by Alden Bell
You wanna know what I was thinkin before? she says. She doesn’t wait for Moses to respond. I was thinkin of Niagara Falls. I heard people used to go there to honeymoon. Honeymooning on the edge of a big crack in the earth. Ain’t that something? That’s living it all the way up.
Moses Todd sniffs in his cell.
Let me ask you a question, he says. How come you weren’t headed up there instead of goin west like you were? I could of chased you north as easily as I did west. You might could have made it before we had to settle down to business.
I had an errand to run first.
Is that right. You wanna give me the details in case we ever get out of here? Sure make my life easier.
Good night, Mose. Don’t forget to say your prayers.
I never do, little girl. I never do.
IN THE morning, the girl Millie comes in again with more bread and, this time, slices of overcooked bacon and some wheat mush with milk in it. She brings it on a tray that she has decorated with plaid napkins and a flower in a bud vase, as though she were serving breakfast in bed to guests. She sets the tray nimbly on the autopsy table and brings a plate of food to each cell. But she looks confused and can’t figure out how to get the plates through the bars, so she sets them down on the floor and backs away and lets the three of them reach through the bars for their food.
Bon teet, she says.
Come again? Moses asks.
Bon teet.
Can you puzzle her out? Moses asks Temple.
I think she’s saying bon appeteet.
Well my goodness, he says. He turns to Millie and says, Mercy beaucoop, little lady.
He smiles at her in his way of fondness, and Temple sees that she likes the formality of serving, all the structures and etiquette of domestic life.
She folds her hands and watches them eat. When they’re done, she takes the plates and puts them back on the tray and takes the whole thing away. In the afternoon, she brings them a pot of brewed tea and some lemon slices.
Looks like you and me are her pretty playthings, Moses says to Temple.
As long as it keeps the food comin.
In the evening the two men come, Bodie and Royal, and they open Maury’s cell and lead him out of it. She watches, looking at the key ring to identify the right key if she should ever get her hands on it.
Hey, she says. Where you takin him?
You ain’t gotta worry, precious, Royal says. We gon take you too. Mama’s took an interest in the two of you.
What about me? Moses Todd says as they unlock her cell.
Everybody seen your type before, Royal says. Your future ain’t bright.
Bodie leads Maury out the door and Temple follows, her arm locked in Royal’s grip. Outside she squints her eyes against the sun. For a second she considers the possibility of making a break for it, but she sees others, standing at the corners or sitting on wicker chairs under the shade of overhangs—interrupting their conversations to watch their progress down the street.
How many of you are there? she asks.
We got twenty-three in our family, Bodie says.
Twenty-two since your fren kilt Sonny, Royal says.
He ain’t no friend of mine.
They turn a corner into a residential area and find themselves in front of a big white house with columns out front and shutters on the windows.
Inside, the house is musty and dark. The stench of decay is stirred up with other smells, lanolin, magnolia, sickeningly sweet soap—as though someone were trying to wash the stink off a corpse.
Mama! Royal calls up the stairs. Mama, we brought em like you tole us. We comin up.
HE’S TETCHED, this one, Mama says and reaches her hand out to Maury. Tetched by the spirit. You wanna be part of my family, honey?
She is as close to a monster as God allows, Temple reckons. The woman is massive, even larger than the others, maybe ten feet if taken at her full height instead of stretched out on a mountain of pillows in the middle of the room. She is naked, but her nakedness doesn’t count for anything because of the bony plates that cover almost her entire body, as though her skeleton had melted away and been reformed on the outside of her. Her voice is low, almost a man’s voice—those oversized vocal cords delivering nothing but bass notes from her gullet—and her rasping breath turns her attempts at sweetness grotesque. They call her Mama, and Temple wonders how many of them she is actual mother to—and it wouldn’t surprise her if it was all of them, because Temple can see she’s a world Mama, like the earth itself, a potent blister of life.
When she moves, a myriad of clicks and pops come from her exoskeleton, and Temple thinks that’s what an insect must sound like if you could get your ear small enough to hear it. It seems difficult for her to move, as though the gravity of her own body is working against her—her muscles unable to keep pace with her size and the weight of her bony growth.
There are sockets for her eyes and mouth in the scabby bone plates covering her face, and she has painted them with lipstick and eye shadow in clownish imitation of generations gone.
Bodie stands beside her holding a glass of lemonade with a straw, and every now and then she leans over to take a sip, her bulk rolling to and fro against the floorboards.
You got a mama, honey? she says, turning her attention to Temple.
I guess I must of had one once, Temple says, trying to breathe through her mouth so she doesn’t choke on the perfumed air. That’s how it works, don’t it?
You don’t remember her?
Nah. She probably got et up.
You know what? You can miss somethin you never knew. Do you miss your mama, honey?
Temple gives this some thought. The woman’s big voice is brute and animal, but there is still true mama in it.
I guess sometimes, she says. If they was handing out mamas down at the five-and-dime, I reckon I would take myself one.
Of course you would.
But you gotta look at the world that is and try not to get bogged down by what it ain’t.
The woman nods and sips her lemonade, the end of the white plastic straw smeared with lipstick. Again Temple thinks of making a run for it, but she would never get down the stairs. And then there’s Maury to think about.
The woman coughs, a grating cough like rusted machinery. Then she recomposes herself.
Do you like our family? she says.
Sure, Temple says. In particular, I like the way you keep people locked in basements.
The woman’s face contorts into an angry frown—but just for a moment before she closes her eyes and collects herself and begins to explain something.
We got something you don’t have, child, she says. We got something unique. You wanna know what it is? We got loyal blood. We watch out for each other. That’s how we come to survive for so long. My family, it’s the oldest family in the county. Hell, I guess by now we’s the oldest family in the state. That’s what I mean, survivors. See, long before this plague of foolishness descended on the world, we was livin apart—up in the woods where there wasn’t no one to bother us. We had our land. We made our food. We was one family, and we stayed one family for six generations. Blood is holy blood. It’s God’s gift, and it ain’t to be watered down. My children is the gift of the spirit, and let them be legion.
By the end of her speech, the woman is worked up, and she has snailed across the floor until she is right close to Temple’s face, her breath coming hot and powerful on her cheeks. Then she leans back, pulling herself together once more.
She sips the lemonade, her bones clacking.
See, she goes on, this plague is sent to cleanse the earth. It sweeps with prejudice, honey, and it favors those strong enough to keep together. What it does, it sweeps away the mess of commonness, and what it leaves behind are those Americans who keep America stored up in their blood lineage. What lineage are you trailin, girl? Do you know what togetherness is? What have you ever been together with? We got us the blood of the nation, you better believe it.
Uh-huh, Temple says. So you all are the inheritors of the earth?
That there is God’s truth, girl. The question is are you smart enough to see it.
Temple considers. She thinks about the people she’s known, the things she’s seen. She thinks about the nation she’s traveled since she was born, the derelict landscapes, the rain that washes the blood and dust into rust-colored puddles.
Finally she shrugs.
All right, she says. So you’re the inheritors of the earth. It ain’t the wrongest thing I ever heard.
The woman leans back, satisfied.
But, Temple continues, that don’t mean I can stay here and be your pet. You can keep old Moses—he ain’t nothin but trouble anyway. But Maury and I, we got places to be.
To everyone else they’s a curse, the woman says with a wave of her chalky crusted arm. To us, they’s a blessing.
Who you talking about? The meatskins?
After the plague, we come down out the hills and took up our place in our rightful homes. And the shells of the lost, them that walk a foolish death, they contain the blessing for us as knows how to pluck it out. Our family, we’s nourished on the blood of God and the foolishness of the past—and we grow as giants on the earth.
Okay, Temple says. You got your ear to God’s lips. I got it already.
The woman’s hand shoots out and grabs Temple by the neck, tightening its bony claws around her throat. The fingers are huge and encircle her neck completely. Temple struggles to breathe, but Royal holds her arms behind her.
You’re a mouthy girl, the woman says. You don’t be careful, it gonna get you kilt.
She releases her grip, and Temple falls to the floor, gasping.
Then the woman’s gaze falls on Maury.
Bodie, she says, there’s somethin special about this one. He’s a bright light in the firmament. Blank as any child of God lookin for a home. You look you can observe that pureness in his eyes, sure as anything. I wanna see what the family blessing does for him. Get Doc.
THEY ARE returned to their cells, and she blinks her eyes to adjust them again to the dark.
How’s Mama? Moses Todd says.
She’s a big white lobster.
So what’s the story?
They’re the inheritors of the earth. Used to be they were just hillbillies. Now they’re the inheritors of the earth.
And what else?
And we best get ourselves out of here, toot sweet. Whether they like you or hate you, it seems like things might culminate in unpleasantness. Oh and also, I think I figured out what they’re shootin up.
At that moment the door of the room swings open and Bodie and Royal come in followed by another man, smaller, more human-sized, with glasses and long wisps of hair circling the crown of his bald head. He has a peevish, sneering expression on his face, as of a man who dislikes the company he keeps.
This time I want me a full dose, he says to the other two.
Come on, Doc, Bodie says. You know it ain’t our choice. Mama don’t like you messin round with your fine motor skills. You’re the only one knows how to harvest the stuff. From what I can tell you can’t get it just by squeezin their heads like lemons. You gone, we ain’t got nothin.
The one called Doc sneers and examines the array of slugs tripping over one another in the cell.
That one, he says, pointing to a woman with dried blood caked on her chin in a way that makes her look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. I reckon she looks fresh.
Good choice, Doc, Royal says, unlocking the cage. We just picked her up day before yesterday.
He leads her out and pushes the others back and swings the door of the cage shut. Then, while Doc sorts through a bunch of instruments on the table and preps the lab equipment, Royal begins to play with her, offering his arm up like a bone for a dog, leading her around the room and laughing.
She opens her mouth and lunges at him, and he steps back out of range of her teeth. He laughs shrilly.
Come on, he says. I know you want a taste of Royal in yer belly, dontcha?
Having led her around the room twice, he gets her to the foot of the autopsy table and with a quick movement takes her by the back of the neck and twists her around and pushes her back onto the metal surface, where she squirms trying to rise. Then he takes the leather belt straps and flings them over her torso and legs and fastens them tight so she can’t move.
You’re a lively thing, ain’t you? Hey, Doc, you ready to go yet?
Gimme a few goddamn minutes. It ain’t carvin a pumpkin, it’s surgery.
It’s okay—this one’s a downright pretty one. Seems like she could get used a little before we get started.
He looks at her lasciviously with his one rolling eyeball, and then Temple looks away. This is one thing God has nothing to do with.
TEMPLE’S PERSPECTIVE is obscured, but from what she can tell the operation seems to involve splitting the slug’s head open and extracting something from it. Bodie holds the head straight between his hands while Doc gingerly makes a cut using an electric bone saw. Temple wonders why they don’t just kill her first and not have to contend with a wriggling body—but then she determines that it must make a difference whether the thing is active or not when they do the operation. They take pains to go only so far into the slug’s head, and only in a particular place near the base of the skull. It isn’t until after the procedure is over that Doc says, Okay, and then Bodie takes a long blade, a butcher’s knife, and drives it up into the hole they made in the skull until the woman stops moving.
Doc holds in his hand the little gray piece they removed from the woman’s brain and takes it to the table, where he looks at it under a lamp with a big magnifying glass. Then he puts it into a little machine with some kind of chemical and turns it into a thick liquid that can be poured into a beaker and lights a bunsen burner underneath it.
Through much of the procedure, Temple sits on the ground with her back against the bars of the cell looking up at the broken rectangular window and the tiny shaft of sunlight illuminating a stream of dust motes in the stale air of the basement. She remembers again the Miracle of the Fish—the silver-gold bodies darting in circles around her ankles as though she were standing in the middle of another moon—the way things could be perfect like that on occasion—a clear god, a god of messages and raptures—a moment when you knew what you were given a stomach for, for it to feel that way, all tense with magic meaning.
It has become something to her, that memory—something she can take out in dismal times and stare into like a crystal ball disclosing not presages but reminders. She holds it in her palm like a captured ladybug and thinks, Well ain’t I been some places, ain’t I partook in some glorious happenings wanderin my way between heaven and earth. And if I ain’t seen everything there is to see, it wasn’t for lack of lookin.
Blind is the real dead.
Through the tiny broken-out place in the window above, she sees a touch of movement. She focuses on it, watching it inch along, little more than a finger shadow against the daylight. It’s a green caterpillar, and it pokes its way through the hole in the glass and along the sill of the window.
And she thinks:
Ain’t no hell deep enough to keep heaven out.
THE MIXTURE on the lab table makes its way through various pipettes and spiral tubes and beakers where Doc adds teardroppers full of other ingredients and then boils those and stirs them and checks their color against the light of the lamp until finally a valve is opened at the far right and a clear distilled liquid begins drop by drop to empty into the bottle from which they had filled their syringes the day before.
Royal unstraps the immobile corpse and slings it over his shoulder and carries it off. When he comes back, he and Bodie sit in two folding metal chairs and wait for Doc to finish the process.
How’s it goin, Doc? Royal asks.
Goin fine. That was a juicy one you got there. We gon get plenty product outta that one.
Royal slaps
his knee.
I knowed it, he says. I tole Bodie when we found her she was gonna be a ripe one. Didn’t I say just those words, Bodie? Didn’t I say she was gonna be a ripe one?
Bodie doesn’t answer. He is leaning over the lab table, and his eyes are fixed on the bottle filling slowly with the clear distillate.
Royal’s lidless eye rolls back in his head and he chuckles to himself and mumbles again, Sho enough, those is the words I said.
Finally Bodie stands at his full height, and he points to Maury.
All right, then, he says. Get the retard outta his cage. Lord knows why, but Mama took a likin to him, wants to see him jacked up.
Royal goes to the cell door and opens it and says, Come on, Mr. Buffalo, you gonna get a shot of the high life.
Temple wants to stay back. She wants to watch the shaft of light coming through the broken window. She wants to watch the progress of the caterpillar as it makes its way across the windowsill. She wants to shut down her mind to so many things. But she can feel the panic blooming in her like something that had been planted a long time ago. She feels it blooming in her stomach and chest, and there ain’t nothing that ever bloomed so fast and so forceful.
Hey, she says and grabs the bars of her cell. What you wanna go and do that for? That dummy never hurt you.
Shut up, girl, Royal says. Stop bein a pest.
Yeah, she says. I get it. Inheritors of the earth, and you spend your time beatin up on dead people and dummies.
Royal’s lidless eye quivers in its socket in an absurd mimicry of anger.
You best shut your mouth, girl.
What you gonna do, eyeball me to death? You got me beat in a staring contest, I’ll give you that.
Moses Todd chuckles in the cell next to hers, stroking his beard.
You shut up too, Royal says, looking back and forth between the two.
I promise you one thing, Mr. Royal, Moses Todd announces, she ain’t easy to kill, that one.
