The Devil's Alphabet by Daryl Gregory Read Free Book Online Page A

the robe’s collar, and began to cut.
    “You were here the other day,” his father said.
    “Yesterday.”
    “That’s what I meant. I woke up and you were gone.”
    A minute or so later his father said, “When are you going back to—back to where you live?”
    “I’m still in Chicago.” Did the old man not even know where he lived? “I’ve got to leave this afternoon. I’ve got to get back to work.”
    “Good.”
    Paxton felt his face flush in anger. That tone. He’d forgotten how fast, how effortlessly, his father could piss him off.
    His father leaned away from him, turned his head to eye him. “Look at what happened when you showed up. Before yesterday it hardly ever came. You’re only making things worse.”
    Pax pushed down the top of his father’s head and the old man obediently faced forward and bent his head.
    Pax said, “Deke told me about—about how the chub boys suck that stuff out of you.”
    “They came again last night,” his father said. Pax could hear the accusation in his voice. “Big day, they said. A double-header.”
    “I was with Deke yesterday. I was, well, recovering.” His father didn’t say anything. The hair along the sides of his head had dried and tangled. Pax tugged and cut, tugged and cut.
    Several minutes passed. “I remember Jo Lynn when she was small,” his father said. “I remember both of you …”
    Pax’s hand was resting against his father’s head, holding it steady; he felt his big body tremble. “I’m not feeling so good,” his father said. He exhaled heavily. “Help me get back to the living room.”
    “Just a second, I’m almost done,” Pax said.
    His father pushed up against the tabletop, tried to rise, and fell back.
    “Hold on, hold on,” Pax said. He put down the comb and scissors and stepped in front of him. His father was just sodamn big. Pulling him upright, Pax realized, would be an engineering problem—an exercise in mechanics and leverage.
    He straddled one of his father’s legs and got a hand under each arm. “Ready?” he said.
    He braced his feet on the linoleum floor and leaned back. His father held on to him, then with a lurch rose from the chair. For a moment they held each others’ arms like dance partners: London Bridge Is Falling Down.
    His father was much shorter than he remembered. It wasn’t just that Pax had grown. Maybe the weight had compressed Harlan’s spine. Maybe charlies gradually became perfect spheres. This old man came rolling home.
    His father looked up at him and laughed. “He arose!” Like that his mood had lightened. He moved slowly toward the living room, planting each huge foot a few inches in front of the other.
    His father’s shape had been embossed onto the couch. The big man turned, put one arm on the back of the couch, and dropped into the same spot.
    Pax parted the drapes. The chub’s car was still out there. “Do you know what they’re doing with the stuff, Dad?” he said. “After they take it from you?”
    “Oh, you can ask Rhonda about that.
Somebody
ought to ask her.” He pointed at the TV. “Turn that on.”
    Pax turned on the set, handed his father the remote, and then went back into the kitchen to make a sandwich from the deli meat he’d bought. By the time he returned with the plate his father was asleep.
    Pax opened the kitchen windows, turned on lights. The kitchen was filthy, but ten years in the restaurant business,working every position from dishwasher to line cook, had inured him to vile substances that bred in the dark. He’d just clean up a little, and then when his father woke up he’d say his good-byes and get the hell out of there.
    He swept up the hair clippings, and when he couldn’t find a garbage bag, tossed them into the grocery sack. There was Palmolive dish soap under the sink—his mother’s brand. He washed the dishes and rinsed them in bleach water. Then on to the refrigerator. The racks held nothing but condiments and Tupperware and foil-wrapped