THE SUB A Study In Witchcraft

by Thomas M. Disch

  He knew he must be wary. The gifts of the spirit had their own loopy logic. There would be an upwelling of irrational, heaven-sent happiness one day because of the blow that the next day held in reserve. And this new strength that he could feel like a cinching of all the cords of his upper body had not been given unless he was soon to have need of new strength.

  And here it came already, his own personal ill wind, in the form of Carl Kellog. Of all the C.O.’s at New Ravensburg, Carl was the one Jim got on with best. Not that he ever made the mistake of thinking of Carl as his there-but-for-the-grace-of-God brother in a blue uniform. No screw is the brother of any con. They are another species, and right now the species distinction was more than usually clear, because Jim had still not exited his shaman frame of mind, and so he could see Carl in his animal aspect.

  Carl was a pig.

  This was not necessarily, to Jim’s mind, a bad thing. We are all of us animals in one way or another, sharing the growl of the wolf, the snarl of the cat, the chipmunk’s chatter. And in most people there is a piggish component as well that grunts with satisfaction at the trough and is happy to veg out afterward. In most people but, as a matter of fact, not in Jim’s people, since the pig is not an animal native to North America. It had come over with the white men, and it remained a white man’s totem pretty much.

  Carl Kellog was about as purely pig as anyone that Jim Cottonwood knew on a first-name basis. It was there in the face, with its jowly cheeks, on their way to getting jowlier, and its wide-nostriled, uptilted snout of a nose. It was also there in the intelligence and good humor of the eyes; in the slouch of the shoulders, the sag of the gut, the thickness of the thighs; in the lazy ambling way he moved that could, when the right hormones were triggered, shift to sudden sledgehammer aggression. If you had to pick a totem animal exactly suited to the job description of corrections officer, you couldn’t do much better than pig. In that way Carl was a round peg in a round hole, which is always admirable.

  Jim himself was—what else?—a crow. He’d known that even before his first dream visions as a shaman. A crow, like a pig, is an animal that has not got a good PR profile. What are crows known for? For having an appetite that doesn’t balk at carrion. For being too smart for their own good. For talking too much. They’re not accounted downright bad, like rats or buzzards, but they’re pariahs just like pigs, the main difference being that crows live free while pigs are meat. They serve a system that means to use them for sausage, but they never know that till it’s too late. Very sad, if you thought about it, but then if you thought a little more, kind of appropriate, too. If you breed animals on purpose to eat them, some of their karma is going to rub off on you, whether or not you live with them on a day-to-day basis. It’s the other side of the white man’s burden, the side that only shows up, disguised, in nightmares and bedtime stories. Hansel and Gretel, Abraham and Isaac, the Gingerbread Man. It was one more good reason, and maybe at bottom the best, for not envying the sons of bitches. Or, strictly speaking, sons of sows.

  “Enjoying the view from the penthouse?” Carl asked when he’d come close enough to be heard without raising his voice.

  “Yeah, and thinking how this is the perfect spot for hang-gliding.”

  Carl acknowledged the joke with a smile. In one form or another he’d probably heard it a few hundred times. “You got a visitor,” he announced.

  “Tell me another.” Jim rarely had visitors anymore, except twice a year when his mother would come by to share an awkward, dutiful silence and give him a tin of home-baked cookies.

  “No shit. You don’t think I’d come up those stairs for the sake of my health, do you? And you’ll never guess who it is.”

  “I won’t try. Who is it?”

  “Your son. Alan Cottonwood.”

  “I don’t have a son, Carl.”

  “According to him you do. He’s tried to see you before, you know.”

  “I know. I want no part of him.”

  “I don’t know what you may have heard about the first time he showed up, last summer. He was still a minor, and without permission from his legal guardian he couldn’t be put on the visitor’s list, so we weren’t supposed to tell you about his wanting to see you. Anyhow he’s eighteen now, and it’s up to you whether or not he can finally meet you. Come on, you’ve got to be curious. Don’t you want to know what he looks like?”

  Jim sighed. He knew he was going to see the kid, so what was the point in playing hard to get with Carl?

  He didn’t even have to say okay. Carl understood his sigh and led the way down the stairs and along the Y-block corridor to get a pink pass from the block officer. Then to the bank of elevators in the utility core of the tower, where Carl gave him a pat-frisk before summoning an elevator.

  Inside the elevator, the fluorescent light vibrated on Carl’s buzzed and brightly pink scalp. Jim couldn’t understand why anyone would deliberately get such an ugly haircut. Unless, of course, you wanted to look ugly. Maybe from a pig’s perspective ugly registered as good-looking. Clearly, the new haircut had something to do with Carl’s situation at home—the shooting, and the trial, and now his wife’s being sent off to prison. But all that was territory Jim could not ask him about or comment on, even indirectly. The screws might choose to tell you about their personal lives, but unless they broached the subject, there was a strict NO TRESPASSING sign posted on their uniforms.

  They rode down to 8, the barrier floor between the cellblocks above and the administration areas below. The visiting room was one floor farther down, but to get there you had to use a ramp. Outside the visiting room Jim was frisked again by the guard who took his pink pass.

  The guard directed Jim to take a seat at one of the tables ranged beneath a mural, a bland, badly painted forest scene of a family of deer and assorted smaller animals beside a brook. Jim hated the mural’s kindergarten-level, Disneyfied view of the wilderness as a theme park where every animal was some kind of kewpie doll, sexless and huggable, but while he waited he couldn’t keep his eyes off the damned thing. The mural and the Formica furniture gave the visiting room the feel of a school cafeteria. They seemed to promise the prisoners that they could expect to spend their whole lives confined to essentially the same institution. School, prison, hospital, and probably even the funeral home you got buried from—everywhere you were sent, the same bleary deer would be there beside the same cobalt-blue brook with the same smeary pines behind them.

  Aside from two black cons and their old ladies discreetly making out on the other side of the visiting room, which was furnished with sofas, Jim had the place pretty much to himself, but that was actually less conducive to privacy than if there had been a crowd, as there would be on any weekend. It meant that the guards monitoring him on the remote videos could pick up every word he or his visitor spoke. And given this visit’s potential for soap opera, they would probably save the tape and pass it around, as they were known to do with some of the more X-rated make-out sessions on the sofas. Jim was determined not to provide them with a memorable performance, but it wasn’t all up to him. Today it was his visitor who would have the starring role.

  And there he was, entering at the visitors’ door ahead of the C.O. who’d processed him. Even at this distance Jim began to heat up and shrivel with embarrassment. The kid looked like a tubby fourth grader inflated to adult size, with nothing changed except for the addition of a peach-fuzz mustache and a lank mop of blond hair meant to evoke Jon Bon Jovi. He was wearing a cowboy shirt a couple sizes too tight, with a bolo tie and a turquoise and silver belt buckle that matched the clasp of the tie. Boots, too? No: what was even more Native American than cowboy boots? Beaded moccasins.

  Where was the war bonnet?

  But no, that was not the right attitude. Maybe if there’d been some chance that the kid had taken some of his genes from the Cottonwood family tree, Jim might have some cause to feel a certain dismay at first sight. But that was not the case. As far as Jim was concerned, the kid could ha
ve been any eighteen-year-old imitation redskin with a case of mistaken identity—his own. So when the kid offered his hand to be shaken and said, “Hi, Dad,” Jim didn’t cringe.

  He took the boy’s pudgy hand in his own, smiled a sociable sort of smile, and said, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “I’m Alan.” Then, in a tone half defensive, half reproachful, “Alan Cottonwood.”

  “And you’ve got the idea that I’m your dad. I guess you’re Judy Johnson’s son.”

  “Uh-huh. But my name really is Cottonwood now. I had it changed legally. It cost me three hundred dollars.”

  “You can have any name you like, kid, it’s all the same to me. But that isn’t going to make us relatives, ‘cause we’re not. I don’t know what your mother may have told you about her and me.”

  “She never would say anything at all.”

  “But I guess she let you assume what the jury assumed when they sent me here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s not like I’ve got anything against you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The kid looked like he’d been kicked in the balls. Despite himself, Jim couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. It was obvious the guy had problems, or he wouldn’t have come visiting like this, what with all the red tape that was involved. And changing his name to Cottonwood. That had to mean he wasn’t on good terms with Judy, which at his age might be par for the course. Or it might be something serious. Judy had been a handful back then, and time wouldn’t have changed that.

  Admit it: he was curious.

  “So, tell me, Alan—that’s your name, right?—Alan?”

  The kid responded with a gratitude that was canine in its abjection. “Yeah,” he said, wagging an invisible tail, “Alan.”

  “Okay, Alan, fill me in. Why’d you decide to look me up? I don’t suppose your folks suggested it. Your mom is married now, isn’t she?”

  “She was, but they broke up a while back. She’s back in Leech Lake again, living with her dad. And me with her, although I don’t know how long that is going to last. We really don’t get along, the old man and me. But he’s not really up to taking care of the church anymore, and he’s not going to find a janitor that’ll work for just his board and room like I do. It’s a lousy situation, but jobs just aren’t that easy to find. Around here. And I didn’t want to leave the area until I could—” He attempted eye contact, but it was like someone trying to press more weight than he can handle. His gaze settled back on his own fingernails. “—Until I was able to see you.”

  “Judy told you lots of stuff about me, is that it?”

  “No, sir. Not anything, ever. I found out about the whole thing when I was in fourth grade, from a buddy of mine, who heard it from his older sister. Probably half the kids in the school knew about it before I did. I asked my mom about it then, but she refused to discuss it. In fact, she got really angry. Later on it was always the same. Finally, I went to the library in St. Cloud and dug up what I could from old newspapers. That’s how I found out your name. Then later, two years ago, I tracked down your mom. She works at this nursing home, Navaho House. At first she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But then, I don’t know, I guess she felt sorry for me or something. She told me some stuff that wasn’t in the newspapers I’d read. Like how you were both teenagers at the time, and it wasn’t rape at all. It was statutory. And it was only because you were Native American that you got sent to jail. And because Mr. Johnson was a minister. He’s also mean as a snake.”

  “Yeah. I know that.”

  “I tried to talk to him, after I’d seen your mom, to ask him about it. I mean, you can’t say it’s none of my business! But he got really pissed off. He’d always been mean to me, but when I was just a kid, I didn’t understand why. Anyhow, that was when I first tried to get in touch with you, but there were all these regulations about who can see the people here and who can’t. I think they think everyone wants to smuggle in drugs. Anyhow, they wouldn’t even let me write a letter to you, never mind visiting. And when they contacted my mom about it, she flipped out. So I’ve had to bide my time. But I did start to take an interest in my Native American heritage at that point. I’ve been to some powwows. And I’ve read a lot. I realize I’m what you’d call a half-breed. But I’ve met some guys who are only one-sixteenth Cherokee, and for them it’s their whole life. So I don’t feel it’s phony, like my mom says. I guess she just wants to repress the whole thing. Anyhow, that’s the situation.”

  The kid, who’d been staring at his fingernails through most of his account, looked up at Jim, begging for approval.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Alan. I can see you’ve been through some hard times over this. But the fact is, though I was very much in love with your mother, we didn’t ever… make love. At the trial it was her word against mine, and the jury believed her. What can I say? You seem like a nice kid, and I guess you’ve got a kind of investment in this Native American thing, which is funny, because when I was your age I didn’t want to have anything to do with any of that. I just wanted to eat Wonder Bread. But while you were talking I had a thought. You’re in a position to do me a big favor. In fact, you might even be able to get me out of here.”

  “Hey, just tell me how.”

  “The thing of it is, Alan, if you do what I ask, you’ll end up proving that I’m not your father. And I’ve got the idea that you might not want to do that.”

  The kid studied his fingernails again. “I see what you mean. But the truth is what’s important, I know that. In fact, I think I know what you’ve got in mind, because I had the same idea. A DNA test.”

  “That’s right. If you’re my son, the test would confirm it. And if you’re not, the test would be a proof of that. When I was sent away, they didn’t have DNA testing. But now it’s been established in the courts. You could get me out of here, kid.”

  “And what if it shows you are my dad?”

  “If it could, would I ask you to waste your time? Think about it.”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah. Jesus.”

  “Jesus has nothing to do with it.”

  The kid smiled.

  7

  They were shutting down the school. It wasn’t the county that had caved in, but the State Board of Education. There had been a bomb threat. More than a threat: the police found a real bomb in a cardboard carton in the school lunchroom’s kitchen. That was on Tuesday. For the first time in her teaching career, Diana had conducted a fire drill that wasn’t pretending. She’d marched her students out to the playground in just the clothes they were wearing, at which point, with TV cameras watching the mob of shivering children, it had started to snow. Parents started to show up to rescue their kids, and a shouting match had developed between those who blamed Satan and the Armour-Oelker contingent for the bomb scare and those who blamed the principal herself, Mrs. Burroughs, which was, on the face of it, preposterous. The choicest moments of the wrangling were broadcast on the evening news.

  Because she was a sub, Diana found herself facing unemployment. Thanks to their contracts, the regular teachers at the Rudy Perpich school would continue drawing their salaries right to the end of the school year whether or not they worked, but Diana would see her last paycheck on January 4, after which, according to Mr. Delany at the Board of Ed office, she could go on unemployment. Or she might continue subbing on a day-to-day basis, as needed, which was something she’d sworn she’d never do again. When you factored in the cost of commuting, unemployment was probably a better idea.

  She’d managed to keep her composure talking to Delany on the phone, but afterward she’d completely fallen to pieces. Wednesday night she’d binged. She’d gone to Gum Joy, intending to get just a takeout order of vegetarian fried rice, but once she was there and could smell the food around her, she couldn’t resist the temptation. She’d had an order of shrimp toast while she waited for her takeout, and then she’d flipped out totally and ordered moo shu pork.

  She had not ea
ten pig flesh since she decided to be a vegetarian back in seventh grade. She’d had her falls from grace—chicken, fish, and even once, drunk and thinking she was in love, a rib-eye steak. But never pork. Pork, somehow, seemed the ultimate no-no, the wickedest of meats. Was it because it was mentioned in the Bible? She didn’t in any other way identify with Jews. More likely because once, on TV, she had seen a documentary about a slaughterhouse where pigs had been showcased. She could still remember the long procession of flayed carcasses that would be tomorrow’s pork chops. Who could, seeing that spectacle, ever eat pork again?

  She had. She could still remember the taste on her tongue. She would wake in the night, feeling shreds of the moo shu pork between her teeth, and go into the bathroom and floss. But the next night those shreds were there again—unflossable, irremovable, a permanent guilt. And so tasty. Whipped cream didn’t compare. Cheese couldn’t compete. The grease in the pork did something primal. She hated it even as the memory lingered on, like the memory of her first kiss, which, in the same way, she wished she could forget.

  She craved that taste again. Last night she had dreamed of a pork roast, baked with slices of onions and drenched with gravy: sinfully delicious, although in the dream she had not had a chance to taste it. She’d woken just as the platter was brought to the table.

  When Saturday came, she managed to keep busy during the day doing all those chores that don’t otherwise get done. Cleaning nooks and crannies. Mending old clothes that probably wouldn’t be worn again. The hunger was still there in back of the busywork. She went through an entire box of Little Debbie Coffee Cakes. She cleaned the windows inside and out, though they didn’t really need it.

  Then Jack called. She’d told him not to, but as soon as she heard his voice she became a slut. Even without the excuse of liquor. Having agreed to see him, she went out and bought a jug of Gallo Chablis, and by the time he came over she was already sloshed. They fucked, and within fifteen minutes he did his usual disappearing act. Which suited her just fine. The whole time he’d been on top of her, it was the pork roast she’d been thinking of.