The Impact

Chapter 57

"Come on, you can do it, just move your little fat arm, come on," encouraging Keeper to crawl, eat, talk, or basically do anything has become a spectator sport in our household.

 It would be funny if it weren't a little bit sad that two rational adults and one mildly retarded one find watching a non-verbal twenty pound lump of cartilage and drool ridiculously entertaining. Don't get me wrong I'm fond of Keeper. At first I thought Richman's genderless thing was actually a ploy to try to make other people curious about the gender and want to change diapers. But then I realized that wasn't true because, because of some weird hormone thing, she wouldn't let anyone else touch the kid for like, two weeks. She actually bit the doctor who delivered the baby.

 Yeah doctors were involved, as soon as she was incapacitated with pain Tailor and I got actual medical professionals and we were encouraging and supportive with our eyes closed from a safe distance. But yeah as soon as the baby was born, Richman snatched it away from everybody and bit the doctor who was trying to look at it. And so they kind of left and I gave her towels and stuff to clean herself up with and Tailor threw up. And Richman didn't put her baby down for two weeks. Eventually, I did change a diaper but I was half asleep from studying and it was super dark. Yeah I know I still should have actually paid attention but I was really sleepy and I endured a three hour lecture about how if you turn on lights the baby will wake up not go back to sleep till it moves away to college. So I didn't turn on any lights.

"They almost did it," Tailor says, cheerfully. He's playing chess with himself. I'm studying for finals. Richman is sitting on the floor with her baby encouraging them to crawl and wiggle. The baby sits there drooling and laughing at us because we're all weird and they aren't wrong.

"Maybe today will be the day, I'm glad school got canceled 'cause of the rain," I say, looking down at Keeper. I like the little bugger in spite of myself. If I hadn't heard Richman swearing like a sailor (get it?) during child birth, I would consider having one of the little tykes myself someday. It is awfully sweet and charming. And Richman likes feeding it and talking to it and dressing it in cute little weirdly gender neutral outfits. Today she has them in little jean overalls with a checkered collared shirt paired with a debonair (I've been talking to Richman too much I know, French words are seeping into my vocabulary) little red and grey headband.

"You and me both, Keeper too, huh sweetheart?" Richman asks, smiling at her little baby.

There is a knock on the door.

"Oh my god, Alan found the house," Richman says all in a rush. 

"I told him we lived somewhere else," I say, shaking my head.

"What---he's still stalking you at school?" Richman groans.

"Yeah---but don't call the police again he's so pathetic-----I just tell him I don't speak English and then if he persists I say we live somewhere else," I say.

Another knock.

"Where did you tell him we live?" Richman asks, picking up Keeper. 

"Vermont," I say, wincing.

"I don't think he figured it out. This could be Beggarman," Tailor says, picking up a chair about to go to the door.

"No-----no Tailor I'm sure it's not," Richman says, "Put that down we aren't going to hurt anybody."

"Anybody but Beggarman."

"Anybody but Beggarman and this almost definitely isn't Beggarman----it's probably a neighbor who needs something," Richman says.

Another knock.

"Should we answer it?" I ask, standing up.

"No, I'm sure they'll go away," Richman says.

Another knock.

"They aren't going away," Tailor states the obvious. He's still holding a chair.

"Give them time," Richman says, confidently.

The door flies inward, as thunder booms overhead oddly cinematically.

A man steps in. He is wearing a long, blue wool overcoat, and a fancy hat. He takes off the hat. He is soaked to the skin and looks as though he's been standing out in the rain for hours, days even.

"Now, unless thing have changed in the last fifty years, as I understood it, when somebody knocks at a door. You answer," he says, stepping toward us. Thunder booms again. We all step backward.

"You're in league with Beggarman," Tailor accuses.

"What do you want?" Richman asks, clutching her baby, who has started to cry bitterly.

"You two girls have been very very bad. I'm looking for my little brother," he says, walking farther into the house, water drips around his feet.

"How would we know where he is?" Richman asks.

"You cheated him out of a body that he was attempting to inhabit, then you cut it up and threw it into the sea very fitting and since he's my little brother I found it rather funny---but now I need to speak with him so I was wondering if you knew where his second choice body was?" the man asks, cocking his head, "Because if I know my brother which I do---he had a couple of nice sacrifices lined up."

"Who are you?" I ask him, motioning for Tailor to put the chair down.

"I have many names. I am thunder, lightning and rain, I exist of the sky, clouds, and storms," he says.

"Your brother is of the sea," I guess.

"Yes. And I'm looking for him. He's been missing a while," the man says, dryly, "Now, tell me where he is."

"He killed Rocket," Richman says.

"If that's the name of the body he was trying to inhabit---yes," the man says.

"So---you're in somebody's body too," I say.

"Yes," he says, nodding, as though I'm very stupid, "Now, where is my brother?"

"We don't know, we just stopped him from infecting our friend," I say.

"And if you're the one causing all this rain you can stop, because we don't know what happened to him," Richman says.

"I am and I'm not going to I'm hoping he'll get the message that I'd like to speak with him," the man says.

"Get out of my house," Richman says, "I told you we don't know anything, so go."

"Not until I find my brother, pretty woman," the man says, stepping closer and reaching out to put a hand on her throat. Tailor and lunge forward but water swells up from the ground, throwing him back and me as well.

"You see I think you know something, all three of you, and I'm not leaving until you tell me," he says, holding her by the throat and us back with streams of water.

"Fuck you," Richman says.

"I knew I liked you, let's talk."