Big Machine

by Victor Lavalle

  More black people. Men and women. Standing together for posed black-and-white photos, all on a set of concrete steps much wider and steeper, more majestic, than the one we’d just used. Behind them a bank of doors, all made of frosted glass. The numbers varied. Sometimes nine, other times seven. Once there were only three in the shot. But all these pictures seemed very old, at least judging by the clothes. The men in sharp suits and women in fine dresses. Most of the guys wore hats, that was the real clue. 1950? 1920? How old was the Washburn Library?

  “Man,” Peach Tree muttered. “You didn’t hear me talking to you?”

  I saw Peach Tree’s bald head peeking around the wall. Five other heads gathered behind his. They looked as nervous as birds. I waved them in slowly so they wouldn’t scatter.

  “Come on,” I said. “Look at all this.”

  So they entered, and I introduced myself to the women. Peach Tree walked away from these greetings because we’d already met. He looked at the framed photos, at the swanky clothes the figures wore, and said, “They look like a bunch of Black Muslims.”

  The bookish woman, whose name was Violet, said, “I guess they do.”

  This made Peach Tree unhappy. “They better not ask me to sell no bean pies!”

  Another woman, taller than all of us, who stooped with a tall woman’s shame, said, “They don’t look like Muslims. They look like church folk.”

  “How’s that better?” Peach Tree asked. “I didn’t come to Vermont to get saved.”

  Violet said, “Just because they’re well dressed doesn’t mean they’re religious. Can’t black folks get done up for another reason?”

  “Name one,” the tall woman, Verdelle, said.

  “Maybe they’re rich,” whispered a third woman.

  Her name was Euphinia, and she’d made fast friends with the fourth woman, Grace. The two of them were the oldest of the bunch. Both must’ve been in their sixties. They held hands tightly, and this made them look like a pair of schoolgirls.

  “Then maybe we’ll get rich too,” Grace added.

  The last of us was Sunny. That’s how she introduced herself, and that’s all she wanted to be called. First name or last? I didn’t ask. She was even burlier than Peach Tree, so I didn’t push. Short, wide, and slow to speak, but her small eyes showed clear intelligence. She was the only one who went around the room and looked at every picture.

  After Sunny had seen them all, she said, “These look like class photos.”

  “So what’s that make us?” Peach Tree asked.

  Sunny rubbed the glass of the frame closest to her. It was so clean it squeaked.

  “New students,” she said.

  Violet and Verdelle looked to be the youngest, midtwenties maybe. Sunny and I floated around forty, while Peach Tree, Euphinia, and Grace were closest to retirement. I tried to see some pattern in this, but couldn’t. We weren’t from the same city or state or region, didn’t seem to have family ties. We stood near the banquet table playing amateur sleuth, but the one thing we didn’t do was sit down. It was as if I could read their minds.

  I hate to say it, but we didn’t sit down because we didn’t believe we were the honored guests. Suspected we’d been brought all this way just to cater for the real invitees. And then it was impossible to imagine another explanation. We expected to be given waiters’ outfits. All of us seemed to feel that same way. Folks like us were always the help.

  When the footsteps started, we stopped talking. We stepped away from the banquet table and stood with our backs to one wall. Euphinia and Grace even let go of each other’s hands. You’d have thought we were lined up for a firing squad. And worst of all, we’d volunteered.

  The sound of footsteps came from a second doorway, opposite the entryway we’d used, the clip of hard shoes coming down a staircase. When they reached the bottom, a small man stepped into the room to greet us.

  This guy was no bigger than a bunion. He had big jug ears and skin the color and texture of chunky peanut butter. He was a tiny, trim old man. But he wore a sharp pin-striped suit, and that made him appear important. Put a medal on a mailbox and most people will salute.

  “Look at you,” he said, and his voice was a surprise. Not friendly, not warm. It came out a raspy growl. “Standing around like a bunch of monkeys.”

  I dropped my eyes before I realized I’d done it. And it wasn’t only me. We all looked at the floor. Beside me, Euphinia even shivered.

  He spoke again. Just as vicious, but even louder.

  “So I call you monkeys and all you do is scratch your heads? Did you rob and kill the folks sleeping in those cabins? I can’t think of any other way you disgraces got in here!”

  But here’s the thing. There were a bunch of us and only one of him. I didn’t see Lake standing around to even the sides. Doing that math helped return my nerve.

  I said, “Do you talk to people like that because you’re only two feet tall?”

  Peach Tree reached out and smacked me on the shoulder. I wouldn’t even look at him.

  The little man sneered, showing his off-white teeth. He said, “So a junky is criticizing me, that right?” He paused and undid his jacket. “Excuse me, a junky and a murderer.”

  “You don’t know me,” I said.

  “I know what happened in Cedar Rapids. Let’s start with that.”

  A few of the others looked at me now, sidelong glances of judgment.

  The little man walked to a chair and pulled it out for himself. “Oh, I know about all of you. Don’t go acting like he’s the only one. You bunch of crackheads and criminals. Sit down already! Sit down and take your rightful place.”

  10

  THE DEAN KNOCKED HIS KNUCKLES against the table slowly. “You all have to excuse me,” he said. “I know I can be a son of a bitch.”

  The hall had the silence of a temple, so quiet that the candles on the table seemed to whisper as they flicked. This made each of us move quietly too. Not one of us dragged our chairs when we sat. And once we took our places, Peach Tree, Violet, Verdelle, all of them really did look different, a little finer. I hoped I looked the same to them. At the table, no one could see the uneven soles of my worn old boots, and I kept my boney hands tucked under my napkin. You could really only make out our astonished faces. All looking toward our host. This is the guy who can tell me why I’m here, I thought. Why we’re all here. So of course we forgave him the rudeness. We only waited to hear what he would say next.

  “Percy and Beatrice, would you do me a favor?”

  Peach Tree and Sunny stood, listened for the order.

  Even as the Dean gave them a few instructions, I looked into Peach Tree’s eyes and hoped he could make out my faint smirk. Percy! He and Beatrice pushed back from the table, and that made our plates and glasses rattle. The glasses were filled with water and slowly melting ice. I could’ve used a little red wine.

  Those two brutes clomped through the darkened entryway where the Dean had just come from. They disappeared around the turn.

  “I was at the Library before any of you were ugly babies,” the Dean said, “but before I came, I kited checks. Got run out of Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Oklahoma. And that’s not the worst I’ve done, believe me. All the bad that’s been said about you was said about me once.”

  The Dean nodded to affirm the truth of his statement. It made me wonder about the photos on the wall, the people in them. I turned and scanned the frames.

  “All of them too, Ricky.”

  I turned back to the Dean, and he smiled at me. Honestly, his smile didn’t look all that different from his sneer. Only the width of his eyes distinguished wrath from warmth.

  Verdelle, who slouched even while she sat, said, “I’m not no criminal.”

  The Dean said, “You were never caught.” He took a sip of water, set the glass down hard, and when he spoke again, his eyes narrowed. “But I know what you’ve done.”

  Verdelle’s lips parted, but not in protest, just surprise. I thought she might g
ive a confession. Instead she shut her mouth again and dropped her face into her hand.

  The Dean stared at her now, but he spoke loudly enough that even Peach Tree and Sunny could’ve heard him, no matter how far they’d gone.

  “Folks like us get used to making up stories, just to live with ourselves. But you don’t have to do that anymore. The Washburn Library doesn’t care who you were, only who you want to be. Out here we don’t call you cons. Out here you’re Unlikely Scholars.”

  All that sounded good. While Verdelle refused to look at the Dean directly, I found myself staring straight on. Hell, I might even have been grinning. Violet, Euphinia, and Grace all looked pleased. We were welcome here. We were. “Unlikely Scholars” sounded just fine. Some people act like it’s a sign of weakness if you want to belong, but I think most human beings yearn to find at least one open door in their lifetime.

  Now the sound of creaking metal could be heard from the darkened entryway where Peach Tree and Sunny had gone. The Dean looked over his shoulder, toward the noise, and it broke his command over us for a moment.

  Euphinia and Grace scooted chairs closer, until their shoulders nearly touched. And to my right Violet patted Verdelle’s place mat, a soothing gesture that made Verdelle look up and grin faintly. That left me on my own at the large table, and I counted the place settings, all nine of them. The Dean, myself, Euphinia, and Grace. Violet and Verdelle. Peach Tree and Sunny. That was only eight. Where was the other guest?

  The creaking noise continued from around the corner. It was the sound of something being wheeled across a floor. I imagined the little black tires of a supermarket shopping cart.

  Then Grace said, “How?”

  The word came out of her so quickly I thought it was a burp. The Dean turned to her and tilted his head.

  Euphinia explained, “She means how did you know about … ?”

  Instead of finishing the sentence, Euphinia reached down the top of her blouse. It had been as well ironed as my slacks and shirt.

  Euphinia fished a finger into her bra and came out with a small cream-colored sheet of paper, folded over itself a few times. She unfolded it and held it up. Two sentences written in black ink could clearly be seen. I couldn’t make out what hers said, but that was okay because I still remembered what he’d written on mine.

  Euphinia flapped the paper.

  Grace repeated herself. “How?”

  Peach Tree and Sunny finally entered the room. Peach Tree at the front and Sunny at the rear. Peach Tree made a show of his effort. He hadn’t grimaced and grunted that much even as he’d crawled through my cabin window, but Sunny was clearly doing the real work. Her wide, flat face bright with sweat.

  They were pushing a long, silver hot food table. Our banquet was a buffet.

  The Dean indicated a wall socket, and Peach Tree crouched to plug the hot food table in.

  I really wanted some wine, but we never saw anything besides H 2 O. It was easy to see why. I felt like I might’ve shot dope with any of these people at one time or another, even Euphinia and Grace. There’s a look to people like us, no matter where you go. Like we’ve been pulled out of a fire, but not quick enough. No wonder we weren’t being served hard stuff.

  Verdelle sat up straight for the first time that evening. Now she looked large enough to touch the high ceiling. She stabbed the tabletop with one long, boney finger and stared at the Dean defiantly. “Answer Miss Euphinia,” she said.

  The Dean smiled at her as if he was pleased by her boldness.

  He spoke only once Peach Tree and Sunny sat down again.

  He said, “There is a voice whispering in the darkness. I have heard it. Everything it says is true. It’s been talking to us, to all of us, but the world is so noisy we can’t make out the message. Not unless we go off somewhere, someplace remote and undisturbed and quiet …”

  We began calling him the Dean that night, though he never introduced himself that way. Who gave him that title, then? Hard to say. I can’t remember one of us starting it. It seemed as though the term just appeared, a murmur in my ear, soon after he’d walked into the room. We might’ve heard it from the candle flames or the sandstone walls. Even the ice in our glasses seemed to chatter that name.

  “So what do we do now that we’re here?” I asked.

  The Dean said, “We listen.”

  2

  The Damned

  Unlikely Scholars

  11

  THE NEXT MORNING I could still hear the Dean. His gruff tone, the snarl at the end of his sentences, his hard little fist slamming against the wooden table. I heard that last sound so powerfully in my dreams that it pulled me out of sleep. But then I realized it was someone knocking at my front door.

  Knocking hard enough to bring the walls down, but I didn’t run to answer. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I really couldn’t get up. Couldn’t pull myself out of the maple Victorian bed yet, couldn’t brush aside the cotton duvet at this time, you understand me? Getting up just then would’ve been like pulling myself out of a fantasy.

  By the time I got up, the knocking had stopped. I figured it hadn’t been Peach Tree, because he preferred the window. Maybe it had been the Dean? Come to finish the explanation he’d begun the night before. Maybe the others were now learning the greater secrets of the Wash-burn Library and I’d missed the chance because I was too busy snuggling with my comforter.

  Those thoughts made me panic, and that panic made me run out of the cabin in a T-shirt and underwear. No coat, no pants, no shoes. Not even socks. Huffing like I was about to miss a plane. And come to find the others, all dressed and showered, standing in the snow in the shadow of Lake.

  Only Lake turned away. I stood ankle deep in the snow that had fallen on my walkway since the night before. Right away my feet hurt from the cold, but I didn’t run back inside.

  Finally, Peach Tree cleared his throat and said, “Grown men shouldn’t wear tighty-whities.”

  SO I SHOWERED, dressed, skipped breakfast because I was hurrying, and ran the path to the Library entrance we’d used the night before. When I entered the lobby, I found a kid sitting at the front desk. He wore his guard’s uniform like a costume, kept pulling at the collar as if he were embarrassed by it. Before I could ask where the others had gone, he waved me through. He hardly even looked up from his newspaper.

  I looked back at him, slouched in his chair, head down as he snapped through the pages, and wondered how far he’d come to get this job. He had long brown hair that he pulled back into a ponytail, a teenager’s idea of workplace etiquette. He looked a bit young, but what did I know? Maybe he’d been an arsonist back in Dubuque.

  I came around the corner and found the others. They hadn’t begun the tour yet, only stood around in the room where we’d had our banquet the night before. Each one drank coffee or tea.

  Violet and Verdelle, the tallest and shortest of our group, stood together in front of a framed photo. Verdelle pointed to one of the faces under glass, and Violet went on her toes to look closer. She pushed her glasses up from the tip of her nose and raised her eyebrows at the same time, a look of study and surprise.

  But before I might’ve asked what they saw, Lake returned to the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Lake, but meant it for everyone.

  Euphinia and Grace were standing exactly where they’d been sitting the night before. Absently they watched the spot where our table had been. It was difficult to make the transition this morning. And not just for me. Peach Tree and Sunny hovered near the socket where they’d plugged in the serving cart.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Lake said. He kept his voice gentle, but I knew how loud it could get. He hadn’t been so demure while pulling that tree.

  Grace said, “Nobody here is scared.”

  But she held Euphinia’s hand tightly.

  Lake said, “Then let me show you the rest of the Library.”

  Lake turned and walked two steps, but we didn’t move. He sensed this and turned back. H
e didn’t need to ask the question, only waited for one of us to answer it.

  Violet was the one who spoke for us. She cleared her throat, tilted her head away.

  “Where’s the Dean?”

  Lake waved us toward him. The man’s hand looked as big as a boogie board. I couldn’t have been the only one who thought he was going to swat our heads off. But when we didn’t move, he didn’t beg, only waited, and soon each of us stepped closer. Violet and Verdelle first. Then Euphinia and Grace. I beat Peach Tree and Sunny over there, but it was only out of pride. I wasn’t going to be the last one again.

  Lake only seemed more enormous indoors. If it had started raining, we could’ve gathered under him for shelter. But instead of projecting menace the big man seemed serene. Another person might’ve been insulted by what Violet had said, but Lake smiled peaceably.

  Now we all stood at the bottom of the stairs the Dean had used the night before. Wooden steps, simple and clean. At the top of the stairs, a closed door.

  Lake pointed up. “Every year the new Scholars expect the Dean to step out that door and give them the tour himself. But let me tell you something about the Dean, he’s … unavailable. You’re not going to see him again.”

  Euphinia brought her hand to her neck. “Ever?”

  She asked it like she suspected Lake had eaten the little man in the night, a morsel before bedding down.

  “Not for some time,” Lake said.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “That really depends on you. On how well you do your work.”

  Now we, as a group, moved toward the stairs, like we were going to run up there and turn the knob and just beg the Dean for answers. But Lake stuck his arm out, blocking the way between us and the ascent. I have to say, even with Sunny and Peach Tree on our side, I didn’t think all seven of us could take him.

  He said, “You do your work and do it well. The Dean takes notice. Then, when he decides the time is right, he calls you up to see him.”