John Gardner - Stillness & Shadows

Now McClaren was watching Craine again. “This cancer,” he said, “what kind was it?”

“Colon,” Craine said. “Pain in the ass, believe me.” He cackled. The others didn’t smile.

“They got it all out?”

For no reason, Craine cackled again, playing madman. “Clean as a whistle,” he said. “It makes a feller think, though, I’ll tell you that!”

McClaren studied him. “I imagine so.” After a moment, he drew the horn-rimmed glasses partway off. “You must think I’m a pretty insensitive person, getting over you that way, at a time when … I assure you, I had no idea.”

“On the contrary,” Craine said, waving it off. “You’d be surprised how seldom you get a chance to work ontological time into the conversation.” McClaren laughed politely, eyes snapping. Eggers looked at him, hoping to be let in.

Craine’s cup was empty. He put down the pipe and poured in Scotch from his bottle.

“That stuff good for you?” Eggers said.

“Drives away the horrors,” Craine said, and winked. He pushed the whiskey sack toward Eggers. “Have some?”

Eggers shook his head, distressed.

McClaren was thinking again. “That boy you say was following you,” he said.

“The pervert.”

McClaren let it pass. “Has he been following you long?”

“You think it’s paranoia?” Craine said, wobbling the cup two-handed toward his lips. He drank, then set the cup down, almost empty.

“Somebody’s been following you?” Eggers said, eyes widening.

“Everywhere I go,” Craine said. He made his face mock-cunning, playing crazy again; he knew himself that he was overdoing it, tipping his hand.

Foolishly, drunkenly, kicking himself as he did it, he pushed on. “Everywhere!” he said, throwing his hands up, crazier than Two-heads Carnac.

“Above me, below me, behind me,” he raved. “Eyes on me! Watching me!” That instant, he felt those hostile, sullen eyes again, as he had in the bookstore and on the street. He was shocked and for some reason filled with shame, as if he’d betrayed someone, horribly and crudely. So the eyes maintained. In fact they said something …He tried to think clearly, stepping back from the part of him that raved. Suddenly, conjured up from God knew where, he saw again — more clearly than before — the small, round, female face with the clipped, Egyptian-looking beard. The eyes, just perceptibly slanted, were large and dark, soulful as a doe’s, yet baffling; dangerous.

“It’s the Lord,” Eggers said, simply, directly, with such authority that, though he knew the idea was ridiculous, Craine jumped. He found himself leaning forward as if eagerly — McClaren watching him — Craine’s eyes hungrily searching the sergeant’s plump face. “I had that, before I was saved,” Eggers said. He brought his lips together, slightly trembling, then looked down, embarrassed.

“I doubt that Gerald will believe that’s his problem,” Inspector McClaren said. “He doesn’t strike me as a religious type.”

“Ah, but I am!” Craine said, “—that is, I was once.” Vividly, he saw himself in the choir at his aunt Harriet’s church. A touch of nausea swept through him. Something quite incredible was happening to his mind: in a rapid succession of vivid images — as if the walls were cracking, letting in light, or some healer had lifted the scales from his eyes — he saw himself going through museums with his aunt, saw himself riding in a bus of some kind — he was very young, dressed in dark blue short pants, a stack of books on his knees. “Gerald?” his aunt said, right behind his chair.

“Excuse me, where’s the rest room?” Craine said, pitching forward.

McClaren looked around the room in alarm, at the same time reaching out, touching Craine’s shoulder. “Through there, I think.” He pointed toward the curtain.

Craine got up quickly, unsteadily, clenching against the force in his unpredictable bowels, and hurried toward the curtain. He found himself in a grimy hallway, the kitchen at the far end of it. The rest rooms sign was halfway down the hall. He got his pants down and his seat over the toilet just in time. An explosion, a ringing in his chest like sorrow, a brief, sharp pain behind the star-shaped red gouge where his colostomy bag had hung, and he was better. He sat forward over his knees, straining, his head pounding furiously, then reached for the toilet paper. The image or vision, whatever it had been, was gone now, vanished from every cranny and closet of his mind. His past was gone too, as if fallen to the center of the earth.

When he returned to the table, Sergeant Eggers and Detective Inspector McClaren were standing, getting ready to leave. They were talking about a poker game, apparently one not yet played, for which McClaren had high hopes. He broke off when he saw that Craine was listening. “Everything all right, Gerald?” McClaren asked.

“Wonderful,” Craine said. He picked up his pipe from the table and put it into his pocket.

“If you wanted to come to … one of our prayer meetings.…” Sergeant Eggers aimed his eyes above Craine’s hat.

“Thank you very much,” Craine said. “Thank you.”

McClaren was looking at his watch again. He’d put money on the table, though the waiter had brought no check. “It’s been a pleasure getting to know you,” he said. “Can I drop you off someplace?”

“No, I’m heading for my office,” Craine said, and reached across the table for the whiskey sack. It occurred to him that he’d forgotten to get lunch. McClaren came toward him. Too late, Craine realized that the hand was coming for his crazybone again.

“Well, take care of yourself,” McClaren said, and grinned. He gave the crazybone a squeeze, then drew his hand back.

“I’ll do that. Thank you very much.” He moved with them toward the door. Somehow he bumped a table, and the soy sauce went over the edge and thumped on the rug. Eggers stopped quickly to pick it up, looking sheepish as if he’d knocked it off himself. “It jumped me,” Craine explained, pointing to the table with his whiskey sack. “You have to keep watching every minute.”

They smiled politely.

“Most people don’t realize how much things move in this world, ” Craine said. “They don’t mean to make trouble, I recognize that. But you know how it is, things get boring for them.”

Now McClaren had the door open. Eggers put on his cap, one hand in front, one in back, getting it just right.

“You think it’s the Lord, eh?” Craine said, “—hounding me for my sins?”

Eggers smiled vaguely, slightly hurt.

It occurred to Craine that he couldn’t go out there, not yet. Where the sun hit the chrome on the cars along the street, it was like looking at the light of a welding torch. And there was, of course, that other problem. Whoever it was would be waiting — standing on the sidewalk opposite, perhaps, reading a book, waiting as if all eternity were not too long. Book! he thought, and looked down. He had the whiskey sack in one hand; the other hand was empty. “I forgot my book,” he cried. “It’s back there on the table.”

“Well—” Eggers said.

McClaren tipped his dome and half-smiled, solemn. “I’m glad I ran into you,” he said. He raised his hand to touch the side of his glasses. “Drop by the office sometime. We’ll do this again.”

“Yes, good,” Craine said. “Thank you very much.” He willed them out the door, and at last, when the door swung shut behind them, he turned quickly, furtively, and went back for his book.

“Worried?” someone said. He started violently, raising his hands in self-defense. In the chair opposite the book, where McClaren had been sitting, sat a large gray cat, one paw extended toward the table. “Worried? ” the cat said again, pretending to yawn, watching him ironically.