the pump. Within minutes, the pipe hissed. He heard the gurgling as water filled the race. When the water reached the level, he heard the auto shutoff kick in, and then the quiet hum of the pump that would keep the water circulating. “Works perfectly,” he said in satisfaction. He stood up and was surprised to see that Mrs. Reid was still standing on the porch, watching him. He could not read the emotion on her face. Regret? Resignation?
When he glanced at the gate, the stranger was still standing there. His face was a complete contrast to the widow’s. The satisfaction was unmistakable. Josh felt a surge of revulsion for the fellow. What was the matter with the man? She was just a woman alone in the world, obviously consumed with her grief for her husband and beset with an irrational fear. The stranger stared at her as she stood alone, backlit by her porch light, as if his eyes could never drink enough of the sight. With both hands, he gripped the iron gate. The moment Josh stepped through it, he said, through gritted teeth, “Please, allow me.” And he shut it with a clash of iron against iron that abruptly sounded to Josh like a weapon clashed against a shield. Behind him, he was startled to hear Mrs. Reid give a low moan.
When he turned to look at her, she was staring at them both, her face white and both her hands clasped over her mouth.
The stranger spoke, his voice gentle and his words harsh. “I hope it takes a long time, Doria.”
She spoke through her muffling hands. “I loved him, Raymond. I loved your brother just as much as you did. I was clumsy. He was my first and it didn’t end for him the way I’d planned it would. But I loved him. Loved him more than life itself.” Her voice shook.
“And you call what you have now a life?” Raymond suddenly roared at her.
Her voice trembled as she replied. “No, Raymond. No, I don’t. It’s not life. And I don’t want it anymore. Without Adam, it’s not worth having. It took me years to realize that, and even longer to figure out what to do about it. But now I have. And I’ve given you the last thing that I have to give to anyone. Satisfaction.”
“Damn right you have. Satisfaction.” The man’s voice was thick with it, cold with righteousness.
It was too much. He couldn’t leave her standing there with this man threatening her from outside her gate. “Look, you, whoever you are, you’re frightening her. I think you’d better leave.”
“I’ll be glad to. But I haven’t frightened her. She’s done that to herself. There’s just one more thing I want to do for her before I go.” With both his hands, he unfastened the silver chain and the tiny crucifix it bore from around his neck. He watched Mrs. Reid as he slowly wrapped it around the gate catch and then fastened it.
“That’s not going to work,” Josh pointed out quietly to him. “She’ll have to undo it each time she wants to open the gate. I understand you think it might keep vampires out, but . . .”
“It will work just fine,” Raymond Reid said as he picked up his canvas satchel. He looked older than he had a few moments before. As if he’d finished some task and no longer needed to force a vitality he didn’t have. “Son, she won’t be opening that gate. And she didn’t have you build all this to keep vampires out.”
Raymond gave a final glance to the lone figure standing so still on the porch. He bent to pick up the canvas satchel. The top had come open and a mallet had fallen out of it. Laboriously, he picked it up and put it back inside. He turned his back on both of them and walked toward his rental car. He didn’t turn his head as he spoke. “It’s to keep a vampire in.”
Drum Machine
Sometimes that single sentence that heralds the approach of a story doesn’t come at two in the morning or when I’m mowing a lawn. Sometimes, in the midst of a discussion with a friend, someone will say something so succinct and so true that the pieces of a story just start falling into place around it.
I think that many people assume that being a writer brings me into contact with all sorts of interesting people. And that’s true. But wondrous to tell, the majority of fascinating people I’ve met have intersected with my life in other ways. Last summer, an extraordinary natural philosopher was part of the crew putting a new roof on my house. I spent several afternoons outside, listening to his random observations as he fastened roof tiles down on my house. Marty the junkman, who used to come by our old place to see if we had any scrap metal for him, was a fountain of stories from the Depression era. A random encounter that delivers a person like that to my life is like beachcombing and finding a little treasure chest.
One such friend is Jeff Lin of Harvey Danger. He came into my home years ago as my daughter’s friend. In the course of sharing coffee, cats, and conversation, his thoughts on creativity in the music field, performing for an audience, and Who Owns the Work left a definite impression on me. I wrote “Drum Machine” as a direct result of one such conversation and indeed a single sentence from Jeff. It’s languished in my files for a long time. In the course of looking over stories for this collection, I took it out, read it, and wondered if its time had finally come to see print.
The client leaned forward across the desk and all but hissed at me, “I have a right to the child of my choice.”
I smiled at her warmly, reassuringly, and read my line from the prompter. “That’s not precisely correct, Mrs. Daw. You have the right to a child. That’s very clear.” I tapped the notarized slip from her husband, ceding his population replacement right to her. “And you have the right to a choice. The Constitution guarantees you that.”
She thrust her already prominent chin at me. “Then I want my choice. Another EagleScout12.” She smiled exultantly. “Derek is almost six now, and he has been the perfect choice for my husband and me. When we decided we wanted another child, we decided, well, why take a chance? Get one we know we’ll like.”
I leaned back in my chair and blinked my eyes twice quickly to call up the next screen. I chose the conciliatory option. “I’m sure, on the face of it, that seemed logical to both of you. But consider the reality, Mrs. Daw. You would essentially be raising identical twins, born six years apart, into the same environment. Same nature, same nurture. Where’s the variety in that? You’d be defeating our entire Genetic Variety Preservation program. Even if you can’t choose an EagleScout12 again, that doesn’t mean your next child won’t be just as perfect for you as your first one was. That’s the whole purpose of our counseling, Mrs. Daw. The embryo options that the program has chosen are selected to be compatible with you and Mr. Daw. And, I might add, with Derek.”
Her eyes widened somewhat. “Could that be why we’re not offered another EagleScout12? Because he might not be compatible with Derek?”
I smiled and shrugged. “I suppose that could be so.” Actually, that particular embryo had been discontinued, but that was not something the client needed to know. They always asked why. Not even I had access to that information. “I’m just a Social Interface, ma’am, not a biologist. But I wonder if you haven’t hit on the very reason.” I eyed the timer in the bottom left quarter of my goggle-screen, but my smile never faltered.
She had taken up almost seventeen minutes of my time, over twice the normal allotment, trying to nag an approval out of me. When she had first sat down in my cubicle, I had popped her disk into my machine and tapped in the latest information. She hadn’t liked the choices we’d offered, but her request for another EagleScout12 had come up with a solid Denied. But you don’t flatly tell the applicant that. If that was all there was to my job, I wouldn’t have a job. The computer could do it. As a Social Interface, class 7, it’s up to me to select the right words and tones and mannerisms from the suggested dialogue on my screen. Mrs. Daw was a tough one, but in the next three minutes, I managed to send her on her way. She had even looked happy with her new selection, a female DutchDoll7. She strode away, clutching the appointment slip that would let her fetus be implanted tomorrow.
I was forty-five minutes from the end of my shift. Three, maybe four more people to counsel and I was through for the day. I was ready to go home. I rocked back in my chair in my cubicle and heard my spine crackle. Then I straightened up and pushed the “next client” button.
I work for the state in Reproductive Permits. My position is Social Interface. I’ve been there about seven years now, and I like to think that I’m good at what I do. It wasn’t a job I would have chosen for myself, but the state aptitude test rated me high for Social Interface duties. The woman in the Aptitude offices who told me about the job opportunities in the field was a Social Interface herself. There was something about her voice when she told me that she just knew I’d be right for the job. I couldn’t help but believe her. And over the years, I’ve come to be
