The Toynbee Convector

“The thing is, Doug—” John made his face radiant. His eyes fastened to mine like Svengali’s. “You don’t love me half as much as I love you!”

“Come on, John—”

“No, kid, I mean it God, son, I’d kill for you. You’re the greatest living writer in the world, and I love you, heart and soul. Because of that, I thought you could take a little leg-pull. I see that I was wrong—”

“No, John,” I protested, hating myself, for now he was making me apologize. It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry, kid, truly sorry—”

“Shut up!” I gasped a laugh. “I still love you. I—”

“That’s a boy! Now—” John spun about, brisked his palms together, and shuffled and reshuffled the script pages like a cardsharp. “Let’s spend an hour cutting this brilliant, superb scene of yours and—”

For the third time that night, the tone and color of his mood changed.

“Hist!” he cried. Eyes squinted, he swayed in the middle of the room, like a dead man underwater. “Doug, you hear?”

The wind trembled the house. A long fingernail scraped an attic pane. A mourning whisper of cloud washed the moon.

“Banshees.” John nodded, head bent, waiting. He glanced up, abruptly. “Doug? Run out and see.”

“Like hell I will.”

“No, go on out,” John urged. “This has been a night of misconceptions, kid. You doubt me, you doubt it. Get my overcoat, in the hall. Jump!”

He jerked the hall closet door wide and yanked out his great tweed overcoat which smelled of tobacco and fine whiskey. Clutching it in his two monkey hands, he beckoned it like a bullfighter’s cape. “Huh, toro! Hah!”

“John,” I sighed, wearily.

“Or are you a coward, Doug, are you yellow? You—”

For this, the fourth, time, we both heard a moan, a cry, a fading murmur beyond the wintry front door. “It’s waiting, kid!” said John, triumphantly. “Get out there. Run for the team!”

I was in the coat, anointed by tobacco scent and booze as John buttoned me up with royal dignity, grabbed my ears, kissed my brow.

“I’ll be in the stands, kid, cheering you on. I’d go with you, but banshees are shy. Bless you, son, and if you don’t come back—I loved you like a son!”

“Jesus,” I exhaled, and flung the door wide. But suddenly John leaped between me and the cold blowing moonlight. “Don’t go out there, kid. I’ve changed my mind! If you got killed—”

“John,” I shook his hands away. “You want me out there. You’ve probably got Kelly, your stable girl, out there now, making noises for your big laugh—”

“Doug!” he cried in that mock-insult serious way he had, eyes wide, as he grasped my shoulders. “I swear to God!”

“John,” I said, half-angry, half-amused, “so long.”

I ran out the door to immediate regrets. He slammed and locked the portal. Was he laughing? Seconds later, I saw his silhouette at the library window, sherry glass in hand, peering out at this night theatre of which he was both director and hilarious audience.

I spun with a quiet curse, hunched my shoulders in Caesar’s cloak, ignored two dozen stab wounds given me by the wind, and stomped down along the gravel drive.

I’ll give it a fast ten minutes, I thought, worry John, turn his joke inside out, stagger back in, shirt torn and bloody, with some fake tale of my own. Yes, by God, that was the trick—

I stopped.

For in a small grove of trees below, I thought I saw something like a large paper kite blossom and blow away among the hedges.

Clouds sailed over an almost full moon, and ran islands of dark to cover me.

Then there it was again, further on, as if a whole cluster of flowers were suddenly torn free to snow away along the colorless path. At the same moment, there was the merest catch of a sob, the merest door-hinge of a moan.