Night, EXCERPT ONLY
by A.S. Berman
USA

“8…15…13…5…”

Above the background crackle of the short-wave broadcast the woman’s voice soared, her stilted tones filling the tiny basement grotto like a barroom’s veil of tobacco smoke, and to the niche’s sole inhabitant, it was equally comforting in its familiarity.

His father had smoked Winstons.

Danny yawned and snuggled deeper beneath his Batman comforter in the old easy chair, his gaze dancing lazily around the tiny space that enveloped him. In a world that seemed determined to make the nine-year-old feel as if he were intruding, the phone-booth size hollow in the basement wall was undeniably, unapologetically Danny’s own.

Arrayed shoulder to shoulder, his favorite books and comics sat on the built-in shelves above his head and all along the nook’s west wall. Eerie shadows slid quietly over the boy and his belongings, the product of a gurgling emerald lava lamp behind him.

"…3…15…13…5…”

Tucked inside a cubbyhole inches from his knees, the old Zenith short-wave set continued to give breath to the Number Lady’s lament, as it had done nearly every night for as long as he could remember.

"But why does she count?” he had asked his father a few years back.

“Maybe she’s counting sheep to help little boys sleep,” his father suggested, smiling at the unintentional rhyme.

Danny giggled, and afterward he waited, knowing even then that his father, whatever his faults, never let slip an opportunity to introduce his son to the maddening mysteries of life without some stab at an explanation.

“There are many who say your Number Lady, and others like her, are actually sending out secret messages to spies all over the world.”

Danny had wrapped his head around this revelation with keen excitement, picturing roguish, desperate men laying low on dark beaches and secreted away in spider-webbed basements much like this one, ears cocked to their radios, carefully jotting down each numeral uttered by this woman, an aural lighthouse for the despised.

“…8…15…13…5…”

He glanced at the large, dog-eared world map tacked to the simulated wood grain wall above the radio, each country bisected by a rain of vertical lines demarcating short-wave frequencies. So many frequencies, so many countries, so many people listening to the same numbers that Danny was now. Understanding them, yes, but for all that secret knowledge they remained, as ever, hopelessly far from home.

At least they have a home, Danny thought, instantly wondering where the thought had come from.

Above his head the ceiling creaked impatiently, firing footsteps over his head and into the kitchen. The new arrival was a man, that much Danny could tell. For more than a year, it had just been Danny, his mother and his 17-year-old sister in the little Virginia Beach bungalow, which made the clumsy clomp of male feet that much easier to recognize. A few minutes later, the new footsteps left the house, a car came to life outside, and Danny allowed himself to relax again.

At the top of the stairs, the basement door groaned. Even before the first step creaked, the boy knew who was coming to rouse him from his grotto. He slid the thick red curtain closed, hoping his sister would leave him alone this time.

“Mom wants you upstairs. We have to get some things for dinner. "  

Silence.

“Danny, we’ve got company coming over tonight.”

“Funeral People,” he mumbled, trying to concentrate on the Number Lady’s litany.

“3…15…13…5…”

"Don’t let Mom catch you calling them that,” Carrie warned, shoving the curtain aside.

Danny glared up at his sister. “Uncle Dave. Cousin Jeff. Aunty Patty and Uncle Ray?”

“I’m not sure if Jeff’s coming tonight.”

"Funeral People,” he repeated. “They only ever come around when someone’s died.”

 It was a little past noon, and the sun danced across the broad Atlantic. Despite the sunshine, a winter chill blew in from the East, hastening the Friday evening throngs on their way that much faster.

“Your Uncle Dave likes cannolis, and Parisee’s has the best I’ve ever tasted,” Maggie said, leading the way down the hill.

Danny followed along closely, while Carrie lagged some distance behind lest some unseen classmate spread it about Clarkeswell High that she had shared a public sidewalk with her family.

Calling a silent truce with her mother, Carrie ducked into the pastry shop with the woman. Crossing the street, Danny perched himself on a bench along the wharf and buried his face in his blue scarf, eyes burning in the ocean-chilled breeze.

Seagulls by the dozen soared and dived inches above the surf, filling the air with frenzied cries, caught up in a game older than the wharf, the shops and the city. But today it was a game complicated by the number of players that filled the fishy air; there were so many more birds here than at any time he could remember. Perhaps some of them were from foreign shores, driven by nature’s immutable law to seek a sunny clime rather than flounder in darkness, no matter how far their wings were forced to carry them.

Soon his family emerged from the bake shop, Carrie finishing off a jelly donut, their mother leading the way back up the hill to the car, a large white sack under one arm.

Danny turned briefly to say his silent goodbyes to the seabirds. That’s when he noticed them, a cluster of shapes on the wharf’s west side. A couple had fishing rods, he saw, but there seemed to be no reason for the others to be there.

Three were black, two women and a man; two were Arabic looking; three more were what his father used to call Orientals; all were old. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such a mix of faces on the waterfront. Yet, as different as they were, they all craned their necks to peer out over the endless glittering waters, eyes focused on foreign lands that only they could see. It made them seem a single, multiheaded beast, waiting and clinging stubbornly to the shoreline.

Continuing their climb up the hill, they passed litter bins overflowing with take-away bags, newspapers and soda cans, each just a few paces from gift shops and clothing stores, not to mention the old book shop on the corner where Danny’s father used to take him on Sunday afternoons. Signs hailing the arrival of new sales—“50 percent off! Huge savings!”—hung enticingly in the windows. Proprietors leaned out of their doorways, sneaking a quick smoke or making calls on their cell phones, tired eyes weighing the pockets of everyone who passed. But the trash bins still overflowed, and for reasons he couldn’t quite understand.

Danny couldn’t help but feel that, like the Number Lady’s broadcasts, he would understand so much more about the world around him if only he could decipher what was happening right here in front of him.

To read more of this story, be sure to check out Abaculus II.

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