Meeks (12 page)

"Wait. Please listen,” said Ben.

"Get your things—five minutes,” interrupted the tall one and rested his hand casually on his pistol.

Ben thought of his paintings and bounded back up the stairs. He crammed the military cap, cufflinks, and paint pigments into his satchel. He took Selfridge's gun from his pocket and tucked it into his satchel beneath his father's cap. He yanked the canvases from the wall and scanned the room. He had nothing else. “Finton?” Finton's door stood open; he was nowhere in sight. Ben could hear the policemen climbing the stairs.

"I'm leaving, I'm leaving now!” Ben shouted. The two officers were inspecting the upstairs hall, glancing casually into open rooms.

"Well, go on, then,” said the shorter officer and smiled.

"Thank you,” said Ben, wanting, perversely, to please the friendly man who was ruining his life.

He walked to the park, clutching his satchel. Maybe he could patch things up with the tailor somehow, or perhaps Albert would let him stay for a few days? Ben circumvented the bachelors’ hill, the late-summer crush of bachelors jockeying for space, looking for women, all of whom seemed to be avoiding the park. In the near distance, Ben could see workers making repairs to the Independence Day stage. His brain was laying down the law: no more stupid daydreams, no more cowardice, no more wasting time. Bachelors elbowed and shoved one another; they fell down in the damp grass and swung wildly at one another. Policemen looked on, tired and bored. Ben could feel his hands seizing into fists, his heart swelling with hatred at the sight of the police. He glared at the facade of the station, making no effort to conceal his contempt for it. The doors to the police station swung open; two policemen emerged carrying an unconscious man half-covered by a blanket. Ben smiled awkwardly at the policemen, his hatred converting immediately into a look of friendly submission. The police made small talk while they carried the man toward the river. They were followed in a few seconds by another pair of policemen, carrying another body down the station steps. Bachelors were dropping like flies.

Ben walked to the back of the station to take refuge in the overgrown alley. He hid in the gray-green light, trying to think of what to do next. If he went back to the house, perhaps Finton would hide him there—he would know every secret of the old house, having grown up there.

As his eyes adjusted to the low light, he made out the shape of a man lying on the ground: He was wearing a pale suit; one leg was bent awkwardly beneath the other. A blanket covered the man's face. Ben fell to his knees and lifted the corner of the blanket: no one he knew.

The bachelor's mouth hung open slightly. “Brother?” Ben said flatly and nudged him. Nothing. Ben took the man's hand in his hand and held it for a long moment. He leaned in and said, “It's OK, Brother. Everything will be all right."

Ben took off his dark coat and laid it on the grass. He removed the pale jacket of the bachelor, rolling him this way and that; he dusted off the back of the pale jacket; he put it on; he buttoned the buttons. Ben exchanged his pants with those of the bachelor, who was suddenly coming to, trying to speak, reaching weakly for Ben with his hands. Ben was wearing the pale pants and trying to get the black pants past the other man's knees. “Shhhh,” soothed Ben. “It's all right. I'm sorry, Brother.” Ben turned his back to the man's face so that he could straddle his chest and pull the black trousers into place; he buttoned them quickly. The man was forming words, as of yet unintelligible. These would be the accusations, thought Ben dispassionately, the pleas for mercy. “You'll be OK, Brother, if you'll just keep still,” he said over his shoulder.

Ben crouched behind the bachelor and propped him up, so that he could thread his arms through the sleeves of the stinking old black jacket. “Listen closely: the tailor did this to you,” Ben whispered and then let the bachelor fall back onto the ground. “Here,” he said, pressing his satchel into the man's hand. “I'm giving you all that I have in the world."

Ben checked the pockets of the pale jacket—a train ticket and an invitation to the last Listening Party of the season. “You're in no shape to attend a Listening Party,” said Ben, unable to conceal his delight. The bachelor opened his eyes and stared. Ben pressed his hand over the man's eyes until he felt them close again. He touched the man's face gently; he smoothed the hair away from the man's feverish forehead, comforting him. “Quiet now. Go back to sleep, Brother."

Ben walked toward the bachelors’ hill, buttoning and unbuttoning his new jacket with pleasure. He could feel his mind settling into the simple hierarchy it had been designed for: he was happy, despite everything. He unbuttoned the jacket again to inspect the lining more closely: orchid-pale silk ghosted with a lavender pattern—bees? Bees, decided Ben, faintly, faintly living within the silk.
Lo, when I wore the pale suit I did proceed . .

He plunged into the rough crowd on the hill, the grass worn, rutted, and muddy. He shoved his way happily ahead. Other bachelors careened into him and slapped his back with painful and powerful camaraderie. Ben felt the tight bubble of feeling that filled his chest for so long burst, and he pushed his way energetically past other men, knocking them almost from their feet. The sun was at the top of the sky, and it was still summer, and the birds were telling high-pitched, mellifluous secrets to one another, and the flowers were flush and full and bending their stems, and he was in the city he loved, in the heart of the park he loved. Anything was possible!

Once beyond the bachelors’ hill, Ben made his way to the train station. He tried to effect a purposeful, jaunty walk—another lucky bachelor making a routine departure for the countryside. He felt he could extend endlessly this new project of being a normal, happy man. But when he thought of Finton, his heart plunged.
Don't think about it
, chided his brain.
How can I not?
he hissed back, thinking of the green velvet chair in Finton's room, which he had grown to love—the flecks of tobacco, the spilled tea, the dark lines where Finton's hands had rested habitually on the outer seam.

Meeks

It wasn't unusual, toward the end of summer, to find civil servants, like dying hornets, whole but done for, lying in the grass at night. I was passing through the alley behind the police station, on my way back to the Captain, when I came across a young man sleeping in the grass. It is not a policeman's job to pass judgment, of course, merely to maintain the order of things and to describe what he sees in an orderly fashion. It struck me right away that there was something both comical and dire about the man's situation. Dire in that he was alone in an alley in the middle of the night, and comical in that he was wearing a funny little suit—
despite
the direness. Or perhaps he had fallen asleep a boy and grown overnight into a man. His jacket reached only to his belly button, but his shirt was of a very fine fabric that glowed in the sepulchral light of the alley.

I poked the man's hand gently with a stick, and then the side of his face, which was soft and young and handsome. I poked it again with the stick and said, Brother?

Nothing.

A satchel lay near the man's head; I searched it. (I'm a policeman.) Odds and ends, mostly. Some squares of canvas, which might have made excellent boot liners had they not been ruined for the purpose by layers of paint. And then, at the bottom of the satchel, I found a gun. I had never held a gun in my life. I lifted it reverently, fearfully out of the satchel, and I saw the gleam of its black fang in the moonlight.

I leaned against the hard wall of the police station and considered my options. I held the gun, which was cold and heavy and beautiful to the touch, and contemplated the young man. Bodies in the park are invariably a nuisance, attracting dogs and thieves and sick adventurers in the dark hours before the garbagemen carry them away. But I considered that this body was both a problem of the generic type and of a rare type (e.g.,
an opportunity
). The dying and the dead can sometimes be found lying quietly by the docks, or in other dark places, not quite underfoot but among us, just beyond the scope of our errands, and there they wait patiently until we come to collect. Perhaps this young man was here for me, cosmically speaking. And in exchange for the misdemeanor of circumventing Bedge's forms, I resolved to deliver this body to him—an innocent victim, a wanted man? In either case, Bedge would have a stake in things.

Even a shallow grave proves challenging if one is not properly equipped. I hid the gun in the ripped lining of my coat, and I broke a slat from a discarded park chair and began to stab away at the earth, scraping back the grass and cutting through the net of roots that held the soil in place. I dug and dug, stopping every now and then to toss aside the rocks I unearthed or to roll into the hole I was digging in order to judge its depth.

When I was satisfied, or at least too tired to go on, I took hold of the man's ankles and dragged him down the alley. It was difficult work. I had to stop once or twice to rest, but eventually, I got the body into the hole; arranged his legs carefully, so that his feet fell into place; and saw that it was a very tight fit, much too narrow for this surprisingly strong young man. Something about our relative positions in this little drama had led me to underestimate the breadth of his shoulders, and I had to stand on one of his shoulders with all my weight in order to force the body down into the grave, and then the man convulsed, and there was terrified screaming (his and mine), and a hand shot up and coiled around my ankle, and I saw that the terrible white eyes were staring up at me, and I tore myself away, falling to the ground, and then scrambled blindly away, until I dared look over my shoulder. I watched the man struggle to roll out of the little grave or to sit up. I felt that my hand was burning with pain—I had sliced it open on the broken slat when I fell.

The young man seemed truly stuck, and once I sensed that he was giving up again, I crawled back to his side and whispered into his ear, You'll be OK, Brother. I'll take care of you, little brother, watch over you until morning, and the young man held his hand feebly over his face as if in terror. I removed his boots and one of his socks, which I bound around my injured hand—My apologies, I said. I seem to be bleeding quite profusely.

I lay beside him all night, talking at length, sometimes touching his face reassuringly, as my mother often did when I was afraid in the park at night, and we lay there together, and to reassure him, I told him to imagine that we were boys, brothers hiding together in the park, waiting, listening for Mother, and when she called out, that would be the end of the game of hiding, and he would go home, and everything would be all right. He stared into the night sky and listened, he sometimes said
God, no, no, no,
presumably in answer to some internal question, he wept, he sweated profusely, he made strange oaths to the heavens, raising more than once the specter of his own mother, etc. He struggled once or twice to wrench himself from the hole, and then finally he slept, just as the dawn came, and the trees turned silver in the gray-green light.

I lay beside my brother, and I listened to the garbagemen making their way through the park. When they reached us, they formed their ominous circle around me, but I was happy and at ease, and I leaned back casually on my elbow and said, Brothers? And, for once, they did not dally but walked away quickly and were gone. I studied the face of the young man beside me—he looked very peaceful.

After a few minutes, I heard the unmistakable sound of policemen running from the station, an occasional crack as they ran heedlessly through the low, dry branches of the trees. Here! I shouted, so that Bedge would know where to find me, and I could see the shapes of men jumping between the trees, and I could hear them shouting breathlessly into their two-way radios as they got close.

Bedge told me to wait outside the police station. He and the rookies carried the man into the station, and the door slammed shut behind them. I paced back and forth in front of the big windows, so that Bedge could see me and be reminded of who had been so instrumental in the delivery of the body to the rightful authorities. I studied the sky with scientific interest, as if I were testing a system of predictions about which I had thus far only theorized in a scientific notebook. I was enjoying myself. I was happy the universe had given me my gun, and I was glad I had brought comfort to one of my brothers when he was hurt and afraid.

I waited and waited, until the sun hung low over the river and the oyster sky was reflected in the big, gray windows of the police station. The station was eerily quiet; the door was shut, sealed like a tomb, and I could see nothing in the windows except for the reflection of early-evening light. I could hear the
tock, tock, tock
of hooves on distant streets. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer, and I climbed the old stone steps, and I pulled open the door, and I entered the station stealthily as a penitent in felt-soled shoes. I saw that Bedge and the other officers were huddled around a table. Bedge turned and saw me and nudged a rookie, who pulled me to the other side of the station before I could see what was on the table.

The rookie and I went to a quiet corner, and he leaned in close to my face.

Please, have a seat, he said. We'll have to file an official report.

I would like to talk to Bedge, I said.

You mean, the Chief of Police?

Yes.

Did he attack you first?

Who, Bedge?

The rookie gave me a long quiet look, and once he had taken the full measure of some esoteric quantity he seemed to think I possessed, he said, No, the victim.

The victim? I looked at Bedge's back, wanted to call out to him.

The victim is a bachelor, protected under the law.

Oh, right. The victim. Yes, I protected him all night.

I see. Do you have negative feelings toward bachelors? I know I sometimes do, he said kindly and smiled.

I like them, I said.