The old man enjoyed my gambit, for he nodded vigorously and sprang to life. “A word is not a word until it is heard.”
“A soprano floated out the melody and drew me in note by note.” My audience of two appeared mesmerized by my story, for their jaws gaped and their eyes widened in anticipation. A cool breeze or, rather, an intake of air behind me tickled the short hairs on the back of my neck, and the scar tissue from the earlier hole constricted. Had a window been opened in another room to cause a sudden backdraft?
“Do you trust me?” the old man asked.
A preposterous question. Even when alive, my father earned no such confidence. Trust him? I was not sure that I even believed in his existence at all or, indeed, that he was my father and not some conflation of my imagination. A larger-than-life character from the stage. Come to think of it, my father had hazel eyes, and my inquisitor’s eyes were quite blue.
“Come now, Sonny, no time to dally. If I give you the word, will you follow without reservation, no questions asked?”
“The word?”
“A command, boy-o. When I issue an order, do as I say at once, for your very life may depend upon it.”
Beside him on the edge, Dolly nodded her agreement.
“Yes, I trust you.”
“Good lad. Now, one, two, three … duck!”
I squatted immediately as above my head a projectile creased the air and smashed into the opposite wall. An irregular corona of cracks radiated from the impact against the shower tiles, and anchored deep in the center, a pointy barb of a small harpoon. From the direction whence the weapon had been chucked spewed a fount of the vilest invective. A young woman, hardly more than a girl, swore and cursed like a sailor and stomped her feet in fury. “Whoreson dog, blot, canker! Blast to Hades, I’ve missed.”
Framed in the doorway, she shook with rage, balled her hands to fists, and agitated her head till her dreadlocks clumped and swayed like a custodian’s mop. The bottled anger had nowhere to go, so out it fizzed in tears and spittle. Blood rushed to her face, darkening her complexion against the orange chiffon nightgown that twisted round her lanky frame, and when she stomped, her long legs looked like fence posts being driven into a peaty meadow. Though her frenzy obscured her features, her tantrum reminded me of such a display witnessed long ago. However, I could not place the exact location, time, or person. I turned back to confab with my associates, only to find them inspecting the spear attached to the wall. Dolly thwacked the shaft with her hand, and the vibrations caused a droning bass hum, which confirmed that it was indeed stuck.
“Hither, child,” the old man said. “Come dislodge your harpoon and apologize.”
“A pox o’ your throat,” she hissed. In three long strides, she marched into the full light of the bathroom, and beneath the tempest of her light brown hair, her green eyes darted upon the current occupants. As she walked past me, her upper lip curled into a sneer, and then she braced her foot against the tub, took hold of the weapon, and pulled. Small hills of muscle rose on her biceps, and with a great grunt, she extracted the double-flued point from the ceramic. The old man reached for the harping iron, and she handed it over without further complaint.
He touched his finger to the prick of the point and pretended it was razor sharp. Although the mere handling of the tip would not draw blood, the weapon looked fearsome in his mitts, and my eyes darted back and forth between the barbs and the barbarous woman who had tossed it headward in my direction. Hiding behind that matted hairdo, she resisted close scrutiny. Another tile, loosened by the impact, fell and shattered on the bottom of the tub.
“You could have hurt someone with this,” he said. “Not a child’s toy to be flinging about willy-nilly. What do you have to say for yourself, maid of the sea? Who or what are you, and why have you attempted to pin my man to the wall with your javelin?”
“Some call me by my Christian name of Jane,” she said. “But I am known by many names, all of which result from my most common surname.”
“Shall we guess?” the old man asked.
“Somers,” Dolly said. “Gates. Newport.”
“Go on, then. None of them fellas. Just take a look, and you’ll guess.”
The old man scratched his chin as he looked her over head to toe. “Tanglehair? Beanpole? Skinbone?”
“Long,” she said. “I am often called Long Jane Long on account of my height.” Raising her heels from the floor and straightening her back. “Though he may know me as Long John Long.”