Toy Soldiers Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

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  Toy Soldiers

  A novel by Keith Alan LaHue

  Cover art by Kurt Goring

  Copyright Keith Alan LaHue 2019

  1

  Eight-year-old David West was in a hurry to get home, to get back to Pangaea. Long shadows from the late setting October sun cast dappled light on the sidewalk as he almost broke into a run to get there. He was interested to see what his father, David Sr. had added to the enormous diorama that took up three sides of the basement in their modest Indianapolis home on Tenth Street, near Post Road.

  He reached the side door just as his mother was walking out with the trash. She handed it off to him without a word; it was his chore after all. He took the bag and walked to the back of the yard where the trash cans stood. Deposit made, he headed inside. His mother stopped him in the kitchen.

  "How was school today Davey?"

  "It was fine. I got a B on my math test."

  "Good! You're showing improvement. I've been worried that all the time you spend with that model you and your father made would affect your grades. Do you have homework?"

  "Yes, but not much. Can I go down to the basement and play?"

  "Well...are you sure you can get your homework done after dinner and before bedtime?"

  "Sure mom, as I said, there's not much."

  "Go on then. Your father will be home in an hour or so, at which time I assure you he will join you in your crafting endeavors."

  In truth, it was Dave Sr. that had done the vast majority of the work on the model, which had taken on a life of its own as it had grown over the last two years. Davey bolted downstairs, pausing to turn on the lights, which slowly flickered to life and illuminated the space just as he reached the basement floor.

  2

  Every time he saw it, it took his breath away for a moment. It was a sprawling morass of civilizations, representing past, present, and future. Not that there wasn't some order to it. But even young David thought that placing a 1990 version of New York City adjacent to ancient Rome was a little silly. Davey sometimes wondered what the people of Pangaea would think if the ever crossed the short distance between the old and the new, spanning hundreds of years in a short walk.

  Of course, Pangaea didn't have any citizens. Davey had wanted to put them in, but his father had argued that the scale of the diorama was so small that the detail of microscopic people wouldn't be seen. Davey was still sometimes in a funk that there weren't any people he could see in the expansive world he (well, mostly his dad) and his father had created. In secret, he knew there were citizens.

  He turned on the spotlight above one portion of the model and took a good look at it. In addition to ancient Rome and New York, there was the Grand Canyon, London, Paris, and a whole slew of cities and landscapes he didn't know. North Africa was part of it. Some city his dad called Byzantium was here, with its unique architecture gracing the middle of one of the side sections of the model. Davey had never heard of it in real life, though his dad had told him that it had existed, a long time ago. In modern times it was called Istanbul. Davey hadn't heard of it either. He guessed the real world was a big place. His dad had told him that in the grand scheme of things, the world was small.

  Presently, he heard his father coming in the side door. The only ones who used the front door were strangers. He ran up the stairs to greet him. His dad had told him they were going to add to the model soon, and it would be grand. Any time that Davey got to spend with his dad was grand to him. It wasn't just the great diorama they had built, it was the time they spent together, father and son. Even if Davey just watched most of the time. He greeted him with a wide smile and a hug.

  "Dad!"

  "Well hello, there young man. And what mischief have you been up to today?" He gathered up his son and held him high in the air before pulling him into his embrace. He kissed him on the cheek and set him down.

  "I was just looking at the model. You're home early. Mom said it'd be an hour."

  "I left work early to pick up materials." He gestured at the sack on the counter.

  "Which you will please remove from my kitchen as soon as possible," smiled his wife. "I need the space."

  "Of course, dear." He planted a kiss on her cheek and gathered up the bag. "Davey, can you bring this downstairs? We can work on the model after you finish your homework. Your mom said you were going to do it after dinner. If we have time, we're going to add another section to the unfinished area.

  Part of the diorama was still just table top, with nothing on it yet.

  "What are we going to add?"

  David Sr. paused for effect. "Something so great it is the only man-made structure visible from space."

  "The Great Wall of China!" exclaimed Davey.

  "Well, you have been doing your homework!"

  "Always dad, always."

  "Well good. Now go on downstairs, I need to talk to your mother."

  3

  "You know he thinks it's real," said Marigold.

  "Oh, it's a harmless enough passion. I think deep down, he knows it's just plastic and clay and what have you. He's been watching me build it for two years, and I think he's mature enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality."

  "He claims there are people living there, real people with lives and husbands and wives and children. It's gone too far. I want you to take it down. Please. For the sake of our family. Which is real."

  "What is it that he says to you that makes you think so? He's never mentioned it to me."

  "Sometimes when I'm down there doing laundry, he talks to them."

  "But there are no miniatures of people in the land. That was intentional. I didn't want an impressionable boy thinking exactly what you're accusing him of. I don't approve of playing with toy soldiers."

  "This isn't an accusation. It's an indictment. I've heard it. He orders the 'people' around. And once...I heard him telling one of the non-existent people that he was going to have to kill them all off if they didn't do as he said. I'm not making this up David. I'm worried."

  Dave West heaved a sigh.

  "I'll talk to him. I have made an effort to explain to him that Pangaea is most definitely not real. But hell, even I sometimes get involved in what I imagine goes on there. And it's my hobby more than his. He's too young for some of the detail I've built into the thing. It would be beyond his ability to do this on his own."

  "Which is what makes it extra dangerous for him. It may be beyond his ability to create, but not to interact with. One time I swear he was telling the people of New York that terrorists were going to fly planes into the World Trade Center. That was a mistake if you ask me; you should have made it with the new building. That way his head wouldn't be filled with this nonse
nse."

  "I like the twin towers in there." A hint of sadness came into his voice. "It reminds me of a time when...when things were better. Before the world went to hell. I do know the difference between reality and fantasy, and you'd better believe me when I say that sometimes I prefer fantasy. It's not hurting anything."

  "You're an adult. Davey is not. You know what they said about him in school last year, that he spent too much time daydreaming and not paying attention. That's why his grades -"

  "Last year. That was last year. We solved that problem, didn't we?"

  "Well, I suppose..."

  "I tell you what. I had planned on spending the night working on the China section. How about I put it off till tomorrow? Davey and I will watch TV with you, after dinner and after homework. Would that make you feel better?"

  "What would make me feel better is if you would destroy that damn thing."

  "Now listen here! I didn't spend half my paycheck and two years of my life building the damn thing only to tear it down. Be sensible. Davey knows it's not real and so do I. Hell, there are parts of it that are museum quality! You don't just trash something like that."

  "Alright! Enough, I don't want to fight. Just promise me that you and Davey will find some other common interests. There must be something else the two of you both like."

  "I'll make a point of it."

  "Thank you."

  4

  Marigold got dinner ready while the two Dave's spent time in the living room plotting out the construction of the Chinese area of the model. In addition to the Great Well, they were going to build a modern version of Beijing. All of them had been fascinated by the Olympics there, and Mary had to admit there was a certain curiosity about the area. It felt so foreign to her native mid-west sensibility. Her mind left the two of them, talking in the living room while she brooded.

  Davey did think there were real people in the model. She was sure of it. The example she had informed her husband of; the twin towers threat wasn't an isolated rumination on Davey's part. If she stood at the door to the basement, she could hear him talking to someone, or something, in the basement. Sometimes the timbre of his voice was authoritative, on other occasions it was more conciliatory in nature as if he was settling some imaginary conflict between rival areas of the construct.

  She turned her thoughts to dinner.

  In the living room, Dave Sr. was going over the plans for the wall in his mind. The materials hadn't been cheap. They'd need to assemble the sections of the wall on the one table that wasn't already taken up by the diorama. He'd have to take into account the undulations of the earth in the area too, as it wasn't simply a straight wall on even ground.

  Davey slipped off to the kitchen to talk to mom about some math problem. Dave was good at math, but his son invariably went to her for help with homework. He thought about what his wife had said about his son thinking that there were real inhabitants of Pangaea. He knew it was utter nonsense; still, it troubled him that his son would descend that far into fantasy land. He questioned how healthy it was. If Davey did indeed think that there were actually inhabitants of the model, he'd probably have to do more than just talk with him. It might require the destruction of the model.

  No. He wouldn't let it go. If he had to, he’d take the thing out in sections and put it in a storage unit where he could visit, and work on it there. Since its inception almost three years ago, it had become the mainstay of his respite from the arduous and tedious nature of his job.

  It was also something he shared with his son. While moving it would solve some of the problems, it would add another: the heartbreak he knew his son would feel if he left him out of the project. No, for now, everything would stay the way it was.

  The basement was his and Davey's. And it would stay that way.

  5

  Davey was just about to drift off to sleep. He was thinking of Pangaea and the people in it. There were going to be more of them soon, as his dad finished the China section. Lots more. He mused that the people of Pangaea must love him, as he loved them.

  But he didn't know if he could love the Chinese.

  He sat up in bed, alarmed. He had left the lights on in the basement. The people of Pangaea wouldn't know what was happening. It would be the eternal sun to them. He crept out of bed, and quietly snuck past his parent's room and downstairs. He flipped the lights off in the basement.

  Once back in his bed, knowing that his people were safe, he slept.

  6

  Dizzy wandered through Central Park, looking for an easy mark. He was desperate for a fix. Looking around he could swear he saw the same people doing the same things they did yesterday. The woman with the red hair was perusing the open air drug market for the best quality cocaine she could find. She always ended up buying from the same dealer, after sampling the product. She always bought an eight-ball.

  Dizzy was shaking from kicking. Hadn't he been in the same shape the day before? And the day before that? He tried to remember yesterday, it seemed far away, but right on the edge of his consciousness. He'd score he thought, but not until night fell. Night. He gazed at the blue sky, featureless and bland. He thought that sometimes night didn't fall, it just became; but no, that couldn't be right.

  He walked north in the park. He'd wait until dark, and then mug some idiot who was stupid enough to walk under the bridge he always hid under. All he needed was a ten dollar bag to set him right. He looked forward to the night when he had the most curious feeling that he'd be back at the round-the-clock drug market, to score skag.

  He arrived at the bridge and lay in wait.

  Downtown on Wall Street, Jimmy "The Quick" left the Exchange right after the closing bell. Even though the economy was in the shitter, he'd still made a fortune that day, all on margin. His boss would be happy, and he planned on spending the night snorting blow with his girlfriend Sadie. It was the same routine every night. They'd get as fucked up as possible, and then the combination of blow and scotch would render him functionless in bed. So he'd continue using even after Sadie passed out. Then he would pass out.

  Every day was the same. Except for those days that were foggy in his memory. Like the time he'd tried to cross the bridge into Brooklyn and found that when he reached the middle of the bridge he was somehow back on the Manhattan side of the bridge. Or those times when the entire city collectively heard a great booming voice, not from any one direction, but from everywhere at once. And that time that it had stayed daylight for what seemed way too long. Those memories never had the staying power of normal daily life. They faded from the public mentality. Somehow he held on to them, but they were ever so faint. If push came to shove, he couldn't remember what the voice had said, or when the eternal day had finally ended, letting everyone get a good night sleep.

  He arrived at his destination. The Central Park drug bazaar was alive with activity. He saw the woman with red hair again, as he always did. Or did he? No matter, she had good taste in coke, and he'd follow her lead when it came to picking out a purveyor. She always managed to get a taste before buying. It must have been her good looks. He never got a taste.

  She completed her transaction and left, doubtless to the wealthy east side penthouse she more than likely inhabited. He glanced at his watch. It was five-thirty on the nose. He approached the dealer the red-haired woman had just patronized and bought an eight-ball.

  He walked home, to the west eighties where his small apartment was. At least he was on the upper west side, he thought as he climbed the stairs. Inside his place was clean. The Puerto Rican housekeeper had left it spotless like she always did. He sat on the couch and picked up the phone. Strange, it was dead. How would he call Sadie?

  There was a knock on the door. Odd, it was a secure building and he hadn't buzzed anyone up. Curious, he stood at the door and looked through the peep-hole. It was Sadie. He opened the door and let her in.

  "How did you get in the front door?"

  "I filched your spare key when you were passed out.
When I came to last night you were wasted, so I took your spare."

  "And you couldn't' have told me? I told you I'd get you a key if you wanted it. But you always said you 'didn't want to take it to that level'".

  "Well...you looked so cute with your hair messed up and the thin line of blood draining from your nose I couldn't resist. Do you want it back?"

  "No, keep it." He poured both of them a drink then got out the mirror and cut them some nice long lines. He took his first hit of the night, and then passed the mirror.

  Dizzy was in rough shape. Why wasn't the sun going down? He needed the darkness to cover him. Without warning, the sun winked out. Odd, he hadn't seen it set. It was just gone. Come to think of it, when was the last time he had actually seen old sol? He didn't know. The sky retained it featureless nature all the time. He dismissed it as he saw a well-coiffed and dressed couple approaching; just what he was waiting for. He removed the butcher knife from his coat and prepared himself.

  The couple, obviously oblivious to his presence, blithely walked under the bridge. Dizzy leaped at the woman and got her in a choke hold. He held the knife at her neck.

  "Empty your pockets. And the Watch too." He roughly ripped the necklace from the woman's throat as he spoke.

  "Please! Don't hurt her. Take it." The man was nervously fumbling with his wallet; he took out the cash and handed it to Dizzy. Oh, it was going to be a good night! He could stay high for a week on this. More if he could fence the Watch and Necklace. The man took off his Watch and gave it to him. He grabbed everything and roughly shoved the woman aside.

  He ran, all the way to the round-the-clock dealers. As he left, he heard the woman crying and the man cried out for police. Fucking dumbass, there were no police in Central Park after dark.

  7

  Davey stood at the edge of the schoolyard. A hundred feet away, Tommy and Jake were beating up a younger kid. He wasn't going to hang around and watch, because all too often he was next. If he was next, he was glad it was after school and he'd already spent his lunch money. Sometimes he took the bus home, but today was unusually warm for November 1st in Indiana; he’d walk. Besides, home wasn't all that far away.