The Sound of Building Coffins Read online

  Dropsy didn’t answer. He put a hand on West’s head, stroked his hair, tried to calm his sobs.

  “Now, pardna,” Jim started again, the cockiness in his voice grating in Dropsy’s ears. “You know I’m right. That boy’s a goner no matter how you slice it. But your part is easy. You just stand there and watch me cut his throat. You ain’t gotta do nothing a’tall. Just keep our secret—like you always done. But this secret is special—secrets like this can keep people partners for life.” Dropsy’s expression failed to soften, so Jim continued with less spit in his timber. “I need you, Dropsy. Don’t you know that? You may not realize it, but you need me, too. Keep this secret and we’ll always be friends. So whaddaya say? Partners?” Jim held out a hand for Dropsy to shake.

  Dropsy Morningstar knew that Jim Jam Jump had won, that this was checkmate. Dropsy had never won a game of chess in his life, never could get the hang of thinking that far ahead. The only thing he was sure of right now was that there was nothing he could do to save his little nephew. He wasn’t strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough.

  Dropsy turned to face West, placed strong but gentle hands to the boy’s trembling cheeks. There is a certain peace in knowing when you’re beat, and Dropsy looked into his beloved nephew’s eyes now, wanting to share that peace.

  “West?” said Dropsy.

  “Yes?” said West.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Uncle Dropsy.”

  “I’m so sorry. See you soon.”

  The boy’s neck snapped with one quick motion, his death immediate and painless. Dropsy kissed him once on the forehead before releasing the head, letting it flop to an unnatural angle at the shoulder. Dropsy turned to Jim, looked him dead in the eye, said:

  “Tat.”

  Dropsy wasn’t any good at chess, but he always was expert at the switch.

  Jim Jam Jump’s jaw fell open in horror:

  “Ya kilt him! Ya weren’t s’posed ta kill him!”

  “Now ya kin git that horn, I reckon, Jim.”

  “Hey! You weren’t supposed to do that! I ain’t got no angle worked out fer that!”

  “Guess we got no secrets, you and me, Jim. Nothin’ to keep us friends now.” Dropsy was walking towards Jim with deadly eyes. “Checkmate, Jim.”

  “You keep away from me, you big ape! I’ll holler and someone’ll come!”

  “No secrets to tell, no secrets to keep.”

  To Jim’s surprise, Dropsy wasn’t coming for him after all, walking right past and into the river.

  “Whatcha doin’, you big fool? You cain’t swim!”

  “You tell this anyway you want to, Jim. Tell ’em the truth. Tell ’em I kilt my own nephew. Probably make you into some big hero once ya figger the right angle.”

  Dropsy Morningstar didn’t lay a hand on Jim Jam Jump. Just kept walking. Walking in the direction of Algiers, which lay across the river.

  Chapter thirty-six

  Typhus’ Dream

  There are four children—two boys and two girls—all tied to chairs and sitting at the edge of a wide pit ten feet in diameter. Flames and smoke lick upward from the pit’s mouth. The children are sweating, their shins blackening and blistering in the heat. They are all about the age of eight or nine and bear a family resemblance to one another.

  Typhus stands across the pit. He is untied, he is his father. The prison guard’s knife twitches in his back as if alive. His right hand is freshly severed—but where there should be blood there leaks only water.

  An old woman is standing behind the children, her head and face wrapped tightly in chicken wire. The woman stares at Typhus—her eyes fill him with cold fear. He should run to the aid of the children but is paralyzed by the woman’s eyes. He knows she is capable of much worse than the mere harming of children.

  “Hast thou come to kiss this child?” the woman asks him, pointing to the girl who sits between the two boys.

  Typhus cannot form thoughts but hears himself say, “What child?” The sound of his own voice startles him; it is not his own voice, it is his father’s voice. Typhus looks down and sees his father’s old family bible in his left hand. It trembles in his grasp and is cold to the touch.

  The woman responds, “I will not let thee kiss her.” She tips the girl’s chair forward, sending her downward into flame. The girl’s eyes are wide with terror as she plunges headlong. Her screams make no physical sound but reverberate through Typhus’ chest. A part of him recognizes the girl as she falls—it is his sister, Cholera. But the recognition makes no sense; Cholera died at only two months old—and years before Typhus was born. This was not Cholera.

  This was Cholera.

  He now recognizes the rest of the children, but the ages are all wrong. They cannot all be nine years old.

  “Hast thou come to send him to sleep?” The woman points to the boy at her left.

  “Wait!” Typhus bellows through his father’s throat. He opens the bible, searches its pages for answers. This is difficult with only one hand, and the paper is like ice. It takes a moment before Typhus realizes the pages are all blank.

  “Uncle Typhus, please! I can’t find my buttons! Someone took my buttons! Help me!” West is squirming beneath the old woman’s hand.

  “Hast thou come to send him to sleep?” she repeats patiently.

  Noonday Morningstar’s heavy tone rumbles through Typhus’ narrow throat, “No! No! I haven’t come to send him to sleep!”

  The old woman’s face contorts into a half-smile as she replies, “I will not let thee do him harm.”

  She tips West forward and into the pit, leaving one boy and one girl. Typhus realizes the girl is a child-sized version of Diphtheria—and that she has just witnessed the death of her own son. Her screams issue with such force that her neck bulges then splits. Blood spatters her perfect yellow dress.

  The old woman points to the bleeding girl now. “Hast thou come to take her away?” Suddenly, Typhus recognizes the old woman.

  “I know you!” he hears his father shout.

  She repeats, “Hast thou come to take her away?”

  The woman is a hoodoo mambo. She visits Doctor Jack two or three times a year to trade herbs. She has always seemed so timid and kind on her visits. Her name is Malvina Latour.

  “Why are you doing this?” The voice of Noonday Morningstar trembles.

  “I will not let thee carry her away.” The child-version of Diphtheria tips forward and down, but her eyes are no longer afraid and there is relief in them as she falls. She will now, at least, be with her little West.

  “Typhus,” says the remaining child, a boy. His voice is calm, reassuring, unafraid. “Don’t feel bad. You done no wrong here. You can’t help that you lost your faith. People don’t choose to lose faith. Faith leaves them, not the other way ’round.” The child version of Dropsy Morningstar droops his head towards the pit, staring into smoke and flame with a grin. “I ain’t never seen a thing so lovely. Ain’t it pretty, Typhus? Pink threads, orange water, pretty music…”

  journeys of threads through a rug

  Typhus’ eyes fill with tears as the woman deadpans through chicken-wire, “Has thou come to crucify him?”

  “No, no, no!”

  “But you have,” says Dropsy with a smile. “It’s okay, now, Typhus. Let me go.”

  Malvina Latour is screaming, “Hast thou come to crucify him?”

  Typhus searches the weird peace in Dropsy’s eyes for answers. He knows answers are there, answers to all the questions he could ever ask—but he can’t find them.

  “Forsake me, Typhus. You have no choice,” says Dropsy. “Forsake me…please?”

  Typhus Morningstar’ heart is breaking: “Yes, yes, I have come to crucify him!” The sound of his own sobs chill his blood; he has never heard his father sob before.

  The face of Malvina Latour is smoothing. Rage has vacated her eyes. Without another word, she steps forward and into the pit, her dress fluttering in flame as she falls. Dropsy
remains seated and bound, his grin ever-widening.

  “That’s right, that’s right,” Dropsy says. “Ain’t yer fault, Typhus.”

  “I’m dreaming,” says Typhus, his voice now miraculously his own.

  “Yes, you’re dreaming. But the dream means something.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Dropsy’s grin evaporates. “It means you are out of hope.”

  Unable to accept this simple truth, Typhus opens the bible once more, searching. This time the pages are not blank, but are filled with gibberish. The same group of words are repeated over and over:

  Zedn Nasicb Uqmao Tuoyn Raioe Htvae Emayi Uodonri Ine Encpd Aq Plimu O Ano Oarce Unthar Dead Iu On Ere Hurt Ecibuotor

  Nonsense words. Unpronounceable. Stupid. Useless.

  He slams the book shut, looks down to see two small feet. No longer in the body of his father, he is himself again entirely. A man in the shape of a boy. Old of eye, older of body, oldest of heart.

  Dropsy is teetering back and forth in the chair, tempting the pit to take him. Typhus looks into the eyes of his brother, wanting to say something, an important question at the tip of his tongue. He is only able to say:

  “Dropsy…”

  Dropsy smiles one last time before rocking forward and over; “Goodbye,” he says.

  Chapter thirty-seven

  Beware the Shoe Dove

  Doctor Jack regarded superstition as a luxury reserved for the weak of mind. He was a man of science first, so when confronting fresh mysteries he always considered the scientific possibilities first. However, when uncanny or illogical patterns presented themselves, he took care to make note and attach credence to such—even if the scientific basis behind these occurrences was not immediately evident. One such pattern he’d noted in his lifetime was this: Nights absent of sleep usually precede catastrophe. This was not a scientific theory, was not even a realistic hypothesis, but the truth of it had become apparent to him over the years. So when eyes stayed open and mind stayed alert—as they did on this night—it felt a warning.

  Jack had been taught by experience and the passage of time that to lie alone in the dark can make you a prisoner of your own thoughts. Such quiet solitude can put a person in a mind to examine what he’s done in his life, what he’s doing, and where his life may be pointed. What a person might’ve done, should’ve done, could’ve done, couldn’t do and wouldn’t do.

  But the worst were always the should’ves.

  Annoyed with the workings of his own mind, Jack attempted to distract himself with things imagined:

  a brown leather shoe with white-feathered wings, flapping above his head in the dark; soaring and dipping, hovering and zagging—whispering with grinning laces, “Beware! Beware!” One flying shoe divides and turns into two, two to four and four to eight. A dozen flying brown shoes gracefully weave in and around each other, never touching, whispering warnings:

  Beware.

  Doctor Jack grinned then laughed into black, cool air. Beware the shoe-doves, he thought. Shoe-doves.

  Should’ves.

  Funny how the mind works.

  He lightened at the irony and so relaxed, the fantastic dance of shoe doves evaporating as quickly as they’d materialized. Sleep was now a possibility, but before his mind could escape into dreams, one last tenacious shoe-dove whispered then clawed its way back into his mind. This shoe-dove’s name was Noonday Morningstar.

  Morningstar’s face had often visited Jack in dreams, sometimes in waking hours. The preacher’s face was a reminder of his own inability (or, perhaps unwillingness) to act in moments requiring courage—just as he’d failed to act on the night of Morningstar’s death. The prison guard Beauregard had acted that night. Young Buddy Bolden had acted. Even little Typhus had acted. But he—a medicine man, doctor, and spiritual leader—had merely looked on. Helpless and afraid, he had done nothing.

  But what could he have done? What should he have done? He didn’t know the answers, but he knew there were answers. Maybe it was something yet to do and not merely would’ve, could’ve, should’ve—

  Shoe dove

  Doctor Jack had always liked and admired Morningstar even though the two men had agreed on very little. There was never any bad blood between them—except for the one thing.

  Shoe dove

  Jack closed his eyes tight, rubbed at the lids, then opened them wide. Watched the dancing pinpricks explode from within, willed the pinpricks into shoe doves. Soaring, weaving, dancing. A tiny smile formed in his soul.

  This night is over for me, he quietly conceded in the dark. Time to bring on the morning.

  Doctor Jack sat bolt upright with thoughts of hot chicory simmering in his head, felt for the lamp, found a box of matches. The smell of burning saltpetre was pleasantly wakeful to him. He breathed in deep with eyes closed.

  Three quick raps at the door gave him a start. Nocturnal intrusions were not unusual in his line of work, but Jack’s recent sleepless premonition of bad-things-coming-soon had put him on edge. He hurriedly touched match to wick before seeing to the door.

  Typhus Morningstar nodded to Jack and walked in casually, as if this were a thing he did often at four in the morning. “Sorry if I woke you,” Typhus said, clearly troubled.

  “That’s all right, Typhus,” said Jack. “I was having trouble sleeping anyway.”

  “Me too.”

  Jack pulled up a chair for Typhus who only stared at it and remained standing. “Trouble sleeping, eh? Well, that’s a shame. But what brings you here at this unusual hour?”

  “I’m sorry. Didn’t want to wake Malaria and Dropsy, and didn’t want to sit up in the dark no more all alone. Bad dream. I’m really sorry to bother you, Doctor Jack.”

  “That’s all right, little pardna. Gonna take care of you just fine. Dreams can be worse than most sicknesses. There’s no shame in dreaming.”

  Typhus dragged his feet to the corner farthest from the door, eased himself into a sitting position with his head leaning leftways against the wall. His eyes were sleepy but unblinking.

  Jack nudged him gently: “You feel like talking about it? This dream of your’n?’

  “Not sure how.”

  “Well, just start at the beginning. If you remember, that is. Sometimes dreams can rush out of your head on the waking.”

  “I remember.” Typhus’ eyes told Jack that not only did he remember, but that he may spend the rest of his life trying to forget. “Don’t know if I can talk about it, though. Hurts to even think about it.”

  “I see,” said Jack.

  “No, you don’t see, Doctor Jack. No one can see.”

  “True enough, little pardna. Be plenty of time to make me see tomorrow morning. After you done got some rest. And only if you want.”

  “Guess why I come is on account of how the dream made me feel. Like I’m all alone in this world.” Doctor Jack laid some sheepskins behind Typhus, who reclined against them.

  “Dreams can’t make you alone, Typhus.” Jack walked over to the medicine counter to mix one of his secret sleep remedies in a small steel cup. The taste gave the so-called secret away—its alcohol content being in the neighborhood of ninety proof. He handed the concoction to Typhus.

  “More alone than I ever felt since you gave me Lily.” Typhus sat up enough to take a sip and then a full-blown swallow. He lay his head back down without wincing.

  “Well, I guess even Lily has her limitations, son.”

  Typhus liked it when Jack called him son. “It doesn’t seem fair,” said Typhus. “I give her every bit of me, but she leave me alone at such a time. I guess that sound selfish, but I can’t help thinking it. It’s hard to talk about.”

  “Try.” Jack didn’t want to press, but had a strong feeling Typhus needed to get something off his chest.

  Typhus paused to arrange his thoughts, trying to decide between outright lying and half-truthing. He decided to talk straight. Lying wouldn’t make the sin any less, and he knew he could trust Jack to keep
his secrets.

  “Had this dream.” Typhus paused long.

  “Gathered that much already. Listen, if you’d really rather not talk about it, we can just leave it for another—”

  “Woke up hard—down there.” Typhus swallowed heavily, too far gone to turn back now. “In my privates.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow and looked on expectantly.

  “It wasn’t the kind of dream supposed to get a reaction like that. There was no pretty lady in the dream. No Lily. There was only bad stuff in the dream.”

  Jack’s eyes softened, moistening imperceptibly. “What kind of bad stuff?”

  “Evil bad. People dying. Burned alive. People I know. People I love.” Typhus discovered he was physically unable to recount any more detail than that—he hoped Jack wouldn’t push it. “I couldn’t make it go down. I tried and tried. Finally I got a knife…thought about cutting it…got scared…then I got on my bike and came over…”

  “Well, now, boy. Ain’t no crime to have a bad dream. And sometimes a person’s lower body region can act in mysterious ways. Don’t mean you was sexually interested in the bad things you saw in the dream.”

  “But I was.”

  “Was what?”

  “In-trested.” A pause, a glance down, a whisper: “Seck-shully.”

  “I think there’s a good chance you’re confused about that, son.”

  “I was,” Typhus insisted in a whisper, closing his eyes in shame.

  “Well, let’s say you were,” Doctor Jack said firmly. “Still ain’t no crime. And the fact you’re so bothered about it shows you got a good conscience.”