The brownstone, p.1
The Brownstone, page 1
The Brownstone
THERE IS NO PLACE TO RUN, THERE IS NO PLACE TO HIDE,
FROM THE TERROR THAT LIVES IN...
KEN EULO
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Connecticut ● New York ● Colorado
Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE & PREFACE
Copyright Notices
Other Books by Ken Eulo
Dedication
Acknowledgment
Lakewood Sanitarium
Dusk,
September 4, 1980
PART ONE
“Because I have been where I have been...”
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PART TWO
“Because I have communed with those who know...”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
PART THREE
“I am who I am.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Copyright Notices
KEN EULO
THE BROWNSTONE
Copyright © 1980, 2013 by Ken Eulo
Int’l ISBN: 978-1-62071-052-4
ISBN: 1-62071-052-8
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic means is forbidden unless written permission has been received from the publisher
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
For information address:
Author & Company, LLC
P.O. Box 291
Cheshire, CT 06410-9998
This eBook was designed by iLN™
and manufactured in the United States of America.
Other Books by
KEN EULO
The Bloodstone (Stone Trilogy #2)
The Deathstone (Stone Trilogy #3)
To learn more about Ken Eulo and
all of his books please visit:
http://www.keneulo.com
Dedication
This book is for my wife, Elena
—just as I promised.
Acknowledgment
My special heartfelt thanks to Meg Blackstone, my editor for her invaluable assistance and generosity in the preparation of this book
Lakewood Sanitarium
Dusk,
September 4, 1980
And now his time had run out.
Seated alone behind his polished mahogany desk, Dr. I. Luther leaned back and closed his eyes. The electrical shock authorization form lay in front of him unsigned. In the quiet stillness of the room, he took up the old question of just how much electrical shock the brain could withstand before a vital part of it closed down forever.
Tiredly, he pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes and tried to reason past the blankness of his mind. He still could not get a hold on the source, the beginning.
Why, after obvious progress, had the patient suddenly reverted back to speaking in the third person? How to explain this setback? Had the self-destructive forces taken hold again?
His mind skipped backward, trying to reach into the abyss of mental illness, to shine the light of his profession into the darkness of a mind turned to shadows.
He reached for his tape recorder. Only once had the patient spoken in the first person. The words had been recorded. Dr. Luther had listened to those words a hundred times. He still was unable to understand their meaning. Nervously, he pressed the button.
Click.
“Because I have seen what I have seen,
Because I have been where I have been,
Because I have communed with those who know...
I am who I am.”
He rewound the tape and listened once again.
“Because I have seen what I have seen...”
PART ONE
“Because I have been where I have been...”
CHAPTER ONE
THE DAWN GREW—RED, STREAKED, DULL, AND cloudless. From the brownstone window the old woman watched the sleeping city, rise and begin to murmur.
The night was over.
Silently, swiftly, a shadowy figure slipped from a neighboring doorway, robbing the street of its solitude. In a shaft of dim light, the face loomed closer, then moved up the street to disappear around the corner.
The old woman shuddered. It was beginning.
A bead of sweat popped from her brow as she imagined the parade of ghostlike figures who would soon fill the sidewalks below, marching their way into life. She would not be one of them.
Shifting her weight from one leg to another, she stared down at the stains on her white lace dress—blotches that ravaged her dreams. As her gaze moved from one rose-colored stain to the other, her expression turned briefly sad; vacant eyes grieving in a wrinkled face.
She had been seriously ill for more than a year now and loathed the wasted old woman she had become. What was it? Vanity? Fear of death? No. Something else. Her increasing helplessness and dependency on others. Her mind filled with the shock and the absolute certainty that she no longer had the ability to function entirely on her own.
And so, she had called on the power of Ahriman. Ahriman, she knew, would take her outstretched hand and lead her back through the darkness; he would guide her past the worst shadows and free her from the dark terror of reality that surrounded her. The small bedside table filled with medication. The bed that had restrained her for most of the day—the stairs that were increasingly harder to climb, the withered flowers, faded pictures and lost loves. That was her reality, that and the hatred she sometimes felt for her sister.
With a faint tremor of misgiving, the old woman brought her hand up to her breast and sighed. Her mind went back to the morning it all began. “It’s a great day, mother. A great day,” her father had said, holding her sister high so that everyone could peer at the new arrival. She was so tiny, head no bigger than an orange, tiny hands and feet exposing themselves through the green blanket, yet she had filled the room with her presence, stealing the energy, the breath from the other little girl who sat alone in the corner.
No matter. She was not alone now.
The goat had been with her again for sometime. When she had first summoned him, he had appeared as a thin shadow. Now, when the Woden tin whistle sounded, he sprang before her in flesh and savagery.
But daylight could not sustain him.
Bands of hazy sunlight fanned out from the window’s edge, and the old woman in lace knew that it was morning. A breeze wafted suddenly across her face and something brushed her cheek. She started and turned swiftly around.
From the center of the room, a cloud of red fumes rose toward the ceiling. As it spread and thinned, the goatlike image, which had stood magnificently by her side throughout the dark hours, began to dissolve. Part illusion now and part reality, it spread its ancient wings, lashing its tail gently, as it continued to disappear.
With a sudden motion, the old woman thrust her forearm directly into the flame of the candle. At once the air of the musty room rang with her long, woeful cry.
Her groan rose higher as her flesh became scorched by the flame. The sulfurous odor of her own burning flesh made her gag. There was no other way—before the goat departed, she had to display her devotion and obedience.
The goat bared its teeth and released a stream of vaporous blue gas, cold, yet comforting. Then it vanished, leaving the old woman in lace to herself. In her mind echoed these words—let me enter you. You may enter me. We will become one.
Chandal stepped, naked and wet from the shower, and began to dry herself with the soft blue-green bath towel. Her firm body moved in perfect rhythms, the towel moving briskly over her taut limbs. Through the half-opened door, she watched Justin hurrying between the two rooms, looking for his notebook. In it, he had written: 1. Traveling expenses—$840; 2. shipment of furniture—$2,200; 3. purchase of secondhand car—$1,500. The list went on in detail for an entire page, and now it was useless. Justin had decided to stay in New York instead of heading to California as planned.
That was how quickly things could happen. Lives could change. It had happened to them, and their lives had changed. The brownstone had happened to them. The brownstone, that decrepit, dingy, musty symbol of New York elegance, in which no one from suburbia would be caught dead. Justin hadn’t been able to resist it.
It was the wildest coincidence. It couldn’t have happened, but it had. Justin had been on his way home from unemployment and he’d done the good Samaritan thing, helped an old lady carry her package. A few fateful words had passed between them and the incredible had occurred. The
“Honey, have you seen the damn notebook?”
“It was on the dresser the last time I looked.”
“Well, it’s not there now!”
Chandal made no comment, but lifted her arm and stretched her long torso. “You still think we’re doing the right thing?” she asked, and Justin said, “Absolutely!”
She wrapped herself in the towel. “Yes, well—I’m not so sure.”
“Ah! But I am.” He stuck his head inside the door and smiled, with the same perfect teeth of his Scottish mother. His eyes, deep green with long lashes, and his nose, average size and straight, were from his Hungarian father. The scar over his left eye was his own invention. Fascinating, Chandal had thought, the night they first met.
Fireworks had been blazing over the South Shore and the music and lights from the bars had danced through the streets, onto the beach where girls sat on the hoods of cars, drinking warm beer; Chandal had been one of them. Casino lovers danced with silk shirts open, smiled and made passes. At the other end of the strip was an amusement park with a merry-go-round. She’d ridden on it until her head was dazed and there was no beginning or end. And when she looked out to find her friends, she saw Justin. They had walked on the beach in a quiet mood, heard the music and laughter from the bars, and saw the fireworks light up the sky. Chandal had paused, allowing the image of Justin to intensify.
He stood, a shower of sparkling light forming a halo around his strong face. A lock of his thick black hair had fallen across his forehead, accentuating the scar. A powerful face, yet gentle, kind. The scar adding mystery, excitement. They made love that night, warm, passionate love, and were married and settled on Eighty-fifth Street within three weeks.
God, you’re handsome! she told him now silently.
He strode past her and surveyed the pile of magazines lying on the tiled floor. “Where the hell could it be?” Chandal swung her right leg onto the edge of the tub and began to massage in skin cream. “Yep,” Justin mumbled, “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”
“I’m stiff. I’ve got to get back to dance class,” she said, digging her fingers into her thigh. Justin brushed past her. “You’re getting us into a mess; you know that,” she said calmly.
He doubled back at the door. “What kind of mess, Del?”
“It’s crazy.” She lowered her right leg and raised the left. “Wanting to move into that ugly old brown-stone with two ugly old ladies.”
“They’re not ugly. They’re interesting-looking old bags. We’ll probably bore them.”
“You don’t bore me,” she said. “How’re you going to bore two old bags?” She handed him the lotion and turned her back. “I believe the shoulders are next.”
“You’re wrong. I believe the kiss was next.” He kissed her and she smiled. “Justin, about California—”
He slapped her on the backside. “I think I was looking for something.” He went back into the living room, slumped down, and checked under the couch. Then he eyed the table—pushed newspapers aside. The headline of variety caught his eye: “Thr. Boom Biz, N.Y.C.” Pidgin English, folksy show-business talk, meaning—theater was doing financially well in New York City. Justin was not. After directing The Awakening, a Nazi war trial play, his twenty-seventh in ten years, he was still nowhere. He was just another name, another director at the bottom of everyone’s list.
Justin Knight, age thirty-five, an also-ran.
“Shit!” he muttered.
He had reached that magical middle ground, not young, not old, where men usually begin to analyze themselves, find the need to regain contact with their lives to remind themselves where they had come from and decipher where it was they were now.
Justin wasn’t any different.
Something tangible—yet mysterious—had begun to stir in him, some terrible strain that accompanies the realization that there is such a thing as the bogeyman called failure. It did something to his stomach, turned it over, made it queasy. It also made him feel raw and defenseless, and in some way resentful that he had not been prepared to understand failure when he was a child. To understand it, to fight it, and to survive.
But in Madison, Wisconsin, in the late 1940s, failure was a way of life and the only meaning of success was escape. To buy a one-way ticket out of Madison, that tired old town where the day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer.
In 1951, he had been six years old. Colors spread out before him like assorted crayons in his brown tattered pencil holder which he carried back and forth to school each day, but never did get to use, except during lunch hour, when the other kids ignored him. Color green trees everywhere, yellow flowers aplenty, pink, blue, and red. White picket fences, brown and orange earth.
He would sit under the large elm tree at the far end of the schoolyard and color, and color, and color until his eyes could see things only in those terms. He was never sad—he was dark blue. He was not lonely—he was gray.
Momma said that color didn’t mean much, but he knew that she was lying, for each time she told him that, tears flooded her eyes.
“Momma, how old was I when Poppa died?” he asked.
“Oh, you were just a bit of a thing,” she’d say and go on about her work.
Drunkenly. Stupidly. In a car crash. At the age of thirty-six. That’s when his father had decided to buy his own one-way ticket out of Madison. Justin always felt that way—that it was his father’s decision, not God’s, to pass on to another life. “You start out with nothing, and that’s the way you end up.” Justin’s father had said that, and then he was gone. And then the colors started mixing together faster than Justin was able to sort them out.
Down the street lived Sam Jennings, who used to beat his children with a strap. He always looked to Justin like he was crying. His children never did. He cried for all of them. There was Franky, Michael, Jonathan and Marsha. Of the four children, Justin liked Marsha the best.
Once, when Marsha and he were coloring colors together, Mr. Jennings came up behind her, picked her up by the hair and slapped her hard across the face.
“I don’t want you playing with this white trash!” he said, and dragged her back to the house. Justin remembered feeling afraid every time he passed his house after that for fear he would come out with the strap and beat him. He never did.
Life went on as usual.
Mrs. Jennings, who was not at all like her husband, would come over to Justin’s house evenings and talk to his mother. He would lie in bed and listen to them cry together. He colored their tears silver, and slept in rain showers many a night. Nights seemed long, like growing up, colors became more important. Blue police uniforms, black cars, bigger black dreams, and huge white folks.
Suddenly, without warning, Justin lost the sight of his right eye. The doctors came from far and wide; they had all heard of this special little boy who had contracted a rare disease. He was famous—and blind in one eye.
Colors lost their shine. He lost his patience with people. He just didn’t want all those doctors looking at him. He had one eye; that was enough for him. After all, he was fourteen at the time. At fourteen, you can see plenty with one eye. “Mom, please, I can see fine. Please, I don’t want the doctors here anymore,” he said and kept on saying it.
“You’ll do as I tell you!” she screamed at him, and kept screaming until she broke down, took him in her arms and squeezed him until he could barely see from the other eye.
“I love you—I love you, and want you to see,” she told him. She was a wonderful woman and Justin would never forget her. She died shortly thereafter of anemia. The year was 1959. Justin looked at her still face framed in white satin, smelled the scent of roses, red roses, that lay across her coffin, and for the first time, through his tears, he realized that he could see with both eyes. He had wished instead that he had gone totally blind. No, Momma, I’ll never forget you.
