Alligators of Abraham

by Robert Kloss

  THE ALLIGATORS OF ABRAHAM

  Robert Kloss

  Copyright 2012. Cover and interior art by Matt Kish. Prepress & typesetting by David McNamara.

  eISBN 978-1-938604-87-4

  Part of the Dzanc rEprint Series

  Mud Luscious Press

  For further information: info@mudlusciouspress.com

  “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.”

  Job 14:1

  BOOK I

  Now a voice spoke low from the face of the deep.

  We begin in the dust of the valleys, in the long days and the sounds of your generations, digging and constructing and fighting, the hollow slapping of their fists against the meat of the men they beat into the dust. The stray dogs that lapped their spilled blood, while flies hummed and flickered along their mangy skins, their bulged ribs.

  In the sullen noise of your generations in the dust, in the gathering of canvas tents and smoldering fires, in the din of work crews, in the young grasses bent over for the winds, in the stiff dead grasses upright as if scorched, in offices of canvas and tarpaulin, in the dull heat, in the straining of grasshoppers, lost in the yellow gauze of the sun.

  Your generations who constructed until the reaches of the land were strung with wires, and it was said, “Soon a man may die on one shore and those on the other shore shall know instantly.” The sounds of grunting and heaving, the flicker of naked skin molting in the sun.

  Your generations who will gather along these landscapes of dust.

  And we begin with your fathers’ generations, hunched near their fires and their bubbling tinned beans and tinned pork, their forkfuls of jellied pig, the brown drip of their whiskered faces, and later their snoring from inside tents, the shadows of trees against the canvas walls, and always the awareness of the figures of natives slow creeping through the grasses, although their shadows seemed the shadows of owls and lost buffalo wandering.

  And we begin in the miles of their construction, of digging with peeled backs and brows, with spades and pickaxes and shovels, and the lines of wagons obscured for the dust they inspired, the clouds that seemed a warning or a foreboding and arrived with tins of peaches, of beef and ham, of beans and beets, with shovels and beams and guns and tarpaulin and miles of wire, spooled.

  And those men were called brutes when they worked with vigor, and they were called dogs when they lagged. Those men lashed until their backs striped with blood while the others stood by with sullen eyes. “Let this be a lesson to you men,” it was said by officers who spat into the blood pools, “I will not indulge your idleness.” Those lines of bloody sneering men, those men of your generations, those men of your father’s generations, and those generations long prior, and those generations ever after.

  And when the distant smoke spiralled and flickered in the waves of heat, there was a man who told your father, “The bastards are smoking us out” and by this he meant the natives would burn them to death. Your father who obscured the sun with his hand and saw nothing but smoke, and yet he felt wise in those moments, saying, “New life is born from the fires of the plain.”

  And in the dust of once mountains and the ashes of prairies fled the dusty figures of your fathers, their marches along those smoldered roads and valleys, your fathers tanned by the dust as if men of leather, their eyes alone, winking and alive.

  We begin in Western lands of genocide, the long off moans of rifle fire and the howling of natives, their shadows in the firelight and against the skin of tents, the shapes of bison and does and antelope.

  And we begin with your brother, Walter, the boy you never knew, the boy adored by your father’s soldiers. This serious boy who listened while your father issued orders, while he and his officers sketched battle plans. This boy whose eyes misted in the gray clots of their cigar fog. This boy of mirth. When they camped along the grasses he chased butterflies, and when they camped near swamps he held gulping frogs in his palms. This boy every man carried upon his shoulders and adopted as his own son.

  And we begin in the days that typhus swarmed the camps, those thousand bodies your father left for the wild dogs and the vultures, in the prairies, in the forests, in the swamps, the purification carrying in a fog. Of those thousand dead, none truly mattered, for such men were meant to follow one into the next, until Walter fell ill, and soon the boy was all but dead, wrung dry from fever, from vomiting, wailing through the night for the searing, folded until he seemed to twist and fracture, and your father knelt before this gasping boy, who said, “Will I die?” and your father replied, “No, no. Never.”

  Soon all sound became the sound of echoes, of wild dogs baying, of gulls shrieking and swirling, and those sounds were lost within the sounds of alligators, hissing and thrashing and devouring the meat of dead soldiers.

  And the echo of your father’s sobs, and the sobs of his soldiers, your father who crated Walter and sent him home in straw, on the dead grasses, on prairie clover and yellow primroses, and when the crate was pried open his figure lay bulged and blackened, the paste of blood on his lips.

  And the sobs of your father’s first wife as she reached for your brother’s body, pulling at him even as railroad agents held her back. And in the dim glow of an oil lamp, your father read of her leap and her demise upon the rocks.

  *

  “O my soul, my lad, my sweet boy, I have missed you so.”

  And when summoned home, your father travelled by wagon emptied of soldier’s rations, and there he slept on rolled out blankets until the smoke of his murder no longer clotted the skies, until the moon glowed against the canvas roof and the only sounds were the rattling of the wheels against the rocks and the dust and the moaning of wild dogs in the distance.

  And your father journeyed lands fogged by the steam of rails, lands of dead grasses and vast forests, lands of grazing bison and bleached skulls.

  And your father slept curled in a compartment, covered by his woolen jacket, and he murmured in his dreams for the screams of men and the smoke of cooking flesh and gunfire.

  And your father sat with millionaires who said, “A smart young fellow like you should leave all this murder to the brutes” and they said, “You should consider politics. Yes, politics!” and they said, “We’d stake you” and they said, “We’d make sure you won” and they said, “You’d be wealthy in no time.” He smiled at these men from his whisky numbness, even as he insisted he had no interest in politics or vast wealth: “I was raised in a particular way and with particular values” and by this your father meant he was raised by the flat of his father’s hand.

  And now your father wandered the capital city, a city of dirt roads and cobbled roads, of horses wandering and led by their masters, of streetcars sparking along, a city of carriages, a city of a thousand languages, for now men came to this city from along all lands and from across all oceans, and your father wandered lost and into the crowds, with a belief that all men watched him with eyes pressing and judging, and he knew their sneers, and he sensed their ridicule, and he understood that they would steal his wallet as soon as call him a friend, and he listened to the frenzy within his mind, thinking, “I would send them to hell, if I could.”

  And your father lost himself in the jostling and the clattering and the ceaseless neighing of horses and the screeching and thundering of streetcars, and the sparks they cascaded onto cobbled streets.

  And there were days within this region when your father intended to establish offices of law, although he knew only of the law of strength and fire, and there were days he intended to sell dry goods, and there were days he longed to take up the sword again, although he had burned the last of the distant landscapes. And there were days he drank himself into near ruin, and th
ere were days he sought the advice of nefarious individuals who swindled him as often as he throttled them, and there were days where he did little but play poker and drink whiskey and there were days he sought the comforts of dusky women, and when they came to him with their diseases and their impregnations he sneered and said, “exterminate it.”

  And when no other recourse seemed possible, your father returned to the area of his birth. A land of leather factories where open ground became a drying yard for the skins of sheep and swine and cattle, the soil sodden from the runoff, the skies clouded with flies. And here the rivers were choked by steamships and the skiffs of fur traders. A land of cobbled streets and brick butcher shops and haberdashers and grocers and barbers, and these buildings were painted with advertisements for lye soap and calf-skin boots, visible from hillsides miles distant.

  And although he was so long away, women curtseyed when they recognized your father, and they said, “Good morning, General,” while men with heavy whiskers and beaver fur hats shook his hand and offered him cigars.

  And your father traversed the abandoned corridors of his house, and he laid at the foot of your brother’s bed and wept. And there he prayed and sobbed while all the rooms and all the toys of this house seemed a mausoleum, and there before him rose the terrible apparitions of the dead. And soon your father rented a room across town, for no more would he wander this house.

  And when the endless hours found him before a pistol and ball and for all the blasted world he could not figure why he should abstain from firing upon himself, your father returned to the fur farms of his boyhood. And here he found something like peace within those long ago days of slaughter, where he once crowded onto killing floors with men twice his age, their mouths fat with tobacco, the sickly brown juice. As a boy with a bolt gun in his hand, the stunned masses and the dead heaps of animals gathering flies, the splatter of blood upon his leather apron, his gloves, his smooth chin. And now he stood beneath exposed pipes, aside skins drying and in the watery slop of the floors, while the men he oversaw hefted the hides of a thousand, thousand animals with the gentle prongs of pitchforks.

  And although she was a mere girl compared to him, your father fell in love with the owner’s daughter, her whale bone figure and her silk dresses, and soon she adored him in kind, and it was she who said unto your father, “So, you’re the General?” and when he tipped his hat she said, “I did not expect to find you so youthful” although his side-whiskers had withered to gray, and the flesh of his under eyes had swelled to darkness. And when they were betrothed there were none who did not esteem this match. And in the shadow of their wedding she said to him of his apartment, “You cannot possibly expect me to stay in this hovel?” and later she said, “You certainly did not ask her to live within such confines,” and so your father leveled his once-house with axes and explosives, and soon, the twenty-four hour labor of his hired men, the coarse knots of their muscles, the peeling of skin under the sun, the coloring of mud and the soil. Your father stood with his crew while your mother watched from her carriage, while she called to these men, “I just hope it doesn’t collapse” or later, of the roof, “It won’t leak, will it?” and unto your father, “Will there be a water closet in this particular home? I get so chilled wandering to an outhouse at night,” although she had never so much as stood within an outhouse, and had indeed once threatened to murder herself when instructed to use one.

  And when the house was complete there were those who said it was the most beautiful of the block and your mother, who had come of age in a house twice as large and many times as opulent, said, “I do like it—in all sincerity,” although in the years to follow she claimed the debt your father incurred as her “greatest burden and sorrow” and many nights she insisted, “I never desired a fancy house. I just wanted a place to keep my hatchlings safe.”

  And you were conceived soon thereafter and when names were proposed your mother said your grandfather’s name and she said your father’s name and finally she and her mother decided upon . And as she swelled and grew your mother observed closely your father’s constant ministrations near the back of the lawn, the care he gave the grasses and dandelions along your brother’s tombstone, the boy’s dust and bones transplanted from the old yard, and how his fingers followed those words, chiseled and gray. And your mother observed, “Perhaps it is time now to let go of the past…” and she indicated the rise of her belly, and she said, “I’m not saying we need to remove him but if the stone were taken down and the grasses grown over—.” And for months thereafter your father would not acknowledge the condition of his wife, and on the day of your birth he lay at Walter’s grave, lost in the bottle at his feet, while your mother’s birthing wails sounded from the open window of their marriage chamber.

  And when your father held you days later he did so with hands smelling of skins and chemicals, whispering for you to “breathe deeply” of this aroma for even in those times he was convinced of their curative properties, and indeed his hands were as a young boy’s hands, as soft and gentle as your own infant hands. And now your father said, “They have not aged,” and he said, “And they will never age. My days amongst the chemicals have changed me.”

  And remember now your early boyhood so often spent in the tall grasses behind the house, with your lead soldiers and the sticks and the insects, and as you grew you journeyed the dirt pathway extending into the woods, and there you and the neighborhood boys found bird and mouse skulls and other discarded and bleached bones, and these you boys carried in your pockets, hidden from your mothers. And often in the evening sun the sounds of your parents’ fighting wafted from the windows, your mother’s shrill cries and your father’s harsh near-barking, and while you understood little of their debts, or her complaints of suppression, or how he stank of the factory, or how she said, “I belong with a different sort of man—you have a blacksmith’s soul!” you understood well the murder of their tones. And when one evening she cried, “you won’t be happy until I throw myself from the cliffs” you wept until the whole of within seemed bubbling out. And when your father found you in the dirt, he hefted you against his shoulder, into the strange heat, his whiskers scratching your cheek and tickling into your nose, and you sobbed into his shirt until he soothed, “Shhhhh my boy, shhhhhh,” his air warm and calm to your hair, your ear.

  Remember too those mornings your father woke you by a shake of your foot. How you sneered at him beneath your covers while he said “We’re going to build your mother a room of her own.” And remember soon the room which had been your nursery and playroom was wallpapered black and white with roses coiling, and then rose-colored carpets were unfurled over the floor boards, and soon placed against the walls were rosewood cabinets ornamented with angels, and within these cabinets your mother’s china dolls, and her never-used china plates, and her spotless glinting silver. And on the opposite wall he placed the velvet sofa, “For when your spells overtake you my beloved,” and against yet another wall, the rosewood work desk stocked with stationary and ink and pens, “for your correspondences.” And upon completion your mother paced this room, inspected its corners and its reaches, sniffed at the wallpaper, and then she turned, saying, “Will the both of you just leave?”

  And remember she stayed in this room always, the blinds pulled and her brow weighted by some damp rag, and soon the only sounds from this room were the sounds of her snores, or the fluid scratching of her fountain pen.

  And now when you knocked on this door your mother would moan, “Another time, please.” And when your marks were low she signed the papers without comment, and indeed she never commented on or wondered of your studies, nor did your father, although when he heard of your detriments he chased you screaming round the kitchen table and into the back lawn where he brought you to the ground with one swat, and with a yank of the scruff he leaned you against the house and there your trousers dropped and the cool air upon your buttocks. And remember this moment was as they often were when he thrashed you,
when you could but scream when the numbness fractured, and you could not help weep for the shame, for the meanness. And as your father bade you hitch up your trousers and wipe your eyes he said, “I expect to see an improvement in your marks from now on.”

  And indeed your father spoke highly and fondly of the beauty of a good thrashing. And your father thrashed you if he believed you huffed after he demanded your presence, and he thrashed you if he believed you had poked sticks at his chickens; and he thrashed you if you did not play with the boys of the neighborhood, unless you played with the boys of the neighborhood when he desired your presence, and then he thrashed you for that; and he often announced he would thrash you within an inch of your life if you ever cursed; and he thrashed you for your impure thoughts and then he forced you to scrub your genitals and hands with a gasoline soaked rag; and he thrashed you if you called your mother “her” or “she” or if you were slow to fetch her food or water or if he believed you huffed when she demanded some task of you.

  And your father thrashed you if you seemed to slouch or mope when you joined him on strolls to “regulate the systems,” and he thrashed you if you appeared disinterested when he paused to admire a well-manicured lawn, for he paused often and at length to press his face to the turf, uniformly cut and immaculate, and he would smile and sigh, “Magnificent” and he would thrash you for impudence if you did not immediately nod and say “Yes sir,” and he would hold you by the ear as he interrogated the homeowner about his methods and those he interrogated sputtered to tell him everything, for even in those days your father was known to all as a great and cruel man, and all called him “the General.”

  And remember how your father obsessed over the care and beauty of his lawn, and how he often gestured to this expanse and said, “You see how it is as green and fine as the lawn owned by any prince or duke throughout the world” and he said, “We must give your mother everything we would give a queen, for your mother is the queen of this castle, and she has been raised with a sense of finery you cannot comprehend.”