the gloom, at the far end of the hall. She was dressed in dark clothes, as though a funeral was in the offing. It made her look even more ashen than she was. Only her eyes caught any light from the step.

"Tell him," her mother instructed.

"Jo-Beth?" Howie said. "Could we talk?"

"You mustn't come here," Jo-Beth said softly. Her voice barely carried from the interior. The air between them was dead. "It's dangerous for us all. You mustn't come here ever again."

"But I have to talk to you."

"It's no use, Howie. Terrible things are going to happen to us if you don't go."

"What things?" he wanted to know.

It wasn't she who answered, however, but her mother.

"You're not to blame," the woman said, the fierceness he'd been greeted with all gone from her now. "Nobody blames you. But you must understand, Howard, what happened to your mother, and to me, isn't over."

"No, I'm afraid I don't understand that," he returned. "I don't understand that at all."

"Maybe it's better you don't," came the reply. "Better you just leave. Now." She started to close the door.

"W…w...w..." Howie began. Before he could say wait he was looking at wood panelling, two inches from his nose.

"Shit," he managed, without a slip.

He stood like a fool staring at the closed door for several seconds, while the bolts and chains were put back in place on the opposite side. A more comprehensive defeat was scarcely imaginable. Not only had Mrs. McGuire sent him packing, Jo-Beth had added her voice to the chorus. Rather than make another attempt, and fail, he let the problem be.

His next port of call was already planned, even before he turned from the step and started off down the street.

Somewhere in the woods, at the far side of the Grove, was the spot where Mrs. McGuire, and his mother, and the comedian had all come to their various griefs. Rape, death and disaster marked the spot. Perhaps somewhere there was a door that would not be so readily closed.

"It's for the best," said Momma, when the sound of Howard Katz's footsteps had finally faded.

"I know," Jo-Beth said, still staring at the bolted door.

Momma was right. If the events of the previous night— the Jaff's appearance at the house, and his claiming of Tommy-Ray—proved anything it was that nobody could be trusted. A brother she'd thought she'd known and known she'd loved had been taken from her, body and soul, by a power that had come out of the past. Howie too had come out of the past; from Momma's past. Whatever was now happening in the Grove, he was a part of it. Perhaps its victim, perhaps its invoker. But whether innocent or guilty, to invite him over the threshold of their house was to put at risk the small hope for salvation they'd won from the previous night's assault.

None of which made it any easier to see the door closed against him. Even now her fingers itched to pull back the bolts and haul the door open; to call him back and hug him to her; tell him things could be made good between them. What was good now? Their being together, living the adventure her heart had been aching for all her life, to claim and kiss this boy who was perhaps her own brother? Or to hold on to the old virtues in this flood, though with every wave another was swept away.

Momma had an answer; the answer she always offered when adversity presented itself.

"We must pray, Jo-Beth. Pray for delivery from our oppressors. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming— "

"I don't see any brightness, Momma. I don't think I ever did."

"It'll come," Momma insisted. "Everything will be made clear."

"I don't think so," Jo-Beth said. She pictured Tommy-Ray, who'd returned to the house late last night and smiled his innocent smile when she'd asked him about the Jaff, as though nothing had happened. Was he one of the Wicked whose destruction Momma was now praying so fervently for? Would the Lord consume him with the spirit of His mouth? She hoped not. Indeed she prayed not, when she and Momma knelt to speak with God; prayed that the Lord not judge Tommy-Ray too harshly. Nor her, for wanting to follow the face on the step out into the sun, and off wherever he had gone.