Meeks (8 page)

I climbed back up the steep slope of the ridge to survey my position. I found the harbor and could see more clearly the mysterious ship upon which I had pinned all my hopes—burned out and sunk in the rocky shallows.

A branch snapped. I spun around, terrified, and aimed my rifle into the trees, but I soon saw that it was only a wild horse regarding me coldly from between the snowy pines of the ridge. I lowered my gun. As if carved from gray ice, as if made of stone and dusted in snow, a ghost horse with black eyes. The horse and I stared at one another, both stock-still. I was thinking only of myself, of my broken heart. I could have regarded this unlikely creature either as a messenger of good tidings or as my enemy, and I felt sorry for myself, because I had thought of him immediately and deeply as an enemy of mine.

I said, “Fine! You win,” and I threw my camp knife, and it landed near the roots of a pine tree; and I threw my rifle, and it sank into the deep snow. Then I longed for the thin illusion of life that I had always taken to be Life to be displaced by the brutal, enormous, beautiful certainty of something greater, even if I were destroyed in the process. I waited. Nothing happened. The horse sighed, scraped at the snow with his pitch-black hoof.

There was nothing to do now but return to what I had always known and hope that what I had always known had survived the night.

I trudged along the ridge until I reached camp—I whistled a much-loved bit of triumphal music along the way; I displayed my empty hands high overhead lest I be shot by the boy from Crippler's Field or any of the other boys.

"I saw a horse,” I told the commanding officer as I warmed up later beside the low fire crackling in the gray light of the afternoon.

"That's it? That's all you saw?"

"That's it."

"But how did you lose your rifle?"

"I fell,” I said, “down an embankment. I couldn't find it again in the snow."

"You're lucky to be alive. Where's your camp knife?"

I looked searchingly around the camp. “It's here somewhere,” I said and shrugged.

The commanding officer studied me. “Are you all right, Son?"

"Just cold,” I said.

"Buddy, give him your pistol."

Buddy gave me an assessing look—who was I, and why was he always paying for the stupidity of others? He growled at me under his breath and slapped the pistol into my open palm.

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Ben

"Shouldn't you be out on the town, hanging around people your own age, meeting young women?"

Ben sat slumped in the infernally hot front window of the tailor's shop. “In this?” he said, and tugged at the wilted, black lapels of his suit.

"Ben,” warned the tailor.

Ben watched the butcher working in his shop across the street; he had been gazing into an empty display case for what seemed like hours. Maybe if Ben could emanate private pain through a layer of stoic, cool-headed conversation, the tailor's mind would shift sympathetically in his direction. “I'm sorry,” said Ben. “You're right."

"Why don't you try to get a suit from the Brothers of Mercy?"

"Then I might as well not bother! I might as well turn myself over to them now. I'd owe them my life."

"You'd rather owe me."

"One suit won't ruin you."

"Ben, I mean it."

"Why can't you make an exception?"

The tailor was cutting squares of fabric into smaller squares. “Every last one of you thinks of yourself as the special case. It's interesting to me how everyone pleads the special case using such generic terms. You all feel entitled to whatever you want in life, and each of you seems to think that your suffering is beyond compare. And beyond that, you don't think. I've heard it all, Ben. And the days of special dispensations are over. You are not a boy. You are a grown man. I'm sorry things aren't turning out as you had hoped."

"You'd make an exception for your son,” Ben said peevishly.

The tailor gave Ben a long look. “Of course I would, Ben. What father wouldn't? Your mother, a woman of infinite kindness and optimism, had such high hopes for you. She thought you might do well in life. And then you enlisted, of all things. Always hot on the heels of your father,” said the tailor, mocking Ben's tone. “All your mother wanted was for you to find happiness in life, to marry well, to have a family that would fill up the rooms of the old house. I cared for her a great deal, Ben, but I'll tell you this right now. You mention the suit again, and I'll throw you out of this shop for good. Now, I'm tired of watching you sulk. It's a beautiful day—you should be outside. And don't come back until you've cheered up. I hope you're not glowering at young women the way you're glowering at me. Try looking a little happier."

"I have nothing to be happy about! Besides, it's not a beautiful day. It's hot and everyone's miserable."

"Well. You're unlikely to meet anyone with that attitude—you'd be amazed what a positive outlook can accomplish. Consider the difference between that shop"—the tailor nodded toward the butcher—"and this one. As the adage goes, ‘A boy may thrive, while his brother fails.’ In the story, Ben, they've shared every advantage, yet one permits failure to enter his life, while the other doesn't."

"Yes, thank you,” said Ben. “I am aware of the story and what it means."

Ben walked through the park, frowning at women—when he walked, he thought, and when he thought, he frowned; it couldn't be helped. And what if the tailor was wrong, what if forcing a good attitude dulled the blades of thought, softened and corroded the mind so it could prepare itself for less and less?

He passed the police station and paused to study the tattered posters pasted along the south wall: happily married couples walking by the river; children laughing through mouthfuls of cake (disgusting); young men in pale suits, shotguns tipped jauntily over their shoulders; gray workers turning vague and massive cranks in the shadows. The Consequences of Failure! Duly noted: the official exhortation to pursue one's own happiness or be put to the task of generating happiness for others, or worse—to be not in the picture
.
Had he accomplished anything? Ben thought of all the pointless visits to the tailor, the hours spent fending off the Brothers’ efforts to administer mercy in the park, the merciless sarcasms of other bachelors, his own ham-handed attempts at conversation with young women. He had to reach so far back to lay his hands upon a truly happy memory. What if he was becoming, or had become, an unlovable man? What if the toxin of failure was already coursing through his veins, what if he was already stinking of defeat?
Women sense things, know you before you know yourself . . .
The tailor was right—he had to think differently, or else his brain would cloud over permanently, and his poor heart would have to chug the cold, dirty blood until it stopped.

Perhaps these unhappy scenes were the raw material of lasting happiness, as was often the case in stories. In the old stories, future happiness was almost always directly proportionate to the amount of suffering that preceded it. In which case, Ben could expect a beautiful life, an excellent and happy outcome. Happiness being the final product of the machinery that was, for the moment, generating such unhappiness. Unhappy life scenes: where else could they land him except in the arms of another?

Ben yanked a cluster of pink flowers from a park tree; he tucked the blossoms into the buttonholes of his dark jacket and strode up the slope of the bachelors’ hill, his heart beating fast, he felt faint with excitement. There were the hard black lines of the tree branches veining the pale blue sky; the streetlamps sentinel and straight beside the path. The green leaves shuddering in the occasional breeze. A perfect scene, a green globe of healthy activity, something of which he could simply elect to be a part. Ben made it across the bachelors’ hill without incident, and he continued on to the park cafe, digging in his coat pocket for the few coins he had left.

At the cafe counter, a father lifted his young daughter so she could see the pastries on display, and the mother pointed to this one, then that one, calling each by name. The girl looked over at Ben, and then the father looked, too. Ben smiled and stepped back slightly, mindful of the unpleasant smell of his suit. The cafe owner stood by, his musty, eternally damp rag in hand. The girl pointed to a slice of cake on a small white plate.

Ben looked longingly at the sugar-powdered ring cookies and the slices of white cake, trying to choose. He thought of Independence Day: the autumnal chill, the blazing leaves, when he would lie beside his wife beneath the great tree.

The girl and her parents settled at one of the marble-topped tables. The father dug through the sugar bowl with his spoon, plowing beneath the surface, digging for virgin layers; he sugared his tea, then dropped the spoon noisily on the tabletop. He reached over and pinched a bite of cake from his daughter's plate.

The woman behind the counter watched Ben expectantly; the cafe owner shifted the musty rag from one hand to the other. Ben decided: cake. His last coins converted (effortlessly!) into an old, respectable pleasure.

Ben stacked his coins on the top of the glass case. “White cake, please."

The woman glanced at the cafe owner; the cafe owner tightened his grip on the musty rag.

"Been away?"

"Pardon me?"

"Because that,” she said, pointing to the stack of coins, “won't buy you a slice of white cake. Not since olden days."

Ben noticed the postcards leaning against the counter—sentimental photos of boys in short pants running hoops down the street.

Ben's face was hot. “A cookie then."

"Have a mint,” she said, and slid the bland bowl across the counter. Ben took a fistful of the mints—the city mints he hated.

He retreated to a park bench and threw the handful of mints into the grass. He looked down at his suit: the pink flowers in his buttonholes were ridiculous, he was a fool. He plucked the flowers out and threw them down. At this rate, he might as well grieve forever—his sadness cauliflowering into a mind that split into florets under

he slightest pressure.

He watched bachelors walking between the trees hand in hand with young women. He saw Selfridge intercepting women easily on the path. A young woman approached. Selfridge stood in her way. Perhaps they were friends; they clearly knew one another, but maybe he had also
befriended
her? Ben pressed his palms against his eyes and pretended to massage them. He couldn't even get his body into the most basic pale suit. He imagined clinging to the young woman, her warm, clean form, her mind disconcertingly alert to hidden things.
God, please don't leave me here!

On the other side of the bachelors’ hill, families were enjoying the day. Children swung between their parents’ hands. Fathers were decked out in kind and modest sweaters. Men on the other side of the great divide, men who had made it, men who had seen the beacon and plunged, and who had made it. And now they idled justly in their summer sweaters, and there were children who worried about them and women who worried about them and who, behind closed doors, comforted them as if they were boys.

That evening, Ben sat in the green chair in Finton's room, his shirtsleeves rolled past his elbows; his suit jacket hung in the dark of his own room across the hall. He tried to put the hated garment out of his mind. Finton sat at his desk, sketching languidly. Ben sipped tea in the heat and watched Finton work, as had become their routine.

"What are you drawing?” Ben asked to break up a long silence.

"The park,” said Finton and held the drawing so Ben could see it. A crowd transfixed by the closed curtains of the Independence Day stage, while peach-colored flames devoured the city behind them. “The more hidden something is, the holier,” said Finton. He studied Ben's face and added, “You know, this is my mother's house."

"What?"

"This is my mother's house, just as your mother's house was once your mother's house and, I would wager, is still, to you, your mother's house."

"But where is your mother?"

"Well, not here, obviously. They evicted her,” he said, “when I was away. Just like you. They moved her out to the Sheds. I'm sure she's deceased by now."

"But, how are you even here?"

"I moved in slyly—became just like any other bachelor moving into a Bachelor House."

"No one knows?"

"Just you. If only I had married, et cetera, et cetera. A set of potentials with which you are familiar.” Finton sighed. “That was Mother's favorite chair."

Ben scanned the room uncomfortably and reached for his tea, cold and ash-gray.

"What are you going to do?"

"Take it back."

"How?"

"Somehow."

"You'll go to prison, Finton. Or much worse."

"There's nothing worse than this, Ben. That's how they frighten you, they frighten you into believing there's something
even
worse. They let you enjoy the illusion: a bachelor king lazily shopping for his kingdom in the sunshine, master of all he surveys. But he has no subjects, no land, no courtiers, no enemies.
Aha!
The perfect human being."

Meeks

The days were dipping lower and lower into the cauldron. They were hot and long, and I was making nothing out of them. I was wasting the precious life given to me by my mother. The squirrels were taking their tiny, vicious bites of bland acorns; the beetles packed their lantern jaws with sour grass; the people were commiserating in the heat, longing for the copper hammer of autumn to strike their brains with crisp, sharp blows.

I slept very little; I ate almost nothing. The black fields of my brain were growing only one thing: I dreamed the shape of the man in the black jacket everywhere I looked . . . in the shadows under the noonday trees, in the mysterious shapes abroad in the fog, and it seemed to me, increasingly, that the city was an elaborate machine designed only to drain all the pleasure from my life.