A Graveyard for Lunatics

?How many people did Arbuthnot kill in the past few days. And how many people did?? I had to stop, for I could not say it.

Roy said it for me: ?How many did Roy Holdstrom, Beast Number Two, spoil??

I nodded.

?I didn?t kill Clarence, if that?s what you?re afraid of.?

?Thank God.?

I swallowed hard and at last said: ?At what point?oh, God? when???

?When what??

?At what hour? on what day? did Arbuthnot stop? and you take over??

Now it was Roy?s turn, behind the murdered face, to swallow. ?It was Clarence, of course. In the catacombs, I heard voices on the phone systems, at every tomb intersection. Voices in the tunnels themselves. One way or another lifting the receivers, or hiding alert, I pulled back or followed the shadows moving to bury. I knew Clarence was due for burial, five minutes after the Beast?s rampage at his apartment. I saw and heard, at a distance, Doc hustling through the tunnels, taking Clarence to some damned lost crypt. I knew then they?d soon find I was alive, if they didn?t suspect already. I wonder, did they ever check the incinerator to find not my real bones but my mock-up skeleton? And next: you! You knew Clarence. They might have seen you at his place, or at my apartment. If they added it up they?d have buried you alive. So, you see, I had to take over. I had to become the Beast.

?Not only that, I shut down the studio, to test my power, to see if they jumped at my voice, did what I said. With the studio emptying out it made it easier to kill the villains, take care of my possible assassins.?

?Stanislau Groc?? I said.

?Groc? ? Yeah. He got us into this in the first place. Hired me for starters, because I could freshen up creatures, just as he tarted up old dead Lenin. Put a bug in Arbuthnot?s ear to hire you, maybe. Then made the body that was propped on the wall to scare the studio folks and Arbuthnot, then invited us to the Brown Derby for the bestial revelation. Then when I made the clay Beast and frightened everyone, shook them down for cash.?

?You killed Groc, then??

?Not quite. I had him arrested at the gate. When they brought him to Manny?s empty office and left him alone and the mirror swung back, he just up and died when he saw me there. Doc Phillips now, ask me about him.?

?Doc Phillips??

?After all, he cleared away my so-called ?body,? right? Him and his eternal pooper-scoopers. I met up with him in Notre Dame. Didn?t even try to run. I pulled him up with the bells. I just wanted to scare him. Get him up high and shake until, like Groc, his heart stopped. Manslaughter, not murder. But, being pulled up, he got tangled, got frantic, all but hung himself. Did I do it? Am I guilty??

Yes, I thought. And then: no.

?J. C. ?? I asked, and held my breath.

?No, no. He climbed up on the cross two nights ago and his wounds just didn?t shut. His life ran out of his wrists. He died on the cross, poor man, poor drunken old J. C. God rest him. I found him and gave him a proper resting place.?

?Where are they all? Groc and Doc Phillips and J. C.?

?Somewhere. Anywhere. Does it matter? It?s all bodies out there, a million of ?em. I?m glad one of them isn?t?? he hesitated??you.?

?Me??

?That?s what finally made me cease and desist. About twelve hours ago. I found I had you on my list.?

?What!??

?I found myself thinking, If he gets in the way, he dies. That put an end to it.?

?Christ, I should hope so!?

?I thought, Wait, he had nothing to do with this whole dumb show. He didn?t put the crazy horses on the carousel. He?s your pal, your friend, your buddy. He?s all that?s left of life. That was the turnaround. The road back from madness is knowing you?re mad. The road back means no more highway, and you can only turn. I loved you. I love you. So I came back. And opened the tomb and let the true Beast out.?

Roy turned his head and looked at me. His gaze said: Am I on report? Will you hurt me for what I have hurt? Are we still friends? What made me do whatever I did? Must the police know? And who will tell them? Must I be punished? Do the insane have to pay? Isn?t it all a madness? Mad sets, mad lines, mad actors? Is the play over? Or has it just begun? Do we laugh now or weep? For what?

His face said, Not long from now the sun will be up, the two cities will start, one more alive than the other. The dead will stay dead, yes, but the living will repeat the lines they were still saying just yesterday. Do we let them speak? Or do we rewrite them together? Do I make the Death that rides fast, and when he opens his mouth will your words be there?

What ? ?

Roy waited.

?Are you really back with me?? I said.

I took a breath, and went on. ?Are you Roy Holdstrom again and will you just stay that way and not be anything else but my friend, from now on, yes? Roy??

Roy?s head was down. At last he put out his hand.