Ray Bradbury. Another Fine Mess

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                Another Fine Mess
                1995

     The sounds began in the middle of summer in the middle of the night.
     Bella Winters sat up in bed about three a.m. and listened and then lay back
down.  Ten  minutes later she heard the sounds again, out in the night, down the
hill.
     Bella  Winters  lived in a first-floor apartment on top of Vendome Heights,
near  Effie  Street in Los Angeles, and had lived there now for only a few days,
so it was all new to her, this old house on an old street with an old staircase,
made  of  concrete,  climbing  steeply straight up from the low-lands below, one
hundred and twenty steps, count them. And right now...
     "Someone's on the steps," said Bella to herself.
     "What?" said her husband, Sam, in his sleep.
     "There  are  some men out on the steps," said Bella. "Talking, yelling, not
fighting,  but almost. I heard them last night, too, and the night before, but .
.
     "What?" Sam muttered.
     "Shh, go to sleep. I'll look."
     She  got  out  of  bed in the dark and went to the window, and yes, two men
were indeed talking out there, grunting, groaning, now loud, now soft. And there
was  another  noise,  a  kind  of bumping, sliding, thumping, like a huge object
being carted up the hill.
     "No  one  could  be moving in at this hour of the night, could they?" asked
Bella of the darkness, the window, and herself.
     "No," murmured Sam.
     "It sounds like . .
     "Like what?" asked Sam, fully awake now.
     "Like two men moving-"
     "Moving what, for God's sake?"
     "Moving a piano. Up those steps.''
     "At three in the _morning!?" _
     "A piano and two men. Just listen."
     The husband sat up, blinking, alert.
     Far  off,  in  the  middle of the hill, there was a kind harping strum, the
noise a piano makes when suddenly thumped and its harp strings hum.
     "There, did you _hear?" _
     "Jesus, you're right. But why would anyone steal-"
     "They're not stealing, they're delivering."
     "A _piano?" _
     "I didn't make the rules, Sam. Go out and ask. No, don't; I will."
     And  she  wrapped  herself  in  her  robe  and  was out the door and on the
sidewalk.
     "Bella," Sam whispered fiercely behind the porch screen. "Crazy."
     "So  what  can  happen  at night to a woman fifty-five, fat, and ugly?" she
wondered.
     Sam did not answer.
     She  moved  quietly  to the rim of the hill. Somewhere down there she could
hear  the  two  men  wrestling  with a huge object. The piano on occasion gave a
strumming  hum  and  fell  silent.  occasionally  one  of the men yelled or gave
orders.
     "The  voices,"  said Bella. "I know them from somewhere," she whispered and
moved in utter dark on stairs that were only a long pale ribbon going down, as a
voice echoed:
     "Here's  _another_  fine  mess you've got us in." Bella froze. Where have I
heard that voice, she wondered, a million _times! _
     "Hello," she called.
     She moved, counting the steps, and stopped.
     And there was no one there.
     Suddenly  she  was  very  cold. There was nowhere for the strangers to have
gone  to. The hill was steep and a long way down and a long way up, and they had
been burdened with an upright piano, _hadn't_ they?
     How come I know _upright _ she thought. I only _heard. _ But-yes, _upright!
_ Not only that, but inside a box!
     She  turned  slowly  and as she went back up the steps, one by one, slowly,
slowly,  the  voices  began  to  sound  again, below, as if, disturbed, they had
waited for her to go away.
     "What _are_ you doing?" demanded one voice.
     "I was just-" said the other.
     _"Give_ me that!" cried the first voice.
     That  _other_  voice,  thought Bella, I know that, _too_. And I know what's
going to be said next!
     "Now,"  said  the  echo  far  down the hill in the night, "just don't stand
there, _help_ me!"
     _"Yes!"  _ Bella closed her eyes and swallowed hard and half fell to sit on
the  steps,  getting  her breath back as black-and-White pictures flashed in her
head.  Suddenly  it  was 1929 and she Was very small, in a theater with dark and
light  pictures  looming above the first row where she sat, transfixed, and then
laughing, and then transfixed and laughing again.
     She  opened her eyes. The two voices were still down there, a faint wrestle
and  echo in the night, despairing and thumping each other with their hard derby
hats.
     Zelda, thought Bella Winters. I'll call Zelda. She knows everything. She'll
tell me what this is. Zelda, yes!
     Inside,  she  dialed  Z and E and L and D and A before she saw what she had
done  and  started  over. The phone rang a long while until Zelda's voice, angry
with sleep, spoke half way across L.A.
     "Zelda, this is Bella!"
     "Sam just _died?" _
     "No, no, I'm sorry-
     _"You're_ sorry?"
     "Zelda, I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but . . ."
      "Go ahead, be crazy."
     "Zelda, in the old days when they made films around L.A., they used lots of
places, right? Like Venice, Ocean Park . . . "
     "Chaplin did, Langdon did, Harold Lloyd, sure."
     "Laurel and Hardy?"
     "What?"
     "Laurel and Hardy, did _they_ use lots of locations?"
     "Palms, they used Palms lots, Culver City Main Street,' Effie Street."
     "_Effie_ Street!"
     "Don't yell, Bella."
     "Did you say _Effie_ Street?"
     "Sure, and God, it's three in the morning!"
     "Right at the _top_ of Effie Street!?"
     "Hey,  yeah,  the  stairs.  Everyone knows them. That's where the music box
chased Hardy downhill and ran over Him."
     "Sure, Zelda, sure! Oh, God, Zelda, if you could see, hear, what I hear! "
     Zelda was suddenly wide awake on the line. "What's _going on? You serious?"
_
     "oh,  God,  yes. On the steps just now, and last night and the night before
maybe, I heard, I hear--two men hauling a--a piano up the hill."
     "Someone's pulling your leg!"
     "No,  no,  they're  there.  I go out and there's nothing. But the steps are
haunted, Zelda! One voice says: 'Here's another fine mess you've got us in.' You
got to _hear_ that man's voice!"
     "You're drunk and doing this because you know I'm a nut for them."
     "No, no. Come, Zelda. Listen. Tell!"
     Maybe  half  an  hour  later,  Bella heard the old tin lizzie rattle up the
alley  behind  the  apartments.  It  was  a  car  Zelda,  in her joy at visiting
silent-movie theaters, had bought to lug herself around in while she wrote about
the  past,  always  the  past, and steaming into Cecil B. DeMille's old place or
circling  Harold  Lloyd's  nation-state,  or  cranking  and  banging  around the
Universal  backlot, paying her respects to the Phantom's opera stage, or sitting
on  Ma  and Pa Kettle's porch chewing a sandwich lunch. That was Zelda, who once
wrote in a silent country in a silent time for _Silver Screen. _
     Zelda  lumbered across the front porch, a huge body with legs as big as the
Bernini columns in front of St. Peter's in Rome, and a face like a harvest moon.
     On  that  round  face  now  was  suspicion, cynicism, skepticisms, in equal
pie-parts. But when she saw Bella's pale stare she cried:
     "Belle! "
     "You see I'm not lying!" said Bella.
     _"I see!" _
     "Keep  your  voice  down,  Zelda.  Oh, it's scary and strange, terrible and
nice. So come on."
     And  the two women edged along the walk to the rim of the old hill near the
old  steps  in  old  Hollywood, and suddenly as they moved they felt time take a
half  turn  around them and it was another year, because nothing had changed all
the buildings were the way they were in 1928 and the hills beyond like they were
in  1926  and  the  steps, just the, way they were when the cement was poured in
1921.
     "Listen, Zelda. _There!" _
     And Zelda listened and at first there was only a creaking of wheels down in
the dark, like crickets, and then a moan of wood and a hum of piano strings, and
then  one  voice  lamenting  about this job, and the other voice claiming he had
nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  then  the thumps as two derby hats fell, and an
exasperated voice announced:
     "Here's _another_ fine mess you've got us in."
     Zelda,  stunned, almost toppled off the hill. She held tight to Bella's arm
as tears brimmed in her eyes.
     "It's a trick. Someone's got a tape recorder or-"
     "No, I checked. Nothing but the steps, Zelda, the steps!"
     Tears rolled down Zelda's plump cheeks.
     "Oh,  God,  that is his voice! I'm the expert, I'm the mad, fanatic, Bella.
That's Ollie. And that other voice, Stan! And you're _not_ nuts after all!"
     The  voices  below rose and fell and one cried: "Why don't you do something
to _help_ me?"
     Zelda moaned. "Oh, God, it's so _beautiful." _
     "What  does  it  mean?"  asked  Bella.  "Why are they here? Are they really
ghosts,  and  why  would  ghosts climb this hill every night, pushing that music
box, night after night, tell me, Zelda, why?"
     Zelda peered down the hill and shut her eyes for a moment to think. "Why do
any  ghosts  go  anywhere? Retribution? Revenge? No, not those two. Love maybe's
the reason, lost loves or something _Yes?" _
     Bella let her heart pound once or twice and then said, "Maybe nobody _told_
them."
     "Told them _what?" _
     "Or  maybe  they were told a lot but still didn't believe, because maybe in
their old years things got bad, I mean they were sick, and sometimes when you're
sick you forget."
     "Forget _what!?" _
     "How much we loved them."
     "They _knew!" _
     _"Did_  they?  Sure,  we  told  each other, but maybe not enough of us ever
wrote or waved when they passed and just yelled _'Love!' you_ think?"
     "Hell, Bella, they're on TV every _night!" _
     "Yeah,  but  that don't count. Has anyone, since they left us, come here to
these  steps and _said?_ Maybe those voices down there, ghosts or whatever, have
been  here every night for years, pushing that music box, and nobody thought, or
tried, to just whisper or yell all the love we had all the years. Why not?"
     'Why  not?"  Zelda stared down into the long darkness where perhaps shadows
moved and maybe a piano lurched clumsily among the shadows. "You're right."
     If I'm right," said Bella, "and you say so, there's only one thing to do-"
     "You mean you and _me?" _
     "Who else? Quiet. Come on."
     They moved down a step. In the same instant lights came
     on  around  them,  in  a  window  here, another there. A screen door opened
somewhere and angry words shot out into the night:
     "Hey, what's going _on?"_
     "Pipe down!"
     "You  know what _time_ it is?"  "My God," Bella whispered, "everyone _else_
hears now!"
     "No, no." Zelda looked around wildly. "They'll spoil everything!"
     "I'm calling the cops!" A window slammed.
     "God," said Bella, "if the cops come-"
     "What?"
     "It'll  be  all wrong. If anyone's going to tell them to take it easy, pipe
down, it's gotta be us. We _care, don't_ we?"
     "God, yes, but-"
     "No buts. Grab on. Here we go."
     The  two  voices  murmured below and the piano tuned itself with hiccups of
sound  as  they  edged  down  another step and another, their mouths dry, hearts
hammering,  and  the  night so dark they could see only the faint streetlight at
the  stair  bottom,  the single street illumination so far away it was sad being
there all by itself, waiting for shadows to move.
     More  windows  slammed  up,  more  screen doors opened. At any moment there
would  be an avalanche of protest, incredible outcries, perhaps shots fired, and
all this gone forever.
     Thinking  this,  the  women  trembled  and held tight, as if to pummel each
other to speak against the rage.
     "Say something, Zelda, quick."
     _"What?"_
     "Anything! They'll get hurt if we don't-"
     _" They?" _
     "You know what I mean. Save them."
     "Okay.  Jesus!"  Zelda froze, clamped her eyes shut to find the words, then
opened her eyes and said, "Hello."
     "Louder. "
     `'Hello," Zelda called softly, then loudly.
     Shapes  rustled  in  the dark below. One of the voices rose while the other
fell and the piano strummed its hidden harp strings.
     "Don't be afraid," Zelda called
     "That's good. Go on."
     "Don't  be afraid," Zelda called, braver now. "Don't listen to those others
yelling.  We won't hurt you. It's just us. I'm Zelda, you wouldn't remember, and
this  here  is Bella, and we've known you forever, or since we were kids, and we
love  you. It's late, but we thought you should know. We've loved you ever since
you  were  in the desert or on that boat with ghosts or trying to sell Christmas
trees  door-to-door  or  in that traffic where you tore the headlights off cars,
and we still love you, right, Bella?"
     The night below was darkness, waiting.
     Zelda punched Bella's arm.
     "Yes!" Bella cried, "what she _said. _ We love you."
     "We can't think of anything else to say."
     "But it's enough, yes?" Bella leaned forward anxiously. "It's _enough?" _
     A night wind stirred the leaves and grass around the stairs and the shadows
below  that had stopped moving with the music box suspended between them as they
looked  up  and up at the two women, who suddenly began to cry. First tears fell
from Bella's cheeks, and when Zelda sensed them, she let fall her own.
     So now,'' said Zelda, amazed that she could form words but managed to speak
anyway,  "we  want  you  to know, you don t have to come back anymore. You don't
have to climb
     the hill every night, waiting. For what we said just now is it, isn't it? I
mean  you wanted to hear it here on this hill, with those steps, and that piano,
yes,  that's  the  whole thing, it had to be that, didn't it? So now here we are
and there you are and it's said. So rest, dear friends."
     "Oh,  there,  Ollie,","  added  Bella  in  a  sad,  sad whisper. "Oh, Stan,
Stanley."
     The  piano,  hidden  in  the  dark, softly hummed its wires and creaked its
ancient wood.
     And  then the most incredible thing happened. There was: a series of shouts
and  then  a huge banging crash as the music box, in the dark, rocketed down the
hill,  skittering  on the steps, playing chords where it hit, swerving, rushing,
and  ahead of it, running, the two shapes pursued by the musical beast, yelling,
tripping,  shouting,  warning  the Fates, crying out to the gods, down and down,
forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred steps.
     And half down the steps, hearing, feeling, shouting, crying themselves, and
now  laughing and holding to each other, the two women alone in the night wildly
clutching,  grasping,  trying to see, almost sure that they _did_ see, the three
things  ricocheting  off  and away, the two shadows rushing, one fat,, one thin,
and  the piano blundering after, discordant and mindless, until they reached the
street, where, instantly, the one overhead streetlamp died as if struck, and the
shadows floundered on, pursued by the musical beast.
     And  the  two  women, abandoned, looked down, exhausted with laughing until
they  wept  and  weeping until they laughed, until suddenly Zelda got a terrible
look on her face as if shot.
     "My  God!"  she  shouted  in panic, reaching out. "Wait. We didn't mean, we
don't want-don't _go forever!_ Sure, go. so the neighbors here sleep. But once a
year,  you  _hear?_  Once  a year, one night a year from tonight, and every year
after  that,  come  back. It shouldn't bother anyone so much. But we got to tell
you all over again, huh? Come back and bring the box with you, and we'll be here
waiting, won't we, Bella?"
     "Waiting, yes."
     There  was  a  long  silence  from  the  steps  leading  down  into  an old
black-and-white, silent Los Angeles.
     "You think they heard?"
     They listened.
     And  from somewhere far off and down, there was the faintest explosion like
the engine of an old jalopy knocking itself to life, and then the merest whisper
of a lunatic music from a dark theater when they were very young. It faded.
     After  a  long  while they climbed back up the steps, dabbing at their eyes
with  wet  Kleenex.  Then  they  turned  for a final time to stare down into the
night.
     "You know something?" said Zelda. "I think they _heard."