by Arthur Slade
It took considerable willpower to move my legs. As I got closer to the trapdoor spittle gathered in my throat. I stopped underneath, mesmerized. How had Willard climbed to the roof? Had he moved a chair to this very spot? Had he used his opposable-thumbed hands to pull himself up?
A scratching came from the other side of the door. The hinges rattled. Then I noticed that the padlock was open.
Perspiration gathered on my forehead. "I remember," I rasped. An ice age came and went. "I remember you, Will."
One final long scratch.
I hurried on to Mr. Verplaz's office. On the door hung a sign:
All words spoken inside this room will remain here.
It was intended to instill trust, but I felt grief for all those trapped words. I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead and knocked.
"Come in," Mr. Verplaz said gently, sounding as if he were waking from a potent dream.
I opened the door to a closet-sized office. Mr. Verplaz sat behind an antique wooden desk, his hands touching in a gesture of prayer. He was a forty-year-old ascetic with tanned skin, a hawk nose and small, round-lensed glasses. His eyes were spectacular, the oversized orbs of a well-groomed lemur, evolved to soak up moonlight.
School shaman. Truth seeker. Witch doctor.
"I said come in, Percival."
I closed the door and stepped over a collection of scrunched-up papers by the garbage can. His office hadn't changed since Willard's death. A forty-watt bulb still hung from the ceiling. The shade was pulled. Light bad. Darkness good. Where dreams come from. Folders lay scattered across his desk. A half-empty jar of lollipops sat precariously close to the edge. Books were piled on the floor. All a symbol of the chaos of the universe.
Mr. Verplaz pierced me with his mystical eyes. "Please sit down. It's good to see you."
I sat on the leather chair, which suddenly reclined at a sharp angle; I became an astronaut waiting to test gravity's bonds. We had walked on the moon. Our footprints would be there for millennia.
Pencils were stuck in the ceiling. When would one fall?
Mr. Verplaz cleared his throat. "Now, I'm not upset, but I'd like to understand why you missed yesterday's session."
"I...I forgot." I knew at once the shaman would recognize my statement as a lie. He surprised me with nodding acceptance.
"You are an exceptionally intelligent young man," he said quietly, as if letting me in on a great secret. "Do you know why you're here?"
"I was in a fight, so Groverly's patriarch ordered me to attend."
Mr. Verplaz smiled. "Are you angry with Mr. Michaels?"
"No."
"Then tell me, what is the real reason you are here?" This was another tool of Homo shaman therapist—a skin bag stuffed with questions.
"Apparently, the Teacher Tribe is concerned about my behavior."
"Do you understand why?"
"They are hired to assimilate me. It's their duty. Even if it is the last week of school."
"What's your favorite color?"
It took me a moment to process the question. "Gray."
"Why?"
"It's the color of the volcanic sediment surrounding Lucy's remains."
"Lucy?" He scratched his head, confused. I lost some respect for him.
"Yes, Lucy. Australopithecus afarensis," I explained.
"Do you mean the ape fossil?"
"She was not an ape but an ancestor of humans. You are confusing her with the 'missing link' between ape and man. She is on our side of the divide. I'm surprised you're not aware of that."
The corners of his mouth curled into a grin. "You know a lot about human history, don't you?"
I nodded.
"What's the worst thing that's ever happened?"
"Ever?" I repeated. "Through all time?"
"Sure, all time."
"Easy. When Australopithecus climbed down from the trees and walked upright."
His smile disappeared. "Why?"
"Hiroshima."
"Explain."
I gathered my thoughts. The walls of this office would not be able to contain these words, but I decided to release them anyway. "In 1945 a crew of hominids piloted the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber constructed by hominids. It carried a four-hundred-and-eight-kilogram atomic device built by another group of scientist hominids. They called the device Little Boy. They dropped this bomb on Hiroshima, a city full of Japanese hominids. Ten square kilometers were flattened: a hundred thousand unsuspecting hominids perished immediately. Another hundred thousand later succumbed to burns and radiation sickness."
Mr. Verplaz was speechless. He leaned forward, as though trying to get a clearer picture of me.
I continued. "Why didn't they flatten Mount Fujiyama instead? Wouldn't that have conveyed the same message? But they targeted Hiroshima, a city founded in the sixteenth century, then returned three days later and flattened Nagasaki. Just think of all the genetic lines—the years of evolution it took to create those specific human beings—all gone in a flash that reduced their DNA strands to nothing."
Mr. Verplaz had crossed his arms and shifted slightly away. I slid my chair closer.
"Pretend we could go back to that lush jungle where Australopithecus afarensis Lucy sits in a tree, minding her own business. What if we told Lucy that when she climbed down and stood upright, she would begin a process in which her offspring's offspring would climb into the cockpit of the Enola Gay? Would she stand upright? Or decide to stay in that tree for another five million years, leaving the world to the apes and chimpanzees?"
Mr. Verplaz adjusted his glasses. "So mankind doesn't deserve to exist?"
"It's not my job to judge."
"What is your job?"
"To observe. To take notes."
"For whom?"
For my father. Verplaz had nearly dragged the words out of me.
"For future anthropologists," I said carefully. His luminous, hypnotic eyes stared. He saw secrets. He truly was a shaman, descended from the great shamans who guided our tribes through dream worlds. I sensed his spirit surrounding me. I was in his bear cave.
"You were about to say something else."
I shook my head.
"How's your relationship with your mother?"
"She's loving, understanding and nurturing. And I..."I wanted to use the word love but it was too vague, its meaning slippery. Instead: "I try to be a good son."
He loomed closer, now peering directly at me. His ancestors had once read mammoth entrails. His magico-religious powers were fine-tuned to the point of omniscience. "What about your father?" he whispered.
"He died long ago."
This startled Mr. Verplaz. He blinked and squinted at a paper, presumably the profile of Percival Montmount, Jr.
"Your father's dead?" the shaman said with disbelief. "I'm sure I would have read about it in the papers."
"I assure you, he has passed on."
"Are you comfortable talking about it?"
"Of course. Death is part of the life cycle. My father was bitten by a beetle in the Congo and infected with black Azazel sickness."
"A beetle bit him? Do they carry infections?"
"Did I say beetle? I'm mixing him up with Darwin." My thoughts were jagged, broken. "It was a tsetse fly."
"When did he die?"
"Three years ago."
"What kind of man was he? Warm? Aloof?"
I tapped my foot on the floor. Stopped. "He traveled frequently."
"Did you like him?"
"Of course. He was my father, I...I loved him. He was an excellent storyteller."
"What kind of stories?"
"About adventures in the field."
"Can you give me an example?"
I nodded eagerly. "Once, when my father was in New Guinea exploring some ruins, he found an ancient emerald ax used for sacrifices, a priceless, one-of-a-kind artifact that belonged to a long-extinct tribe. He knew this one discovery would bring him fame.
"He couldn't escape the thoughts of
glory: He saw himself in front of the cameras gripping the sacrificial weapon. He set out to bring it home. For two nights he was plagued by nightmares, and on the third day he discovered he'd come full circle and was back at the ruins again. He tried heading in the opposite direction. Same result. Finally he restored the ax to its sacred place and was able to find his way back to civilization. He never told anyone but me about the ax."
Mr. Verplaz leaned on his elbows; the desk creaked. "Were your father's stories true?"
"What?"
"Did he tell the truth?"
"Of course." Anger had crept into my voice. "Of course," I repeated quietly.
"Are you on any meds?"
"No." My foot tapped hard now. Bipedal motion. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe.
"I think you should see Dr. Skein. She's a psychiatrist. I hope you aren't offended by this suggestion."
"I would thoroughly enjoy the opportunity." Skein was another variation of his tribe. Her territory was the coiled layers of the brain.
The bell rang, indicating the end of our session, but Mr. Verplaz held me with a look. I wasn't sure what he wanted. Finally he dismissed me with a nod. Partway out the door I stopped, realizing I had a spiritual question for him: "Have you ever heard a voice in the school attic?"
"What kind of voice?" he asked, clearly alarmed.
"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping out the door. I closed it behind me.
All words spoken inside this room will remain here.
The statement was false. The words Mr. Verplaz and I had shared buzzed around my head like dragonflies over some Mesozoic swamp. I walked quickly under the trapdoor and down the stairs. The school was deserted, but the students' pheromones and discarded skin cells clung to the walls. The buzzing words followed me home and into my room.
Then I forced them out through my pen in perfect order. The day's events. Observations. Interpretations.
There was a knock at my window. I ignored it. It became more insistent. I carried on with my work. I missed the Graduation High Tea and the accompanying rituals. My article took precedence.
Later I grew vaguely aware that my mother was sitting on my bed in the lotus position.
"Perk?" she said.
I kept writing.
"Perk, what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to finish an article."
"Are you okay?"
"I am feeling incredibly self-actualized, Mom. Top-o'-the-world, in fact."
I jotted down another sentence.
"Will you please stop?"
"When I'm finished," I informed her.
I'm not certain when she left.
Sooner than I expected it, morning light brightened my room. It was important to keep writing. At last the words quit buzzing in my ears and I slept. After four hours I woke up, my mind precise. Focused. Omniscient.
fourteen
THE PRIMITIVE WITHIN
I waited for Elissa in the center of what used to be our front lawn, seated cross-legged on top of Ogo, a giant rock. Three years ago, Mom had terra-formed this square space into a rock garden, ripping out the lawn, while feeling guilt over the death of every blade of grass. She then brought home stones from her various spiritual trips, planting them alongside the rosebushes, vines and sunflowers. The stones had been infused with ancient spirits, so she'd asked each one its permission to bring it here.
Ogo was the biggest. And the most benevolent, according to Mom. He was the protector of our lawn, with a thousand years of wisdom in his igneous form. He also made a great chair.
The hair on my arms shot up. The streetlight began to hum, then flicked on, heralding the evening. Elissa's black VW bug pulled up and stopped. Synchronicity. Of course.
I couldn't see her through the darkened windows. The car had been a gift from her parents on her seventeenth birthday. She prized it second only to Fang, though she felt guilt about the carbon monoxide it produced.
I untangled my legs and walked over and tugged on the door handle. It was locked. I knocked on the window. Nothing. Knocked again. Click. I opened the door, slid inside.
Elissa jammed on the gas and I slammed the door. She glared ahead as I struggled to fasten my seat belt.
"You're in a hurry," I commented.
She flicked a bit of fluff off her black baseball shirt. Her chest and back were decorated with a stylized ankh. The shirt was from Logoless—a company that designed clothing for modern activists. She'd ordered it online. "Where were you yesterday?" she finally said. "And today, for that matter?"
"I decided not to attend school," I answered, pressing a button that let my window down a crack; the effluvia of the traffic swept inside.
"You skipped the second-last day of Grade Twelve? What's the point of that?"
"I was working on my book."
She refused to even glance at me. Her mauve lipstick accentuated the thickness of her lips. Her favorite eyebrow ring with the tiny dragonfly glinted in the streetlight; sandalwood perfume drifted from her body. She smelled friendly but didn't look it.
We passed through the final set of lights before Saskatoon's outskirts. Vehicles of all descriptions stretched in front of us like giant manic crustaceans, speeding around the edge of the city and into the wilderness. We were navigating toward the River Party, the most primitive of all Grad celebrations.
A Mustang, its tires augmented to the point of parody, roared past, rear end swerving, horn blaring. Two males waved muscular arms out the window. The vehicle drove down the wrong side of the highway, then veered into the proper lane, dodging an oncoming truck.
The Highway Tribe. A short-lived species.
A kilometer later Elissa turned onto a gravel road, following the line of cars. "I knocked at your window. I saw you sitting at your desk."
"I don't remember that."
"That's funny. You looked up, then ignored me."
"Elissa, I didn't hear you. I was having an intense experience, writing an article about..."Now, what was the topic? "Well, I didn't mean to ignore you."
"You shut me out. That's the point."
"I am sorry. Very sorry. I just had to get my work done."
She nodded solemnly. We rattled along the road, trees forming a wall on either side. I leaned back in my seat, appreciating the insectlike elegantness of her VW bug; it was as though we were riding inside a hollowedout bumblebee, engine buzzing.
A tiny plastic skeleton hung from the rearview mirror, jaws clacking with every bump. I gazed in awe at its bipedal feet, examined the opposable thumbs. What if we had evolved to the size of this toy? It would have been so much better for the planet. We'd inhabit one sixth of the space, our tiny anthill cities just dots across the world. Coyotes would control our population.
The VW bug glided over a rise and there it was: the river. An open view of black water, three giant bonfires along the edge, revelers dancing between them. A flashback to the primitive within; a return to the life-giving waters where our ancestors first built their tiny mud-hut communities. Tonight's celebration was about the most basic elements: fire, water, earth and air.
And beer. A cornucopia of brewed fermented barley. I wondered if it was to honor the memory of the two Groverly students killed while driving drunk last year. A libation to their hovering spirits.
The segmented line of cars disassembled, finding parking spots next to bushes along the road. Members of all tribes rushed exuberantly toward the bonfires.
Elissa guided the bug to the edge of the ditch and stopped. "We're here," she announced quietly, turning off the car. The dashboard lights went black. She let out a huff of air, indicating continuing emotional turmoil.
I glanced out the window as a swarm of teens streamed past. The riverbank teemed with life. Action. Interaction. There was so much to observe. I clutched the door latch, but Elissa wouldn't budge.
"When will you show me your field journal?" she asked.
"When it's absolutely ready."
"Don't bite my head off!"
Had I soun
ded that angry? "I—I want it to be perfect before I release it to the world," I explained. "You understand that, don't you? It's my life's work."
"Life's work?" She hugged herself. Her V collar displayed her clavicle. "You're seventeen, Percy. How can you have a life's work?"
I shrugged. Elissa pointed at the bonfires. "This is our final night as high school students. We should try to enjoy it."
She'd chosen a different topic, at least. "Yes, graduation," I agreed, "ascension to a higher order. To the next stage. We are pupae waiting for the end of chrysalis."
"What do we change into?"
"We?"
"Yes, you and I. What do we become?" she asked. The moonlight made her lips glisten.
"Nothing. It's the other tribes' task to change. Ours is to observe."
She went quiet again, ruminating heavily. "Don't you ever get sick of watching?"
"What?"
"It...well, it used to be a joke between us. All this anthro stuff."
"It's my...our job. Come on, Elissa. Let's observe—join the party. Have fun, like we did when Will was here."
Will's name had popped out. Just like that. Elissa's eyes teared up. "Do you think he's watching us now? From somewhere up there?"
This was not the time for me to get into my theories about the statistical chances of life after death. "Maybe he is. And he's giving us the thumbs-up. Doing his best Planet of the Apes impression."
She breathed in, steeled herself and opened her door. "Let's party, then."
But now I was frozen. This talk had resurrected the memory of Elissa holding me in my room after Will's funeral as tears slid down my face and she said again and again, "Everything will be fine."
"What are you waiting for?" Elissa had come around to my side of the car. "I thought you were ready for this."
