The Night Listener and Others Read Online Free PDF

As I fell asleep, I kept seeing Ethel Younger’s white teeth smiling confidently at me, her mouth moving, telling me what she’d told me earlier that day, replaying it in my mind to reassure me that I need do nothing, because they never miss it … nothing you can do about it … what we take is so very slight … once we were able to control it …
    My eyes snapped open, and the room started to roll again, but it was only my body that had had too much beer. My mind was suddenly clear, remembering those words so vividly— once we were able to control it —and remembering everything else too, so that it all fit together like a snap-lock puzzle. There must have been a time, then, when they were learning, when they couldn’t control the power they had. And it was because of that time, not all that long ago, that I would do what I had to do.
    The next day, Sunday, I woke up early and went to Magicland dressed in my street clothes. I showed my pass, got in before opening time, and went to the grove and sat on the Youngers’ bench, waiting for them. It was cool, with a hint of rain in the air, and the light jacket I wore felt good. They arrived ten minutes after the park opened. When they saw me, they slowed down, but didn’t turn back, just kept coming toward me until they were right next to me.
    Ethel Younger smiled. Her husband didn’t. “Another visit?” she said. I nodded. “Your passes,” I said. “May I see them?”
    She pursed her lips. “You’re not in uniform today.”
    “I’m still a guard. I can show you my I.D.”
    “That won’t be necessary.” She dug into her purse and came up with a plastic card that she held out to me.
    “Just put it on the bench beside me,” I said, not touching it.
    “My, aren’t we peevish this morning,” she said, doing as I asked.
    “Now yours,” I told Carl Younger. He hesitated, then took his pass from his wallet and placed it next to his wife’s. I picked them up and looked at them. The faces in the photos looked ten years older than those of the people standing in front of me. I bent the soft plastic in two and put the passes into my pocket. “Your passes have expired. They’re not good any more.”
    Carl Younger’s face got red, and he opened his mouth to speak, but his wife’s raised hand stopped him. Though her eyes looked calm, her mouth had drawn down and her nostrils had widened. “I believe you’re wrong,” she told me. “The expiration date is September tenth. This is only August fifth.”
    I shook my head.
    “Perhaps we should take this up with your superiors.”
    “That’s fine,” I said. “But he’ll believe me, not you. And when I tell him you’ve been giving candy to kids…”
    “That’s not against the law!” Carl Younger burst in.
    “…and asking them for certain things in exchange…” I went on.
    “That’s a lie ,” Ethel Younger cried.
    It was my turn to shrug. “Why would I lie about a thing like that? What point would it serve?”
    “You’d need witnesses.”
    “Would you want it to go that far?” I asked her. “You want people to know your date of birth?”
    Then she laughed, softly at first, but it grew louder, until tears started to form in the smooth corners of her eyes. “He believed us!” she said, clapping her husband on the shoulder. “Carl, he actually believed our story!”
    Carl Younger smiled uncomfortably, then started to laugh himself. It was forced and phony, but it didn’t matter. I knew she was lying.
    “Such a silly story!” she went on, “and…”
    “Shut up,” I said, my fear lost in anger. “It’s too late for that. Just like it’s too late for Jimmy.”
    She stopped laughing. Her husband continued for a few seconds afterward. “Jimmy,” she said condescendingly, as though it were all a joke. “And who is Jimmy?”
    “ Was Jimmy. My brother. My younger brother. Died when we were kids. Died fast, just got sick and died in two days. The doctors thought it was leukemia but were