The Sound of Building Coffins

blade visible-a scalpel just two and a half inches long. He stood in a defensive posture with the knife in hand as if Jack’s words were deadly weapons from which he needed to protect himself.

Jack raised both hands in a gesture of truce. “Typhus, you asked me a question and I mean to answer it. But I do want to warn you that what I have to say won’t set well.”

“Just stop,” said Typhus. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“You came for answers, Typhus. Am I wrong about that?”

“I changed my mind. Just stop.”

“Typhus, I think you already know the hardest part of this. The woman in that picture- Lily-her name ain’t really Lily. Do you know her real name, Typhus?”

“Stop it!” Typhus slapped his hands forcefully over his ears, the scalpel making a small puncture wound to the right side of his neck.

“Typhus, I loved her. And she loved me.”

“Please…”

“Your mother didn’t have green eyes like yours, Typhus. But I do.”

“Oh God…”

“When you were born, your father took one look at you, and he knew. He’d suspected her infidelity before that day, but it was in your green eyes that those ugly suspicions became reality. His rage was fleeting, but the result was regretful. He took your mother’s life that day. Bloody, but quick.”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it…” the scalpel was digging deeper into Typhus’ neck-he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Doctor Jack continued:

“Your father calmed quickly and was instantly remorseful-devastated by what he’d done. But her death was as much my fault as his-more so, in a way. So I helped him to cover it up-it was the least I could do. I wrote up the report as ‘death during delivery, natural causes.’ Your father never forgave me, but he was a good man in his heart and always meant to do right. He thought it wrong to keep you and me apart, Typhus-being blood kin as we were then, are now, and always will. So when you were old enough, he let you come work for me…”

“Jesus…”

Jack wanted to press on with the story, get it all out, purge himself of every detail-but it was evident to him that Typhus had already taken too much in. It was too much all at once-there’d be time for details later. Jack returned his hand to Typhus’ shoulder and, this time, Typhus didn’t shake it off.

“Son-” Jack started again.

“Don’t call me that,” Typhus whispered.

“Typhus, I know these are hard things to hear-”

“No. No more. It’s my turn to talk.”

“Typhus, please listen-”

“Who was here last night? Some hooker? Did you hire a prostitute? How much do I owe you for that?”

Jack had hoped Typhus wouldn’t ask this question straight away. Hoped he might be content to process things a little at a time. “Typhus, there’s plenty of time to talk about that later. Plenty of time for anger. Then a time for healing. Maybe even reconciliation.”

“Reconciliation? Who was she, you bastard? Did she get a good laugh out of the pathetic, lovesick midget? Did you have to pay extra? Do freaks cost extra?”

“Typhus, nobody laughed.”

“Who was she, damn you? Answer me goddammit or I’ll kill you, I swear it.” Typhus held the scalpel up in Jack’s direction.

“Typhus,” Jack wasn’t sure how to continue. All he knew for certain was that he would never again lie to the boy. His boy. His son. “Typhus, there was nobody here last night except for you and me.” There. It was out. All of the ugliness, out on the table.

The truth crystallized slowly but surely in the mind of Typhus Morningstar. Pieces of a puzzle assembling, urged on by formerly insignificant scraps of memory, now significant. He remembered how Jack looked differently to him that night-cleaner somehow he had thought. Remembered the smell of perfume and how it smelled strongest after Lily had emerged from the storage room, after the blindfold had been securely tied in place. He remembered the bloody knick on Jack’s forearm-and realized now that he had shaved his arms (cleaner somehow), probably his legs as well. He remembered the texture of Lily’s coarse, straight hair-he looked at Jack’s hair now, wanting to touch it, to confirm.

Typhus fell quiet, his knife hand lowering while the other rose to the back of Jack’s head. He touched the hair and looked into Jack’s green eyes. The hair felt wonderful, and filled him with the memory of his most wonderful night-and it had been that, there was no denying.

For a moment, nothing else mattered. Didn’t matter it was all a lie. Didn’t matter that the man he’d always known as “Father” had killed his mother on the night of his own birth. Didn’t matter that the man he knew as friend and mentor was really his father, and that this man had lied to him his whole life, had violated his heart and soul so unforgivably. At this moment, the lies and horrors didn’t matter at all-all that mattered was that he had loved. He looked deeply into Jack’s eyes, searching.

“My love?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Jack.

“My Lily?” Tears were clouding his eyes.

“Yes,” answered Jack.

Typhus’ hand closed around a clump of Jack’s hair, then pulled it downward till they were eye to eye. He touched his lips to Jack’s: gently, experimentally, warily. Jack’s tongue slid out to brush against Typhus’ upper lip, inviting reply. Typhus took the bait eagerly, pulling Jack’s hair forward now, returning the kiss deeply.

Backing away slightly: “I loved you,” said Typhus.

“I will always love you, son,” said Jack with a weak, exhausted smile.

This last word squeezed like a hand at Typhus’ heart, forcing blood upwards, filling his eyes.

Son.

A single word hissed through Typhus’ teeth: “Liar.”

Typhus felt real fingers press and pinch within his chest now; pure agony, slowing his heartbeat, clouding his soul, flooding his mind with blood and rage. He feared his heart may explode where he stood, and for a moment he went dizzy. His mind gone gray, headed for black.

There was a hand on his heart. There had always been a hand on his heart-ever since that night fifteen years ago.

Typhus yanked Jack’s head downward hard by the hair, bringing the knife upwards three times fast into his chest. With an expression more of surprise than of fear or pain, Jack collapsed against the side of the water basin and slid to the floor.

“The boy told you not to call him that,” said Typhus in a voice not his own.

shoe dove

Jack recognized the voice. Breath came hard-two of the puncture wounds had pierced the right lung-but he managed to say, “Typhus, I did these things for a reason.”

On instructions of the thing in his chest, Typhus kicked Jack squarely in the crotch before responding verbally. “Of course you did. We all got reasons, I reckon. Some reasons are more wholesome than others is all. Some self-serving, others not so.”

Jack tumbled to the floor. “Typhus, listen. Please.”

“Go on speaking at your own risk, Jack.”

“Can’t you see what I gave you? What I gave her? It wasn’t easy to do this thing that I did.”

“You gave me nothing, old man. Father.”

“Try to understand, son.” Jack no longer cared if the word carried repercussions. He knew