The Revisionaries

by A. R. Moxon

  This makes sense to him; or at least he accepts it unchallenged. “Where did he go?”

  “Out.” Stressing the trailing consonant; an implied finality of available information. “He had something to do. Special project. Left with a bunch of these nutcakes.” She hopes this will do the trick; telling him more would seem suspiciously forthcoming.

  “Where?”

  “You think he tells me things? I’m just the store manager.”

  “Right…” Eyeing the shotgun. “Ralph’s manager.”

  “Oh, I’ve managed all sorts for Ralph,” Bailey says, nice and quiet.

  He pauses, though the longer he watches, the more Bailey feels he’s considering something deeper about her than merely the fastest way to disarm her. More like…she can’t get a line on it…as if he’s trying to categorize her; as if he were a bird, watching something squirm and deciding whether it would be good to eat. It’s nervous work, watching him watch her. Her finger an instinct away from the trigger. The tilt of the Mossberg an impulse away from his chest. From the crowd, she sees cardinals materializing, first one, then two others, then more, melting out of the crowd. They approach quickly; it isn’t until they are entirely free of the main channel of loonies that she notices the two tiny ones.

  “Oh look,” she says, making her voice calm. “It’s a party.” And still Morris has his dangerous eyes on her.

  “Do you feel,” he asks, finally, “does any part of you feel like doing exactly as I say?”

  “Oblige if I can. But I have my orders.”

  “You work with him. Donk.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you anything important to him?”

  And there it is—isn’t that exactly the question? And who knows what the answer even is? A lie is called for here, unless what she’s going to say is the truth. She says: “I work with him. That’s it.” She imagines this is convincing; it doesn’t feel like a lie anymore.

  She sees his eyes dart through the broken pane, taking in empty and fallen shelves, cash register on the floor, and—shit, the one-sided mirrors of the Fridge are clearly visible from here. If Daniel isn’t watching them yet—wondering what she’s playing at, realizing she’s improvising—he soon will be, and likely will be dashing out to try to give up Father J and the others. The thing now is to isolate Morris; she’ll lure him into the store, shoot him, and then find out if she can handle any cardinals before they handle her. Either way Daniel will have a new plan to work on; hopefully he’ll come up with a good one. Maybe they can still get Ralph—but Bailey realizes she hasn’t cared about getting Ralph in a long time. She’s held the desire for vengeance in a sealed box, but over the years desire has yellowed, atrophied, dehydrated, succumbed unseen and silent to inevitabilities of oxidation, and now the box holds only dust. What you want is simple, she thinks. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, really; it’s the part Daniel’s cut away from the plan: the part where we get away safe. Hell of a time for an epiphany.

  Still assaying her, Morris addresses the cardinals. “I’m going into this place for a quick peek. You five spread out and sweep the area. It’s a goddamned stretcher. It can’t hide. We are going to find it in the next three minutes.” Then, to her: “You’re going to let me go in.”

  She takes a long silent moment, then gives a disgusted laugh. “Fine. But I’ll have to accompany. Look but don’t touch. You understand.”

  “Oh yes. I understand.”

  “Just you. None of your redbirds.” But they’re already dispersing on his order, searching for the stretcher elsewhere.

  “Lead the way.”

  She turns, knowing even halfway into the turn what a bad mistake she’s made taking her eyes from him, and then, low on her neck, something is roughly tugged and her body is gone and her head is falling. Her head is falling. Her body is gone. Her head is falling. It strikes the pavement but still the sensation of falling. Her body, which is gone, is still falling. Ralph has taken it screaming from the greenhouse, he’s thrown it off the top of HQ and it is falling. She blinks. Her head rests on the pavement and blinks. She can look through the empty space of the broken window. She can see the mirror where Donk will be watching. She can see so clearly. She sees the Mossberg kicked clear of her. Her body is gone and falling and falling and falling down. Her vision is clear and full of Morris’s face. So, he whispers to her, I can still do it. I can still harm. I hurt you. I can still do it. And then he is walking inside and she is staring where she can see so clearly through the empty space of the broken window. Beyond is the mirror, where Daniel will have been watching. He will have seen her fall. Morris is walking in front of the Fridge mirror and past it. Stay inside, Daniel. Stay hidden. Keep them safe. Sirens in the distance coming closer. Slippered loony feet gather around her, curious. She blinks. Her forehead is gashed where it struck the ground. Blood tickles her left eye, so she shuts it. Tries to push up, but her arms are with her body, and her body is gone. Her body was pulled out of her through her neck and fell away. She sees no possibilities now, only the crush of the inevitable slow-rushing wave, which is Forever. Her head rests on the ground and listens to the approach of sirens, to the sounds of the Island in tumult, and feels her head breathe, taking air into a phantom that seems gone forever, forever.

  FRIDGE

  Father Julius is gone now, but not dead. Almost nobody knows what really happened. Most expect that Julius simply died or drifted, or left with his followers to start another mission. The few who knew Gordy are—naturally—convinced he left with Gordy. Some of those who knew him best probably worry that the cardinals got him. But they need not worry about their old friend; though the limitations of Julius’s new form occasionally vex him, he is happy. He finally has what he always wanted, and that is a jewel worth more than limbs.

  Goodness, dear. Listen to me go on. Your mother will be here soon. It’s just you’re such a patient listener is all, and I so seldom get a patient listener.

  Father Julius, he listened to me for a long time, too, during the Loony Riot, as we kept safe in Donk’s hidey-hole. I told him my whole story, how me and Gordy had come to be in Loony Island in the first place. I thought Julius was the only one listening.

  That’s what I thought.

  * * *

  —

  Standing between bookshelves, unseen and unheard, Donk is changed, his face controlled, still, and watchful, drained of something vital, but alert, and very, very cunning. Gordy, intermittently visible to him now, remains on the stretcher, as unmoving as the priest. Father Julius lies supine on the billiard table. Tennessee once more grasps the priest’s shoulder and shakes. Julius’s eyes flutter open, and the man they’ve been calling “Tennessee” continues his confession again, a communion that the priest, half-conscious, is clearly receiving only in parts.

  But next door, in the observatory, Donk hears it all.

  Donk’s standing before the one-way glass. He’d watched impatiently as Bailey spoke too long with Morris, saw with trepidation she’d taken the Mossberg—Why do you have the shotgun, babe? He’d been about to go out himself to bring Morris back when he saw her turn and then saw the steel flick from some hidden scabbard, bite into her somewhere high on her back. He’d watched her go rag-doll, crumple to the ground, watched Morris lean down to her. He’d watched, frozen in shock and rage, as Morris had stalked through Ralph’s, peeking in corners, stopping right in front of him for a moment, and then at last moving on. He’d wanted to sneak out and grab Morris unaware. He’d wanted to spend every moment of his short remaining life smashing that hateful skull into pudding against the tile. But even in his rage Donk remained pragmatic and calm. He knows his limitations—he’s not the muscle. Besides, that would be too quick a fate for Morris. You need to find something else for him, Donk thinks. Something new. An oubliette may be punishment enough for Ralph, but it’s not enough for the son of a bitch who made them.

&n
bsp; He stares through the window at the place where Bailey had been lying before they took her away. There’s a pool of blood, but not a large one. Occasionally he glances to the small screen in his hand, but there’s nothing new, only dispatches from various loons as they link into the network. Morris had been right; they learn fast. Soon he’ll make his screen go permanently dark. He’ll dump water on it until it fizzles; it’s the only way he can plausibly continue ignoring Morris’s frantic attempts to contact him. He practices his lie, honing it to perfection—What can I tell you, boss, one of those idiot loonies came by with a water gun, soaked me for a prank. Fried it right out. Water gun, more like a fire hose. Thing had a backpack on it.

  Tennessee pontificates as Julius drifts in and out. He speaks of the fountain of Pigeon Forge, and of infernal atrocity stacked beneath, of oubliettes and of what they can do—what they have done—of the man who rose from them, draped in power; of the one who fled and the one who followed, of the storm that came along with both, and of the ticket that fuels the chase.

  An eye on the clock; soon he needs to step out of the dark. Even a soaked device won’t serve as a cover for long. He estimates less than an hour before he must rush to rendezvous with Morris, for whom he’s coordinated this new tribe of lunatics. He’ll need to be sharp and polite. He’ll need to give no part of himself away. It’s a sick joke; every obfuscation he’s practiced over the years in his dealings with Ralph he’ll have to employ now with Morris, and for the same reasons. An even greater hate but a far more dangerous target. He’ll need to paper over the time he’s spent here, learning from Tennessee and staring through the one-way at the dark patch on the ground where Bailey had been. Soon he and Morris will have a meeting with Ralph. Soon he’ll enjoy alone the revenge they’ve worked for, and after, he knows, he must begin enacting an even worse revenge. They’ve taken her away—the loonies. Borne her away on his orders toward the perimeter of authorities now converging on the Island to shut down the destruction. The bluebirds have riot gear and rubber bullets and real bullets and tear gas and shields, but they’ll have access to EMT and ambulances, too. Perhaps there’s a slim hope for her there, but Donk is ever-calculating, and in the abacus of his mind she stands subtracted already. For him, there is now only deeper and deeper with no escape, with nothing but a final retribution, yet as Tennessee talks, he begins to see a hope here, also, a chance at exactly the power he needs. The longest of all long shots. Like landing a hard rubber ball into a coffee mug from across a room.

  The ticket. Yes.

  His hands curl and relax, curl and relax.

  PART II – PIGEON FORGE

  The real

  difference between

  God and human beings,

  he thought, was that

  God cannot stand

  continuance.

  ISAK DINESEN, “The Monkey”

  changed

  Struck by a sudden fancy, Landrude decides to pause at the apex of the Knoxville greenway; he’ll enjoy his cigar and then sketch this gorgeous forest island he’s only today noticing, though he must have passed it a hundred times.

  The cigar’s a weekly treat and an old habit. So’s the ticket. The cigar’s a matter of taste; the ticket’s a reminder of the times when the prize would have been all the money in the world, and the five-dollar price an extravagance. This week’s selection is a green-foil shiny thing with a blackjack theme, purchased at a gas station along the way, but Landrude’s only rubbed away one disc when he feels the creative urge and knows he’d rather be sketching the island.

  Every drawing begins with observance. He reaches for the cigar.

  With deliberate and ceremonial anticipation he unwraps, clips, and lights, procuring the necessary accoutrements from various pockets of his trademark powder-blue suit. He folds the cellophane wrapper precisely and stows it in an inner pocket, along with the still-unfinished ticket. A man on the taller side, in middle life with a full head of upswept salted hair, rangy features tamed somewhat by a well-scrubbed look and a recently developing belly; portrait of the once-starving artist in the comfortable repose of satisfactory success. Puffing, he surveys the island, really taking his time with it, drinking it in; just a bit of wooded elevation, thin on one end and widening at the other, sort of a wedge rising up from the middle of the slow-running Tennessee river. The island’s been there every other day, he presumes, just he’s never marked it before. Now, though, it holds some quality that calls to him. Maybe it’s the way the Knoxville autumn has burnt the leaves yellow and red in almost a checkerboard; maybe it’s the way the island’s shape hugs the shore, or the way the sudden rise and fall of trees upon it suggest a slumbering cat…but of course it’s not that. It’s the name on the plaque—that particular name. How could you have missed seeing it before? It must have entered subliminally at some point, informed your work without your knowledge.

  In any case, he knows he’ll have to sketch it or else spend the week regretting the missed opportunity. The greenway—a long stretch of well-maintained elevated boardwalk that rises and falls as it tracks the river’s winding course through the city—is a perfect post-work walk, beginning a half-mile from Landrude’s house and stretching up from Sequoyah Park to downtown Knoxville. It gives a fine prospect of the island from one of its peaks, right here where Landrude’s standing, and the light’s going to be perfect in a few minutes when the sun dips below that low hang of clouds in the west…but what’s this? There’s a commemorative plaque set here in the railing…how interesting…

  “Got a cigarette, man?”

  Landrude looks up. It’s a glamorously disheveled couple in their early twenties walking up the greenway with their arms draped around each other. The soul-patched fellow’s got the half-hopeful, half-bashful glint of every cigarette bum ever, and his lady looks away, too cool for school, though clearly she’ll be sharing whatever smokable treat her squire might procure. Landrude, sorry to disappoint, displays his smoldering stub between two fingers. “Afraid I only ever puff these.” True enough. Cigarette smoke makes him cough unendurably; the cigar’s flavors only ever reach his mouth.

  The kids shrug and move on, murmuring to each other. They’re a decent stretch away when he hears it. Down the boardwalk it carries; the fellow to his lady: See that blue suit? I think that dude’s Landrude Markson, the guy who draws the…Landrude allows himself a half-smile. Recognition is an occurrence just common enough to feel familiar, just rare enough to savor. It happens mostly just like this, the chance encounter on the evening walk. It’s mostly kids who take the greenway, and it’s mostly kids who enjoy his stuff. Speaking of savor…Landrude takes the final draw off the cigar—Partagus, nice and peppery—before sedulously extinguishing it on the sole of his polished shoe.

  Back to this plaque, now. It’s a brass job gone nearly entirely to oxidation. Landrude fishes out his reading glasses to examine it.

  LOONEY ISLAND

  ONCE A PROPOSED SITE FOR THE TENNESSEE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT’S RESIDENCE, LOONEY ISLAND’S CENTRAL PLACEMENT ALONG THE LOONY BEND OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER, AND ITS STEEP ELEVATION, AFFORDS IT SCENIC VISTAS OF THE SEQUOYAH HILLS ON THE NORTH BANK OF THE CITY OF KNOXVILLE. AT THE TURN OF THE 19TH CENTURY, IT WAS A POPULAR RECREATION DESTINATION FOR STUDENTS, WHO WOULD REGULARLY BOAT OVER TO PICNIC, TAKE IN THE VIEW, AND OBSERVE THE REMAINING RUINS OF THE DEFENSIVE OUTPOST BUILT IN 1797 BY ISAAC “BAREFOOT” RUNYAN, FAMOUS EARLY LEADER OF THE NEIGHBORING PIGEON FORGE SETTLEMENT.

  Out comes the small sketchpad and the pencil. His hands work with ease of practice, his eyes darting up and down and between. The important thing is to get the shape, the shading…you’ll be able to do a finish later; your memory can capture color, enhance detail…and there might be a story here, a narrative utilizing some old local tale…the old fort would be something interesting to see, you should hire a boat—or better, the romantic notion—make the swim yourself some morning, picnic there as your f
orebears once did…

  Landrude’s eyes dart up, startled. The island seems to be…swimming, or even underwater. No, it’s not the island, it’s…it’s everything. What the hell is happening here? Vision warping, as if he’s looking through thermals across the vastness of a baking noontime desert, rather than a manicured suburban Knoxville autumn. And then it seems as if he himself is slewing into some form, some new shape. It’s like a soul nausea, as if he’s becoming something other than he was, all while remaining himself, a snake shedding its skin to become a porcupine, an eagle becoming briefly aware it will someday die.

  Mercifully, the sensation ends. Landrude glances up, and wishes he could tell himself that what he’s seeing had been there from the beginning, but no, no, he’d been paying the island far too much attention for self-delusion. Look there: Visible above the island treeline rise the poniards of an ancient wooden fort. Hoping to steady himself, Landrude leans forward on the railing, sees the plaque, bright and shiny, polished, well-maintained:

  PROPERTY OF LOVE FORGEWORKS, INC.

  LOONY ISLAND DIVISION

  All Trespassing Strictly Forbidden.

  Below this exhortation, the craftsman has etched a triptych of images: a blacksmith at his forge, a fountain, a pigeon by a stream.

  Landrude reels backward, catches himself on the opposite railing, fights against a scream. He closes his eyes, tight as he can. When he opens them, it will have all gone back to normal. It will have. It will. He opens them. No good. It’s all still wrong, all still changed. Even “Looney” is now spelled “Loony.” Landrude sinks to his haunches and tries to control his breathing. He concentrates on things that seem the same: the boards of the greenway, the powder blue of his suit, the smell of tobacco rising from his hand. But even these things seem wrong, different, changed in ways that he can’t define, because there’s no context for “normal” to which to compare—it all has the same wrongness. He’s nearly convinced himself nothing has really changed after all, when it all starts to slew back again; the same sensation, only reversing…guided by some unknowable instinct, Landrude flips his pad to a fresh page, tears it out, holds it against the plaque. With the side of his pencil, he makes a desultory rubbing, the ridges of the signage quickly transferring to paper the approximation: forge, fountain, pigeon, stream, warning.