The Animal Hour Read online

  “Your attention please,” the motorman continued. “This train will be sturfing in stazit fif noreen mozens due to a poleaxe on da traz.”

  Nancy looked up. The other passengers looked up, narrowing their eyebrows. They tried to make out the man’s garbled words through the intercom’s distortion and static.

  “I repeat,” said the motorman, “we’ll be sturfing fif noreen mozens due to a poleaxe on da traz.”

  “Well,” said one businessman with a shrug, “if there’s a poleaxe on da traz, sturf we must.”

  Nancy closed her eyes. God bless the Metropolitan Transit Authority! She opened her eyes, braced herself as the train halted. She really might make this, she thought. She really might just walk right out with the other passengers. Walk right past the cops. Right home. To sleep this off, to get some help. To see her mother …

  The motorman repeated his announcement once again, just the same as before. Who says this ride isn’t worth a buck and a quarter? Nancy thought.

  And with that, the doors slid open. The passengers came out of their seats. Surged toward the exit. She held back just a second until she was surrounded by a cluster of suits. Then she came forward. Stepped boldly through the door, onto the platform, part of a crowd of passengers, hidden in the crowd.

  Instantly, steel hands gripped her. She was slammed back against the wall of the train. One cop grabbed her around the throat. Two others yanked her arms behind her back. They wrestled Daddy’s little button into handcuffs while a fourth cop stepped forward with his .38 drawn. He shoved the black muzzle of the gun up under Nancy’s right nostril.

  “All right, you nutty cunt,” he said, “where’s the fucking rod?”

  Nancy’s head fell back. Her coat … Oh God, it was falling open, the pee … Her eyes rolled up in her head until only the whites were showing. Everything seemed to whirlpool away from her, a black swirl of faces, a dizzying murmur of words.

  Well, she’d been right about one thing anyway, she thought, as she felt her legs folding under her. This was turning out to be kind of a lousy day.

  Cautiously, Perkins moved into the ransacked mews. He slid his feet through the shattered glass and marble. His eyes flicked to the far corners of the room. The corners were deep in shadow. Anyone could have been hiding there. Watching him. Perkins lifted his fist to the side of his chin, to be ready for an attack.

  “Zach?” he said again, softly.

  He moved slowly to the stairway, his fist cocked.

  He reached the foot of the stairs and peered up into the darkness. He saw the gray shape of the newel post on the second-floor landing. Not much else was visible. He found the light switch on the wall beside him, flicked it. Up and down, up and down.

  But here there is no light …

  Nothing. His eyes went down over the runner again. There were stains on every step, all the way up, as far as he could see in the dark. The stains were reddish brown on the tan runner. They might have been chocolate stains or catsup. But Perkins knew they were blood. Someone had come down these stairs—or gone up them—dripping blood.

  He stayed where he was, at the foot of the stairs, for a long moment. The mews was quiet. The alley outside was quiet. He could hear his heart beating. He could feel the tightness in his throat. He did not want to go up there. The cops were the thing. He ought to call those cops. But Zach …

  He had this picture in his mind of Zach on the floor in the bedroom. Their old bedroom upstairs. Zach on his back, reaching up. Help me, Ollie. Zach bleeding.

  Don’t worry, Mom. Don’t worry anymore.

  He started up the stairs, breathing through his mouth, keeping his fist raised. He kept his back turned to the wall. He kept glancing behind him to fend off a surprise attack.

  But here there is no light,

  save what from heaven is with

  the breezes blown …

  The shadows on the landing above resolved themselves. The phone table in one corner. The doorway into the dark bathroom. The hallway to right and left.

  He came up onto the landing and turned left. He could see dimly down the passage. He could see the bedroom door etched in gray light, as if a window were unshuttered in there. And now the stench hit him again. He had become used to it; he had stopped smelling it. But now, as he rounded the corner, it came over him in a fresh, dark wave.

  Like a slaughterhouse.

  He had never been in a slaughterhouse, but that was the thought that came to mind. Probably just the stains on the stairway that made him think of it. Something butchered. Torn flesh, spilled blood. He edged down the hallway with his fist pulled back.

  I’m coming, Zachie.

  Man, but he was scared. He definitely did not want to be doing this. He did not want to see what was in this room, not one little bit. Man oh man.

  The dimly lighted door came closer. It had been their bedroom, his and Zach’s. After Mom died. After their father had moved to California. I just can’t handle them, Mary. After Nana had taken them in. The two brothers had lain in the dark in there, on the twin beds. The city had sounded so strange outside, the house had had such a strange old-woman smell. That first night, Oliver had stuffed the sheet in his mouth so Zach wouldn’t hear him crying. He had heard Zach though. Zach had made a high-pitched sound—eee eee eee—as he fought his sobs in the other bed.

  Don’t worry, Zach-man, I’m right here.

  He pulled his fist back an extra notch as he reached the bedroom doorway. The stench was thick here; it was like walking under stagnant water now. He swung around the door into the room.

  The window was unshuttered—the window against the left wall. The red leaves of a maple were there and the bright blue sky behind them. The light came in and the room was gray. In the gray light, Perkins saw the shape on the bed. A dark, human shape lying motionless on the bed to the right. Zach’s old bed.

  Instinctively, Perkins’s hand went out to the side, hit the light switch. He was already remembering the lights were broken—but here there is no—when the light in the room went on. The top light went on and Perkins saw what was on the bed.

  He threw both hands up before his face and let out a hoarse cry.

  The blood …

  The blood was everywhere. The sheets were sodden, black and scarlet with blood.

  Jesus, the blood, Jesus …

  The shape on the bed was a woman’s. But he couldn’t comprehend it. He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.

  Her green leggings were torn. Her legs were scratched. The sheet was still white around her legs, but spattered with blood. He couldn’t comprehend it. Her arms were at her sides. Her arms were torn. Frayed ropes were around her wrists, her small hands clenched. There were burns on her white skin. Her skirt was soaked with blood. He stared, shaking his head. Jesus, the blood everywhere … Her skirt was pushed up around her waist. Her leggings were ripped open. Her groin was exposed and her pubic hair was black with blood. Perkins’s mouth was open. He stared through his raised hands. Her blouse was soaked with black blood and torn open and her breasts had been torn apart as if by an animal and the blood was everywhere, soaked into everything, the sheets sodden around the lacerated torso, around the neck, the ragged neck, the jagged stump of a neck where the head …

  Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh …

  The woman’s head was gone.

  The shock of it pinned the poet to the spot for another endless second. He simply could not take it in. And then he did. He saw the headless body on the bed and the smell coming off it hit him hard. Nausea rose in him with a great gush. He reeled back from the doorway. Stumbled down the dark hall. He had to get to the bathroom. He covered his mouth with his hand. His stomach rolled over.

  He charged headlong through the bathroom door. He flung his arm out wildly. Hit the light switch. The light came on, brilliant and blinding on the white porcelain. The toilet was in the corner and …

  Goddamn it!

  The goddamned lid was closed. He would puke over everything. He
fell to his knees. Threw himself on top of the toilet. Clawed at the lid. Pulled it open. Stuck his head in.

  The woman gaped up at him from the bowl, her eyes an inch from his. Her severed head lay in a pool of black blood. Her hair was half submerged in it. Her slack mouth was filled with it. Her eyes peered out of it. Staring. Vacant. Glassy.

  China blue eyes.

  “Oh, let me not be mad.

  Not mad, sweet Heaven!”

  —King Lear

  It was not as bad as she thought it would be. In fact, the hospital looked kind of peaceful through the trees. A castle of red brick. Round towers rising to peaked roofs. Arched windows with stained glass traced in stone. It was not bad at all.

  Nancy pressed her face to the window as the police cruiser wound down the long driveway. The building appeared at intervals through the row of cypresses. It stood at the center of gently rolling grounds. Hills of green grass, low hedges, shady trees. White figures glided serenely along the pathways. At this distance, Nancy couldn’t tell if they were the patients or the nuns. They looked almost ghostly, floating like that from bench to fountain, from birch to flowering laurel bush.

  Still, she felt encouraged. The patrol car rounded the cul-de-sac and stopped before the main doors. The doors swung open and out stepped the hospital’s director. He stood on the steps to greet her. He was smiling, holding out his arms. Nancy grew excited as she watched him through the window. His eyes were so kind and sad. His sharp, lined face framed with long black hair—it was so sensitive. There was so much understanding in him.

  She got out of the car on her own. She climbed the steps to him as he smiled down at her. It gave her a warm rush—the way he seemed to comprehend her. The way he seemed to know her down to the very bone. It was all going to be all right.

  Smiling, he stood aside as she came. He held the heavy door open with one hand to let her enter.

  “Maybe there will be deer in the mist at the edge of the meadow,” he murmured to her gently as she passed. “Maybe raccoons will waddle down the driveway for the trash. Maybe there will be sightings of bobcats, their yellow gazes reaching from the woods …”

  She felt reassured by this. She entered the hospital almost expectantly. The door shut behind her with a hollow thud.

  She was alone in a white corridor. A corridor of closed doors. Behind the doors, people were whispering, whispering. Reluctantly, she started down the hall. The whispers reached her.

  “Nancy. Nancy.”

  They were whispering her name.

  “Oh, Nancy.”

  A whispered song.

  Slowly, she continued down the corridor. At the end of it, a dark figure was sitting on a throne. It was a slender figure draped in a flowing black robe. It held a scepter in its hand. Its hand was white bones. Its head was a grinning skull; Death’s head.

  “Nancy. Nannnnceeeee.”

  The whispers came to her through the doors. Frightened now, she turned from side to side, looking for help, looking for a way out. But there were only the voices.

  “Nancy. Oh, Nancy …”

  She did not want to go on. She did not want to go toward the throne, toward the skeleton. But she could not stop herself. She drifted toward it, as if floating above the floor. Her hand reached out to the skull, even as she recoiled from the thought of touching it. Her hand came closer; closer. She looked into the skull’s eye sockets. She saw that it had china blue eyes.

  Oh no! Oh no!

  But she could not stop herself. In another moment, she had clutched the skull. Grabbed a fistful of its rubbery skin. It was a mask. She yanked it up. She saw the face beneath …

  “Nancy. Oh, Nancy Kincaid.”

  It was her own face. Towering there above her. Grinning down at her from the throne, the blue eyes gleaming. Pointing at her with one skeletal finger. Whispering:

  “You won’t forget now. Will you?”

  “Oh!”

  A car horn blasted and Nancy woke up. Sat up straight, blinking. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest. She did not know where she was. Then she saw: the city streets whipping by at the windows. The stolid napes of two necks in the seat before her. The backs of two police caps. She tried to shift and felt her hands caught behind her. Oh … Oh, Jesus … Panic crawled in her chest like spiders. Wide-eyed, she turned this way and that. Peered out the window. First Avenue. The cop car was humming uptown amidst a cortege of fast yellow cabs. Anonymous buildings, white stone and glass, whipped past under the wide blue sky. And then, up ahead: a humorless brick temple of a place. Hunched wings, tall, frowning windows. It hoisted its walls out of a red cluster of low-grown maples. A grim fence of black iron surrounded it.

  Bellevue! she thought. And the truth dropped down on her like a stone.

  She remembered the subway platform. Coming awake facedown, her cheek pressed into the grainy concrete. She remembered the weight of the cops on top of her, a hand on her neck, a knee in her back. The bark of their voices: “Where’s the gun? Where’s the fucking gun?” Hands digging at her waist. Pushing at her thighs as if she were a slab of beef. Someone—a woman—said: “Aw crap, she urinated herself!” She had closed her eyes at this. She had concentrated on the dark, on the cold of the stone against her cheek. She just wanted to lie there and let things happen.

  “Do you know where you are?” the woman had shouted in her ear. “Do you know where you are right now?” She had a thick Queens accent: “D’you know wheah you aw right now?”

  In deep shit, Nancy thought, lying there. She felt a tear run out from under her eyelid. Snot ran from her nose and pooled on the platform under her mouth. She did not want to move. She did not want to do anything. “Awright. C’mon!” the woman said finally. Nancy was yanked to her feet.

  “Ow!” That roused her a little. Big male hands gripped her forearms tight. Pain stabbed her shoulder. “You don’t have to hurt me,” she said as fiercely as she could.

  No one bothered to answer. The blue uniforms closed in on her. Beyond them, she could see commuters, their faces, white and brown. Gum-chewing mouths. Eyes—lots of dark eyes with the light dancing in them. The people were up on their toes, straining to see her. Oh, look. A crazy broad getting arrested. Pissed all over herself. Snot all over her face. Nancy couldn’t wipe her nose—her hands were cuffed behind her. She couldn’t even get around to rub herself clean on her shoulder. She wished she could stop crying. She wished her head didn’t feel so heavy and thick.

  The woman from Queens—a policewoman—brought Nancy’s attention back by gripping her shoulders, leaning her face in very close. Nancy saw wisps of blonde hair curling out from under her police cap. Big, soft, brown eyes like a deer’s. She was wearing blue eyeliner—a big mistake with her coloring. “Lissen to me, okay?” the policewoman said loudly. “D’you know wheah you aw? D’you know woy this is hehppening to you? Hah? Do you?”

  Nancy had tried to steady herself on that big face. Okay, she thought; she had to give the right answer here. She sniffled once, hard. Her voice sounded high and strained to her like a little girl’s voice. “I went to work this morning,” she said slowly. “I went to work, but no one knew who I was. I mean, I knew who I was but they said I wasn’t. But I was! And then all the beggars started winking at me.”

  The cops cast long looks at one another.

  Good one, Nance, Nancy thought. She hung her heavy head. It all just seemed too hard.

  “All right,” one cop said with a sigh. “She must’ve dropped the piece in the tunnel. We’ll go take a look.”

  And the woman cop answered, “We’ll take huh ovuh ta Bellevue. Let dem figger it out.”

  Nancy had looked up when she heard the name. Bellevue. The mental hospital. For people who had gone crazy. Her lips moved over the word: “Bellevue …”

  And now, here it was. Through the patrol car window she saw the hospital’s name etched in its wrought iron gates. Then that was gone, and the car was turning. Gunning down a deserted street. Past another hunkering bric
k pile. A solemn row of urns on concrete columns.

  Nancy licked her dry lips. They must be heading around to the emergency entrance, she thought. And they were going fast. They’d be there any minute now. She tried to swallow but she couldn’t. Christ, what were they going to do to her? Were they going to lock her up? Would she have to be in a cell with crazy people? God, she felt if she couldn’t get out of these handcuffs, if she couldn’t get free, she’d start to scream. The patrol car barreled down the deserted street. It was all happening so fast. And the silence—the way the two cops didn’t even talk to her … She might have been alone in all the world.

  She looked up at the backs of the two immobile heads in the front seat. The one on the passenger side was the woman. Her short blonde hair stopped just below the back of her cap. Her neck was slender and smooth.

  “Excuse me …” Nancy said. It was a mouse voice. The cops couldn’t hear her over the roar of wind at the windows. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

  The policewoman barely turned. She glanced at the driver.

  “Are we going to the hospital?” Nancy asked. “Are you taking me to Bellevue now?”

  The policewoman shouted over her shoulder. “Yeah. Wuh right heah.”

  They had come out of the empty lane. The weight inside Nancy grew heavier as she looked out the window. There was a new building. Flat, broad, white. Columns of windows with strips of white stone between. It looked down deadpanned on a wide parking lot below. The road curved around the lot. The cruiser approached the curve.

  “Will I be allowed to call someone?” Nancy had to fight to keep the tears out of her voice. “I’d really like … to call my mother. All right?”

  The policewoman cocked her head and shrugged. “Shuah. Just take it easy now, okay? Don’t get yerself all upset.”

  “I’m not upset,” Nancy said firmly. “I’m fine now. I just wasn’t feeling very well before. I got confused but … I’m really fine.”

  The policewoman didn’t answer.

  “I would just like to call my mother when we get there,” said Nancy with some dignity.