An Occasional Hell
Page 28
First would come the awful stench, the charnal reek of it. Quickly they would move to the upwind side of the septic tank. DeWalt saw it happening inside his head, he watched the work proceeding. One of the young troopers pushes a long hooked pole into the muck, pushes it almost delicately, almost tenderly probing. In a minute or two, the hooked tip finds something. The trooper looks up at Abbott. Abbott moves closer, although his inclination is to do the opposite. The young trooper swivels and jostles the gaff until the hook catches hold. He struggles with the weight as he pulls against the muck’s thick gravity. The other young man helps. Maybe there is a police photographer there too, snapping pictures. The flash of his camera seems as bright as lightning in the dimness of the trees. Some object breaks the brown surface and is pulled onto trampled earth. It is unidentifiable except by shape, but shape is sufficient; it is more than enough.
The men look away. DeWalt looks out across the river. Nobody wants to see the body like this. It will have to be moved, touched, identified. But all of that can wait.
“See if there’s anything else in there,” Abbott says, meaning the rifle, the murder weapon. He knows now that there is. It will take the men longer to find this object but they are glad to turn back to the sludge tank now, glad to be so engaged.
DeWalt turned away too to another scene, to the evanescing white of the fogbank. It was smaller now by half; it would soon be gone. He wondered if Elizabeth Catanzaro was awake yet; if the crows had awakened her. Her children could come home now. Home to the too-large house. He wondered if she would stay or move, knowing now what she knew about her husband, what she would sooner or later have to believe, what her neighbors, the town, would be so quick to believe.
Move, he answered.
He then had a terrible thought. He understood it all, the desperate passion of it. He understood Alex’s need, a man too aware of his mortality, his limitations. He understood Draper’s choices. How many mornings had Draper crouched behind a tree, watching, hearing the wild lovetalk of a beautiful young woman, a girl more beautiful than any he had ever touched or could ever hope to hold? He listened until the words and liquid sounds took over for his own heartbeat and instructed him to do their will. Or maybe it was Clifford there behind the tree. Maybe he had lived with her inside his head until his head felt it would explode if he did not find relief, and so he came to the inlet that morning with but one intention, and accomplished it.
It was even possible, he supposed, that Jewett had kept her alive for a few days. Desire is seldom sated with an isolated taste. He kept her at the house, did not hide his activities from Aleta. Maybe it was Aleta who had finally killed her. Maybe that was what had put the gray in Aleta’s eyes.
The complications were too myriad to consider now. The coroner would take over from here, and he would toss it into the lawyers’ venue. Let some younger hound take up the scent now, some young nose fresh to the fragrant splash of blood.
As for DeWalt, he stood there by the river and inhaled its morning scent. He felt something opening up inside him. He felt his self-pity, so long hoarded and relied upon, so long tended in darkness, he felt it blossoming in new light. He felt the anger-curled petals begin to unfold. And from this wild bloom arose a fragile scent, the scent of all the world. Tears wanted to come to his eyes but he held against them, he allowed a warm blurring of his vision but would permit no grief evident to an observer, even though there was no one watching, no eyes but his own.
If there is a God—this DeWalt suddenly knew without knowing the source of his knowledge, his certainty—if there is a God I’ve been wrong about Him. He isn’t to blame.
He had caught the scent of God’s fear, perhaps. The fragrance of regret, of apology. God, he knew, is little more than human. All too human but on a grander scale. Everything DeWalt had ever heard about God was a lie. Omniscience, omnipotence, infallibility. It was all a lie, a palliative for a frightened mob. A perfect God would create a perfect world. But an imperfect God, a lonely God, a curious God would do the best he could with what little he had. Only to realize too late that he had overextended himself. That he had tossed too many glass balls into the air, had started too many plates spinning. And now what was he to do, he was not tireless, he could not be everywhere at once. He had not counted on such gravity, this human compulsion to fall.
It was a terrible thought DeWalt had, and yet it comforted him. God was not responsible for humanity. It worked the other way around. It was an extra burden, a seemingly unbearable weight. And yet, strangely, somehow, it gave DeWalt hope.
Soon September, he thought, another academic year, another crop of minds to cultivate, hopes to till. Soon the pumpkins will be ripe; fat orange suns to be tugged from withering vines. Hay will stand baled into monolithic wheels, millstones with no inclination to roll. Applebutter bubbles will pop in churchyard kettles. Cider presses will creak, juice splatter, sticky arms and faces, voices joined in praise to God’s bounty, lord hear our prayer, amen.
Screens to take down and storm windows to put up. Festivals of trees blown bare. The air will be sad with leavesmoke. A tremulous air, quivering between lucidity and a sodden gray. Between afternoon sun and morning frost. Promises made and promises broken. The river will swell with October and thicken with mud. Questions will be asked, answers found, answers lost.
A woman will find strength in her children, in the consuming routine of helping them to grow, to adapt to a lacerating world. She will need no interference from DeWalt but perhaps she will allow it anyway, perhaps he has something valuable yet to give, the emollient of his own need, his balm for hers.…
And suddenly Abbott’s voice interrupted the calm. “Ernie, hey.”
DeWalt turned to see Abbott stepping past the line of trees and onto the lane. Then the trooper paused for a moment, brushed something from his face, a cobweb, a damp strand of dew.
DeWalt walked toward him, back toward the center of life, away from the shore. He tried to remember something Melville had written to Hawthorne, one weary whale-chaser to another. As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. Somehow DeWalt liked the idea that he had done nothing yet, he was now at the start, another chance to begin.
Another winter was coming, it would not last. The seasons are too wise and old to vary; the seasons understand what man can not. Let winter have its turn; without the chill there is no comfort in dreams of days of warmth. Yes, though the wind will sting and numb and blow the reek of death, it must have its season, it must claim its due; no hope and no fear can intervene. When the river is thick and slow with silt is the time to cross to higher banks; when life’s moments are fast with flood, we must think like water. Surely man with all his theories understands himself the very least: and he must seek to justify his pride forever.
Acknowlegments
The author gratefully acknowledges the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio, Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Arts for their generous support during the writing of this work. Individuals who contributed their expertise are too numerous to mention, but include Brenda Fulton, Charles Walton, and Dennis McNair. Special thanks to Martin and Judith Shepard, who keep fighting the good fight.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1993 by Randall Silvis
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2838-7
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