Grief Street

rushy stuff! A year I thought it was I had left.”
    “Ain’t you heard babies only take nine months?”
    “Ain’t? Must you?”
    “Mostly, yes, I must maintain character.”
    “Gawd—really!”
    “Must you?”
    “Oh, tosh!” The man in the robe rolls his eyes and takes a pull at his whisky glass. “She’s some ways from nine months full, isn’t she? Why is it you’re dragging them in so early on?”
    “The whorl...!” The other man savors the word, as if it was rare steak juicing in his mouth. He draws out the letters— whooorrrl —and trills them in the old country way. “The whorl must be fed.”
    “Cod your talk of the whorl! Tell me clear and true, why do you lure them here?”
    “They own more sensitivity than most ignoramuses. They’ve got the ears for hearing these walls talk. They’ll come here, and they’ll know. Them two, at least, will know.”
    “But it’s why I wrote the bleeding play! Imagine—whole audiences knowing your fury.”
    “It’s not near enough. The whorl must also take them two in time.” He stopped, to again savor his words. “Ignoramuses don’t trouble to remember their own history unless they see the blood of it on a regular basis.”
    “God, you’re daft!”
    “Fook your god! His furies are as wicked as often as good, same as me.”
    “Have a respectful tongue. There’s friends of ours to take offense at your blaspheming sentiments.”
    “Our friends in blue? They been around?”
    “None today. Decent Christians have hallowed places to be going.”
    “Fools!”
    “They’re nae fools!” He barks this out, and waves an arm over his head, an attempt at moral punctuation. But in his drunkenness, the gesture is merely comical. His companion laughs heartily, and in doing so fills the close air between them with sick-smelling breath. The man in the robe winces at the odor, and declares, “This is the Sabbath of our Lord’s Resurrection, after all.”
    “Speak for yourself.”
    “Piffle and tosh! Our friends are hardly the only ones weary of your folderol.” He drains his glass, pours another. He offers the bottle to his now scowling companion, who shakes his head no. “Don’t be misled by my own gentlemanly sufferance. I’m simply as indulgent of you as I am dependent. Therefore, I seldom speak out.”
    “Excepting when you’ve gone potty-headed.”
    “Aye.”
    “At no time do you believe I am who I profess to be?”
    “I have no respect for the wicked.”
    “Come with me, I’ll show you what’s worthy of your respect.” He rises from his chair, steps past the broken hearthstones to a door behind the staircase. “Come?”
    “Down below?”
    “Unless you’re frightened of learning truth.”
    “Liar!”
    “You think so?”
    “Aye, you’re a bloody damn liar!”
    “High compliment indeed. Do you know what a liar is?”
    “Charlatan!”
    “More flattery! Yes, I am all that you say: a man who begins by making falsehood appear as truth, and ends with making truth itself appear as falsehood.”
    “I’ll not listen to filthy riddles!” He claps his hands to his ears, repeating the unintended comical pose. He sits writhing in his chair. His drink crashes to the floor, a gray-black thicket of layered dust absorbs the gold whisky. “I’ll not!”
    “Here now, I thought you were going below with me.” He laughs again, befouling more air. “I thought you were unafraid.”
    “I never said... What I mean—”
    “At least come a few steps down the stairs. Come, see what I’ve to show of the proud craft of perjury.”
    He rises from the chair, wraps his robe tightly around his thin frame, stumbles toward the staircase door. He follows behind his companion as the two clump slowly down into darkness.
    A match is lit, and touched to a candle.
    “Can you see it?” His breath is vile at this close range. He points to a stone slab. “Can you make out the lettering?”
    “I see it’s a tombstone you’ve drug down here to your black mess. Damn you!”
    “Yes, damned I am.”
    “I can’t make out...” He steadies himself on the rail, feels knees tremoring, heart thrashing. “Am I to read an elegy in the stone? Is that your point?”
    “Step closer.”
    “What trick is this?”
    “Here—take my candle if you lack trust. I’ll just wait on the step while you go ahead. Come straight back if you wish.”
    Accepting the challenge, he descends slowly. Two risers from the bottom of the stair is close enough to make out he