Fool School

by James Comins

  On the stairs down, Perille taps me on the shoulder, I don't know what his intentions are. I feel . . . well, I'm not sure how to feel.

  "Hardly the first time," Perille tells me, and I nod. "But you'll be in for it, dere's a reason the rest of us never crack up till he's out of the room."

  "What will happen?" I ask, and as we descend I feel dread like iron stones filling my body.

  "He's a mean one," says Perille, and returns directly to his room. At the door he turns and says, "Don't leave until tomorrow. Piss in your hat if you need to." The door shuts.

  I will hold my pee.

  Malcolm and I sit in the darkness with our backs to the door. I have my face pressed against my hands, I have yet again ruined my education. The silence is thick and filthy.

  At last the shuffling of feet passes in the hall outside. It's what we've been listening for. Hamlin's voice whispers amelioratively, soothingly, "there, there," like a wet-hen nurse. My body cavity is filled with emotion, but I have no name for this emotion, it's the emotion of disaster. A vibration resonates through me, I imagine that this is some sort of sin alarm that the body has. I'm not certain what my sin here is, exactly. I had no control over my body or mind; exhaustion had made me crazy, I lost control.

  That starts me thinking of Stan's story about the wife-murderer. Do we all lose control from time to time? Is this not what sleep is, what laughter is? Is every man capable of murder, if enough control is ceded to . . . what?

  What is it, deep inside men's souls, that takes over when we lose control? The devil? Do we have a second self, a goblin-man living in the shadows of our minds, that rises up at times and drives us to act beyond our sense? Should each of us be hanged whenever we show a loss of control, or are, perhaps, some men's inner goblins more volatile than others? Was the wife-murderer in Stan's story hanged for having the worst inner goblins on Earth? Were his goblins worse than mine, just as one king is better or worse at ruling than another?

  Time passes.

  A knuckle on the door. Malcolm turns the handle, enough to pop the door open--the Romans produced good door-latches--and Nuncle's sour face is backlit dimly by the candles.

  "There will be no Classics tomorrow," he says. "Our professor desires to punish you, Tom. I have no strong desire to lose Weatherford, who is one of the great scholars of story, and thus I permit him his petty retributions. Please indulge him. In the end, having his favor will provide you with a much better education than you would otherwise receive."

  I murmur assent, and Nuncle drifts to the other students' rooms.

  As I shut the door I tell Malcolm that we've been given the worst luck in the history of humanity.

  "Tom. I've been thenking about that, actually. You remember that jinxed horse I bought us, don't you?"

  The one with the intestines spilling out like a squeezed meat pie? Yes, I remember it. I say so.

  "And the gairl in the pit. The goat child. The wolf man. Jost--everything. There esn't any way in the world for our luck to be no more than luck. Et's got to be Divine."

  "D'you think?" I say. "Divine?"

  "Et's got to be, I can feel et. There's a lesson en et, something we're meant to learn. There's a shape of things, the mistakes we've made are the lessons of another school we're in, a Divine school. We're shown these lessons we're meant to learn from, but I can't seen through it yet. Can you?"

  I stare into the dark space and permit God's word fill me, but permitting it doesn't make it so. Nothing fills me, I merely desire the knowledge of God's intentions for us so I can tell Malcolm the answers.

  Nothing. No visions. Just a dark room. I say so.

  "Aye. How about the story of the blue knight?"

  But whatever vision I had earlier is overcast today, the skies of my mind are fog and dust.

  "I'm nae in the mood to test the devil gairl's will. It's me for bed."

  Me too.

  I expect to be summoned to Weatherford some time during the day, but it doesn't happen. The day is ordinary except for my nerves. All the way up through the end of Nuncle's flute performance--I will discourse on the Blue Knight matter shortly, be prepared--I wait for punishment, but it doesn't come. When the time set aside for Classics arrives at the end of music class, we all turn to Nuncle, who peers out the window to the night, he taps his fingers on his wrist, sniffs, and says, "Tom? Meet me in the cafeteria. Malcolm, you understand the rules regarding sneezing around Weatherford?" Affirmed. "The rest of you . . . Hero, will you be comfortable outside?" Affirmed, piping. Nuncle sighs. "Run around outside, then. Be children for the evening."

  He trips to the door, and we rise and restore our instruments to their proper place, and the outer door becomes unlocked, and I am now to be punished.

  I stand on the second floor landing. There's a force pressing against me, a pike is pressed against my sternum, in my mind I am told to walk into it, it's a pike made from fear. I don't understand what's going to happen to me. The stairs make no sound under my feet, it's five hundred years since this building was abandoned by the Romans, but their stonework endures. I will endure, too. I will pull the Roman stonework into my lungs and become impenetrable. But no. I am made of vellum, and am already torn. With an unusual whoosh I feel myself floating inside my own body, the fear has torn my soul out, I rise, my legs don't touch the ground, I almost lose my footing, my body is numb in the extremities. My legs are twisting inside their sockets. I can't feel the floor or the wall that I press up against, I'm adrift. Speeding up, I find myself at the bottom of the stairs, which are newly unfamiliar, it's another place I've been taken to, none of the rooms are rooms I've ever seen before, we call this jamais-vu in French, I don't know what the English call it.

  The open archway to the cafeteria is made of cut stones formed into a segment of arch, not squares but smooth all the way round--look, they've given each of these archstones a curved interior, somebody must have ground the stones down, I see a Roman pressing the stone to a potter's wheel with a grindstone attached, perhaps there are cows or oxen turning the wheel, they've made how many stones? onetwothreefourfivesix--

  "Ah. Tom."

  I've lost count of the archstones. There is a lump in my throat and I'm not certain that I haven't begun to cry.

  "Tom?"

  I cannot lift my eyes, they've got fishing weights bowing them to the floor, there is heat in my face, and snot. I wipe my nose.

  "Look me in the eye."

  A gout of snot forces its way out and I wipe it away. How embarrassing; it's gone up my sleeve.

  "In the eye."

  I look him in the eye. I see no punishment there, no furor.

  "This is to amuse Weatherford, lad. I know his eccentricities, I'd boil them out of him if I could. But he completes two books a week from memory, and he'll teach you the six big stories if you let him, which will serve you in unique stead among the storytellers who know only two or three of them. Reveal your bare arms."

  In my violence I squash the strands of snot onto my sleeve as I roll it, the snot will go right up to the shoulder now.

  "Arms at eye level."

  A switch is revealed, and I hold both arms out as Nuncle swats the tops, it's very painful, but hardly the breaking of the spirit I was expecting. Once the switching stops, I turn my arms so the bottoms are up, but Nuncle says, "Oh please," and puts an arm on my shoulder, I find it to be fatherly, it doesn't cause me the repulsion that my Papa's drunken bawling did. Perhaps Nuncle feels true sympathy. Perhaps he once was switched as a young student.

  "Show that to Weatherford, it'll assuage his anger. Show repentance. And manage yourself in his presence. I fear too many such incidents."

  The headmaster vanishes. I drift to bed.

  * * *

  Oh, the blue knight story. Yes, we speak of it, add to it. Several days pass where it's mentioned and discussed for five or ten minutes before tambrel lesson. It gets better each time. It's a story about the abandonment of homeland, we decide. I say it isn't a love story, a
lthough in one of her very rare moments of speech during class, Wolfweir states that every story is a love story, we would do well to remember that. Tristram and Isolde, Odysseus and Penelope, Arthur and Guinevere and Launcelot. So I add a love story:

  A boy and a girl lived in Scotland. Everyone knew they were in love, and everyone knew they'd get married before long. Only the boy had no occupation, and this was the source of tension in their families, for it's known that only through good work does a Scotsman get ahead in life. The boy was a dreamer. He had heard of a new king in the south of England, in the castle of Camelodenum; the new king had put out the call for all good and brave knights to come from all corners of the British Isles and unite under the banner of England and the Round Table. The girl and her family told the boy to apprentice as a blacksmith, or a tanner, or a tailor, but despite being small and diffident in mien, the boy became gradually consumed by the thought of being a knight in Arthur's court. At the end, as the boy and girl quarrelled over work, the boy mounted his horse, declared himself a knight, though he had no arms or armor, and rode south to Camelodenum.

  This is how we've decided the blue knight story begins. It's familiar--any parent in the audience will have a child who is unwilling to follow good guidance, this is universal among those with more than one child. And there is love, which Wolfweir says is essential to hold the attention of the women of the audience. I still am not certain that everyone recognizes her as a girl. She probably cuts her hair regularly, probably hides the hair clippings in the midden, I wouldn't be surprised. She's still in control of us, but Malcolm and I have distracted ourselves for several days, it isn't impossible to keep the desires away. It requires constant distraction. But this is school, we can always develop new strategies to distract ourselves at will. For example, I think of the silver flute.

  Nuncle has not permitted me to play his flute. He's only got the one, he says, and he's uncertain whether his mouth might spread the cancer. I tell him a curse is not catching, it's a matter of sin, and he tells me he's reminded of Father Bellows. This stops my protest. I can wait for the fair and I will collect four marks plus a pound, I will entertain and transcend, I will buy the silver flute.

  Oh! I haven't spoken of shoes, nor of my recorder. While I'm telling my story all out of order, I might as well speak of this. It's not, perhaps, the most exciting part, but it precedes the story of the Brystow Fair.

  It's one of the days this week--the days here are less distinguished in my mind, as often happens when looking back at many days that are structured alike--when Stan brings my shoes and recorder up to the library.

  "Take those filthy things out of here at once," sniffs Hamlin, referring to the shoes held up in Stan's mitts. Following Stan, I withdraw to the dark corridor and pull off the hated brown clunky shoes and gratefully pull on my red--

  "They don't fit."

  "Give 'em a few days," says Stan.

  "Stan, I can't even pull them on, he sewed the toes shut."

  My shoes. That awful man mauled my shoes.

  "Sewed the--show me."

  In the shadow between the rosy haze of the landing's sconce and the library's fireproof lanthorn, I hand Stan a shoe. He stuffs a hand in and whistles. "Yeah, he did. Let me see if I can--" He pulls out a knife, but I stop him. "Do you have a knife to lend me? I'll do it."

  With a half-shrug, Stan hands me his waistband-knife and tells me to give it back to him tomorrow. "Check the recorder, too," he says. "I'd like to get it all taken care of at once."

  I shuffle down a few steps to see better--I don't know why I don't just go down to the landing where there's lamplight, but I don't. I set my case on my lap, and see, first off, there are new brass corners riveted to my increasingly worn and battered black case. They've repaired it, gratis.

  I open the case.

  The iron bands are a little sticky to the touch. I don't like the feeling, but what I do like is the color. The iron was long faded to lumpy black, but the luthers have brought out the silvery grain using some sort of polish, I don't know what. The bands now catch the light, and I see that the blacksmith's striations form not the usual nebuly that Saracen blades displays, but the spiralling lines of an expert blacksmith, the carbon kept safe from rust by some fancy alloys and a layer of oil--there is a glass disc tucked into the case, I open it and it's a foul-smelling yellow sticky oil, it's to protect the metal--and here's a second disc, two halves separate to reveal rosin to polish and protect the wood. I run my finger over the new cork, and they've used truly admirable cork, it's easily dense enough to be found in any bottle or cask in King Henri's palace. My heart rushes. These people, the luthers, they've taken a good recorder and returned something magical.

  "Is it good?" asks Stan.

  "It's good," I say, and my elation is hardly undercut by the work I will need to do to make my shoes wearable in time for the fair.

  An evening has passed. Here I am now, in the firelight in the cafeteria, holding with reluctance a red-handled knife. The blade is short but threatening in its sharpness. I experience a terrible review of the Cherbourg wharfmaster's words telling me to rend my garments, only no one is speaking, everyone's finished with the day--Classics--oh, I will speak of the next day of Classics next. Malcolm is elsewhere, maybe on the john. There is only the sparking hearth, red light and the particular one-sided warmth of a fire in a cold room, it's coming on winter.

  I cannot turn the shoe inside-out, it's got the same nasty hard shoeform that this terrible failed cobbler used to make my shapeless clunk-shoes. I have my bare foot out, I wish they made hose with the feet cut out, this would be easier, but I sit in undyed gray-brown breeches with my foot up, the blood of my veins turning red in the heat of the fire, in my eyes the red flame becomes a tunnel and my world is a foot, a matching shoe, the curl is not the correct red, he's got everything wrong, but I have no dye, and this red-handled knife, I have my hand in the shoe, measuring, I feel inside the cloth to the horrid leather form, I have chosen to ignore the toes for now and begin by removing the leather, I will re-shape it myself--I have measured, here's the spot where an arch insole might be found in a better shoe, I make a single incision into the sole, the insole's cloth tears precisely under my careful fingers, I fold the leather--no mean task, this leather is extremely cheap and hard as bones--I make a deep cut in the leather of the outer part of the foot, so that only an arch is left. I take my time and cut my new arch at an angle, bevel it, and feather the sharp leather so it will soften with wear. I return the cloth to its place. I will sew it later, when I'm satisfied.

  With due patience I repeat this with the other shoe, I measure and measure by feel until I'm certain they'll be parallel, I cut and I have it almost right, easier to remove more than to add to the leather, I tell myself. I'm the only one who can get it right, there's probably no other cobbler in town, although there's always a proper cordwain. Perhaps the Bath cordwain is a better man, perhaps he could be persuaded to cobble for me. A cordwain more easily repairs shoes than a cobbler makes one.

  Now the toes. I'll need to sew them shut farther up, so my feet don't slip into the long curly part. The cloth is good and very soft, although to my dismay I feel a slight crustiness that wasn't there before. He must have dyed it very poorly for the cloth to turn crusty. It smells of carmine. I feel the thread, find the knot; he's managed to hide it in the interior of the cloth, where I can't get to it. I'm drawn to rage by his complex villainy. I cut each of his toe-stitches, pull the threads away, manage to winnow the knot through the cloth's good weave, and try on the shoes.

  My footprint-cut into the leather is immediately comfortable. I have created a competent insole. I can feel the sole beneath my feet; perhaps I'll buy a fur at Brystow Fair and cut footprints and tack them onto the new sole, which is too heavy and needs more carving, but I'm too weary for any more carving tonight. But my foot slips into the toe of the shoe. I'll need a tricky solution, there's no question. What was it that kept them from slipping before? I feel that there
was a cup on the inside. What was it made of? Leather? Why did the man take out the toe of the shoe? Malice, I decide, he's made a toeless shoe out of hatred for mankind, he's lost his Christianity, perhaps he's godless. The thought frightens me. I'll acquire a bit of leather and make toes for my shoes. Perhaps I'll disassemble the clunky brown shoes, but perhaps I should keep them, so I have a backup in case I can't perfect these improvisational shoes that until late I'd worn, altered regularly, since I was seven. In France, no cobbler would produce these abominations. I must resist the urge to hate the English, it's merely one man I hate. If I have the opportunity for vengeance, I will leap upon it.

  Thus, the shoeing.

  Ah, yes, let me speak briefly of Weatherford's return to the school, and then I will speak of practicing "Rybbesdale," and then I will return to what I am calling the present, which is the fair.

  Today Stan's decided that instead of a free period of us listening to him playing the shawm, that today we will play a round. As I'm sure you know, the tune of a round is simplistic, but you must remember your part and drown out, inside your own mind, the notes of others. It requires a challenging single-mindedness that's actually well-suited to the slick sodden period in the late afternoon when all the food has gone to your head. Or perhaps I feel this way because Hamlin has permitted me both luncheon for the first time since the rabbit skull, as well as a return to the second woodwind class. I've got all my letters right, and it feels the same way that getting all my Ave Marias right feels. The first round we learn is called "Rose and Thorn." It's more of a children's rhyme and only uses four notes.

  Malcolm's been struggling with the shawm. He hasn't picked up the lip tricks that permit good sounds, and there's really no teaching it, it's a knack, just like whistling. He's very intent, but sometimes it's letting go of intensity which leads to revelation.