All Fall Down

All Fall Down

James Leo Herlihy

All Fall Down
Copyright © 1960,1990 by James Leo Herlihy
All rights Copyright Owner Jeffrey J. Bailey
Cover art and Electronic Edition © 2018 by RosettaBooks LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover jacket design by Christian Fuenfhausen

ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795351211

for Dick Duane
for his help

CONTENTS

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 1

IT IS KNOWN that in every neighborhood in the United States there is at least one house that is special. Special because it is haunted, or because of an act of violence that took place there. Or there are thought to be crazy persons living in it. Or Communists. Or someone in it is known to have served a jail term. All children, good and bad, know these stories and help to circulate them. Go to any small child on the block and ask him where such a house is located: he will know. And if you question him on Seminary Street in Cleveland, Ohio, chances are he will lead you to the house the Williamses live in.

A sign on the front door says:

LICENSED REAL ESTATE DEALER
AND
NOTARY PUBLIC

But since outsiders are seldom seen going through that door, the sign is believed to be a cover-up for some unholy activity, very likely of a seditious nature.

The Williams house is big. It is made of wood. No architect had anything to do with the designing of it. Some big development organization in the Twenties turned out more than a hundred just like it; so there is nothing unusual about the place. —But if you were to believe a fraction of the stories that are told, the house might take on a peculiar look, even the bushes out front would seem different: children claim they bear poison flowers in the spring.

They may even tell you about a lamp that often burns long into the night in one of the basement windows. Although curtains cover every possible peephole, these youngsters claim to know just what that grinning old man, the father, does down there. The stories do vary to some extent: one child will swear to you that in the Williams cellar is a small but powerful radio station on which he receives messages from some subversive organization; another maintains that Mr. Williams prepares pamphlets and speeches designed to agitate against the government; still another prefers to believe that secret meetings are held there, and that entrance and egress is achieved only through underground tunnels. Whatever clashes there may be in these childish imaginings, one belief is shared by all: the old man represents some real threat to the American form of government and what’s more, he does not believe in God. This much is known; because Mr. Williams, on a number of occasions, perhaps rendered incautious by alcohol, had, himself, in a public saloon, not only admitted to but announced certain political and religious views, which were then interpreted by his listeners and disseminated on the street.