Heathern

by Jack Womack

  "Let's recap for the benefit of our guests," he said. "The key to understanding the first chapters of Genesis is remembering that nothing in it is written as it happened. What do we call such writing?"

  A girl with hair the color of crow's wings lifted her arm, her hand reaching no higher than her head. Another child of that test group; her legs were little more than stubs propping her squat body aright. "Allegorical," she said, her voice raw, sounding as if she'd smoked and drank heavily, awaiting exit from the womb. "Truth bedecked in Halloween drag."

  Neither game nor video could have seduced Macaffrey's audience into taking their eyes off the screen he presented. "Good, Marge. So face facts. Seven days represent billions of years. Keep in mind that this was written for people who didn't know from hours. With that ground planted, let's get to the growing. What was that snake, and what made it special?"

  "They meant Neanderthal people," said a boy. "Godness liked Neanderthal people. They couldn't talk but they communicated."

  "They had flowers at their funerals," added another boy, perfect enough but for the ragged scar transversing each cheek.

  "They saw Adam and Eve," said Macaffrey. "Who were they?"

  "Cro-Magnon," shouted a girl. I looked and looked again, but saw nothing wrong with her. "God liked them. They acted without a script."

  "They yearned to burn," said a boy standing on his hands; without legs, he waved like wheat in the wind. "No patience."

  "There're two kinds of people in the world," said Macaffrey. "The Garden was the world as it once was, as it was intended to be. Everything was very peaceful for a very long time. Both groups kept to themselves. They did as they'd always done. There were no problems. No disruptions. They were very afraid, and didn't know why. What was the matter?"

  "They knew they weren't complete," said the girl with four thumbs.

  "Their creation, though perfect, wasn't whole. It was divided, as They were. Godness knew that our intermingling would cause no end of trouble but knew as well that the choice would have to lie with us. She put the flea in the serpent's ear-symbolically, of course." The students laughed, as if knowing well the answer to a riddle just heard. "We've known responsibility for our actions ever since."

  "So what happened?" Avi asked, as if hearing it for the first time.

  "Opposites magnetize," said the crow-haired girl. "Wanting to mindblow, they aimed bedways."

  "Cain and Abel were the first children," said a boy, scratching his ear with his toe as he spoke. "They suffered for being first."

  "For being human. Their children's children were as us," said Macaffrey. "They know They put too much of Themselves into us and it drives Them crazier than They already are. As we forever throw ourselves off cliffs to see if we can fly, so They forever strive to sort things out, certain that one day an imperfect being will fit into a once-perfect world. They're still learning, too," he concluded. "Class dismissed."

  Once undammed the children flooded from the room. Macaffrey remained where he stood as his listeners left, looking to have reached the chopping block and wondering what delayed his executioner. His natural speaking voice was different from his teaching tones, looser yet clipped, and possessed of a heavier twang than Thatcher's.

  "I been expecting you," he said, his eyes turning toward ours; I looked away, wishing not to be so quickly lured.

  "What on earth are you teaching them?" I asked.

  He grinned. "Kind of adapted to circumstance over the years. Only way to get some things across is to lose them in the packaging, you might say. Like putting vitamins in sugar. What're you here for? Come by for private lessons?"

  "The head of our company wants-" What did Thatcher want? "Wants to see you tomorrow, in our office."

  "There's a reason for this honor?" he asked, his voice sharp with the same edge that Bernard's sometimes bore.

  "He seems to believe you might have something to tell him."

  Had Bernard not told me Macaffrey's age I could only have guessed it to be somewhere between seventeen and forty, his appearance varied so in the room's shifting light. "Does Macy's tell Sears?" he asked. Did Southerners speak only in riddles? With such responses he and Thatcher might prove made for each other.

  "How do you conceptualize?" Avi asked-an unexpected miracle for him to stir from his solipsism long enough to hear a stranger's words. Still, for Avi to grant attention did not assure trust.

  "They come to me," he said.

  "You've got the sound of a state Christian," said Avi. "Just doing the police in different voices." One night Avi told me about his fiancee. On a morning during the troubles she'd been on a bankline. A gang burst in, members of a sect who frowned upon the sins of moneylenders and their clients. Avi hoped she'd been thinking of him as she died, but I doubted she was. They watched her watch her blood wash the marble pink beneath her. The truth later emerged about poor old Jesus, so conveniently released that it might have been by design, settling the restless, eliminating old troubles that the new ones could crowd in. Those guilty of lesser murders were never punished; during his retreat Avi conceived a readjusted creed, and upon reentering the world came to Dryco as Bernard and I did, our memories of the lost world willfully erased. Amnesia came as easily as hunger, after awhile.

  Macaffrey seemed ashamed to be so accused. "My father was a minister who passed out grape juice, lying it was wine." I wondered who I might see staring back at me if I looked into his eyes. "My family knew their purpose. Doesn't matter. You like our school?"

  "You have a refreshing approach," I said. "Your students are remarkably articulate for their age-"

  "When they want to be, they are," he said. "They saw you staring. It doesn't surprise them or please them."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I've read about them but never seen-

  "Social worker words," he said, smiling. "Sideshow eyes. They're in their own world, after all." He lowered his voice, as if to detail his own conspiracy. "Some of them talked minutes after they were born, you know. Doctor I once knew explained that their vocal cords had already lowered, or risen, or however it works. Generally that's why babies don't talk, but they did. That's not the most wonderful thing-"

  "What is?"

  "If they knew how to talk when they were born, think how long they must have been listening." His cheeks crushed his eyelids together as he smiled, burying his gaze beneath wrinkles. "Why's your boss want to see me?" he asked, his eyes suddenly open, and I staring into them. When I first tried to speak, I couldn't; finally I stammered a reply.

  "If I knew I wouldn't be allowed to say."

  "Fair enough," he said. "I'll be there at noon tomorrow, once my classes are done."

  "We'll send a car-"

  "I'll get there," he said, opening the door. "Let me walk you downstairs, make sure you get out all right."

  As he led us away I knew an uneasy comfort, the feeling a beaten child might know if her parent suddenly tossed aside the whip to gather her young one into her arms. Other teachers passed us on our way down, patting Macaffrey's arms and shoulders; students slowed, rushing by. He nodded to all, an incumbent cruising his electorate.

  The man's body still lay on the sidewalk. Macaffrey sighed as he saw him. "Your handiwork?" he asked Avi, who murmured admittance, his hand caught in the cookie jar. Kneeling, Macaffrey placed his hand on the man's chest and shook him. He turned his head to look at us, fixing his unblinking eyes upon mine. My knees gave way, for I hadn't fought off his look; I started to slump, and felt Avi's arm encircling my waist, holding me up. The one hitherto lost to the world blinked his eyes.

  "Behave!" Lester said, helping the man to his feet. "How old are you, friend?"

  He looked sixty. "Eighteen."

  "Then you ought to know what can happen when you bother people you don't know. Go on, get out of here. Don't do it again. Go on."

  The man stumbled toward Avenue A, patting his head as if trying to remember where he'd had it. Avi and I looked around. Word of Macaffrey's appearances pa
ssed quickly; peering from windows, gazing out of doors, poking faces above the roofs of cars, the block's hundreds showed themselves, none speaking, none moving, all watching Macaffrey. He looked back at them with emotions I hadn't allowed myself to feel publicly for years, shivered and spoke.

  "Noon tomorrow, then," he said, almost whispering, rushing back to the yellow door, seeming as haunted by the neighbor's eyes as I was by his.

  "You don't know where it is," I said.

  "I do."

  "Send kids to the circus and all they tell you about are the clowns," said Bernard. We had no more trouble recounting what we'd seen than we would have had explaining it. I felt I should have worn cap and bells during our presentation, so foolish it sounded away from his presence.

  "A con," said Susie, certain that we'd failed, certain that she'd predicted as much; by her inerrant prophecy reaffirming her worth. She spread her eyelids with her fingers as if threatening to pop her eyes out at us. "It's all in the peepers. Nothing but psychohypnosis."

  "Sounds like he's got the look to me," said Thatcher.

  "The Hitler look," said Susie.

  "That could be usable, depending on the circumstances-" said Bernard.

  "He obviously believes what he says, it sounds like," said Thatcher.

  "Then he's even crazier than we imagine," said Susie.

  "His messages would seem comprehensible to most nine-year-olds, so you could reach a large enough audience over time," said Bernard. "It's helpful if he does believe what he says, we'll get that unmistakable burp of honesty coming through the more obscure parts of the text-"

  "Could he work on mass scale?" Thatcher asked.

  Bernard shrugged. "We'd have to run the usual tests. See if he washes. It could be done, perhaps. Religion's simply an aspect of popular culture mutated. Only-"

  "We saw what was there," said Avi. "I certified death."

  "How can you tell anymore?" Susie asked. "They must all look the same by now." Avi shook his head.

  "He look dead to you?" Thatcher asked me.

  "I'm no expert," I said. "I thought so."

  "Macaffrey could have told you the sun was the moon and you'd've thought so," said Susie.

  "It is odd he had you so enthralled and ignored the chance to go all the way," Bernard said. "While you two were fisheyed he didn't pass along idle commentary on the brotherhood of life? No sidebars concerning meaning? A better race?" Bernard wrinkled his nose. "Natural diets?"

  "All he talked about was what I've told you," I said.

  "Small-bore ammo," said Bernard. "So we have a nondescript who tells Bible stories of his own devising to special children and who, in his spare time, brings muggers back to life." He chewed his thumb as he spoke. "Wouldn't be the easiest sell to any market."

  "Let's shelve this for the moment," said Susie. "We have to examine the Jensen situation."

  "It's being seen to," said Bernard.

  "Boy sounds like he can talk some trash," said Thatcher. "That's good. I need somebody convincing."

  "He can't even keep his anthropology straight," said Susie. "Neanderthals. Goddess-"

  "Godness," Avi corrected.

  "Fucking hell-"

  "This time tomorrow," Thatcher said, "we'll get ourselves a good look at God. Next best thing, anyhow." Throwing his head back he laughed with the delight of a boy racing through a thunderstorm, unmindful of lightning. He glanced at me, hoping to glimpse my response to this day's invitation. I nodded my head; he could have me, that night. "What a wonderful world," he said, his smile uncharacteristically beatific.

  Wishing forgiveness for previous trespasses, Thatcher hadn't entered me for almost a year. He took pleasure rubbing himself raw against me, laying out the scenario desired that I might serve as metteuse-en-scene. "I'll remember you in my will, hon," he always said, after. Though he provided it I never invited him to my place. We met that night at his apartment in the north Trade Tower, a reconverted ninetieth-floor suite. At such altitude drapes were superfluous; moonlight shining through the narrow windows threw bars of shadow across our bed. Tossing aside the sheets, I broke from my prison, walked over and looked out, the moon seeming so close that it could have been part of the decor. Thatcher beat his belly as if it were a drum when he rose, sending his victory cry to all his fellow beasts. His city pieds-a-terre served as warehouses as well, where purchases were stored until the executors might sort them out. From a stack of packages he removed a box, pulling from it what appeared in the dark as some archaeological relic.

  "Jim Beam did a lot of figurines," he said, proffering what I realized to be a two-liter bottle in the form of a bejeweled, bloated Elvis. "Wanted one since I saw it in a liquor store, when I was a punk. Two thousand dollars." Two hundred thousand old dollars; with that sum he could have fed a fraction of the starving, once. "He'd have drunk it, if he'd drunk. He did touch the bottle. Got a paper with it authenticated."

  I discerned a date stamped on the bottom; I'd only been graduated from Middlebury that year, and believed as I exposed myself to the real world's virus that the country could never be worse off. "He was dead when they made it," I said.

  Even when he loved, and he did, in his fashion, Thatcher condescended. "One of these days E'll come again," he said, shaking his head. With worshiping touch he rewrapped his icon within its Mylar winding-sheet. "Jerusalem Slim struck out like all the rest, but E'll turn up at the bottom of the ninth. Wait and see."

  "Maybe you can buy him when he shows up," I said.

  "Let's make do with what we have, for the moment," he said. "How'd this Macaffrey bird really strike you, hon?"

  "He's got something," I said. "I'm not sure what. He'll cause trouble doing whatever he does, I'm sure. He seems rather independent-" Thatcher's shoulders shook; he failed to hide his laughter, and I slapped him across the back of his head. He stopped laughing, overcome with emotion. "If you're going to ask for my opinion, would you at least pretend to listen-?"

  "I'm not laughin' at you, hon," he said, slipping his arm around me. "It's the concept's got me going. I'm listening. Go on."

  "He seems to mean well in what he does. Probably makes him feel less guilty-"

  "Guilty?" Thatcher repeated, as if learning the phonics of an unfamiliar word. "Guilty about what?"

  "I don't know, most people are-"

  "Whose feelings we talking about here?"

  "It's how it struck me-"

  "You got a crush on him already, don't you?" I ignored him. "That's sweet. He sure had you all convinced of something over there. Never heard such carrying on as when you all got back." Slipping again into shadow, he seemed no more than embodied dark. "Avi doesn't get fired up too easy. And as for you, you've worked with Bernard so long that an awful lot of him's wore off on you. Always bitin' the hand that feeds you. Not enough respect to pour into a thimble. Vipers, that's all you are."

  "I'm not like Bernard."

  "Bernard's got a different wound than you have-" he started to say.

  "Not by much."

  "You both got what I need."

  As he leaned forward his head reemerged into light, his face reflecting city and moonshine as he kissed me. "What the fuck are you planning, Thatcher?" I said.

  "Walls always have ears, hon. Let's keep things general."

  "Couldn't get less specific."

  "Say somebody came along that seemed to be the messiah," he said. "Seemed that way often enough to enough people, at least."

  "What sort of messiah?"

  "How many kinds are there?" he asked. "I don't mean palm readers, no gypsies reading tea leaves. No California babes talking about Egypt or Atlantis or Mars. I mean the real McCoy. What if you caught him in the wings while he was waiting to go onstage?" His eyes held the light, shining like beacons, cleaving the dark. "How would you effect a co-opt? Could you interface him into the corporate frame? How much weight could he throw in the marketplace?"

  "What if he's not-"

  He lifted his arms, seeming to
catch one tumbling to earth. "Making a tree grow fruit in the wilderness. That's business, plain and simple."

  Hearing screams, I remained mute, not having to convince myself that my actions could prevent a crime. "You're crazy, Thatcher."

  "Say he isn't anything but a good talker with the look, like Susie thinks," said Thatcher. "So? Doesn't mean he can't get things done with our help. She's good with the details but she can be blind as a bat with the big picture. If the idea's too-what's the word I want-"

  "Crazy."

  "Transcendent," he said. "With a little coaching, fellow like Macaffrey could do us a world of good. Show him which side of bread to put the butter on. How to slice up the loaf."

  "Why do you want a messiah?" I asked. "Why?"

  "It's not like it hasn't been done before," he said, ignoring me as well as if I were but another lost in the surrounding crowd, one whose words went unheard, whose existence was as inessential as fog. "Tell people somebody's something often enough and everybody comes around to believe it in time."

  I could never be such a devil's advocate as Bernard, but I had my moments. "What if he is the messiah?" I asked. "What then?"

  Thatcher walked across the room to look over his land, staring into Long Island's crimson air. Retrieving my clothes I began to dress, wondering if in his reverie he could even see me. He kept the air conditioning so high in his rooms that my soul felt chilled; I shivered, feeling as might a traveler lost in a blizzard, collapsing into a drift, ignoring all coming down around me, overcome by entombing cold, allowing my eyes to shut slowly beneath the weight of the snow.

  "Different runway," he said. "Same approach." He turned to watch me zip my skirt. "Heathen might just get what they want for a change, or what they think they want."

  Heathern, the word emerged, mangled by his accent. All were heathern in his eyes; had they become so in mine as well? A heathern world deserved a heathern messiah, yes, but what of our world, our sick world, our wonderful world? Which did it less deserve, its creators or its keepers?