43

“Of course.”
“And what else does he say to you?”
“Stuff.”
“What stuff?”
Stephanie shrugged. “Just stuff.”
“For instance.”
“I’ll show you. I’ll ask him some questions.”
“You do that.”
Her fingertips on the planchette, Stephanie stared at the board with eyes tight in concentration. “Captain Stevey, don’t you think my mom is pretty?”
A second…five…ten…twenty…
“Captain Stevey?”
More seconds passed. Shirley was surprised. She’d expected her daughter to slide the planchette to the section marked YES. Oh, for pete’s sake, what now? An unconscious hostility? Oh, that’s crazy.
“Captain Stevey, that’s really not very polite,” chided Stephanie.
“Honey, maybe he’s sleeping.”
“Do you think?”
“I think you should be sleeping.”
“Already?”
“C’mon, babe! Up to bed!” Shirley stood up.
“He’s a poop,” muttered Stephanie, then followed her mother up the stairs.

42

Shirley was pulling up a chair. “Well, let's both play, okay?”
Hesitation. “Well, okay.” She had her fingertips positioned on the white planchette and as Shirley reached out to position hers, the planchette made a swift, sudden move to the position on the board marked NO.
Shirley smiled at her slyly. “You'd rather do it yourself? Is that it? You don't want me to play?”
“No, I do! Captain Stevey said ‘no.’ ”
“Captain who?”
“Captain Stevey.”
“Honey, who’s Captain Stevey?”
“Oh, ya know. I make questions and he does the answers.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, he’s nice.”
Shirley tried not to frown as she felt a dim and sudden concern. The child had loved her father deeply, yet never had reacted visibly to her parents’ divorce. And Shirley didn’t like it. Maybe she cried in her room; she didn’t know. But Shirley was fearful she was repressing and that her emotions might one day erupt in some harmful form. A fantasy playmate. It didn’t sound healthy. Why ‘Stevey’? For Steve? Her father? Pretty close.
“So how come you couldn’t come up with a name for a dum-dum bird, and then you hit me with something like ‘Captain Stevey'? Why do you call him Captain ‘Stevey’’?”
“ ‘Cause that’s his name of course,” Stephanie snickered.
“Says who?”
“Well, him.”
“Of course.”

41

something like a “worry-bird,” painted orange, except for the beak, which was laterally striped in green and white. A tuft of feathers was glued to the head.
“Do you like it?” asked Stephanie.
“Oh, honey, I do, I really do. Got a name for it?”
“Uh-uh.”
“What’s a good one?”
“I dunno,” Stephanie shrugged.
“Let me see, let me see.” Shirley tapped fingertips to teeth. “I don’t know. Whaddya think? Whaddya think about “Dumbbird”? Huh? Just 'Dumbbird.' "
Stephanie was snickering, hand to her mouth to conceal the braces. Nodding.
" 'Dumbbird' by a landslide! I'll leave it here to dry and then I'll put him in my room."
Shirley was setting down the bird when she noticed the Ouija board. Close. On the table. She'd forgotten she had it. Almost as curious about herself as she was about others, she'd originally bought it as a possible means of exposing clues to her subconscious. It hadn't worked. She'd used it a time or two with Lori, and once with Thompson, who had skilfully steered the plastic planchette ("Are you the one who's moving it, ducky?") so that all of the "messages" were obscene, and then afterward blamed it on the "fucking spirits!"
“You playin’ with the Ouija board?”
“Yep.”
“Where’djya learn how?”
“Oh, it says on the back. On the box. Here, I’ll show you.” She was moving to sit by the board.
“Well, I think you need two people, honey.”
“No ya don’t, Mom; I do it all the time.”

-40-

"Oh, yes, of course." The director guffawed. "And you never went bowling with Goebbels, I suppose."

Karl, impervious, turned to Shirley.

"And never went flying with Rudolph Hess!"

"Madam wishes?"

"Oh, I don't know. John, you want coffee?"

"Fuck it!"

The director stood up abruptly and strode belligerently from the room and the house.

Shirley shook her head, and then turned to Karl.
"Unplug the phones," she ordered expressionlessly.

"Yes, madam. Anything else?"

"Oh, maybe some Sanka. Where's Steffi?"

"Down in playroom. I call her?"

"Yeah, it's bedtime. Oh, no, wait a second, Karl. Never mind. I'd better go see the bird. Just get me the Sanka, please."

"Yes, madam."

"And for the umpty-eighth time, I apologize for John."

"I pay no attention."

"I know. That's what bugs him."
Shirley walked to the entry hall of the house, pulled open the door to the basement staircase and started downstairs.
“Hi ya, stinky, watchya doin’ down there? Got the bird?”
“Oh, yes, come see! Come on down, it’s all finished!”
The playroom was paneled and brightly decorated. Easels. Paintings. Phonograph. Tables for games and a table for sculpting. Red and white bunting left over from a party for the previous tenant’s teenage son.
“Hey, that’s great!” exclaimed Shirley as her daughter handed her the figure. It was not quite dry and looked

-39-

read a line, my baby, you could show them. Just remember Paul Newman and Rachel, Rachel and don’t be so hysterical.
She still looked doubtful. "Well, about this technical stuff," she worried. Drunk or sober, Thompson was the best director in the business. She wanted his advice. "For instance," he asked her.For almost an hour she probed to the barricades of minutiae. The data were easily found in tests, but reading tended to fray her patience. Instead; she read people. Naturally inquisitive, she juiced them; wrung them out. But books were unwringable. Books were glib. They said "therefore" and "clearly" when it wasn't clear at all, and their circumlocutions could never be challenged. They could never be stopped for a shrewdly disarming, "Hold it, I'm dumb. Could I have that again?" They could never be pinned; made to wriggle; dissected. Books were like Karl.
"Darling, all you really need is a brilliant cutter," the director cackled, rounding it off. "I mean someone who really knows his doors."
He'd grown charming and bubbly, and seemed to have passed the threatened danger point.

"Beg pardon, madam. You wish something?"Karl stood attentively at the door to the study.

"Oh, hullo, Thorndike," Thompson giggled. "Or is it Heinrich? I can't keep it straight."

"It is Karl."

"Yes, of course it is. Damn. I'd forgotten. Tell me, Karl, was it public relations you told me you did for the Gestapo, or was it community relations? I believe there's a difference."

Karl spoke politely. "Neither one, sir. I am Swiss."

-38-

“Where’s the bloody drink!”
“Want some coffee?”
“Don’t be fatuous. I want another drink.”
“Have some coffee.”
“Come along, now. One for the road.”
“The Lincoln Highway?”
“That’s ugly, and I loathe an ugly drunk. Come along, dammit, fill it!”
He shoved his glass across the bar and she poured more gin.
“I guess maybe I should ask a couple of them over,” Shirley murmured.
“Ask who?”
“Well, whoever.” She shrugged. “The big wheels; you know, priests.”
“They’ll never leave; they’re fucking plunderers,” he rasped, and gulped his gin.
Yeah, he’s starting to blow, thought Shirley and quickly changed the subject: she explained about the script and her chance to direct.
“Oh, good,” Thompson muttered.
“It scares me.”
“Oh, twaddle. My baby, the difficult thing about directing is making it seem as if the damned thing were difficult. I hadn’t a clue my first time out, but here I am, you see. It’s child’s play.”
“John, to be honest with you, now that they’ve offered me my chance, I’m really not sure I could direct my grandmother across the street. I mean, all of that technical stuff.”
“Come along; leave all that to the director, the cameraman and the script girl, darling. Get good ones and they’ll see you through. What’s important is handling the cast, and you’d be marvelous, just marvelous at that. You could not only tell them how to move and

-37-

John? What it means? I mean, really what it means?”
Faintly edgy, he answered, “I don’t know. No, I don’t. I don’t think about it at all. I just do it. What the hell’d you bring it up for?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she answered softly. She plopped into her glass; eyed it thoughtfully. “Yeah … yeah, I do,” she amended. “I sort of … well, I thought about it this morning … like a dream … waking up. I don’t know. I mean, it just sort of hit me … what it means. I mean, the end – the end! – like I’d never even heard of it before.” She shook her head. “Oh, Jesus, did that spook me! I felt like I was falling off the goddam planet at a hundred million miles an hour.”
“Oh, rubbish. Death’s a comfort,” Thompson sniffed.
“Not for me it isn’t, Charlie.”
Well, you live through your children.”
“Oh, come off it! My children aren’t me.”
“Yes, thank heaven. One’s entirely enough.”
“I mean, think about it, John! Not existing – forever! It’s –”
“Oh, for heaven sakes! Show your bum at the faculty tea next week and perhaps those priests can give you comfort!”
He banged down his glass. “Let’s another.”
“You know, I didn’t know they drank?”
“Well, you’re stupid.”
His eyes had grown mean. Was he reaching the point of no return? Shirley wondered. She had the feeling she had touched a nerve. Had she?
“Do they go to confession?” she asked him.
“How would I know!” he suddenly bellowed.
“Well, weren’t you studying to be a –”