by Rick Wayne
I stared. I thought about the opossum. And the babies I was sure were silently hungry under the house. The logical part of my brain suggested that my uncle must have figured out what that odd bundle of sticks and wire was supposed to be, and he had thrown it in the shed, where he kept all the things he didn’t want folks to find—my cousins had suggested during dodgeball that there was old school print pornography in there—and that he didn’t want me to save the possum.
As I started down the tractor path toward the shed, the only sound was the fading cackle of the adults inside the house and the crunch of dirt under my feet. If I had been paying attention, that might’ve been a warning—that there weren’t any crickets or cicadas or anything. But I wasn’t. About ten feet from the door, I stopped. I don’t think I even knew why. Just that the little hairs on the back of my neck were tingling. Like that feeling you get when you’re being watched.
I looked at my trap. I looked at the dark gap of the door, between the hinges. And the dark gap looked back. I was sure of it. It was looking right at me. What was wrong, it seemed to be asking. Did I not want my trap? I had worked so hard on it. Would I not take just a few more steps to retrieve it?
I stayed locked in that gaze for an immeasurable eternity, until my mother’s booming voice fell over the lawn. She was screaming at my uncle from the back porch. He’d left the door to the shed wide open. How could he, after what had just happened in Atlanta? Guns were the whole reason we’d fled. He denied it, of course, and all the children were quickly gathered and there was a small inquisition in the living room. But no one would admit to anything. My trap was tossed back under the porch. The door to the shed was closed and locked. And we all had cake and ice cream. I hadn’t had cake in . . . well, a long damned time. I ate so much I felt sick after and slept the whole way home. And when I woke up, I’d forgotten all about the thousand tiny eyes I thought I’d seen blinking behind the door of that dumb shed, like stars at dusk. That was kid stuff anyway.
A few days later, my uncle called our house. Mom set the phone aside and asked me sternly if I had put the poison in the trash. I was certain I was in trouble. I had been told not to touch it. So I said no, which angered her, and I got angry back.
“Yeah, so what? What’s he need to kill that animal for anyway?”
Mom spoke briefly to my uncle. Then she hung up and told me my uncle wasn’t mad at all. In fact, I had solved the man’s problem for him. The opossum had completely ignored the pellets on the lawn, but by putting them in the trash, I made sure it sampled them on its next midnight raid. It died on the front lawn, and my uncle never thought higher of me than at that moment. From then on, I got a reputation in my family as being a very clever boy.
Two weeks later, Bug was dead.
There was no sound. But the door was wide open. I walked to it and stood. I looked up the stairs.
There was no sound. But the door was wide open. I walked to it and stood. I looked up the stairs.
“Hello?” I called.
Nothing.
I walked up. The door at the top was open as well. I saw the giant shrunken head. It was even creepier in the dark of night.
“Hello? Is anyone here? You left your front door open.”
Past the couches, the French doors were open as well. Beyond was a carpeted hall. Tasteful lighting. A few single doors. At the far end, in a round alcove, there was another double set, but like nothing I’ve ever seen, before or since. Vault-sized. Heavy. Made of variously protruding stacked stone cubes—volcanic red obsidian—each rough-hewn and capped in a carved symbol, sort of like a Chinese character. They looked like the doors to another world.
They swung open silently, as if I’d tripped an invisible sensor. Beyond was a chamber at least twice as big as the restaurant below, both in width and in height. It extended to the far corner of the building, and so had the same floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. They were covered in something: designs and writing, including some great swooping symbols near the top that were bigger than me. The far windows rose above the remnants of a brick wall, broken and jagged at the top, that fell at an angle to the floor. It was clear the glass and metal were modern additions built over the remains of a much older structure—old enough that not all of it had survived.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Doctor.” The chef. Definitely his voice. Only I couldn’t see him.
I walked toward the room. “Hey, your front door’s open.”
I stopped at the threshold.
“Holy shit . . .”
It was enormous, almost like it was bigger on the inside, and it exploded out before me. There was a full-grown tree in the center. Its lush branches unfurled like sails into the open space, barely reaching half the distance to the high vaulted roof, ridged in curved iron girders. At the center, directly above the tree, was a small stained-glass dome decorated in colorful figures I didn’t recognize. At the base of the back wall to my right was a series of five brick alcoves—low archways really, not quite tall enough to stand up in—each locked behind a hinged metal gate. It looked like a Civil War–era factory. Or maybe prison. There was a single artifact secured inside each nook, except for the one at the center, which was obscured by a folding Japanese screen.
Above the squat alcoves was a three-tiered wall of books that rose straight to the ceiling, encased in slightly tinted glass. I’d been in enough academic libraries in my career to know a rare book depository when I saw one. I’m sure the panes were polarized to keep out damaging rays. The only access to the cramped interior was via a pair of flanking spiral staircases, one at each end—black and metal and very narrow. I’m sure it was climate controlled as well—cool and dry. The books inside were clearly old, like something out of a medieval castle. You could tell by the spines. And there were so many of them.
But the coolest thing was the lighting. Behind the books, the entire back wall glowed. I couldn’t see the glare of any bulbs, just soft and evenly radiant panels, which unobtrusively lit the entire space.
I can tell you, that room is still, without a doubt, the coolest thing I have ever seen. It would take forever to describe everything inside, like the gilding on the girders and window frames, which seemed to tell a story, like the carvings of a medieval cathedral. Or the thick rugs that carpeted the place—not just Persian but Tibetan and African as well. Or the odd and unusual trinkets that filled the occasional gaps between the tomes. Or the objects encased in free-standing displays on the floor. To my left was a man-sized terrarium hiding a rainbow of poison dart frogs—alive and perched on broad tropical leaves. To my right, an entire ox was suspended from the high ceiling, hanging by its rear legs from a long golden chain. The chain was attached to a pulley on the vault girder, and it swung slightly, like an organic Foucault’s pendulum. The animal’s blood had drained from the cut in its neck into a giant metal pot underneath, and the carcass moved back and forth over it in a three-inch path. I glanced in the pot and stared at the blood—distilled and concentrated, like liquid mystery.
The stone doors closed behind me as my host pulled jars of dried ingredients from a tall rack on the floor. I was busy staring, neck craned, at the high windows. The upper panes were huge and filled with some kind of writing, like nothing I have ever seen, while the lower panes were smaller and covered in scratchy handwriting, some in English. It looked like the white board in my old microbiology lab. Only it wasn’t ruled and organized. It swirled. The letters grew and shrank as if a madman had been using the panes for a manuscript. There wasn’t a spare inch to a height of six and a half feet—except for one small pane in the very center, directly in front of the tree, which had been replaced by a small, inward facing mirror. Directly back from it, inside the wall of books, a rainbow-feathered garment hung inside a clear glass case. It was a bulky pullover with no sleeves, like a parka made of bird-of-paradise plumes. Hanging directly above it was an unpainted tribal mask, while underneath was an oval drum. Both were intricately carved, each appar
ently from a single piece of wood. The drum’s membrane was cross-hatched in a geometric pattern that was worn at the center, presumably from long use.
“Here.” Étranger had poured the powdered ingredients he’d mixed into a leather drawstring bag. He held it out. “Taste this.”
He was standing behind a semi-circular kitchen that arced around the tree. I couldn’t see the roots or the base, but the bark was gnarled and twisted and ashen gray. The counter held flanking sinks and a built-in cutting board and stove and everything. It was raised slightly over the floor and faced the windows, like it was a giant podium on which he conducted the city.
I took the bag. “What is it?” I sniffed. Nothing. I inserted a finger and felt dry powder. I dabbed a little on my tongue.
I bent and wretched immediately. I spat on the man’s rug. Part of me felt bad for doing so. Part of me was angry at him for making me. I’ve never in my life tasted anything so bitter.
I coughed. “What the hell?” I gagged again.
He retrieved the bag from my hands, pulled it closed, and handed me a napkin. I squeezed the running saliva from my mouth into it and wiped my tongue on the back side. He produced a glass from under the counter and filled it in the sink. He handed it to me and I drank as much as I could before needing to breathe. He motioned to a stool and I sat.
“Ugh.” I swiped my tongue against the roof of my mouth and drank again. I looked at where I spat. “What the hell was that? Tastes like poison.”
“Truth. How was your meal?”
“The meal?” I wanted to spit again. I took another drink instead. “It was excellent. Thank you.”
“Tell me, Doctor. May I ask you a personal question?”
“You just bought me a very expensive dinner,” I said after a long series of gulps. “The way I see it, you’re entitled to second base, at least.”
“Why are you in public health?”
I scowled. It was as odd a question as it sounds. And vaguely insulting.
“It’s an unusual choice,” he added.
“For someone with my background, you mean.”
“You disagree?”
“No. Hard to argue with that.” I finished the water.
He took the glass. “Another?”
I shook my head. “Can I ask you something?”
He parted his tattooed palms as if they were an open book.
“Why am I here?”
“You walked through the door,” he said.
“That I did.”
He placed his palms on the counter. He looked like he was deciding what to say. “You have access to resources I do not.”
I looked up at the leaves of the tree over my head. Fuck, it was big.
“How did you know? About the dead animals?”
“The natural world penetrates even the canyons of man.”
He pointed through the windows behind me, to the New York skyline in the distance. When I turned back, I saw the bird in the tree. It was small, like a sparrow. It hopped along a branch.
“You knew there was a circle, didn’t you?”
“No.” He didn’t flinch. “But I suspected. May I see?”
I reached into my bag and brought out my tablet and showed him the data I’d collected. I pointed to the missing segment in Jersey and explained the issue. He listened intently.
“Do the words ‘Prepare the way’ mean anything to you?” I asked.
His eyes turned to mine. “What did you find?”
“Wasps. And a rat carcass. Across the river. Big sucker. Skinned. With a—”
“Crown of wax,” he finished.
I nodded.
He stood straight. “Can you show me that place?” He walked around the counter and reached for a coat draped over one of the stools.
“What? Now?”
He nodded and swung the coat around him. It was remarkable—somewhat like a Tibetan chuban but cut just above the knees. The two flaps of the front wrapped around each other like a robe and were held shut by three large buttons—one near the neck, one at the apex of the flap, and one farther down that he left unfastened. Each button was different. The top was carved metal. The one in the middle was a dollop of polished, shining amber. I couldn’t see the third clearly. It looked well used, as if he’d worn it on repeated trips around the world. The crooks of the elbows were permanently wrinkled and the hem was the tiniest bit frayed in spots. But the coolest thing was how whatever dye it had carried had long since faded to a mottled, splotchy gray-and-white, like an early morning fog, a bit darker near the hem.
I looked at my watch. “It’s almost 11.”
“Are you tired?”
I wasn’t. At all. I’d been going all day. But I felt like I could work another twelve hours straight.
“What the hell was in that powder?”
The stone doors swung open.
“Please.” He held out his hand. “There is not much time.”
I didn’t take the chef for the vintage car type, but he was. Idling outside was a late-60s Jaguar MK10. All black. Four-door. Tinted windows. Big trunk. Perfectly round headlights at the end of a long sloping hood. Milan was behind the wheel, looking casual and graceful, as usual. And patient. She had clearly been waiting, as if she expected we would come.
I got in and glanced to the bistro. The staff was getting ready to close. That big engine rumbled and we pulled away. It wasn’t long before we were on the freeway. That late, traffic wasn’t so bad.
I was sitting in the back, next to the chef. After a few minutes, I realized he was looking at me in the dark. The lights from the street moved over him repeatedly as we drove, but they never quite rose high enough to light his face.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
Why public health.
I shrugged again. “It’s generally not something most people care about. You know how it is. People’s eyes glaze over.”
But the chef’s didn’t. He waited.
“I don’t suppose you know much about cholera,” I said.
“It’s very unpleasant.”
I laughed. Milan smiled at my reaction from the front.
“Yeah,” I said. “So it is.”
“It took someone close to you?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just, I read this book. In college. I had no idea what I wanted to be at the time. I was on an athletic scholarship and just happy to be there. And terrified that I was expected to actually get a degree. Terrified that I wouldn’t, I guess. I always liked science but I never thought I was smart enough for it. So I took this class on ‘science and society’ because it sounded more my speed, and we read this book that talked about cholera.
“The author started by saying how science wasn’t just about describing the world. It was about explaining it. Not just that it’s such-and-such way, but why. If a person gets sick, he said, you can blame a bug. Chance, basically. That’s fair. But if a whole bunch of people get sick, and if they keep getting sick, over and over, and if a different kind of people who live nearby don’t get sick, can you really keep blaming chance? At some point, blaming the bug is just a description. Not a reason.
“Then he asked: Did all those poor people die of cholera, or because the class structure of European society prevented access to clean water by the poor?
“Seems academic, but it matters. How we explain the world matters. It matters to law and policy. And at the time, it really got me thinking. I’d never thought about things that way. Guys from where I’m from, you know, they’re always complaining about this or that, ‘institutional racism’ and everything, but I never thought there was a legit way to dissect society like that. Scientifically. Where it wasn’t just some guys bitching about things they didn’t really understand. In hindsight, it seems obvious, but I never realized there were actually people who understood that stuff. Not just an opinion but something epistemically and mathematically verifiable. And what that guy said made a lot of sense. It made sense of where I came from a
nd why it is how it is and why some places are different and some places are the same.”
“And you wanted to change that?”
“I mean, yeah. I wanna do my part, same as anyone. But mostly I think I just wanted to understand, you know? I wanted an honest explanation that I could hold up in front of people and say ‘Here, this is why.’ Not just a description. An explanation. I felt I deserved it.”
“The truth,” he said, and without pause, “Would you sacrifice yourself for your daughter? Without hesitation?”
I laughed. “What?”
That’s how it was with him. The whole time.
I looked out the windshield. I honestly think we’d caught every single green light. It was a miracle. We were already in Jersey.
It was an easy question, but the severity of his tone got me. It was the phrase at the end, I guess—without hesitation. I felt like I should be extra sure before answering. Like he was going to call me on it later.
“Would I sacrifice myself to save my daughter? Of course. Without hesitation.”
He nodded, like he wasn’t sure what I was going to say but that that was the right answer.
“Why?” I asked.
But he didn’t have the chance to say. We pulled to a stop in front of a dour, hulking man with dull eyes and a hairline halfway up his scalp, the kind of guy who might have played offensive line in school and who had to shop at the Big & Tall store. He stood on the curb across from the abandoned school in jeans and a waist-length buffed leather coat.
Milan popped the trunk and everyone got out without a word. I felt like I had been cast in a play and had missed the dress rehearsal. I got out as well and stepped to the back.
“Whoa.”
The trunk of the Jag was like a mobile tool shed. Even the interior of the lid was covered with hand tools like pliers and screwdrivers. Two tanks of gas rested side by side on the floor next to a stack of folded towels, washed but stained. I saw bolt cutters and a long-handled fireman’s ax and duct tape and binoculars. Lodged along the curved interior wall was a baseball bat studded in nail heads. I picked it up. I couldn’t help it. Between the basketball team and school work, I didn’t have much time for anything else, but I’d played a little baseball in my day. I gripped it with two hands. You could really do some damage with that thing.
