The Toymaker Read online

  Ouch.

  Buddy Killian spun the dummy’s head around to face the crowd. Zack’s eyes bulged out and his mouth flew open in an expression that said he knew he’d gone too far.

  The crowd laughed.

  It wasn’t even a good joke. It was just because it was coming from the puppet that made the crowd eat it up.

  Not just the crowd though, because Raymond caught himself smirking.

  He continued to watch Buddy perform. Zack the Zombie was switched out after a few more jokes about recent celebrity deaths, then Old Man Guy was introduced to the crowd.

  This was a character that was an out-of-touch old man who cursed and rambled on about the young people of today. The puppet wore overalls and a flannel shirt with dirty boots and even had gray hairs sticking out of his ears.

  After a few jokes that brought nothing bigger than a small grin to Raymond, he began to tune out the comedy and pay attention to the doll. The appeal of the show started to reveal itself to him, and he realized the crowd wasn’t laughing at or even with Buddy.

  No. Not at all. Because in their eyes, Buddy wasn’t even there.

  It was all about the puppets… Maybe they were alive, in a way. Maybe Buddy was merely a conduit to give them the life they already had.

  The show ended. Buddy and Old Man Guy took a bow to a standing ovation.

  Raymond threw his blanket off and sat up in his recliner. He looked across the living room to the added room he used as his workshop, where several unfinished toys and his tools were laid about on the desk.

  On the television, the curtains rolled as Buddy walked off the stage.

  Raymond rose to his feet and crossed the room.

  He flipped the light switch to his workshop. The last toy he’d been working on—a seesaw on wheels that made the boys riding pumpkins on either end go up and down—seemed to have been waiting for him to come back to finish it. He hadn’t touched it since last week, but now he felt suddenly inspired by Buddy’s performance.

  Raymond sat down at his desk and picked up his carving knife. All he had left to do was to add the finishing touches to the toy. Carve out the grooves and lines on the pumpkins to give them a realistic texture, smooth out the boy’s faces, and then paint the thing.

  Raymond went to work.

  It was almost midnight when he finished painting the stem of the second pumpkin, but it was finally done. He set the seesaw down and turned it around to give it one last look.

  It was good. He smiled in satisfaction.

  However, deep in his heart he knew this wasn’t enough. Buddy’s puppets were still going through his mind and working with the tools had only made his desire to build a puppet stronger.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to make a puppet that told cruel jokes about beloved dead people. That stuff was for the Buddy Killians of the world. He was more interested in how the puppets seemed to have a life of their own.

  Staying seated in his work chair he wheeled over to the old computer, the one he used to look up tutorials when he was going to attempt a new sort of toy.

  The monitor was one of the large gray ones that the town library had been discarding after upgrading their machines to those new Apple iMacs with the fancy see-thru plastic on the back. For Raymond, who used it only to look up how-to guides, it worked perfectly fine.

  He hit the icon on the screen to tell the computer to connect to the internet, and while he waited for it to connect he went out to the kitchen and grabbed a container of grocery store potato salad from the fridge and a bottle of water.

  As he returned to the workshop he heard the message “WELCOME, YOU’VE GOT MAIL” playing through the computer speakers. Raymond grinned. Little did the computer know he’d already checked his mail and it was sorted on the dining room table. Maybe one day computers would be smart enough to be able to know that.

  He was new to this whole computer and internet thingy, but he was capable enough to type in ToyBuilder.com into the address bar at the top of the screen. This page, which one of the younger librarians at the Dutch County library had told him about, had step-by-step guides on how to build all sorts of toys. From wind-up animals to ventriloquist dummies.

  While he waited for the webpage to load, he cracked the lid on the potato salad and dug in.

  At the same time, he imagined what his first dummy would be like once it was built.

  Chapter 4

  “Cold pizza?” Maria asked, watching Scott take a bite of a leftover slice.

  “Nothin’ like carbs in the morning to keep the body moving.”

  She laughed, then grabbed a banana from the basket on the counter. Besides the clock hanging on the wall, the fruit was the only thing decorating any of the rooms in the house—there wasn’t even a plastic plant anywhere—and here she was taking away from the decor. But no way was she going to have cold pizza for breakfast.

  Maria leaned over the kitchen table and planted a kiss on Scott’s lips, timed perfectly between bites. She tasted the pepperoni and sausage grease on his lips. “I’m going for a run.”

  “When do you go in?” Scott asked.

  “Ten. They want to show me around the diner before the lunch rush.”

  Scott glanced up at the clock. It was only 8:30am. He nodded. “Alright.”

  “I’ll be back from my jog in about half an hour,” Maria said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of time.”

  “You can take the car. I kind of want to walk around the neighborhood.” Scott didn’t start at the office until next Monday. It was only Tuesday now, so he had almost a full week to unpack and start shaping their house up to make it into some semblance of a home.

  “Alrighty. See ya when I get back then?” Maria said, heading toward the door. She was already in her jogging attire.

  “Yeah, probably. I’m going to eat another slice and then shower before I go out and meet more of the neighbors.”

  “Another slice? You better not complain about indigestion tonight.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Or else I’ll call Tonya and tell her she can come visit this weekend.”

  “Don’t you dare do that to me,” Scott said.

  Maria laughed, then left the kitchen. He heard her laughing all the way to the front door, but a part of him was serious. The last thing he wanted was to have Tonya around the house when they were trying to unpack.

  If they were kids on a playground, the perfect word to describe Maria’s older sister Tonya would be “bossy.” She always told Maria what to do, including who to date. Never in front of him, of course, but Maria told him everything, so he heard all about it. A tattooed white boy with no college degree wasn’t good enough for Tonya’s baby sister.

  What good is a gringo with no money?

  Even though he hadn’t been there to hear her say it, the words played back in his head as vividly as if he had. Perhaps because there was a kernel of truth in them, and the words were an echo of how he sometimes didn’t feel good enough for Maria. He’d already failed one marriage, what made him confident enough to think a second one would work?

  Scott stared down at the bite left and the crust on his paper plate. Maybe Maria was right.

  Maybe that second slice for breakfast was a bad idea.

  Shit, he hadn’t even finished this slice. He grabbed the plate and chucked it all into the trash and then went upstairs to shower and get ready to go explore the new neighborhood.

  One thing about creative endeavors was that it was easy to get excited about them in your head, and then shelve them when they got too hard. This was especially true when the task was bigger than you anticipated.

  Now that he was awake, and the smell of coffee pouring in the coffeemaker was making him alert, it was easier to shy away from the task he had been so ambitious about last night. The prospect of having company in the form of a dummy had clouded his judgment on the weight of the project.

  Raymond realized there would be more riding on this project than anything he’d built be
fore. Building toys was one thing, but building something that would have a life of its own would be another task entirely.

  Besides, there were other toys he’d been meaning to make, but just hadn’t had the creativity spark until last night.

  The dummy could wait.

  He poured some coffee into a mug, then took it into his workshop.

  Putting the cup down on his work desk, he picked the seesaw toy up. Then he took it to the bay window at the front of the house. He rolled it across the sill to test the mechanics of it for the umpteenth time. The rubber wheels whirred as they rolled across the wooden sill, and the pumpkins alternated taking the boys up and down.

  Perfect. Even though it was weeks late. It was still Fall, so it was appropriate as it would’ve been back in September, he supposed.

  Raymond put the seesaw toy between the two real pumpkins he had there for decoration. Stepping back to admire the setup, he nodded his approval, and returned to his workshop.

  In there, he pulled up a how-to guide on a Santa Claus marionette. He’d been late for his Fall toy, so he figured he’d get started on the next season’s decoration. Thanksgiving was right around the corner, which meant a Thanksgiving toy would only be at his display for a few days after completion at best. He decided it’d be better for him to skip right over to working on his Christmas project.

  His full intentions were to get the marionette finished before Winter started, but of course, everyone always starts a project with full intention of completing it. No one plans on having their attention diverted away by other ideas, but that was exactly what was going to happen to Raymond.

  Because his son was waiting to meet him…Waiting to come alive.

  Chapter 5

  Scott didn’t get very far in the neighborhood before the decorations in Mr. Gibson’s bay window made him pause. Somehow, the setup told him the old man had never been married. Any woman would have changed his gaudy taste.

  There were two pumpkins—malformed and pale with strange warts all over them, like the last of the bunch of an end-of-season sale. Behind them was a tree made of shiny plastic. There were fabric leaves dangling from some of its branches that were colored red, orange, or brown to signify that this wasn’t just any tree, but an Autumn tree. Despite the efforts, it wasn’t even the slightest bit convincing.

  The most interesting part of the setup was the toy sitting between the pumpkins, closest to the glass as the highlight of the exhibition. Two boys sat on pumpkins on either end of a seesaw. One looked like he was having the time of his life, while the other boy’s expression suggested he was scared for his life.

  The boys’ faces were painted a bit off; their eyes different sizes, the mouths just a little off center. It reminded Scott of the dollar store dolls his mom used to decorate the house with.

  The craftsmanship, however, was impressive. The whole toy—except for the rubber wheels—had been carved of wood by a skilled hand.

  Scott was no carpentry expert or anything, but he didn’t think anyone could just pick up a carving knife and turn a block of wood into such an elaborate toy with a single try.

  “He always picks such strange colors,” someone from behind him said, startling Scott out of his thoughts.

  He whirled around to face whoever had spoken. It was a boy who looked about thirteen, with golden blond hair, sitting on a bike chewing gum. He wore a baggy, green sweater that made his pale skin appear even paler.

  Relaxing, Scott realized the boy was right. The colors did clash. “He must be color-blind or something.”

  “Probably,” the boy said, blowing a big pink bubble until it popped, then sucking the gum back into his mouth. “I mean, hot pink pumpkins? What the shit?”

  “Yeah, that is weird,” Scott said.

  “Oops, sorry for cursing, Mister.” The boy’s face flushed red.

  Scott smirked and waved his hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it. I’m one of the cool adults.”

  “I figured, with the tattoos and all.” The boy smiled, and stuck his hand out. “My name’s Oliver, by the way, but everyone just calls me Twist.”

  “I’m Scott. Nice to meet you, Twist,” Scott said, shaking his hand. The boy seemed to be fascinated with the bit of his tattoo sleeve peeking out of his sweatshirt.

  “Nice to meet you, too.” Then, almost as an afterthought, the boy added, “Say, you and your wife moved in across the street from us, didn’t you?”

  “Fiancée,” Scott corrected him. “But yes, we’re over at 1418.

  “Cool. I live at 1417.” Twist told him, and started into the street. He rode around in circles as he talked. “You and your fiancée should come over to our house sometime. I’ll tell my mom to bake us something—she makes bitchin’ brownies. Oh, shoot. Don’t tell her I said that.”

  “Mum’s the word,” Scott said, and gestured as if zipping an invisible zipper across his lips.

  Twist’s face brightened. “Okay, okay, cool. Cuz I’m not allowed to curse at home, so when I’m out riding my bike I like to curse up a storm to anyone I see.”

  “I get it,” Scott said. “Your parents know you’re out here?”

  “I thought you said you were one of the cool adults.” Twist said, completing another circle on his bike.

  “I am,” Scott winked at him, “but I have to wonder why a neighborhood kid is out riding his bike during the school week.

  Twist grinned. “I’m sick.”

  Scott eyed the red bike he rode. “Sick, huh?”

  “Was sick, I should say. I’m feeling better now. After getting some fresh air and all.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure.” Scott said. “Don’t worry, I used to do that too.”

  Twist let out a short laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mister. I’m just out for a stroll to get some fresh air.”

  “That what your parents think?”

  “Yeah. You’re not gonna tell on me, are you?”

  Scott shook his head. The boy’s face lit up again.

  “You really are cool,” he said, then started riding away from Scott. “I gotta go though. My mom expected me back ten minutes ago. Nice to meet you, Mister.”

  “Nice to meet you too, kiddo.” Scott called to him.

  The boy waved his hand up in the air without looking back.

  Scott turned his attention back to Mr. Gibson’s house. There wasn’t any activity he could see through the window, but he knew it wasn’t empty. It was like he could feel the old man inside.

  Scott had to admit to himself he probably looked as strange as the color choices on that toy, standing here watching this old man’s house like this. But there was something about it that he couldn’t pull himself away from.

  He gave the bay window display one last look over, then finally turned away. Hot pink pumpkins, Christ. Wait until I tell Maria.

  Chapter 6

  The big belly, the limbs, and the basic shape for the head were done. It’d taken him a lot longer than he thought it would because getting the curvature of the beard had been trickier than it looked in the pictures on the computer screen.

  He finished adding the final touches on the buckle of the Santa suit and set it down in the middle of the other body parts.

  Raymond rose out of his chair and took a few steps back to regard his work. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the limbs and head painted and attached. This was an important step in the process because it told him if he was on track or not. If what he saw in front of him didn’t even begin to look anything like what it should, he would throw it out and start over.

  That wasn’t the case here. The project seemed to be heading in the right direction. But he was done painting for now. It was time to get some television in.

  Raymond grabbed the empty mug off his desk and went into the kitchen where his coffeemaker was finishing up making a fresh pot. He refilled some black goodness into his mug, then went into the living room.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement across the street.
It was the new neighbor, the guy named Scott. He was just…walking. No dog, not dressed for powerwalking, not even a pair of headphones attached to one of them Walkman-thingies. Strange.

  Raymond reached out to tap his window, to get his attention to wave to him, but then stopped himself. Maybe he just wanted to get to know the landscape of the neighborhood.

  Yeah, you crazy old bat. That’s exactly what he was doing.

  He blew onto his coffee, and then took a sip of it.

  Though…he does kind of fit the profile of a troublemaker. Tattoos. Shaved head.

  Only half realizing what he was doing, Raymond walked across the living room and closed the door of his workshop. He fished into his pocket and brought out the silver key he always carried with him, and locked the door.

  If this new neighbor was a troublemaker and decided to break into his home while he slept, at least he wouldn’t get to his toys.

  Chapter 7

  The shopping center within walking distance of the house was pretty standard. There was a pharmacy, DiPaolo’s, the pizza shop they’d gotten their dinner from last night, a Mom & Pop coffee shop, a hardware store, and a small grocery store conveniently named GROCER.

  Scott walked into the grocery store and picked up two whole chickens, ingredients to make potato salad, dinner rolls, a bag of Dorito’s, a pack of Chips Ahoy, and lastly a tray of generic cookies meant for the Harpers when he’d eventually go visit them. Maria didn’t eat this stuff—she had her own snacks she enjoyed of the Mexican variety—but he liked having them stocked for Jack. And besides, it wasn’t like this stuff spoiled, so it was always convenient to have them in the pantry.

  Scott put his selection from the cart onto the belt and followed his items to the register to meet an older woman with the sloppiest makeup job he’d ever seen caked onto her face. It wasn’t just haphazardly applied, there was also a boatload of it.

  “Hi, Peggy,” Scott said, reading her name off her tag.