WHERE

by Neal Barrett, Jr.

Neal Barrett, Jr., tells us, “My story in this issue is especially important to me. A lot of readers have mentioned that I’m kind of different. If they do, with ‘Where,’ I feel I made their day, as I have always felt strongly about the readers’ part in the story. I want them to feel that I wanted them to have their part. It is no secret I don’t ever explain. I couldn’t, as I honestly don’t know the secret myself. When readers seemed to love ‘Stairs,’ ‘A Day at the Fair,’ or ‘Highbrow,’ the part that’s not there is what they like. That’s their story, too. They’re in the dream the same as I am. What you see there is yours. And that’s the way I want it to be. Where are the stairs? readers asked. Where do you imagine they might be? In ‘Where,’ you will notice, no one in the story knows ‘where.’ But they are real, in their ‘Where,’ and, as I hope in all my stories, their lives are real to them. I’m not all that sure where I am, and neither are you. But it looks real from here, doesn’t it?”         Tom and perry walked down to the mawl. jimmie skipped ahead, clack-clack-clack on his little lead feet. He was all excited, for he hadn’t been there all day, or possibly any time at all.

* * * *

“Don’t fall,” said perry, “I will not put up with that.”

            “We surely will not,” said tom.

            jimmie ignored them, and hopped on ahead. The day was cool, and the clouds scraped the rusty sky above. Sometimes, the sky came down, and the clouds smelled just like dust and went tickly in your head.

            A shadow fell over jimmie, and a bhug crossed his path up ahead. It chirred, whirred, rattled and buzzed.

            “Hello,” said jimmie.

            “Morning,” said the bhug, and scuttered on away.

            “Don’t talk to that thing,” said tom.

            “It talked to me,” jimmie said.

            “If it eats you, don’t look at me,” said tom.

            “Honestly,” perry sighed.

            The mawl appeared behind a row of skinny trees. It was hollowday, and very few dealers had set up their tents.

            “I told you it wasn’t worth coming,” tom said. “Why, there’s nothing here at all.”

            “Oh, come on,” said perry, “there’s always something at the mawl.”

            And, indeed there was, as jimmie could see the minute he saw the raggedy tent.

            “Look-look-look!” he cried. “What’s it say, what’s it say!”

            perry read:

THE MUSUM OF TIM AND SPAYCE

            perry looked at tom. Tom looked at perry. “It’s two monies,” tom said. “And we don’t even know what it is.”

            “I don’t care what it is,” perry said. “I want to see it.” He grabbed tom’s hand and pulled him gently along. tom reached in his pocket and jingled the monies there. He’d intended to save them up for something else, but he certainly couldn’t tell perry what.

            Inside the tent, there was a row of glass panels with raggedy curtains inside. Something was behind each one, but you couldn’t tell what even if you peeked, which is what jimmie tried.

            “Stop it,” said tom, who grabbed jimmie by the ear.

            “Well, hello there,” said a man, who suddenly appeared from nowhere at all. It was a tom, and looked just like the tom with jimmie, except he had a hat.

            “Good morning to you all,” said the tom, “welcome to the mawl. We’ve got a lot of wonderful things to see.”

            “Uh-huh.” jimmie’s tom stuck a hand in his pocket and jiggled it about. “Just what is it and how many monies will it be?”

            “Just pay him,” said perry, glaring at tom, “you’re embarrassing us all.”

            tom looked around, to see who that might be.

            The tom with the hat winked at perry, which tom didn’t like at all.

            “Come on,” the tent tom said, “one monies, all right? And I won’t even charge for the boy.”

            “Well I should think not,” perry said.

            The tom drew the curtains aside. Another perry stood behind the glass and gave them a happy grin.

            “Welcome,” said the new perry. “I feel privileged to present the most awesome, spectacular, UNbelievable sights you nice folks have ever seen.”

            “If it’s a pencil, forget it,” said visitor Tom, “I’ve got half a one at home.”

            “Which half,” asked the perry, with sudden interest. “Mirado 2?”

            “None of your business.”

            “If it’s the top—”

            “Get on with it,” tent tom said. “These folks came for a show.”

            “Righto” said the perry, and, in a blink, in a flash, a pale blur of light filled the little room behind the glass.

            “Oh, what is it?” cried perry, grabbing onto tom and holding tight. jimmie held his breath and pressed his face against the glass.

            The mawl tom and perry seemed pleased.

            “What you are seeing,” said tent perry in a soft, mysterious breath, “is a peek into the very distant past. Through scientific methods and a great deal of luck, my partner and I have learned to capture tiny lumps of light invisible to the naked eye, and hold them a moment before they flit away again.”

            Even tom had to admit he’d never seen anything quite so awesome, so amazing in his life. Somehow, the scene “moved” from the left to the right, and though it was blurry and scratchy at times, you could often make out whatever was going on.

            The scene was a room, that much was clear, but nothing like any room he’d ever imagined. A cloth with pretty colors was on the floor. There were things with four legs, some soft and some hard. Strangely enough, though he’d never even seen one before, he knew at once what they were: they were things you could sit on. Things a lot higher than the floor.What an incredible idea!

            “Truly a wonder!” he said aloud. A thrill of discovery started at the base of his spine and tingled at the top of his head.

            And before that thought could set his mind awhirl, there were other miracles to behold. On one wall was a big, bright picture with people movingaround inside. There was a jar, filled with colorful globes. Froot, came the image at once. Froot! Melins, Helens, lemins, lymes, pears, claires, apuls and thymes. Some he’d seen in pictures, many he’d never seen at all. There were stacks and stacksof paper, paper on a shelf, paper on the floor, paper everywhere . . . a bright glass jar, all in one piece, shiny as the sea, with living flowers inside . . . a light on the ceiling, that glowed by itself. And, most wondrous of all, a dawwg, just like one in a book, squatting on its hind legs dropping dark blobs on the floor . . .

            “Okay, hold that, cut it,” shouted the tent tom, glaring at the perry inside.

            The curtain swept shut and the scene went dark.

            “Sorry about that folks,” tent tom said, “things like that’ll happen, you’re working with your condominium and outerstella life.”

            “Well we got to see a dawwg,” said jimmie.

            “Just about all of that I’d ever care to see,” said jimmie’s perry, stalking off by himself.

            “I guess we’ll be moving along,” said jimmie’s tom. “Real—interesting place you got here.”

            “Come back again,” said the other two.

            jimmie hung back while tom and perry walked on. He knew it was a good idea to leave them be when one got on the wrong side of the other. peeples did that all the time, and if you were a khido, you knew not to be there when they did.

            A perry had a little stand on the corner, and tom had given jimmie half a monies to spend any way he liked.

            “Got mudberry cone and popweed,” said the perry, who wore a small white cap. “Popweed’s hot, just made it fresh.”

            The mudberry didn’t look good, and never did, so jimmie got a sack of popweed, which was mostly his favorite of all.

            “Don’t run off with that sack,” the perry told him. “Only one I got.”

            “I won’t,” said jimmie.

            He chomped on the tasty seeds, and listened to them pop. My, they were good. Good and hot, just like the man said. He walked along the empty road, crunching and munching as fast as he could. There wasn’t much to see, but there really never was. Still, it was fun to look. Something might happen when you were doing something else.

            Then, of a sudden, one of the seeds went pip! instead of pop! and a bright silver nub flew out of his mouth and hit the ground . . .

            Jimmie was scared to death. He dropped his sack and ran back the way he’d come. He went down on his knees, scraping dirt and weeds aside. The nub was gone, nowhere to be seen. It could be anywhere, but somehow he knew he’d never see it again. And when he got back they’d know. You couldn’t guess how they would, but they’d know . . .

* * * *

            There were poles in the ground and pegs on the poles and wear of all sorts sagging here and sagging there. Wear for your arms and wear for your legs. Dickeys, doublets, knickers and bibs. Socks, jocks, pinafores and frocks. All were faded blue, pale, frail, washed-out, threadbare, fine as a spider’s den.

            “I kind of like that frock,” perry said.

            “What, which one’s that?” tom said.

            “Up there, on the right.”

            “You got one at home, just like it.”

            perry didn’t answer. He tugged at tom’s sleeve. “You thinking any more about the boy?”

            tom lookedat jimmie from the corner of his eye. The boy was just standing there, not saying anything at all. His yellow trousers were dirty and something was the matter with his mouth.

            “What’s wrong with his mouth?” tom asked.

            “How would I know?” said perry.

            “He’s a pretty good boy,” said tom.

            “He is.” “You think you want him again?”

            perry thought about that. “We can always get him next time.”

            “We could do that,” said tom.

            tom looked at the sign at the bottom of the hill.

            He didn’t have to look at jimmie. jimmie could see the sign, too.

            The sign on the shop read:

K H I D S

            The paint was faded and cracked but you could read it fine up close.

            “Well,” tom said, “here we are, jimmie. It was really nice being with you.”

            “We hope you had a good time,” said perry.

            jimmie kicked at the ground. He didn’t look up. “I liked the musum.”

            “Yes, that was fine,” said tom.

            “It surely was,” said perry.

            “Well then,” said tom. He smiled, and looked at perry, and perry smiled too. They both looked at jimmie, then turned and walked back up the hill.

* * * *

            Past the rocky slope they could see the river and the town nearby. The river was a dry and tortured path going this way and that. Peeple called it a river, since peeple always had. No one called the town anything at all. There were burrows, dens, boxes, coops and flats. Shanties, shacks, places made of slats.

            tom paused as they reached the top of the hill. “What I’d really like right now is a sex. Seems to me a sex would be fine.”

            “Well don’t look at me,” said perry. “It doesn’t seem fine to me at all.”

            tom knew, at once, pursuing this was not a good idea. As a fact, perry liked a good sex, but he surely didn’t want one now. perry always let you know what he liked and what he didn’t. tom watched him stalk off down the hill then turned back the way he’d come.

* * * *

            The hut didn’t have any name. You knew what it was or you didn’t. tom had only been once before, and didn’t really want to go there again.

            The man was a tom. He had red hair and no hat. “I would like to buy a sex,” tom said. “How much will that be?”

            “One sex is three monies,” said the man.

            This irked tom a lot. He’d been saving the monies for a hackit or a bihr, he hadn’t decided which.

            The man didn’t have to ask. “Over here,” he said, and hid a smile.

            The wall was weathered wood. There were four words scribbled in chalk:

NOSE

Rocks

antz

MYCE

            A discreet concavity was carved just below each word, so neatly done, one could scarcely find any offense at all.

            “These represent the four known stars,” said the man. “Myce, Nose—”

            “I know what they are,” said tom with some irritation. “You going to stand there or what?”

            “No, sir. I’ll be right outside.”

            “Good. You do that . . .”

* * * *

            Inside K H I D S, another jimmie was sitting in a corner, all by himself. “So where is everyone,” jimmie asked. “Isn’t anyone but you?”

            “You and me,” said the other jimmie. “big tom got us jobs. That’s where everyone is.”

            jimmie didn’t want another job, and didn’t ask.

            “Those people okay?”

            “Peeple. Like everyone else. I got popweed. I lost a nub somewhere don’t tell big about that.”

            “Won’t have to. big’ll know.”

            jimmie knew that was so. Without a word, he got up and walked out back. He didn’t know why, but he did most every night. There was still a touch of day, and he could see the big pile of old jimmies against the fading light. The pile was so high he could scarcely see over it without tipping up on his toes.

            There were arms, legs, elbows and knees, bent, broken, splintered and snapped, poking this way and that. Plastic bellies spilled tangled, strangled strings of wire. Blue eyes stared at him from a shiny chrome head. “I know him,” jimmie said aloud. “I know him and everybody else here, too.”

            Most of the time the pile stayed the same. Sometimes, it got a little bigger, but it never got smaller. jimmie was certain of that, and it worried him some, because he knew jimmies never got fixed. If something got broken, it ended up here. If big tom heard about his nub, that’s where he’d be, too.

            Just then, big tom himself came through the back door. jimmie nearly jumped out of his shoes.

            “Got a job. Come on. Get up. Get moving. Let’s go.”

            jimmie followed, walking quickly as he could. It was hard to keep up with big tom.

            He had never seen the little hut before. big tom left him there and another tom met him at the door.

            “Can you crank?” the man wanted to know.

            “Can I what?”

            “Crank.” The man made a gesture. “Crank. When you need to crank you crank. When you don’t then you stop. Got it, boy? Don’t stand there, come on.”

            The man led jimmie behind a wooden wall. There were three other jimmies lined up in a row. Each jimmie had a crank. The man stopped jimmie at the end.

            “Him, that’s NOSE. That’s ROCKS, that’s ANTZ. You’re MYCE. There’s not much business right now but things’ll pick up. You’ll know when to crank. You’ll know when to stop.”

            He cranked, stopped, did as he was told, until the man closed up for the night.

* * * *

            perry was sleeping soundly when tom got home. tom knew the best thing to do was simply leave him alone. He found a scrap of blue, one of perry’s suit, and wrapped up outside against the night.

            It was funny how a sex would keep you awake. There was something about it that worried at your head. The last thing tom liked to do was worry at his head. All it did was get your mind stuck on something and that flat messed up the day.

            tom had been with another perry once. All he did was think about this, think about that: He thought about nu-ju flying overhead, genderella and the dorf. tom had finally had to knock him in the head.

* * * *

            The job at the hut took nearly all night, and big tom turned off jimmie and the others and let them sleep till noon. jimmie felt fine. He found another nub in the pile out back and screwed it in his mouth real good.

            Later in the day, two things happened at once. jimmie could scarcely remember anything like that. First, a herd of bhugs rumbled by just over the hill. More bhugs than he’d ever seen before: lumbering beetles with great, snapping jaws, long, slithery centipedes with dark, brassy scales, mites, ticks, skinny bhugs that looked like sticks. The earth seemed to tremble, and the air was full of sounds like chit-chit-buuuzzzzz-buuuuzwhiiiir. jimmie saw a bhug with big red eyes, and when it looked at jimmie he saw maul tom in its scissory jaws.

            Just before dark, all the jimmies, and a lot of peeples too, came out to watch the big truck grind up the hill. When it stopped, the bed slanted up and spilled dozens of brand new toms and perrys to the ground.

            One began to whirl around and dance. One got hungry and tried to eat a rock. Most simply studied their naked parts and wondered what to do next. A few gave up at once, fell down and died.

            jimmie wandered off, the smell of new peeple heavy in the air. Next week, he knew, or the week after that, another truck would come and dump shiny jimmies on the ground. And then, after that . . .

After that, jimmie thought, after that, they’d do it all again. A little spark sizzled in his head. He’d never, ever had a thought like that before: There were afters, but they didn’t happen all the time. And if that was true—there had to be befores, where anything could happen in between!

            jimmie knew this was much too much to think about all at one time. He decided he’d walk back to K H I D Sand take a nap, or see if any jimmies were around, then think on this new stuff a little later on. He glanced back up at the hills, and wondered if mawl perry had made it, or if the bhug had eaten him too . . .

            Copyright © 2011 Neal Barrett, Jr.