Blameless in Abaddon (30 page)

“And God created
Bubo virginianus
!” cried a busty girl as she hurled the stuffed horned owl at Martin. The predatory bird soared past his face, slashing his cheek with its talon.

“And God created
Castor canadensis?
” yelled a chunky boy, his face ravaged by acne. The mummified beaver came toward Martin, socking him in the stomach like a prizefighter's illegal punch.

“
Lynx rufus!
” shouted a lanky female student with a beehive hairdo. The preserved bobcat took to the air, striking Martin's forehead and raising an instant welt.

“
Rana catesbeiana!
” screamed a cross-eyed male student wearing a T-shirt reading
MY GOD IS NOT DEAD—SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOURS.
A glass jar containing a pickled bullfrog sailed toward Martin, missing him by inches, then hit the far wall and exploded like a land mine. The crisp, macabre odor of formaldehyde filled the classroom.

“Attention, ladies and gentlemen—attention!” shouted Mr. Simmons. “You must answer one more question. Will welts and bruises keep Mr. Candle from The Hague?”

“No!” cried the pupils.

“Will nicks and scratches stop him?”

“No!”

Moving with one mind and a single purpose, the students sought out their dissection kits. A dozen silver scalpels appeared, glittering in the pungent air. Each blade looked singularly cruel, as if recently employed in a surgical operation performed without anesthesia. Martin's muscles stopped working, frozen by incredulity and fear.

Knives flashing, the students rushed toward their visitor.

He glanced across the room. One way out, only one. Gritting his teeth, he tore off his backpack, hobbled forward, and threw himself against the window. By some miracle, the entire structure gave way—glass, rails, sash bars—shattering like a porcelain vase encountering Stuart Torvald's gavel. Martin snapped into a fetal position. God's gravity drew him down, claiming him as it had earlier claimed Corinne and her pickup truck.

Loving and deep, the Waupelani awaited. Martin cannonballed into the water and sank. His buttocks touched the sandy bottom. He arched his spine, exhaled a stream of bubbles, and surfaced just as Mr. Simmons screamed, “You'll never get around the
liberum arbitrium
defense!”

“I do not consent to the universe!” cried Martin, afloat on his back.

“Free will must be absolute!”

“I do not consent!”

He stretched out his arms, thumbed his nose at his former teacher, and let the golden currents bear him away.

T
HE CRAB WAS ON THE PROWL
again, pursuing its maleficent agenda. It jabbed one fighting claw into Martin's left hip and poked another deep into the corresponding femur. He screamed, frightening a shoal of carp so badly it disbanded and swam away in nine different directions.

Buoyed by the Waupelani, he drifted west, past the Glendale Sewage Treatment Plant, through a field of blighted sunflowers, and into the town of Kingsley. It was a poor community by Abaddonian standards, one in which the average household owned neither a dishwasher nor a clothes dryer. On both sides of the creek, damp white laundry hung from fraying ropes. He rose and clambered up the bank, the Waupelani's waters sluicing down his limbs, then drew out his Roxanol and ate three tablets.

As the holy opium suffused his nervous system, filling him with ersatz bliss, he turned and continued on foot, eyes fixed on the citizens' cluttered lots. His behavior, he realized, partook of voyeurism. Studying the Kingsleyites' backyards was not unlike peering into their bedrooms or rifling through their bureau drawers; these randomly scattered belongings—these swaying undergarments, corroded barbecue grills, and fractured plastic wading pools—were not intended for strangers' eyes. Ever the magistrate, he shuddered to behold what the local ordinances called “attractive nuisances,” hazards that could easily lure and harm a passing child. A manifestly unstable tree house. A swing set that had rusted to the point of collapse. An uncovered septic tank. Why couldn't people behave more responsibly?

He cleaved to the Waupelani, footfall following footfall as he moved past the town limits, the miles dissolving in a Roxanolian haze, until eventually he reached a place he didn't want to be—the northeast quadrant of Hillcrest Cemetery. Pocked and corroded, the headstones resembled immense upended sponges. He quickened his pace, gimping steadily across the grounds, refusing to read any names, dates, or epitaphs. The last thing he needed to see just then was the Idea of Corinne Rosewood's Grave. He carried that stone in his heart.

At the top of a knoll a wiry man with leathery skin sat before a tombstone surmounted by a Celtic cross. His wardrobe was at once casual and austere: black sweatshirt, black sweatpants, Pennsylvania Dutch straw hat. Oblivious to Martin's approach, the man reached into a canvas satchel and drew out a steel-wool pad and a glass bottle filled with a clear fluid. He unplugged the bottle and drenched the pad. A sharp, serrated odor filled the air: sulfuric acid, Martin realized—H2S04, as he'd learned to call it in Mr. Barzac's chemistry class. The man pushed the pad against the inscription and rubbed it up and down, burning a cavity in the granite.

Hearing footfalls, the man lifted his gaze and glowered. Martin froze, dazed by the shock of recognition. His throat tightened. The blood drained from his face.

“Dad?”

“No,” said the Idea of Walter Candle.

“Yes. You're my father, and I'm your son.”

As Martin studied the mutilated inscription, a jolt of fear tore through him, palpable as any crab spasm,
MARTIN CANDLE
, the stone read. Next came his birth date,
MARCH
15, 1947. His death date was gone, erased by his father's acid,
A BLAMELESS AND UPRIGHT MAN
, the epitaph asserted.

“No son of mine would be out to defame his Creator,” said Walter Candle.

“At the moment I'm merely out to find our old firehouse. Is it still there?”

“I imagine so. Haven't been to Fox Run in years. Mostly I hang out at Perkinsville First Presbyterian, teaching the youngsters about Jesus.”

“The missing date, my death—what did it read?”

“I'm not supposed to tell you.”

“Please.”

“I
will
say this much: if you don't go back on Odradex”—Walter burned
MARCH
15, 1947 from the stone—“the end will come sooner than if you do.”

The sun reached its zenith, evaporating the Waupelani from Martin's skin and clothes. Unzipping his windbreaker, he reached inside and scratched the itch surrounding his Port-A-Cath valve. “I remember when you used to
rescue
epitaphs, not wreck them.”

Walter gave the pad a fresh dousing of acid. “I save what's worth saving”—he went to work on
A BLAMELESS AND UPRIGHT MAN
—“and I erase what isn't. That's an impressive pair of bazooms you've got there.”

“Estrogen-induced gynecomastia. The side effects of Odradex are even worse.” Thunder boomed across Hillcrest Cemetery. Martin winced. A terminated career, an incinerated house—and now
International 227
had brought another curse upon him, his father's posthumous contempt. “Sounds like we're in for some nasty weather.”

“If I were you, I'd look for shelter.” Walter continued tampering with the epitaph, making it read a lame man. “
YOU
don't want to get caught in a brainstorm.”

“It's good to see you, Dad.” Martin leaned forward, fully intending to hug his father, but the old man suddenly grew as stiff as Mrs. Lot.

“Wish I could say as much—wish I was having the same happy feelings the father did in Luke, chapter fifteen, when his prodigal son came home. And you
have
been prodigal, Martin, wasting your energies on a vain project.”

“Sometimes it's necessary to call God to account. Read Job.”

“Job was pious and faithful.” Walter applied the pad to the
M
in
MARTIN.
“He loved his heavenly Father.”

“‘The Almighty set me up as His target,'” said Martin, quoting his hero over a second thunderclap. “‘His arrows rained upon me from every side. Pitiless, He cut deep into my vitals. He spilt my gall on the ground.' That's God's
antagonist
talking, Dad—an angry man, not a Sunday school teacher.”

“All right, fine.” Walter erased the
A
and the
R.
“But then Job said, “‘I repent in dust and ashes.'”

“Only after he'd gotten his day in court.” A drop of thick, milky liquid struck Martin's nose. “What in the world . . .?”

“Cerebrospinal fluid,” Walter explained, obliterating the last three letters in
CANDLE.
The inscription now read
TIN CAN.
“Any minute now, the storm will be upon us.”

“I wish I
were
a tin can.” Martin gestured toward the vandalized stone. A second drop fell, then another, spattering his brow. “A tin can feels no pain.”

“You're in pain?” asked Walter with a mixture of dry curiosity and genuine concern.

“Most of the time.”

Walter blotted out
TIN
and
CAN
, then replenished his pad and capped the acid bottle. “I'm sorry, Son. Truly sorry.” He removed
A LAME MAN
, turning the stone into a tabula rasa.

A fourth drop fell, hitting Martin's cheek an inch above the wound he'd received from the stuffed horned owl. “The worst pain doesn't come from my tumor.”

“Oh, yes it does. You'd pick parental rejection over prostate cancer any day of the week.”

Martin said nothing, stunned into silence by the truth of his father's words.

More fluid arrived, ten drops, twenty, fifty, and then the storm broke, blowing across the graveyard in great diaphanous sheets.

Walter secured the acid in his satchel and struggled to his feet. “Tell your mother I miss her.” Standing amid the stones, swathed in fluid, satchel in hand, he looked like Death making a house call. He faced west, and suddenly he was on the move, scurrying away through the Korean section. “Tell your sister I love her!”

Lightning flashed, zigzagging across the dome of God's left hemisphere like an immense stitch sewn by Jonathan Sarkos. Martin leaned into the wind. He took off, moving amid the stones like a skier following a slalom course. A second bolt split the sky, illuminating the inscriptions.

 

ABNER WHITTINGTON

DEVOTED FRIEND AND LOVING SON

1959–1988

 

“I'm going to return You the ticket!” he cried, raising a clenched fist toward Heaven. “I do not consent!”

 

SASHA REYNOLDS

1963–1967

THANK YOU FOR BRIGHTENING OUR LIVES
LOVE, MOMMY AND DADDY

 

“Job didn't have the data!” He stumbled past the vine-covered backhoe shed. “I've got the data!”

 

BRANDON APPLEYARD

1992–1999

I MISS YOU SO MUCH
ALL MY LOVE, MOMMY

 

“I've got the whole damn Kroft Museum, God! I've got eleven solid hours of
Havoc
! This time You won't escape!”

 

Jehovic in its anger, Wagnerian in its sweep, the storm raged on and on, augmenting the Waupelani with so much cerebrospinal fluid that it overflowed onto the Abaddonians' lots and began carrying off their possessions. The creek became a mulligan stew of picnic tables, davenports, chaise longues, wheelbarrows, birdbaths, and badminton nets. A molded plastic playhouse floated by, a terrified orange cat marooned on its roof. A garden hose followed, riding the deluge like a Satanic tapeworm.

Seeking safety, Martin climbed onto the lowest branch of a sycamore tree rooted on the border between South Hills and Fox Run. He straddled the wet bark and watched the rising tide of consumer goods. “‘When a sudden flood brings death, He mocks the plight of the innocent'!” he shouted into the rain. “‘O Earth cover not my blood, and let my cry for justice find no rest'!”

And then, abruptly—as if cowed by his plea—the thunder grew silent, the clouds closed up, and the lightning ceased to flash.

He descended.

Carefully, gamely, he moved along the inundated bank, the muddy waters covering his feet, calves, and knees, reaching almost to his decaying thighbones. An aluminum canoe lay caught in the cleft of a willow tree, its bottom holding a jumble of splintery paddles, tattered life jackets, and broken toys, including the Sargassia Saga's Captain Renardo and a torn inflatable sea serpent. His initial impulse was to leave the canoe alone, but then he saw that the Waupelani would soon bear it away, and he decided to act first. Salvage was not theft.

Shortly after boarding his new canoe, he realized he wouldn't have to power the vessel, merely steer it: the waters were transporting him faster than his muscles ever could. Sitting in the stern, using a paddle as a rudder, he alternately focused on keeping the canoe in the center of the stream and on trying to decide whether the Idea of Walter Candle was a person he could ever grow to love.

Waves of grief washed over Martin as he approached the juncture of the Waupelani and the Algonquin, a foamy nexus giving birth to the muddy Schuylkill River. The demonic Algonquin, he mused, spanned by the equally malign Henry Avenue Bridge. His heart pounded. Nausea suffused him. Firming his grip on the paddle, he locked his gaze on the waters ahead.

As the intersection drew near, he turned and, succumbing to temptation, peeked—a lapse he instantly regretted. Fifty yards up the Algonquin, near the southern edge of Abaddon Marsh, Corinne's Ford Ranger leaned against the levee, its cab poking above the waterline, its load bed and rear wheels submerged. A dead Irish setter, stiff with rigor mortis, lay atop the hood.