The Waiting Room (12 page)

And I knew this, too, watching them: I knew that
they
were the reality, that the dunes, the gulls, and the traffic were no more than the sugar coating on a sucker that has a steel ball at its center.

I said, "My God, my God, Abner, this is
hell!
"

And Abner, who had come up behind me, said, "Don't be an ass, Sam. What'd you do in Viet Nam—find religion? This is just what is, it's no more than what is. I can't help it if this is the first time you've opened your eyes."

Imagine being digested. Imagine being inside the belly of some beast.

And imagine other people are in there. It doesn't matter, does it? A hundred thousand people. A million people. Ten million people. It doesn't matter. The stomach juices of that beast still sting and smell and eat the flesh away.

Imagine that the air itself is alive with the stomach juices of that beast; imagine that the air is a dark greenish yellow, and imagine that it smells like the men's room at Grand Central Station.

"This is what
is
," Abner said.

"No," I whispered.

"Sure, Sam. Sure. Look at it, take a long, hard look at it."

"Take a look at what? My God, I don't know what I'm seeing. For God's sake, Abner, tell me what I'm seeing."

"You're seeing what there is to see."

"That's bullshit, Abner. Bullshit! Who are these people?"

"Who
are
these people?" He was incredulous. "I'm surprised at you, Sam. These people are spooks. We live in a world of spooks." He put his hands hard on my shoulders as if to keep me where I was. He whispered harshly, "We live in a world of the dead. But the dead
live
in the walls, they live behind the doors and the windows, they live in the
air
, Sam, like the birds; and they fly, they do fly." His grip strengthened on my shoulders. He went on, his whisper changing to a high wheeze, "They fly like the birds do, and they come to rest on the tops of buildings, in attics, on statues, on the hoods of cars."

Beyond, far beyond the world I was seeing, the boy flying the
Star Wars
kite appeared at the top of a dune and charged down it, his kite fluttering behind him. "May the Force be with you," he yelled.

Abner said, behind me, "Did you see
Star Wars
, Sam? I saw it three times."

The kid stumbled on a rock and fell forward, so his elbows stuck into the dune. He pushed himself quickly to his feet and swiped frantically at his clothes as if trying to brush away a nest of spiders.

Because those people were all around him. He had fallen into their world.

They touched him, stroked him, a woman hugged him from behind. And he went on frantically brushing at his clothes until, at last, he panicked and began
pulling
at his clothes as if they'd gotten stuck to his skin and were burning him. "Mommy?!" he called. "Mommy?!" he called again. "Mommy?!" he pleaded. And then he started tugging at his kite string as if he could pull himself back to his own world with it.

Abner sighed. "He doesn't know what's happening to him. Poor kid. They'll pull him right down into the sand."

I looked around at Abner, open-mouthed. I could say nothing.

He repeated, "They'll pull him right down into the sand and tomorrow he'll be one of the missing."

And across the awful expanse that separated us I yelled to the boy, "Run! Goddammit, run!"

He looked at me, shook his head disbelievingly, and pushed at the people who were tugging at him and pulling him into the sand.

This is what separated me from that boy: the sand, the grass, the air. And the dead. As I watched, the boy's calves disappeared, then his knees, his thighs. "Mommy!?" he screamed, still tugging desperately at his kite string, pulling the kite closer. It shredded on a sharp rock—the same rock, I think, that he had tripped over. He continued pulling. "Mommy?! Mommy?!"

I started for him. I wrenched free of Abner's strong grip and, seconds later, found myself on my back on the kitchen floor, Abner standing stiffly above me. "Sam, you're a fool! There are no heroes here. Only fools!"

"But that boy—"

"You can't affect what these people do. You can only watch. And you watch, Sam—you watch because you
want
to watch, because something very deep inside you
wants
to
watch
. Otherwise, my friend, you wouldn't see a thing."

I scrambled to my feet, rushed to the door, and stopped. "My God!" I breathed.

The boy was gone.

Behind me, Abner said, "He can only feel them, Sam. He can feel their hands now, their mouths, their hair, probably. And he knows what's happening to him, I think he knows he's been sucked into the dune, but I doubt he knows why." He put his hand on my shoulders again. "And I wish to God that there was something you or I could have done for him, Sam. But there wasn't, you see. Not with these people. You might as well try to reason with a dinner napkin as try to reason with these people. They're not like the cop that stopped us; they're not like Al, or Phyllis. They're kind of like leftovers. Humanity's leftovers." He shook his head: "Madeline would shoot me if she heard me say that."

"You murdered that boy, goddammit!"

"No, Sam. He has merely become one of the missing. Thousands of people turn up missing every day. You know that. And some of them, like that boy, get pulled into sand dunes. Others get carried away, the way rabbits get carried away by owls. And others, a few others, get themselves stuck in the walls." He grinned slyly, as if keeping some dark secret from me. "They get put into the walls, Sam. And they
stay
there. With the dead! And no matter where they try to go—Good Lord, they could try to go into insanity, or into their pasts—the dead go after them and drag them back."

"Well, dammit," I said, "
I'm
going to go and look for that boy."

"Of course you are, Sam. I can't stop you. But I can tell you what you'll find. You'll find sand, and sand fleas, a few beer bottles. You'll find gum wrappers, maybe a rubber or two. But you won't find that boy. He's one of the missing. He'll always be one of the missing. Like Amelia Earhart and Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa. They all got grabbed."

He was right. I found nothing. I looked for a good hour and a half. I dug furiously, and futilely—because no matter how fast I dug, the sand on the slope of the dune filled the hole up even faster. And finally, I lay at the bottom of the dune with my eyes on a gull circling gracefully in the tight blue sky. Abner appeared above me.

I asked him, "Where are they, Abner?"

"Where are those people?" he said, and nodded. "They're still here."

"Then why don't they take
me,
dammit?"

He shrugged. "Or
me,
for that matter? Or that old woman with the fat dog? She comes by every day. So does the man with the metal detector." He sat down next to me, elbows in the dune, and leveled a quizzical gaze at me. "I don't know, Sam," he said.

"Why do some people get stung by bees and others don't? I really don't know. Maybe someday we'll both get stung."

"That's comforting," I whispered.

He smiled. "This is temporary, Sam. This…
wild talent
you've got. It's temporary." He paused. "Maybe that's not the right word, maybe temporary's not the right word. Transient's better. This wild talent you've got is
transient
. It comes and goes. One day you've got it, the next day it's gone. Sort of like herpes."

I let out a grunt of disbelief.

He went on, grinning, "And
I
got it from a woman named Barbara W. Barber two years ago on the Amtrak out of Bangor. Good Lord, Sam, she gave me this
disease
on the Amtrak out of Bangor. And I guess she gave it to me because she didn't like me, because I offended her." He idly scratched his nose. "And I gave it to
you
, Sam, because you're my friend and friends help each other." He stood, extended his hand. I shook my head. "No, let me be."

"Sure," he said. "You know, Sam, I think it's like walking into a closet by mistake. You see that you're in a closet, you look around briefly, and you walk out. But the hell of it is, there are so many damned closets to walk into." After a moment he went on, "Touch the air, Sam."

"Huh?"

"Lift your hand and
touch
the air."

I sat up. "Why?" I said.

"Just do it, please."

I did it.

"Good," he said. "Now tell me what you feel."

"Nothing," I answered. "I don't feel a thing. I feel the air."

"Close your eyes."

I closed my eyes.

"Now what do you feel?"

I reached, groped in the air.

"Gently, Sam."

I touched the air gently.

"Tell me what you feel."

"Dammit, I don't know." I paused. "I feel the air." Another pause. "No. I feel someone's skin; it feels like water. It feels like cool water."

He said, "You see, Sam? They are still here, as I said. They're always here. Those poor, murderous slobs have always
been
here, in the air all around us, except now, for you, there's a difference. You can see them occasionally. And you can touch them, and you can—"

I pushed myself to my feet suddenly and grabbed him by the collar. He looked very surprised, which pleased me. "You're my
friend
so you
did this to me, Abner?! Why do I find that so hard to believe? Tell me. What kind of friend would do this ... this
thing—"

"A desperate friend, Sam."

"You bastard!"

He nodded; his look of surprise was gone; it was replaced by grim resignation. "Sure, I'm a bastard. But I'm a stuck bastard. And I warned you. I did warn you, Sam, if you think back—"

"Where's that boy?"

"What boy?"

"Goddamn you!" My grip strengthened on his collar. "That boy with the kite. Where in the hell is he?"

Abner shrugged. "I don't know. Where would a pail of water be if you tossed it into the ocean? I don't know. Maybe he'll turn up in . . . in Schenectady, someday, or in Ottawa, or, Christ, right here. Chances are he won't turn up at all, Sam. And there's nothing you or I or anybody can do about it. He's fallen between the cracks. Lots and lots of people fall between the cracks."

I held my right hand up, palm open, near his chin. "Your keys, Abner."

"My car keys?"

"Yes."

"You're going to take my car?"

"Give me your keys, dammit!"

"I
need my car." He fished in his pocket, found his key ring, which had a half-dozen keys on it, and let it dangle from his fingers so they were just touching my hand. "I always thought you were pretty bright, Sam. I guess I was wrong."

"Let go of the damned keys."

"
Think
, my friend.
Think!
" He let go of the keys. I let go of him and took a step back. He went on, "Think about what's happened here. Think about what's happened to me. Think hard about what could happen to you, Sam."

"Abner, you really are full of crap!"

He grinned. "I need my house key." He nodded at the key ring.

"You actually lock that place up?"

"Of course I lock it up. You think I want just anyone going in there? I've got . . . valuables in there, Sam. I've got things to protect."

I gave him the key ring; he took a key off it, gave it back to me, and said, "You've got to let her warm up a good three or four minutes, Sam. The choke advance needs work."

"Sure, Abner." I started for the side of the house. "At this point, I'm worried as hell about your damned choke advance,"

Behind me, he called, "And don't leave her parked on some side street if you can help it. Don't leave the doors locked, either. It doesn't do any good. They'll just break a window or screw up the lock—" He said more, but I didn't catch it, because by then I was halfway around the house.

~ * ~

I parked the Malibu, doors locked, in an alleyway off Third Avenue near 10th Street. It was midafternoon. The clear blue sky had given way to a sultry overcast, and that alleyway looked like the inside of a cereal box.

The drive back had been an ordeal. Every inch of the way, I felt like I'd been drenched in gasoline and was being chased by a thousand people with torches.

Sort of like herpes,
Abner had said.
It comes and goes. One day you have it, the next day it's gone.

"You bastard, Abner," I whispered.

At the other end of the alleyway, a tall man dressed in a dark suit and overcoat stood facing me. He held a cane in his right hand. I could see his features only indistinctly—a receding hairline, deep-set eyes, thin lips, a long straight nose.

"And what the hell do
you
want?" I yelled.