November 2008
Something to Do With Sebastian by Douglas Lind
A Rainy Night of Density with a Reckless Neurotic by Richey Piiparinen
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Searching for Valentine Gifts
by Justin Sherman
Since he is married to a direct descendant of the family that was haunted by the Bell Witch (yes, the story is true!), Justin Joe Sherman has been naturally inclined to cast aside his pharmacist cloak and write his version of dark fiction. His recent successes include stories in Hadrosaur Tales, Seasons in the Night, Lost in the Dark, Nova SF, Down in the Cellar, and Aphelion. He also was recently accepted into the Southern Fried Weirdness anthology. His background has proven to be helpful in completing storylines that have been swirling in his head for some time now. If only they had a medicine that could cure that!
“Mon amí,” he cried through the foyer, attempting to muster a trustworthy tone. “Be back in a bit.” Dr. Claude Breaux could hear the rhythmic pitter-patter of the light rain on the roof outside as he quickly tied his sneakers and cinched up his raincoat.
“Where are you off to at this ‘our of night, ‘specially with li’l Nick?” Midge’s voice seethed with irritation, but he could tell that she had not moved from the couch nearest the television. That spot on the couch had been her nesting place for the past several months, ever since – well, ever since she had caught his infidelity. But only until bedtime, he mused. Then, the cursed place became his for repose. The lingering warmth emanating from the middle cushion was the only heat that she had left for him after the fatal discovery.
“I’m taking Nicholas,” Claude started. He despised her calling their son by the atrocious shortened version. “We’re goin’ for some ice cream since we been neglectin’ him lately.” It was a lie, of course, but not in the sense that Nicholas could have been feeling neglected by his parents. Both parents had begun to put the events from the past half year behind them by burying themselves in their respective jobs, subsequently ignoring their son.
Midge, a seventh-grade schoolteacher, normally would have finished work in mid-afternoon, picked up their five-year-old from kindergarten, then driven home and fixed supper and waited on Claude’s arrival. Over the past three months, however, the routine had gradually but completely changed. Midge was staying late at school and volunteering for extra assignments – she proclaimed – in an attempt to get a new merit raise that recently had been instituted in Louisiana’s public school system. The only thing extra that it seemed Midge was doing, though, was spending time with the school’s attractive and recently divorced principal, Charles Granger.
Joie de vivre? Hell, not this household, thought Claude. Not now.
Claude had not announced to Midge his suspicion of her infidelity, even when he had received the strange call two weeks ago. The call had come on a Tuesday night, between cleaning the supper dishes and admonishing Nicholas for getting a late start into the tub.
Is Midge home yet? The voice at the other end of the line had inquired. The caller had not asked whether he – yes, the voice was distinctly male – could speak to Mrs. Breaux or the woman of the house. Instead the caller assumed that Claude’s wife – his wife of fifteen years, dammit – was returning home from somewhere. So persuasive was the caller’s tone that Claude had actually peeped out the door to the garage, half-expecting Midge to be pulling up – even on her cell phone playing an absurd joke. He returned to the phone to inquire further into the strange request, but the line was already dead.
So the ice-cream ruse was a lie, but it was for a good purpose; he had to make up for all of the recent humiliation he had bestowed upon his mon amí.
He bit his lip absently to ponder his lost love for a moment. Midge was his love long ago when they were courting. That was before his acceptance into chiropractic school, which moved her two states away from her cantankerous family. Before enduring maxed out loans. She was still his love even when they returned to the small town of Pacodoches, only a half-hour from her family and in the heart of the Acadian Coast. Claude had set up shop in the town, soon building a thriving business. Eventually, the business became even more robust when he began offering services that were just a bit beyond his scope of practice.
Claude’s need to supplement the meager income of a practitioner’s career during its infancy – not to mention the burgeoning student loans – quenched the light flickering from his ethics candle. He began facilitating his practice with techniques that he did not learn in school, such as magnet and aromatherapy, and colonic irrigation. Eventually, a local physician’s group approached and threatened prosecution for the questionable practices.
“You mus’ cease wi’ the witchcraft,” the lone spokesman, a particularly burly and hot-headed Cajun, had demanded. He made his point.
Although Claude scoffed inwardly at this suggestion, he succumbed to the intimidating tactics. He had severed his practice from the legitimate medical community, at least what passed as legitimate medicine in a small community almost lost in the throws of the Bayou Shiard. However, he treated his patients with kindness, paid attention to and documented their complaints, and thus, was held in high regard by them – even when he insisted that they return for further “evaluative procedures” more times than what was reasonable. Moreover, he was one of their own, not some outsider medicine man to lord over them with fancy talking to gloss over an uncaring attitude.
Lost in his business, he eventually paid his wife less attention. But now he wanted her back. She had not asked for a divorce, and he would not have granted her one, anyway. They were Catholic, of course, and that still meant something when it came to divorce. Reconciliation remained his sole choice, and he decided that he would pursue this as fervently as he had her when they were courting.
“Back in an ‘our, mon amí.” Would she ever forgive him?
“Claude,” she said, her voice barely audible over the droning television. “It’s too late.” He could hear the clinking of a spoon stirring hot coffee in the background.
The beep-beep of the house alarm set on standby sounded as he opened the front door. Rain splattered on his arm as he held the door open with his right hand and checked his watch. It was seven o’clock. “Why is it, you say? Store’s still open.” he said, wincing immediately. The Freudian slip almost revealed that his destination was really Van Guard, the giant retailer that sold everything from pets to flowers.
“Shame, Claude, sweetheart. You know it to be too late for Valentine’s,” she said between loud slurps of thick, black coffee. She emphasized sweetheart in such a way that he could tell she had to bite her lip to say it. He could swear that her voice had begun to have almost a laughing quality about it – maybe even a taunting one.
“I know. Not going for that, now.” Claude stood on the front stoop, leaning his head back in to protest. “I’ve got you already a nice gift. We will exchange when I return with the ice cream.” He added the last part in a vain attempt to continue the ruse – the ruse that he could sense had been completely exposed.
“Already you have lift somethin’?”
"What?” Claude shouted, irritated at having been caught and wanting more than ever to just slam the door and run to the truck.
“Li’l Nick,” she said calmly, self-satisfied. Claude realized with dismay that his son had been in the living room during the entire repartee. He stood transfixed, rain beating down on him, with the knowledge that she had gotten him yet again; he waited for Midge to send his son to him.
Midge spoke to her son in hushed tones. The only word that Claude could catch was cher, whispered several times. She pronounced the old Acadian term of endearment “sha” and reserved it only for her son. Lately, Midge used the word often when addressing her son, and it seemed to drive a wedge between husband and wife even as it bound mother and son closer together. It almost felt as if she were mocking him with the term. After exchanging words with his mom, Nicholas appeared in the foyer. He was slender and tall for his age, like a young, vibrant reed shooting up from the marsh. He opened the closet door and slowly began covering himself with his rain gear.
As the wipers danced with a swish-swish across the front glass of his new, midnight black Chevrolet, Claude steamed over his wife’s ability to call his bluff. Only a few years into the marriage, he had made a similar mistake of not buying her a present until Valentine’s Day. When he presented her with somewhat haggard yellow carnations – the only flowers that he was able to procure on the actual day, though she had always been very specific about pink roses being her favorites – she had laid them asunder on the kitchen countertop. The blooms already were fully opened, with several starting to wilt and die. The condition of the flowers was poor and embarrassing, revealing Claude’s inexperience at gift buying. Fully opened blooms meant that the flowers were sure to expire within days, sometimes within hours.
“Nay do it count for you to get my gift on the day of Valentine’s,” she had chastised her bemused husband. “You insult me ‘cause you do not think of me ‘til today. And too, what you bring me here is the very same other lovers thrown ‘way.”
Claude’s left cheek dimpled, though, when he thought of what happened later that night. He had left the house angrily. When he returned several hours later, the once pitiful carnations had been placed in a beautiful ceramic vase as a centerpiece on the kitchen table. They were still in love, and a spat between lovers was transient and ephemeral. She had picked some roses from the neighbor’s yard and had strewn the petals around the vase. The previously dying carnations had somehow righted themselves, as if they were proud, robust young ladies showing themselves off at a ball. Midge had retired for the night, but when he sneaked into the bedroom and lightly stole a kiss from her forehead, she opened her bright, eager chestnut eyes, smiled, and –
Athoya.
That’s what the caller had said when Claude had returned to the phone after searching out of the door to the garage for his wife returning from work – teaching, yes, she had been teaching – that day.
Tell her Athoya wants to know.
Then the phone had registered a click and a dial tone.
A wild idea struck Claude, and he pivoted his head in order to see Nicholas in the rear-view mirror. “Nicholas,” he choked, his throat suddenly dry. He cleared his throat in order to speak in a warm, relaxed voice.
“Yes, papa?” Came the small voice from the tiny half of a backseat of the Chevy. Claude noticed that his son had not buckled himself into the seat, so he reminded him to do so.
“Nicholas,” he started again, suddenly trying to figure out how to put forth his question so that a five-year-old would understand. “Has mommy ere mentioned a friend of hers named Athoya?”
A contemplative look came over Nicholas, which, at five, could have either meant that he was in deep thought or concentrating on stopping the movement of his bowels. “No, dad,” he managed after a long pause.
“Tell me, papa?”
“Yes, Nicholas?”
“Not goin’ for ice cream, are we?”
Claude shifted in his seat, causing his arms to spasm slightly, just enough to cause the truck to swerve for a moment in the plodding rain. Nicholas had always been perceptive, probably a little too much so. Likely, Nicholas would grow to be a man with real panache. Lately, though, Claude guessed that it was his son’s sharp perception that had led him to become more introverted and soft-spoken.
“Maybe another time, son. ‘Night we’re goin’ to Van Guard to pick up somethin’ nice for mommy.” When Nicholas did not respond, he added with a smile, “…and a toy for you, if you’re good and stay with me the whole time.”
“A toy…yeah! A toy…yeah!” Nicholas began chanting from the backseat, softly at first; but then, the chant became louder the more he thought about the great idea. Meanwhile, Claude could not help but hear Athoy…ya, Athoy…ya coming from his son’s mouth, almost taking on a rhythmic quality. He dismissed this immediately as impossible, though the boy kept up the melody for several minutes. Nicholas did not usually chant phrases just to ride his parents’ nerves, but here he was, doing it just the same.
“A toy…yeah! A toy…yeah!” Chanted Nicholas.
Athoy…ya, Athoy…ya, thought Claude, and his head began to pound. With the rain playing a steady pitter-pat, pitter-pat beat on the windshield, the wipers doing their thing as noisily as possible, and Nicholas’ chanting, Claude was beginning to visualize that he was in the middle of a marching band – a band from hell.
Claude pulled into a far-removed space in the Van Guard parking lot. He marveled that the store bustled with shoppers, even on a rainy night when the whole world was engaged – or should have been engaged, anyway – in the merriment of Valentine’s Day. On the other hand, mused Claude, the giant retailer offered the best Acadian entertainment for a town the size of Pacodoches. The two time-honored pursuits of visiting and shopping could both be pursued in the confines of the store.
When they entered, Claude had to shield his eyes from the penetrating lights that contrasted with the meager lighting in the parking lot. Nicholas rubbed his eyes with his left hand, drenched from the rain. He grasped his father’s hand tightly. Claude spotted only a few shoppers nearby, which contrasted with the many cars that were parked outside. He did not ponder the incongruity for long. His mission to retrieve a Valentine’s gift had to be accomplished as expediently as possible.
“Papa, can I have some cards?” Nicholas asked. Claude followed the direction of his son’s gaze to a large sign marking the toy section. The large sign overhead read “Pacodoches’ Toyland,” scrawled haphazardly on posterboard with giant markers.
“If you’re good, buddy, but stay with me for now,” countered Claude. His son had stopped grasping his hand in anticipation of being released to the toy section, so Claude clenched Nicholas’ wrist. He did not notice that Nicholas’ tiny hand had begun to turn pale.
Claude spotted a flashing, lighted sign toward the back of the store. One-by-one, letters flashed neon red to spell “Welcome, Lovers”. He tightened his grip on his son’s wrist and headed in the direction of the sign.
Athoya. Tell her that I wanted to know…
Concentrating on the sign, he almost bumped into an older gentleman darting around the corner. The man, in his late sixties and clad in a purple jacket, paused to excuse himself – coughing dryly as he did so – and started to keep going when he did a double-take at Claude and turned to face him.
“Dr. Breaux, would that I ‘most run you over. My apologies.” Claude could see the letters PHS, a monogram that stood for Pacodoches High School, scrawled in scarlet on the breast of the man’s azure jacket. The monogram swirled into an ornate star, which was a symbol for the local football team. Pacodoches’ residents were fiercely loyal to their high school football program, which had sent five teams to the state championship in as many years. Sensing that Claude did not immediately recognize him, he said, “You don’ remember me, Dr. Breaux, with you ‘aving so many patients. I saw you months ago. For pains in my upper back.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Cormier, I remember you.” Claude also remembered with regret that he had orchestrated several office visits with this particular patient. Mr. Cormier, originally insisting that he be addressed as Buckley, had presented with a nonspecific complaint of back pain. When Claude could not relieve the pain with a simple adjustment to relieve pressure on his spine, however, he had asked Mr. Cormier to come in for more tests. After an initial X-ray yielded nothing, Claude had become more desperate and ordered a full range of tests. He finally recommended some nutritional supplements and abruptly ended the series of visits with no follow-up, having exhausted his clinical knowledge. Claude not only left his patient’s pain unresolved, he made no referral to a physician that may have been able to address the pain further.
Claude’s chest pounded with uncertainty and regret. Reaching out to shake Mr. Cormier’s hand, he realized that his son was not still in tow. He quickly spied the navy slicker that Nicholas wore bouncing in the general direction of the toy section and sighed in relief.
“Nicholas, stay in the toys. Meet you I will in a few minutes, nigh,” Claude yelled. He searched for a sign of acknowledgement; instead, the boy sped toward his favorite section, disappearing into a throng of shoppers that had sprung up from nowhere in the past few minutes.
No doubt that when he found Nicholas, his son would be engrossed in magic tricks. Nicholas had spent many hours with this new hobby since his mother took him to see Grizzare’s Greatest Show in New Orleans several weeks ago.
Claude was suddenly aware that Mr. Cormier still clasped his hand in a handshake. His eyes locked onto Mr. Cormier’s, who had begun to slowly shake his head, smiling. Mr. Cormier wheezed heavily in between sentences, and even more so as he spoke. “A fine boy you got there, Dr. Breaux,” he said slowly, a grin materializing on his lips.
…if she needed my assistance.
For a moment Claude felt lost, not sure what to do next. He nodded slowly, unconsciously imitating Mr. Cormier’s rhythmic bobbing. Then, remembering how he had abruptly ended the visits with Mr. Cormier, Claude felt pangs of guilt. A vague but gripping sense came over him that he must, somehow, make things right with this patient.
“Mr. Cormier,” the good doctor started.
“Buckley, remember?” The patient interrupted. “You do remember, don’ you doc?”
Could Mr. Cormier hear his very thoughts?
Talk to you later, Doctor Breaux.
People were now shuffling past and bumping into the pair at a steady pace, forgetting the formalities of excusing themselves. Although his patient appeared to hold steadfast in the wake of the other shoppers, Claude was almost completely turned around by a husky, unkempt man pushing rudely past.
As the man brushed by, Claude grunted in pain. A blunt object had been purposefully thumped against his chest – so fast that he could not tell what the object was, though the man was strangely familiar.
“Mr. Buckley,” Claude said, turning back around to face his patient, painfully avoiding his eyes. “D’you see?”
“Jus’ Buckley, okay doc? You seem a wee bit distracted. You okay?” The last part was muddled by wheezing.
“Buckley,” the good doctor started again. “In the morn’, you will come to my office, no? I will refer you to a doctor that can help you. An internist. ‘Specially for that wheezing. It… it sounds bad. To me, I mean. You may have ‘monia to come upon you since the pain in the back.” He said pneumonia, but Claude also was thinking tumor. He still had time to make this right, didn’t he? It was too damned important not to make this right. “Would make me feel better if you see me in the morn’.”
The patient continued to nod, smiling. Light seemed to drip from his eyes and was getting impossible to avoid. “See, ‘low me to make sure I understand you. It would make you feel better, doc?”
“Well, I mean…” he stammered, searching for the right words – the words that would show Buckley that he truly had his best interests at heart.
I wanted to know if she needs my assistance.
Claude felt something soft and warm brush by him, and realized that, in the throng of shoppers, a lady had squeezed by him. She had brushed her derriere against his, in an arousing, purposeful way. The lady had straight, black hair that draped halfway down her back, just touching the top of her white blouse. Her bright pink shorts dipped back and forth as she kept walking, not looking back. He watched the mesmerizing pink parade for several moments as the beauty turned to address her partner, another lady whose features Claude could not make out through the throng.
Abigail. The raven-haired beauty was Abigail, the woman with whom he had shared so much several months ago. It was over now; he had made damn sure of that. But, how could she be here, half a state away?
The good doctor realized that he was becoming way too distracted from his original purpose. He had to excuse himself with Mr. Cormier and retrieve some flowers. Even on the night of Saint Valentine’s, some leftovers are still full and pretty, right?
He turned back to his patient, who was suddenly gone.
Claude approached the glass case located under the sign marked “Welcome, Lovers”. He noted with amazement that the crowd filling Van Guard had not yet decimated the flowers within the glass cases. In fact, almost every kind of flower that could be given on this day was on display, each with its own beauty and grandeur.
Claude was finally alone with his flowers, save for one man who was digging fervently through the foliage in one cabinet. The fogged glass of the open cabinet obscured its contents. The man emerged upon seizing the prized possession for which he must have been poking around for several minutes, judging by the thickness of the fog on the glass. He must have been a good four inches taller than Claude, with black hair peppered with gray – but in a way that was flattering. The man cracked a smile of recognition when he turned and saw Claude. The good doctor could not help but to think that the guy kept a two-day stubble only to enhance his rugged handsomeness.
“You’re Dr. Breaux,” Mr. Rugged said. “I think you cracked my mom’s back a spell ago. She told me the pain from the car accident became a bit easier.”
“My pleasure it is. Who is my pleasure for, sir?”
“Oh, I know. Painful t’would be to remember ere person that you treat. Her name is Eva. Eva Granger.” Mr. Rugged was not only still smiling, but his mouth had split open enough from the effort that Claude could see the man’s tonsils hanging listless in the back of his throat.
“Granger,” Claude recalled. He remembered a frail lady with straight gray hair with that name. She had indeed received treatment from the good doctor, including a battery of X-rays, some spinal manipulations, and an herbal consultation. Although he had not soaked her pocketbook, he had not given her his full expertise, either. But he also recalled something else.
“Would you be Charles Granger, then, the principal at Pacodoches?” Claude could feel the blood pressure rising through his body, coloring his face like crawfish as the heat of anger began to pulse like blood through his veins.
“Why, yes. Yes, I am,” returned the still-grinning principal, and the thought occurred to Claude that the guy’s jaws were going to ache horribly tomorrow after this kind of sustained effort.
Claude’s fury was compounded suddenly by the fact that he was now noticing clearly what the adulterous principal had emerged with from the glass casing – a full bouquet of a dozen pink roses, complete with baby’s breath garnish.
“What the hell do you think you are doing with those roses? Those pink roses?” The good doctor demanded, clenching his teeth and feeling a flood of perspiration break out on his forehead.
The smile closed only enough that Claude could not see his gums anymore. Other than that, Claude could not even tell that the principal had acknowledged the cursing. “Pretty they are, no? They are for m’lady-friend,” the principal said pleasantly. “We’ve had an argument. Imagine this, can you, on Valentine’s Day? Anyway, the pink roses will give me assistance as we make up, no?”
I wanted to know if she needs my assistance.
Claude cocked his head sideways with this answer, unbelievingly. He imagined that his ears must have cracked open and fluid was spilling out in order to have heard such words. “T’hell with you. What d’you just say?” Even though Claude was noticeably shorter than the principal, he wanted to split the glass flower casing with the man’s skull. Maybe then he would finally wipe the smirk – yes, dammit, he realized now that it was definitely a smirk – off the principal’s cocky face.
The good doctor shifted his weight in order to ensure delivery of a full blow from his fist, then –
“Daaaad. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyy!”
He heard Nicholas yell from far away, and his son’s use of the word “daddy” made him gulp down acid from his stomach. Nicholas never called him that. His son sounded scared and in trouble, and why had he not thought of retrieving his son before trying to procure his flowers?
Claude glared at the principal and warned, “We finish this when I return.” He turned and hurried toward his son’s sobbing. Out of his peripheral vision, he noticed that somehow, in the course of his conversation, the flowers had been terribly picked over and the glass casings were almost completely bare – except for one small vase of yellow carnations. Had they been that way all along?
Claude hurried toward his son, sifting through the swarm of shoppers churning about as if they were wind particles in a gigantic tornado. He rushed toward the general direction of the toy department, though he did not hear his son’s cries anymore. As he ran, he clutched his chest and wondered exactly what the unkempt guy had poked him with that could create such a sharp pain. Stabbing pain shot up through his chest and down his left arm, like a stilleto trapped under his skin trying to tear its way out.
Almost simultaneous with the discovery that he was having chest pain, he bumped into the mysterious lady with the pink shorts. As she whirred around to confront him, her partner – the one who he could not identify previously – addressed him.
“Sweetheart, why is it you take so long for my flowers?” Midge smirked at her husband, spreading her lips in a toothy grin. Thick coffee stains covered her large teeth, and her breath was hot and putrid. Each tooth was jagged and sharp, as if she purposely had filed them down to a point.
The brief affair with Abigail now came back to him. How easy and ludicrous it had been, practically falling into his lap. The brown-haired beauty had been waiting in Claude’s office when he arrived that morning months ago, giving him the line that she was visiting friends away from home but awoke that morning needing an adjustment.
In the middle of the procedure, she had suggested, “Ahh, doc, s’thing else may need adjusting, no?” Abigail had come on so strong and so fast that it was over before Claude had realized that he was allowing it to happen.
And then Midge caught them, which was a first in all the time that he had been in practice. Although he fired her, his secretary later had sworn that she had seen neither of the women enter the building.
Now he knew why. Midge had meant for Claude to cheat on her, as if she had given Abigail to him as a gift.
When Claude looked back to Abigail in horrified dismay, he found that Mr. Cormier had taken her place to stand beside his wife. He was still wearing the azure high school jacket, but the ornate scarlet star had been transformed into a heart.
Claude clutched his own chest with both hands, and Mr. Cormier reached out impulsively in an attempt to steady him. The pain, oh God, the pain.
When the older man reached out for him, the azure jacket pulled away to reveal a white, button-down shirt. The name displayed over the breast pocket was Athoya Cormier.
The good doctor crumpled at their feet, noticing that his actions were starting to draw a crowd. He tried to yell out, “call 911”, but the sound could not get past the choking acid that seemed to be spilling out from his stomach in torrents, like a pressure valve that had been released. The crowd began spinning overhead, faces meshing together indistinguishably.
A familiar little boy ran through the crowd, shouting something about finally finding his cards. “Papa,” he yelled excitedly, but looked confused and horrified when he saw his dad crumpled on the ground.
Midge reached for her son and pulled him towards her protectively, like retrieving him from quicksand. “Come to mama, cher,” she commanded. The deck of cards spilled out of the boy’s hands, falling slowly. Mocking gravity. Claude turned to see them when they hit the ground a few feet away, and a card slid off the top – an elaborately decorated black horse with its rider.
Turning upward toward Mr. Cormier, he searched the old man’s face for a hint of forgiveness. The old man returned Claude’s gaze with his now-familiar slow, habitual nod. His lips curled at the ends in a sort of grimace, and Claude wondered curiously why he could not be forgiven in this lifetime.
Maybe, then, perhaps in the next.
Searching for Valentine Gifts is copyrighted 2007 by Justin Sherman and may not be reproduced under any circumstances without the author's permission.