[Critique Group 2] pieces due today

[Leonard Tuchyner]

Just a reminder that our pieces are due today. Mine is below.


Conversations with Houdini 

 

The old grandfather clock strikes 12 on Halloween. This isodd, because it only strikes the doleful tones on 12 Halloween midnight. Twelvenotes, each discordant to the one before and of different qualities, all ofthem unpleasant to the ear. My spine reacts with 12 chills, each one unique,and increases with the sound of a new hell. The ancient clock is dead to allother time. Somehow, it manages to set itself back to the last time it chimedon Hallows Eve. I read the date listed in its window which reads month and year,October 31, 1926.

I’m sitting in the dark, on the old four poster bed. Theroom begins to shine with a gloomy light, revealing the figure of a man.

“Hello, my old friend. I hoped you would keep ourappointment,” I say.

“Of course, I have. Don’t I always?” he responds. 

“Yes, you have. But one never knows what time will bring.”

“We have our fun on this night together, and no other night.I wouldn’t miss it for the best illusion ever,” Houdini says.

“It’s true, and may we continue to do so for the rest ofeternity, I pray.”

“Ah, my friend I can’t guarantee that. But let us be satisfiedthat it will be our tradition for as long as Halloween is celebrated. Shall wego?” he says, his dark eyes laughing.

I take his hand and exit out the wall. For on Halloween, inthese magician’s hands, I have the power of flight and can go through walls.

Outside, the spirits are having a rousing time. Witches areflying on their broomsticks. Vampires are feasting on young blood. Skeletonsare playing scary music with their bones.

Houdini looks at me with amusement. “That’s a new one on me.I don’t remember skeletons doing that before. Do you?”

“No, but I think they’ve got a hit. I like it almost as wellas a banshee cry.”

“Is that really your favorite? I’ve always been partial towomen screaming,” he says, with a wicked smile. 

We stop to listen to gallows humor, told by a man with arope around his neck while hanging from the scaffold.

When we have had our fill, we continue on our walk.

“Do you know why the condemned man couldn’t plead his case?”Houdini asked.

“Because he was tongue-tied. I’ve heard that one last year,”I answer. 

We find a kiosk and order some blood wine and entrails. 

“Ah, my friend. We might as well get my story over with.Every Halloween I’ve got to tell it. There is nobody I would rather tell it tothan you.”

“Okay, let’s have it. But tell me again why you have to. Becauseyou’re not the sort of fellow that goes for the macabre.” 

“I agreed to tell my story every Halloween as a ticket forbeing allowed to be here at all,” he answers.

“Get on with it,” I say.

“Well, here goes. I was sucker punched in the gut. I said Icould take any punch anybody could throw at me without suffering any harm. So,one Halloween Day I open the door at the sound of the knock, and this guy getsone in on me before I have time to get ready for it. He plowed it right throughmy defenses. I actually died from appendicitis and peritonitis. It happened on Halloween.Isn’t that hilarious?”

Harry made a face depicting what he might have felt as hewas hit and his teeth fell out. Then he fell over, clutching his midriff. Helay half on the kiosk table for a full 5 minutes, while his face turned ashenand his body turned to goo.

“Okay, Harry. I’ve had enough. You can get up now.”

His body coalesced, regained its color, and his teeth wentback into his head.

“Funny, huh?” he said.

“It won’t win an Oscar, but you make your point. You’veruined my appetite. Let’s move on,” I say.

We moved on through the night. We watched the headlesshorseman do a gig using his head as a dummy. He was pretty good. You couldn’tsee his lips move at all, because without his head, he had no lips. But when itwas time for his body to talk, his head was good about remaining unmoving. 

“How about you, Benny? Why are you stuck in that old hovelhaunting it?” Harry asked.

“Oh, you know why.”

“I do indeed. But it will do you some good to get it offyour chest.”

“Every year you ask that, and every year I give in and tellyou. It never seems to help,” I argue.

“Maybe this year will be the cure, and you’ll be able togive up the old gig and move on with your afterlife.”

“Oh, all right. So here goes.”

“It started out to be a typical Halloween. We had candy whichwe handed out at the door. The kids were particularly adorable in theircostumes. This was one of Margaret’s and my favorite holidays. Little Johnnywas dressed as a pirate, complete with carboard sword and a fake beard. He wasout there with some friends from the neighborhood, and I’m sure they weregrabbing a bag full of goodies as they went from house to house getting theirtricks. He was on his way home, just one block away when we heard a loud bang. Thenchildren began to scream. It was bedlam. Margaret and I rushed to the end ofthe block, and there was little Johnny lying in a pool of his blood. “

I stopped there, the tears had welled up and I was about tocry. Houdini put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s all right. You cancry.” 

I broke down and sobbed my guts out, like I did every HallowsEve. And every time, when I was finished, I still had the same hate and feelingof loss I always had. I couldn’t let go. The anger and hate built up in my gutuntil I started to rage. There was that wretched asswipe of a kid standing therewith a look of shock on his face.

“What have you done, you murderous little monster?” Iscreamed at him.

“I didn’t know it was loaded. I didn’t know.”

“Where did you get a real gun?” I yelled.

“M M My Dad had it in his night drawer. I took it, but Ididn’t know it was loaded. I was only playing. I’m sorry,” he cried.

“I grabbed the son-of-a-bitch kid by the throat and squeezed.I kept squeezing  long after he passedout . Then I heard a shot, and I was floating over two bodies, a little boy anda grown man who looked just like me, and I realized what I had done. I saw thestricken look on Margaret’s face. Her husband and little boy lost to her in thetwinkling of an eye. I tried to tell her I was sorry, but she couldn’t hear me.I saw the expression on the boy’s father’s face, who held the gun his son hadwielded. 

All this seemed real as it had been enacted on that first Halloween.The thought forms were all there acting out their parts.

Houdini consoled me and said, “You have to let go of theguilt. You know that, don’t you? You will be a prisoner in that house, hauntingit, until you do.”

“I know, I know, I know, but I can’t. Margaret left andnever came back. She can’t forgive me. Why should she? Why should I?”

“It will continue to take time, but you will, my friend. Youwill.”

I hear his words, but I fear it will take forever.

“That boy and his father are here, though you can’t seethem. They are asking for your forgiveness. When you can see them, things willchange. Until then, I’ll be here on this magic night to help you through,” heoffered.

Despite the difficulty for me in changing my tortured mood, weenjoy the rest of the night, with all the spooks like us. As morning lightbegins to dawn, I find myself being drawn back to that dreary house I am forcedto haunt.




 
 
Leonard I. Tuchyner, Author
 
https://www.dldbooks.com/tuchyner/

 
  
 
 

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