by Sam Munson
“I looked it up,” she said. Without her leather jacket her shoulders seemed much frailer. “You looked what up,” I said. I wanted to put my arm around her shoulders. Not anything carnal. Just human-to-human contact. “That river, that whole scene,” she said. That would have been the height of idiocy, however. So I did not move. “That whole scene,” I said. “It doesn’t have a name. It flows all over and leads to the temple, no matter where you start following it,” she said. No surprise there. Not everything bears the burden of a name. “And did you find out who it was dedicated to,” I said. “There’s theories on the subject. Mr. Stone,” she said. Stared at her hands. Gnawed a thumbnail. Her mother sang another throaty, off-key phrase. “The Weald,” she went on. Her voice quiet. “And they say it’s Hecate, in the temple. I don’t think that’s true. And they never saw it.” I didn’t know who Hecate was. Alabama told me. About her underearthly origins. The sacrifice of black cocks and puppies. The pouring of wine and the burning of grain. Had to agree. No connection with what we’d seen. The Weald. Sounded spacious. Ancient. Free. What you crave at that age. “Those berries,” she said, “they say they’re deadly poisonous. So that shows how much they know anyway. Rosenkreuz, the Chronicle of Sviatoslav, and even bullshit moderns, even Levi and Crowley: on that point they all agree. ‘Eat not the fruit watered by that river.’ Like the Bible.” I wanted to ask about the tree foxes. I decided to keep quiet. She didn’t look to be in an information-please mood.
“Do you know how he died,” said Alabama. “I don’t,” I said. She gnawed her nail again. “Unless what we do next,” said Alabama, “is burn their school down, I’m not interested.” She was smiling, though. “That’s not off the table,” I said. I was smiling too. That’s the thing about adolescence. For all its miseries, you’re resilient. You can endure anything. And endurance equals greatness. “You gonna wait outside while I get changed,” said Alabama, “or are you just like going to admit you’re a sick voyeur.” I waited outside. I heard her dress fall, in the quiet. Her soles dance from point to point. I heard her cough. I heard her stumble. Collide with a trustful object. The rocking chair, I guessed. “Are you all right,” shouted her father. “She’s not a toddler,” shouted her mother. “I never said she was a toddler, Lena,” shouted her father. “I never said you did, Mark,” shouted her mother. “It’s this way basically all the time,” said Alabama. She’d come into the hall. No more dress. Wearing her uniform: beaten jeans, a tee shirt (orange; it had an ink stencil of a duck with humanoid arms on it, giving the world the finger), and the leather jacket. Her walk had that mild swagger. Which meant she was armed. “I’m going out for a while,” she said as she ran down the stairs. She was through the door before her parents could answer. “Have fun,” cried her mother. “Thanks,” I said, “we’ll make sure to.”
28
The Library of Alexandria: I first heard about its destruction from a graduate student whose name I never learned. Never met him before. Or after. Late spring of my twenty-third year. I was drinking and listening to the rain tap the window of the bar, and overhearing this vehement student. The death of antiquity, he called it. When you lose knowledge, you die, said this student, speaking fervently to a woman with long, crimson hair and a ring through her septum. I didn’t need anything other than my memory to understand the outrage and fear in this student’s voice. I even sympathized. Though there’s nothing I hate and despise more than aging students.
Winter sunlight. Air smelling burned. A metal door, set into the frame of a steel security shutter. The yellow eye streaked crudely across both. Perry Street, between Washington and the highway, and farther on the leaden river. The Hudson. Knowing the name makes a difference. “This is where we get on,” said Charthouse. His dented key glinted. The lock glinted. Did not turn. A beech tree, naked, rose above the low roof. Reaching upward. Charthouse sighed. It turned into a wet, ragged cough. Which went on for a long time. Bent him over. He finished by spitting. Wiping his mouth. “Losing my touch,” he said. “Hey.” A chirp from a window in the next building. “Hey.” The chirper a lanky guy with huge glasses. Leaning out. “Can I help you,” said Alabama. The glasses guy stared. His breath floated up in streams. A fool: thin-lipped, thin-mustached. He drew his meager torso back in through his window. “So are we like in exile now,” said Alabama. “We all experience failure,” said Charthouse, “it’s no reason to despair.” He closed the door. “Mike,” he said. I took my key. My arm throbbed as its tip bumped against the metal of the lock. The key slid home. The lock turned. The door opened. The dry-citrus smell of Mr. Stone’s place wafted out. “Shall we,” said Alabama. “I have to warn you,” said Charthouse. He didn’t explain further. The darkness beckoned. Charthouse gestured Alabama in. The glasses guy thrust himself out of the window again. “What,” I heard him say as I crossed the threshold. “Indeed,” said Charthouse. Farewell, glasses guy. The sheer number of people who enter your life for a fleet, irrelevant moment or two would crush and destroy you if an accident of nature ever forced you to confront it. Memory is love. I don’t know who said that. Wasn’t me. Scent of lemon skin, orange skin. Scent of sand. We crossed the threshold. One room to the next. The glasses guy crying his puzzlement and outrage to the hard, azure winter sky.
I was no melodramatist as a younger man. All the same: a ruin. The word forced itself to mind. No other way to describe it. Books thrown from Mr. Stone’s shelves. Their pages slashed and defaced with ink, black and red. With brown smears. Dried shit, I could tell. The shelves pulled from the wall and hacked to white, blue-painted kindling. The glass-covered prints hurled to the floor. Bearing boot marks. The sourceless orange glow that filled the place had dimmed, blackened. The light dirtied. Long grooves and runnels had been cut or clawed into the white tiles of the wall: the work of human hands. Water was trickling in. I heard it. Musical and steady. The sound of wreckage. “Lie there, my art,” said Charthouse.
We picked our way. Pages slithered. My sneaker heel landed on an isosceles of glass and broke it further. It made me want to weep. I am no scholar. Maybe that’s why. The ignorant either hate books or they revere them, in superstition. Covers tumbled from the piles. Empty. The cases of insects. “They didn’t burn them,” said Alabama. She lifted a blue-bound book from the floor. I recognized it. Mr. Stone had shown me the picture of Messaline in it. Whole. Unravaged. “Why do you say they,” said Charthouse. We walked through the long vestibule. The orange light fluttered. Reasserted itself. “Not long now,” said Charthouse. We had to high-step over wood debris. “Where’s Wittgenstein,” said Alabama. “I assume,” said Charthouse, “he’s with his maker.” We had to plant our feet and avoid the nails that stuck up from the scattered planking. “Where’s Mr. Stone,” I said. “You’ll see,” said Charthouse, “just keep walking.” Black holes stared from the wall next to my head. Each the size of woman’s fist. “This is like escalation bullshit,” said Alabama. “Art of war,” said Charthouse. I kept expecting to smell the smell of a corpse. The sweetish smell that had filled the room holding Hob’s body. Nothing. Just the lemon-rind-and-sand scent of the place. The smell of wisdom. No other way to describe it.
In the room where Mr. Stone had questioned me, razor cuts defaced the armchairs, their seamed hides. Stuffing, yellowed in a repellent way, vomited from every slit. The black table I’d sat at as Mr. Stone ordered me to light a cigarette: reduced to sticks and splinters. This struck me. A pointless gesture. A table can’t conceal anything, the way a book or an armchair can. There’s no reason at all, in other words, to violate the faithful, trustful slumber of a table. “Were they looking for something,” said Alabama. “Don’t give undue credit,” said Charthouse. More of those shit-colored stains defaced the concrete wall covered in hatch marks. In the end, even the vanquished are trampled on.
“Well,” said Charthouse. Standing amid the heaped ruined books and the splintered furniture, amid the gouged, torn walls, was Mr. Stone. Towering and still. Or rather what
had once been Mr. Stone. Now no more than what his name suggested. A tall, erect figure. Gray rock. Hands, eyelashes, the triple point of his folded pocket handkerchief. Concrete, I determined when I got nearer. What you’d use to put down fresh sidewalk. His enormous hat in his enormous, scarred hands, modestly hiding his groin. His eyes open to their fullest. As though he were addressing his students, explicating harmonic analysis to them. Except for the fact that his mouth was resolutely closed. Back straight. Head brushing the ceiling. His unmoving hair. Piled at his feet, pressed against his ankles and shins as if in flight, as if seeking comfort, the concrete forms of rats: fifteen, twenty. The water noise grew. A pipe, broken. A rupture. Alabama touched his lapel. “Is it her,” she said. “Eliminate the impossible,” said Charthouse, “and all that.” “That white-haired cunt,” said Alabama. Her voice resonant with fury. She was still stroking Mr. Stone’s lapel. “So what now,” I said. “What do you think,” said Alabama. “Don’t be hasty,” said Charthouse. “This isn’t real stone,” she said. “Charms of city life,” said Charthouse.
The orange light flickered again, returned, fluttered, ceased. Utter darkness. My hands curled into fists. Though even I knew: you can’t defeat darkness by punching it. Charthouse grunted. A blue leaf of flame appeared, cradled in his palm. I saw that Alabama had drawn her gun. “No need,” said Charthouse. “There is a need,” said Alabama. Another deep, atonal groan from the ceiling. “We should do triage on the books,” I said. “No,” said Charthouse. Alabama kept fingering Mr. Stone’s lapel. “Okay then,” I said. “It’s not even stone,” Alabama repeated. She stopped speaking. She holstered her gun. The blue light made her look young and hollow cheeked. I knew what she meant. The concrete. A final indignity. I banged my foot into one of the concrete rats. It fell over. A stony crack. The light from Charthouse’s palm had grown enough for me to see: the tail sheared away, the ears fractured, the fine-built paws snapped. “That cunt,” repeated Alabama. “It’s revenge,” I said. “She could have just killed us. So that doesn’t make sense,” said Alabama, “and if they know enough to know about Mr. Stone, they know enough to go after like our parents instead.” Drip, drip, drip. Mournful and precise. Hard to think of any good boded by the sound of a split, leaking pipe. A fundamental, just perceptible shudder running through the foundations, the ceiling.
When you’re seventeen, concern for your parents’ life does color your character. Your mother and your father still have the half-terrifying immortality you see in them as a child. “This is all prologue,” said Charthouse, “if you take my meaning.” “I’m sorry,” said Alabama, “but we didn’t have a choice.” As she spoke I saw Potash fall again. His ring and its malevolent colors. His beard. His gray face. His forehead opening above his left eye. I heard him say you people and your romanticism. “I never said you had a choice,” said Charthouse.
The ceiling groaned. Charthouse raised his hand. Above our heads, a long crevice was opening. Another drip started up. That water hit my scalp. “The integrity won’t last,” said Charthouse. “Even now it’s just an echo of his wishes.” “So let’s go,” I said. “We can’t just leave,” said Alabama. More water dripped. “We don’t exactly have options here,” I said. “This isn’t,” said Alabama. A scutter and a squeak. She whipped out her gun. Holstered it again. A large gray rat was dashing across a heap of torn pages. Leaves for the burning. “Well, now,” said Charthouse. I knew it was Wittgenstein as soon as I saw him. Even in the blue half-light. I bent. Extended my palm. He ran up my arm and onto my shoulder. “Most people have a thing with rats,” said Charthouse. “I admire them,” I said.
The ceiling drip sped up. Hunks of plaster fell and shattered at my feet. “Good-bye, Menachem,” said Charthouse. “Good-bye,” said Alabama. The blue light flickered against Mr. Stone’s hard, composed features. Structural rumbles. From under us, this time. Wittgenstein went tense. Stopped his squeaking. We followed Charthouse and his blue light back to the door. Wittgenstein chirping and chattering into my ear. “Are we like going to have to learn rat now,” said Alabama. “If you can manage it,” said Charthouse. “No offense, Mike, but I have the impression that your talents lie outside the scholarly realm.” He had me there. The big rat’s delicate claws I could feel through my coat. This was going to be a lot harder to sell my parents on than a tattoo, I realized. Through difficulties to the stars. Also not a quote by me. That’s the state motto of Kansas. I knew we were crossing Mr. Stone’s threshold for the last time. I knew his petrified body would be crushed by a ceiling collapse, along with his rats. That the remains of his library would be lost for all time. Yet I was not upset. I was at ease. Mr. Stone’s calm face watched us leave. No fear. No pain. Just that clear-eyed look and set mouth. I guess once you’ve faced down actual Nazis, not metaphorical ones or people whose behavior verges into Nazi-esque territory, you don’t have a lot left to fear. Call it what you like: so said Mr. Stone. I still had no name for it. The ranks of people who could provide me with a name had thinned. I didn’t mind. You don’t need a name. You don’t always need to know. In fact you only need to know one thing: if you’re an asshole or not. His door creaked. Beyond it a blinding oblong of white light. We inhaled the unplaceable scent. Wisdom, knowledge, whatever. We crossed the threshold. And then we were standing in the sun, a heavy door squealing closed behind us.
Shocking that it did not shock me. To violate the real laws of this world. A small, asphalt-bisected park. Benches, two wedges of grass, and rails. Our exit point a gray and stately building. We’d left through the service entrance. The doorman saw us come out. “Excuse me, excuse me,” he was saying, “excuse me.” I ignored him. Alabama ignored him. Charthouse said, “At your service.” He tipped his fedora. The doorman tipped his livery hat. A Soviet cadet’s. Charthouse tips his hat, and you reciprocate. Law of life. “You can’t just,” the doorman said. Charthouse grinned and slowly replaced his fedora. “Can’t just what,” he said. His teeth glowing. “Screw it. What am I, the Gestapo,” the doorman said. He adjusted his hat. He returned to his post. “And a good day to you to, sir,” said Alabama. “Sutton Place,” said Charthouse, “still a fancy address.”
Blue air. FDR traffic. Beyond, the sun-peaked sullen water. In the clear distance, the thick bridge, the gleaming domes of a facility on Roosevelt Island. Two crows watching us. “See, this is why people get issues about them,” said Alabama. “Heckle and Jeckle,” said Charthouse, “I enjoyed that cartoon despite its racial overtones.” I let the dark birds have it: double-barreled middle fingers. Didn’t bother them. “So what happens next,” I said. “Do I look like a teller of tales to you,” said Charthouse, “I have no idea.” He closed his eyes. Lighting our way had taken it out of him. I could tell. “You know what my vote is,” said Alabama. “It might have to go that way,” said Charthouse. “I can totally live with that,” I said. I was expecting Charthouse to tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was expecting Alabama to take a jab at me for claiming more experience than I possessed. “Good to know we’re all on the same page or whatever,” said Alabama. No jab. “I advise you both to spend as much time as you can in public,” said Charthouse. No jab from him. Shock and gratitude. Not the kind you can express. Charthouse left us then. Hobbling along. He had another coughing fit that stopped him. Bent him. The crows stared. Those empty, watchful, oil-drop eyes. He started off again. His cane scraping the ground. “He seems young to need it,” I said. “We’ll need them,” said Alabama. “Assuming we live that long.” Wittgenstein chattering and chattering on.
29
THE UPPER CRUST. That’s the name of one of the most complicated sleights in the Calendar. The premise is simple. Four queens are taken from the deck and laid out on a table. Each is then covered with a packet of three cards. The expert leafs through the first three packets to show that the queen has disappeared from each. He takes up the fourth to show that the three queens have migrated there, forming, with the fourth queen, a royal coterie
. Erzmund supplies, along with the technical instructions for the sleight, a lengthy chunk of descriptive patter: the predestined failure of the vulgar in their assays to enter aristocratic circles, the wily means of each noblewoman’s escape, the fatal vanity that gathers them together at last.
I never mastered this feat. Hob did. He did it not with face cards, not with aces. He used twos. Lowest of the low. He called his version THE HOLE-IN-THE-GROUND GANG. His line of patter inverted Erzmund’s. He talked, as he showed us the twos beset with royalty and aces, about the crushing, philistine world, the violence inherent in our lives, and the hope and succor flight and privacy alone can offer. First time I heard the word succor. His version added another level of functional complexity, since he had to produce not just the twos but the tyrannical, two-faced kings, queens, and jacks as well, and the priestly aces. I’ve never gone in much for revolutionary sentiments. And there’s no need to improve, through adaptation, masterworks. Yet I never minded Hob’s version. I admired it. We all did. Charthouse went apeshit the first time he saw it. “You, sir,” he said, “are a genius.” We applauded. Hob bowed. Whipped his red-and-white handkerchief out of nowhere and swept it over the table. The cards had vanished when he’d completed the pass, and he showed us the deck, neat and squared off, in his left hand.
“Would you like more zucchini,” said my mother. My daze ended. “Yes, please,” I said. “One thing’s for sure,” said my father, “whomever you end up marrying is going to know we raised you correctly. You always say please and thank you.” He pointed at me with his fork. Absurdly, I saw Hob, making one of his precise, mildly theatrical gestures. “Stop with this insanity about his future wife,” said my mother. She was chuckling. “I’m just saying,” said my father. Beneath us Mrs. Lorbeerbaum took up her tirade. The same tirade. Broken up by hours and days. “Nathan, this is the last straw,” she thundered. The floor dulling her voice. My mother and father both snorted and guffawed. I had to admit it was pretty funny. Even though I was thinking about Hob. Who was dead. You don’t know many dead people at seventeen. Hob was, for me, the first. “This is super tasty,” said my mother. “Why thank you, my little chickadee,” said my father. Other kids, and I knew this for a fact, found their parents embarrassing. I never saw it that way. Longevity is a form of endurance. Endurance equals greatness. Therefore, respect your elders. I think this is why I volunteered to take Wittgenstein. He fell asleep as soon as I’d gotten him home. Hidden in my jacket. I put an old tee shirt and a sock in a shoe box and put him in it and slid it into the back of my closet. Whether he stayed put or got into the walls, I considered it his own affair. In a building like the one I lived in, a rat will thrive. Rat mind and human mind. Call them cousins.
