by Joy Williams
Stumpp regarded him silently. “Let’s move back to your office,” he said.
En route, they passed Emily, hauling something heaving beneath a towel in a small red wagon. She opened the door to her section, struggled through with her charge, and shut the door behind her.
Stumpp grinned and shook his head with happiness. He was enchanted by Emily Bliss Pickless. Wry little elf singing, dancing to itself. Though not exactly. That always finds and never seeks … but that was sentimental doggerel. Pickless was more than that, made of sturdier stuff. Tyke had depths unplumbed—he’d bet his bonds on it. She kept a little diary, not the ordinary childish thing with a little lock and key but a sheaf of pages in a box with a screwed-down lid that required two different screwdrivers. He adored her.
In the taxidermist’s office, Stumpp seated himself in the swivel chair behind the desk. “Why’d you throw this little gorilla away?” he asked.
“That kid probably pushed it in there,” the taxidermist said.
“Needs considerable more work,” Stumpp said. “Mouth in particular. Mouth looks like an omelet or something.”
“That kid needs to know some boundaries,” the taxidermist said. “Some rules need to be laid down. Whatever that little girl is doing—and God knows what it is—it doesn’t coincide with my work at all. We don’t complement one another one bit. It’s a confusing situation. People come in here now, and they get confused.”
“You’re the best there is, aren’t you?” Stumpp said. “The best in the business.”
“Lucky is the creature that gets as far as me.”
“How did you get into this business, anyway?” Stumpp inquired kindly.
“I’ve been doing it for twenty years,” the taxidermist said, “since I was fifteen. I started out with bats, the only mammal that can fly. Loved doing bats, then kept moving up. I did all the bears in the Kodiak airport.”
Stumpp reflected for a moment on his museum. It was nothing but a catacomb, a charnel house. “You’re fired,” he said.
The taxidermist felt the top of his head horripilating. “I have a contract.”
“That contract’s worthless,” Stumpp said. “You should’ve had a lawyer look it over.”
“I just bought a house here.”
“You might have to think about giving it up. That house might not be yours after all.”
The taxidermist wished it was fifteen minutes ago, before he’d opened his goddamned mouth. This profession was all he knew. The widowed skins. The winnowed skulls. This goneness, his clientele. “What’d I say, boss?” he said. “I didn’t say anything. But I take it back.” He’d picked up a large needle and worked it into the fat part of his own thumb. A thread was hanging out of his hand.
“I say, man, pull yourself together,” Stumpp said. “I’ll pay a year’s salary, but I want you to leave immediately. Remove all personal effects.” He pointed to a coffee mug upon which the likeness of the taxidermist’s next of kin—a grimly smiling woman and two thuggish-looking boys—had been imposed upon the plastic.
Within the hour the removal of the taxidermist from the building had been accomplished, and by closing time Stumpp had quite forgotten the man existed.
“Pickless,” Stumpp said, “I was thinking of shutting this whole operation down for a bit.” They were sitting in the cafeteria, sharing a small stale cookie.
“Good,” Emily said. “Then that’s settled.”
“Sick of the public’s remarks. Sick of hearing them say, ‘They’d be dead now anyway.’ Catch my drift?”
“They say that all the time.”
“Makes them feel better.”
“No reason to make ’em feel better about this place.”
“None,” Stumpp agreed. He had to undo much, had to unknot the past, unknot it …
“Wish I hadn’t eaten that cookie,” Emily said.
“How’s the work going?” Stumpp asked.
“Pretty much as expected.” Emily thought she needed to go on a fact-finding tour. That was what life was, was it not? A fact-finding tour?
“Have to take you back soon,” he sighed. “Backto your momma.” Stupid woman, thought her child was enrolled in summer school. Demanding curriculum, involving nature, computers, sailing. Why not sailing? Could sell the woman anything. Parents these days remarkably lax.
“My momma,” Emily said noncommittally.
Only fly in the ointment, this momma. “Do you want to meet my mother?” Pickless had inquired only yesterday. “Good God, no!” Stumpp had exclaimed. Terrible situation that would be. How to explain self? No way to do it. Didn’t wish this woman any harm, just wished she were on another planet. Shuttled away on one of those great gaming ships wandering through space—free drinks, free food, free chips. Or, if she’d prefer it, a good sanitorium somewhere. White clothes, white bedding, white light, white noise. No expense spared for Momma’s peace of mind. Pickless only eight, clearly a minor, but his own heart pure, would stand up to closest scrutiny. No heart ever purer. Thumping away in his chest, at last showing some commitment. He’d be elated to just sit on a rock in the sun with Pickless. Which was pretty much what he was doing, though they were perched on stools covered in dik-dik hide and bathed in halogen light.
“Do you believe in the story ‘Two by Two’?” Emily inquired.
“Hate it,” Stumpp said, surprising himself with his rancor. Pickless should be sufficient unto self. World leader, getting things done. Power of personality. Charisma. Blinded ordinary people into perceiving her as pipsqueak child. Book he liked by that fine African fellow, van der Post. About Blady. Blady the plow horse, discovered in a field by the right passerby, when rescued, becomes champion jumper. In the blood. Instinct, grace, like the tyke. Plus that propensity for fortuitous chance. Blady no nag, just waiting to be beheld in the proper light. Chance is what gets the damn thing done. The role accident assumes in life cannot be overestimated, and Pickless had the gift for accident. Now it was time to cut those corners, cut them. Had to crunch time now. Have to be unconscious, pre-conscious. That’s when great feats were performed. All in the past. Stones of Henge, pyramids of Egypt, ziggurats of Sumer, temples of Teotihuacán. No fatigue or reflection, no doubt. Just action action action.
Emily felt a little sleepy. She was demanding of herself full and chaotic days that reflected neither rhyme nor motive.
Practically had the Dalai Lama on his hands here, but not in some airy-fairy sense. Nothing airy-fairy about Pickless. Nerves of steel. Would get over keeping those mangled things in boxes, just a phase. But no time for many more phases. Time running out. In a sense we’re all already dead. We are. Shouldn’t think so much. Thought supposed to be preferable to unconsciousness but develops its own problems. When thought first appeared, early thinkers believed they had to pluck out their eyes in order to do it properly. Shows how far we’ve gone, but further to go still. Something better than thought out there. Pickless had work ahead, no doubt about it. Must sense no limits. All things possible, otherwise why generation after generation? Still, wished they’d shared a bit of the past together. Wished she’d known Africa. Remembered the nights there, all nights the same then, all the creatures’ eyes glinting visible in the meadow beyond the camp, in the meadow beyond.… Wasn’t this wonderful, he’d be saying to her.…
Emily suppressed a yawn.
41
Corvus was in her sleeping bag in the corner. Both girls had sleeping bags that could maintain life’s functions down to twenty degrees below zero, which Alice thought was excellent if unnecessary to present circumstances. They didn’t cost any more than the ones that only worked down to zero, although Alice admired the kind of person who would risk one of those instead. When self-preservation became overly important, you were doomed. When you began making sacrifices toward security, you were lost, lost, lost.
Alice watched Corvus closely. It had been some time since Corvus had said anything. Her hair was dry and stuck up at odd angles.
“I thi
nk we should get out in the here and now,” Alice said. “Drive around in your truck and carpe diem.” Sherwin had told her that she gave the carpe diem concept a bad name. She’d been thrilled by this mis-judgment but was avoiding the piano player nonetheless. Mr. V. was giving a party tonight that she was also avoiding. From now on she would just step nimbly out of Sherwin’s way at every opportunity. He could talk about the blackness of white to someone else. He could ask another to tub cuddle. She was no longer impressionable. Being in love had been interesting, but not exactly, and she wouldn’t want it to happen again. As an inappropriate love object, Sherwin had been practically perfect, but she had to move on.
Corvus’s eyes were open. She cleared her throat softly. “I …” she began.
Alice waited anxiously, encouraged. I … Who knew what it meant exactly, but it indicated that Corvus still knew how to disengage herself from the unconsciousness she preferred. She had inched out a bit from the sleeping bag’s cocoon. These things were actually sort of malevolent-looking, Alice thought.
“I was in a tree,” Corvus said, “between the branches of a tree, and this voice was saying ‘I hold you lightly between two fingers, and if you disobey me I will drop you.’ ”
“Wow,” Alice said. “Who … what does it say you’re supposed to obey?”
“That wasn’t clear. It pretty much stresses the holding lightly part.” She cleared her throat again.
“I’m glad you’re awake. You’ve been sleeping for days. Why don’t we get out of here and camp in the Airstream for a while? We could hook it up to the truck and even go someplace.”
“The Airstream’s still here?”
“It’s parked in the side yard,” Alice said. Was it indeed in the side yard? Had the bad boys wearied of harvesting her granny and poppa’s unkempt vegetation to supply the demanding clean urine market and decided to employ themselves more traditionally by simply stealing things?
“I haven’t seen the Bubble for a while,” Corvus said. “I’d kind of forgotten about it.”
“Well, it’s right outside,” Alice said worriedly.
“I’ve been everywhere these last few days,” Corvus said. “I never want to travel again.”
“I just want to make sure it’s there,” Alice said. “I’ll be right back.”
Silence crept up on Corvus again, encircling her. She’d been dreaming too of a great racetrack enveloped in fog, a light on a great stanchion burning in but not through the fog. People thronged the course. A laconic voice said, The field is in motion. She was not of the race. She was alone, watching it. Innumerable millions, the voice said. She felt the fog lingering, dissolving on her face. Again she was weeping.
She crawled out of the sleeping bag and stood up, then walked unsteadily down the little hall to the bathroom. She wore a shirt of her father’s. Fury gazed at her without moving. Everything had been scaring the soup out of him for days. Who was that now? He was too anxious to bark, and what was the use, anyway, what was the use of sounding the alarm?
Beyond the thin, aqueous-colored wall she heard Alice’s poppa saying, “They don’t use the word used anymore. With cars it’s preowned. With books, preread. With clothes what would you say, preoccupied?” Around her on the shelves were the old people’s innocent salves and potions, their eyewashes and aspirins and expectorants, their Q-tips and Vicks and Pond’s, their flannel cloths and boxes of Endangered Species Band-Aids. The shower curtain hung before the tub on a crooked suction-cupped rod featuring grand, Rubenesque ladies gazing in a sultry manner out at the toilet, which had a puffy-lidded seat the color of charlotte russe.
It all was sadness, every bit of it, the purchasing and placing alike.
On the shelf was a little black comb, an old person’s comb, sincere and ready to work, hardened dandruff high up in the tines. Corvus regarded it for some time. Then her eyes fell on a nail brush, and she ran water and used it to scrub the comb. Dark particles fell onto the sink’s white surface, small particles, but not extremely small. The universe supposedly had come into being in the form of an extremely small particle containing space and time. Or through an event, was the newest theory, and, lacking form of any kind, contained the genesis for space and time though not, in the beginning, space and time itself. The elegance of the newest theory consisted in the admission that there was no beginning. This was debunked by more ambitious theoreticians.
The black flakes stopped falling. The comb now appeared a lovely shining thing. Ace, by name. A particle. An atom. A jot.
She would like to devote herself to such small, foolish good works, to have nothing, to labor in a job without honor, purposelessly, without contrition, for years. Each day the same though not the same, day after obsolete day in infinite vocation. The secretive thread of the weeks. She would labor unconjoined. She would not be remembered.
Corvus went barefoot down the hallway, past Alice’s room, past the living room where Alice’s poppa’s face was bathed in the television’s ashen glow. “Hello there,” he called. Alice’s granny was preparing snacks in the kitchen. “Who’re you talking to, dear?” she said. He saw no one now. He’d been seeing more phantasms than usual of late. Maybe he should put a hold on those cheesy snacks of Ritz and cheddar, the most daring offering they made to one another these days, miniature Grim Reapers, little artery-wadding missives, Belial buttons on a chipped floral plate. But he liked them.
Outside, there was still some daylight not yet squandered, but the big crime lights on the concrete phone poles were shining regardless. The street was lined tightly with vehicles, though no car passed. Corvus’s Dodge truck was at the curb fifty yards away. She softly passed the Airstream on her thin light feet. The door was open, and she glimpsed Alice moving about inside. It looked all jumbled up in there, a-tilt and a-scatter, and Alice was bent over a bowl, about to pick it up.
Corvus padded down the sidewalk. It was smooth and wide, and profane suggestions in both Spanish and English were etched on each square, the words in cramped unhurried script, as though copied from some holy guide instead of being its own screaming, shit-streaked cabala. She reached the truck. Someone had sideswiped the door and she couldn’t open it, so she opened the passenger door and slid across the seat. She pulled out, shifting slowly, no thought arising, to Green Palms.
Nurse Daisy stood outside, smoking a cigarette and cooling her forehead with a moist baby wipe.
“Catachresis is the word of the day,” she said to Corvus in greeting. “It was yesterday’s word as well and, most probably, tomorrow’s. It should be emblazoned on the pediments of this place. Catachrestic. Catachrestical. Catachrestically. The sound alone’s enough to have one running for the exits. There’s a rattle to it, a yeomanly phlegm. Its root means ‘against what is necessary.’ But try using it in a sentence. It won’t fit. Resists the long thought. Nurse Cormac ran off with the exterminator. Those exterminators can talk rings around most people, and she fell for him hard.”
She had drawn the cigarette right down to the filter and now placed it in a sand-filled urn among a good hundred others. “I sometimes think of freshening this up, raking the sand tidy with a fork, lightly sketching a pattern of wings in the Gnostic manner. I never will, of course, because I like it this way too. Not doing one thing is equal to not doing something else. Who said the following? ‘Love, and do what you will.’ ”
Corvus cleared her throat but didn’t speak. Corvus, barefoot, in her father’s shirt, her hair unwashed.
“We have a new neighbor in my neighborhood.” Nurse Daisy pulled out a fresh baby wipe from a packet and rubbed it over her temples. “It’s a pet drop-off bin. People can drop off unwanted dogs and cats in specially marked bins. It’s rather like a mail chute, which will accept animals up to fifty pounds. They drop down softly into a concrete chamber, which is checked and emptied once a day. They’re kept for four days at the shelter, where they’re offered the opportunity for another life in the form of a stranger coming in, though as you know there are never eno
ugh strangers. On the fifth day, bright and early, before the sun comes up, before the water dish has to be filled again, there’s sodium Pentothal, quick-quick-quick. It’s a humane alternative. There’s disease out there, worms, blindness, mange, valley fever. There’s neglect and random cruelty. There are designer poisons that take days to work their way through the system. How would you define,” Nurse Daily asked, “the word humane?”
Two wraiths pottered out onto the balcony above them and dawdled, scratching their arms. Corvus could hear the rasp of their dry skin.
“I know how you got this far,” Nurse Daisy said. “You figured out what you ought not to do, and you determined to do it. Against all advice. Not against the odds, however. The odds were always good. But to serve is not to love, you know. You could be washing old feet from now till doomsday, and there’ll still be that hard dark little seed of doubt, that seed of awareness that isn’t love.”
The wraiths looked down on them with immense eyes. They scratched.
“I hope you don’t think you’ve been chosen,” Nurse Daisy said.
Corvus said nothing.
“I would rather speak five words with my understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue, as the Good Book says. But you understand nothing, so you’ve decided to be dumb, and how long will this last, forever?” She looked out at Corvus from deep within her mismatched face. “Nurse Cormac was such a talker. My ears still ring from her prattle.” She touched her tiny ears, which looked as though they’d been grafted on in some long-ago emergency operation by an inappropriate donor. “Winging her way to Kansas, she is, with her exterminator. Back to the seemingly endless plains where he was partly raised, back to the rats in the silos who were missing their master, missing his particular etiquette with them.”
One of the wraiths was scratching his white arm with a card, an efficient scraping that sounded different from the other’s ragged nails. Then the card tore free and fell like a dart at Corvus’s feet. A Happy Birthday card with balloons on it, much thumbed and twisted. Inside, someone had written, “From all of us.” The wraith leaned over the balcony railing, gesturing wildly, and commenced to cry. The other wraith began blubbering as well. “Hey!” Nurse Daisy screamed. They both fell silent and stared at Corvus resentfully.
