“Douglas is willing to talk about renegotiating relations with external stakeholders.”
“Of course he is,” Topsy said. “The air coming out of him doesn’t cost a thing.”
“When would I start doing my bit in politics?” Professor Cleave asked. “As a driver.”
“You sound uncharacteristically cynical,” James said.
“The town is uncharacteristically burned.”
James Brooks fingered his watch. “Douglas’s deputy wants to see you this afternoon.”
“How can he be safe on the streets?” Cora asked.
James handed Professor Cleave a slip of paper. “Show this at checkpoints.”
Cora stepped up to the table and read over Professor Cleave’s shoulder. “That is Graham Douglas’s signature. Who are the police answering to?”
“Certain continuities will ease the transition—”
“The same police in the same uniforms, with Bowden still in jail.” Professor Cleave tossed the slip on the table and let his hands dangle between his knees.
“This is your pride,” James said. “No one would blame you for taking this.”
“Irma has seen the news,” Cora said. “She’ll want to send something.”
Professor Cleave looked at the biscuit tin and dragged his hand across his mouth.
“Be at the Hospitality Service headquarters at three,” James said. “And shave. You have a reputation as a man who keeps his head. You can’t afford to lose that.”
When the sound of the Nissan’s punctured muffler faded, Topsy took a long drag off a relit cigarette. Cora rifled through the buffet in search of her chocolate bar. Professor Cleave lowered his face into his hands and blindly promised himself that he’d never take money from his daughter.
How far reputations diverge from reality, sometimes. We wouldn’t have said that Professor Cleave had “lost his head,” but he was coming apart at the seams. We could have told James Brooks (could he have listened) about Professor Cleave’s obsession with the flecks of blood clinging to his clothes and skin, the traces of Desmond haunting him, and all of us. It wouldn’t have mattered. The only aspect of Professor Cleave’s head Graham Douglas cared about was his baby-smooth chin fresh from a shave. Graham Douglas might as well have hired Little Butts to chauffeur him around, but then Butts didn’t know how to drive.
Shameful as it is to say, we’d begun to miss Little Butts. Graham Douglas, a regular clean freak, was a misguided bore on his best of days. With his superficial intellect and stunted imagination, he could never have hatched an escape from the torturous maze everyone had entered, much less have defined the zeitgeist. The best he could do was reflect his times. Elevated by chance and the worst of circumstances, his first instinct was to pander. He was a one-step chess player, and in that respect much like Tremor, though he had so many more options than Tremor, and far fewer excuses for playing chess so badly.
For two hours, Tremor had been revisiting his lies and reliving the instant he’d tossed a match onto a body that, from a distance, could have been a piece of driftwood. The body was still when he first saw it, he told himself, and then he jerked in his chair, twisted by memories of twitching fingers and the rise and fall of a chest beneath a web of seaweed. He rehearsed different narratives and in lucid moments recognized his lies. He envisioned eyes swollen shut and bloated fingers half-buried in sand and assured himself that he’d burned all sorts of things, but not a man. He hadn’t killed anyone, he told himself over and over, before falling sway again to his own lies and imagining death at the end of a twisted sheet. At points, he feared the onset of insanity and wondered if madness would be his salvation or his final torment. His skin crawled, and he imagined the satiety of soft maggots moving through rotting flesh. He drew his feet from the bloodstain and waited.
The man who finally entered the room was the sort of man given to anonymity, a man with unremarkable features and an infinitely adaptable expression. He leafed through loose papers in a manila folder before addressing Tremor.
“The generator is so much trouble today.” He glanced at the bulb flickering above his head. “It would be a shame to lose the air conditioning. To need to open the windows upstairs, with so much garbage on the streets.”
He drew Tremor’s phone from his pocket and placed it on the table.
“A very expensive phone. You seem ambitious. But, you see, an ambitious boy would be working to advance himself in ways that matter. If you were on the police force, for example, you would be standing here rather than sitting there.”
The man moistened his finger and peeled a sheet of paper from the folder.
“You’re not someone I want standing at all. But some people think everyone deserves a second chance. Every little piece of garbage.” He studied the paper for a moment. “Some people might even think you’d be suited to the police force.”
He placed the paper on the table and considered Tremor’s down-turned face.
“In your position, you must think everyone deserves a second chance. Or maybe you would think the police force is beneath you.”
Tremor shook his head.
“You don’t think everyone deserves a second chance?”
Tremor sucked air through his nose and blinked.
“You seem uncertain. Choice would be a luxury. Not everyone can join the police force. We give every applicant a test. Since we have time, you can take it right now. Just to see how you do.” The man rested his fingertip on the paper. “Just a few simple questions. Yes or no. We’ll pass over the easy ones. You’re a smart boy. We’ll start with question thirty-four.”
Tremor grew faint, and the edges of the room blurred.
“Do you have a propensity to violence? Maybe a Rocky Point boy can’t understand that word. Propensity. Do you like violence? This is no time to lie. Witnesses saw you breaking windows. I asked if you like violence.”
The muscles in Tremor’s legs began to spasm.
“On the police force, you’ll face people from Rocky Point. They’ll be throwing rocks, bottles, all sorts of things. You’ll need to be prepared. I’ll ask again. Do you like violence?”
“I don’t understand.”
“The question is simple. Do you like violence?”
Tremor pressed his feet to the floor to steady his legs. “Yes.”
“Then you’ll like this.” The man hit the side of Tremor’s head with the base of his palm. “Why are you crying? You answered correctly.” He lifted Tremor’s chin with two fingers. “We’ll move on. Question thirty-five. Again, a simple yes or no. Is the answer to question thirty-five yes or no?”
“I don’t know the question.”
“Is the answer to question thirty-five yes or no? That is question thirty-five.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A shame. You were doing so well.” The man struck Tremor again. “Your friend John Bowden said you took out a lighter when the white man crawled onto shore, begging for his life. Did you burn the white man? Before you took the photograph.”
“He was already burned.”
“By your friend John Bowden?”
“Yes,” Tremor whispered.
“No one likes a man who spreads stories about his friends. Snitches have no place on the police force.” The man drew a lighter from his pocket and held it sideways to heat its metal case in a blue flame. “You should find the lighter familiar.” He stretched Tremor’s collar and exposed a line of welts. “It seems I’m not the only one disgusted with you. Let me ask again. Did John Bowden burn the American?”
“He didn’t do anything.”
“You shouldn’t lie.” The man held the lighter to Tremor’s skin.
Tremor screamed and twisted until the flame died. “He didn’t kill the man.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
At the sound of scraping flint, warmth spread between Tremor’s thighs.
“Not housebroken? Aren’t there toilets in Rocky Point? You should wear a diaper, like
a little monkey. Tourists will burn you alive and take your picture. Tell their friends they killed the murderer from Rocky Point.” The man held the lighter to Tremor’s shoulder again.
Tremor slumped forward over a pool of urine and smelled his own terror and traces of bleach. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I never asked if you killed anyone.” The man slipped the lighter into his pocket and unlocked Tremor’s handcuffs. “My last question was about toilets in Rocky Point. Stand up.”
Tremor struggled to his feet, gripped the table’s edge, and looked down at a blank sheet of paper. Senseless, he limped into the corridor and followed the man to a steel door that promised ongoing questions and escalating abuse.
“It’s unlocked,” the man said.
Tremor pushed into a room lined with dented lockers. A leather belt lay coiled on a bench beside a black beret and brown jacket. A towel hung from a hook next to a concrete shower stall.
“In other times, no one would have time for rioters from Rocky Point. But you have admirers, those who want to see something of their wretched selves in power. For reasons that disgust those who took a real test, you will be a probationary member of the prime minister’s security detail.” The man pulled two polished shoes from a locker and dropped them on the floor. “You’ll stand in the background. Nothing more. First, you’ll wash. The animal smell always comes through, but you can disguise it for now.”
Tremor waited until the man’s footsteps faded from the hallway. In the shower, he spread his hands on the wall, took in their symmetry and recalled John Bowden’s twisted fingers. As traces of urine, blood, and ash slid toward the drain, he opened his mouth and tried to wash away a metallic taste, memories of an exposed spine and screams that might have been his own. Then he wrapped himself, shivering, in the towel. He was examining his shoulder when the man returned, carrying a gun and leather holster. Slipping once, Tremor backed into the stall.
The man considered the drain between Tremor’s feet. “It would be so easy for me to wash away the blood.” The man placed the gun and holster on the bench. “As I said, though, some people think you can be useful.”
Tremor clutched the towel.
“Too bad for you, it’s not loaded.” The man glanced at the soiled clothes heaped on the floor. “Perhaps that will change when you’re housebroken. Or not.”
When the man left, Tremor dressed hastily, heedless of the scratch of coarse fabric against his welts and burns. His trouser hems brushed the back of his heels; only the thick soles of his shoes kept them from touching the floor. His shirtsleeves covered the tops of his hands, and he moved too easily within the folds of his jacket. His beret slid over his eyebrows. He pulled it one way and another until it rested at a severe angle across his forehead. He winced when he lowered his holster onto his shoulder and tightened its strap across his chest. Dressed, he stood before a mirror and saw a stranger, someone sick with fear, too thin and transparently self-conscious.
He considered the possibility of John Bowden returning to Rocky Point to spread stories about his tears and terror. He imagined his father spitting on the ground at every mention of his name, and to his own shame, he wished for John Bowden’s death at the end of a twisted sheet. As he began to sweat into his jacket, he told himself that none of it mattered. He could never return to Rocky Point after wearing a police uniform. He thought of the policemen he’d mocked so many times and realized his survival would depend on their hatred for him fading over time, as he adapted his cruelty and severed parts of himself until almost nothing remained.
He turned from his reflection and beheld the gun. He approached it in small steps and lifted it from the bench. When he wrapped his hands around its grip and felt the impress of cross-hatching against his palm, his breath caught. He massaged its trigger until he knew the extent of its resistance and the pressure needed to force its yield. He turned back to the mirror, touched its muzzle to the double of his parted lips, and shut his eyes. He squeezed the trigger and his heart raced. For the first time in years, he felt immune to Crazy Mary’s curses. For the first time in hours, he felt as if he could escape the repercussions of his lies.
We clung to the ceiling, too sickened to witness the brutal amputations taking place, or to watch water laced with blood, sweat, and urine seeping into the clogged drain. Everything that disappears into a drain flows somewhere, usually into some sewer, and becomes ours to bear, the stigma and filth attached to cockroaches. When the deputy collected Tremor, we frantically sought wall cracks and air ducts, desperate to find our way back into the outside world, however ruined. In a misguided moment, we’d sought refuge in a deadly subterranean maze, and despite our nocturnal inclinations, we longed for unfiltered sunlight, something to raze and burn every trace of the sprawling jail from our collective memory.
Professor Cleave, too, felt stirrings of panic, a sense that there was nowhere to run but forward, into unfamiliar and ever-narrowing passages. He leaned against his bathroom sink and considered his face in the mottled mirror. Some of us emerged from the drain to avoid a torrent of soap and assembled around the faucet.
“And so I will shave.” Professor Cleave glanced at us and lathered his face. “I have a reputation, you see, as a man who keeps his head. Do you think I can keep my head?”
Some of us scaled the wall to more closely consider his expression.
He reached for a razor and recalled his vague statements about solidarity, and then his hesitation leaving the house during the riots. He’d been naïve, he thought, and then slow to act when the need was clearest. Now, almost nothing of himself remained but the shadow of a man lifting a razor to his own throat. Though we couldn’t quite believe he’d harm himself, our antennae stiffened.
He touched the deep creases beneath his eyes. “These, my students, are the wages of sin. Or the wages of working for sinners.”
As he scraped away the last traces of soap, blood beaded beneath his lip. He pressed a washcloth to his chin and stared at his reflection, as though trying to commit a stranger’s features to memory. Then he held the cloth beneath a stream of water, wrung its worn fabric, and tore out bloodstained fibers, one by one. Finally, he threw the cloth into the shower and slammed his fist against the wall, feeling as though he might go mad listening to his own breathing and the slow drip of wasted water sliding down the drain.
In his cab, he turned his keys over in his hand, dreading the moment of backing onto the road, into a future he’d never imagined. We fanned from the vents, settled in confused formations across the dashboard, and fluttered our wings, wondering if circumstance would force us to abandon the cab.
“The lumpenproletariat has emerged from its slumber.” He squeezed his key to feel the sobering pressure of metal teeth against his skin. “Some of you must have seen me drinking. Maybe you can smell it even now, coming from my pores.” He paused. “Everyone has their breaking point.”
He’d finally pulled the cob from his ass only to deflate, we thought.
“There are degrees of debauchery, and my one misstep shouldn’t be taken as license for countless improprieties. Nor should it distract the errant among you from what I am about to say.”
He slid his key into the ignition. “I have made the difficult decision to accept a position with a man hardly better and perhaps much worse than Little Butts,” he said, backing onto the road. “To keep body, if not soul, together, I will be driving his car. Henceforth, I will serve as your professor in only the most limited capacity.”
Henceforth? We turned in frenzied circles and batted our wings. In the bathroom, we’d hoped, perhaps naïvely, that we might retain something of our former life, however stunted by boredom and bad music. For the first time, we faced the prospect of an empty cab and a silent radio, of intellectual dereliction and the death of poetry. Henceforth, Professor Cleave would be driving a car that had wrought the downfall of countless cockroaches and moving in social circles enamored with insecticides.
“Perhaps you’ll be ha
ppy to revert to your delinquent ways,” he said, noting our agitation. “Or perhaps you’ll find a way to edify yourselves in my absence.”
We lowered our antennae and huddled at the base of the windshield. Like Professor Cleave, we couldn’t grasp our losses. We remained pressed against the glass all the way to Portsmouth.
In town, Professor Cleave glanced at two policemen standing on a corner. “Next to those men, you are model citizens. But would you behave any differently with badges and batons? With two legs and tailored suits?”
We briefly wondered what we might have been in other, less toxic circumstances, and then turned our attention from speculative musings to the reality of the streets. Professor Cleave had come upon an overturned car blocking the road.
He pulled alongside the curb and turned off the engine. “You can wait here or take your leave. In the absence of reason or restraint, the world and all its wreckage is your oyster.”
He climbed from the cab and faced the end of the street, where three policemen stood before the barricaded entrance to the Hospitality Service Workers’ headquarters. He drew the slip of paper from his pocket and studied the signature of the man who’d granted him passage through a town he’d once called his own. Those of us crawling through the rubble knew just how much he’d lost.
Preoccupied as he was, he might have passed the makeshift barricade without recognizing Tremor if he hadn’t noticed the familiar slouch accentuated by the sag of an oversized jacket. Tremor ran his thumb beneath his holster strap, and Professor Cleave stopped in his tracks. He considered Tremor’s uniform and gripped an unsteady board spanning two sawhorses.
“Everyone’s suffering because of you,” he said. “And here you’ve found yourself a job. There will be no end to the need for police now.”
“And you’ll always be cleaning up after tourists.” Tremor struggled to control his voice. “Diseased Americans.”
The pass slipped from Professor Cleave’s fingers and fluttered to the sidewalk. Tremor gripped the strap across his chest, and the two policemen standing behind him smirked.
The Wonder That Was Ours Page 21