you that you are a liar. And you would get just what you’re asking for; just what you’re asking for. Besides that, Charles, you have a filthy mind. You mustn’t judge others by yourself, dear. After all, it is quite possible for a person with some breeding to enjoy an hour’s motoring in friendship and nothing more. But I realize that if you and-Clara Carpenter, shall we say?…”
Dad let out a noise that was something like a roar and something like a sob. “By the Eternal, I’ve sworn never to take the Lord’s name in vain, but you’re enough to try the patience of a saint. God
Stan had reached the ground floor and stood with his fingers running up and down the newel post of the stairs, looking in through the wide double doors of the living room. Mother was sitting very straight on the sofa without leaning back. Dad was standing by the mantel, one hand in his pocket and the other beating against the wood. When he looked up and saw Stan he stopped short.
Stan wanted to turn and run out the front door but his father’s eyes kept him fastened to the floor. Mother turned her head and saw him and smiled.
The telephone rang then.
Dad started and plunged down the hall to answer it, his savage “Hello!” bursting like a firecracker in the narrow hallway.
Stan moved painfully, like walking through molasses. He crossed the room and came near his mother whose smile had hardened and grown sick-looking. She whispered, “Stan, Dad is upset because I went riding with Mr. Humphries. We wanted to take you riding with us but Jennie said you weren’t here. But -Stan-let’s make believe you did go with us. You’ll go next time. I think it would make Dad feel better if he thought you were along.”
From the hall his father’s voice thundered, “By the Eternal, why did the fool have to be told in the first place? I was against telling him. It’s the Council’s business to vote on the committee’s recommendation. We had it in the bag, sewed up tight. Now every idiot in town will know just where the streets will be cut and that property will shoot sky-high by tomorrow morning…”
As Mother leaned close to Stan he smelled the perfume she had on her hair. She always put it on when she went downtown to take her singing lesson. Stan felt cold inside and empty. Even when she kissed him. “Whose boy are you, Stan? You’re Mother’s boy, aren’t you, dear?”
He nodded and walked clumsily to the double doors. Dad was coming back. He took Stan roughly by the shoulder and shoved him toward the front door. “Run along, now. Your mother and I are talking.”
Mother was beside them. “Let him stay, Charles. Why don’t you ask Stanton what-what he did this afternoon?”
Dad stood looking at her with his mouth shut tight. He still had Stan by the shoulder. Slowly he turned his head. “Stan, what’s your mother talking about?”
Stan swallowed. He hated that slack mouth and the stubble of pale yellow on the chin that came out when Dad hadn’t shaved for several hours. Mark Humphries did a trick with four little wads of newspaper and a hat and had showed Stan how to do it. And he used to ask riddles.
Stan said, “We went riding with Mr. Humphries in his automobile.” Over his father’s arm, still holding him, Stan saw Mother’s face make a little motion at him as if she were kissing the air.
Dad went on, his voice quiet and dangerous. “Where did you go with Mr. Humphries, son?”
Stan’s tongue felt thick. Mother’s face had gotten white, even her mouth. “We-we went out where we had the picnic that time.”
Dad’s fingers loosened and Stan turned and ran out into the falling dusk. He heard the front door close behind him.
Someone switched on the living-room lamp. After a while Dad came out, got in his car and went downtown. Mother had left some cold meat and bread and butter on the kitchen table and Stan ate it alone, reading the catalog. Only it had lost its flavor and there seemed to be something terribly sad about the blue willow-pattern plate and the old knife and fork. Gyp whined under the table. Stan handed him all his own meat and got some jelly and ate it on the bread. Mother was upstairs in the spare bedroom with the door locked.
The next day Mother got breakfast for him. He said nothing and neither did she. But she wasn’t a grownup any more. Or he wasn’t a kid any more. There were no more grownups. They lied when they got scared, just like anybody. Everybody was alike only some were bigger. He ate very little and wiped his mouth and said, “Excuse me,” politely. Mother didn’t ask him to do any jobs. She didn’t say anything at all.
He tied Gyp up to the kennel and set out for the woods where the old loggers’ road cut into them. He moved in a dream and the shine of the sun seemed to hold back its warmth. At the top of the Glade he paused and then slid doggedly down its slope. Around him the trees rose straight and innocent in the sun and the sound of a woodpecker came whirring through them. The grass was crushed in one place; close by Stan found a handkerchief with “C” embroidered in a corner.
He looked at it with a crawling kind of fascination and then scooped out a hole in the earth and buried it.
When he got back he kept catching himself thinking about things as if nothing had happened, then stopping and the wave of desolation would sweep over him.
Mother was in her room when he came upstairs.
But something was lying big and square on his bed. He raced in.
There it was. The “Number 3” set-Marvello Magic. A full hour’s entertainment, suitable for stage, club, or social gathering, $15.00. Its cover was gay with a picture of Mephistopheles making cards rise from a glass goblet. On the side of the box was a paper sticker which read, “Myers’ Toy and Novelty Mart” and the address downtown. The corners of the box were shiny with imitation metal bindings, printed on the paper.
Stan knelt beside the bed, gazing at it. Then he threw his arms around it and beat his forehead against one of the sharp corners until the blood came.
Outside the trolley had approached and slid under the hotel window, groaning its lonely way through the night. Stan was trembling. He threw back the covers, switched on the bed light and stumbled into the bathroom. From his fitted case he took a vial and shook a white tablet into his hand. He found the tooth glass, swallowed the tablet with a gulp of tepid water.
When he got back in bed it was several minutes before the sedative began to work and he felt the peaceful grogginess stealing up to his brain.
“Christ, why did I have to go thinking of that?” he said aloud. “After all these years, why did I have to see her? And Christmas only a week off.”
CARD VII
“STAN, honey, I’m scared.”
He slowed the car and bent to look at the road signs. Sherwood Park-8 miles. “We’re nearly there. What are you scared of? Because these people have a lot of jack? Whistle the eight bars of our opener and you’ll snap out of it.”
“I’ve tried that, Stan. Only-gosh, it’s silly. But how’ll I know which fork to grab? The way they lay out these fancy dinners looks like Tiffany’s window.”
The Great Stanton turned off the highway. Late light of summer evening lay over the sky; his headlights threw back the pale undersides of leaves as the roadster sped up the lane. On either side elms stood in columns of dignity.
“Nothing to it. Watch the old dame at the head of the table. Just stall until she dives in and she’ll cue you on the hardware. My mother’s folks had barrels of jack once. The old lady knew her way around. That’s what she used to tell my old man whenever they went anywhere.”
The house rose out of the dusk behind a sweep of lawn as big as a golf course. At the door a Negro butler with tiny brass buttons said, “Let me rest your coat and hat, sir.”
“My name is Stanton. Stanton the Mentalist.”
