The Best People in the World (36 page)

A-okay, I reported. He checked for himself. Was I sure? Positive. This didn't reassure him at all; if anything it made him more uncomfortable.
One bad tooth is all
, I wrote. What if it was a good tooth and he'd just refused to leave it alone? I reasoned that if it really was perfectly healthy, then he'd never have been able to get it out. It took a long time, he explained. I opened my hands. What's a long time? The thing had kept him from sleeping. Not knowing had driven him crazy. Not knowing? Whether it was loose or not. He'd had to tap it before it finally came out. Tap it? Right. With your finger? At first. Then? With a wooden spoon. Was that it? No. No? With a screwdriver; with a screwdriver and a hammer. I was adamant; he had to stop this. What should he do? Maybe he could put it back? He was afraid he would swallow it. I told him he had to stop fucking with his teeth. Did it, he wanted to know, mar his smile? He showed me every smile he knew. His smile was intact, I promised. The ringing, he told me, was part of the problem. Does the tooth hole hurt? I asked. Terribly. Maybe it would keep his mind off his ears. It possibly might.

Where I had touched the lamp shade, I now had a little white blister.

“And the other thing,” said Shiloh, “it refuses to stop bleeding.”

9

Idyll

Sometime the previous summer, one of those days where the warm air sat close to the earth and the only way to enjoy it was in a car, Alice and I found ourselves in the middle of a broad valley. It must have been a remnant of a prehistoric ocean or a once great river. We'd reached a place behind all the old familiar mountains where shallow ponds were strung together and didn't flow into anything, just gathered the rain and gave it back to the clouds. And the ponds were so shallow, they could be tens of acres and yet we saw people standing in the middle who weren't past their waists. What disappointed us was that there were people everywhere. Everywhere we saw temporary communities, teepees and yurts and circus tents. Tire tracks knifed into the soggy ground where someone had left the road and headed for some farther corner of the remote. Those people seemed so irresponsible to us, no home, no rooms. (By now they surely have retreated—Baja, the Keys, the coast of Texas, farther south.) We decided they weren't like us. They were nomads, while we were pioneers. They were unattached, where we were rooted. They were careless.

We came across a car accident—it was hardly that, but what else to call it? It looked as though the driver had wandered onto the soft shoulder. The black earth swallowed the van's wheel and now the vehicle was on its side. We were the first people on the scene. The place smelled fantastic because the van had crushed a lot of spearmint before coming to a rest. The stuff grew everywhere alongside the road. Two guys with bushy mustaches and high, dull hair stood imagining that the van was back upright, but without any idea of how they might achieve this. Sitting on the road was a girl with cascading ringlets of red hair and strings of blood coming out of her mouth. She didn't seem to be in any pain. The blood was like cobwebs.

Maybe we expected the guys to come running to us. They paid us no mind, but remained on the far side of the van supposing how it might get back on the road. Alice asked the girl if she was okay. She'd bitten off the tiniest piece of her tongue, but this wasn't a pressing
issue for her. When enough blood welled up in her mouth, she sort of blew it out between her teeth. One of the guys came around. “She's fine,” he said. Was anyone else hurt? (Something about the lack of symmetry—two guys, one girl—I anticipated a body pinned beneath the van.) They were all fine; she was just bleeding a little. Could we take them somewhere? Call them a tow truck? “People are coming,” the guy said. The girl got up and wandered out through the spearmint. We could see for miles in every direction. Whoever they were waiting for was still a long way off. After getting back in the car, we waited to see that they didn't change their minds.

A few hours later, returning home, we came back through the valley. The van was still overturned but the people were gone. As we drove past I saw two dark trails where the girl had dragged her bloody hands over the furry leaves and purple flowers of the spearmint.

10

Grow!

Alice unbuttoned her pants so Shiloh could put his ear down at the base of her belly. But he's stone-deaf, I argued. He can feel vibrations, said Alice. Yes, I said, and he has a hypersensitive sense of smell.

Shiloh made sure to listen each and every day. He was keeping a vigil, not over Alice, but over the baby. He'd palpate her and nod his head, as though being sworn to a fantastic secret.

“How big would it be right now?” Shiloh wanted to know.

Alice took his pen and drew the letter
0
on her belly, as it might appear on a Bible page.

 

She couldn't get enough heat. I moved the sofa forward until it sat just off the hearth. She liked to lie with her back to the fire and let the flames bake her. When the underwires in her bras started to cut into her skin, she had Shiloh remove them. Lying on her side, she was forced to clutch her boobs.

Her face became buttery. Where before she had cheekbones, now there were cheeks.

She sat up and adjusted the pillow that she used to keep her feet above her womb—to give the baby the heavy blood.

I asked her if she would let her ex know.

She couldn't tell him. He would be too happy to let the news kill him. The guy had wound up in the hospital for loving her. I felt ashamed; he had all that tragedy to recommend him.

A few inches beneath her bellybutton, Alice drew an
0
the size of a honeybee. Could it be that big? That big. How big would it be when the snow melted? A fist.

O
ne thing led to another and by the time they reached New York, it was already the second week in January. They scheduled a meeting for early the next morning. That night the two men stayed at a monastery in Brooklyn Heights. The brothers operated a soup kitchen, oversaw after-school programs, and hosted a free health clinic. They patrolled the streets in their robes and sneakers. Tough-looking youths lined up to high-five the monks. The younger man was quite impressed with the brothers. To him they seemed like God's firemen, the way they were always rushing out to attend to some emergency.

The two men took their dinner alone.

“It is very tangible here,” said the older man.

“I thought the same thing,” said the younger man. “It would be a rewarding place to work.”

They sat at a square table that had four mismatched chairs. The floor was painted cement.

“I expect you might miss the travel,” said the older man.

“Are we talking about me?”

“It would be a mistake, I think.”

“Do you imagine I would be reluctant to work so hard?” asked the younger man.

“It is not that. I think the allure of the tangible would evaporate. Faith is a tool to allow human beings to contemplate the divine. It is wasted if it is only used to consider other human beings.”

The younger man turned his colleague's words around in his head. “The implication, clearly, is that your choice is somehow more right than theirs.”

“And what is the significance of that?”

The younger man did not know.

 

In the morning they took a train across the river. When they arrived at the rectory, a police officer stood out front drinking coffee from a paper cup. He watched the two men let themselves in.

They found the archbishop sitting outside his office reading a newspaper. He wore a coat over his cassock and rubber overshoes.

“It's too dim to read in my office,” the archbishop explained. He folded the paper and stood up. Then he escorted them in. There were two leather club chairs for the men to sit in. The archbishop took his place behind a wide, cluttered desk.

Indeed it was a dim space. Walnut paneling absorbed any light that squeezed through the three narrow windows. A rather large painting hung behind the archbishop. In the painting's foreground Dutch colonists shook hands with painted savages. The background was idealized nature, deer peeking through the bushes, birds roosting on every branch. Seeing the younger man notice the painting, the archbishop swiveled in his chair. “My father. He called it
Faithful Commerce
.”

“Of course,” said the older man.

“A very brash man was my father. See, he signed his name in red.”

They considered the painting some more, longer, indeed, than the younger man thought it warranted.

The archbishop began. “For the past six months, I have heard some disturbing rumors. I had intended to get to the bottom of the
matter myself, but I've run into an impasse. This is why I asked to see you. We are all aware of that narrow bridge between the known world and the world of faith. In my sermons I have often relied on a crude analogy, that of walking on a rope bridge where each step draws into question the integrity of the surface upon which one stands. It seems I have reached a point where I am no longer certain whether I stand on the side of faith or heresy.”

“I doubt you are a heretic,” said the older man. “Heretics usually have conviction on their side and this is not something you present with.”

The archbishop folded his hands across his chest. “It is my understanding that in order to be considered for canonization the blessed must have led an exemplary Christian life. They must, in short, have, in their person and deeds, represented that which we consider most holy. In addition, they must either have died for their faith, by their faith, or with their faith. Is this all true?”

The younger man responded. “These are some of the conditions, yes.”

“I am losing control of my flock,” said the archbishop.

The older man leaned forward in his chair. It seemed, at first, that he had something to say, but then, reaching out his right hand, he picked something off the carpet. He held it out. It was a sewing needle.

The archbishop set the needle on the leather blotter in the center of his desk.

“And how is it that you have come to lose them?” the younger man asked.

“They think God's ear is deaf to them, and so they have turned instead to other means. They direct their prayers to a dead boy.”

“A dead boy,” repeated the older man.

“Somewhere in that newly minted blight outside these doors, they insist, is secreted away a corpse, the body of a boy,” said the archbishop. “They are reluctant to speak of him with me. I hear whisperings at confession. They are concerned that the Church will try to cover this up. He was homosexual, this boy. A drug user, most likely.
It's as though they've constructed God in their image instead of the other way around. Tell me, can one who lived a life blind to God's will find himself privileged to His graces?”

“So your flock has faith, but no virtue,” said the older man.

“There is more false virtue than virtue, more false faith than faith. Yet this dead boy galvanizes them.”

“When did you first hear about this boy?” asked the younger man.

The archbishop put his hand to his head. “Last spring I heard a story about a young woman who overdosed. Her companions just watched her fade away. One of them knew of the dead boy. I guess in their state it made some sense, the symmetry of it. They had a dead boy stowed away and now this dead girl on the filthy floor. They brought the boy out and laid him by her side. It was, I understand, meant as some type of macabre joke. Yet when they set the boy down, the girl began to breathe.”

“These witnesses had been high, of course,” said the younger man.

The older man turned toward his colleague and gave him a puzzled look.

“Influenced by the intoxicants.”

“Heroin,” said the archbishop.

“Was that the only miracle they have spoken of?” asked the older man.

“This summer there was a fire in a tenement house just a few blocks from here. Somehow three adults clawed their way through a brick wall in order to escape. I saw the hole they made. The brick came apart like gingerbread, but just in that one spot. It certainly saved their lives. Of course they claimed the dead boy gave them the power to get out. Now they pray to him when buying scratch-off tickets at the store. Every five-dollar winner is a testament to his powers.”

“And what of the losing tickets?” asked the younger man.

The older man reached across to clap his colleague on the arm. “Even true believers don't expect that every wish can be fulfilled. He's not a genie in a lamp after all.”

“Yes,” said the archbishop, “but they covet him in the same way.”

“I would like to see this boy,” said the younger man.

“As would I,” said the archbishop. “That's the problem. Apparently no one has seen him in months. We've had two break-ins at the church. In the first incident somebody got into the basement by taking a door off its hinges. They poked through a few closets and made off with a case of the wine we use for the sacrament. We thought the wine might have been the aim. A week later one of the priests intercepted a man who was in the process of breaking into this rectory. We learned that a rumor had circulated that we were in possession of the boy. I addressed the congregation directly, but rather than mollify them, it only heightened their anxiety. They've lost their center, so to speak.”

“Hence the police officer we passed out front,” said the older man.

“Yes. A courtesy from the mayor. But let me continue. About three months ago I was hearing confessions when a man approached me to inquire if I might be interested in the boy.”

“How do you mean ‘interested'?” asked the younger man.

The archbishop lifted the sewing needle from his blotter and placed it inside his desk drawer. “This individual wanted to know if the Church would want to take possession of the dead boy.”

“And what did you say?” asked the older man.

“I never forgot that we were talking about a human being. At the least he deserved to be accorded the right of burial. I told this man that we'd accept the body. I planned to turn it over to the authorities and let them proceed. Maybe they could determine if there had been foul play. However, I had misunderstood this person's intentions. He wasn't offering to give me the boy. What he proposed was that the Church buy the body.”

The younger man leaned forward. “Did he have a figure in mind?”

“He asked for fifty thousand dollars.”

The two men were silent for a moment.

“And this was when you contacted us?” asked the older man.

“I spoke with the cardinal, who spoke with Rome.”

“Is there some way that you can put us in touch with this man?”

“I have no means of contacting him. He shows up out of the blue. Since our initial conversation he has been by twice, the last time
about a week ago. He seemed quite disturbed. He believes he's in some danger. I don't doubt he's correct. There are people who would like very much to find him. I again offered to take the boy. He said he was getting frustrated with the Church. His exact words were: ‘I can't believe the fucking Roman Catholic Church, after chasing charlatans and frauds for two thousand years, can't get their shit together to conduct a simple transaction when they have a chance to get their hands on the genuine article.' Then he told me the price had gone up to a hundred thousand.” The archbishop trained his face into a tragic little smile.

The older man reached up and stroked his thinning hair. “When you see him next, please tell him he will have his ransom.”

“That is your solution?” the archbishop asked, shaking his head. “How ironic. I had been concerned about the congregation's faith and yet you will have me tithe them to satisfy an immoral character.”

“It would be immoral of us,” said the older man, “to leave a person in bondage when we have the power to free him.”

“Bondage,” said the archbishop. “I suppose. I am reluctant to consider the corpse a slave.”

The younger man pressed his hands on the arms of his chair. “Would it be possible for my colleague and I to have a few words alone?”

“Of course,” the archbishop said, standing up. “I will wait outside, just let me know if you need anything.”

The two men stood while the archbishop let himself out.

The older man walked over to get a better look at the painting hanging behind the desk. “You want to preach caution, perhaps.”

“It is not this.”

The older man turned around. “If you did, I would not think less of you.” He set his hands on the archbishop's chair. The leather sighed. He grimaced.

“When you brought up the idea of bondage, you weren't talking about the dead boy, but about the ransomer.”

“And you have a question about that.”

The younger man sat back down and put his head in his hands.
“My question touches only the periphery of the matters we've discussed this morning.”

The older man looked down. There, beneath the archbishop's desk, two rubber overshoes waited side by side. “You want to know the process by which the living are plighted to the dead.”

The younger man extended a finger toward the ceiling of the room. “I think you are mistaken when you discuss the merits of the tangible. There is no great difficulty in pledging oneself to the dead or to God. Rather, it is where the living give themselves to the living that the world turns.”

“What do you see as our purpose?” asked the older man.

“We seem to serve at the whim of frauds and fakers. We hope to chart God's mystery and instead we find ourselves exploring human passions.”

“Are you making a renunciation?”

“I have nothing to renounce,” said the younger man. “I have never seen a miracle. Nor do I expect I ever will.”

“What about the boy who spoke Latin?”

“You remember his physician? He had compassion for the child's family. He could not save their son; perhaps he discovered a way to give them a measure of retribution.”

“And your priest in China?”

“Maybe he had a friend in the army who concealed him. Or, more likely, one of his former parishioners coveted his bones.”

“Whom do miracles serve?” asked the older man. “Who is their beneficiary?”

“You wish to lead me in a circle,” said the younger man.

“Is it the prospect of a dead boy that upsets you?” asked the older man.

“I don't see how I can answer that question.”

The older man raised his eyebrows. “Why is that your answer?”

“Because should the dead boy prove a dead boy, what joy is there? And should the dead boy prove a saint, he would not cease being a dead boy.”

There was a light knock on the door. The older man stepped
from behind the desk. He brushed his trousers with his hands. The younger man opened the door. The archbishop took a step inside his office. In his hands he held a crumpled brown paper bag.

“There is one other thing,” said the archbishop. “When the gentleman came to see me last, he gave me something. I don't know if it will be of interest to you.”

The older man unrolled the neck of the bag.

“And did he explain the point of this?” asked the older man.

“He said it belonged to the boy.”

The older man reached in and pulled the object out. It was a calf-length white athletic sock.

1

Alice Ate Rabbit

Alice ate rabbit. Alice ate butter beans. Shiloh and I made a thin soup from the bones. Sniffing his hands Shiloh recalled the smelt that he had returned for the sake of the budget. We craved sugar and beets and rhubarb pie. And we had forty-one rolls of bathroom tissue.