Poe's children: the new horror : an anthology - By Peter Straub Page 0,155

and an abrupt surge in blood pressure at the thought of performing in public, so that source of income was forever closed to him. Fortunately, his only other talent, that of putting elderly women at their ease, served him well—his mother’s will left him her trailer and the sum of $40,000, twice the amount bequested to her other two sons.

We should note that, before Kyle’s windfall, Little Red periodically mailed him small sums of money—money he could ill-afford to give away—and that he did the same for brother Ernie, although Ernie’s most useful talent was that of attracting precisely the amount of money he needed at exactly the moment he needed it. While temporarily separated from his spouse, between subsistence-level jobs and cruelly hungry, Ernie waddled a-slouching past an abandoned warehouse, was tempted by the presence of a paper sack placed on the black leather passenger seat of an aubergine Lincoln Town Car, tested the door, found it open, snatched up the sack, and rushed Ernie-style into the cobweb-strewn shelter of the warehouse. An initial search of the bag revealed two foil-wrapped cheeseburgers, still warm. A deeper investigation uncovered an eight-ounce bottle of Poland Spring water and a green cling-film-covered brick comprised of $2,300 in new fifties and twenties.

Although Ernie described this coup in great detail to his youngest brother, he never considered, not for a moment, sharing the booty.

These people are his immediate family. Witnesses to the trials, joys, despairs, and breakthroughs of his childhood, they noticed nothing. Of the actualities of his life, they knew less than nothing, for what they imagined they knew was either peripheral or inaccurate. Kyle and Ernie mistook the tip for the iceberg. And deep within herself, their mother had chosen, when most she might have considered her youngest son’s life, to avert her eyes.

Little Red carries these people in his heart. He grieves for them; he forgives them everything.

WHAT HE HAS BEEN

Over many years and in several cities, a waiter and a bartender; a bass player, briefly; a husband, a son, a nephew; a dweller in caves; an adept of certain magisterial substances; a friend most willing and devoted; a reader, chiefly of crime, horror, and science fiction; an investor and day trader; a dedicated watcher of cable television, especially the History, Discovery, and Sci-Fi channels; an intimate of nightclubs, joints, dives, and after-hour she-beens, also of restaurants, cafés, and diners; a purveyor of secret knowledge; a photographer; a wavering candle-flame; a voice of conundrums; a figure of steadfast loyalty; an intermittent beacon; a path beaten through the undergrowth.

THE BEATITUDES OF LITTLE RED, I

Whatsoever can be repaid, should be repaid with kindness.

Whatsoever can be borrowed, should be borrowed modestly.

Tip extravagantly, for they need the money more than you do.

You can never go wrong by thinking of God as Louis Armstrong.

Those who swing, should swing some more.

Something always comes along. It really does.

Cleanliness is fine, as far as it goes.

Remember—even when you are alone, you’re in the middle of a party.

The blues ain’t nothin’ but a feeling, but what a feeling.

What goes up sometimes just keeps right on going.

Try to eat solid food at least once a day.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with television.

Anybody who thinks he sees everything around him isn’t looking.

When you get your crib the way you like it, stay there.

Order can be created in even the smallest things, but that doesn’t mean you have to create it.

Clothes are for sleeping in, too. The same goes for chairs.

Everyone makes mistakes, including deities and higher powers.

Avoid the powerful, for they will undoubtedly try to hurt you.

Doing one right thing in the course of a day is good enough.

Stick to beer, mainly.

Pay attention to musicians.

Accept your imperfections, for they can bring you to Paradise.

No one should ever feel guilty about fantasies, no matter how shameful they may be, for a thought is not a deed.

Sooner or later, jazz music will tell you everything you need to know.

There is no significant difference between night and day.

Immediately after death, human beings become so beautiful you can hardly bear to look at them.

To one extent or another, all children are telepathic.

If you want to sleep, sleep. Simple as that.

Do your absolute best to avoid saying bad things about people, especially those you dislike.

In the long run, grasshoppers and ants all wind up in the same place.

LITTLE RED, HIS APPEARANCE

When you meet Little Red for the first time, what do you see?

He will be standing in the doorway of his ground-floor apartment on West 55th Street,