The Great Perhaps: A Novel

by Joe Meno

  “Hello?”

  “Roxie?” Thisbe asks, her hands clammy again.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Thisbe. From school.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t have your number. But then I found it in your guitar case.”

  “Okay.”

  “I was worried because I didn’t see you at chorus practice.”

  “I’m not doing chorus anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just not.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me? I was waiting for you.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I just decided today that I was sick of it.”

  “What about your history grade?”

  “Mr. Grisham can fuck off. I hate the chorus. I’d rather fail.”

  “But then you’re going to have to take his class during summer.”

  “I really don’t give a shit.”

  “Why are you so mad?”

  “I’m not mad. I just don’t know why it’s any of your business.”

  “It’s not. I just thought we were friends.”

  “We are. But I don’t like people butting into my business.”

  “Well, I’m not. I just didn’t see you at practice and I thought you were sick or something.”

  “I’m not sick. I just didn’t want to go.”

  “Oh, well, do you want to meet somewhere? You can come over and we can write some songs together or something.”

  “I don’t think so. That’s kinda boring.”

  “Why are you being mean to me?” Thisbe asks, her hands beginning to shake.

  “I’m not being mean.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Well, do you want to do something or not?” Thisbe asks.

  “I think I’m just going to stay here.”

  “Oh. Well. I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Okay, well, ’bye.”

  “’Bye.”

  Thisbe hears the dial tone after the lines disconnect. She stares down at the phone, then, without thinking, she quickly dials Roxie’s number again.

  “Hello?”

  “Roxie?”

  “Yeah.”

  Thisbe notices the way the other girl sighs when she says yeah, as if Roxie can recognize the tremor of her voice, as if she knows what Thisbe is about to say.

  “It’s Thisbe again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I…I just…why don’t you want to talk to me?”

  “I just have other things to do. I mean, it’s like it’s no big deal.”

  “I know, but…are you…did I…do something wrong?”

  “What?”

  “The other day? Did I do something wrong?”

  “What? No. I mean, it’s no big deal. Listen, I have to go,” Roxie says, though both of them now know she is lying.

  “Don’t you…don’t you want to be my friend?” Thisbe asks, but her words are too weak, too lame. They fly awkwardly through the telephone wires, their meaning disappearing somewhere along the way.

  “You’re being weird,” Roxie whispers, like there is someone else in the room, a boy or her mother maybe. “I’m going to go.”

  “Wait…,” Thisbe whispers. “I just…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve never done any of this before, with anyone.”

  “I have to go,” Roxie says again, and this time Thisbe knows that Roxie has decided never to talk to her again. The other girl says goodbye and then hangs up and Thisbe sits there, cross-legged on her bed, listening to the dial tone buzzing in her ear. She switches the phone off and wonders if God is watching her now, and what He might be thinking. She stumbles down the stairs, back to the garage, and pedals off on her bicycle. It is just past four o’clock now. There has got to be an evening mass somewhere at five. She does not know how long it will take to ride there but she decides she has to go to the big cathedral downtown. She will go there and light a candle and kneel in the silence and be surrounded by simple, holy things: crosses, and stained-glass windows, and statues of saints. What she needs now is to confess, to tell God and the world the truly horrible things she is feeling. With her feet on the bicycle pedals, she rides as quickly as she can, humming “Miss Otis Regrets” as she dodges late afternoon traffic on her way to the lake along the bicycle path.

  IT TAKES THISBE more than an hour on her bike: exiting at Chicago Avenue, then heading west—taxicabs screaming past, tourists and shoppers rushing across the street, ignoring the flashing stoplights—Thisbe does not know where the cathedral is exactly, and once or twice she circles the same block, hoping to find it. Turning left down State Street, a smile crosses her reddened cheeks as soon as she spots its magnificent sand-colored stone and blue-bronze spires rising high and majestic into the sky. She finds a parking meter and locks her bicycle up, then straightens her skirt and fixes her hair, which has begun to come undone. She marches up the stone steps toward the great wooden doors, already beginning a Hail Mary as she grabs the great gold handle, but the door refuses to budge. Thisbe tries again, with no luck, then grabs the handle of the adjacent door, but finds both of them are locked. She places her ear up against the thick ornate wood and thinks she can hear singing. There is someone in there singing, without her. She rushes down to another set of doors, then another, finding all of them locked tight. She has begun to sweat, from the long bicycle ride and her anxiety, and still she is sure she can hear singing. Why won’t He let her be saved? Thisbe begins to knock quietly on the door, then louder, then louder. Tourists and residents passing by stare at the strange girl in the gray skirt banging on the cathedral doors. “Hello?” she pleads, “Hello?” but no one seems to hear. Finally, trying the center doors once more, she knocks as loudly as she can, and then she can hear the lock begin to rattle and turn, and the door beside her unexpectedly squeaks open. An old man, with a gray jumpsuit on and an enormous ring of keys in his hand, pokes his head out and frowns, gray eyebrows knotted above his empty blue eyes. “Why are you banging on these doors? Don’t you know this is a church?”

  “I thought…it’s not open? I mean, why are the doors locked?”

  “We’re shampooing the rugs.”

  “Well, if I could only come in for a few moments…”

  “The church is closed until tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock mass.”

  “But I only need to come in for a minute or two.”

  “Come back tomorrow, young lady.”

  “But I heard singing?”

  The old man squints at her, then smiles. He opens the door a little and points to a large utility cart full of brushes and screwdrivers and vacuum heads, where a large silver radio is blaring an aria.

  “I can’t just come in…for a few seconds?”

  “You’re too young to have done anything that can’t wait till tomorrow,” he frowns, then nods, and pulls the enormous door closed. Thisbe hears the lock turn and the music begin to fade. Taking a seat on the stone steps, she begins to glare at the busy people walking around, as if they don’t mind that the end of the world is coming.

  ON THE WAY BACK south to her neighborhood, Thisbe decides to go to the secret field by herself. She hopes Roxie will be there, hiding in the waist-high weeds, and the thought of holding her hand, and the feeling of lying beside her again, are too powerful to ignore. She pedals faster now and gets to the field just as the sun has begun to set. Leaving her bike in a dark green thicket of grass, she climbs up the path, feeling the wind and dry flowers rubbing against her bare knees. She runs toward the secret spot, sure for a second that she will see Roxie there, smiling, stretched out on her back, but no, it is empty; maybe there will be a note or some letter or something, anything, a sign from the other girl, but, looking around, Thisbe sees she is alone, and that there is nothing, nothing but the music of the air wandering through the prairie grass. Frowning now, she takes a seat, then lies back in the stiff gray and green and brown thistles. She closes h
er eyes, her ears cupped by the soft, pleasurable silence of early evening. Why wasn’t the church open? Why didn’t He want me to be forgiven? Thisbe opens and closes her hands, grasping at the dry grass, wondering, Why have a church at all if God isn’t going to be around to see you when you need Him? Why? Maybe…maybe because it isn’t as simple as just going to church to find Him. Maybe because it’s all a silly idea anyway. Maybe because He’s not hiding in that church in the first place. Maybe He doesn’t like to be kept on the inside of things or put in boxes or Bibles or prayers or churches. Maybe, if He is really real, maybe He’s alone here, waiting in this field, and all He really wants is for me to think about Him. Maybe He doesn’t care about me being a martyr at all. Maybe He only appears when I’m happy. Maybe He wants me to sing even though I’m bad at it. Maybe He wants me to sing because it makes me feel happy and that’s all He really wants for me anyway. Thisbe places her hand on her chest, then, moving it, she places her palm above her belly, to the exact spot where Roxie first touched her, and then, drawing in a breath, she tries to sing. What she sings is “Ave Maria,” and her voice, unsure, tremulous, frightened, rises through the field grass as invisible and weak as the wind. Pressing harder on her diaphragm, she tries again, this time letting her lungs ring, like two golden bells, not caring who might hear her, sure no one is listening anyway. This time, the sound is a little stronger, a little more careless, spiraling up from her open mouth. Once more, she tries to sing a solitary note, and, as she holds it, the sound suddenly takes flight, reaching the lowest of the low-flying clouds. Thisbe holds in her diaphragm, her eyes closed tight. Like a kite, the note quickly soars up, and then so does she, the single note rising in her chest like a balloon. Now she is truly flying, her feet leaving the ground, floating on her back, her eyes closed tight, her song lifting her closer and closer to the clouds, until finally, fighting against her breath, she begins to descend. When she alights on the grass, she begins to laugh, opening her eyes, glancing at the world, looking out past the small field, the thistles gently brushing her face and hair.

  Twenty-five

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, JUST PAST SIX A.M., THE RETIREMENT home is mostly quiet. Some of the unlucky residents are wandering the halls murmuring to themselves, while the rest of the unfortunate congregate in the recreation room to watch an assortment of morning game shows. Henry Casper slips out of his red robe, pulls on the jacket of the frayed black suit, then the pants, working the tie over the collar of his white pajamas. When he is finished dressing, he wheels himself over to the radiator in the corner of his room, and reaches one thin hand behind the dirty metal pipes. After a moment, his pale fingers find what he is searching for—a small white paper flower—the only object that seemed too important to discard. Gone are all the photos, the old letters, all of his aeronautical drawings. The rest of his memories are filed in his top bureau drawer in separate envelopes by date and year. Henry gently cups the paper flower in his hand, looking down at its intricate folds, then slips it into the inner pocket of his suit coat, deciding he will take this final memento with him to Japan. When nothing else remains, when he has finished gathering what’s left of his courage, when he is all but ready to vanish, he wheels himself across the tiny room and finds his silver radio on top of his bureau, which he carefully places in his lap. Pushing himself across the hall, he places the radio beside Mr. Bradley’s bed, nodding to the frail-looking man, whose thin eyebrows rise, acknowledging this thoughtful gift. Then Henry is off. He turns the wheelchair around, glances at his black digital watch, which now reads 6:34 a.m., and begins rolling himself as quickly as he can down the long, tiled hall. By then he has become completely invisible.

  BEFORE THE DAY NURSE at the front desk understands what is happening, before Jeff the orderly, pushing the metal food racks through the glass doors, can turn and appreciate the velocity at which Mr. Casper is now traveling, Henry’s left wheel screams loudly as he skids to a stop near the door. This is followed by the tremendous clatter of Henry ramming himself as hard as he can against the meal trays, knocking the metal rack on its side, pre-warmed breakfasts spilling everywhere, leaving the glass security doors wide open. Without any trepidation this time, Henry wheels himself into the closest elevator, presses the Door Close button with a grave authority, then salutes once to the day nurse who is running around from behind the front desk. Only a few seconds later, Henry is wheeling himself rapidly through the lobby. He sees the thick-necked security guard near the front door holding the yellow telephone to his ear—the guard having just been alerted. Henry cuts left, passing unobserved down the side corridor, pulling himself through a pair of unlocked double doors, speeding past the kitchen and the laundry, where at the end of what seems like an endless hallway there is a sudden explosion of daylight.

  ONCE HE IS THROUGH the service doors, once he has wheeled himself down the narrow alley, he is as good as gone, stopping for a moment at an unmarked corner, raising his right hand to hail a cab. The cabbie is unfamiliar with English, preferring, like Henry, the gravity of silence. Once he is safely installed in the backseat of the cab, once his wheelchair has been properly folded and shoved inside the trunk and the taxicab is in motion, the cabdriver glances in the rearview mirror, asking for a destination in a thick Eastern European accent. Henry, scrambling among the pockets of his black suit jacket, finds a small slip of paper, then hands it through the narrow slot of the divider made of bulletproof glass. The cabbie glances at it, puzzled for a second, and then nods. What Henry has drawn is a sketch he has made hundreds and hundreds of times: an uncomplicated form, one long cylinder with two wings and a raised tail—the simple, solemn shape of an airplane.

  Final Comments of Limited Historical Importance

  THE ICE IS TOO THIN TO CROSS. IT IS LATE SPRING of 1630, when naval officer Jean Caspar, a third-class officer aboard a French vessel from the colonial Compagnie des Marchands, decides to shoot himself in the head.

  Lost in search of a new trade route through the uncharted Arctic, the vessel ran aground nearly eight months ago on a fierce peninsula of ice. Now a storm cloud looms lazily above the lopsided mainmast as Jean stares up into the gray sky and howls, the sound echoing infinitely in the empty northern expanse. He treads along the ice-strewn deck, following an improvised system of ropes; the hull of the ship has been split into numerous parts, and so requires the curious to cross back and forth, from bow to stern, starboard to port, using several intertwined lines of snow-covered hemp. Following the ropes down a darkened passage, he finds himself alone in the main storeroom beneath the deck. Here a number of wooden crates have been hastily torn apart, some carrying glittering crystal tea sets, others glowing with magnificent silver serving plates, while the rest of the cases are now pyramids of warped and broken timber. The provisions themselves are long gone.

  STOPPING ONLY ONCE on Allumette Island to trade with the Algonquins, the officers and seamen traveled north and soon discovered that they were unprepared for the desperate climate and its terrible weather, and one by one they began to die. Jean Caspar, standing there in the vacant storeroom, is the last man alive on the vessel, a cruel joke none of the other sailors would have enjoyed. For it is Jean Caspar, with his failing liver—congenitally malformed, ineffective, responsible for Jean’s bright yellow skin tone and strange ammoniac odor—who ought to have been the first one dead; it ought to be his body that is now frozen in the makeshift mausoleum in the second storeroom.

  But the first to go was Captain Louis Nicollet. Captain Nicollet had insisted on toting the crates of expensive tea sets and serving plates to swap with the Chinese and Indians, instead of stowing extra provisions. Jean Caspar did not argue with this poor decision, for he believed—in his spirit and bones—that it would be through the sole deployment of beauty—with the exchange of their superior French silver, their polished gold carafes, their spectacularly handsome jewelry—that the French would soon take command of the rest of the globe. To be a king, one must wear a cape and gold crown, Jean rea
soned. It must be the same the world over. In these primitive places, in these small worlds of sadness and dirt, there must be a tireless hunger for something beautiful, something beyond their miserably common lives. As soon as these lost souls learn the exquisiteness of the French language, of our poetry, song, and dance, the planet will be a much more enlightened place. Beauty, indescribable beauty, will conquer them all.

  Unaccustomed to such drastic cold, however, unable to survive on such notions of pomp and beauty, the captain froze to death while setting up a croquet set on the flat isle of snow surrounding the ice-locked ship. Several other sailors soon followed, their bodies, one by one, filling the secondary storeroom.

  Jean Caspar, nearly fifty years old, watched able-bodied seaman after able-bodied seaman succumb to the deadly, unfamiliar frost. The remaining officers all took sick and then died, leaving the inexperienced, cowardly Jean in charge. Instead of directing the rest of the survivors to forge ahead or to search for safer ground, terrified of both the native Inuits and the strange mountains of ice looming in the distance, Jean Caspar gave no orders, and barricaded himself within the captain’s empty quarters, where he decided to devote the rest of his time to silent prayer. There he hid, examining the captain’s collection of antique rosaries, pleading with these exquisite icons for salvation. The other shipmen, distraught, marked with the black mouths and bruised skin of scurvy, soon turned to barbarism, killing each other in a matter of days. Jean Caspar, thinking of his lovely wife Iris and his two daughters back home in Avignon, listened with terror to the howls and cries from beyond the heavy door of the captain’s cabin. Several gunshots, the sounds of flesh upon flesh, a scream for mercy—all echoed within the strange whiteness of those empty spring nights.