JRZDVLZ

by Lee Klein

  Braddock and Vermeule, now almost elderly as well, might just sigh and let the world pass from achievable paradise to realm of living shit. Not too far off, Wharton thought, but how would these old men fight off a plan to pollute pristine lands if rational pathways were reversed, with purity flowing not to the pollution but pollution to the purity? And yet how could even one of the most successful industrialists of his age protect against swine possessed by avarice, self-interest, ignorance, evil? Was it possible to leave the dream of pure water behind? Is it possible to make them see just by closing his eyes?

  He envisioned his head as the pinelands entire, the ponds his eyes, and he closed those eyes and gases burst from the waters and floated to the city and suffocated them all, or at least infected those in power with concern for the city’s current and future state.

  Overhearing talk on the porch with Braddock and Vermeule, these three old men so concerned with pure water seemed unlike others I had met. Larner had been more bedraggled than these men who sat on the porch looking west as though ready for some entertainment, a parade of quail, anything more than the words I heard while hidden by nearby shrubs. The three of them on the porch in their fine clothes, expressions wizened, eternally unimpressed, resigned yet ever-ambitious, optimistic veterans who respected themselves, their histories of accomplishment, and what remained of their outsized will.

  Braddock and Vermeule on either side of Wharton were like stump and vine. Braddock overflowed his seat. He seemed to rumble even when still, finely aware of the imminent threat of a broken chair, the possibility of embarrassment all too present thanks to experience. He tensed his thighs as though channeling weight through legs rather than down through rump. He squatted more so, resting as lightly as possible. Vermeule, with long legs one around the other, seemed lighter than his chair, nimble, as though his entire body might elevate if he raised an eyebrow. Ethereal, half gone, he seemed further along the process of unbecoming, almost angelic, and his voice when he spoke was soft and smooth. Between the two, Wharton was a landlubbering admiral whose presence commanded by virtue of issuing orders for decades, staring down questions and responding with indubitable authority. He wore a beard shaven only beneath the ears so his chin seemed twice as wide as the lipless gash of a mouth hidden by whiskers.

  Braddock and Vermeule glanced at one another and toward Wharton as he spoke, but Wharton settled deeper into his reclining chair, squared shoulders, and eyed his land. He seemed like some savant whose words were spoken long ago by the land and filtered through every impression of a lifetime, and then he smiled at a thought, an assertion, and seemed again as present in mind as he was in body.

  Their stature and speech were removed from the land more than any I had ever seen, as though stewardship required separation, their dress and gestures too precise, their language honed, whereas the rest of humanity I had encountered—even Dade, the old pastor who cursed my mother—had seemed more like shadows than these broad-based surveyors of the world. I stood on the widow’s walk, perched there some mornings before dawn. There I saw the ocean, the lightening sky, and it seemed that these men enjoyed such sights at all times—sitting on the porch they saw to all horizons—and maybe it was this all-seeing sense that interested me. Unlike Larner with a blanket pulled above his nose when we first met, or Titan and Japhet shrieking in their printing shed, these three might brush me away with the back of their hands.

  Ever since my chance to save December Jukes, I had not helped anyone. I once tended to a baby bird fallen from a nest, helped a lost dog find its way home instead of devouring it, but after years with Larner before he lost his faculties completely and came to such an unfortunate end, I spent time alone doing very little, the dress hidden as I explored the territory. New leaves filled out and dried up, year after year, yet nothing like that ever happened to my horns or wings or teeth. I didn’t seem to age in any way, as though I did not exist. But it was during this time that dispersal of my legend truly began.

  I flew to the cave and slipped into the dress. It was like showering after months of trekking through mud. It took some time to settle into the flesh, the feet, the hornless head.

  The men were still there by the time I approached. Wharton’s eyes were closed. He seemed asleep. Vermeule took more interest in his fingernails than Braddock’s speech, which stopped when he saw me cross the bridge over a dam in the Mullica.

  Braddock nudged Wharton. Vermeule untwined his legs.

  “Do you see it?” said Braddock.

  “I confirm a man in a dress—nothing else,” said Vermeule.

  “I see nothing,” said Wharton, “except a sight I’ve never seen.”

  I walked toward the men, without timidity, proud of every step. I stood in front of them, just off the low porch.

  “May I join you?” I said.

  “These are private lands,” said Wharton, “and this is a private conversation.”

  “I have lived here for years and would like to help however I can.”

  “We have a maid and a manservant. But thank you for your interest.”

  “I only appear like this so not to startle you.”

  “How less startling might one appear?” said Vermeule.

  “Obviously disturbed,” whispered Braddock, “and perhaps in need of a meal.”

  “I’m not hungry, thank you.”

  “Then why should we not drive you away?” said Wharton.

  “Because I was born here more than a century and a half ago, because I lived here with the man who lived here before you restored this estate, because I overheard you talk about delivering pure water to the city, and because I think I can help.”

  “Just what we need to overcome the councilmen,” said Braddock, settling into his seat. “A young man in a wedding dress.”

  Wharton at that moment may have remembered his speech before the councilmen, the difficulties sustaining their interest after insulting them, and now this young man stood before him. They had sat for hours, making no progress, circling the same notions, the same complaints. Perhaps this appearance was fortuitous.

  “I am prepared at least to listen,” said Wharton.

  “Do you intend to protect these lands?” I said.

  “We intend to save a city with what runs unseen beneath these lands, leaving them undisturbed except in areas where we channel the waters.”

  “And so then if you are not enemies I can perhaps influence those who challenge you, for I have uncommon powers when not in this dress.”

  “Not of sound mind,” said Braddock.

  “I can show you what I mean.”

  “If you must,” said Wharton. “We are all eyes.”

  I lifted the dress over my head. They stood in protest as though the elasticity of youth were momentarily restored, but I soothed them, saying, “Sit, sit. Let us talk of those who oppose you.”

  “Deception of an extraordinary order,” said Wharton.

  “Quite an impossible sight,” said Vermeule.

  Wharton had heard of course that his land was haunted by the region’s odd spirit, compacted into strange form as though the sky pressed harder and created extra pressure that twisted the trees and expelled this wonder from pockets of hell beneath the pines. The water was one thing, pure, perfect, but then this beast trying to soothe them with civility, despite appearances, was something else altogether.

  The skin of the legs intrigued Wharton the most. It seemed covered in crustaceans, stiff and brittle, less bone than iron, like mechanical poles. I figured he looked at my legs to avoid the rest, my neck like a wildcat’s leading into a horse’s head, with collie snout and long teeth, completed by the thick curling horns of a ram.

  “No sight can compare to this,” he said, “yet if you focus on its eyes and close off your vision to just its voice, this beast, though inconceivably composed of various animals, seems human in essential areas, the mind and most likely the heart.”

  “A most impressive proposal,” said Vermeule, “one to whic
h I respond with astonishment, so intimidating a sight when it opens its wings.”

  “How I would have impressed my ideas upon the councilmen had I similar capabilities,” said Wharton. “No sooner had I begun my speech then I stood before them in all my glorious purity until something like this beast spread its wings in City Hall. I would soar to the ceiling of that domed chamber, shadow all light, the way the bright sun of my plans was blocked by the cold and lifeless moon of their interests. I should have transformed into something like this beast, snatching with extraordinary jaws those who walked out, men I would not hire to oversee a scoop of mud in a mason jar, men who now control the city’s future, how I would have dispatched them from their plight. Instead I reddened with displeasure as quorum was lost. Terrible, terrible.”

  Wharton collapsed in his chair. All those years of industry had whittled his constitution. All his systems were overcome by the sight of a polite beast that watched as Braddock and Vermeule attended to Wharton and called for help.

  I sprang into the air and soared out of sight.

  III

  Summer gave way to mulled scents and eerie light. Battalions of clouds heralded winter. Men raised voices and invoked the presence of a spirit more than a man. Through heavy mist, they emitted calls as though to attract an exotic bird. No rainbow lorikeet or resplendent quetzal, I crossed the river, low, like an ordinary crane, and then shot high and circled like a vulture, surveying the area for snipers, not trusting these men (stump or wisp). Coast seeming clear, I descended like a sleeper awakening from a dream of flight.

  Braddock and Vermeule had not seen me cut across the water or soar above them. Only when I landed in front of them did they realize their calls had succeeded.

  “Oh my,” said Vermeule.

  “Lordie,” said Braddock.

  “Greetings,” I said.

  The men seemed unable to remember why they’d called in the first place. I waited, trying to appear deferential, hoping not to cause any more damage than I already had.

  Vermeule seemed dazed, but Braddock, born in Manhattan, had spent most of his life among intimidating sights and never bowed. Advanced now in career and age, what did he have to lose, other than his life? He stepped toward me and spoke:

  “We seek the help you offered. We believe you may be of service.”

  Vermeule now emerged from whatever enchanted state the sight of me had caused. He added: “Yes, yes, of service, we believe you may help us achieve Wharton’s dream before he passes. Our plan is no more than a notion but perhaps you can advance it?”

  Connection to their friend was stronger than fear for their lives. They believed in Wharton’s dream, shared it, and as they spoke their eyes brightened, their skin tightened, propelled by a noble cause. They were motivated by more than profit: successful execution of this project, they thought, might best secure a spot in heaven.

  Wharton died in the second week of January 1909. Among many accomplishments, his obituary mentioned failed attempts at resolving Philadelphia’s typhoid epidemic with pure water imported from New Jersey, a proposal dispersed in his lifetime only in the form of pamphlets. Front-page announcement of such a plan, longstanding and unfulfilled, incited a minor fury. A plan had always been in place, conceived and advanced by Wharton himself, yet rejected by councilmen who favored costly, malfunction-prone, mechanized endeavors. The obituary also mentioned Wharton’s land and the sanctuary there and his initial wishes to will it all to Philadelphia, a desire ultimately curbed, not trusting the city to use it well.

  Braddock, Vermeule, and I met late one night, days after Wharton’s death. The councilmen intended to devalue and then seize the pinelands. A land grab, Wharton’s forces called it. Around a candle, they related what they knew.

  “You are part of their plans. A smear campaign,” said Braddock. Dark hollows beneath his eyes seemed affixed to his face, the uppermost part of a mask of exhaustion. The rest of him was as over-present in the world as ever. “They’ll terrorize the people into distrust of these lands and force their sale by Wharton’s heirs.”

  “How can I—”

  Vermeule interrupted, a stride ahead: “It was always about philanthropy, profit, increased production, improved health, better workers, and so forth, a flood of goodness for all beginning with the water beneath his lands. He discovered these lands, in a sense. The councilmen never considered their proximity and potential to serve their city. They considered the city something to manipulate to serve their interests. Pure water for the scuttling masses is not part of their portfolio of interests. Typhoid and cholera are consequences of urban life. If immigrants drawn to the outer circles of hell have a problem with the threat of illness, the councilmen believe they can return to where living is easier, or they can work harder, save more, muster resources to improve their state. Thirst for rising from poverty is a prerequisite for those who wish not to contract waterborne illness. Other arguments we discount and should not even pronounce, such as these impoverished citizens are damned, cholera and typhoid and dysentery and all other maladies are God’s gift to the righteous, as if the Lord were doing what He can, what He must do, to eliminate wretched infiltration. As clearly as you hear my voice, I have heard councilmen opine that the Lord is in fact an exterminator. The poor of the city are pests, requiring elimination, and ...”

  Braddock intervened: “My friend elevates his umber with such descriptions. He doesn’t have the highest regard for the poor, nor do I, but we believe their state is mutable and that we can do what we can, as executors of Wharton’s final wishes, keepers of his dream, to deliver pure water, as Wharton liked to say, the essential lubricant of commerce and industry, the most valuable natural resource, without which we all, rich and poor and everyone in-between, are merely bones in bags of skin.”

  “But my use?” I said.

  “To stop the councilmen’s land grab ...” began Vermeule.

  “First, we must define it,” said Braddock, taking over. “In their eyes, Wharton was more than a powerful industrialist. He was akin to Columbus, in that he alighted on a new world. Not just the water beneath it but its surface, all the crops, development potential, rail stations, timber, sites for prisons and military bases, and, perhaps most importantly in some minds, a potential permanent home for the poverty-stricken residents of the city, not to mention a final resting spot for its refuse.”

  I considered the flickering emanations I could see around us by candlelight. I imagined the surrounding darkness produced by mountains of oily, odiferous, obscene trash, blotting out all light and life with it.

  Vermeule noted my fugue and snapped his fingers above the candle. I refocused and the candle seemed to brighten.

  “Wharton still has loyalists. Many owe him everything, many have their ears open, many relay information of potential interest to us.”

  “What C.C. means to say is Wharton’s grease has turned many wheels.”

  “And yet wrenches are now in the gears. More than that: they seek to wipe his legacy into the grave with his body. We now must stop it or at least complicate it.”

  I did not quote Larner’s words that I was just a twinkle in the eye of a founding father, a mercurial hoax, a ridiculous composite lampooning various elements of almanacs and colonies, a frolicsome phantasmagoria intended to haunt the space between competing publications. I didn’t want to call into question their conspiratorial tones, the assuredness of their actions.

  Braddock continued: “Stearns and Daley, they’re total swine, as Wharton liked to say. No others would seek an offensive now. Stearns particularly knows neither graciousness nor tact. Some longstanding insult must linger, some blow to his psyche, eternal hurt that can only be avenged upon the land Wharton once possessed. What matters: the dream of pure water is now reduced to an endangered drip.”

  Per Braddock and Vermeule, this Stearns contradicted every commandment Franklin issued as he strove for moral perfection. Instead of imitating Christ and Socrates, Stearns emulated some undead Te
utonic villain, an aristocrat of arrogance, lord of extreme self-interest. Yet it’s unfair to present him entirely as a devil thanks to obvious elegance and charm. That some seemed like citizens of another world, held to other rules, complicated hope I had for assuming an advanced state of humanity. Men like Stearns and Daley were the exception, not a model for me or anyone else. They twisted reality on its side, turning all heads until they were the only one upright. To protect the pines and achieve Wharton’s reasonable dream, I agreed to set Stearns straight.

  Phenomenal Week

  LYING THROUGH SNOW at night, each fugitive streak evokes an image, events recalled in associative order, fragments of speech, insubstantial meteors in a rush across the void. The flight to Stearns’s estate was ecstatic passage back to the world of men. Snow seemed to fall harder, come faster. I folded my wings. Gravity shot me toward my target like a sentient missile. Unfortunate encounters loomed, the fear of them at least, or if not fear then shaky expectation, the sense that only in flight could I achieve a stable foothold.

  Fight terror with terror. No matter how odious Stearns might be I must restrain myself. No need to eliminate anyone. Keep in mind the inevitable necessity of redemption. Do not believe the plans of Braddock, Vermeule, and Wharton are indubitable. Stearns may be the one who envisions a better world and makes it happen.

  I descended toward geometric hedge work unlike anything seen in nature. The house itself was not immodest. Covered in snow, light from within it emitted warmth, hospitality, a memory of cups of chocolate Larner had made on winter evenings.

  Behind the house on a patio covered in snow someone bundled against the cold. Like my beloved wedding dress once did, she held a small lantern. The snow had tapered to an icy dust. Each bit sparkled as it neared her light.

  I took a position behind a sculpture of a rearing horse and its youthful rider aiming a sword at the heavens. The woman with the lantern was not singing, but there was a melody to her voice, a lightness and rhythm like the snowfall. She stood before a sculpture of snow nearly as tall as she was. It must have taken a day’s work, an obsessive creation. I held my breath to better hear what she said. Her speech was an unintelligible sing-song muttering, not intended for anyone’s ears. Snatches of phrases seemed like a story more than audible rumination.