Would You Shut Up, Please Read online

  I said to the little policeman, “Her plays are called ‘Would You Shut Up, Please.’” It occurred to me that what I had said earlier was true, that Mrs. Scott too had voices in her head that she was trying in vain to silence. Maybe she had been the one to shoot the cat.

  The officer looked at me strangely. I thought he could see my thoughts.

  He said, “Do you think I could see one of them?”

  Now I looked at him. I said, “A play? You want to see one of Mrs. Scott’s plays?”

  He said, “A chap is always considering a career in show business, wouldn’t you agree?”

  I said, “Well—” I said, “Somebody shot a rifle. I don’t want to lose sight of that fact, you know?”

  He said, “Don’t get me wrong. I love being a bobby. But breaking into show business. Well now, that’s a different kettle of fish, now isn’t it? It’s every bloke’s dream, wouldn’t you agree. I mean, isn’t it now?”

  I said, “I don’t know. I guess I never thought of it.”

  He told me that when he was a boy in school he went to a carnival sideshow in McKees Rocks and saw a midget and a bearded woman and Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy. He said he saw a giant and a woman with no arms who did calligraphy with her feet. He saw a man with alligator skin and a two-headed sheep.

  I said, “You’re from McKees Rocks?”

  “Born and bred,” he said, proudly.

  I gave up.

  TOGETHER THE OFFICER and I stood on the Scotts’ front porch, which was large and shaded by a green awning, while the officer rang the doorbell.

  He said, “Okay, then, let’s find out who’s done in your blooming cat.”

  I had also given up trying to define the cat’s ownership.

  Combat, not Mrs. Scott, answered the door, as it turned out. The poor old guy recognized me and spoke to me by name in a warm, demented way. I began to regret that I had caused all this fuss. No harm had been done, really. Who gave a damn if the cat was dead, if for a while it quieted the voices in this poor woman’s head? All her life was devoted to stopping those voices. Who was I to say she should not? The cat avoided the coming months of ice and hunger. No one was hurt; the kids were in school. This was my problem, no one else’s. Did I suffer from some kind of savior complex because my son went missing?

  The officer introduced himself and told Combat he was investigating a call about one of his neighbor’s cats.

  Combat stood inside the screen wearing full camouflage. He had his helmet on, even in the house, though he was not carrying a gun. His face was large and puffy and pasty white in an unhealthy-seeming way, and when I looked into his eyes I saw shattered glass, such a deep lode of pain showed upon their surfaces.

  I said, “Mr. Scott, I just wanted to be sure nobody gets hit by a stray bullet.”

  Combat said, “Won’t you come in? Please, please, step inside, won’t you.” He seemed friendly and yet somehow more business-like than usual. It was clear we were interrupting something and that whatever business we were on would have to wait a bit. He said, “Dress rehearsal, don’t you know.” He gave me a conspiratorial wink, as if to say, “First things first.”

  He led us through the house—the living room with its stained sofa and faded hook rug and dilapidated easy chairs and tattered and stained lampshades, the dining room and its poor cheap credenza and dark-stained pinewood table and chairs and tacky chandelier with burnt-out light bulbs—and finally up the stairs toward the Theater. I trailed the group and noticed the slick worn wood of the banister rail beneath my hand as Combat led the two of us single file to the top of the house.

  If you liked this Algonquin Short, be sure to check out Lewis Nordan’s other print and e-books, including MUSIC OF THE SWAMP, available in June 2014 from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

  LEWIS NORDAN grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi, and received his BA at Millsaps College, his MA from Mississippi State University, and his PhD from Auburn University. A professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh for many years, he was the author of seven books of fiction, including Wolf Whistle and Music of the Swamp, and a memoir. His many awards include three American Library Association Notable Book citations, two PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the Mississippi Authors award for fiction, and the Southern Book Critics Circle award for fiction.

  ALSO BY LEWIS NORDAN

  Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair

  The All-Girl Football Team

  Music of the Swamp

  Wolf Whistle

  The Sharpshooter Blues

  Sugar Among the Freaks

  Lightning Song

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  © 2014 by Alicia Nordan. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  eISBN 978-1-61620-485-3