Charles Baxter - Saul and Patsy

With all the strength he had, Saul fought off the caterpillar arms holding him. The wolf and the crow picked up the pumpkin easily, and then, as if all this had been rehearsed, carried it around to the side of the house.

Saul continued to fight, jabbing and kicking, as he watched the wolf and the crow swing the pumpkin to get some momentum before throwing it at a window. The arc of the pumpkin’s flight reached the glass and broke it, but the pumpkin was too large, too sizable, too generous, to make its way inside the house. The window was just too small. But the sound of glass breaking would at least alert Patsy. The pumpkin fell back to the ground but did not shatter. Behind him, he heard the characteristic glug of gasoline being poured from a fuel container. He turned, desperately, in time to see Little Hans setting fire to the rosebush that he and Patsy had planted. The gasoline caught with a satisfied whooshing sound, a broken in-suck of breath.

Now, in front of him, he saw the wolf and the crow picking up the pumpkin again and moving toward another window. Little bush-league terrorists in training: all they wanted to do was break the damn windows. Or maybe that was for starters. The sound of breaking glass pleased them, gave them a rush. They were from that timeless sector of the disadvantaged that broke windows wherever they found them. This was all that was left of the revolutions of 1848. Hapless, still Saul fought, and he had almost freed himself when he felt himself being taken in hand by Little Hans, whose giant arms pinned Saul’s arms behind his back and who put a thick pillar of a leg in front of him; it was as if, physically, there would be no more argumentation. The wolf and the crow were about to heave the pumpkin at the second window when Saul shouted. “Stop. He’s here. ”

The crow turned its beak toward him, and the pumpkin dropped to the ground.

“Who’s here?” he asked.

Saul heard the bush burning behind him. Little Hans smelled of gasoline, as the god Vulcan probably did. He himself had the characteristic Gordy-odor, of dog.

“Gordy,” Saul said. “Isn’t he what you came for?” There would be no fighting them off physically; they were too strong, and they were legion. He would have to try something else. He looked up quickly and saw Patsy pulling the curtains and then lowering the shades. He didn’t think the other creatures had seen her.

“The fucker’s dead,” the crow said, apparently the spokesperson for the group. “You killed him.”

“He shot himself,” Saul yelled. “Let go of me, Henry,” Saul said, guessing that the kid inside the Little Hans suit was probably Henry Olschanski, a guard on the football team. As if by magic, the arms released him. No — tonight’s accidents might in fact be lucky ones.

The wolf turned in Saul’s direction. “Where is he h-h-h-h-here?”

“You want Gordy?” Saul asked. “I’ll go get him.”

The creatures appeared to be stunned.

“But you have to promise,” Saul said, gathering his wits, “to stay where you are. Otherwise you get nothing.”

“He’s just going inside to hide,” the garbage can said. “He’s afraid.”

“Who the hell are you?” Saul asked the garbage can. Some of these beings had to have been his students. Perhaps he would recognize their voices.

“I’m garbage!” the garbage can announced angrily.

“Well, listen, garbage,” Saul said. “One thing I’m not, is afraid. And if you wait right there, I’ll go get what you want.”

“He’ll call the police,” the boygirl said. “That’s what he’s going to do.” Still, behind him, the bush continued to burn. When he turned to see it momentarily, it looked like someone’s backside, with a crease down the middle.

“If I did that,” Saul said, “all of you would come back here, and do this again. I know you, ” he said, gaining his advantage. “I know all of you.”

“W-w-w-w-what do you know?” the wolf asked.

“I know what you want,” Saul said. “I know everything you want. I know your thoughts before you have them. You want to see him again. Don’t you want to see him?” His nose felt as if it had been broken in his fall — it was screaming with pain, but Saul felt suddenly calm. He recognized that, indeed, he was not afraid of them, and that his hatred of them was tempered, illogically, with curiosity. He had made up his mind that they were all children, and, within limits, he was going to give them what they wanted. Or needed, maybe without knowing. So far, they were amateurs at destruction and terror. Looking at them, he decided to adopt them as his own, such as they were, monsters of neglect and loneliness. It made more sense than being afraid of them. Somebody had to be a parent around here; someone had to have some feeling for what was hidden under the disguises. He, too, was disguised: he was wearing Gordy’s clothes. The creatures walked toward Saul, surrounding him. All their movements seemed ironical.

“How come you’re bent over like that?” the Himmel asked, evading Saul’s question.

“Threw my back out picking up that pumpkin,” Saul said, nodding toward his jack-o-lantern, now on the lawn. All of them — bubble gum, the crow, Little Hans, the caterpillar, the wolf, the Himmel, and the garbage can — turned to look.

“That’s a r-r-r-r-righteous pumpkin,” the wolf said. He had a stammer that involved swallowing and spitting up both vowels and consonants.

The wolf’s stammer appeared to silence the crowd of creatures. Bubble gum looked through his/her dark glasses at the night sky. It was cold enough so that you could see everyone’s breath, but no one was shivering yet, though they would be shivering soon. The hanged woman moaned. How odd it was, that he should find himself in the company of these castoffs!

“Everyone talks about you,” the crow said. “Everyone says you’re the one. They say it all the time.”

“The one what?” Saul asked.

“The one who started all this,” the hanged woman said. The garbage can nodded by shaking back and forth. Saul could not see through the eye holes to who or whatever was inside — he was more curious about the garbage can than he was about any of the others. “All this trouble with Gordy Himmelman and Sam Cole and things going wrong all the time!” The bush was mostly burnt by now, cracking down to ash, making sounds of expiration. “Everything going to shit. It’s your fault.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if that kid hadn’t shot himself on your front lawn,” the Himmel said. “We need some payback.” The last phrase sounded like a sentence an adult would say, and the Himmel said it without enthusiasm or conviction.

“And the sightings,” the crow said. “There wouldn’t be sightings if it wasn’t for you.”

“Sightings?” Saul asked. “You kids have your nerve to talk about sightings.”

“ You know,” the crow said. He was not going to pronounce Gordy Himmelman’s name, either. The mothball-stinking crow obviously thought it brought on bad luck. God, what a hotbed of superstition, and gossip, and malice, and Dark Age reasoning these kids were — these middle schoolers and high schoolers, at least the outcasts among them. Magical thinking was all they had. The other kind had failed them.

“So I bet you came here to throw things at the house, and scare us, and do all that, the pranks and troublemaking with the toilet paper and the eggs and the rocks and the slogans and the fire. Is that because I’m Jewish?” There was a long silence, and none of the creatures moved. “I bet it is.”

“People say that you know th-th-th-th-things,” the wolf finally managed to say.

“What do you want me to do?” Saul said. “With the things I know?”