The John Maclay

by John Maclay

  But in any event, as I advanced in Masonry, and joined more and more of its many units, I kept encountering Max. It seemed he was the Tiler of practically everything—“Tiler to the World,” as someone put it—which might have been partially explained by the fact that the job paid twenty dollars a meeting. Was he therefore, simply, a retiree who needed the income?

  But I also came to learn that Max was also a past high officer of many things. Masons customarily being given a special apron and gold breast-pocket badge when they completed their term as such, he carried around a leather case that was bulging with them. And he had dozens of pins, also attesting to his service, on the lapels of his worn tux.

  Along this same line, Max was a great and encyclopedic teacher of Masonic ritual. His quiet voice at times even intoned passages that had long since been removed, as if he’d been there when they were current.

  So I kept being with Max, and he with me. And yet, the mystery deepened. That was because, as the years wore on, his age—and his origin—were still an enigma. He was just still there, and everywhere, looking about the same as he always did, or had.

  Indeed, had he been around—forever?

  At this point, I must confess that once, after having seen the classic movie Nosferatu for the first time, I wondered if Max was a vampire. After all, he looked much like the character, and he did seem to be ageless.

  I’d also read the Oscar Wilde novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, so I wondered if Max was ageless because he had some dark secret to hide.

  But I felt ashamed of those thoughts, since Max was the farthest thing from evil, instead being one of the kindest, gentlest men I’d ever met.

  However, about five years ago, I did begin to learn more about Max. To make a long story short, whatever his age was, he had several auto accidents on his way to a Lodge meeting, and he couldn’t drive anymore. So Masonic brothers, myself included, had to pick him up in our cars and bring him.

  That was when, in due course, I first saw Max’s house, where he lived alone. And it was perhaps the strangest house I’d ever seen.

  On a cul-de-sac, in an obscure part of town, it was akin to a trailer, though it wasn’t one. Long and low, it had only one window facing the street, and a little porch at one end, from which Max would walk stiffly down to get into my car. And probably needless to say, I never got to go inside. He was always appreciative, though, and with an aura about him that made me feel good about my act of charity.

  I learned, too, that Max had worked for a living. He was retired from the State Bureau of Statistics, which oddly seemed appropriate.

  But then Max couldn’t even manage in his house anymore. So he moved to a little room in the Masonic Home, and I’d pick him up there. Now he used a walker, and it took him forever to get with me to a Lodge, or to whatever Masonic unit that was meeting. But he was still on his feet, and even more striking than that, still working as a Tiler.

  I also need to mention, that in the course of that five years, Max was in the hospital a number of times, and every time everyone said that surely this time, he wouldn’t be back in action. But, for some ultimately mysterious reason, he always was.

  And incidentally, the same thing was true of some other Masonic brothers I knew—they might even have lung cancer, yet they were still around. Though none, to the extent of Max.

  And Max’s own acts of charity, when he had moved into the Home, and even beyond what Masons swear to offer each other, became the stuff of legend. He was always to be seen visiting the rooms of brothers who were even more infirm than himself, and helping them around the halls even though he himself used a walker, all of it with a heartwarming smile.

  Though there might have been even more to Max, than all I’ve said before.

  Truth be told, I’d noticed a certain light, in a few other Masons’ eyes. Like in those of a Grand High Priest, and in those of a lesser brother, who, however, was a student of the occult. And I must confess, even if it might be unbelievable, that one night, as I was sitting in Lodge, I saw that same light, in regard to Max.

  It was the night of elections of officers, and he was called in to vote, with someone who’d voted being given his sword to sit instead outside the door.

  And it then happened to be announced that a brother, who was present, had just been diagnosed with a serious disease.

  And damned if Max, though still in his usual, unassuming way, didn’t suddenly rise, shamble over to that brother, and place his hands on his head.

  While everyone sat there in wonderment, and what was more, an absolutely unearthly light momentarily filled the room.

  But, even despite that occurrence, and since I try to be a rational man, I must also confess that my curiosity, or hopefully, caring, about Max, finally led me to break Masonic protocol, and to seek the overall answer about him, that I still sorely required.

  By way of more background, Masonry isn’t a secret society, but it does have an initiatory path in which private things, over the years, and as earned by years of service, are revealed. And by this time, I myself had advanced far enough, that I felt I could ask someone very high up about Max.

  So I went privately to another old man, that was, if Max was indeed old—to a brother who was among only three in my State who’d been at the top of everything.

  Though I must mention that this man was “normal,” that is, he’d aged logically, my having seen pictures of him at various ages along his advancement, which incidentally had been far higher than Max’s. So I might have felt I’d trust his judgment, as to “reality,” due to that.

  And this brother, after I’d made my observasions and appeal, looked at me a long time before answering. But in the end, probably feeling he had to obey the Masonic belief that one only needs to ask to be given, he revealed, as I sat in shock, but in deep and marvelous gratification, at receiving it—the truth about Max.

  “They’re set down here, from time to time, from—somewhere,” he simply said. “The Tilers, the ones who, even despite all my gold badges, are the most important, who are sent to guard us and everything we do. They seem to be over forty, at least, when they first come to us. But the crucial thing about them, as you’ve been smart enough to guess, is that they’re somehow ageless. Nor indeed do we really know who they are, or much of what their worldly position, in other respects, may be.”

  He paused, then concluded.

  “I must modestly submit something to you,” he said, with a sweet, mystical smile. “Though some people may say we are, we’re not a religion. But can’t there still be something—like a Masonic saint?”

  And so I believe it was, and is. That’s because I attended Max’s funeral the other day, along with practically every other Mason in my State.

  So he was apparently human, as to age and death, after all. But the curious, and wonderful, thing about it, was that even though the casket was open, he didn’t seem to be there, and perhaps never had been. Instead, I had a vision of him, as just having always been where he’d come from, and where he now, fully, was again—a Tiler, for eternity.

  So was Max a saint—or even an angel, a guardian one? After all, the wise old brother to whom I’d gone for an answer, had said, ‘set down, from somewhere,’ and wasn’t that the province of angels, not saints? I thought of the cherubim who guarded the Ark of the Covenant in a higher Masonic degree, and I wondered.

  But whatever, one thing more. On the edge of the crowd, was a brother I’d never noticed before. And, very unlike Max, and as if to keep us on our toes as to celestial expectations, he was short and fat.

  “That’s the guy who’s going to Tile the Lodges now,” someone said quietly, nudging me, after noticing my glance. “Just joined, don’t know anything about him.”

  “But something I’m wondering.

  “How old is he, do you think?”

  THE HOLE

  The hole in the back yar
d appeared where the old, dead cherry tree had been cut down five years before. The stump had rotted from the inside out, until it was gone and a wide hole remained.

  Ron stood looking out the kitchen window. It was March, and spring was on the way. Soon the bird feeder would be taken down, and the sparrows, grackles, doves, and squirrels would disperse. It would again be time to mow the lawn, trim the hedges, and perform his other outdoor chores.

  Kate walked up, followed his glance, and echoed his thoughts. She tended the flower beds, but sometimes they strayed into each other’s territory.

  “That hole will have to be filled this year,” she said. “I keep stumbling over it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ron replied. “I already have it on my list.”

  His wife went away, but he kept staring, thinking where on the property he’d get the dirt to fill the hole. And that was when the sparrow disappeared.

  He saw the little brown bird hop over to the edge of the hole, then down inside. It was looking for grubs, he thought, or was on a misguided search for a nesting place. He’d seen other birds and squirrels investigating the hole.

  But this one didn’t come out. He was sure it didn’t, because he was staring intently. He waited a full five minutes for the reappearance of the sparrow. But it never returned.

  Ron was curious enough to put on his jacket and walk out to the back yard. He even came back in to get a flashlight so he could explore the hole. When he did, though, all he could see were a deep vertical space and several branching tunnels where the big roots of the cherry tree had been. There was no sign of the sparrow.

  “What were you doing out there?” Kate asked when he returned.

  He described what had happened, noting that it was new.

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” she said. “The sparrow probably hopped out while you were getting the flashlight.”

  Ron agreed. The next morning, though, it happened again.

  This time, it was one of the grackles. Watching from the window, half-expecting a repeat performance, he saw the bird drop in. And not come out, although he waited fifteen minutes, making himself late for work.

  “You’re right,” Kate said, after he brought it to her attention. “We have a problem. Maybe it’s a gopher that’s taking the birds.”

  “Not a gopher, silly,” he responded. “A gopher is a small animal, and it’s a vegetarian.” He was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the situation. “Or maybe the root tunnels have become a subway to ‘Bird Central.’”

  “But it could be a fox,” she persisted. “They’ve been seen around the neighborhood, and one of them might have made the hole its burrow.”

  That idea held more weight. But he had to dismiss it, too.

  “If it were a fox,” he said, “then the birds and squirrels wouldn’t even come to the yard. Remember that time a hawk perched in the tree? Everything else left like a bat out of Hell.”

  She had to admit that. Still, the problem wasn’t solved.

  So Ron kept watching the hole. And, on the third day, a dove was taken in.

  It was as though the ground were growing an appetite for bigger and bigger things.

  He didn’t have time to go out to the back yard before he and Kate left for their jobs. In the evening, though, he did, again armed with the flashlight. Neither in the shaft nor the tunnels was there any sign of the three birds.

  Now he began to obsess about the thing. Why had this unexplained phenomenon suddenly invaded his yard, and his mind? Had he offended the cherry tree by cutting it down five years before, and had some vengeful wood spirit now returned?

  But no, that was for George Washington. And besides, the cherry tree had been dead.

  Ron felt a little better when, on the fourth day, he didn’t see a single bird vanish into the hole. One or two of them approached it, but then hopped away.

  It was as if the thing that had been drawing them had become temporarily sated. Or, he thought as he left for work, as if he’d been crazy to worry about it at all.

  When he got home, though, he made one more, and hopefully last, check of the yard. And that was when he found the bones.

  They were all there, all three carcasses, at the side of the hole. A small one, a medium, and a large, actually laid out in order. Picked clean and white, every scrap of meat having been removed. He felt a chill as he regarded them, and not from the March weather.

  He lifted them by the clawed feet and carried them to the trash can, where he hid them under a bag. He didn’t tell Kate this time, and in the morning, he was glad he hadn’t.

  When, just after she left the house, the hole took the squirrel.

  This time, there were screams. And this time, in an attempt to save the terrified and obviously wounded animal, Ron ran out into the yard.

  But he reached the hole too late. When he peered apprehensively down it, there was nothing but the brown-lined mystery of the tunnels.

  He turned away, his heart pounding as much from his bafflement as from the late violent scene. But he was forced, sickly, to turn back.

  When, in what he could only interpret as a taunt, the hole, or what was definitely in it, disgorged the denuded carcass of the squirrel.

  He took that to the trash can, too. But now he knew his obsession had been well-founded. There was a problem, indeed. Some horrible, insatiable thing, something about which he sensed no book or authority would enlighten him, had taken up residence in his yard.

  During the next few days, that thing also occupied Ron’s every thought. He still tried to spare Kate, though, while he figured out what to do.

  But that ended when she was the first to find out about the neighbors’ dog.

  “It’s terrible,” she cried when he got home. “Chippy is dead. He was, well, killed in our back yard. The children are really upset, and the Davises are a bit mad at us.”

  He didn’t need to ask about the bones being found next to the hole. Her eyes told him everything.

  “What are we going to do?” Kate pleaded, not even knowing as much as he did. “This can’t go on.”

  Suddenly, it hit him. Her own words, at the beginning, had provided the answer.

  “I don’t know how I could have been so stupid,” he said.

  “I’ll do it right now.

  “I’ll fill in the damned hole.”

  In the night, without even a flashlight so the neighbors couldn’t see, Ron tended to the job. He took shovelsful of earth from the corner of one of the flower beds, and meticulously packed each of the tunnels. Although he was leery of the task, he did it well. He even went out to the street and got some loose gravel to fill the main shaft.

  He was manually patting the gravel level, and even thinking about how much easier it would be to mow the spring grass there, when it happened.

  There was a sucking, so quick and almost hypnotic that he didn’t have time to pull his hand away. A sucking, felt as much as seen in the darkness. Of the gravel, first, and then of his hand itself.

  And a biting. And pain, incredible pain.

  And a tugging from which it took all his strength to wrench himself free.

  “Oh, God!” he screamed when he reached the house. “Oh, Kate! Help me. Please!”

  She ran out of the bedroom and downstairs in her nightgown. Seeing his bloody hand, she acted quickly. She grabbed a towel from the kitchen, put on a coat, and helped him out to the car. He dimly saw drops of gore, his, spattering the front walk.

  At the emergency room, they gave him a tetanus shot and, after an interminable wait, tended to his hand. Three fingers bore inch-long gashes to the white bone, and many stitches were required. It was four in the morning by the time they were able to return home.

  Ron called in sick to work, and stayed mostly in bed for the next two days. Although he’d been given pills to take, the pain returned more intensel
y than ever, making his head swim. It was true that the fingers were one’s most sensitive parts.

  In his delirium, he thought, although he tried desperately not to think, about the hole. And his yard, in fact his whole once-peaceful property, now assumed an alien, panic-inducing character from which he wanted to escape.

  But to which he was also perversely attracted. There was now a hole in his spirit, in his soul.

  When he was able to get about again, he stayed clear of the kitchen and all the rear-facing windows. He even had Kate drive them to a long weekend at a country inn, where he drank a lot and tried to forget.

  But, when they returned home, the hole was still there. He had her take him out to see it, and the caved-in gravel, speckled with his blood, was unchanged.

  There was the problem with his fingers, too. While the pain had lessened, they’d become infected, and the doctors didn’t seem to know what antibiotic to use.

  At his job, what had been a few sick days and a few vacation days became a leave of absence.

  And in Ron’s mind, what had begun as an absurdity now had turned into an all-consuming ill.

  “You’ve got to leave this thing,” Kate said to him one evening, when he was trying to watch television with her. “We could even move away, if that would help.”

  He looked at his still-bandaged hand. “But what about this? Would it heal this, too?”

  “It might,” she tried. “It could be mental.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said, conscious of his hollow-eyed, half-crazed stare. “I think I was bitten by an imp from Hell.”

  She regarded him fearfully. “But there hasn’t been a bird, or a squirrel, or a dog sucked into that hole for weeks. I mowed the lawn for you today, and it looked just the same.”

  Spring had arrived, and he hadn’t even noticed it. Still, he couldn’t move on from where he was.

  “That’s because it’s waiting for me,” he concluded. “Its appetite grew to the point where only I could satisfy it.”