The Alex Crow (13 page)

The front room of the
cottage was dim and windowless, lit only by a yellowish incandescent lamp that stood behind a tufted chair in the corner.

I half expected to see Alex, our crow, perched on it. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all paneled wood, which made the place seem even darker, and everywhere was the clutter of what looked like medical antiques: a high-backed rolltop desk with a glass case displaying gleaming instruments and leather-bound books; another cabinet as tall as Mrs. Nussbaum with dozens of small square drawers; and a rack of shelves with old cork-stoppered bottles.

It looked like a stage set from a horror movie.

“Oh my! Look at your knees!”

I did what Mrs. Nussbaum said and looked at my knees. They were raw and bloody from being dragged around on a rope all morning.

“It was tug-of-war day,” I said.

“Let's fix you up, Ariel! Come, come!”

And Mrs. Nussbaum waved me through a back doorway and into a beige, fluorescent-lighted, and much more modern examination room. It was as sterile as a boiled thermometer. The floor was linoleum with tan and green tiles, and the walls were smooth and spotless with racks of examination instruments attached by coiled black rubber cords to their power sources. Beside these hung a blood pressure device with black rubber balls dangling from thick Velcro cuffs. In the corner of the room, angling out diagonally, sat a green vinyl examination bed that was covered by a long strip of white paper, and there was some kind of tray table on wheels beside it that had a sheet of blue paper partially covering a scary-looking set of stainless steel doctor's implements.

It was even more terrifying than I could have imagined, made worse by the posters on the walls: one showing a front and a back view of the musculature and internal organs of a human, and two others, labeled “The Anatomy of the Eye” and “The Male Reproductive System.”

Who would hang an enormous chart of the internal structures of the male reproductive system at a summer camp for deranged boys?

I was nearly frozen in fear.

Then Mrs. Nussbaum said, “Take off your shirt, shoes, and socks, and hop up on the examination table, so I can have a look at you.”

What could I do?

“I thought you were a psychologist,” I said.

“Well! Aren't you talkative today? It's so nice to see this breakthrough! I happen to be a medical doctor
and
a psychologist! Everything you could ever need all rolled into one!”

And she makes her own sperm, too, I thought.

Then Mrs. Nussbaum put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Now, off with your shirt, young man! I promise I won't hurt you,
Ahh
-riel!”

And that made me feel even worse.

After taking off my shirt and shoes and socks, I climbed up onto the corner of Mrs. Nussbaum's examination table. I nervously kept my hands folded over my fly and tried not to look at the colorful cutaway diagram of the enormous penis and testicles on the wall to my left. Mrs. Nussbaum sat on a small, black rolling stool and slid herself right up to my knees, so close I could feel her breath tickling my leg hairs. She put her cold hand on top of my bare thigh. I flinched when she touched me.

“You seem scared.”

I didn't answer her.

“These are nasty scrapes, you poor thing.”

Mrs. Nussbaum wheeled away from me and went to a counter with a stainless steel sink. She pulled some blue examination gloves from a paper carton beside the sink and squeaked her hands into them.

My heart sank.

Nothing good ever happens to you when you're all alone in a room with a grown-up who is putting on medical gloves.

She scooted back to my little corner of the paper-topped examination table. Then Mrs. Nussbaum squeezed some slippery goo from a white tube and smeared it with her gloved fingertip onto my scrapes.

It stung so bad tears pooled in my eyes and I held my breath. I also couldn't help thinking about Cobie Petersen's final warning to me—that this was very likely the dreaded girl sperm.

As though she'd read my mind, Mrs. Nussbaum said, “This is antibiotic ointment. So you won't get an infection.”

And I thought, why would she care if I got an infection? She wanted all of us to die, anyway.

Mrs. Nussbaum stood up, snapped the gloves off her hands, and dropped them into a small metal waste can beside the door.

“Now I want to have a look at your eyes,” she said.

“I can see fine.”

“Don't be silly. There's no reason to be frightened.”

This wasn't going well. I wondered how many parts of me Mrs. Nussbaum was going to inspect. I glanced at the penis chart and concentrated on a silent prayer to any deity who might be listening that Mrs. Nussbaum would not go there.

She unhooked one of the metal instruments that was connected to the wall with a corkscrewed black rubber cable and pointed it at my face. I had never seen one of these devices before. There was a soft rubber cup on one side that she pressed over my eye. Then a light came on and Mrs. Nussbaum put her face right up to the other side of the instrument and looked through it.

“I want you to keep your eye open and just look directly into the light.”

I imagined this was the vision people reported seeing when they died and then somehow got brought back to life.

I swallowed. “Okay.”

Mrs. Nussbaum pivoted the thing around as though she were trying to see every tiny spot inside my eyeball. She looked and looked for so long that I thought I would go blind.

“I need to blink,” I said.

“Okay. This one looks good.”

Mrs. Nussbaum turned the light off and pulled the little machine away.

I rubbed my eye. Half the universe looked like a red blob.

Then she said, “Now, let's take a look inside the other one.”

The light came back on; the soft cup pressed down onto my left eye.

“Is something wrong?” I said.

“No. Not at all.”

“I'm wondering what you're looking for. I've never had anyone do this to me before.”

“Oh! Don't be silly!” Mrs. Nussbaum's voice raised an octave or two. “It's just a normal exam. It's for a study I'm doing on boys' vision.”

When Mrs. Nussbaum was finished looking inside my eyes, I sat there, pretty much entirely blind. I nearly jumped off the table when something cold pressed against my chest.

“Ariel! It's only a stethoscope!”

“I can't see.”

Mrs. Nussbaum moved the stethoscope around, then pressed it onto my back and told me to inhale.

“Did you bring your little card for me?”

I slid my hand into my pocket and handed her my index card. I listened to the sound of her unfolding it. My vision was taking its time coming back.

“Hmmm . . . ,” she said.

Here is another thing I know: It is never good news when a doctor says
hmmm
.

“So. Tell me. Your father is Jake Burgess, from Alex Division, isn't he?”

Why would she even waste her time asking?

I nodded.

“It's a small world!” Mrs. Nussbaum said in her dolphin-pitched voice, “I work for Alex Division, too!”

I had no comment.

Then she asked, “What do you mean,
inside a refrigerator
?”

Although she'd encouraged us to do so, I had not changed my answer from the first time I met Mrs. Nussbaum and she'd asked the question if there was any place I'd rather be than here at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys, where it would be.

I began to see shapes. Mrs. Nussbaum looked like an enormous plum with eyes. She leaned closer to me.

“Well, what does this mean, Ariel?”

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Don't you like it here at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys?”

I thought about it. “It's not the worst place I've ever been.”

“And where is the worst place you've ever been?” Mrs. Nussbaum asked.

I did not answer her.

“You know what I find striking about you—about all the Alex boys—you, Max, and Cobie?”

“No.”

“Well, you're not like the
other
boys, are you?”

That was incredibly observant of her, I thought. But the way she called us
the Alex boys
made me wonder if she meant something else.

Mrs. Nussbaum went on, “I mean to say I find you to be particularly compelling, Ariel.”

I frowned.

“Oh! I don't mean that in an inappropriate way, Ariel! I just find you so interesting. I'd really like to hear about your life—you know, what happened to you, and how you ended up here with the Burgesses. That's what I mean.”

“Oh.”

I wasn't going to tell her anything.

“But the thing that strikes me about you three Alex boys is that I can't seem to grasp why it was your parents sent you here to Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys in the first place.”

“Because it was free,” I said.

Mrs. Nussbaum squealed, “Oh! I see! The parents are taking a vacation from their sons!”

I shrugged and gave her a very American teenager “whatever” look.

“Tell me, did you ever meet an English army officer named Major Harrison Knott?”

I had already decided to stop answering her questions, but I sensed she could tell I was lying to her when I said, “No.”

“That's fine, Ariel. That's fine.”

She handed my card back to me.

“Are we finished?”

“Oh, no! Just a couple more things. I need to look into your ears—I hope you washed them out today!—and your mouth, and then there's just one last thing and I'll let you run back to Jupiter!”

So, as promised, Mrs. Nussbaum—Dr. Martha K. Nussbaum, inventor of
girl sperm
—probed and prodded and shined lights all over inside my ears and mouth, and even up my nostrils. It was like she was looking for something she was certain would be there but couldn't find—like she was searching for a set of lost car keys. I'll admit the examination was upsetting. I wondered if there was any way I could suggest to my American father, Jake Burgess, that he and his friends at Alex Division work on the development of
boy eggs
. But I also concluded that
boy eggs
would have two major setbacks: First, they would be able to produce offspring of either gender, and possibly a third, YY human—whatever that would be—and second, that there would be no place to implant
boy eggs
after you made them. Where would you stick a fertilized
boy egg
? Every scenario I imagined was horrifying.

But even more horrifying was that after the mouth, ear, and nostril exams, Mrs. Nussbaum took me into another small room where she stood me next to a metal screen and took X-rays of every part of my body, from my skull to my bare feet.

“It's all in the name of
research
,
Ahh
-riel!” she squealed.

“
You
'
re lost,
”
3-60 said.

The melting man was, in fact, lost. He had also reattached the kitchen timers to his ears because there were too many voices he didn't want to listen to, and they kept telling him what to do.

The kitchen timers looked nice beneath the low overhang of the melting man's plaid stingy-brim hat.

Crystal Lutz also helped the melting man by playing an accordion whenever Joseph Stalin told him things. The melting man did not know where the accordion came from. Crystal Lutz told him she'd stolen it from the thrift store in Lafayette.

“How could you get away with stealing an accordion?” Leonard Fountain—the melting man, whom Crystal Lutz knew as Igor Zelinsky—asked.

The melting man was completely insane. Also, he was melting, and Crystal Lutz was not real at all.

“Lenny, you're about to crash into a Mennonite in a horse buggy,” 3-60 said.

“Keep your eyes on the road, idiot!” Joseph Stalin said.

Crystal Lutz lifted a full-sized piano accordion and began playing an upbeat, polka version of the national anthem of the United States.

Joseph Stalin did not like Crystal Lutz.

“Huh?” the melting man said. He looked up and swerved the U-Haul van back onto the right side of the road.

The Mennonite stuck his middle finger up at Leonard Fountain, and screamed, “Blow me, bitch!”

“You are lost; you nearly killed us all,” 3-60 pointed out.

Leonard Fountain had driven the old U-Haul van through a place called Slemp, which was in Kentucky.

“You are pulling onto the shoulder of the road,” 3-60 said.

“What's wrong?” Crystal Lutz asked.

“Look at the road!” The melting man's pus-crusted eyes stared wide.

Ahead, the highway became a churning lava flow, crackling and burbling, blazing the most brilliant red and orange. Red-eared turtles the size of Volkswagens paddled through the lava, and albino kangaroos stood on opposite banks, playing volleyball across the river of molten rock using live kittens as balls.

“Look!” Crystal Lutz said, “Kangaroos!”

“White ones,” the melting man said.

The melting man's brain was turning into pudding.

“You are looking at the kittens and kangaroos,” 3-60 narrated.

“Keep driving!” Joseph Stalin said.

The melting man didn't know what to do.

And the kitchen timers ticked and ticked.

- - -

I took off the
clown suit I'd been wearing for weeks.

I asked Emel to turn away from me when I changed because I didn't have anything at all underneath it. I don't like undressing in front of women. When I dropped the tattered suit onto the ground at my feet, it was almost as though it had become part of the road, that it disappeared.

Garen handed me a pair of worn jeans. They were old and faded on the knees, but clean, and with the belt he gave me, they fit properly. Then he passed me an undershirt. It was pink. I didn't mind. In my first life, I had no concept of
boy colors
or
girl colors
; this was something I was unaware of until I came to America, where there are specific rules about such things. My favorite thing Garen gave me was an old sweater—it was soft and loose, narrowly striped black, white, and blue, with a wide neck that laced shut with three sets of metal eyeholes.

I felt different, like I'd been emptied out at some point in my past, and now that I'd come through the gate and changed my clothes—for the first time since my fourteenth birthday—I was filled up with something strange and new.

When I was dressed, Emel turned around and gave me an approving and sad look.

“You look like a new person,” she said.

It was a miracle, I thought; the opening line of another story.

I slipped my feet back into my shoes. Something didn't make sense.

“Thank you for the clothes. They are very nice,” I said. “Who did they belong to?”

Garen said, “You told me you would pull the wagon. We have a long way to walk. Let's go now.”

I could tell you the story of where the clothes Garen gave me came from, Max. It was the second terrible story—after the one about Thaddeus and his little dog—that someone had given to me to carry along in my library of all the terrible stories that happened to me.

“He was fourteen,” Garen said.

I was pulling the wagon and it was night. We were all very tired, although the baby did not fuss at all. Garen was looking for a suitable place for us to stop and sleep. On either side of the road were a few starving cherry trees.

“Who was?”

“My brother.”

“Oh.”

Of course I knew he was talking about where the clothes he'd given me came from. I didn't want him to tell me about the boy, even though I knew he would.

“I am fourteen,” I said.

Garen nodded. “You look like him.”

“Oh.”

“He was named Ocean. Did you ever know anyone named Ocean?”

“Never.”

“Our parents were reckless like that, you know? Names like that are not allowed for legal matters and such.”

“I think it's a good name,” I said.

“It was destined to make him difficult.”

“Do you think?”

“Yes.” Garen said, “Two days before the bombing. Ocean used to serve coffee at a stall in the market. He did it for tips, a few coins a day maybe. He was a very stubborn and outspoken boy.”

“You don't need to tell me about him.”

“You asked.”

“That was a few hours ago.”

“I've been thinking about him all this time.”

“It stands to reason,” I said, “he was your brother, after all.”

“After everything, yes. We are still brothers, I suppose.”

Garen continued, “Two days before the bombing, a man who'd come for coffee overheard Ocean saying how could anyone who lived in war believe there was a god; that if God himself sat down there, Ocean would not get coffee for him. The man—he was FDJA, do you know?—was outraged at my brother's words. He grabbed Ocean by the neck and struck him and called him a blasphemer and a polytheist. At least, this is what I was told afterward.”

“He doesn't sound like a polytheist to me,” I said.

Garen shook his head. “It's hard to understand where some people get their ideas. Then the man said
this is what God does to blasphemers
, and he shot Ocean two times in his face. Then he finished his coffee. Everyone in the square saw what happened. They told me. He just sat there with his legs crossed and quietly finished his coffee. There were flecks of my brother's blood on his face, and he smoked a cigarette. Then the man got up and walked away, and left my brother lying there in the street.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What can you do about such things?”

“Feel sick, I suppose.”

“Yes. And then the planes came. And I found myself looking at Thia, our daughter. It's difficult to think about the future when somebody is shooting at you.”

“I never thought about that, but, yes, I think you're right,” I said.

“When someone is shooting at you, you don't think about the future, and you don't care about God,” Garen said.

I couldn't answer him. What could I say? He was right. Ocean was right.

“Do you care about God?” Garen asked. “No. I don't think you do. You're too much like Ocean. I can see that. Who else would have helped open the gate for us?”

“Well, we were all heading the same way.”

- - -

That night we slept in a collapsing mechanic's shop on the side of the road. All the windows were broken, and there were no doors on the building, not even the big one for vehicles to drive through, but being inside a
place
made us all feel safer, I think.

T
HURSDAY
, A
UGUST
12, 1880—
B
ELUN

Mr. Murdoch's vision has not improved. I am afraid his blindness is permanent, poor demented thing that he is.

This morning Mr. Warren and I finally spoke to each other about what happened at the village on Lena River Delta. If this is any manner of a confession, then so be it. He and I both knew that when the opportunity to leave the delta manifested that we were driven to take Katkov's beast with us to the West—to save it—it was something we had to do.

We did not stop Murdoch in his mad rampage, and we are both troubled beyond measure by our unwillingness to intervene.

“He would have killed us, too,” I offered.

To which, Mr. Warren replied, “You know fully well he would not have harmed you, Dr. Merrie.”

And I am afraid Mr. Warren is correct.

M
ONDA
Y
, F
EBRUARY
7, 1881—
L
ONDON

Having settled last week into my old lodgings in Whitechapel with the newspaperman, Mr. Warren, who tells me he is unwilling to ever attempt an ocean crossing again. I can't fault him for the opinion, and we have become such close companions in any event.

Our relationship would be deemed corrupt, but I have an enduring attraction for the American. It is also the case that Warren and I are bound to each other by something that goes beyond mutual fondness.

And to think that my journey from here, to San Francisco, and the subsequent ordeal on the expedition of the ill-fated
Alex Crow
have brought me entirely around the world and home again!

Poor blind Murdoch has been confined to an asylum. He will be better off for it, I should think. Tonight, Mr. Warren and I will display our oddity at Hastings's Penny Gaff.

Iain Hastings's Penny Gaff occupies a former fishmonger's stall on Broad Street. On Monday nights, Hastings offers as many as six performances, each of them packed noisily with nearly two hundred unclean factory or errand boys, and far fewer factory girls who infrequently are daring enough to attend such events. These are shows for working boys of the lowest demeanor.

The factory boys—orphans for the most part—live in rookeries, which are rooms where the boys pay a penny per night to sleep on the floor. Landlords crowd them into such an extent that oftentimes latecomers are forced to squat against a wall or in a doorway. There is one such deplorable building two doors down from us here. The working boys come to the Penny Gaff in throngs on Monday nights.

Iain Hastings's establishment promises the bawdiest and most shocking of entertainments, and it is never an uncommon thing to witness surprised spectators turning their reddened faces away from the performers or covering their modest ears—boys and girls alike. For it is here at Has-tings's Penny Gaff where audiences stand slack-jawed, amid the ancient smells of cod, salmon, and plaice that fog above the damp musk of sweat, ale, and shag tobacco, at once spellbound and repulsed by Hastings's predilection for human oddities: the “Mirror Man,” a small Portuguese fisherman with a complete miniature twin sprouting limp and lifeless from his breastbone; or the unaccountably formed half man–half woman, “Little Christopher,” a dwarf who unashamedly poses and displays the neighboring sets of male and female genitalia, completely naked before the fascinated and appalled spectators.

Naturally, as a man of medicine, I find these human rarities somewhat remarkable. Mr. Warren is consistently fascinated by the spectacle as well.

But Hastings's Gaff is also the place where Mr. Warren and I make a show of our oddity—the creature in ice, Mr. Katkov's Siberian Devil.