Tens of thousands? Hundreds of
‘-show us?’ Meleusippus was asking him.
Pop Merrill forced his lips to turn up in what must have been at least a reasonable imitation of his Folksy Crackerbarrel Smile, because they registered no surprise or distrust.
‘Pardon me, dear lady,’ Pop said. ‘M’mind went woolgatherin all on its own for a minute or two there. I guess it happens to all of us as we get on.’
‘We’re eighty-three, and our minds are as clear as window-glass,’ Eleusippus said with clear disapproval.
‘Freshly washed window-glass,’ Meleusippus added. ‘I asked if you have some new photographs you would care to show us … once you’ve put that wretched thing away, of course.’
‘It’s been ages since we saw any really good new ones,’ Eleusippus said, lighting a fresh Camel.
‘We went to The New England Psychic and Tarot Convention in Providence last month,’ Meleusippus said,
‘and while the lectures were enlightening’
‘and uplifting -‘
‘so many of the photographs were arrant fakes! Even a child of ten -‘ of seven! -‘
‘could have seen through them. So ‘. Meleusippus paused. Her face assumed an expression of perplexity which looked as if it might hurt (the muscles of her face having long since atrophied into expressions of mild pleasure and serene knowledge). ‘I am puzzled. Mr Merrill, I must admit to being a bit puzzled.’
‘I was about to say the same thing,’ Eleusippus said.
‘Why did you bring that awful thing?’ Meleusippus and Eleusippus asked in perfect two-part harmony, spoiled only by the nicotine rasp of their voices.
The urge Pop felt to say Because I didn’t know what a pair of chickenshit old cunts you two were was so strong that for one horrified second he believed he had said it, and he quailed, waiting for the twin screams of outrage to rise in the dim and hallowed confines of the parlor, screams which would rise like the squeal of rusty bandsaws biting into tough pine-knots, and go on rising until the glass in the frame of every bogus picture in the room shattered in an agony of vibration.
The idea that he had spoken such a terrible thought aloud lasted only a split-second, but when he relived it on later wakeful nights while the clocks rustled sleepily below (and while Kevin Delevan’s Polaroid crouched sleeplessly in the locked drawer of the worktable), it seemed much longer. In those sleepless hours, he sometimes found himself wishing he had said it, and wondered if he was maybe losing his mind.
What he did do was react with speed and a canny instinct for selfpreservation that were nearly noble. To blow up at the Pus Sisters would give him immense gratification, but it would, unfortunately, be short-lived gratification. If he buttered them up – which was exactly what they expected, since they had been basted in butter all their fives (although it hadn’t done a goddam thing for their skins) – he could perhaps sell them another three or four thousand dollars’ worth of claptrap ‘ghost photographs,’ if they continued to elude the lung cancer which should surely have claimed one or both at least a dozen years ago.
And there were, after all, other Mad Hatters in Pop’s mental file, although not quite so many as he’d thought on the day he’d set off to see Cedric McCarty. A little checking had revealed that two had died and one was currently learning how to weave baskets in a posh northern California retreat which catered to the incredibly rich who also happened to have gone hopelessly insane.
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I brought the camera out so you ladies could look at it. What I mean to say,’ he hastened on, observing their expressions of consternation, ‘is I know how much experience you ladies have in this field.’
Consternation turned to gratification; the sisters exchanged smug, comfy looks, and Pop found himself wishing he could douse a couple of their goddam packs of Camels with barbecue lighter fluid and jam them up their tight little old-maid asses and then strike a match. They’d smoke then, all right. They’d smoke just like plugged chimneys, was what he meant to say.
‘I thought you might have some advice on what I should do with the camera, is what I mean to say,’ he finished.
‘Destroy it,’ Eleusippus said immediately.
‘I’d use dynamite,’ Meleusippus said.
‘Acid first, then dynamite,’ Eleusippus said.
‘Right,’ Meleusippus finished. ‘It’s dangerous. You don’t have to look at that devil-dog to know that.’ She did look, though; they both did, and identical expressions of revulsion and fear crossed their faces.
‘You can feel eeevil coming out of it,’ Eleusippus said in a voice of such portentousness that it should have been laughable, like a high-school girl playing a witch in Macbeth, but which somehow wasn’t. ‘Destroy it, Mr Merrill. Before something awful happens. Before – perhaps, you’ll notice I only say perhaps – it destroys you.’
‘Now, now,’ Pop said, annoyed to find he felt just a little uneasy in spite of himself, ‘that’s drawing it a little strong. It’s just a camera, is what I mean to say.’
Eleusippus Deere said quietly: ‘And the planchette that put out poor Colette Simineaux’s eye a few years ago – that was nothing but a piece of fiberboard.’
‘At least until those foolish, foolish, foolish people put their fingers on it and woke it up,’ Meleusippus said, more quietly still.
There seemed nothing left to say. Pop picked up the camera – careful to do so by the strap, not touching the actual camera itself, although he told himself this was just for the benefit of these two old pussies – and stood.
‘Well, you’re the experts,’ he said. The two old women looked at each other and preened.
Yes; retreat. Retreat was the answer … for now, at least. But he wasn’t done yet. Every dog has its day, and you could take that to the bank. ‘I don’t want to take up any more of y’time, and I surely don’t want to discommode you.’
‘Oh, you haven’t!’ Eleusippus said, also rising.
‘We have so very few guests these days!’ Meleusippus said, also rising.
‘Put it in your car, Mr Merrill,’ Eleusippus said, ‘and then -‘
‘- come in and have tea.’
‘High tea!’
And although Pop wanted nothing more in his life than to be out of there (and to tell them exactly that: Thanks but no thanks. I want to get the fuck OUT of here), he made a courtly little half-bow and an excuse of the same sort. ‘It would be my pleasure,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I have another appointment. I don’t get to the city as often as I’d like.’ If you’re going to tell one lie, you might as well tell a pack, Pop’s own Pop had often told him, and it was advice he had taken to heart. He made a business of looking at his watch. ‘I’ve stayed too long already. You girls have made me late, I’m afraid, but I suppose I’m not the first man you’ve done that to.’
They giggled and actually raised identical blushes, like the glow of very old roses. ‘Why, Mr Merrill!’
Eleusippus trilled.
‘Ask me next time,’ he said, smiling until his face felt as if it would break. ‘Ask me next time, by the Lord Harry! You just ask and see if I don’t say yes faster’n a hoss can trot!’
He went out, and as one of them quickly closed the door behind him (maybe they think the sun’ll fade their goddam fake ghost photographs, Pop thought sourly), he turned and snapped the Polaroid at the old black woman, who was still raking leaves. He did it on impulse, as a man with a mean streak may on impulse swerve across a country road to kill a skunk or raccoon.
The black woman’s upper lip rose in a snarl, and Pop was stunned to see she was actually forking the sign of the evil eye at him.
He got into his car and backed hurriedly down the driveway.
The rear end of his car was halfway into the street and he was turning to check for traffic when his eye happened upon the Polaroid he had just taken. It wasn’t fully developed; it had the listless, milky look of all Polaroid photographs which are still developing.
Yet it had come up enough so that Pop only stared at it, the breath he had begun to unthinkingly draw into his lungs suddenly ceasing like a breeze that unaccountably drops away to nothing for a moment. His very heart seemed to cease in mid-beat.
What Kevin had imagined was now happening. The dog had finished its pivot, and had now begun its relentless ordained irrefutable approach toward the camera and whoever held it … ah, but he had held it this time, hadn’t he? He, Reginald Marion ‘Pop’ Merrill, had raised it and snapped it at the old black woman in a moment’s pique like a spanked child that shoots a pop bottle off the top of a fence-post with his BB gun because he can’t very well shoot his father, although in that humiliating, bottom-throbbing time directly after the paddling he would be more than happy to.