Fool School

by James Comins

  Weatherford seems to notice my discomfort, but I think he chooses not to act, his eyes flick to me as he writes his own words in the two books.

  When it is time to stop, the darkness has become complete out the window. Weatherford says, "That's enough for today, Malcolm. Note the number of loops on the scroll roller for our Hamlin, would you?"

  "Six, sir."

  "Class dismissed. Tom, wait, would you?"

  Hero punches my shoulder as he passes. He's gotten violent of late. Perhaps his body is changing, now that he's permitted to eat.

  The students are gone. Me and Weatherford and, sunken into his corner, the perpetual Hamlin. "Tom, it was not your fault. That's what I have decided." I thank him. "I admire your persistence in trying to keep up. The writing will make good practice and I expect you to do your utmost to produce good-quality writing." Yessir. "Hamlin remarks on your progress." Thank you sir. "Don't cross out words even if they're wrong. Many of the people we sell our scrolls to cannot read the correct spelling, and will pay for phonetic documents that look nice." Yessir. "Hamlin has spoken about my nervous debility." Now we are on hazardous terrain. "I demand equilibrium. If I do not receive it, I will ensure that the consequences are as personally devastating to you as they are to me. Is that understood?"

  Another threat. Everybody here is preparing to be my enemy. I nod, and Weatherford is down the stairs with his things. With threats circling me like forlorn carrion crows I wait to hear the outer door, then I depart.

  On the stairs, bearing my shawm and recorder, I find myself shaking. I make it halfway down, hear the sounds and smell the smells of supper from below, but I find myself leaning against the wall outside the acrobatics room. Ab'ly is throwing stones at the wall, I'd thought he'd gotten them all round. My arms, my knees give out, I twitch uncertainly, then powerfully, my midsection shakes me like a frightened deer, I find myself on the ground, shaking, and in my shaking Weatherford's threat is a choking cloud around me, I don't know what's happening, maybe I've caught some demonic possession, maybe the hare pottage was poisoned, but I feel my head strike a staccato tambrel beat on the stone, I hug my head with my arms, and Ab'ly takes me under my arms and pulls me into the room onto the soft mats.

  Ab'ly. Skin darker than mine, darker than Perille's, a nut color, lightly tanned. Face lined, not elderly, but with a grain, like quality wood. His Saracen outfit billows in balloon sleeves like inflated bladders, I wonder in my infirmity how they get sleeves to puff up like that. I say the man's name, say a word of gratitude. Not sure if it came out right, my jaw is moving on its own.

  "Seen this before. No biggie." He pushes me onto the floor and sits crosslegged on my chest, he's very heavy for a spindly acrobat, and my shaking is forced into my hands and feet, my hands are jumping spiders, flexing without my participation, I hate having a body.

  Gradually, the shaking subsides.

  "Happened before here," he tells me kindly. "Too much, altogezzer too much, for a young person. School's not easy. Just let the wiggling fade away. That's the key. Patience."

  It's getting better, and then it's over, like a litany ending suddenly, and I feel ocean waves around me and no, the ocean waves are inside me, up and down with the celestial tide, and I am in control of my body again.

  "Have I caught nervous debility?" I ask Ab'ly. I'd rather not live life in fear of soiling myself.

  "The others didn't catch it," Ab'ly tells me. "It's just too much too much. Now rest and I tell you a story."

  I've never had anyone tell me a story before. Well, I mean in class, but not . . . not a soothing story. Not a parent story.

  "There was a shipwreck," says Ab'ly, "big big. And when the sighing winds and splashing waves were all over, on the beach there stood a man. Not a great man, not a hero. Only a man. You know him? The man is walking up beaches, up hills, until he comes to a mountain. The mountain a spear piercing the sky. Here is man, here is mountain. You see? The man bent over, picked up a most unusual rock from the ground, and it split in half, hollow. What was inside? It was a city, houses and streets and a castle and an entire civilization, only there were no people. No people at all, for what people could fit inside this tiny city in a rock?

  "But the man knew the world is broad, as big as it gets, and he knew that somewhere he would find men and women and little bitty babies who could populate the tiny city. So he went searching high and low for tiny men.

  "The country he is being wrecked on was strange to him, and he got hungry in the belly. He experimented tasting tiny tastes of the local fruits and berries to make sure they are not poisonous. Very wise, wasn't he? He bent over the ground, checking at every footstep for signs of tiny men, walking for too many how many so many miles till his back was crooked as a sapling in a storm. Everywhere he went he carried the city in a stone with him, cradling it, hoping he could be the founder of one of the great tiny cities of the world.

  "Thus he went, scouring every foot of ground, and his eyesight got very bad from bending over away from the sun, that's what happens, no? Until he could no longer see where he was going, and stumbled into the sand of the beach he had first climbed out of. There was the shipwreck, and most of the ship was still underwazzer, and as the stooped man explored the ship, he found a colony of tiny fishes who had gotten trapped inside. Over time, they had become very small, so they could live inside the puddle inside the ship, yes? And the man put the city in a stone under the wazzer, and he watched the fishes swim in and out, and was very happy."

  "What does it mean?" I ask. "The story."

  "It means the answer you look for is not alwezz in the place you look for it, sometimes it's somewhere else. And always it's to give happiness to those who need it. Is it not?"

  I'm quite departed from my fears, and at the professor's urging I go down to bed. It's very late, and I'll survive without supper. You get to bed faster without it, some say.

  Malcolm is waiting up for me. He has a very intense look, the kind only he can manage.

  "Tom, I need et. Et's been all I can do to wait for you. Ef I don't have et I'll kell someone."

  I mumble something about it being very late, but I hear: "Tom." And I know Malcolm will not relent, and I am his. I'm about to say I'll do it when he says, "Geve me what I want, Tom. You swore. You swore."

  He's agitated, at least as agitated as I was, I can feel his violence filling the space, it would be best if he started shaking like I did, to shake and--what did Ab'ly say?--wiggle until all his violence and trouble is gone, like mine is.

  I can give Malcolm joy. Perhaps it will ease his agitation. I pull his breeches down, and he grabs the back of my head, and there is slippery heat in my mouth, and I give happiness to those who need it. It doesn't take long, but it's a profound feeling, such an unusual deed, and Malcolm's intensity grows, his breath is that of an animal, and I have a fleeting vision--yes--the clerk, the slate and chalk--I hear Malcolm's gasping breaths--his fingertips like claws--I push his hips away suddenly and recoil--"You've caught the clerk's madness," I exclaim--he slaps me, but then he recoils over the hump of his pebble mattress--"Have I? I wasn't bit, Tom, I'll pledge an oath"--I demand to check for bitemarks, and Malcolm takes his clothes off, desperate, I push him down across his mattress and stuff his shirt in his mouth, so he can't bite me, and I go over his legs, abdomen, buttocks, back, neck, and there are the slight scars that Dag gave him, on the chest and forehead, still healing, but there aren't any bitemarks, none at all, and I put my mouth beside his ear and tell him I see no bites--he spits out his shirt--"Now you, et's only meet"--I take my tunic and breeches off and I feel suddenly exposed, much more exposed, and his hard man's hands press me back and a tunic wraps my face and those hard hands begin to explore my body, there is a well of heat that is preparing to spill over, and I hear that there's no bite marks, but then a hand wraps my nethermosts and I hear "I like you like thes, Tom," and for the second time Malcolm works my knobs as if his hand were a woman, and again a feeling rises and I cry out fo
r it to stop, I say it feels devilish, and Malcolm says, "Then I'm the devil," and I feel his body sitting on me, kneeling, and my arms get caught by his feet, I can't move, but the feeling rises like a, a barn fire--no, like the sulfur of Hell breaking through the surface of the earth, pressing up from inside, and I feel my soul draining away from my forehead, I call out, but a hand squashes my face and my legs kick meaninglessly and I'm blind and fingers move my nethers around and I suddenly can't breathe and I see God.

  "Ha," I hear, "You'll nae accuse me of being a wolfman again."

  And Malcolm rises off my chest and my hands are free but I have no will to move them, I am lifeless under God, I feel my soul rising like hot air, light flashes in bursts before my eyes, and my nethers are a pillar holding me up above the fires of hell below.

  It is night, black as vestments. Malcolm is curled around me, and there is something sticky, and I ignore it. I don't know what happened, but I feel as close to Malcolm as anyone's ever felt for another, there is no devil here, the devil has departed us. There are arms holding me, and I feel held. I don't understand Malcolm, I believe I never will, but I am content to lie here with his arms around me. I cannot sleep. I saw the face of God.

  How could my body betray me to the devil like that? And how could God rise up on the other side, as if the devil were a path to God? I have no understanding. I feel sore and overpowered. Not merely by my Malcolm, but by my lack of understanding. I am overcome.

  Sleep.

  I awaken, crusted but newly strong. Food tastes powerful in the cafeteria in the morning. Radiance emanates from me and from everyone around me. The sun seems to burst joyfully through the very stone, and a clear, imagined sound like Nuncle's silver clarion declares the fineness of our middle world. I could sing.

  "I took a shit last night as long as my arm," Dag tells Perille, and I don't mind, it doesn't spoil anything.

  The girl-boy rises from Perille's side and comes to sit beside me.

  "Hello," I say with unexpected nervousness.

  A finger, soft, rises to my cheek, and pokes.

  "You're very flush," she says, and I'm not certain it isn't a he. I'm not.

  "Still warm out," I say meaninglessly.

  "Mm." He folds his arms (is it a he?) and looks at me with a secret smile. "I know," she whispers, and rises before I can ask his name.

  Acrobatics is a breeze today. Ab'ly has us walk in a circle as we throw, and now there are four juggling rocks to catch, and though Malcolm drops one and gets smacked with the cane, I perform perfectly. I am perfect. I have touched the Godhead and am a part of the earth and sky. The Trinity is before me, a triangle of moving parts fit together like the hilt, blade and sheath of a sword, and there is no limit to Its power. It has bestowed on me something unusual, something powerful, and I cannot wait to reactivate my power.

  In drums I keep time.

  In literacy I fill pages with well-crafted letters, and I notice Hamlin has sped up, trying to trip me up, and I cannot be tripped.

  "Tom, Perille, both of you have pieces to practice for the fair." Nuncle's voice breaks through my haze, and Perille and I--we have assembled our recorders--we disassemble them, and my cork slips off the recorder's second segment, and Nuncle notices. I scramble to slip the rotting cork back on, but he stops me.

  "No, don't damage the wood. Stan, do you mind taking Tom to see the luther? I'd send Ab'ly, but I think he'd not know good cork from bad."

  "Yeah, sure," says Stan, and he nods me out. I leave the mangled circle of twenty-year-old cork on the table and take my recorder in its case.

  Autumn. Naturally I've never seen autumn in England, but I'm not pleased by it at all. My hose is not thick enough to withstand these temperatures, and I'm no doughty praise-singer of clouds, either. But clouds there are, big and thick in several dismal grays, and I mention to Stan that it might rain on the recorder, and he unties a fur from the collar of his wind-buffeted greatcoat and tells me to wrap the case in it, the fur will absorb water. Stan may not be a masterful musician, but he's a sensible man, and kind enough. I clutch my recorder case and feel grateful my hands are warm now, buried within the fur.

  The mound where the priest and wolfman are buried together is deserted now, a bump in the road, and I pray silently that the priest was not devoured alive. The brilliance of my euphoria is gone, especially as I hear the rain. It's begun farther afield, and the cobbles reflect a dome of water with each raindrop. Rain on roofs roofed with pitched split shingle provide a tattered thud to walk against. It's not one of the great legendary rains, merely an aspirer. I prefer to hold Stan's fur a quarter-ell over the case, so the liquid doesn't seep through. Perhaps today wasn't the right day to repair it. I say so.

  "Not that far a walk," says Stan, and I trust his judgment on worldly things. He's a worldly guy.

  The luther's shop is far from the cathedral, up a cobbled hill that's a slippery muddy mess. Stan's curly shoes--by far the most incongruous part of his outfit--seem to have some padding on the sole that keeps him from sliding, but I'm not so fortunate. In a rivulet of water I'm swept off my feet, rise again, and Stan says: "Pretty pathetic, those things on your feet. Can't attend the fair with shoes like that. Let's put in an order."

  Thus we detour to the cobbler's, which is blessedly downhill. At a corner of meeting streets--this market is not the big market, it's merely got a farrier's, packing up hurriedly for weather, and a straggly-looking women selling her husband's butched meat, the other booths are shut down today--there is a storefront recessed under the floors above, and a man. Leather shoes in abundance fill the room behind him, as well as fresh cured leather and the odd roll of expensive cloth, a half-dozen spindles along one wall. The room--blocked in by a shopkeeper's bar--smells lovely, decadent even, against the rain.

  The man is burly for a cobbler, a redbeard, and he slides a cordwain's last over to the bar, so he can work while he deals with us.

  "New or repairs?" he asks.

  "Mmboth," says Stan, looking at me. "Tom, show the man what you've got."

  In the dry frontspace before the cobbler's room, I slip off my shoes and stand in hose on the flagstones.

  "Don't put mud on the bar!" the cobbler says quickly. "Just hold them up."

  "Need a dye job," says Stan, "and all the repairs. You might add a good sole and a new leather form. They're losing the curl."

  "Fools?" the man says, maybe hoping for a free jest.

  "Yeah. Don't even say it," Stan replies wearily. "Look, have you got, I don't know, a loaner while you work on them, or am I going to have to buy him new shoes?"

  "You want me to loan you a pair of shoes?" the cobbler asks. "Just set them on the floor there, I'll pick them up when they dry out," he says to me obliquely.

  "Look, I don't know." Stan scratches his head. "Have you got a cheap pair for him to walk around in?"

  "Sell you a cheap pair," the man says gruffly.

  They're about as cheap as you can find. I think Stan offended the cobbler somehow, because these are awful. Maybe I'm spoiled on French footwear, but these aren't fit to feed to a goat. They haven't even got arches to shape the foot, they're just two identical lumps of brown leather that a foot might squeeze into. Stan peevedly hands over a penny ha', which isn't a small amount of money for two bad shoes, and the cobbler tells us to come back in a week, which is a long time to dye and cobble. In France the work would be done in an hour, while you wait.

  I have blisters scraped raw by the time we ascend to the luthery. The rain has passed, and a glow breaks through the clouds and there, just at the edge of hearing, I hear the sound of angels.

  The luther and his wife have the most wonderful shop, it dazzles me. Laid out in custom-made velvet--real velvet, I don't know how they afford it--are instruments so fine they could be sold anywhere in any palace in Europe. The glow from the firelight reflects off the boule-shaped bowls of pandora lyres, Italian zithers, the clay handles of concertinas, rows of shawms, clarions, recorders, two table-siz
ed keyboard instruments I don't know the name of, there's a sideboard draped with magenta velvet and covered with tiny drums, but what catches my eye is a single silver flute, longer than my arm to the fingertip and with a complete set of mechanisms. I desire this flute. My eye won't leave it.

  The luther's wife steps forward and greets me thus:

  "Hello, and well met under God. Stan, who do we have here?"

  "Ethryth, this is Tom. New at the school. We need a recorking--"

  "Stan, do you teach the flute?" I blurt.

  Tired eyes turn to look at me. "Yeah, but I'm not very good. There are people we can bring in to teach you, if you're serious."

  My heart is racing now, I feel passion for this silver instrument. "Miss?" I say, facing Ethryth. "How much is the silver flute?"

  "A pound of silver," she says, looking from me to Stan. "Do you have a pound?" Her tone is that of a nice lady humoring a child. I'm not a child.

  "I'll get a pound," I say.

  "Tom, if we're going to get back in time for your Classics lesson, we need to skip the window shopping."

  I nod, but this flute fills my vision. I will have it. I desire to steal it, but I couldn't live with the guilt. I will find a pound.

  Stan is speaking with the luther, showing him the sections of my recorder, and if I were in my head I'd stand over them to ensure they are kind to it, but instead I circle the flute, stalking it, a cat and a silver mouse. Stan calls out that it's time to go, and I cannot pull away, I'm drawn on a line. Stan leads me away in these terrible scuffing shoes that are too big for my feet and the flute bides its time, waiting for me to earn it.

  The lesson in Greek rhetoric flies through my ears without alighting in between, you know how it is. I am called upon to distribute quills, and part of this, I learn, is paring them. My mind is elsewhere but Weatherford is as shaky and combustible as ever and my hand requires steadying by my other hand, I have to tie myself in knots to create notch reservoirs five times, but Weatherford allows me the time needed to complete the task, it's my first time anyway.