Needful Things

He began to grope for the noose, and at that moment he sensed he was not alone in the shed. In that moment he seemed to smell tobacco and coffee and some faint cologne-Southern Gentleman, perhaps-the smells of Mr. Gaunt.

Either he lost his balance or angry, invisible hands pushed him from the stool. One foot clipped it as he swayed outward and knocked it over.

Norris’s shout was choked off as the slip-knot pulled tight. One flailing hand found the overhead beam and caught it. He yanked himself partway up, providing himself with some slack. His other hand clawed at the noose. He could feel hemp pricking at his throat.

No is right! he heard Mr. Gaunt cry out angrily. No is exactly right, you damned welsher!

He wasn’t here, not really; Norris knew he hadn’t been pushed.

Yet he felt a complete certainty that part of Mr. Gaunt was here just the same… and Mr. Gaunt was not pleased, because this was not the way it was supposed to go. The suckers were supposed to see nothing. Not, at least, until it was too late to matter.

He yanked and clawed at the noose, but it was as if the slipknot had been dipped in concrete. The arm which was holding him up trembled wildly. His feet scissored back and forth three feet above the floor.

He could not hold this half-chin-up much longer.

It was amazing he had been able to keep any slack in the rope at all.

At last he managed to wiggle two of his fingers under the noose and pull it partway open. He shook his head out of it just as a horrible, numbing cramp struck the arm that was holding him up.

He toppled to the floor in a sobbing heap, holding his cramped arm to his chest. Lightning flew and turned the spit on his bared teeth into tiny purple arcs of light. He grayed out then… for how long he didn’t know, but the rain was still pelting and the lightning was still flashing when his mind swam back into itself He staggered to his feet and walked over to the fishing pole, still holding his arm. The cramp was begi

Bamboo. Dirty, filthy bamboo. It wasn’t worth everything; it was worth nothing.

Norris’s thin chest hitched in breath, and he uttered a scream of shame and rage. At the same moment he raised his knee and snapped the fishing rod over it. He doubled the pieces and snapped them again.

They felt nasty-almost germy-in his hands. They felt fraudulent. He cast them aside and they rattled to a stop by the overturned stool like so many meaningless pick-up sticks.

“There!” he cried. “There! There! THERE!”

Norris’s thoughts turned to Mr. Gaunt. Mr. Gaunt with his silver hair and his tweed and his hungry, jostling smile.

“I’m going to get you,” Norris Ridgewick whispered. “I don’t know what happens after that, but I am going to get you so good.”

He walked to the shed door, yanked it open, and stepped out into the pouring rain. Unit 2 was parked in the driveway. He bent his thin Barney Fife body into the wind and walked over to it.

“I du

He got into the cruiser and backed down the driveway.

Humiliation, misery, and anger were equally at war on his face… At the foot of the driveway he turned left and began driving toward Needful Things as fast as he dared.

3

Polly Chalmers was dreaming.

In her dream she was walking into Needful Things, but the figure behind the counter was not Leland Gaunt; it was Aunt Evvie Chalmers.

Aunt Evvie was wearing her best blue dress and her blue shawl, the one with the red edging. Gripped between her large and improbably even false teeth was a Herbert Tareyton.

Aunt Evvie! Polly cried in her dream. A vast delight and an even vaster relief-that relief we only know in happy dreams, and in the moment of waking from horrid ones-filled her like light. Aunt Evvie, you’re alive!

But Aunt Evvie showed no sign of recognition. Buy anything you want, Miss, Aunt Evvie said. By the way is your name Polly or Patricia? I disremember, somehow.

Aunt Evvie, you know my name-I’m Trisha. I’ve always been Trisha to you.

Aunt Evvie took no notice. Whatever your name is, we’re having a special today. Everything must go.

Aunt Evvie, what are you doing here?

I BELONG here, Aunt Evvie said. Everyone in town belongs here, Miss Two-Names. In fact, everyone in the WORLD belongs here, because everyone loves a bargain. Everyone loves somethingfor nothing… even if it costs everything.

The good feeling was suddenly gone. Dread replaced it. Polly looked into the glass cases and saw bottles of dark fluid marked DR.

GAUNT’s ELECTRIC TONIC. There were badly made windup toys that would cough up their cogs and spit out their springs the second time they were wound. There were crude sex-toys.

There were small bottles of what looked like cocaine; these were labelled DR. GAUNT’s KICKAPOO POTENCY POWDER. Cheap novelties abounded: plastic dog-puke, itching powder, cigarette loads, joy buzzers. There was a pair of those X-ray glasses that were supposed to allow you to look through closed doors and ladies’ dresses but actually did nothing except put raccoon rings around your eyes. There were plastic flowers and marked playing cards and bottles of cheap perfume labelled DR. GAUNT’s LOVE POTION #g, TURNSLASSITUDE INTOLUST. The cases were a catalogue of the timeless, the tasteless, and the useless.

Anything you want, Miss Two-Names, Aunt Evvie said.

Why are you calling me that, Aunt Evvie? Please-don’t you recognize me?

It’s all guaranteed to work. The only thing not guaranteed to work after the sale is You, So step right up and buy, buy, buy.

Now she looked directly at Polly, and Polly was struck through with terror like a knife. She saw compassion in Aunt Evvie’s eyes, but it was a terrible, merciless compassion.

What is your name, child? Seems to me I once knew.

In her dream (and in her bed) Polly began to weep.

Has someone else forgotten your name? Aunt Evvie asked. I wonder.

Seems like they have.

Aunt Evvie, you’re scaring me!

You’re scaring yourself, child, Aunt Evvie responded, looking directly at Polly for the first time. just remember that when you buy here, Miss Two-Names, you’re also selling.

But I need it! Polly cried. She began to weep harder. My hands-!

Yes, this does i’t, Miss Polly Frisco, Aunt Evvie said, and brought out one of the bottles marked DR. GAUNT’s ELECTRIC TONIC.

She set it on the counter, a small, squat bottle filled with something that looked like loose mud. It can’t make your pain gone, of course-nothing can do that-but i’t can effect a transferral.

What do you mean? Why are you scaring me?

It changes the location of your arthritis, Miss Two-Names-instead of Your hands, the disease attacks your heart.

No!

Yes.

No! No! NO!

Yes. Oh yes. And your soul as well. But you’ll have your pride.

That’ll be left to you, at least. And isn’t a woman entitled to her pride?

When everything else is gone-heart, soul, even the man you love-you’ll have that, little Miss Polly Frisco, won’t you? You’ll have that one coin without which your purse would be empty. Let it be your dark and bitter comfort for the rest of your life. Let it serve.

It must serve, because if you keep on the way you’re going, there surely won’t be no other.

Stop, please, can’t you?”