Little Doors (40 page)

Sure enough, I was trundled into the school’s carpentry shop and, once callously stripped of my bark, rapidly dismembered into several largish sections of trunk. With each cut I pulled my ectoplasmic bits of mental being out of the severed section, retreating and retreating, until finally, with the last slice, I found all my fading identity concentrated in one portion of trunk.

For a long time I existed in a state of hibernation, as I cured in a storeroom. What became of my nonsentient bits I cannot tell. After an unguessable duration, the portion housing my ghostly self, roused by motion, eventually rode a dolly to the atelier of a youth possessed of handsome Mediterranean looks and clad in leather apron and work gloves. I heard him addressed as “Gino” by the delivery men.

Gino wrestled me upright into position on a platform, then stepped back to survey me. “Hmm, I see hidden in this dumb wood a straining heroic figure, fighting against injustice. Perhaps I’ll call this masterpiece
Samson Rages against the Philistines
.”

Much as I appreciated Gino’s noble goals for my desiccated flesh, I still cringed to imagine the first blow of his chisel. Trying to avoid his blow, I concentrated my essence far away from his anticipated strike. But then, at the last moment, he shifted positions and cleaved off that very block of matter containing all my soul!

I fell to the floor, ignored in the white heat of artistic creation.

But at day’s end, to my surprise, Gino picked me up and carried me home.

The young sculptor lived in an Italian slum on the far side of Central City. Apparently he shared his dismal cold-water flat only with his father, a cheerful old fellow with an aura of deep wisdom about him.

“Poppa, look,” Gino called out as soon as he entered. “Some raw material for your hobby.”

Gino’s father took me in his rough hands. How humiliating, I thought. From Hiram P. Dottle, bookkeeper, botanist and husband, to mighty oak to hunk of kindling. The old man turned me over and over, examining me with a keen eye before finally speaking.

“It’s-a not fine Algerian brier, Gino, like-a what-a we had back in Napoli. But the grain, she’s a-fine. Maybe Mario Deodati can make-a one nice pipe out of this scrap.”

“Thataboy, Pop! Go to it!”

Thus began my final metamorphosis, under the magically skilled hands of Mario Deodati. Pared away with patient cunning, the block revealed the shape hiding within it. And amazingly, as Mario lavished attention and craft and even love on me, I felt my identity taking renewed strength.

At one point, holding my still-chunky form, Mario spoke to me. “I see a face in-a you, Mister Pipe. I’m a-make your bowl into a smiling head.”

Good as his word, Mario carved facial features into his creation. I had no mirror to observe myself in, but I could feel from inside that my new visage was perhaps overly jolly and gleeful in the manner of a Toby jug. Mario’s sensitivity to my true nature extended only so far.

One day in late winter, when the winds rattled the loose, rag-stuffed windows in the apartment, Mario and Gino had a terse, painful discussion which I observed and listened to from my perch on a shelf.

“It’s no use, Pop. I’m going to have to quit school. We don’t even have the money for coal and groceries, never mind my tuition.”

Mario banged the table with the hand that had birthed me. “Did me and your sainted Momma teach-a you to be a quitter! You gonna stay in school, boy!” He struggled to his feet and snatched me down off the shelf. “Go sell this! And get-a the best price you can!”

Wrapped in an old piece of flannel, I left my latest home.

I surmised that it was now nearly a year since I had been felled, and my fate once more loomed obscure.

Five stores later, a deal was consummated. I changed hands for the princely sum of one hundred dollars, enough to keep the Deodatis afloat for several months, and I silently bade farewell to Gino.

My new owner was a portly, bearded, punctilious gentleman in vest and suit. The tip of his tongue protruding absentmindedly from the corner of his compressed lips, he inked a price tag in the amount of two hundred dollars, tied it to my stem with string, and placed me on a velvet cushion in a display case. That night, when the shop lights clicked off and only stray glints from street lamps illuminated my new home, I tried to communicate with my new neighbors. But they failed to respond to the most vigorous of my psychic efforts, and I realized I was the only sensate pipe amongst them. Internally, I shed a self-pitying tear or two as I contemplated my sad lot.

The next few weeks established a boring routine of shop-opening, commercial traffic, shop-closing and a long night of despair. I was handled and admired several times, but never purchased.

But one day my salvation arrived, in the form of two famous customers.

The well-dressed and decorously glamorous woman with her twin rolls of blonde hair pinned high atop her head appeared first in my field of vision. Lowering her half-familiar happy face to the glass separating us, she spoke. “Oh, Shade, look! Isn’t that model with the carved face just darling?”

The masked visage of the Shade appeared next to the woman’s. In context, I recognized her now as Mayor Ellen Nolan. The Shade did not seem to share all of Ellen Nolan s enthusiasm. His manly features wrinkled in quizzical bemusement.

“Gee, Ellen, I’ve seen better mugs on plug-uglies from the Gasworks Gang! And two hundred dollars! Do you realize how many orphans we could feed with that money?”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Shade. Spending a little more of my personal money on Daddy’s birthday won’t send any orphans to bed hungry.”

The Shade lifted his hat and scratched his scalp. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Ellen? How are you going to get Nolan to give up his favorite old stinkpot in favor of this one, anyhow?”

“Simple. I’ll hide it.”

A whistle of admiration escaped the Shade’s lips. “And the newspapers say I’ve got guts! Well, I leave it all up to you.”

“A wise decision. Sir, we’ll take this one. And wrap it nicely, please.”

Into a dark box I went. The crinkle of folding gift-paper and the zip of cellotape from a dispenser was followed by careful placement into what I presume was a shopping bag. I could tell by the long stride I then shared that the Shade carried me home to Ellen’s house. I heard the smack of a kiss upon a cheek, then felt further lifting movements, ending up, I supposed, hidden in a closet.

The routine of the house for the next day or so quickly became aurally familiar. The gruff yet loving Commissioner Nolan arrived home and left at odd hours of the day, while the perky but forceful Mayor Nolan held to a more regular schedule. The Shade popped up unpredictably.

Finally one special morning, muffled in my closet, I could hear Ellen’s father ranting, turning the air blue with his curses.

“
Where
could that dangblasted, consarned
pipe
of mine have
gotten
to! Ellen! Ellen! ELLEN!”

“Yes, Daddy, whatever’s the matter?”

“My favorite pipe! I can’t find it! I’m certain I left it on the bed stand when I went to sleep, but now it’s missing! How can I go to work without it?”

Footsteps approached me, a door creaked open, and I was lifted down in my package. Ellen’s sweet voice soothed her father. “Well, I haven’t the foggiest notion of where you’ve mislaid that awful thing. But luckily enough, I have this little gift right here. Happy birthdav, Daddy!”

My wrapping began to rip. “Grmph. Hmph. Frazzleblast it!”

“Let me give you a hand, Daddy dear.”

The light of day made me metaphysically squint. I found myself face to face with a choleric, jaw-grinding Commissioner Nolan. The three patches of white hair on his otherwise bald head were mussed and flyaway.

He scowled at me, and I knew we had not hit it off.

“Is this a kid’s bubblepipe? What am I supposed to pack it with—cornsilk?”

Ellen began to tenderly stroke her father’s hair into better order. “Come on now, don’t be a gruff old bear. This pipe has a hundred times more class than your old one. Won’t you at least try it, please—for me?”

Nolan turned me around so I faced away from him. Then for the first time I felt the curiously intimate sensation of his blunt teeth biting down on my stem. His irritation caused me to waggle furiously up and down almost in time to his thumping, agitated pulse, so much so that I feared for his dangerously high blood pressure.

“Feels strange,” Nolan said. “Not like my old one.”

“New things take some getting used to. Here’s your tobacco pouch. Smoke up a bowl or two and you’ll see how lovely it is.”

Nolan stuffed my wooden head full of pungent weed, tamping the plug down with a blunt, nicotine-stained thumb. Then I heard a match scrape and felt the small flame singe my crown. The pain was less than if I had tested my human flesh with a match, and I resolved to be stoic in my new role.

Puffing furiously, Nolan seemed to relax a trifle. “Draws well enough,” he cautiously admitted. “But that simpering little face on the bowl—”

“Shush now! Off to work with you!”

Nolan snatched up a battered old leather satchel and exited. A police car and driver awaited him outside, and we set off.

Well, I cannot begin to describe the tremendous excitement of the subsequent several weeks. I experienced firsthand the glamorous crimefighting life of the Shade and Nolan in a way no one else ever had, not even the Shade’s loyal Negro sidekick, Busta! Never absent from Nolan’s pit bull-like mandibular embrace, I found myself swept up in innumerable thrilling confrontations with the forces of evil. Shootouts, chases, last-minute rescues! Threats, torture, mysterious clues, exotic locales! Villains, henchmen, mad scientists, femmes fatales! Why, once I remember we slipped quietly through the slimy, drip-plopping sewers on the trail of the Crustacean, only to discover the archfiend in his lair with—

But I ramble. I’ll never reach the end of my personal tale if I recount all the wild adventures I experienced. Suffice it to say that out of my three existences to date, being Commissioner Nolan’s trusty pipe has proved by far the most invigorating!

Of course, I had to endure many boring meetings as well. Politics played a part in crimefighting, as it did in everything connected with the civic life of Central City. Whenever one of these tedious events was scheduled, I fell into an absentminded reverie. I confess to being in one such fugue at the start of that fatal evening.

The clock in the mayor’s shadowy office struck midnight when the Shade and Ellen walked in, causing my owner to hastily remove his feet from his daughter’s desk and leap up from her ornate office chair.

The Shade looked shamefaced. “Sorry we’re late. I thought I spotted the wily spy Pola Fleece down by the docks, but it turned out to be only a fashion magazine shoot. It took a while to settle up damages with the photographer and models. Are those slimy business partners here yet?”

Nolan knocked my head on the edge of a trash can to remove my dead embers, then restuffed me with shag and lit up. I was quite used to the flickering flame by now, and paid it no mind as Nolan began to puff furiously.

“Not yet. I don’t like this, Shade—not one little bit.”

Ellen chimed in. “I agree. That Flint woman gives me the willies. What a cold-blooded witch! Only a few months until the second anniversary of her husband’s murder, and she’s already taking up with another man. Why, I hear she’s even carrying his lovechild!”

Ellen blushed charmingly upon uttering this remark, and the Shade coughed as if he had swallowed a fly.

Sparky? Were they speaking of Sparky? A twinge of mixed affection and hatred passed through my wooden frame, and I woke into greater alertness.

“And she hasn’t snagged just any beau,” the Shade added. “Jules ‘The Fife’ Reefer has a history of misdeeds as long and bloody as the Carnivore’s.”

Nolan said, “Still, we’ve never been able to pin anything on him, and this request of theirs to build a casino seems on the up-and-up.”

“I agree they’re following legitimate channels,” said the Shade, “but the big question remains. Do we want to let Reefer construct such an efficient money-laundering enterprise for his other illegal rackets?”

“Of course not,” Ellen said. “But we’ve stalled them in every legal way we can. There’s no way we can avoid giving them the permits for their casino any longer.”

The Shade pushed his hat back on his head and smiled. “That’s the purpose of tonight’s meeting. We’ve gotten them so frustrated that they’re bound to offer you a bribe. Why else would they schedule such a late-night get-together? I’ll be in the next office with the door ajar. Once the money is out in the open, I’ll bust in and put the cuffs on them. End of story.”

Nolan scowled. “I suppose it’s the only way. But I don’t like putting Ellen at risk.”

Ellen straightened lip proudly. “I’m the mayor, Daddy. Don’t I deserve my share of the bribe? In fact, I think you and I will have to split it seventy-thirty.”

“Hmph! Sixty-forty,” joshed Nolan, “and that’s my final offer.”

Outside in the empty City Hall corridor the elevator bell chimed, signaling the conveyance’s arrival on our floor.

The Shade darted for the connecting door. “Stations, men!”