Knife Fight and Other Struggles (34 page)

O spirit of the Underworld, who walked in the form of Beatrice Paulson when upon the earth, make thy presence known. I, Norman Fuller, High Priest of the Gameways Order of Light, do call upon thee with the strength of this circle to make thyself manifest here in the sacred aerie of the Ark.

(handwritten note accompanying a pentagram illustration, rendered using red ballpoint pen and a math-set compass,
The Nothing Book
, Ibid)

Dear Grandmother

These people want to help you. They know what they are doing. Please do as they ask.

Love,

Neal

There once was an old lady from Fen-a-lon.

Who thought she knew stuff about channelin.

Stop, Mister Norman Fuller. You cannot trick me. I know it is you telling Neal what to write in that book.

I’m sorry, Grandmother. It’s me now. Mr. Fuller wanted to speak with you. I made him give me the book back. Please stop hurting him.

Send him away.

He’s gone.

How did you get there?

Kevin drove.

Is he old enough to drive?

Yes.

Liar.

(text accompanying an illustration in the style of Jackson Pollock in deep red ink, applied so intensively that the paper has torn in several places,
The Nothing Book
, Ibid)

January 13, 1980

The trip to Mr. Gameways Ark went fine. Kevin drove there and back in his dad’s Nova. We listened to the Sex Pistols and Bauhaus on the tape deck. Kevin was an excellent driver.

I bought the Dungeon Masters Guide with the Christmas money. And I took the Nothing Book upstairs. We all know what happened after that. The guys up there were cool. They aren’t going to make me pay for the Captain’s chair and Norm got cleaned up in the washroom fine after his nosebleed so we didn’t have to call an ambulance. We just got out of there.

Up until last night, I hadn’t told Mom about any of this. But when we got back, I made up my mind to tell her. It was easy to do. She was already worried because we were gone so long. So when she asked if it really took ten hours to buy a Dungeon Masters Guide, I took the Nothing Book out of the bag and sat her down at the kitchen table.

I was afraid she just wouldn’t believe me. But she just read through it and cried and gave me a hug. She said that she’d had no idea that I’d put the book in the coffin. She didn’t know how it got into the attic. She recognized the handwriting though. She believed me all right. She said it was just like something her mother would do.

Then she told me that she almost forgot: Cathy Gervais had been calling all day. Under the circumstances, she asked, did I really want to call her back, because she had sounded upset.

I called her but I am not going to get into what we talked about because it’s private. And this book isn’t private, right Grandmother?

We all agreed on one thing though.
We aren’t going to be scared.

(from “The Journal of Neal R. Smith,” continued,
The Nothing Book
, Ibid)

April 5, 1983

Hello Mother,

If you’re there, still, I hope that you’re doing well in whatever place it is you’re dwelling.

It’s your daughter here—Andrea—Mrs. Smith—the mother of Neal. Your beloved grandson. Do you still recall names, I wonder, after so long in Limbo?

If you’re reading the date inscription above, you will realize that it’s been some time since anyone opened your Nothing Book—or rather, Neal’s. After the last entry, we had a very long talk about what to do. I’ll be honest, Mother, we considered destroying it: tossing it onto a fire, or dousing it in a tub of acid. Neal wouldn’t have it, though. He had given some thought to the metaphysics of the book, and come to believe it was at the very least a portal to the afterlife, but possibly more disturbing, that the book was the afterlife itself: a tiny universe that existed within the pages of the book, where upon your death you came to inhabit. Books can be powerful things, in the hands of the right reader, can’t they? The authors of those old books that Neal showed me in the trunk in the attic certainly make that claim.

We didn’t destroy the book (obviously). Instead, I slipped it into a large freezer bag, removed all the air from it, and froze it in a bucket of water. That’s right; for the past three years it has been sitting at the bottom of the freezer, underneath what’s left of the wedding cake.

What’s left of my wedding cake. I’ve been thinking about my wedding, and the few years after it that I was able to spend with Neal’s father. The two of you never got on, did you? Remember when we told you that we were going to be married? What was it you said? “Good. The koi pond needs cleaning. He looks like he has a reasonably strong back.” That may have been about the kindest thing you ever said to him. The happiest I’d ever seen you around him was when he got sick. In retrospect, I’m amazed that you managed to keep a straight face at the viewing.

I wonder if he’s with you there. I can’t imagine he is.

Neal’s not with you. He’s gone away from here, for now. He’s in school—I’ll give you that much. He’s a smart young man, and he kept his grades up and scholarships are helping out. He’s studying journalism—in spite of, rather than because of, the typically heartless notes you gave him when he was a little boy. And that girl he fancied—Cathy? They did wind up “going around” in high school. Again, no thanks to you. She stood by that boy you hurt (I’m assuming it was you) while he recuperated, and it was a year before she noticed Neal again and he was heartbroken the whole time. When they got together they lasted about two weeks. And then it was heartbreak all over again.

What a wonderful gift you gave your beloved grandson.

I’m having a glass of wine right now. It’s Merlot, from California. I remember how you used to like your Merlot. Well you can’t have any now.

I see you’re not marking up my letter. I wonder, will you do it later tonight? When I’ve closed the covers and you can tear my words apart at your leisure? Or do you only do that for Neal?

Or are you truly dead now?

Let’s say you’re not. Let’s say that when Neal wrote that funny little incantation in the book—the one you crossed out—next to that recipe that he took mostly from Page CVII of that other “nothing” book—the untitled one with the crumbly pages and all the criss-crossing stitch-work on the leather cover—the unwholesome one—let’s say that incantation made a place for you, wherever it is you are.

Well, how about, while you’re busy marking up that last run-on sentence, we take a look-see through that book, and see what else we can find?

How about this one?

(from the Epilogue, accompanying a large red stain, partially occluding a matrix of hieroglyphs alongside a marginal note of limited legibility,
The Nothing Book
, Ibid)

The drakeela hid in the cloakroom during recess. It didn’t like fresh air, and of course the sun was poison to its kind: they all knew that, even Lucy who wasn’t allowed to watch the Sunday Monster Movie and had to be told what a drakeela was. At 10:30 a.m. the bell rang, and Mrs. Shelby said line up everyone. Mrs. Shelby looked up and down the line and wiggled her fingers as though she were counting. But she never counted the drakeela as it crab-crawled between the fluorescents over the art tables and twanged its thick dark fingernails on the sheet-metal ductwork that hung over the make-believe kitchen.

Leonard, their official leader, charted its progress along the ceiling and down the corridor to the far end of the cloakroom. There it hunched, resentful and out of breath, as the rest of them pulled on their galoshes and did up their snowsuits and tried not to look up.

They met behind the garbage dumpster near the gym every recess, and Leonard would make every one of them report, like secret agents.

It was Susie’s job to watch the drakeela when it arrived, because she was the only one of them who lived across the street and could be at school before sunrise. The drakeela came with its father, who drove a big white sports car with tinted windows and always hid its face under a heavy coat and wide-brimmed hat. No one could tell who came to take the drakeela home—even Susie wasn’t allowed to stay up that late.

Jason’s job was to follow the drakeela whenever it put up its hand and asked to go make a pee-pee. If there was someone else in the washroom, Jason peered through the grill at the bottom of the door and watched as the drakeela pounced. It pushed its victim against the urinals or the sinks or the side of a toilet stall, gripped the face with its long-fingered hands and slipped its hollowed-out baby fangs high up the victim’s nostrils. There would be a struggle, then the victim would relax as the blood and nose-spit began to flow. Later, Mrs. Shelby would get out a fresh Kleenex, wipe up the blood and scold the drakeela’s victim for picking his nose so much. Jason had watched the drakeela do this five times, and hadn’t been caught once.

Lucy watched the drakeela when it was in the classroom. Mrs. Shelby always gave the drakeela extra attention, and whenever anyone was mean to it she would get angry.

“Timmy Slitzken is a special child,” she would shout, waving her finger. “Don’t you go bothering Timmy.” When Mrs. Shelby was away from it, Lucy reported, the drakeela spent a lot of time folded up in the long wooden toy cupboard that was under the blackboard. Sometimes it would lurk around the pretend-kitchen, making noises while the girls tried to play.

Reading and printing was a year away for all of them, so Leonard had to keep the reports in his head. It was a good thing, they all agreed, that Leonard was the smartest boy in the morning kindergarten and remembering wasn’t hard for him.

On the first Tuesday in February, Leonard thought he had compiled enough reports to make a plan.

The sky was slate grey and it had snowed for two days straight, and on Tuesday most of the children in morning kindergarten brought their crazy carpets. Jason wanted to join the rest of them on the steep hill at the back of the yard, but Leonard overruled him. The plan was ready and they all had to be there for it and that was final.

The space behind the dumpster was choked with a high drift of powdery snow, and Leonard and Susie dug away enough of it so they could all squeeze in. “Everybody here?” said Leonard. “Then good. Here’s the plan.”

Leonard unzipped his Ninja Turtle backpack and began handing out the equipment. That morning, Leonard had glued together four wooden crosses from Popsicle sticks, and he passed them around. He hadn’t been able to find any garlic, but his mother used garlic salt on everything, and before school he made a quick pass by the spice rack. He threw the salt on everyone, then pocketed the shaker and took out his G.I. Joe canteen. All the Catholic kids in town went to school down by the river at St. Cyprian’s and wouldn’t even talk to public school kids, so Leonard had filled his canteen at the drinking fountain in the Presbyterian church his parents went to. The holy water tasted stale and plasticky, but according to every one of Mr. Hammer’s Drakeela movies you had to have it, so they all took a swig anyway.

Then Leonard handed out the rulers.

They were twelve-inch wooden rulers from the Grade One-Two classroom down the hall and were covered in drawings of machine guns and jet airplanes and trucks. Leonard and Jason had worked on these all Sunday afternoon in Jason’s dad’s garage. Now, where they would have said “12,” the rulers were sharpened to a point. Jason said, “Watch out for slivers.” Lucy giggled but Leonard said, “Mind what Jason says,” in a voice that was very grown-up even for Leonard. Lucy stopped giggling and paid attention.

“These are for the drakeela,” said Leonard, holding up the rulers. “They go straight into his heart, just like on TV.”

Next he lifted the cross.

“The drakeela’s ascared of these, so if he comes at you, hold it up.”

He held the cross in front of him to demonstrate, then put it away too.

“Don’t look in its eyes. It doesn’t like mirrors. Stay together. Drakeelas getcha when you’re alone. Drakeelas hate daytime. You can’t shoot it with guns ’cause it just laughs. You ready?”

Jason nodded first, then Susie and finally Lucy.

On a bathroom trip that morning, Susie had propped open the door to the gym, and now she skipped around the dumpster and pulled it open.

With Leonard taking the lead, the four of them filed into the dark gymnasium.

When they came to the door to kindergarten, Lucy said she was scared and wanted to wait for Mrs. Shelby to get back from the Staff Room.

“That won’t work, dummy,” said Jason. “She’s the teacher, she’ll make us stop.”

Leonard didn’t even comment. He lifted his cross and pulled the door open a crack.

The drakeela had turned off the lights and shut the blinds when everyone left, and the rooms beyond were shadows of black and grey. He opened the door wider, so they could all see. The classroom, at the far end of kindergarten, was only visible in the dusty light that filtered through the venetian blinds. Closer, the little corridor that led to the washrooms and the cloakroom was impenetrably dark.

Leonard stepped inside, and motioned the others to follow. Their snow pants whisked nervously as they moved along the corridor into the cloakroom. They left a trail of dirty water and their boots squeaked. Ahead in the dark, Susie heard a sound like flies.

“Shhh!” hissed Leonard, and held his hand to Jason’s chest as though they were a pair of G.I.s sneaking up on an enemy camp. The buzzing oscillated—loud and soft, high and low. Lucy was still scared, but she kept quiet.

The fly-sounds stopped abruptly as they entered the cloakroom. Now all four of them had their crosses out, and they held them high in front, like the Sunday TV matinees by Mr. Hammer said to.

“Think holy thoughts,” said Leonard. “They can’t getcha when you’re pure.”

The light fixtures rattled in the ceiling over their heads, and Susie gasped as she realized: the drakeela was moving, over their heads, back behind them.

“It’s getting away!” Susie squealed, and in spite of herself Lucy giggled again. The rattle in the fixtures stopped, and an instant later they heard the claw-on-metal sound of the drakeela crawling over the ductwork in the main room.

“Get him!” yelled Leonard.

“Come on!” Jason hollered.

Hearts pounding, the four of them turned on their heels and, slipping only a little through the muddy water trail they’d left coming in, ran back into the kindergarten. They were all breathless and hot in their snowsuits, and when they looked around, the drakeela was nowhere to be seen. Leonard frowned.

“Drakeelas are tricky,” said Leonard. “Watch everywhere at once. You never know where they’ll be.”

They watched everywhere at once. Lucy watched the toy cupboard, which was halfway open and so dark that it could be holding three drakeelas and she would never be able to tell. Susan watched the art table, draped in big sheets of construction paper that hung off the sides and wafted back and forth in the breeze from the radiators. Jason paid attention to the cloakroom hallway, which also led to the washrooms where the drakeela had pounced at least five times. Leonard kept his eyes up, watching the shadows of the blinds as they crisscrossed the ceiling.

They watched everywhere, and all at once, but Leonard was right about the drakeela being tricky. It had hidden underneath Mrs. Shelby’s desk, where Mrs. Shelby put her knees. While the four of them watched the ceilings and cupboards and tables and washrooms, the drakeela cricked its back and bent its knees and with a breath like a winter wind pulled itself up to its full height over the desktop.

“Hum!” Susie exclaimed, putting her hand to her mouth as she saw the drakeela and it saw her. Its feet were on Mrs. Shelby’s chair, so it loomed almost as high as a grown-up. Its big orange eyes glowed in the dim light, and its jaw clicked as it opened and closed. It made a noise like a little kitten. And then it started to buzz.

Leonard swallowed hard. The drakeela reached down to the desktop, and its long-nailed fingers closed around something. It buzzed louder as it lifted the thing into the air, swooped it back and forth. Susie and Lucy had a hard time recognizing it, and Leonard wasn’t paying attention, but Jason got it immediately.

The drakeela was holding the Concord. It was plastic and grimy; its stickers had been coming off since Halloween and it was not even as long as the twelve-inch ruler Jason held in his fist. Until Christmas, the Concord was Jason’s favourite toy in the toy cupboard. The drakeela stopped buzzing.

“Play?” Its bright orange eyes blinked, and it leaned forward so far that Jason thought it might fall on its face. But the drakeela kept its balance and made the Concord do a loop-the-loop.

“Hi,” said the drakeela. “Play?”

Jason barely heard the twelve-inch ruler as it fell from his hand and clattered on the linoleum floor. He took a step toward the drakeela, and then another.

“Sure,” said Jason. “Lemme see that.”

He put out his hands, and the drakeela stretched and bent so that only its toes were touching the top of Mrs. Shelby’s desk. The drakeela’s clawed hands swung down on Jason, and he reached to the Concord that it held.

“Wolton! “Leonard yelled. Wolton was Jason’s last name, and Leonard only used it when he was so mad he was going to beat Jason’s head in. This time, though, Leonard wasn’t mad. He only knew he had to get Jason’s attention away from the drakeela—when you look into a drakeela’s eyes, it’s got you. Leonard yelled “Wolton” again, and this time it got Jason’s attention.

“Hey!” Jason looked away, and then he looked back, and then his face crumpled into a hot red ball and he started to cry. The drakeela remained above him, still offering the Concord.

“Play. Here.” The drakeela pushed the Concord down on him. “Take it.”

But Jason just sat down and wept. The other three stood and watched. Susie wanted to go and get Jason a Kleenex or something, but Lucy stopped her.

Leonard was getting his cross ready.

“Come on. We got ’im.”

The drakeela was almost on top of Jason now, pushing and prodding him with the wing of the Concord. The three of them lifted up their Popsicle-stick crosses and marched forward in a straight line.

“Hey! Drakeela!” said Leonard. “Look at this!”

The drakeela looked, and as it saw the three crosses its eyes became wide and round as pool balls. The drakeela dropped the Concord, lifted away from Jason and fell back against the desktop. Papers went flying as it scrambled to get away.

“You like that?” yelled Leonard.” Stupid stupid drakeela head?”

Lucy and Susie joined in, in sing-song:

“Stupid stupid drakeela head,” they all sang as the drakeela stumbled off the far side of the desk.

“Stupid stupid drakeela head,” they sang as Lucy and Leonard circled around either side of the desk. Jason wheezed and sobbed and picked up the twelve-inch ruler he’d dropped when the drakeela took control of his mind. Then he stood up and joined the chorus: