Darkness Under the Sun

1

A week before his eleventh birthday, when Howie Dugley climbed to the roof of the former Boswell’s Emporium to watch normal people doing all kinds of ordinary things along Maple Street, he saw the monster for the first time.

Howie’s family lived only two blocks from the building in which Boswell’s had formerly done business. He could get there by crossing the cemetery beside St. Anthony’s Church and then following a cobbled alleyway that seldom had traffic. Huge scarlet oaks, glossy green now in mid-June, shaded the graveyard. Howie liked the trees. They lived longer than people, and they seemed wise to him, wiser than people would ever be, because they had seen so much and they had nothing to do but think about what they had seen and then grow ever bigger. He wished he could just sit under them for a while or even climb them, climb up into the quiet wisdom of the trees. But that was too risky. That would be asking to have his butt kicked. He got plenty of butt-kicking without asking for it.

As he made his way through the cemetery, in addition to all the tree shadows, headstones and monuments provided some cover. He wore a baseball cap, kept his head down, and was prepared to avert the left side of his face from anyone he might encounter — and to run if he spotted any of the usual goons.

Nine months earlier, Boswell’s moved into a new building a block north of its former quarters. The old brick structure would in time be remodeled for some new business; but that work hadn’t begun yet.

Along the bottom of the back wall were five French windows, each two feet high and three long, which looked into the basement of the emporium. They had been opened from time to time to ventilate that lower space, to prevent mildew, in the days before air-conditioning and dehumidifiers. All five seemed to be locked, but when Howie pushed hard on the middle one, the corroded piano hinge along the top moved with a dry grinding noise. He slid feetfirst through the opening, into the gloomy cellar, and then reached high to press the window shut.

Clipped to his belt was a small flashlight, which he used to navigate the former storerooms of the vacant basement. The narrow beam picked out his path, but it did little to brighten the musty chambers through which he passed. Menaces unknown appeared to creep and quiver in the darkness around him, but those phantoms were nothing more than shadows shuddering away from the traveling light and billowing back after it passed. Howie wasn’t afraid of darkness. He had learned young that the dangers in bright daylight were worse than anything that might wait in the dark, that the bogeyman could have a kind face and a winning smile.

The elevator no longer worked. He climbed stairs to the fourth floor and then ascended a final flight, steeper and narrower than those before it. These last stairs led into the lid-service room, which was a kind of shed on the flat roof of the building. Here were stored snow shovels, push brooms, other tools, and products that the maintenance staff required.

Although Howie always engaged the deadbolt on the outer door when departing the roof, he found it unlocked. Apparently, he had forgotten the bolt on his previous visit. He opened the door and stepped out into sunshine, facing east toward the alley.

Paved with gray ceramic tiles, the roof didn’t lie perfectly flat. A slight pitch in it allowed water to drain toward scuppers along the parapet. That perimeter wall came waist high to a grown man, higher to Howie. Every three feet, there was an eighteen-inch-wide crenellation like in a castle wall where archers would stand to defend against barbarians.

Howie doubted that barbarians had ever attacked Boswell’s, which was only a small department store, or that Boswell’s had employed archers or steely-eyed gunmen to defend the place. They had designed the brick parapet with crenellations just for looks, for the style, but it was nonetheless cool. No structure in town stood taller than the old Boswell building, not even the new Boswell building. Howie could kneel at one of the crenellations, lean into it, and peer down at people on Maple Street, watch them going in and out of stores and restaurants, and imagine what his life might be like if he weren’t so different from them.

When he rounded the lid-service shed, he saw a sentinel sitting sideways to the parapet, gazing down into the heart of town through one of the crenellations. Although Howie had stepped quietly onto the roof, the sentry turned his head to see who had joined him, and it was then that the boy realized he shared the roof with a monster.

For a moment, about thirty feet apart, they were dead still as they stared at each other. In spite of his surprise, Howie sensed something familiar about the encounter, as though he had dreamed it once and had forgotten the dream, or as if he had known subconsciously, clairvoyantly, that one day it would occur. Other boys might have run, but Howie didn’t run anymore because he knew running could get you killed. Step by slow step, the boy closed the distance between them to fifteen feet before stopping with his face half turned away, studying the stranger mostly with his right eye.

The man’s short greasy hair lay in snarls that looked so much like tangled spiders that Howie wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them abruptly twitched, came apart from one another, and crawled to different places on his misshapen skull. His eyebrows were thick and bristly, but his face seemed to be as beardless as a boy’s; in some places his skin appeared too pink, in other places ghostly pale, and everywhere as smooth and unnatural as the poreless plastic skin of a doll. Under the stony shelf of a crude brow, his deep-set eyes glimmered, black and alert like those of a crow, and his nose was a fierce beak. The proportions of the man’s face were wrong, the bones too sharp in some places, too thick and blunt in others. His upper lip was thin and colorless, his lower lip purple and too fat, the teeth yellow, crooked.

“Don’t be afraid,” the stranger said, and his voice was deep and raspy like the voices of movie monsters. “There’s no reason to be afraid. I’m not what I appear to be.”

Closing to within ten feet of the man before halting again, in the grip of wonder, as though he had encountered a magical being, Howie said, “Where did you come from? What’re you doing here?”

“Is this your roof then? Am I trespassing?”

“Not my roof,” Howie said.

“Well, so I guess we’re both trespassing.”

“I guess we are.”

Even though the man was sitting, Howie could see that he was tall, maybe six and a half feet, as thin as a scarecrow but strong. Huge hands. Bony wrists like the cumbersome joints of old machines. Long arms. His shoulder blades weren’t formed properly, straining against his khaki shirt, so he looked hunchbacked.

“Don’t be afraid,” the man repeated. “My name’s Alton Turner Blackwood. I wouldn’t tell a person my name if I meant him any harm.”

After a hesitation, Howie half surprised himself when he turned his head to fully face Mr. Blackwood and took off his baseball cap. “Don’t you be afraid, either.”

Mr. Blackwood studied the left side of Howie’s face, noticed his three-fingered left hand and stared at that a moment, and then said, “Listen here, boy — if there was such a thing as a world-cup scare-’em contest with seven judges, I’d beat you seven votes to nothing.”

“Maybe five to two,” Howie said.

“You’re either flattering yourself something terrible or being polite to me. It would be seven to zero, and don’t you insult my intelligence by trying to argue the point. I’m going to do for you my ultimate freak-’em-out face, and then you tell me honestly whether you’d get a single vote.”

Mr. Blackwood’s scariest face was a big grin, and it proved to be such a fearsome sight that Howie gasped and shrank back a step. His reaction made Mr. Blackwood laugh, and that laughing face looked even more terrible than the grin.

Although the man’s laughter was an ugly sound, like the gasp and gurgle of a half-plugged drain, his good-natured self-mockery made him appealing.

After a moment, Howie smiled and said, “All right, you win. I wouldn’t get a single vote.”

“So you’re an honest boy, after all. I knew you were, and good for you.”

Howie put on his cap again and went to the crenellation that was two away from the one where Mr. Blackwood sat, which left seven or eight feet between them.

“What’s your name then?” Mr. Blackwood asked.

“Howie. Howie Dugley. My middle name’s Mabry, but I never use it. That’s asking for trouble. What’re you doing up here?”

With a gesture, Mr. Blackwood indicated the street below. “Just watching the parade.”

“There’s no parade.”

“There’s always a parade, Howie. When it’s something you can’t ever join but only watch, then it’s a parade.”

Howie stared down at the street, down there where people were just being people, unaware that they were watched and envied, and then he looked at Mr. Blackwood again. “What happened to you?”

“Birth happened to me. Birth defects. I came into the world like this. Birth and death — it’s hard to say which is worse. Of course when I came into the world, I wasn’t so big as I am now, but even uglier in my infant form, so they say. I’m guessing … with you, it was fire of some kind.”

“Some kind,” Howie acknowledged.

“When did it happen?”

“I was five. Almost six years ago.”

“You must’ve had a few surgeries.”

“Eleven. The last was two years ago.”

“I’m sorry — I mean, how it must have hurt.”

Howie shrugged as if the pain hadn’t been anything even though for a while it had been everything. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Mr. Blackwood shook his head sympathetically. “Well, medicine, you know — they’re always making progress. Someday, they’ll be able to do a lot better by you.”

The longer Howie listened to the rough voice, the less it seemed like that of a movie monster and the more it sounded like the voice of a cartoon bear or something.

“You had surgeries?” Howie asked.

“Nope. Don’t want any, either. I’ve got a thing about knives.”

“You’re scared of being cut on?”

“Not scared,” Mr. Blackwood said. “I just have this thing about knives. You come up here often?”

Howie shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“To watch Maple Street. The people down there. You know.”

“The parade,” said Mr. Blackwood. “Boy, you’ve got a fine half of your face, and the other half won’t ever scare anyone. There’s a place for you in the parade.”

Howie disagreed. “People stare.”

“Stare back at them, they’ll stop.”

“I don’t like what I see when I stare back.”

“What do you see?” When Howie didn’t reply, Mr. Blackwood said, “You see pity, and you don’t like being pitied. Don’t let pride keep you out of the parade, Howie. You don’t want a lonely life.”

“They call me names. Sometimes they push and shove and trip me. They laugh.”

“That would be other kids,” Mr. Blackwood said.

“Mostly, I guess.”

“Listen, a lot of cruel kids grow out of their cruelty. A few don’t. You can’t let the few decide what your life will be like.”

Only Howie’s mother had ever talked to him like this, and for some reason the same words didn’t mean as much coming from her as they did when they came from Mr. Blackwood.

“Why haven’t I ever seen you before?” Howie asked.

“I only came to town last night. Just sort of blew here on the breeze, you might say. Found the basement window that isn’t locked. Camped out downstairs on the ground floor near the back door. I’ll be leaving maybe tomorrow night.”

“What’re you here for?”

“For a place to be,” said Mr. Blackwood. “It’s a place between two other places, that’s all. I never stay long anywhere.”

“What do you do? For work. What’s your work?”

“I drift. It’s my job and my pleasure. Always moving on, seeing what I can of the world.”

Surprised, Howie said, “You get paid to drift?”

“It pays. I get everything I want.” Mr. Blackwood licked his lips, as if he’d just thought of something sweet. “What about you — have you lived here all your life?”

“Except when I went away for surgery at the burn center.”

“You live nearby?”

“Two blocks east on Wyatt Street. Are you a hobo?”

“Some people think so. But I’m something else. You have any sisters? Brothers or sisters?”

“Just Corrine.”

“Is she older than you?”

“A lot, yeah. She’s sixteen.”

“That’s a nice age for a girl,” Mr. Blackwood said.

“Is it? Why is it nicer than any other age?”

Mr. Blackwood closed his eyes and rocked his head from side to side. “Young enough to be still tender, but old enough to be ready for the world. What’s your mom’s name?”

“Nora. She’s really old. She’s thirty-five. What else are you, since you’re not a hobo?”

“I know all the hobo ways and tricks. But what I am most of all is a dreamer.” He opened his eyes. “What about your dad?”

After a silence, Howie said, “I don’t have a dad anymore.”

“I’m sorry, boy. If he died, that is.”

“He didn’t die,” Howie said.

Mr. Blackwood seemed genuinely interested. “But he doesn’t live with you. So was it divorce then?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s still your dad, though.”

“No.”

“You still see him, don’t you?”

“I can’t. I wouldn’t.”

Mr. Blackwood was silent. Then: “How long ago was this divorce?”

“When I was five.”

“The year you were burned.”

Wanting to get away from all that kind of talk, Howie said, “What’s a dreamer do?”

“Right now I’m dreaming of doing something special. But I don’t have all the details dreamed out just yet. When I do, I’ll tell you all about it. No dad all these years — that’s tough. Maybe your mom has a boyfriend lives with her, he could be a kind of dad.”

“No. She doesn’t. It’s just the three of us.”

As he stared down at the street, Howie was aware that Mr. Blackwood watched him with interest. “You’re the man of the house.”

“I guess so. How do you drift everywhere? You have a car?”

“Sometimes I get a car and drive. Or I hitch a ride in an empty railroad boxcar. I even take a bus from time to time.”

“Don’t people stare at you on a bus?”

“I sit right up front so they can get a good look.”

“I wouldn’t like them gawking at me.”

“If they gawk too much, I give them a spooky stare, and that cures them of it.”

“I wish I had a spooky stare,” Howie said.

“You see, it’s just like I told you — there’s nothing scary about you, Howie Dugley.”

“Do you always sleep in empty old buildings like this?”

“Not always. Sometimes in whatever vehicle I’m driving. Now and then under a bridge or in a field with my sleeping bag. Sometimes in homeless shelters, and sometimes in a house I like.”

“You have a house somewhere?”

“I have houses all over, any place I like,” said Mr. Blackwood.

“Then you’re not poor?”

“Not me. I’ve got everything I could ever want. I do what I want. I do anything I want.” From one of the many pockets in his khaki pants, he fished a thick roll of folding money. “Does this town have a respectable take-out joint that makes great sandwiches?”

“There’s a place or two.”

Peeling a twenty and a ten from the roll, holding them out toward Howie, Mr. Blackwood said, “Why don’t you go buy us lunch? Two sandwiches for me, one for you, some Cokes. Don’t bother with the cellar window. Go out by the back door. It won’t lock behind if you set the latch lever straight up.”

The hand was so big that it could have covered Howie’s entire face, heel under his chin and fingertips past his hairline, thumb hooked in one ear, the little finger in the other. Even the little finger was large and, like all the others, had a freakishly big pad at the end, bigger than a soup spoon, almost like the sucker pads on the toes of a toad.

That hand looked so strong, maybe it could tear off your face and wad it up like Kleenex. If Mr. Blackwood wanted to hurt Howie, however, he would have done it already. Another thing to think about was that if Mr. Blackwood changed his mind about drifting, if he decided to stay here because he made friends in town, he would be a great friend to have. Bigger kids, no matter how big they were, no matter how mean, wouldn’t lie in wait for Howie and knock him around anymore, wouldn’t pull down his pants and laugh at him, wouldn’t call him Scarface or the Eight-Fingered Freak or the Claw, if they knew that he was a friend of Mr. Blackwood’s.

“I don’t usually go in places like restaurants unless my mom makes me go with her, and I never go alone.”

Still offering the money, Mr. Blackwood said, “Then it’ll be good for you to do it. You’ll see how they’ll take your money as quick as anyone’s, they’ll give you what you want like they would any customer. And if someone stares at you — just smile back at them. You don’t have a Frankenstein smile like me, but a nice smile will work as well, maybe better. You’ll see.”

Howie approached Mr. Blackwood and took the thirty bucks.

Dark muddy-red stains marred the bills. “They’re spendable,” Mr. Blackwood assured him. “Let them think you’re buying sandwiches for your mom. If they know we’re up here, they’ll chase us off before we have our lunch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s a lot of money — thirty bucks. But I trust you to do the right thing, Howie. There can’t be friendship without trust.”

Whether in the sunlight or in the occasional cloud shadow, Mr. Blackwood appeared so strange that he didn’t seem entirely real. But his eyes — so coal-black you couldn’t see any difference between the iris and the pupil — his eyes were as real as anything in the world, and they drilled right through you, seemed to look into your mind and read your thoughts.

Mr. Blackwood winked. “If they have any tasty-looking cookies, get a couple of those, too.”