Meeks

by Julia Holmes

The grandfather clock behind her was ticking off thin, quick paces behind its blank face. Ben lifted the pale fabric of his pants away from his legs; his knees were uncomfortably hot. The rain was letting up, sunlight invading the gray comfort of the room. She reached for his cup and carried it to the sideboard. He watched her back as she poured the tea. A bowl of oranges was on the marble tabletop, a loose stack of fresh orange peels beside it; Ben imagined the smell of oranges on her fingertips as she poured tea into his cup. She spoke over her shoulder, as if they knew one another. “It's looking better outside,” she said brightly. Ben could hear the clink of the spoon as she dropped it on the marble tabletop.

  In the late afternoon or early evening, around an outdoor table, you and I will bat away the sweet little bees with our hands, never slackening our conversation, and I will wear my light wool sweater when I rake the yard of autumn leaves. (She brought him his tea and sat down again across from him.) He and she would never become restless or uneasy—the crackling fireplace in wintertime would drain them of uncomfortable appetites and strengthen their aptitude for daily life, and the ice would tighten upon the eaves in their sleep, and they would wake to the sight of bright red berries, alive and capped in snow. The sky will be powder-white or powder-blue or charcoal-gray with rain, and we'll pull the static sweaters over the heads of healthy, happy children who smell of clean and ice-cold air.

  Ben leaned toward her and whispered, “You don't like cookies, and I don't like to hunt."

  "And here we are,” she said conspiratorially and winked.

  "How have we ended up—"

  "Ended up here together?” she offered.

  "Yes,” said Ben, uncertainly. “Together."

  "Marooned together?"

  "Um. I don't know about—"

  "Marooned together, yet we need only to say something different, and to listen to one another. It's from an old poem."

  "Ancestors’ Poem?"

  "No, no. Something I wrote a long time ago."

  "Oh,” said Ben, taking note of his mild confusion, which he knew could be a sign of love. “I love poetry, which of course most bachelors don't. And, I mean, I paint, paint paintings."

  "I love that,” she said. “What do you paint?"

  "Still lifes. Mostly fruits."

  "Huh."

  "I also paint others things,” he added quickly, thinking of Finton's work. “A man on an island, surrounded only by horses. Marooned, in fact."

  She smiled and said, “Exactly."

  He reached for her hand across the shallow table between them. There was a loud rapping on the windowpane. Ben jumped; the young woman jumped. An old man in a sky-blue sweater tapped the glass with the barrel of a shotgun.

  "Shit,” she said. “My father."

  Ben leaned back, frowning.

  "When you come back, find me,” she said.

  "I will."

  "I'll be walking in the orchard behind the house—come find me. We have a lot to talk about."

  The father had disappeared from the window. Ben stood and took his hat from the hearth, where she had hung it carefully to dry upon a hot hook driven into the dark wood of the mantel. The silk lining had become quite hot. He pulled it ruthlessly down onto his head. It had tightened in the heat, and he could feel a headache forming over his eyes almost instantly. The silk band burned his forehead: an excellent simulation of a fever. It would have to do for now.

  He turned again to face her, just as the father stormed into the room. “Young man!” he said.

  The air was cool and thick with fog. “My hat's damp,” complained one of the bachelors, flicking the brim of his hat. “We've drifted far out to sea,” joked another, as he blew into the embers of a low campfire. The father had brought Ben out among the young men hunting and put a rifle in his hands. “Fucking fathers,” said one of the other men sympathetically, lifting his rifle to take aim at the father's back as he walked back toward the house. “That motherfucker brought me out here yesterday,” said the man as he brought his rifle back down, “when he caught me waving at her across the yard."

  "She made me tea,” said Ben gleefully. “Then she gave me cookies."

  The other bachelor leveled his rifle at Ben's head. “Keep talking!"

  "Oh, shut up, you two, why don't you? Just enjoy a little sport in support of the real sport—a bit of shooting and then back up to the house."

  The bachelor lowered his gun but continued to stare at Ben. “Where are you from?"

  "From?” Ben asked innocently.

  "You look familiar to me."

  Ben shrugged, yanked his hat lower. He turned to study the fog. Occasionally it cleared, and he glimpsed acres of grayish-green fields splayed before them, the earth broken into rectangles by rock walls and rows of weeds. Everything else shorn. The fog rolled in again, hiding the countryside. The other men sat in a circle on the damp ground and played cards sullenly, their rifles across their laps. “Damn this fog,” said one of the men and pressed his hand over his eyes. “You all right there, buddy?"

  "Of course I'm all right,” said the man and glared at him with cold eyes. “I'm just listening. Someone should tell a story."

  "Do you know the story of Captain Meeks and the Corporal?” asked a slim bachelor, very young.

  "We have heard it, but it feels good to remember,” said the bachelors in flat unison and fell quiet.

  "This all happened a long time ago, when the Enemy was after the heart of the city. It's easy to forget that our beloved city park was once a battlefield and that the blood of our brothers was shed there. We should be grateful for their sacrifices."

  "We are grateful for them."

  "Captain Meeks was still a young soldier, stationed on the Near Ridge. He was fearless and full of love for the city, a love that was so strong, it sometimes forced him to sit suddenly upon a rock to rest his heart, even in the heat of battle. This is why we say a man may have ‘a Captain's Heart.'? Ben pulled his hat low over his face: the agony of the forced march.

  "One day, the Corporal joined their unit, and it fell upon the Captain to protect and to care for him. The Corporal was not an ordinary man, and neither was the Captain, but we must never forget that they once walked on the earth no differently than you or I."

  "We should strive to be better."

  "The Corporal had arrived wrapped in his tight, pale sheet, his head exposed, his deep, dark eyes endlessly staring. The Captain was in awe of him. The Corporal knew everything, had seen everything, had heard everything, and he understood the Enemy better than the Enemy understood himself. The Corporal was famous even then for making his rounds, carried from camp to camp, and wherever he went, he inspired men, and the Great Fight was redoubled, and the Enemy fell back.

  "The Captain watched over the Corporal as he lay on the ground, still as a corpse and quiet as a saint, and waited. The Corporal was listening to the Enemy's mind. When he felt the Enemy's thoughts turning toward the city, the Corporal let out a piercing cry from the heart of the camp: the birds would explode from the tops of the green trees, and the animals hunting each other innocently in the shadows would freeze, and the men would roll terrified from their rustasacks and stomp out the low fire and aim their rifles into the trees, and they knew the Enemy was almost upon them. They were listening. The Corporal was teaching them to listen and to understand.

  "The men became so attuned to the Corporal that any sound—a sigh, a sudden breath—might cause them to panic, to roll from their rustasacks and to run screaming from an invisible terror, and Captain Meeks, eternally the master of his feelings, would tackle the men and hold them in the mud until they had become calm again. Be quiet, Captain Meeks would say, and they were quiet."

  "Yes, be quiet,” Ben said under his breath.

  The storyteller seemed to emerge from a trance. He surveyed his surroundings, and his eyes fell on Ben, and he said, “I'm sorry? You said something?” The other men turned to study Ben, and he saw the angry bachelor shift his rifle casually in Ben
's direction.

  "The Captain said it, and so it would be so, Brother,” Ben added quickly.

  "Yes, it was so. While his men played cards, the Captain would sit in the dark with the Corporal and hand-feed him his own rations and sleep beside him in the dirt in order to keep the soldiers from pouring great quantities of black-market liquor down the Corporal's throat, as they sometimes did in an effort to get the Corporal to stop listening.

  "One night, the Captain lay beside the Corporal and considered their camp—the gray stubs of felled trees, the pockmarked rocks, dinged by bored soldiers’ gunshots, charred logs, old food tins, ruined boots, and down in the harbor, burned-out ships drifting . . . disorder among men, disorder and fear of what might come. The Corporal was an old, old soldier, and that night, the Captain realized that the Corporal had mastered a new state, enviable and intermediate: he was both destroyed and whole.

  "The Captain wanted to make this world a better place. He wanted to be unafraid, and to listen to what was hard to hear, and to look upon what was hard to see. He tugged at the pale sheet in which the Corporal was bundled, and the Corporal stared back at him with large, silent eyes and seemed to understand. The Captain lowered the sheet gently, inch by inch, until he could see the Corporal's naked body in the moonlight. It was marked with deep, dark scars, and the Captain reached down and touched a black hole of burned flesh in the Corporal's chest, and he was not afraid. Now he understood what the Corporal had endured, what he had lost. The Corporal suddenly lifted one of his bone-thin arms and hooked it around the Captain's neck. The Corporal was strong and his grip was merciless, and he pulled the Captain's face to his lips and said, ‘A man did this to me.’ The Captain listened. The Corporal said, ‘Shall I tell you a story? If I do, you and I can never part.'?

  The men were silent. Ben's eyes filled with tears—he hated how the old tales moved him, in spite of his hatred of them. One of the bachelors jumped up and tackled Ben, pinning him to the ground and hissing into his ear, “Shall I tell you a story? If I do . . ."

  "Show some respect!” said Ben and struggled to his feet and looked wildly at his jacket sleeves, now black with mud. “I'm covered in mud!"

  "No harm meant, Brother."

  "Selfridge!” said the angry bachelor. “Do you know Selfridge?"

  "Selfridge?"

  "Selfridge. That's how I recognize you. Selfridge told me all about you. See you got your suit."

  Ben was trying to calculate what the angry man might know and what it would mean. “Yes,” said Ben, “finally got my suit from the tailor."

  "Kind of a loose fit, isn't it?"

  "Quiet, you two. Listen,” interrupted one of the others.

  Ben held his rifle loosely in one hand and listened carefully. He heard the shouts of men somewhere in the fog. The bachelor beside him raised his gun and scanned the fog. “Don't shoot,” said Ben, “There are people there.” Ben strained to see into the thick, milky air; he could hear voices, people running; the bachelor fired. Pop! Pop! Pop! "Don't shoot!” Objects were falling out of the sky, fluttering to the ground. His first thought was, books? “Got it!” shouted the man at his side. Ben heard more shots, saw the bank of fog light up with bursts of orange light, and then he made out the shape of another bachelor: his pale suit ghostly in the thick fog, he was a floating head, floating hands. He was aiming his rifle at Ben.

  "No! Don't shoot!” He tried to run, but he was frozen to spot, his legs pooling with cold blood. The bachelor held Ben in his sights and fired, slamming Ben to the ground.

  Ben watched the gently sloped hills in the distance: the fog clung to them. An etherizing cotton. Foxes and rabbits and birds felt nothing when they fell, wounded, onto the soft bank of etherizing cotton. Ben felt better, calmer. The hole in his chest pulsed blood. Ben tried to slow his heart, to keep the blood in his veins. Blood was spreading along the fibers of his pale jacket, almost entirely red and wet. There was the tableau of ashen-faced men standing over him, their gray hats pushed back on their heads.

  Other men emerged from the fog; one man had a dead bird by the neck. Ben's face felt hot, his feet dirt cold. A man knelt beside him. “You'll be all right, Brother.” The death words, the man was speaking the death words. Ben tried to shake his head. No, no, no. “Looks like we've had a bit of an accident,” said the hateful bachelor and smiled.

  Ben pressed his cheek against the muddy moss of the ground to cool his head, a place that was becoming unbearable. He could see the house and orchard behind it. The fog rolled forward again, devouring the muddy shoes of the hunters.

  When Ben came to again, he was wrapped in a bedsheet; men were hustling him back to the house. He had been dreaming about the sound of the bell of the knife grinder's cart in the rain, when the knife grinder parked his cart at his mother's house and rang his copper bell. Ben loved that sound. When it rained, the knife grinder would pull his cart under the eaves of the house and work behind a little waterfall as the water overflowed the gutters. His mother would take down her heaviest sewing scissors, and the knife grinder would sharpen the blades, pumping the wheel faster and faster, sending yellow and orange sparks shooting into the yard, and his mother would ring the bell in a funny way to cheer Ben up, since he had no father.

  * * * *

  Meeks

  I was pacing outside the station, as I did most afternoons now, waiting impatiently for Bedge to clear my name and for my life to resume its normal shape, when I saw a figure walking between the fog-washed trees of the park path and approaching the station. He moved nimbly, as the energetic elderly often do, and, without thinking, I hid myself behind the work shed and peeked out in time to see his back: he was wearing a well-tailored black jacket. He pulled open the massive door of the station and went in. The great door swung shut behind him.

  I spent some time reconstituting the scene using the particulars: I had only seen his back, but there was something about the small head that reminded me . . . and there was the black jacket. I didn't want to importune Bedge more than I already had, but at last I was persuaded that I had seen what I had seen, and I climbed the steps to the station and yanked at the door. It wouldn't budge.

  Had they locked me out? Had I become weak beyond belief? I kicked at the door with all my strength, and I called his name: Bedge! Bedge!

  A long time went by. Bedge finally appeared on the station steps, unrolling his sleeves and buttoning the cuffs. Bedge! I said breathlessly, and he was startled.

  What are you doing here, Meeks?

  You've found him? Is he inside now?

  At last, he said, No, Meeks. It was an actor.

  An actor?

  I'm interviewing actors for the Independence Day plays, that's all. He's just an actor.

  My thoughts fell into disarray; I stared; I was failing to react to circumstances so alien to my hopes.

  Bedge sat on the top step. Come have a talk with me, he said.

  I settled beside Bedge on the top step; I considered the blows of distant hammers. At the edge of the park, I could see workmen uncoiling and checking lengths of theatrical rope, dredging the shortest lengths in a trough of boiling tar. The air was cool and coppery with the low clouds of autumnal leaves upon the trees.

  Bedge put his arm around me. Would you like a mint? he asked.

  I said I would, and he handed me a mint. I unwrapped it and inspected the stamped city seal, the iconography of which I'd never been able to decipher, despite a lifetime of study.

  Bedge, I said, what does this look like to you? (I saw a human heart crossed by shafts of wheat.)

  Bedge tightened his grip on my shoulder and said, Meeks, Meeks, Meeks

  In my experience, this kind of wistful repetition of a word tends to signal a change and is rarely insignificant. Bedge reached over and took my hand, the one that I had injured. How is your hand? he asked.

  Much better, I said and flexed it open and closed to show him.

  He held my hand tenderly. I had known him for most of my life.
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  All of these actors are disasters, he confided in me.

  I smiled knowingly. I had seen my share of dissolute actors. There was a temporary silence between us, entirely comfortable; I felt my body relax into his. He patted my wounded hand.

  How would you like a role? A part in one of the plays?

  I sat in stunned silence. A part? I finally managed.

  Yes, said Bedge; he stood abruptly and descended the stairs. He looked up at me.

  Yes! I said. Anything.

  Something in the Lovers Play?

  No, thank you, I said, and blushed, yanking reflexively at my immovable cap.

  Bedge was suddenly very cheerful—it seemed that he, too, was a victim of the mirth of the holiday season.

  The Founders Play, I said. Captain Meeks, I added, emboldened by his good mood.

  I sat for a long time on the steps of the police station, stayed long after Bedge had gone back inside to work. I was in very high spirits, almost uncomfortably so. I wished I had someone to whom I could give my good news—such extreme joy, kept to oneself, can be as burdensome as a terrible secret.

  Postcards littered the ground at my feet. I used the tip of my boot to pull a few into view. Pictures of the fat black cliffs of remote lands, the tufted crowns of foreign trees leaning far out over the dark water in search of sunlight. Pictures of the gouged-out soft green moss of other peoples’ valleys, vistas, fields. Pictures of the frail, wind-torqued houses in which strangers were living, living horribly. The frowning shepherds in the gray fields wherein the unquarried stone was sleeping—we came for it! We made it live. Reed-thin farmers, skeletal cows, doomed goats, but God is just. This city is weaned on tales of terror, tales of the Enemy's galloping horses, their big-headed and mean cats, their devious smiling dogs, their untrustworthy children, their lonely, fat wives, their tall, competent friends, their homicidal surgeons, their unpredictable soldiers . . . yet the Enemy's world looked like a grave: the degradation of a story causes the degradation of the land, of the body; the wrong words can corrode the living world, verily, verily. I leaned down and sifted through the cards at my feet and picked one, an old-fashioned postcard of the Enemy's Territory: the forest still flush and green with unfamiliar trees, the grid of fishing nets smooth upon the water, the full white sails of anachronistic ships mirroring full-bellied beautiful clouds overhead. This postcard was forbidden, of course; it was, in fact, my job as a policeman to prevent it from being in the park in the first place. Yet, I could only think, How beautiful, how beautiful . . .