Usher's Passing Read Online Free PDF Page B

was the kind of man who insisted that his children make appointments to see him. He had kept his sons and daughter on short leashes—until Rix gnawed himself loose, earning his father's undying hatred.
    He wasn't even sure if he loved his father, wasn't sure if he even knew what love felt like anymore.
    Rix knew that Boone had always been a great practical joker. "Dad's not dying," he told the skeleton. "It's just a story to get me back there." The plastic bones offered a grin, but no advice. As he stared at the thing, he saw the cab driver's skeleton earring swinging back and forth in his mind. His skin crawled, and he had to call maid service to get the thing out because he couldn't force himself to touch it.
    He made a second call, to Usherland's Gatehouse in North Carolina.
    Four hundred miles away, a maid answered, "Usher residence."
    "Edwin Bodane. Tell him it's Rix."
    "Yes sir. Just a minute, please."
    Rix waited. He was feeling better now. He'd been overdue for an attack; the last one had hit him in the middle of the night a week ago, when he was listening to a record from his collection of jazz albums in his Atlanta apartment. After it was over and he could move again, he'd broken the record to fragments, thinking that the music might have helped trigger it. He'd read somewhere that certain chord progressions, tones, and vibrations could cause a physical response.
    The attacks, he knew, were symptoms of a condition called—in several medical journals—Usher's Malady. There was no cure. If his father was dying, it was the advanced stage of Usher's Malady that was killing him.
    "Master Rix!" the warm, refined, slightly sandpapery voice said from North Carolina. "Where are you?"
    "In New York. At the De Peyser." Hearing Edwin's voice had released a bounty of good memories for Rix. He visualized the man standing tall in his Usher uniform of gray blazer and dark blue slacks with creases so sharp you could slice your hand on them. He'd always felt closer to Edwin and Cass Bodane than to his own parents.
    "Do you want to speak to your—"
    "No. I don't want to talk to anybody else. Edwin, Boone was here a little while ago. He told me Dad's condition is worse. Is that true?"
    "Your father's health is deteriorating rapidly," Edwin said. "I'm sure Boone told you how much your mother wants you to come home."
    "I don't want to come. You know why."
    There was a pause. Then, "Mr. Usher asks for you every day." He lowered his voice. "I wish you'd come home, Rix. He needs you."
    Rix couldn't suppress a strangled, nervous laugh. "He's never needed me before now!"
    "No. You're wrong. Your father's always needed you, and now more than ever."
    Rix paused, torn by emotional crosscurrents. He'd fought for a life of his own, apart from the Usher clan. Why should he expose himself to the mental games that would now be in motion within Usherland's gates?
    "He needs you, Rix," Edwin said softly. "Don't turn your back on your family."
    The truth sank in before he could block it out: Walen Usher, patriarch of the powerful Usher clan and perhaps the wealthiest man in America, was on his deathbed. Even though his feelings about the man were tied into tormented knots, Rix knew he should attend his father's passing. He asked Edwin to meet him at the airport when his flight arrived, then hung up before he could change his mind. He would stay at Usherland for a few days, he told himself. No longer. Then he had to get back to Atlanta, to get his own life in order, somehow come up with another idea and get to work on it before his entire writing career collapsed under the weight of lethargy.
    A Hispanic maintenance man with bags under his eyes came up to the room. He was expecting another dead rat, and was relieved when Rix told him to take the plastic skeleton away.
    Rix lay down and tried to sleep. His mind was disturbed by images of Usherland: the dark forests of his childhood, where nightmarish creatures were said to stalk through the