“I liked the other professor better,” she says and gets into the car.
Mead sighs with relief when the taillights of his father’s car drop out of sight.
BY THE TIME MEAD WALKS BACK to the oak tree, Dr. Alexander is gone. As is his bike from in front of Epps Hall. Mead thinks about hopping the city bus and riding out to the professor’s house to have a talk with him, to ask Dr. Alexander if he knew about the lunch at Baylor Hall, if he knows about this three-ring circus into which the dean and Dr. Kustrup have roped Mead. And whether or not he thinks it is a good idea. If perhaps he shares Mead’s concern that it is too much too soon. In the end, though, he decides he does not have the time. Instead, he walks back to the dorm to get his suitcase and then heads over to the library. He’s still got about three-and-a-half hours before closing. Time enough to get some work done, to finish mapping out that stupid outline for the dean. Visiting mathematicians. Shit. That’s heady stuff. If Mead is going to do this, then he has to do it right. To make a good impression. What if he gets up on the stage in front of all those seasoned mathematicians and makes a fool out of himself? His reputation will be destroyed. His name will be mud. His future will be over before it has even had a chance to begin!
Mead trots up to the fourth floor and finds Herman sitting on his bed, fully clothed for a change, and reading a book —a thriller of some sort, not a textbook —and listening to a Bach concerto. The scratch on his neck is not visible, hidden as it is beneath the collar of his shirt. Might it really have been made by a staple?
“So how was your lunch in Baylor Hall?” Herman asks.
“How did you know about that?”
He sets down the book and swings his feet off the bed. “Your mother happened to mention it to me. Yesterday. At the restaurant.”
Mentioned it to him? When? Mead didn’t even know about the lunch until ten minutes before it happened. Why would she tell Herman about it and not her own son? Unless of course she was trying to impress him. Maybe she brought it up while Mead was in the bathroom?
He sits down on Herman’s spare bed. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything. What?”
“I’m having serious second thoughts.”
“About?”
“My paper. This presentation I’m supposed to give. The whole thing is getting blown way out of proportion. The dean has invited professional mathematicians, the most brilliant minds in the field, people like Michael Berry and Hugh Montgomery, to come listen to me. Me! Shit, I’m going to look like a fool up there on that stage.”
“You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“You told Dr. Kustrup, didn’t you? You told Dr. Kustrup about our trip out east, about the Cray X-MP, and then he told the dean.”
“Yes, I told him. I mean, he is my advisor.”
“But don’t you see? Now he’s acting as if the whole thing was his idea. He’s trying to take credit where none is due. It isn’t fair, don’t you see how that isn’t fair?”
“Relax, Fegley, you’re overreacting. Dr. Kustrup is the head of the department. He’s allowed to brag about his students.”
“No. He had his chance and blew it when he —” Mead cuts himself off.
“You’re still pissed because he passed you over for me. I understand. That was a shitty thing for him to do. But hey, look, you did fine without him, right? Better even. So what do you care? Look at it this way: He needs you more than you need him.”
“Maybe. But it’s still wrong.”
“I don’t think you really give a damn about Dr. Kustrup; you’re just nervous.”
Mead gets up and paces. “But what if some mathematician sitting in the audience stands up in the middle of my presentation and says, ‘You made a mistake, buddy, you forgot to extend the log function to complex numbers.’ ”
“Did you?” Herman asks.
“No!”
“So you got nothing to worry about. Jesus, Fegley, I wish I had your problem. You do realize, of course, that after you give this presentation, you’ll be set. You’ll be able to study wherever you want. Graduate schools and mathematical societies will be clamoring over one another to get at you. Hell, if it bothers you that much, I’ll give the damned presentation for you.”
Mead stops pacing. “No, you’re right. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank you, Weinstein. Thanks a lot.” And he picks up his suitcase and leaves.
THE OVERHEAD LIGHTS FLICKER. Four students are standing in line ahead of Mead. Each one in turn opens his book bag so the librarian can inspect its contents, then exits through the turnstile. When it’s Mead’s turn, he swings his suitcase up onto the counter and unzips it.
“You’re good to go,” the librarian says after a cursory glance.
He re-zips the suitcase. “I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Shirley,” she says. “Shirley Tanapat.”
Lifting the suitcase down off the counter, Mead proceeds through the turnstile. Once on the other side of it, he stops and turns around. “I was wondering, Shirley Tanapat, if you might like to go out for a cup of coffee?”
11
THE COLOR OF RESURRECTION
High Grove
Still Four Days Before Graduation
THE DUNGEON. THE BASEMENT. The preparation room. By whatever name he chose to call it, the room below the store had stimulated Mead’s imagination more than any other single thing or thought or place in his childhood. Because of what he knew took place down there. But mainly because he had never actually been down there. Rats and cobwebs and green slime oozing from the walls, that is what he pictured. Dead people rising up out of their caskets to stretch their legs, enjoy a cup of coffee, and read the local newspaper. Three or four of them sitting in a circle, sharing their obituaries with one another. Reminiscing, laughing, crying, and generally having a good time.
But one night Mead woke up and found himself lying in the dark. Alone. He’d been in first grade for all of one month and had already been tripped, given a dead bird, and had his lunch stolen. And he longed for a friend. Any friend. So he got out of bed, got dressed, and walked over to the store. In the dark. Rode down to the basement in the freight elevator feeling scared but determined, eager to share a cup of coffee and a laugh with the dead men. To pet a rat. To find out what green slime feels like. What he found instead was a room as cold and antiseptic as the science lab at school. No coffee. No rats. No green slime. The place was cleaner than his mother’s kitchen counter. But all was not lost because lying on a stainless steel table in the middle of the room was a dead man. One man. A naked man under a clear plastic sheet.
Mead walked closer for a better look. The man’s eyes and mouth were closed as if he were asleep. Mead folded back the sheet and shook his arm, hoping to wake him up. But the man was cold as a leftover chicken leg. Then Mead saw it. The incision in the side of his neck. The skin stitched together like a baseball. And Mead knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man was never going to wake up, that there would be no jovial retelling of stories past, that when a man dies he takes his stories with him.
MR. FULLINGTON’S EYES ARE WIDE OPEN. He stares up at the ceiling, his mouth in rictus as if shocked to discover the condition into which he has gotten himself.
“Here, put these on,” Uncle Martin says and tosses Mead a pair of latex gloves and a white smock, then proceeds to undress Mr. Fullington with a pair of scissors, dropping pieces of his striped pajamas into a metal trash can marked BIOHAZARD. He places an iron block under the dead man’s head as if it were a pillow and hands Mead a sponge. “You wash and I’ll flex,” he says, lifts Mr. Fullington’s left leg, and bends it repeatedly at the knee as if the dead man were a paraplegic and Uncle Martin his physical therapist. “It’s to relieve rigor mortis,” he says as explanation, “so the embalming fluid can get deep into the muscle tissue.”
Mead does a lousy job washing Mr. Fullington. He cleans only what he can get at without having to actually touch the deceased with
his hands and leaves the rest to his uncle. Like Mr. Fullington’s backside. And his genitals. Mead won’t go near them. No way. He tries his best to not even look down there. Because it’s none of his business. This is, after all, Lenny’s dad and not some boy in the college dorm who thinks he is carrying a trophy between his legs.
Mead does a better job shaving Mr. Fullington’s face with an electric razor. Actually, the whole thing gets easier as he goes along, once he gets past the initial shock. Once he has gotten used to the idea of handling a dead person. Mead just keeps thinking about Lenny. About his loss. About making Mr. Fullington look presentable for the funeral. About making it easier for Lenny and his family to accept his passing. Who did this for Percy? Who washed his body and flexed his legs? Surely it wasn’t Uncle Martin. Which means it must have been Mead’s father. Shit. Mead should’ve been here. He could have helped. He could have shaved his cousin’s face. But if he had been around to attend the funeral, he would have been around to greet Percy when he came by the dorm to visit, and then his cousin wouldn’t have needed anyone to wash his body and shave his face and flex his legs at all.
Martin picks up a long needle, threads it with a suture, and shoves it through Mr. Fullington’s upper lip. “Oh shit,” Mead says and flinches, feeling the pain that Mr. Fullington cannot.
“You doing all right over there, college boy?”
“Yes, I’m fine, Uncle Martin.”
“You sure? Because you look about as pale as the deceased here.”
It would help if Uncle Martin sounded as if he were the least bit sympathetic to Mead’s predicament —to the fact that this is his first time —but he doesn’t. He sounds mean and revengeful and condescending. “I said, I’m fine.”
“All right then,” his uncle says and threads the suture through Mr. Fullington’s lower lip. Mead bites down on his own lip and takes a deep breath, telling himself that he isn’t going to throw up, reminding himself that Mr. Fullington can’t feel a thing. That he is dead. But it doesn’t help. The room grows dark and then everything goes black. Like the lights on a stage at the end of Act One.
“Uh, Uncle Martin? I can’t see.”
“My hands aren’t that big, Teddy, you can see just fine.”
“No, I mean I can’t see. At all. The room is pitch black.”
“What’re you talking about, I’ve got every light in the place on.”
“I know but I can’t see, Uncle Martin. I can’t see because I’m blind.”
His uncle does not respond. He is probably waving his hand in front of Mead’s face right now, trying to make him blink. Trying to catch him in another lie. But Mead isn’t a liar, he’s just a fool who befriended the wrong person. Not a genius, a fool.
“Put your head between your knees and take a deep breath,” his uncle says.
“What?”
“I said, put your head between your knees!” Martin yells as if Mead has not only been struck blind but deaf, too.
He follows his uncle’s instructions and inhales a mixture of ammonia and formaldehyde. Which doesn’t help. It just makes his lungs burn. A chair scrapes across the floor, followed by the sound of footsteps. Shit. His uncle is leaving. Mead hopes he isn’t going upstairs to tell Mead’s father what has happened. That will just convince the man that he is right: Mead does not belong here. That he should call the dean and go back to Chicago. But he can’t, he just can’t.
A hand touches the back of Mead’s neck. It feels cool on his sun-scorched skin. His uncle’s hand. And Mead starts to cry. Just like that. Out of nowhere. For Mr. Fullington. For Percy. For his Uncle Martin and Aunt Jewel. For himself. For this whole fucked-up world where nothing turns out the way you think it’s going to. He wishes his uncle would remove his hand, would walk back to his own side of the embalming table, would just get on with it. That Mead can handle. Getting on with it. But not this. Not the thought that someone feels sorry for him. That there is some reason in the world to feel sorry for him. Because there isn’t. Mead can handle mad. Uncle Martin can be as mad at Mead as he likes. But not this. Mead does not want pity.
“Ancient Egyptians were the very first embalmers,” his uncle says. “They took up the art back in 3000 BC. But then you probably already know that, being as how you’re a college student and all.”
Mead wipes his nose with the back of his hand. What the hell is his uncle talking about? Why is he giving Mead a history lesson? Now? Of course he knows about the Egyptians. Everybody knows about the frigging Egyptians. They teach you about them in grade school, for Christ’s sake. But he wills his uncle to keep talking.
“Of course their first attempts were pretty rudimentary. Hardly what you’d call an art. All they did was wrap the deceased in resin-soaked linen. It didn’t do much to preserve the body but it did a terrific job of preserving the body shape.”
His uncle removes his hand from the back of Mead’s neck, his hard-soled shoes slapping against tile as he walks back around to his side of the table. His chair scrapes across the floor. He’s getting on with it. Good. This Mead can handle. Metal clinks against metal like silverware at the dinner table as his uncle lifts instruments off his tray and resumes his work.
“It wasn’t until around 2600 BC that they began to remove what they considered to be the four primary internal organs: the lungs, the liver, the stomach, and the intestines. Not the heart, though. Early Egyptians didn’t hold the heart in too much esteem.”
Uncle Martin turns on the pressure gauge that will pump Mr. Fullington full of formaldehyde. It makes a rhythmic ka-plunk, ka-plunk, ka-plunk, ka-plunk sound that mimics the beat of Mead’s heart.
“The primary organs were put into a canopic jar and buried alongside the body in the belief that the dead would need them when they woke up on the other side.”
The shroud of darkness surrounding Mead begins to lift and he sees his uncle pick up Mr. Fullington’s left arm and make an incision in his skin, just below the armpit. He sees him insert a syringe into an artery, sees him attach a tube that is hooked up to the five-gallon container of embalming fluid.
“After the Old Kingdom collapsed, around 2200 BC, the entire process from death to burial became much more elaborate, sometimes taking up to seventy days to complete. First the body would be washed in natron, a preserving salt found in great quantities on the flood plains of the Nile. Then it was coated in resin and the soft-tissue organs removed, all except for the heart. It remained in place not for sentimental reasons but because the Egyptians of that time believed it to be the seat of intelligence and will.”
Uncle Martin makes a second incision on the inside of Mr. Fullington’s upper thigh and inserts a second syringe, this time into a vein, and then attaches a tube. It immediately fills with dark red blood that rushes out of Mr. Fullington into a second five-gallon container that sits on the floor. Mead stares at the container and waits for the room to go black again.
“The body was then placed under heaps of powdered natron,” Uncle Martin says, “to draw out moisture and prevent bacteria from decaying the flesh. It would often remain there for up to forty days.”
But the room does not go black. Mead is okay. He is going to be okay.
“When the body was finally returned to the embalming table, the internal cavities were rinsed with spices and palm wine and stuffed with resin-soaked linen and sawdust. The flesh was rubbed with a lotion made of juniper oil, beeswax, spices, and natron, then painted with a molten resin to toughen the skin and make it waterproof. And the face was painted green. Egyptians thought it to be the color of resurrection. Green. You know, like spring.”
“O flesh of the King,” Mead says, “do not decay, do not rot, do not smell unpleasant.”
Uncle Martin looks up.
“You taught me that. It’s a prayer, right? What Anubis, the god of embalming, says to the dead as he dusts them with spices.”
Uncle Martin continues to stare, long enough to make Mead uncomfortable. As if now he is going to start crying. But he
doesn’t. He catches himself, turns his attention back to Mr. Fullington, and says, “As man passes through death into immortality, it is imperative that his body remain whole so it can function again in the afterlife.”
“Uh, we’re still talking about the Egyptians, right?” Mead says. “I mean, you don’t really believe that, do you?”
“In the afterlife? Why not?”
“Because. We know better now.”
“We only know what we think we know.”
Now it is Mead’s turn to stare. “He’s not coming back, Uncle Martin. You do know that, don’t you?”
His uncle gets the most hurt expression on his face. As if he didn’t know that. Shit. Mead should have kept his mouth shut. Here they were getting along for the first time since he has been home —talking civil to each other and all —and Mead had to go and screw it up by saying something rational. As if there is anything rational about Percy’s death. Or Mead’s being here in this room. Or anything else that has happened in the past few weeks. It is as if the whole world has spun out of control into chaos.
Mead figures that any second now his uncle is going to either start crying or start yelling. But he does neither. Instead he pushes back his chair and stands up. Walks over to the wall cabinet and pulls down an old cardboard box that is sitting on top of it. He sets the box on the floor, folds back the flaps, and lifts out a mask. A papier-mâché mask made of newspaper and flour and brown paint. A crudely crafted dog’s head. An art class project. A child’s interpretation of the jackal-headed god, Anubis.
“He made this when he was in the third grade,” Uncle Martin says. “His mother was so impressed. She thought he was gonna grow up and be a great sculptor. The next Michelangelo. But I knew better. I knew he was destined to be a great embalmer just like his old man.” Martin rotates the mask in his hands, looking at it from all sides. “When I was a young man draining the lifeblood out of all those dead bodies, pumping them full of formaldehyde, I didn’t believe. Those people were as pickled as gherkins in a glass jar. No way were they going to wake up on the other side and live again. No way, no how.” Martin sets down the mask, picks up Mr. Fullington’s hand, and begins to massage it, working the embalming fluid down into his fingertips. “Then one day that all changed. It was the middle of the night and I was all alone. I was feeling sorry for myself because it was New Year’s Eve and everybody else was out whooping it up, having a good time, partying and all, and I was down here. Working on a body. And suddenly I knew.”
Life After Genius Page 27
