The Gray House

TABAQUI

DAY THE SECOND

In one moment I’ve seen what has hitherto been

Enveloped in absolute mystery

—Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

Just your regular day. The wind rattling the glass, everyone yawning silently. The wind is relentless, so Alexander opens the windows and lets it in. Then it tortures the frames until they moan and chases the curtains so that they become frighteningly like things that are alive and struggling to break free and fly away somewhere. Pity they can’t. Would have been a sight to watch.

Third period is highlighted by a visit from Ralph. He comes with his own chair. Puts it in the corner and sits on it like he’s stuck until the bell rings.

He hasn’t changed at all. A stint in the Outsides can sometimes really do a number on a person, but there’s no trace of it on him. It’s like he went away only yesterday, and today he’s already back. The familiar jacket over the familiar sweater. The gloved left hand, the one missing the two fingers, and those eyes. The eyes of an inquisitor. Makes you shiver. When the lesson ends he stands up and stares at us. He’s leaped over. It’s so obvious. I marvel at his lack of discretion. Really, someone should tutor him, though I’m having a hard time imagining who that might be. Yes, he’s not exactly young, but he’s not stupid either, and quite capable of understanding things. In the Outsides it’s considered impolite to visit someone else’s house naked. In the House it’s impolite to enter by leaping over. This is like climbing into a window and sitting at the dinner table without so much as greeting the hosts. Or going through someone’s bedroom and pulling out the dresser drawers. Or . . . I don’t know what else to compare it to. And Ralph, when it comes down to it, is not really to blame. Just a wild creature. Untamed.

Now he’s asking Smoker how he’s doing in the new environment. Smoker says he’s fine. No complaints. Has everything, requires nothing. He also contrives to look as if this is not so. Ralph nods and departs. Noble isn’t mentioned at all.

After lunch I’m the last one to get back, because I lingered, shooting the breeze with Shuffle. Upon arrival I’m met by the packmates milling at the door. Not entering it, though.

“Something the matter?” I ask.

“The door,” Lary says, poking it with his fingernail, the one that’s longer and even uglier than the rest.

“So?” I say. “It certainly is, everyone knows that.”

“Locked,” he says.

There goes the nail again, pointing out to me that it’s the door that’s locked, in case I, heaven forbid, would think that it’s actually the wall.

“Who the heck would need to lock himself in?” I ask.

“That’s what we’ve been thinking. Who the heck,” Lary says and looks back at Sphinx.

Sphinx is all pensive. Spring cleaning of the soul, no doubt.

“I would expect some knocking going on right about now. Maybe even a bit of shouting. And then whoever answers would be the one who’s locked in there,” I suggest.

“True. But what for?” Humpback says. “Why would they want to do it?”

We exchange glances. Me, Sphinx, Humpback, Lary, Smoker, and Alexander, with Tubbs in tow.

“It’s probably Blind?” Humpback offers tentatively. “He wasn’t there at lunch.”

“He must be thinking about something important,” Lary says, brightening. “And here we are knocking. Might be very awkward.”

Sphinx and I exchange glances again. Failing to remember any previous occasion when Blind would lock himself in the dorm to think. I drive around the circle once and return.

“Or maybe Black. Killing himself. What? Quite possible, after what happened yesterday. You know . . . Us saying nasty things about his precious dog . . . and stuff. He’s a proud man. Couldn’t live it down,” I say.

“Shame on you,” Humpback says. “We’re on edge as it is.”

I do two more rounds. Alexander squats down by the wall, apparently tired of standing. Humpback is scratching at the number 4 on the door. Rubs off the lower half.

“Damn!” Sphinx blurts out. “Are we going to stand here all day like statues in front of our own door? I feel stupid.”

“They’re all watching,” Lary says bashfully. “Maybe we can move?”

I look around and see that indeed they are. Watching and even crowding in places. A nasty predicament. I get a rolling start, planning to smash into the door and jostle whoever is on the other side, but Vulture chooses this particular moment to approach, so I have to make it look like I’ve decided to practice driving.

“Issues?” Vulture inquires. “Anything wrong with the door?”

He is leaning foppishly on a cane and swinging a key chain on his pinkie. Naturally, there is more than just keys on it.

Sphinx hesitates.

“I’m not sure we should.”

“Should, definitely should,” I say. “Who knows what could happen. We need to investigate. Still, my money is on Black hanging there. He hasn’t quite been himself these last few days. Brooding.”

“Heavens!”

That was Vulture.

Humpback shakes a fist at me.

The picks jangle, the long wire snakes inside the lock, the hallway audience moves closer, tongues hanging to the side from curiosity, and in the distance I spy Red, cruising in our direction at top speed with a vicious grimace on his face, but we burst inside—with me being pushed in front of everyone else—and manage to slam the door before the noses of those trying to stick them in our business. Vulture gets a pass, since he helped and is therefore entitled to the information.

I quickly cross the anteroom.

“What’s that?” Sphinx asks behind my back.

Someone seems to have had the gall to squeeze in. Shameless is what it is. The intruder is Red. He spits a couple of words into Sphinx’s ear. Sphinx nods and hisses at us.

“Hold on!”

I have no intention of holding on to anything, Red or no Red. I push the door and enter the dorm. It’s empty like a family vault. No one’s hanging, no one’s on the floor with his veins split open, no corpses at all, in fact.

“Look at that,” I say. “No one’s here.”

Lary breathes spasmodically in my ear.

Humpback asks, “So who’s locked it, then?”

And here we see legs dangling off Lary’s bunk. Two of them. Lary gasps and grabs hold of my hair. Legs dangle. Long ones, clad in black stockings. One has a white pump on, the other just the stocking, with a hole in it so that the pink toes are sticking out. There’s something very familiar about those legs. They descend, lower and lower, and then Long Gaby appears at the other end of them, crashes to the floor, and winks at us quite insolently. The shadow around her eyes is all smudged and runny.

Lary lets go of my hair and claws at his heart. Humpback screws his eyes shut and shakes his head. I don’t get it. What’s the big deal? So she’s a bit on the scary side, but not excessively so. And live Gaby is certainly better than dead Black. Just my opinion.

Gaby is a local celebrity. She’s celebrated for her height and lack of brains, but mostly for her surplus of sex drive. Different approaches to deal with it were proposed and tried, to absolutely no avail. The management then decided to refer to it obliquely as “noncompliant behavior.” That “noncompliance” was fought doggedly until everyone got tired both of it and of Gaby herself, and Long was allowed to live as she wished, to her and everyone else’s joy and benefit.

“Hey,” she imparts in the husky voice of a habitual drunkard, and leans over to her stilts, cinching and tucking something down there. The short sweater reveals a pink bodysuit underneath, and her hair is decorated with candied lemon peel, Lary’s delight. Lary moans softly.

“What have you been doing here?” Humpback inquires.

Gaby just grins with the purple-lipsticked maw, not taking the attention off the stockings. The answer to Humpback’s question comes from Lary’s bunk, in the form of Blind appearing over the edge. He’s noticeably purple in places. The places she pressed against. He leans down limply and lets fall the second white shoe. It lands with a thud.

“Merci,” Gaby rasps, fitting it over her oversized appendage.

She struts to the door, majestic and content, heels clicking, and is intercepted there by Red. He looks exceedingly pimpish, his newfound occupation written all over him. They ride off into the sunset, she towering over him by a full head, he throwing back furtive glances. The door slams shut, and then it’s very quiet, apart from my exuberance. I have to drive around for a while to calm down. Vulture is still standing there, with a look like he was just force-fed a whole lemon.

“My bed. My bed,” Lary mutters. “They defiled it.”

“What?” Sphinx says and sits where he stood. To think this over, I guess.

Blind slips down. I wheel over and study him thoroughly. Because I need to know.

“So?” I say. “How was she? To the touch, I mean. Not too bony?”

“I’ll be going now,” Vulture says mournfully. “It appears you have no further need of my services at this time.”

No one stops him, and he departs.

“Thanks for your help!” Sphinx shouts at his retreating back. “Sorry!”

“How was it?” I ask Blind again. “Do you feel a new man now?”

“Leave me alone,” he says. “Right now I don’t feel anything.”

“My bed!”

Lary still can’t quite handle this. Runs around. Then climbs up to his bunk, and from there comes a mournful wail.

“Thank you. That you didn’t choose mine,” Humpback says. “Really big thanks, Blind.”

“Not at all,” Blind says and sits down next to Sphinx. “Sorry about the door. I didn’t have time to go find another place.”

“No harm done,” Sphinx says, casting his gaze upward, where Lary continues the lamentations. “What exactly did you do to his bed? He sounds frantic.”

“Nothing much.” Blind suddenly perks up. “You know what, it really is fun. Would you like a go? I can call her back. We’ll throw everyone else out. Except Lary, he can stay . . .”

Lary tumbles down and stares at Blind, horrified.

“No, thanks,” Sphinx says. “Not with her, no. I’d have nightmares. Until the day I die.”

“Is she that ugly?” Blind asks dejectedly.

“She is a creature from the pit of hell!” Lary shrieks, arms upraised. Then he turns back to Blind. “Linens exchange, right now. Or I never sleep up there again.”

“As you wish,” the Leader agrees readily.

Lary studies him with suspicion. Blind’s linens deserve a separate song that I never seem to get around to composing. Lary is a pig, no argument, and often goes unwashed, but at least he doesn’t stumble around the House barefoot. Or cough up hairballs on the pillow.

“I’ll think about it,” Lary proclaims.

“Enough,” Sphinx says, getting up from the floor. “Your linens forgot what color they were supposed to be. Long ago.”

“And now you could sniff at them,” I pipe in. “Turn your sleepless nights into erotic revelations.”

Lary spits in my direction, clutches at his head, and sits down on the floor.

“Tomorrow there will be a new Law,” Blind says matter-of-factly. “So I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to announce it. Wall? Or Logs?”

Stunned silence. For quite a while. Finally Humpback clears his throat.

“Ri-ight,” he says. “Red, he’s not stupid. He knows which side his bread is buttered on.”

“Of course he’s not stupid,” I say. “Never was. He’s a Leader, whatever else he is.”

More silence.

I climb on the bed and sit there, digesting the news. Too much news for one day. Long Gaby, new Law . . . New Law means girls. Here, there, and everywhere—them visiting us, us visiting them. The way it had been before, the way it hasn’t been for a long time. It’s an unusual thought, and I can’t quite construct the image no matter how hard I try. I’m out of habit. Or, rather, it’s gone completely, but come tomorrow it’ll have to be revived, the habit as well as the communication skills, because tomorrow they are going to be here: the girls. That means skirts, perfume, braids, hair spray, ponytails, and long eyelashes with ends curled slightly, and smoky eyes, and tender names for the wheelchairs, and narrow fingernails, like Noble used to have, and they are born of our ribs but their voices are much, much softer . . . Do they like tea? And if they do, what with? And where do we get the “with,” and who’s going to invite them over, not me, that’s for sure, but someone would have to . . .

“Breathe!” Sphinx yells at me. “Breathe, silly! You’re turning blue!”

I catch myself in time and resume breathing. A marked improvement.

“Thanks,” I say. “I seem to have paid too much attention to certain thoughts, and they sort of filled me up and spilled out.”

“Sing them, then,” he says. “You’re constitutionally not cut out for silence.”

True, that. I think better when I talk. And singing works better still. Part of my alien internal design.

Black comes back. Drops the dumbbells in the corner, stares at Blind’s purple spots in wonderment, and goes off to the showers. There’s no one to tell him about Gaby and the new Law, because Lary trotted off to inform Logs and I am not yet ready. I have to sort out everything. After that—oh, how they’re all going to wish I’d shut up, but until then I’m as silent as a grave.

Blind is still slumped on the floor, chin between his knees. Humpback trains Nanette to attack intruders. Alexander strips the linens off Lary’s bed and shakes out the blanket and duvet. Nothing much going on, in short. I decide to go down to the yard, where my thoughts will have more space to roam. I might even get sad there for a bit, regarding various sad circumstances. I haven’t been getting sad properly for a long time about anything, apart from Noble, that is, and haven’t gone to the yard alone either. I grab my coat and ride. Alexander stops torturing the duvet and goes to see me off.

I’m alone in the yard. I like being out alone, everyone knows that. There’s no rain, but the weather is cold and kind of raw. The big puddle, where the water is clear in the middle and murky at the edges, is reflecting my head. It’s black and unkempt. I resemble a porcupine. I stare at it. Then it gets boring. I throw a small stone into the puddle. Then another one.

The clouds are running out of room in the sky and start jostling one another. I pick up another stone. This one is an unusual color. Seems to be white. At least, that’s how it looks in the dark, but there’s no way to tell for sure. I pocket it, to have a closer look later. Rustle of rain; the first drops slide down my nose. I throw back my head, opening my mouth. Heavenly tears cover my face but my mouth doesn’t feel anything. The rain’s still too thin.

Alexander’s outline in the window. He looks down and waves. Wants to know if I need to go up yet. I wave back and sway from side to side.

That’s my answer. The rain doesn’t bother me. I’d even like it to become stronger.

Alexander disappears. He’ll come and pick me up before dinner, plenty of time for me to change clothes then. For now I’m content.

I think back to that one time I was sitting here. It was raining then as well, and harder too. The steps were shiny black, and water was running down the wheelchair ramp in rivulets. I was thinking about something. Or maybe dozing off. Can’t tell for certain. Rain, sun, wind; they all impart strength. So I sat and waited for it to soak into me to the last drop, to the point of translucency. Once sated, I decided to go back. I didn’t go up right away, but took a ride along the first floor instead.

And right there, in the hallway, there they were. Standing side by side. This fat fire-breathing woman, a regular human volcano. Red coat, black hat. Crocodile leather bag. Lips like an open wound. Cheeks like slices of bologna. Teardrop earrings. There was a puddle at her feet, from all the water that had dripped down, she was shuffling in it and stewing silently. And the man next to her. Pale and pasty like a mealworm. A snout for a nose, lips pursed. Tortoiseshell glasses. Pity the tortoise! Pity the crocodile! I wouldn’t want to be in their place.

Also they had a snit of a girl, about fourteen. Gangly, blondish, red albino eyes. Also in a red coat. And a boy of about ten. Spitting image of his father. Clearly the pet of the family. Piggy eyes, snout nose, lips coming to a point—all there. Coat—red-and-gray check. Obviously. The entire brood was flashing way too much red.

And a little apart from them, leaning against the wall, stood Scarlet Dragon. The only really red one in the whole gang. Red is a tricky color. Deceitful. You can wear it and put it on your face all you want, and only become even grayer. It is the color of conjurers, clowns, and killers. I like it, but not always and not everywhere.

I am Tabaqui, dispenser of nicks at first sight. Godfather for scores upon scores. In every incarnation the master of tales, the royal fool, and the keeper of Time. And I can always tell a dragon from a person. Dragons are not evil. Just different. If I saw him alone first, not surrounded by his family, I might not have spotted him right away. But this was easy.

He was thin and covered in freckles. Old battered jacket, patched-up homemade sweater, jeans fraying at the knees. His eyes contained a whole different world in them. An entire abandoned planet. Long, slender fingers gnawed raw.

I looked at the hands of the others. Short, stubby sausages. Rings biting into the flesh. Big hands, small hands, all of them the same. He was of another blood. Different hands, different eyes, different body. He also was the only one wearing old clothes, so old that they were now as familiar with him as he was with them, enveloping and caressing him.

I smiled. I can’t remember the last time I liked someone that much from just one look. He tried to return the smile. Imperceptibly, with just a corner of his mouth.

Then Shark came out. The woman let out a stream of excited babble and stepped forward to meet him, trailing mud. The man tagged along, holding the youngest by the hand. Those family pets do have a knack for getting lost. And getting into trouble. You might say they’re born with this talent. The girl, scratching at a zit on her cheek, was looking sideways at Scarlet One. I wondered how he was feeling. He stood there somber and silent.

Shark put all of his teeth on display and invited them to the office. They all filed inside. Except for him. Once the door slammed after them I wheeled over to it, took out the plug, which is only allowed in the most dire of circumstances, and proceeded to watch them. I’m always curious about parents. Especially of that kind.

The woman was bawling. Making crunching noises into her handkerchief, smearing lipstick with it, licking the snot off her lips, and grabbing at her face. Robustly and affirmatively. The man perspired demurely. The coat he had on was really heavy. The children pinched each other. Shark nodded thoughtfully.

“Our house has gone to hell! To hell, you hear?” the woman proclaimed, interspersing this information with incessant sobs.

Shark nodded. Yes, he heard. The House he spent his time in wasn’t much better, in fact, so could they maybe get to the point?

“He is killing us,” the woman explained. “Slowly. Day after day. He is tormenting and humiliating us. He’s a murderer! A sadistic killer!”

“You wouldn’t know, looking at him,” Shark said politely.

This statement made the woman in the red coat explode.

“Of course!” she shrieked. “Of course! Why do you think we brought him here? No one believes us! No one!”

Shark had seen some really strange people in his life, but this was a bit too much even for him.

“We do not accept youths with criminal tendencies,” he said sternly. “This is not a penal facility.”

“He’s not criminal,” the man interjected. “That’s not what we meant.”

“You see,” the woman said, realizing she’d gone overboard. She switched from crying to an intimate whisper. “He always knows everything. About everybody. It’s horrible. He is one of them . . .” She winced, searching for the right word.

“Savants?” Shark prompted, intrigued.

“If only! Worse, much worse! All kinds of things happen when he’s around. Things appearing out of nowhere. Technology breaking. Televisions . . . one, then another. And the cat’s gone mad! The poor creature couldn’t take it anymore.”

She went on, but Shark lost interest. He didn’t like crazies. His face clearly showed that he’d tuned out somewhere around the bit about the cat.

“Are you sure?” he asked perfunctorily when the woman paused. Just to be polite.

“Yes! Anyone in my place would be sure.”

And she trotted out a litany of ironclad proofs, prominently featuring her own little kids. Those underage piranhas. Apparently “they would not let pass a single word that wasn’t true.”

“Tell this nice gentleman if Mommy’s telling the truth.”

The truth detectors, busy shoving and pinching each other behind her back, took a short break from their activities and eagerly nodded a couple of times.

“And those baldies are tagging after him,” the boy added. “They’re like completely nuts. They pee in our building by the elevator. They’ll keep coming until we get him out of there. Or until they throw us all out.”

Shark goggled, but didn’t pursue it further. Apparently, though, the love of truth had its limits, because this contribution earned the boy a whack upside the head from his mommy, and he shut up.

“We are decent people, you know,” she said proudly. “We’d never invent something like this. We’ve never had any deviations on my side of the family, thank you very much.”

The man cringed guiltily. On his side of the family they clearly did.

“We showed him to the best specialists,” the woman said, dabbing the corner of her eye. “But he pretended to be normal. Made fools of us. One time they even said that it’s us who needed to be checked. The indignity of it! The humiliation!”

Crunch, sniffle, snort.

Shark scratched his head.

“I don’t see how we could be of help. Our specialization is children with diminished physical capacity. You might be better served by . . .”

“He’s epileptic since age ten,” the woman interrupted. “A horrible sight. Just horrible. Would that work for you?”

“Well, not exactly, that’s a different area altogether . . .”

This is where I stopped listening. It was clear enough. The administration was going to pump them for money and then accept the newbie. The house is full of healthy people with scary stuff in their medical histories. And others who are written up for something completely different from what they have. Boring. The Scarlet One was still by the wall. Now I knew what made him special. So I wheeled over to him.

“Ask to be put in the Fourth. We don’t have a television. Never had. And cats only come in winter. Even if you make a couple of them crazy, no one is going to make a big deal out of it. Got it?”

His stare was unblinking. I never got an answer. So I decided I’d done what I could, nodded at him, and went back. When I looked at him over my shoulder he wasn’t looking at me. He was thinking. I made it up to the second floor in record time, sprinted to the door of the dorm, coaxed Sphinx out into the hallway, and told him everything. Then we both went down and I showed him the Scarlet One.

Sphinx frowned.

“Mommy’s clearly hysterical and imagining things. You’re too gullible, believing every story you hear.”

“Mommy is bonkers, that’s a fact. But she hasn’t got enough imagination to make up something like that.”

We went closer. Soon the pasty family spilled out of the office. We couldn’t hear them from where we were standing, but we’d seen and heard all of this a million times already. It never varied except in the details. Small details. The tank woman floated up to him, patted his head, flapped the red lips for a bit, and walked on. The man shoved something in his pocket. Money, what else? The girl looked directly at us, while the pet piglet was chewing gum and blowing bubbles. They burst and covered his snout in translucent film. He used his nails to scrape it off and shove the gum back in his mouth. Finally they all left and we returned to the dorm.

They brought him an hour later. Shark did, personally. We had to listen to everything Shark had to say concerning the cramped conditions in other dorms, and then about the camaraderie that was supposed to unite those less fortunate. Once he’d blabbed his fill he sailed away.

Scarlet One was looking down at his feet all that time. And we were looking at him. The corduroy jacket was too big for him, and the sweater under it was too small. He stood a little splayfooted, and apart from the freckles, we couldn’t make out much about his looks. His eyes were of indeterminate color, speckled, as if reflecting the freckled face. Fingernails gnawed off. He was incredibly calm. No one who’s just been brought in could be this calm. Everyone liked that in him. I didn’t have to look around, I just knew that they did. I was happy for him.

“Epilepsy,” Noble grumbled. “Just the thing we were waiting for. Someone having convulsion fits right here in full view.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Wolf said. “Besides, what about your own first day here? Equal to at least three fits at once, if I remember correctly.”

“Such a quiet kid,” Humpback said. “Nice, even. I vote we take him.”

While they were discussing him in this fashion, Scarlet One just stood there looking down. His face was completely impassive, like Blind’s when he’s listening to music. I wasn’t taking part in the discussion. I alone knew what he was. He was a dragon, a scarlet dragon, a fairy-tale visitor from a different world. Because sad people with knowing eyes and mysterious abilities do not appear in piranha families for no reason, or by accident. I was worried about Sphinx, though. His usual perspicacity seemed to have evaporated.

Sphinx stepped forward.

“You are going to stay here only if we agree to it,” he said. “You’ll get a nick and become one of us. But only if we agree.”

I exhaled. Sphinx was not in the habit of explaining these things to newbies. Of explaining, period. He must have felt something too. Just didn’t want to admit it.

Scarlet One looked at him.

“Then can you please agree,” he said. “So I can stay.”

He said “you” to Sphinx personally, as if he knew which one of us made the decisions about who stayed and who went.

“I’m so tired,” he added. “Really, really tired.”

He didn’t mean us, he was talking about something from his past.

“All right,” Sphinx said. “We accept you. But you have to swear that you’re not going to blow up electronics, attract thunderstorms, or turn into animals.”

The pack giggled at the joke that was not a joke at all.

“I don’t know how to do any of that,” the newbie said earnestly. “But I understand you. If that’s what is required, then I swear.”

The pack was hysterical. I was the only one not laughing.

And that’s how Alexander came to live among us.

A newbie is always an event. They’re just so different. It’s exciting just to look at them. Watch them and observe how they change, little by little, how the House pulls them in, making them part of itself. I know many detest newbies because they’re a handful at first, but I happen to like them. I like observing them, pestering them with questions, pulling jokes on them. I like the strange scents they carry in. Many things, not all of them capable of being put in words. One thing’s certain—where there’s a newbie, there’s always excitement.

That’s the way it was with Noble, and with everyone who came before him. Everyone I ever saw, really. But not Alexander. It’s as if he didn’t come in from out there but materialized, more of this place than any of us. With the shadows cast by the bars on the windows already etched into his face, with the voice as soft as the rustle of the rain. Possessing memories of each of us. He seemed to have been born here long ago, absorbing all of the colors and smells of the House. He kept his word. He’s never done anything that someone else would not be doing. He was quiet, pointedly so. He did have fits from time to time, breaking and ruining everything in his wake, but that happened rarely. There was just one thing he did allow himself—chasing away our bad dreams. I saw how he did it: he would jump up all of a sudden, walk over to someone who was asleep, whisper indistinctly in his ear, and go back. We were no longer awakened by screams—either our own or someone else’s. Our nights became more peaceful. Except for those that came after Wolf . . .

I catch that thought by the tail and try to turn it back.

DO NOT THINK ABOUT THAT!

Except those nights. When even Alexander could do nothing. When . . .

ENOUGH! NOT ALLOWED!

With a desperate effort I manage to put the brakes on it. Then I realize I’ve been crying for a while. Good thing the rain’s picked up. Coming down for real now. I throw back my head, intent on getting soaked. Then I start shaking. The cold managed to creep under my coat and vests while I was occupied. Teeth start chattering. Time to go.

I wheel over to the porch and wait. The darkness falls suddenly and swiftly. Shadows are floating past the curtains on the windows. The music seems to be louder than usual, or maybe I’m just imagining it because of the rain and the darkness and me here all alone, forgotten and abandoned. I feel sorry for myself. Then I feel very sorry. Then extremely sorry.

“Tabaqui! What’s wrong?” Alexander thunders down the steps, holding a jacket like a tent above his head. “I thought you wanted to stay.”

“I did, and then I didn’t anymore. And the ramp is too slippery, as you can see. So I had to call for some help.”

He drags me into the elevator. I shiver and rattle my teeth, rather theatrically. He leans over, looks me in the face.

“What was it you saw, Tabaqui? I can feel it.”

“Lots of things. You’re not old enough to know.”

“Sorry. I won’t leave you by yourself for that long next time.”

On the way to the dorm I explain to Alexander that liking a drizzle is an altogether different thing from liking a downpour. The latter happens to play havoc with vehicles not designed for prolonged exposure to the elements, and a wheelchair should be kept dry regardless of one’s love for rain.

“Mustang has been in service for a long time now, and is deserving of attention and respect. Even if its churlish rider, also owner, is not.”

“Tabaqui, stop it,” Alexander pleads. “I’m going to have a hard time sleeping tonight as it is.”

While he’s drying and dressing me I take the stone out of my pocket. This time I manage to take a closer look at it, even though it’s not easy with the towel scrubbing my head. It is oblong and light blue in color. Both the color and the shape seem familiar, resembling—what? I keep fiddling with it, turning it this way and that, trying to figure it out.

Alexander wraps me in a dressing gown and deposits me on the bed under the blankets. I burrow even deeper and keep thinking. The stone is warm in my hand. We go to sleep together, and the dream I have is about it and about that which it resembles.

I wake up to soft guitar chords. It’s dark except for the red Chinese lantern hanging low above the bed. It gives off barely enough light. I stare at it for a long time, until I start swaying in unison with it.

Somewhere very close—Sphinx’s voice. He’s singing, something about “the hole in a black truck tire against brown grass.” Muffled noise on the other side of the wall, like there’s a party going on. I pull off the covers and sit up. Could it be that I missed dinner? That’s something that doesn’t happen very often.

Sunlight mixed with dust

rises behind a truck

on the dirt road

There’s something awfully familiar about Sphinx’s song. Vulture’s head is nodding over the guitar’s strings. And what looks like Shuffle’s feet are hanging off the headboard. His right one especially is very distinctive.

“Are you awake?” Humpback whispers. “You’re not ill, by any chance? You’ve missed dinner.”

“If I am, then chance had nothing to do with it. What’s that noise?”

“Celebrating the new Law. Or have you forgotten? So we’re also kind of celebrating. The old gang’s here.”

I remember. Everything, including my dream. The stone in my hand is wet. Now I know exactly what it looks like. And it’s a very strange coincidence.

Not a word! Not a word!

Flies do all my talking for me—

and the wind says something else

Right now the important thing is my dream. I need to fulfill it. That’s what I think.

The pale pinkish glow of the lantern. The plates of shard-like sandwiches. Glasses clinking, black wine sloshing inside. The old gang: Vulture, Shuffle, Elephant, Beauty. My hand reaches for the harmonica, but flees by itself. Not now. Need to remember . . . I grab the nearest sandwich and eat it.

walking back into the retreat house

Humpback breathes tenderly into the flute. Sways, bumps into me. Someone is chomping loudly behind my back. Irritating.

after Two-Week Retreat

The guitar passes on to Shuffle. A succession of somber chords. The sandwich suddenly comes to an end, and then another one. Now it’s Vulture droning hoarsely:

A thin red-faced pimpled boy

stands alone minutes

looking into the ice cream bin

When he comes to the “Cabin in the Rockies” we’re interrupted by an explosion of noise from the dorms up and down the hallway. I crawl in the direction of Vulture’s voice.

“Listen. Could you maybe lend me your stepladder? It’s very important. And I’d like to avoid answering the question ‘Why,’ if you don’t mind.”

He’s pink, like everything around him that’s illuminated by the lantern. Leans over, reeking of wine.

“No problem at all. Of course. It’s yours, for however long you need it.”

He has a short whispered conversation with someone invisible and turns back to me.

“You drive over with Beauty. He’ll tell the boys, they’ll bring it out.”

“Thanks. I’ll call for him when I’m ready.”

I crawl over the sandwiches, legs, and bottles—and here I am on the floor, and the stone is in my pocket, and I’m dying to find out if I can accomplish what I decided to do before lights out. Everyone’s making merry. I hate leaving them now, but time’s a-wasting.

I put on the warmest clothes I can find. The tools I need are in the anteroom, in the boxes under the coat hangers. The bulb here is dim, but after the flashlight it’s almost blinding. At first all I manage to dredge out are rags and old ossified shoes—useless crud. Shuffle’s guitar perversions in the room grow even more elaborate. I fret and worry, until finally there comes out the thing I was looking for: the brush with the can of white paint and some more rags stuck to it. I take them and some other small things that might prove useful, call Beauty, and wheel into the corridor with him.

He comes inside the Third while I wait by the door. The Nest is quiet, unlike the other dorms—all clatter and wailing. The common room is full of jumping, mulleted shadows. Our Lary must also be there somewhere.

I have my warmest vest on, but I still shiver. The can, covered in dry paint drippings, I hold in my hands, and the rest—the scraper, the knife, brushes—I try to stuff in my pocket, where they collide with the remains of something edible. I shake out those. The rats who happen to run this way tonight are in for a treat.

The door of the Third opens and lets out Guppy.

“Hey,” he says. “Where do I put the stepladder?”

I show him. They bring the ladder. Guppy huffs and puffs and clanks its metallic parts, while Beauty mostly bumps into its legs. He’s not much help, in short. Bubble, in pajamas and yawning, drags himself out as well.

“Damn Logs all bolted. Celebrating some crap or other,” he whines. “Now we’re supposed to lug this. It’s heavy, and here we are with our health condition.”

“Daddy’s orders are Daddy’s orders,” Dearest says. He also has on pajamas, but is holding a suspicious-looking bottle under his arm.

“How about a swig in honor of the new Law?” he offers as he wheels closer. “Everyone’s so happy, wouldn’t do for us not to join in.”

So while they install the stepladder, we drink some homebrew junk, made by him personally.

“Now give me a hand up,” I say.

Two more stumble out to look at them lifting me up. Bubble worries that I’m going to fall. Angel worries that I’m going to throw up right on Vulture’s stepladder. At the top I can see much more clearly how dirty and spider-infested the ceiling is. The wall is dark and dirty as well. I take care of insulation—spreading Guppy’s blanket under me. The top step is tiny, I have to keep the paint can balanced on my knees. To go tumbling from here, hitting all the steps on the way down, is a scary thought.

I sigh quietly, wave to the Bird throng below, and start drawing. Just as I expected, they soon grow tired of craning their necks trying to decipher my scribbles and freezing their tails off in the process, and slowly drift away. My head is spinning from the vile hooch Dearest calls tequila. What I’m drawing is the outline of a dragon standing on its hind legs. It is coming out strange: a bit like a horse and a bit like a dog. I would have done better in a more convenient spot, but this’ll have to do. I give it teeth and sharp talons on the front paws. Talons are important. Once it becomes obvious that it’s a dragon I’m looking at, I crack open the can and fill it in.

Gunk, hair, and assorted debris that drowned in the can long ago—my poor dragon is now covered in all of this. When the white brush follows its jagged spine, my hand starts shaking. Time and I, we’re not exactly on the best terms, but it appears I may pull it off, even though it’s too early to tell for sure. I can’t sit here and wait until the dragon dries completely. With the pocket knife I start gouging out a hole for the eye.

This is hellishly difficult. The hole is almost ready, and then the can suddenly jumps off my knees and disappears below. Awful racket. It rolls around down there for a while, then finally gets stuck, and I’m still busy with the eye. The hole is already quite deep. I probe it with my finger. Now for the lilies. I scratch them into the wet surface of my dragon with the tip of the knife, the crude fleurs-de-lis, all over. Once I’m done, the dragon is no longer just any dragon, it’s Noble, because lily equals Noble if you want to draw him quickly and recognizably. I sign my work.

By the time the lights go out I’m almost finished. I rummage in my pocket for the magical stone the color of Noble’s eyes. The dragon, the ceiling, me—we all disappear in the darkness. I’m not scared. I take out the flashlight, point it at the eye socket, and insert the stone. It’s holding. It fits, or maybe just sticks to the wet paint.

I fulfill my dream. Here it is—the ghost dragon, covered in lilies and with Noble’s eye. It’s running with the talons pointing at our room. That means return. Maybe something else as well, I have no idea. My job was just to put it here. I switch off the flashlight and sit there in the dark. I’m all sticky; probably covered with paint.

I don’t know how much time passes before there’s stomping, flashlighting, and cooing from below.

“Coo-ee yourselves,” I say. “I’m up here. Could you maybe have waited until morning? My rotting carcass would have been so glad to see you.”

“Pipe down,” Sphinx says. “It’s no one else’s fault if you decided to spend the night on this idiotic contraption.”

“He-ey!” comes in Vulture’s drunken voice. “I would thank you for not dumping on my princely perch!”

They point flashlights at me and giggle. Then someone trips over the can and steps in the paint. Now I’m the one giggling.

“Damn!” Humpback yells. “There’s shit all over the floor! He was making a trap for innocent passersby. Using bird crap!”

They finally take me off the ladder and carry me away. The actual carrying falls to Alexander, and everybody else just stumbles along, waving flashlights and singing.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being the only sober member of a drunk crowd. But by now it’s useless for me to try and catch up with them. Not even with the help of Dearest’s tequila.

They carry me inside and file in. Humpback is bringing up the rear, whistling into a flute. The dorm is so trashed it’s scary. The nightlights leave a trail on the ceiling. Alexander puts me on the bed, and the rest keep circling the room in a conga line. Must be looking for dungeons and caverns.

Nanette is sleeping splayed out on the sandwich plate. I take her off, grab the last remaining sandwich, and eat it. The rest of the plates are empty. My favorite place is occupied by Elephant, fast asleep, clutching some kind of red ball. On closer inspection it proves to be our Chinese lantern.

Red and Blind are waltzing, but mostly walking into furniture. Humpback is trying to tootle on the flute in time with them. Blind is counting off loudly: “A-one-two-three . . . One-two-three . . . One . . .” Each standalone “one” makes them freeze in place. Humpback then bumps into them and freezes too.

“To the girls,” Vulture proclaims, sniffing at his glass thoughtfully.

Who knows what he can be sniffing there. Anything liquid within reach has already been gobbled up. I set to gnawing on the remains of the sandwich. In this crotchety state I disgust even myself.

Sphinx plops down next to me, winks, and imparts, “A dragon be a mythical beast . . . While a white dragon, doubly so, because in addition to all of its other qualities it is also an albino, that is, an anomaly even among its own kind.”

“You noticed,” I marvel at him. “Managed to see! In total darkness!”

“I notice everything. Besides, it’s not like you climbed all the way up there just to give the ceiling a fresh coat of paint.”

Then we sit and watch the others gradually switch off. Someone’s singing from the direction of the window. Loudly and out of tune.

“Whose is this?” I ask, lifting an unfamiliar prosthetic by the strap. “I didn’t know we had anyone else of that sort here.”

“It’s a joke,” Sphinx says darkly. “A funny, merry joke. Humor among thieves, you might say.”

I decide not to pursue this and instead busy myself with going to sleep. Feeling worn out, grimy, and elderly, but also like someone who has responsibly carried out his duty. Also cold. As soon as I manage to get warm and cozy and finally drift off, I’m immediately woken up by Black. He’s rattling the coffeepot against the bars of the bed and reading Kipling aloud. Some of those not yet asleep try to get him to pipe down, while the rest are having some kind of scholarly argument. I don’t want to sort through the details, and I fall back asleep.

The second time it’s a hyena’s laugh that wakes me up. It trails off into sobs. Everyone except the hyena is fast asleep, and even the lights are out.

The third time I startle at dawn, who knows why. The party’s over. The gray morning slithers in through the windowpanes. Insensate bodies stacked haphazardly, snoring. All is still and quiet, except for the barely audible ticking. That’s the bitch that woke me up. I seek it by ear, by smell, I home in on it. It’s a watch, lurking in the folds of the blanket. I lean over the edge of the bed, grasp for an empty bottle, place the watch on the floor, and smash it, using the bottom of the bottle as a hammer. It takes but a moment, and the ticking stops.

Black, asleep on the floor, raises his head and stares at me dazedly. Then falls back down. I drop someone’s sweater on him and crawl back into my paint-smelling burrow.