Heathern

by Jack Womack

  "You discuss family problems at family meetings? Haven't had one for a few weeks, have you?"

  "Momma doesn't like to be around us anymore."

  "Why's that?"

  "She says our sin rubs off on her like dirt."

  "Saturday's bath day," said Bernard. "You and your sister hear something. Your father opens the door to his den and comes out. The music's much louder than it was." There came a corresponding increase in volume in our rooms as well; voice upon voice swelled the chorus's sound. "What do you think he's going to do?"

  "Try to get Momma to come out."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "That's what he's always trying to do. She never comes out till she wants to. He's upset. He's yelling at her through the door."

  "She probably said something to him. Do you know what? Or why she won't come out?"

  Lester got up, and wandered over to the mannequin representing his sister; stroked its unfeatured face. He circled round it, looking her up and down with nothing more than child's intent, seeing so much that he'd lost years before, seeming deaf to our cries.

  "Lester," Bernard said, more sharply, holding the microphone so intently that he might have been masturbating. "Tell me why your mother won't come out."

  "She thinks we're trying to hurt her."

  "Would you hurt your mother?"

  Lester made no direct response; he touched the mannequin again and then edged away. "She says we're bad for her soul."

  "Does God tell her that?"

  "She says Jesus does."

  "You Macaffreys are so popular with the Jones Boys," said Bernard. "What does Jesus tell your mother?" Lester shook his head; wouldn't, or couldn't say. "Your parents are yelling at one another through the door? You and Betsy creep over to the kitchen door. You can hear what they're saying but you can't see them."

  "Betsy can."

  "What is your mother saying to your father?"

  "She says Dad blesses too many animals and doesn't think about us."

  "Animals?" Bernard asked. "Foxhounds, you mean?"

  "No.

  "You mean when he blesses the animals in the nativity set at Christmas?" Lester held his hands against his ears as if deafening himself to all he heard. "What animals, Lester? Do you know?"

  "People who live in the city," he said. "She says if they were supposed to live at all they wouldn't live like heatherns."

  "Did Jesus tell her that? Shame on Jesus. Does your father agree?"

  "He says she needs help," Lester said. "Like the people do, but in a different way."

  "God helps those who help themselves, I'm told."

  "She tells Dad God helps when He wants to."

  "She's wise in her generation," said Bernard. "What happens now?"

  "She starts screaming. She's not afraid. She's saying curse words. Cursing us."

  The smell in the room changed from that of toasting bread to that of burning bread. "What is she screaming about?" Lester sank to his knees upon the white field as if collapsing in the face of a blizzard, knowing it was time to freeze. He wrapped an arm around the mannequin's tripod. I acted without considering; grabbed the microphone from Bernard and shouted into it.

  "Lester, don't listen. Don't. Don't listen to it."

  Thatcher clamped his hand across my mouth; no sooner did he have me silenced than Bernard wrested the microphone from my hand. It struck me that he seemed willing to break my fingers to retrieve it if he had to. As Thatcher relaxed, somewhat, Bernard picked up, extemporizing.

  "Did you hear your sister just then?" Lester lay on the floor, weeping, nodding his head. "She has your best interests at heart. What does your mother say the rest of you want to do with her spirit?"

  "Take it to hell," Lester said. "She says we're already burning and we're trying to take her down with us."

  "Take her back, I'd say," said Bernard. "Smell something burning, though, don't you? Is it you? No? You two. You forgot all about those sandwiches."

  "Bets runs over and takes them off the stove."

  "If you'd been paying attention to what needed attention none of this would have happened, would it?" Bernard asked. "But you were too concerned with someone else's business-" I flung out my leg, trying to strike Bernard, but was too far from him to do more than brush his trousers with my shoe.

  "Yes-"

  "See what happens when you don't give consideration to other people's wishes?" Bernard waited until Lester had stopped wailing, that he might hear his words over the sound of sobs. "You're still having to learn that, aren't you? Well, well. What does your father say now?"

  "Nothing."

  "Your mother's door opens. You hear it. What does your father say?"

  "Put it down," Jake said. "He says put it down."

  "Put what down?" Bernard leaned forward, his eyes moist with much that wasn't sad; he breathed through his mouth, as if his excitement so overwhelmed him that he couldn't draw in air enough. "What's the next thing you hear, Lester?"

  "Nothing-"

  "Your sister saw, Lester. What did she see?"

  "I don't know-"

  "You do," Bernard said.

  "Nothing, nothing, nothing-"

  "Tell me-!"

  "No!"

  The second of the two mannequins was on the far side of the room, near Avi; without words of his own he pulled a shotgun which had been circumcised at each end from beneath his coat and, taking his cue, fired both barrels. The concussion tore at our ears; as I heard the sound I watched the torso disintegrate into uncountable splinters, blackening the walls when they embedded themselves into the pallor. Lester curled himself against his sister-mannequin's wheels and screamed long and loud. Thatcher let his hand slip from my mouth in his moment of being overcome by the drama; I sank my teeth into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

  "Goddamn you," I said; before I could move more than a foot away from Thatcher, after he released me, I found Jake at my side, slipping one of his hands into mine, placing the tip of his scalpel at the juncture of my jaw and neck.

  "Please, Joanna," he said. "Don't."

  "Jake," Thatcher said. "Just keep her back."

  "Are we quite finished?" Bernard asked, turning away from his microphone. Thatcher wrapped his handkerchief around his injured hand; I hadn't drawn blood.

  "Keep her quiet, Jake," Thatcher said. I thought I heard a knock at the room's door; no one else gave signs of having noticed. Bernard tapped the mike with. a finger to make certain the equipment hadn't been damaged by the concussion. The music changed; Tallis's forty-part motet spilled its waterfall of voices over us. I watched Avi reload.

  "Here comes a chopper to chop off your head," Bernard said, deepening his voice from its natural low baritone into one suitable for a cartoon wolf. "What's the matter, Lester?"

  "Please stop-" he said.

  "You both hear footsteps again," said Bernard. "Not your father's footsteps. Whose are they? What does your sister do?"

  "Makes me hide. In the pantry." Unexpectedly, seeming as a fish cast from water onto land, he began rolling across the floor, coming to rest against the wall opposite from Avi; between them, not three feet from where he lay, was his sister-mannequin. "She stands in the door. In front of me."

  "You see her white sweater. The footsteps come closer. You hear them stop. What does your sister say?"

  Lester stared up at the mannequin, his eyes as bright with fear as any animal's.

  "Thatcher," Bernard said; caught himself. "Lester! What does she say?"

  "Stop it," I repeated, attempting to demand, rather than plead; plead I would have done had I thought the response would have been any different. The rap came again at the door. Jake pressed his scalpel against my neck enough that I might know its coldness. "You've done enough to him. Stop it-"

  "Answer me," Bernard said, his smile reflecting the shine of the room's constant light.

  Thatcher lifted a finger of his unharmed hand to his lips. "Hon," he said, winking at me, "you
might learn something if you pay attention."

  "Lester!" Bernard shouted, and Lester's reaction was to flatten himself into his wall as if wishing it might swallow him up. Avi took aim. "What does she ask your mother? What does she ask?"

  'Why?"

  A hail of papier-mache rained upon Lester, surrounded him within a cloud of plaster-dust. As he screamed he began banging his head against the wall as if trying to smash himself into nonexistence. I slung out my arm, pushing Jake to the floor, and ran to the glass; pounded my fists against its thickness, would surely have broken through had not the doctors and Thatcher and Jake dragged me away, pulling me across the floor, struggling to take me from the room. As he gripped my arms, Thatcher whispered into my ear as if to pass words of love.

  "It might be dangerous, interrupting them," he said.

  As I heard the music again I remembered the angels I'd been shown.

  Spem in alium nunquam habui praeter in te, Deus Israel

  I have never put my hope in any other than you, God of Israel

  "Your sister's sweater now matches the walls," Bernard said. "Is this any way for a messiah to act, Lester?" Again, Bernard set aside his mike, and spun round in his chair to face us. "Would you please keep it down back there?"

  I tried breaking free again; Jake restrained himself, as if in these circumstances he found it impossible to bring the usual end to the confusion. When Thatcher and the doctors got me into the hall we collided with the policeman who'd been knocking at the door.

  "Mister Dryden, sir," he said, handing Thatcher a thin sheet of white paper with stripped-away edges. "Emergency, sir. For your attention."

  "Your mother sees you, Lester," I heard Bernard say.

  "Teletype?" Thatcher muttered to himself, glancing over the paper. "Who'd send anything by-" Allowing the sheet to flutter slowly to the floor he turned on his heels; opened the door that led to the staging area, and went in. Plucking the paper from the air before it landed, I read; realized at once why he'd left. I knew what he intended to do, and couldn't stop him.

  "Do you see her?" Bernard said.

  FLASH GET OFF NXR

  NXR 57E-LA #*($894 FLAH FLASH FLASH FLASH FLA EARTHQUAKE 9.1 RICTER STRUCK S C ALIF EPICENT LAX22993((((((

  GET OFF GET OFF AND STAY OFF MORE MORE MORE STRUCK 5 30 PST PLS RPT PLS RPT MORE THOUSANSDEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

  Entering the room I saw Thatcher twisting the shotgun out of Avi's hands. Lester crouched near the mannequins' wheels, tracing his fingertips through the powder and crumbs on the floor. There was a dent in the wall; his hair appeared coated with reddening snow. For the first time he looked so old as he was.

  "What are you doing, That-" Bernard began to say. I was reminded of classical scenes of apotheosis when Thatcher fired the gun. Lester flew upward into the air, his arms and legs free of gravity if not inertia; neither seraphim encircled him, nor did cherubim sail round his head; the white sky against which he ascended misted over in a fine red shower. As if in the approach of a tornado pain pressed into my ears; when the sound resounded it came as thunder, deep within the midst of the gale. A thousand bells rang through my head as the noise decayed. Lester descended, thrown from heaven; a babe pitching earthward, end over end. Once he landed I ran to him, hearing nothing but chimes a-buzzing in my brain; I knelt, soaking my clothes in his blood, knowing I could not close the wound in his side. There was nothing to be done that hadn't ensured that it would be done.

  "You idiot," Bernard screamed. "Thatcher, you fool. What are you doing-"

  "You killed her," he bellowed, so consumed by anger he didn't notice Avi yanking the gun away, slinging it across the floor, far from his reach. "Saves her one day, kills her the next. Fucking lying sonofabitch-"

  "Thatcher-!"

  "She's dead, she's dead, I know she's dead-"

  "What's he talking about?" Bernard asked. "Thatcher, you idiot-"

  Jake entered the room, stopping when he saw blood. Avi steered Thatcher away, holding his arms as he led him out. "You and your fucking God!" he shouted. "I know she's dead. What'll I do-"

  "The treatment shouldn't involve the death of the subject," Frank said, his voice calm, what I heard of it; sensed, rather than truly heard. The music played; I found Lester's pulse.

  "What'll I do, what-"

  "You idiot. You--

  "Japan," Thatcher shouted to anyone listening. "I said Japan-"

  Lester's eyes opened as I held him; his lips moved, issuing no words that I could understand. Fearful that my moment's deafness would keep me from hearing what was left to say, I lowered my dead ear until it rested against his lips; heard nothing. Bringing up my arm I readied myself to place my hand over his reopened scar; lifting his own hand, he pushed mine away. Blood came with his words when he finally spoke, and I finally heard.

  "Please," he said. "Momma."

  "Joanna," Jake said, standing behind us, his voice clear and deep. "Endtime, Joanna. Never need to suffer overlong."

  Endtime, yes. Not releasing Lester's hand, scooting out of Jake's way, I nodded, knowing that the spirit, and not the act, mattered, and so gave my blessing to the euthanasia Gus had taught Jake so well. Avi, returning, crossed over to our tableau. My hand was wet with Lester; I thought there could be nothing left in him but his spirit.

  "Shema Yisroel," Avi began, in his father's tongue, and as he prayed, I added my parents' voice to his psalm.

  "Hear us 0 Lord," I said, "the Lord thy God is one God."

  One in act, in form, if not in spirit: God, Godness, if the act is despicable, how might the spirit save? Jake extended his pinky; its blade shone in the pitiless light. Reaching around Lester's head, he found the spot he sought; then, when Lester left, I felt such heat rise through me. Shortly I thought I should at last combust, and know my flames grow hotter and brighter, until in my incandescence I would burn down the world around me and all who lived in its fire.

  "Joanna," Avi said. "Let's go."

  Their hands hold the sun, but never burn; Their eyes stare into the fire, but never melt. Their plans proceed as They desire, and not as we would wish them to proceed; neither can Their actions be judged as we would judge our own, nor can They undo what must be done. There was no more reason for Them to answer than there was for us to ask. Take such comfort, then, as can be taken, knowing that those who are gone can never know how much you miss them; Their most difficult lesson is that only by living briefly with others will you at last learn how to live with yourself. They were Two who once were One and would be One again, once the day came. But that day, I knew it was time to go; I had mouths to feed.

  TWELVE

  One day a woman told her daughter a story. "Once I was walking down the avenue and I saw myself coming toward me."

  "How is that possible?" her daughter asked.

  "Spirits break through from the world of confusion sometimes," she said. "Before she could say anything to me I walked up to her and told her, 'You don't belong here, you. Begone!' She disappeared like fog in the night."

  The notion of such comminglings disturbed her daughter. "How do you know you didn't send her out of the world of confusion?"

  "Angel," she said, "once you know there is a world of confusion you're no longer in it."

  Susie's body deplaned the next morning and, walking on its feet, strolled calmly back to her car; the scientists arrived that afternoon, under separate cover. Her plane prepared to land at the moment the earthquake struck, shaking the field, rocking the control tower; the pilot turned the plane around, that they might reach more solid ground, and so they landed in Salt Lake City. Thatcher was pleased.

  No one claimed Lester's body and so he was buried on Hart Island, in the potter's field, on Monday morning. There was no service, not that he would have desired eulogies, nor even wanted me to attend; there would have been no point. As he was laid to rest I was meeting Bernard in a coffee shop on Cedar Street, safely anonymous, alone in the world.

  "Look at it this way, sweetness," he said.
"Even if he'd been the messiah it would have come to this eventually."

  "Tell me what's been going on, Bernard," I said. "After much longer you won't be able."

  "Taking more of an interest in your work?" he asked, appearing not entirely pleased. "I'd have never guessed you cared."

  "Lying comes to naturally to you now," I explained. "I'd appreciate it if I knew you respected me enough to tell me the truth, one more time. Like you once did."

  His coffee's waves broke over the rim of his cup as he lifted it to his mouth. "Ours is a world of artifice, after all," he said. "Mirrors and smoke and mirrors. The question isn't so much what sort of reality can be made, but how much of any reality can anyone deal with, I think. Perhaps we should have asked your boy if you become a saint when nothing surprises you anymore."

  "You don't," I said. "Were those papers Avi found forgeries?"

  "He did confess to having been approached-"

  "Lester always had his reasons for doing things," I said. "When did you have them slipped up there?"

  "Thanksgiving morning," he said. "The Irish boy that worked for us last summer, I had him run them up."

  "What's real and what's not, Bernard?" I asked. "You even keep Thatcher in the dark about it, don't you?"

  "Wouldn't you say it's his element?" he sighed. "You'll be dealing with this soon enough, I suppose. Once I begin programming that damned computer I won't have time to turn around. Bear in mind, though, that particular aspects of this situation can be told to no one beyond this table," he said, looking around; in those days a place such as the one in which we sat was still, usually, safe. "Those who break silence so often wind up broken. You know me too well to know that isn't one of my threats."

  "Bernard," I said, "what's truth?"

  "I lose track sometimes," he said, looking out the window. "What appears so simple at first can become so complicated. Jensen was involved in a project. He intended to go public about its nature."