The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII

Nights In The City by JESSICA AMANDA SALMONSON

What a shame that in this world there is so much suffering. Today in the street I saw an elderly man standing alone, miserable and lost, having soiled his pants so that pedestrians made sour faces and veered away from his odor. He wanted to know where there was a certain street, but no one would answer him. He had gotten off the bus because the driver told him the street was nearby, but he couldn't find it. So, holding my breath, I walked up to this very old and ugly man and said, "You cannot get to that street from here. You are in the entirely wrong part of the city." And he began to wail, "But I haven't a bus transfer and it was my last change! The driver didn't give me a transfer! Why did he tell me my street was this one?" What should I tell him? That the driver probably didn't want a man who had soiled his pants to ride the bus and had neglected to give him a transfer in case he tried once more to get on the bus and find his proper way? I left the old man so that I could take a couple deep breaths, then I walked back to him and told him not to shout and weep, that if he would walk down to the bottom of the hill, which was a long way, he would see a bridge across the freeway, and across that, some distance further, he would find the road that would connect him with the street he sought, or at least one end of it. The last I saw of him, he was going down the hill as I directed. Several minutes later, as I continued toward errands of my own, I suddenly realized I had told him a wrong turn, and he would end up under the freeway viaduct, even more hopelessly lost than before.

So you see it is a sad world. And as this is the truth of things, how can I be expected to sit down and write stories for the magazines and anthologies that are so much hot air meant to entertain? How can I write you a spooky ghost story that you will enjoy a great deal because secretly you do not believe in ghosts and the terror isn't real to you. Someday you will be standing on a street corner, old and pitiful, having shit your pants, and a middle-aged woman with a sincere face will give you bad directions. That, my friend, is real terror. But you would rather hear about a weird visitation — a ghost or a vampire — something like that. Very well, but no more of these trumped up horror stories that could never be. This is about an actual spirit, an absolutely true story that I have never told anybody until now because I knew they wouldn't believe me. It happened to me quite a while ago, when I was a pretty girl. All kinds of men were attracted to me in those days, even a dead one. I thought I would never be rid of him. Don't laugh, or you will shit your pants! Then who will want to sit by you on the bus?

The bus is in a lot of my stories because I live in the city and don't drive a car. I write about what I know. That is also why I so often write about pain and about ghosts. I know about ghosts. If I had a dollar for every bus I've been on and five dollars for every ghost I've seen, I could break even riding the bus. One day on the bus, when I was young and good-looking, a very pale fellow got on without paying. I saw him not pay the driver, but the driver didn't say a thing. I should have known at that moment that the pale man was a ghost, but in those days, I didn't believe in them. Whether someone believes in ghosts or not, they are everywhere. Everybody sees them all the time. But if you don't believe in them, you think they are something else, living people perhaps, or crazy ones, or dogs hunched back in the shadows of the alleys. But they're ghosts.

I have a lot of tricks to keep people from sitting beside me on the bus. The simplest is to slouch all over the place and pretend not to notice anybody. A more subtle method is to give the general impression that I'm getting off at the next stop. No one likes to sit beside someone, only to have to get up and let them out of the seat right away. Another excellent method is to look very intensely out the window on the opposite side of the bus. A new rider will not want to sit down and get in your line of vision. Usually I do things like that, but as this fellow had not paid his bus fare, I looked at him as if to say, "Hey, I had to pay for this ride, so you better do it too!" But the eye contact was a bad idea. He completely misunderstood what I was thinking. He smiled at me and I knew he intended to sit beside me. Another girl might have liked the idea, because he looked pretty clean, and his smile was innocent. But I thought he looked like Aubrey Beardsley and who wants to sit with some sick, skinny young fellow who parts his hair down the middle? What a clown he was! And now he was sitting beside me, a bit too close, and saying, "I only just got here."

I didn't say a thing to him at first. I ignored him. What was I supposed to say to such a line as that? Oh, that's nice, I'm very glad you just got here. Or, should I have asked him where «here» is and how was he so sure he had made it even now?

"In Seattle, I mean," he added. "Until a few minutes ago, I was in Dallas."

He had a Texas accent. It added to his general air of being a clown.

"Have you ever been to Dallas?" he asked.

"Once, I was," I admitted, not looking at him.

"It was always ugly," he said. "Now it's worse. A lot of office towers, and downtown it's boring and there are no good places to eat, if you're a vegetarian like myself."

As a matter of fact I was a vegetarian like himself. So, despite my defenses, which were big walls from here to the moon, he had somehow managed to climb over. I turned my head to give this skeletal clown of a Texan a long look, and he showed me those big teeth again. Big eyes, too. He wasn't bad looking if you like skeletons. I had to turn away so he wouldn't see my silent laugh.

"I never wanted to live in Dallas but I didn't have a choice: I was born there. Poverty killed my mother. In Texas you either have a lot or you don't have anything. Seattle is much nicer. Even if you don't have anything, you have a lot."

That was true. There was the water, the mountains, the parks, the stores, the trees, and you could walk to everything — or catch the bus.

"I thought it was the end for me," he said. "I always wanted to see Seattle, or else Paris, but my mother was born in Seattle and talked about it a lot. I always thought Seattle was on a map next to Paradise.

That's when I was little. I thought Paradise could be found on a map, you see. Seattle would be close by. I always thought that if someone dies and goes to heaven, it wouldn't be far out of the way to go to Seattle first."

At this point I could not help but laugh out loud, and it was no use trying to hide it. I was going to look him straight in the face to do my laughing. Only I didn't laugh. When I turned my head, there was no one sitting beside me. I looked down the aisle and up. The bus was approaching my own stop, so I had to get off. "How did he do that?" I wondered. I guessed he must have been hiding.

"Hey! Hey! You never told me your name!" he shouted several days later. He came running down the sidewalk in my direction. His gait was awkward. He ran on his toes and leaned too far forward. His comically parted hair was sticking up in back. His big teeth smiled. His big eyes smiled. I was afraid he was going to smash right into me. "Let me take your groceries!" he said, out of breath, but I wouldn't let him take them. "You'd drop them," I said. He was so skinny I doubted he could carry anything heavier than a balloon without falling down with it. I said, "I thought only girls were anorexic."

"Boys sometimes," he said. "But I'm not. I'm just skinny."

He walked along beside me. I wasn't sure what to do. I had no particular reason to trust him. He was a stranger to me. But if he kept following me, he'd see where I lived. If I went somewhere else besides home, I'd have to carry the groceries everywhere and the milk would get warm.

"Want a picnic?" he asked.

"No."

"When was your last picnic?"

"I don't go on picnics."

"Why not?" he asked. "It's such a nice city! Lots of places to have a picnic! Isn't life a picnic? Gee, Seattle is swell!"

He was definitely an exasperating clown. "You should be glad you live here," he said. "I am glad," I replied curtly. "You didn't tell me your name." I told him my name. "That's a nice name." "Thank you. I picked it myself." "My name is Henry." "Terrible," I said. "I know. I didn't choose it." "Change it," I said. "To what?" "Sam," I said.

"Okay, my name is Sam. Oh! Must be going. See you soon!" And when I looked around, he was gone.

You may be thinking this is an amusing story, but it isn't. Sam was a very unhappy fellow despite that he kept smiling. It made him miserable that I was smart-mouthed with him and not interested in his uninvited attention. He was in Seattle on his first trip to anywhere in the world, and on his best behavior as travelers always are, and he was hoping for a wonderful adventure, a nice romance. But I was the only girl he had met so far and I had a smart mouth. I wouldn't even go on a picnic with him. If that's not sad, then you don't know what sadness is. Sam was very sad.

As for me, I wasn't sad in those days. That came later. Or before, I forget which. In those days I was having an affair with a shot-putter, a big young woman with a mean arm who could bench-press I forget how much, a million pounds. She was Olympics material and was supposed to go to Russia for some trials but fell in love with a country-western singer named Tasha and gave up her chances to be recognized as a world-class athlete so she could be a go-fer for Tasha's band. Made a complete fool of herself. But it wasn't giving up much, I guess. Shot-putters don't get to be on boxes of Wheaties or pose with fancy cars. Neither do athletes who won't or can't hide the fact that they're dykes. Obviously everything I'm telling you has to be the truth, you surely realize, since even in a ghost story, nobody could make such things up. So, as I was saying, this was after her thing with Tasha, and I was very happy with this big-muscled girl. It didn't last a long time, but it was a nice affair and I was still in the middle of that when Sam tried to get to know me. If I had been on the rebound maybe I would have responded. Who can be sure? As it was, I didn't need any scarecrow of a Texan for a boyfriend. Forget him, I thought.

"Hi," I said, when I saw him sitting on the outdoor deck of a cafe I often patronize.

"Hi!" he shouted in surprise. I was standing right in front of him.

"You were somewhere else," I said.

"Me? No. I've been in Seattle the whole time."

"I mean you were daydreaming."

"How do you know?"

I laughed. It was hard to make sense out of that boy.

"I don't know if I was daydreaming or not," he said. "I was sitting over there on west Queen Anne Hill waiting for the sunset a couple of minutes ago, wondering where you might be. Suddenly, here I was."

Queen Anne was pretty far away from Capitol Hill. I supposed he exaggerated how fast he covered the distance.

"I was going to have their quiche," I said. "Care to join me?"

"What's a quiche?"

I laughed again. He was a Texan after all. "Cheese and egg pie with broccoli — at this place anyway. It used to be the 'in' food. This is the only place that still makes any. You eat cheese and eggs, don't you?"

"I used to. I don't eat anything now."

"The ultimate Gandhiist," I said. "Well, I'm going to eat."

He came in with me but didn't order anything, wasn't even acknowledged by the woman behind the counter. He sat across the table from me.

"You should order something," I said. "You're too thin. You must be anemic. I thought all Texans had tans."

"Not me," he said.

"I can see that."

"I mean not me, I'm not anemic."

"Do you take vitamins?"

"Use to. Lots. Want to see a French film with me? I like French films. Can't see them in Dallas."

"Okay. I'll see a French film with you. Dutch?"

"I can pay."

"Wow, a real date," I said. "I thought you were poor."

"I got here with about twenty dollars in small bills in my pockets. No matter how many times I spend them, they're still there. I think they must disappear from the cash drawers and get back in my pockets. I guess it isn't honest, huh?"

"Pretty handy pockets if you ask me," I said.

"It looks as though I can spend the money forever and ever if I wanted."

"If you get new pants," I said, "save me your old pockets."

I ate my dinner and we went to see a French comedy. It was about two girls and a guy. Why was it always two girls and a guy? Why not just two girls? Why not two guys? Why not two guys and a girl? The French are like that. I ate popcorn in the dark and offered some to Sam but he never took any. He held my hand for a while, a delicate touch. Then there was a really funny scene. The guy in the comedy had been locked hi the bathroom and the girls were in bed together. The guy was yelling, according to the subtitles, "What are you doing out there? Why is the door stuck?" I was laughing really hard at that part. I was the only one. After the film was over, I turned to ask Sain if he liked the part about the bathroom, but he was gone. "Probably went to the bathroom," I said to myself. I waited by the exit a long time, then said, "Stupid Texan," and went to see my shot-put girl.

The two things you can't find when you need them are police officers and bathrooms. This is why so many old people shit their pants in public. They get so frightened of the muggers and purse-snatchers and street punks, they just shit their pants. If there were more police officers around, things wouldn't smell so bad. I'm not sure what the connection is exactly, but bathrooms and police officers are part of the conspiracy of misery. Something to do with the way the universe works. I'm still thinking about that old guy I gave bad directions to. He is probably under the viaduct at this very moment, while I tell you this story of my youthful follies. I was also thinking of the scene in the French movie. I remember almost nothing about that movie, not the title or anything, but I remember that bathroom. Funny the things you'll remember years later.

Sam appeared in my apartment before evening.

"Shit, fuck, Sam! What are you doing in my place! How did you get in!"

I cussed a bunch more. I was beside myself. I was instantly and extremely very, very mad. Sam looked hurt that I wasn't glad to see him. But I value my privacy. I don't tell many people where I live. I don't go see many people, either. Even my best friends, I expect them to knock on the door first. But some skinny turd from Texas who took me to a movie once thinks he can barge right in. Boy, was I mad. By the time I could see straight, Sam wasn't there. I hadn't heard him leave. The doors were still bolted from the inside. Had I imagined him? Was I even crazier than I knew about?

Several days later he appeared in my apartment again. It must have been two or three in the morning. I rolled over on the futon and there he was, standing beside my quilts, a gawky shadow. "You asshole," I groaned sleepily, feeling helpless because I slept naked. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm a virgin," he said.

"Get the hell out of here."

"How can a boy just die and be happy if he's a virgin?"

"If you don't get out you'll find out because I'll kill you."

"Somebody already did."

I wasn't hearing straight. I was really tired. But Sam was weeping. I fumbled for my bed lamp but its twenty-five watts didn't light the bedroom much. In the dimness, I saw that Sam was paler and skinnier than ever, like something was wasting him away. He rubbed his eyes with long, thin fingers and tried to brace up. He tried to put on a manly show. But he was just a stupid skinny kid. "I always wanted to come to Seattle," he said.

"Well you made it," I growled, sitting up and pulling a cover all around me. I said, "I didn't know you were a cracked nut, Sam. You can't break into people's places like this."

"I didn't break anything."

"What would they do in Texas if you did this?"

"Shoot me, I guess. I never liked Texas."

"Seattle's mellow, Sam, but it's not that mellow. If I had a gun, I'd shoot you too."

"But if you were a Texan, you'd have the gun. Three or four."

"Why have you come at this ungodly hour?"

"To say good-bye." His expression was so sad. His eyes were like a big puppy's.

"Going back to Dallas?"

"God! I hope not. I don't know where I'm going. But I'm going somewhere, I can tell. I keep feeling it pull at me."

"I know the feeling," I said.

"But I didn't want to go and still be a virgin."

"Look," I said. "In this life you get to visit Seattle once, or you get to be laid. You can't have them both."

That made him smile. Big teeth smiling.

"Pretty subtle fucker, aren't you? Look, would you believe me if I said I was a dyke?"

"Yes."

"You would? Why, do I look like a goddamned dyke?"

"No."

"Good. Well, I am."

"I thought so."

"You did?" I didn't know how to take this guy. "Then why the hell have you been following me all over the city? You got a thing about lesbians or something?"

"Yes."

There was something so painfully, asininely innocent about his reply that I couldn't even be annoyed. I had to admit I was attracted to the clown. I had Beardsley drawings on my walls, and a couple different books about his life, what there was of it. Suppose that that pathetic boy came to you in the middle of the night and said, "Look, I'm dying of consumption, I won't live long, but I took a good bath, and I'm going to die a virgin unless you help me out."

I threw back the covers. "Hop in."

He stood there gaping.

"Come on, hop in."

He fell onto the quilts like a snapped twig. "Really?" he said.

"What are friends for?" I helped him undress. "Do you know anything about this sort of thing?"

"Sure. Lots of pictures."

He started nosing around my body.

He was clumsy but his touch was light, pleasant. He was skinny as a girl but sharper-edged. Was he any good? Not really. But I kept thinking his name wasn't Sam or Henry, but Aubrey. I rather liked it. To tell the truth, that bench-pressing shot-putting girlfriend of mine wasn't any worse or better. So I couldn't complain. And he was having a good time. Afterward, he chattered on and on like I was the only friend he'd ever had in his whole miserable, boring life. He trusted me. He loved me. He poured out his soul.

In the morning he was gone, the bolts to the doors still locked from the inside.

I would've looked him up in the Dallas directory but he never told me his last name. But I guess I sort of knew all along he was dead anyway. And I'll always remember the last thing I heard him say before I nodded off to sleep that night, with him in my arms. The poor sweet boy, smiling at me in the dark, whispering, "I always knew Seattle was next to paradise."