Driving Blind by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page B

came melting along the sidewalk in the hot summer sun, his nose dripping, his fingers wet on his full leather pouch. "Let's see. Next house is Barton's. Three letters. One for Thomas Q., one for his wife, Liddy, and one for old Grandma. Is she still alive? How they do hang on."
    He slid the letters in the box and froze.
    A lion roared.
    He stepped back, eyes wide.
    The screen door sang open on its taut spring. "Morning, Ralph."
    "Morning, Mrs. Barton. Just heard your pet lion."
    "What?"
    "Lion. In your kitchen."
    She listened. "Oh, that ? Our Garburator. You know: garbage disposal unit."
    "Your husband buy it?"
    "Right. You men and your machines. That thing'll eat anything, bones and all."
    "Careful. It might eat you."
    "No. I'm a lion-tamer." She laughed, and listened. "Hey, it does sound like a lion."
    "A hungry one. Well, so long."
    He drifted off into the hot morning.
    Liddy ran upstairs with the letters.
    "Grandma?" She tapped on a door. "Letter for you."
    The door was silent.
    "Grandma? You in there?"
    After a long pause, a dry-wicker voice replied, "Yep."
    "What're you doing?"
    "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies," chanted the old one, hid away.
    "You've been in there all morning."
    "I might be here all year," snapped Grandma.
    Liddy tried the knob. "You've locked the door."
    "Well, so I have !"
    "You coming down to lunch, Grandma?"
    "Nope. Nor supper. I won't come down till you throw that damned machine out of the kitchen." Her flinty eye jittered in the keyhole, staring out at her granddaughter.
    "You mean the Garburator?" Liddy smiled.
    "I heard the postman. He's right. I won't have a lion in my house! Listen ! There's your husband now, using it."
    Below stairs, the Garburator roared, swallowing garbage, bones and all.
    "Liddy!" her husband called. "Liddy, come on down. See it work!"
    Liddy spoke to Grandma's keyhole. "Don't you want to watch, Grandma?"
    "Nope!"
    Footsteps arose behind Liddy. Turning, she found Tom on the top stairs. "Go down and try, Liddy. I got some extra bones from the butcher. It really chews them."
    She descended toward the kitchen. "It's grisly, but heck, why not?"
    Thomas Barton stood neat and alone at Grandma's door and waited a full minute, motionless, a prim smile on his lips. He knocked softly, delicately. "Grandma?" he whispered. No reply. He patted the knob tenderly. "I know you're there, you old ruin. Grandma, you hear ? Down below. You hear ? How come your door's locked? Something wrong? What could bother you on such a nice summer day?"
    Silence. He moved into the bathroom.
    The hall stood empty. From the bath came sounds of water running. Then, Thomas Barton's voice, full and resonant in the tile room, sang:
     

    "Fee fie foe fum
    I smell the blood of an Englishmum;
    Be she alive or be she dead,
    I'll gurrrr-innnnnnd her bones to make my bread!"
     
    In the kitchen, the lion roared.
    Grandma smelled like attic furniture, smelled like dust, smelled like a lemon, and resembled a withered flower. Her firm jaw sagged and her pale gold eyes were flinty bright as she sat in her chair like a hatchet, cleaving the hot noon air, rocking.
    She heard Thomas Barton's song.
    Her heart grew an ice crystal.
    She had heard her grandson-in-law rip open the crate this morning, like a child with an evil Christmas toy. The fierce cracklings and tearings, the cry of triumph, the eager fumbling of his hands over the toothy machine. He had caught Grandma's yellow eagle eye in the hall entry and given her a mighty wink. Bang! She had run to slam her door!
    Grandma shivered in her room all day.
    Liddy knocked again, concerning lunch, but was scolded away.
    Through the simmering afternoon, the Garburator lived gloriously in the kitchen sink. It fed, it ate, it made grinding, smacking noises with hungry mouth and vicious hidden teeth. It whirled, it groaned. It ate pig knuckles, coffee grounds, eggshells, drumsticks. It was an ancient hunger which, unfed, waited, crouched, metal entrail upon metal