419 MEMOIRS
&
OTHER STRANGE STORIES
Michael Canfield
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 Michael Canfield
Published by Vauk House Press
Cover background illo by Ieva Strumskyte
Smashwords Edition License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
* * * * *
419 Memoirs
&
Other Strange Stories
Michael Canfield
Once Upon a Time ... At the Learning Annex
The Last Confessions of NinjaBaby
Science Fiction: Send Our Love
Mimetic Fiction: A Cold Day in Belgium
419 Memoirs: Frequently Asked Questions
Bonus 13,000 Word Short Novel:
Novel Excerpt One: Growing Up Zombie
by Tim Pratt
You lucky bastards.
You have before you a collection of short stories by Michael Canfield, and I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you probably haven’t read most of them. It’s a safe bet, as several were originally published in relatively obscure publications (*cough* I edited one of those *cough*) and some others are entirely original. Almost all his stories skew toward the bizarre and unpredictable, and this is a collection dedicated to the weirdest of the weird—which means you’re about to encounter strangeness and novelty in dosages potentially lethal for unprepared minds. (That’s what I’m here for: to prepare you.)
I met Mike Canfield in the summer of 1999 in East Lansing, Michigan, at the Clarion writing workshop. We spent six weeks in close proximity, and of all the many fine writers there, I think Mike’s fiction might have been the most entrancingly odd and provocative. He wrote fantasy stories about food processors that chopped up reality (a version of that story appears here); science fiction about wispy figures in orbital habitats; reality TV spoofs about infant ninjas; all kinds of weird stuff. He clearly had a mind that ran counter to the expected and ordinary progressions of everyday linear fictions, while still managing to create characters you gave a crap about. That combination of mind-bending conceptual creativity and a clear-eyed understanding of the human condition is rare, and to be treasured.
When Heather Shaw and I started up a little literary ‘zine called Flytrap a few years post-Clarion, Mike was prominent on the short list of people I wanted desperately to publish, and I got the opportunity—his work appeared in a third of the issues we produced, including some of the pieces you’ve got here: the poetic “Kank’s Last Breath”; the profoundly surreal “Flight to L.A.”; the fractured multiplicity of “419 Memoirs”. Those are the ones I’m most fond of, naturally—because I got to help bring them into print. But those aren’t the only ones I love. There’s the hilarious community college spaghetti Western “Once Upon a Time at the Learning Annex”, and the gleefully destructive and curiously mythic “The Food Processor,” and—well. You’ll see.
I wish I could be in the position to encounter and devour this quantity of new-and-unread Canfield fiction for the first time all over again, but barring a time machine or a traumatic memory-destroying head trauma, that’s not to be. But you. You are.
You. Lucky. Bastards.
*****
Three ways to figure a tip: Take ten percent of the bill, and halve that; now you know ten percent and five percent; add those together for fifteen. In cities like Seattle, or New York, where the meal tax is eight percent and something, double the tax for a sixteen or seventeen percent tip. Figure ten percent and double it to twenty, then, for a few percent of the price of any meal you can feel a little generous.
Before my flight to L.A., I meet a business traveler (male) traveling alone. I am not sure I have the right gate for L.A., so I verify with the business traveler, who is sure. The terminal is empty The tarmac empty too, but for our flight. The business traveler pulls his rolley luggage up the ramp, and I board next, but I never have luggage. Any items necessary for my survival in L.A. will have been shipped ahead. The flight attendants greeting us wear pillbox hats, as we are, at present, sometime in the past. The flight is empty but we have to sit together in assigned seats.
I get the window, he takes the aisle. We talk, the business traveler and I, and I learn he can’t wait to get back to L.A. He tells me how to make my way from the airport, what the best restaurants are, how to tip, how to get around without a car. He talks about this thing, and the next thing, and then the next thing he will do. He is happy to go home because he can get to the next items on his list. That’s his life, accomplishing tasks. His next task is to be polite and ask me why I am going to L.A. But I don’t know. I have a ticket. His face contorts, and he grinds his teeth so hard I think he’ll break one. He’s got steel-blue eyes. What a waste, he says, to fly to L.A. and not know why. I tell him I would like to accomplish something in L.A. and that calms him a little. I don’t really want to accomplish anything, but the business traveler at least feels better now. He tells me there is a lot of opportunity in L.A. for a sharp young man like me. I ask the traveler how old he is. Thirty-nine. I am forty-two, but I still feel forty-one.
The flight is short; we will soon be in L.A.
The traveler has many friends. He offers to introduce me to people. Good people. People I can trust. People who will help me. There are over twenty-million billion people in L.A. and the traveler knows all the ones worth knowing. He knows people in finance, in retail, in the entertainment field. He knows the mayor, the chief of police, the fire chief, the head of the city’s largest hospital. The flight attendant announces our final descent, and the traveler talks faster, naming more and more people he knows. He rocks back and forth, trying to get all the names out to me before the flight ends and I am gone forever. He flags the flight attendant, and tells her he is a friend—a good friend—of the pilot of this plane. He would like to speak to the pilot because, in his opinion, we are descending much too fast. He may have something there; the plane is heating up. I can’t even touch the walls of the cabin now, they’re so hot. The flight attendant explains that yes, we are coming in fast, we have a short window, but the pilot will not actually allow the plane to incinerate. L.A. is a fast town, she says, with a smile, you have to get used to the pace. He sputters at her. He says he is from L.A., understand? He doesn’t need to be told anything about L.A. from any stewardess. She frowns, tells him to fasten his seat belt, and moves on.
The traveler pulls out his planner and starts going over the rest of the day. There are thousands of tasks to be done, and he recites them. Airport. Taxi. Office. Meeting downtown, meeting somewhere else, lunch meeting, dinner meeting, after-dinner meeting. Brush teeth. Sleep. Up. Brush teeth. Work. He realizes he has not brushed his teeth since having his peanuts, and blames me. I talk so much I made him forget his routine. I, who didn’t do anything, totally ruined his flight. He unbuckles, jumps up, pulls down bags searching for his toothbrush. The flight attendants try to restrain him, warn him the pilot will be angry. I know the pilot! he screams. Over the loudspeaker a flight attendant tells the pilot to take the plane in even faster, there’s a nut on board.
The nose of the plane points toward the earth. Below, little ant-like figures spill from toy-sized utility trucks, and hurriedly paint a bull’s eye on the tarmac. Get me to L.A., screams the business traveler. The flight attendants manage to get him into his seat, using his belt, my belt, several wide orange flight-attendant uniform belts, and the seat belt to restrain him. The business traveler can’t look out the window, because he’s got an orange belt strapping his jaw to the backrest, and he’s trying to bite through it; not looking toward the window at all. The plane speeds up, but time slows down. Still, we don’t have forever. I’ve learned a lot. I know how to tip without a fuss. Most things—the retro uniforms on the flight attendants, the reason I find myself headed to L.A.—I will never figure out.
The L.A. sky is orange and red. The bull’s eye is coming fast. Buddy, I tell him, buddy, you should really see this.
*****
1. A Passion for Airs
I parked the rental and got out, then took the manila envelope, folded it over once, and stuffed it into my breast pocket, wrecking the line of my jacket. Better that than tote two thousand dollars cash in my hand like a delivery person. Before I crossed the lawn and rang the bell, I took in the air. Air bathed my pores, filled my lungs. I have an affinity for reading breaths of air. For example, on this day in that yard I found a breath once taken by Hannibal’s elephant in the Alps. Another had floated for a time in the LEM as Armstrong stepped onto the moon. The same breath returned with him to earth. These may seem extraordinary to laymen, but breaths like these are everywhere. Certain breaths of air are discrete however, and refuse to return easily to the great swirling airs that surround us every day. Appraising, cataloging, and collecting breath-that-lingers is my passion.
Anyone can acquire lingered breath in a vaccuum-sealed valve. It’s the way I started. Gradually I developed what collectors call “affinity,” that is, my senses became so finely attuned I no longer resort to chemical solutions or spectrographs to capture a breath of air. Nose and lung are my tools.
Once I maintained a South Jersey warehouse for my collection—the largest collection but two on the eastern seaboard. Now, I limit new acquisitions to those I can profit by, as The Spouse has informed me that in future my passion, to continue at all, will continue self-funded. The Spouse, coming from money and position, controls the marital finances. Therefore, I’ve sold most everything, and collect now as a sideline, two weeks a year, on vacation from my mundane but respectable occupation.
This year, I flew to the innocuous Californian suburb Fremont to consider the last breath of a person named Kank. Its previous owner, a dilettante collector, made a fortune, on paper at least, as a software kingpin. He died leaving his widow to sort out a bankruptcy and an unimpressive, if ostentatious, collection of airs. These she sold to amateurs no more talented or passionate than her husband, paid debts, and bought the house in Fremont.
Sometime later, she reached me through collecting channels to offer a final item: the last breath of an individual named Kank.
Beethoven’s last breath had sold at auction for the highest price ever received for an air. Of course, an average nobody last breath like Kank’s would bring much less. Still, today’s ilk wouldn’t consider their collections complete without at least one death-bed air.
Nevertheless, I would have had no interest in the Kank specimen but for its reasonable price, my limited budget, and a chance to fly three thousand miles beyond the Spouse’s reach.
I walked across the lawn and rang the doorbell.
2. Tea with a Matron
A gracious widow answered the door. She led me into a living room where I sat down on a sofa before a coffee table set with tea service. The lady poured hibiscus tea into two eggshell cups. She gave me a dubious cranberry black-olive scone. I suppressed a smile over odd Californian food combinations. She crossed one ankle over the other displaying a holly-sprig tattoo, a hint at a more adventurous past.
Between sips she told me something of herself. A love for animals fueled a life funding their welfare. Now, money gone, she volunteered spare time at a local shelter. Talk turned to her husband, and she regaled me for three-quarters of an hour with tedious anecdotes of her Departed. She had never shared his love of breaths, but, she said with a smile that betrayed her pride, the husband believed she had more affinity for breath than he.
I fidgeted, thinking of The Spouse, who, sharing not an ounce of my affinity, will sell off my treasure the same hour my body grows cold.
The widow, as if addressing a small boy, asked me if I needed to urinate.
3. A Question of Ownership
I seized the moment to usurp the conversation. Kank. How had the lady’s deceased husband come to possess his last breath? What did she know of the man?
The widow straightened her back, then spoke with pursed lips. “Know him, no. I never knew him and my husband never mentioned him, so I don’t believe he knew him either.”
Her response stopped short of answering my question. I nearly pressed the issue, but she spoke again.
“You seem like a nice young person.” She spoke slowly, and looked away. “It came in an unmarked valve, with some items donated to the shelter. Because of my husband’s interests I recognized it as a captured breath.” Her mouth moved but she could not bring herself to say more. “You understand. You seem like such a nice young person, an honest young person.”
She made herself plain enough to me. A public auction might dispute her ownership. I could have told her not to worry. If the black market scared me I would not have agreed to pay her cash.
She finished her tea and placed cup and saucer back on the coffee table. She rested her hands in her lap, communicating I should finish my tea also. The temperature in the living room reached, I suspect, a Californian seventy-five degrees, so the item would have been kept elsewhere. I asked to be shown to it, to examine its condition. She led me to the garage.
Though I don’t recommend so to a serious collector, using a cool, dark, quiet garage to store breath is acceptable. I asked my hostess for a moment alone. Noticing her hesitation, I assured the widow she could trust me with the property.
She motioned to a large cardboard box on a workbench. “If you find the item to your satisfaction, kindly place the agreed sum next to the box, and depart by the side door.” She lowered her eyes and never looked at me again.
After a moment, she left.
4. Kank’s Last Breath
I snorted. I would leave by the side door, by any door she pleased, and impose myself on the old eccentric no longer.
Uncatalogued, undocumented, worthless air filled my pores. I considered backing out to save my two thousand for something else. Somebody had given the breath to the old lady after all. Should I put down green money for this valueless Kank?
I fished through the box. Amid a plethora of dog collars, dog leashes, dog toys and dog tags, I found a valve. Ineptly corked, not hermetically sealed, much of the breath had dissipated. In another day nothing would remain.
It had no valued. Nevertheless, with professional interest, I shut my eyes and held the valve to my nose. In part, as I recall, I felt this last breath trying to linger:
There lived a man named Kank, Mort Kank, and he never did much, he tried to stay out of more important people’s way, he watched a lot of TV, he liked TV, never felt too lonely, confident other people had it worse. He walked his dog. He walked a series of dogs, actually; they died at twelve to twenty year intervals. Kank married the woman he lost his virginity with. She left him after three years, and he never married or slept with anyone again, excepting two prostitutes in the eighteen-month period after the divorce. He worked for the phone company thirty years, a member of a union with a pension plan, in a country with few unions or pensions left for people like Kank. In his life, he never complained, never, not once. He survived retirement eight months. When he died he had four thousand eleven dollars in the bank. He left it to an animal shelter he’d never visited but picked from the yellow pages. He should have visited it. The folks at the shelter never knew Kank either, but found themselves touched and grateful for the money, and perhaps a little wistful. They had benefited from his death, this man they never knew.
For no reason, with his last breath he thought of a beautiful girl he’d glimpsed the day he turned seventeen. She had a tattoo, which few girls had in those days, holly on her ankle. He fell in love and spent weeks sick and unhappy until he understood he’d never see her again.
I opened my eyes, put down the valve and looked at it. The widow had no experience of breaths of air, she’d said. She’d also told me her husband believed she had the affinity for reading breath. Kindly place the agreed sum on the workbench, and leave through the side door, she said...
I know I am a pathetic individual with an odd hobby. I know people sometimes laugh at me, and I have laughed with them. Or did once. I don’t know when collecting became acquiring. Cranberry and olive made a bad scone, I’d never liked hibiscus tea, didn’t care one whit whether the old lady had holly or some other berried plant on her ankle.
Two thousand she needed, two thousand she would get. I took out the envelope and placed it next to the box. I left by the side entrance still holding the valve in my hand. There was no breeze. In the yard, again I nosed a breath from the LEM and a breath once taken by an ancient pachyderm.
I twisted loose the valve’s cap and released the remnant of Kank’s last breath. Behind me, I think, (or I want to think) a window slid open. I filled my lungs with Hannibal’s elephant’s air then left, without looking back at the house.
*****
Stan Lefte—
Every few hours someone will let me know they’ve patented my DNA. I’ll get an email from a distressed royal who will offer to give me the patent that his family has taken out in— say—Greece, Pakistan, or rural America. With my patent I will also receive a 40’ yacht that this disgraced family can no longer maintain. The only catch is that I must help them cut the red tape of the ruthless kleptocrats who have recently deposed their somewhat democratic regime. The royal will wire me $10,000 in bluebacks. Sometimes it’s maplebacks. Either way I will be asked in return to wire him a few grand in bluebacks. Once they’ve received my wire I am free to bank theirs, and free to enjoy the benefits of licensing my own body rights in their country. That’s the deal. Sometimes I go ahead and send the money even though like everyone else I’m aware their transfer is phony. It’s frowned upon, this responding to fraud, but maybe I feel guilty about my $5000 hourly wage. Sure, that’s only two-thirds the legal minimum—the cost of a few lattes in Vancouver—but it’ll get someone a used car in Mississippi or a mansion in Kazakhstan. Look, I know there are charities out there, I know paying some crook is no way to balance the scale. Life is unfair, I get it. I’m a naïve, bleeding-heart, urban-archipelagan, I get that too. But, hey, at least the con-artist is helping someone, even if it that someone is himself. Joseph P. Kennedy was a bootlegger, his son JFK became president, and grandson JFK Jr. also became a celebrity of some kind. It’s the american way. That’s america with small a.
Leah Pape—
We are starting a new memoir today, my writing partner and I, our 419th. I am trepidatious, I do confess. No memoir has oversold our 401st, and that was almost five months ago. Coast in purpletuity on 1112 Nights Enslaved by the Saud, we cannot. Dakota wants to do another teen bathroom confessional. I feel we are too old for that. Shouldn’t we nonfiction our lives? Teen stories were fine for us when she was, like, 14, but Dakota is going to be 20 next year. 20. And what will happen to our backlist if our base finds out Dakota is a fraud? I know what I have to do, though it sicks me. There’s this girl who’s been IMing me most everyday. Her prosody needs a little workage, but at age eleven she’s got time. There’s stellar fire in her, and with some guideage ... I feel bad for Dakota, but I can’t let her drag me down. When we finish this one, I’ll block Dakota from my accounts. I’m 16, I’m still young.
Justin Bagge—
Work nights at the BP. Poor Mr. Shiva, my boss, keeps to himself since his missus ran away to America. He doesn’t even notice I’ve linked our cashpoint to SETI@home—that’s the California program searching background noise for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The SETI@home system records a 4.1-MHz-wide band centered at the 1,490 MHz hydrogen line, so it says on their website. Doesn’t slow down customer transactions one byte, but Mr. Shiva would’ve said no, so I never asked. Wouldn’t understand, would he? He only understands Yoohoo, and cigs, and stocking the biscuit bins. Still, imagine the first message from outer-space coming through this shop! Be the most famous gas stop on the M5, wouldn’t it! In the world! Picture Mr. Shiva looking cross when the news comes in. Sacking me. Then in walks the media. Mr. Shiva comes ‘round to the wonder of it all. Takes me straight back. His arm around me on the front page of The Sun. A bit later, when the frenzy dies, catch him cleaning the glass on the cashpoint screen. His eyes tear up. Look what we done! You and me, Mr. Shiva! You and me!
Nancelle Christoferson—
It’s my job to read other people’s emails and IM’s. In the Justice Dept. that’s what we do. Yeah, right. Nearly half a billion terabytes of information come across my desktop every day, and that’s just a .5% sampling from the .5% sample of the total that is culled for my queue. There used to be 425 of us in the D.C. office alone, but with cutbacks we are down to 6. The other 5 have seniority and they don’t have to come in. So I sit in this cold federal basement all day alone. I look at the hundreds of empty desks and even that number seems infinite. I keeping thinking someday someone is going to discover I’m here and lay me off. I’m on the fence with that. On the one hand I hate my job, on the other I’d hate to have to find a new one. If I had to look for a job, someone would realize I don’t know how to do anything. Nothing but read, and half the people in the world can do that. There’s unemployment insurance for some, but it’s against the law for former federal employees in Maryland to collect. It just passed on the last ballot, 61% to 32%. I can’t move into D.C. to apply there either, because of the federal 4-year waiting list on benefits that follows any move across a state or territory line. I suppose I could move to D.C. now and hope I don’t get laid off for five more years. But that would be being proactive. I don’t know what I will do. It’s a pretty good job, I just wish I wasn’t so scared. And bored. Scared and bored all the time. It makes me queasy. And then there’s Mama, what do I do with her?
Jeannie D’Arc—
No more footprint! Today I closed my last brick and mortar gallery. I sold my co-op, and I’ll be couch surfing. I signed up with Clothester, so I have friends all over the world who wear my same size. (Contrary to propaganda, there are still plenty of us 2’s around.) The only things I own are the fillings in my teeth, and the passwords in my head. I find art and trade it to you for sustenance. The mainstream sez I deal in “outsider art”, but I hate that term. (Despise that term.) Nobody sez “insider art”. There’s only art. (And what it is, is up to you.) I got a rainbow in a man-made puddle in Madison, that I’ll reveal to you for some no-carb fries. There’s a man in Colorado sitting on his doorstop imitating Willie Nelson singing in Spanish—singing backwards for some reason. I’ll take you to him for some mileage vouchers. Some guys rigged a bunch of abandoned Malibu houses to slide down the hills in unison on such-and-such a date. I’ll see you there for a dental coupon. (Damn cavities!) If you can’t come up with any of these trade-items, lets talk. Art wants to be free, and I’ll do what I can. But remember, a girl’s got to live! Oh, and wait till you see the email and IM collection of a dear elderly lady in Baltimore ...
Hannabella Christoferson—
My baby is working so hard. Working to the bone, and I don’t think anyone appreciates her. She works in a big building in Washington DC right down the street from the President. I hope she gets out in the fresh air on her lunch time. I hope she walks down the Mall now and then, and sees the cherry blossoms bloom. It’s no good for her eyes to be looking in the screen all day. I don’t know what she does, but I know it’s important. She reads important emails, emails and what they call instant messages, from all over the country and all over the world. I nagged her and nagged her for stories about how she spends her day at work. I suppose she got sick of me nagging, so she started printing a few of her emails out for me, and I keep them in that old Tupperware over there against the wall. Yes, it is a lot of Tupperware, I get them at the PriceSavr 4 for a dollar. Bring me that top tub, sugar. I’ll read you one or two...
Nancelle Christoferson—
I shouldn’t do it, but I do it. I would be fired if anyone found out, but first they would have to notice. They would have to care. I just hit the print key. I hit it time and time again, as the terabytes flash by. I never read them. I don’t think Mama does either, it’s just a game we play. It makes her feel connected to something, it makes her feel like something is going on here, something tangible, meaningful. Maybe it makes me feel that way too. Like I have something to justify myself when I come home in the evening. I’m 50. I’m never going to get married, or get promoted, or have kids. I’m going to bury Mama in a few years, but she won’t really be gone; I’ll be taking her place. I’ll be in that rocker amidst the plastic tubs of old IM’s stacked to the ceiling. Then I will die. Who will think to bury me?
Aakrit Shiva—
Dear Wife: You must stop this nonsense and return. The store is suffering. I have only Justin to help, and he is an idiot, as you know. Still, with our thin margin I cannot afford to hire a second boy, and at least Justin is loyal. Your children are suffering. Your husband is suffering. You will never be happy in America. You are Hindu. America has no Hindu culture. At least in England there is tradition. It is hard work. I am sorry for that. If you come back, I will do my best to lighten your burden, and see that you have some time to devote to your own interests and improvement. I regret that our life has not afforded you opportunities commensurate with your abilities. I know that you enjoy astronomy among other abstract pursuits. Do you know that Justin is conducting astronomical experiments in our shop? He thinks he is keeping this secret from me. Despite this, I have not interfered with him. I am not the best husband, still I do my best. Were you to return, you would find me much changed. However if you will not return, I must sever our relationship. Sincerely, Aakrit.
Dakota-Brittany Kandall—
Webmaster: I am still not able to reach my writing partner. Your last response to me was unprofessional. You said I was acting like a stalker, a jealous ex-lover, when I am merely trying to contact my legitimate business partner, as I explained like 400 times. Do they really pay you to write such trash to your customers? I have searched your site for a way to contact your supervisor, and have found none. So I am writing to you again, which I’m sure you will ignore. I’m sure you are laughing and laughing at me because you know I am in a helpless situation. Well you are a faceless automaton, so there. I have no doubt that when my friend and business partner sorts out this blocking of access to her accounts, she will close them, and your company will be out the money. You will note I said business partner—and I’ve had enough of your puerile homophobic/homoerotic insinuations, btw. Have a little pity.
Fuck you very much, D-B K.
?—
DEAR FRIND: PLESE HELP AS I KNOE YOU CANN. i am the son off the emperer off Oklahoma in X-ile in the Texen Freepublic in Austin. i amm writieng to sympthy urban-anarkypeligans whose dNa we patneted in OK. My fthers depsoition makes us inable toe mintster are patnets their anu longer. we our willing to aceed thes patterns too you in x-xchange for ading us transfer sertain funds out off OK. we also will trsfer the dede of our 41” yaught as thier is noe ocian in Austin texes. we contratcted you from the milions dna bilions off peple inn cypersapce beacuase off your nown gererosity. plese help as i knoe you cann ...
*****
Though the boys’ birthdays occurred weeks apart, Mother combined their gift to please Father.
“You may choose your present this year, boys,” said she. “Something to fulfill your destiny, perhaps.” The boys were born to change the world.
“A cement mixer,” said the oldest, James.
“A hammer and nails, and wood,” said Charles, two years and two weeks younger. “We want to make things.”
Mother pushed her tongue against the inside of her mouth. “You could choose a gift that would make Father happy.”
The boys lowered their eyes.
They lived in a basement, down below the kitchen where Father
made soups, casseroles and soufflés much demanded by hungry people in the city. Every year Father bought the latest blenders, electric mixers and grinders. He ordered the best ingredients in the world. Father wanted the boys to join him in the big kitchen one day, when ready, but they feared that day. The kitchen boiled, and steam leaked out the vents cut in the door above the basement stairs. Blenders and mixers raged and whined into the night.
“I think Father would be pleased if you asked for an industrial food processor,” said Mother.
James knew Mother could not hear their birthday wishes. Love
and allegiance to Father overwhelmed her senses. Charles bounced in place. He dreamed of things to build with.
James said, “If a food processor is what you think we should have, Mother, that is what we want.”
Charles’ puffy cheeks reddened; his lips trembled. James caught his eyes and encouraged him to be brave.
The birthday party came and Mother dressed the boys in party hats. Cooks from Father’s kitchen brought down special dishes, in stainless steel mixing bowls, for the meal. Poultries, and young calf and foal so tender the meats fell off the bones to liquefy in their own juices. Pastas so drenched in butters and un-clarified oils the brothers could not discern the noodles’ shapes. The brothers had eaten so many rich, creamy, dishes in their lives they could no longer tell foods apart.
They emptied each bowl tasting nothing.
When they finished one, the white-coated cook who’d brought it took it back and climbed the left side of the stairway back to the kitchen. More cooks brought fresh dishes down the right side. The meal could not end until dishes stopped coming and the boys had finished everything.
From her rocker in the corner, Mother looked on, pleased. Next to her rested the tall box containing the boys’ gift.
After many courses, the boys lagged in their eating, forcing the cooks to wait for empty bowls to return. A voice blasted from within the steam-filled kitchen above.
“Where are my cooks!” cried Father.
The cooks hunched and shook. Mother called up in her gentle voice. “The boys relish the dishes so much, Husband, they are not emptying each bowl as it is brought, but savoring their meal,” she said.
Even though no one could withstand Father’s will, she protected them as best she could.
“Never mind the bowls,” cried Father. “I have dishes for my sons to eat. How can they ever join me in the kitchen if they do not eat what I make?”
The cooks left the bowls on the floor, and the table, and scrambled back up the stairs to carry more.
After the party, the boys lay on the woven rug amid empty bowls. James’s belly rose and fell.
Bowls lay stacked in mountains. The cooks had not returned for them; Father would need his cooks later to prepare the next day’s orders and he’d sent them to bed for a few hours.
James drifted, gut splitting. Charles whimpered in agony.
The creak of Mother’s rocker stopped; she rose and clapped her hands. “Boys,” she said. “Have your forgotten your present?”
James struggled to sit up. His pants button popped off, which eased his discomfort. Charles leaned up. He looked at James with hope in his eyes. Perhaps Mother had relented and given them something to build with after all.
Mother stood up. She heaved. She pushed the present, which was bigger than they three combined, toward the middle of the room. She hid a smile, pulling down the corners of her mouth.
Charles tried to rush forward, but managed only to lumber. The box equaled his height. He tugged at the ribbon around it.
James helped him, lifting one side of the box lid, letting Charles try the other. When his young brother stood tip-toe, arms outstretched, James removed the lid.
Charles peeked over the edge. Stainless steel, the food processor shone in the room’s dim light. They pulled the box apart to see the gift. Charles made little fists, without crying or showing Mother any sign of disappointment.
He made James proud.
The food processor consisted of a large spout that led into a steel tank that would hold many gallons. Circular blades of different widths and angles fitted the tank. Mother told them they’d received the largest, most powerful, food processor in the world. Besides the electrical power cord, the machine sported an oil-burning motor Father had attached. Father did not like electricity, which was not organic. Not earthy. He insisted his appliances be powered by the grease from his oven traps, or the extractions from his ingredients. Mother said she and Father had decided to give the boys the first one ever made, because they loved them so much and expected them to change the world as Father had. Even Father did not have this machine yet.
She leaned down for a peck on the cheek from each boy. Together the boys lifted the food processor, and carried it to a corner. Mother told them to clear away the bowls from the party and set them at the top of the stairs for the cooks to take in the morning.
She went to bed.
Too tired to work, Charles yawned. “I wish we could blink our eyes and make this mess disappear.”
James thought a bit. “Maybe we can,” he said. “Let’s see what happens if we put a bowl in the food processor.”
“We can’t!” said Charles. “Father wouldn’t like it.”
“With so many, he’ll never miss a few. Let’s see it work.”
Charles backed away, but stood transfixed as James set up the machine.
James started the engine and moved the lever at the base to the highest setting: liquefy. It made a shrill whir. This would not wake Mother, who slept through loud equipment noises coming from the kitchen every night.
James dropped a bowl down the spout; a short ripping sound interrupted the steady hum. He stopped the machine and opened the trap at the tank’s base. Inside, he found a thin layer of liquid steel, enough to dampen a fingertip. “It works,” he said.
He closed the trap and turned the motor on again. He gathered
more bowls and this time Charles helped him, eager to feed the machine himself.
The blades responded with a tink for each bowl fed in.
When the final one disappeared down the spout, James smiled. He told Charles to help him shove the food processor into the corner again for the night. The tank heavy with broth, the brothers couldn’t move it.
“How are we going to get that liquid out?” said Charles.
James peered into the tank. It brimmed with steel soup. He dipped his finger, licked it. “We’ll drink it,” he said.
“I’m too full,” said Charles.
“It’s only a few more gallons.”
James removed the cover. He leaned into the tank. He gulped the liquid. Steel coated his insides. The more he drank to more he wanted. He climbed into the tank to drink more easily.
Charles pulled over Mother’s rocking chair to stand on and climbed into the tank himself.
Finished, they stood tall, strong. James and Charles climbed out to get other things for the food processor. They broke up the table that had been set out for their birthday dinner and fed the pieces through the spout. They drank the wood soup.
They shoved every loose thing down the spout: furniture, woven rugs; they went to their bedroom, brought out the beds, and ground them up.
Charles picked up Mother’s rocking chair. He lifted it overhead, ready to crush it to splinters.
“No!” shouted James.
“Nothing’s left,” said Charles.
“There’s plenty upstairs.”
“Yes, but we’re not supposed to go up there.”
“We’ll have a peek. Maybe Father’s gone. Or sleeping.”
Charles shivered.
Neither had ever seen Father in the flesh.
“Let’s go as far as the door,” said James.
They lifted the food processor without effort now, and carried it to the foot of the steps. James climbed the stairs. He bent down to the vents and listened for pots clanging, food sizzling, or Father’s booming voice. Silence.
He tried the door: locked and too solid for him to pull it open, even with the strength gained from the bowls and furniture they’d drunk. He descended.
“Help me turn the food-processor on its side.” Charles helped, but backed away afterward.
James aligned the spout with the bottom step. He held on to its base and told Charles to do the same.
“I don’t want to,” he said. “We’re not allowed.”
“Let me worry about that.”
The boys held on fast. James started the motor. Again, he moved the lever to liquefy.
The machine swallowed the stairs, driving upward.
It reached the top, crashed through the door. The boys held tight.
The food processor kept going, into the kitchen, sucking up pots and pans and implements in its path. James managed to reach the lever. The machine whirred to a stop.
He stood up. It had cut a swath deep into the stacks and stacks of pots, pans, and implements that filled the kitchen. They righted the food processor. James opened the cover to drink the tank’s fresh contents.
“Where’s father?” said Charles.
James lifted his head. He turned. He stepped through a curtain of mixing spoons and butcher’s knives. Past it, he peered deep into the kitchen.
Prone, on a long chopping table, lay Father, as big and round as ten cooks: chef’s hat awry, white clothes stained with the grease of dishes he’d made James and Charles eat that night. The table held the remains of a hundred ingredients: skins, feet, guts. Father awoke, sat up, scratched a neck boil.
James backed away. He fell against the utensils curtain. Father jumped up.
“Son James! Why are you here without permission?”
“To use our birthday present, Father.”
Father lumbered forward, through the pot and pan curtain. Charles hid himself under a stock pot. Father bent down to lift the food processor’s lid. James braced himself.
He looked into the contents of the food processor: the soup of staircase, and pots and pans that had been in the machine’s feeding path. He took a ladle from the curtain and dipped in into the soup. He brought the ladle up. He sipped. He swallowed. His eyes widened. “What have you done!”
Father spat out the soup.
James ran.
Father chased him. James pumped his legs and arms. The steel and wood he’d taken fueled him, but he lost ground. Father’s long strides closed the distance.
James led him to the basement door. He crouched at the threshold. Father stepped off into the darkness. His magnificent bulk fell. A cry escaped. Not Father’s.
James peered down into the darkness. He could see little, only black shapes in the gloom below. Father moved, drawing up his body. He bent up, then stood. He lifted the limp mass that he had fallen on. Mother. An enraged cry escaped his lips. Liquid gurgled within his throat, and deep down in his chest. If he spoke words, James could not understand them. Father dragged Mother’s broken body with him and, wrecked from his fall, stumbled in dizzy circles within the basement-prison. James shivered in fear that Father would look up and see him, but he could not make himself run away.
Father spat, clearing the liquid from his throat. “Boys! Where are my boy? What’s become of my family?”
He raised Mother, tiny, a tiny spare-rib in contrast to Father’s beef-flank arm, dangling her. He brought his free hand up to his own jaw and worked it open, stretching the skin around his mouth, widening the mouth’s gape.
He stretched it into a maw, an eating machine. James leaped back. He could see Father intended to consume her, to take back in that better part of himself.
The food processor lay right where they had left it upon using it the crash into the kitchen. James put his shoulder against the processor and pushed. It would go faster with Charles’s help, but Charles was still hiding, and it would not do for him to see what happened to Mother. James’ legs ached, his shoulder ground against the cold steel. The processor moved. A quarter inch, half an inch, at a time, until it tottered on the precipice. James peered around it. Father raised Mother over his maw, his face was only teeth and eyes glistened by the food processor’s sheen. James pushed.
The food processor tumbled through darkness. It hit Father and Mother and clanged in the hollow of the basement. Silence.
James realized he was standing on the power plug. The power cord stretched down to the basement, tensed to its limit.
Careful not to move his foot, he stretched himself over to the pot Charles hid under. James lifted it.
“We can’t go back now,” said James. “We’ll stay above. Help me pull the machine back up. It fell,” he said, protecting his brother.
Together, they pulled it back up. James did not allow Charles to look down into the basement. The brothers were hungry and fed one implement after another into the food processor, stopping to drink each time the tank filled, making room for more. At dawn they started on the fixtures, then the ceiling, then the great kitchen’s walls. Finally, they exposed the outside world of rock, tree, and road that they had known only from books Mother read them.
Charles told James he wanted to go below and find Mother.
“This is not the time,” said James. “We have to change the world.” He picked up a piece of earth and fed it into the machine.
The boys found the landscape nourishing and pushed the food processor forward. Bit by bit, they ate a path to the city.
*****
Philip pushed through the door with the sign marked “boy’s side” tacked to it, and entered the library.
Inside, light shone through frosty windows. A new four-foot high plastic divider set on floor stands split the tiny library, until separate schools could be built. Two makeshift checkout stations, made from study tables, prevented one faction or the other claiming the traditional check-out counter. The narrow stacks looked even more narrow now, crammed on either side of the divider, leaving little room to browse. Some books had been packed away to maintain an equal balance in each new half-library.
Ms. Green, the librarian, stood at the counter talking to a towering man. He bent a little, a giant in a kid-sized library. Philip recognized him from township meetings, a Legislator, but Philip did not remember his name. He and Ms. Green were talking about the new library rules.
Philip’s father was the headmaster of the school—the township’s only grammar school. He often complained about the township legislature. They created mandates without bothering to fund them.
Philip walked past the pair, to the book stacks. Few kids, besides him, came in before class started in the morning. At the far end of the stacks, he sat cross-legged on the floor, the divider at his back. The heat was turned high, and he let his jacket fall off his shoulders, though he kept his hands in the sleeves. He browsed the fiction: three five-foot long shelves in all. Philip searched for something he had read less than twice. Kipling, Saki, Burroughs, he’d read them all.
Behind him, the divider buckled. Someone had bumped into it from the other side. Through a six-inch gap between the floor and the plastic’s lower edge, he watched pink snow boots try to stand on a low shelf. The kid bumped into the divider again; this time books rained down from above.
“Ow!” a voice cried.
A book slid under to the boy’s side. When the crier lay flat to reach it, Philip recognized her—Linda Townsend. Her eyes locked on his from behind thick cat-eye glasses.
“What’s happening back there, Linda?” Ms. Green called from the front.
Linda Townsend snatched her hand back from under the divider. “Nothing! I dropped some books.”
She left the book that had slid under and gathered up her other things. She galloped to the checkout.
Ms. Green could not see him. He picked up the book Linda hadn’t retrieved, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. He’d read it before, but he opened the cover. It was the good one, the version the author wrote before her husband, Percy, revised it.
Philip pulled his jacket on and slipped the Frankenstein inside, while Ms. Green busily checked out Linda Townsend’s books. He picked up his texts and moved to the door, clenching Frankenstein in an armpit. He tried not to look at Ms. Green or the tall man. He put his hand against the door.
“Philip!” said Mrs. Green.
He froze.
“I want you to meet Mr. Cruce. Mr. Cruce, this is Philip Walker, our most voracious reader.”
The tall man smiled. “Not Theodore Walker’s son?” He held out his hand.
Philip held his own hand out partway. The book slipped. Mr. Cruce took his hand, shook it. The book fell to the floor.
***
Philip sat in his father the headmaster’s, office, eyes fixed on the woven rug before his father’s desk. Shades drawn, dry stale air, the hot office made Philip thirsty. The grown-ups fought amongst themselves.
“It’s the first week,” said his father.
Mr. Cruce had shouted at his dad, and his dad did nothing. Philip had never seen people so angry at each other.
Ms. Green flushed. Her hands shook. “This is an important policy. He should be setting an example for the other students.” she said. “Moreover, it’s stealing.”
Philip decided he better not say he stole it only because the new rules forbad him checking it out. No grown-up would believe that.
“Madam,” said Mr. Cruce, becoming calm and formal. “I think you should leave this to us.”
Ms. Green gritted her teeth. “I run the library, this issue concerns—”
“It’s a boy’s issue,” interrupted Mr. Cruce. “If we had a girl student here, then, of course, we’d let you handle it any way you felt right.”
“As long as I am librarian, the students are my concern.”
Philip’s Dad put his elbows on his desk, dropped his head into his hands. “Until the legislature frees up money to build a separate school, this will come up again and again,” he said.
Mr. Cruce held his palms up. “Look, people. I’m not casting aspersions. I appreciate what you are trying to do here under hard circumstances. Now, Ms. Green, please leave this boy to us men. I’d do the same for you were our positions reversed. I hope you respect that.”
Ms. Green gave Philip a hard look. “It’s impossible to be the librarian for the boys and the girls,” she said. She shook her head and slammed the door when she left.
Mr. Cruce took off his jacket and laid it across the desk corner. He then sat against the desk, his back to Philip’s dad.
He smiled at Philip. “That ought to lower the decibel level in here, at least.”
Philip kept peeking up at his Dad for a clue how to behave, but his Dad acted strange—mute and expressionless.
“Did you know Ms. Green’s a dyke, Philip?” said Mr. Cruce. “Do you know what a dyke is?”
He did. His cheeks burned.
“Don’t you believe me, Philip?” said Mr. Cruce.
“But she has a husband,” said Philip. He’d seen them together at township socials.
Mr. Cruce shook his head. “That’s what she’d like you to think. Sure she has a husband. He does all the cooking and cleaning for her. Gives her his paycheck too. She keeps him on an allowance. Isn’t that right, Theo?”
Philip’s father didn’t answer at first. He glanced at Philip, then looked away. “It’s possible,” he said.
“Possible? It’s the absolute truth.” Mr. Cruce clasped his hands together. “Help me understand, Philip. Why do you want to read a book by a woman when there are so God damned many great books written by men?”
“I’ve read all those,” said Philip.
“How’s that?” said Mr. Cruce. He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve read all the good books in the library.”
Mr. Cruce looked back at Philip’s dad, who nodded. “What the hell’s going on in this school, Theo? A bright boy who’s run out of books to read?”
“The budget,” whispered Philip’s father.
Mr. Cruce reached out, resting his hand on Philip’s shoulder. “Young man, I owe you an apology. The entire community owes you an apology.”
Philip tried to look past him. “Dad, can I go home? I don’t feel good.”
“I think you should go home for the day, Philip,” said Mr. Cruce. “Dad? Would you like to take Philip home now?”
His father nodded and started to rise from his seat. He looked heavy.
“Philip, before you go,” said Mr. Cruce, “we’ve got to find a way to make sure what happened here today never happens to any other child who grows up in this township. How can you help?”
Philip shrugged. Mr. Cruce looked at him a long time. “I have an idea,” he said. “We’ve got to satisfy Ms. Green—and your father—that you won’t make any more trouble. How about we make you library monitor for the rest of the year? We can get you an orange sash like the safety-patrol wear. Your job will be to help Ms. Green ensure no other kids make the mistake you almost made today.”Philip’s eyes teared and he looked at his father. “I can’t do that. It’s stupid.”
Mr. Cruce made his smile disappear. “Being a man means taking your punishment, Philip. Don’t shame your father.”
Philip cried. “Dad, don’t make me do it!”
His father raised a finger. “Philip...”
“I want to go home. I want to go home!” he cried. Through the tears he watched Mr. Cruce look at his father and grin.
“Kind of a blubberer, isn’t he? My daughters were the same way at that age,” said Mr. Cruce.
“Stop crying!” his father yelled. Philip jumped back. “You will listen to Mr. Cruce, and take your medicine!”
Mr. Cruce took Philip’s shoulders and shook him once. “Philip! Listen to me. If you do this, if you help us for the rest of the year, I will give you a new book every week. Any book you want, do you understand? I promise.” Mr. Cruce’s hands remained on his shoulders. “You’re a very mature boy,” he said. “But you have to understand, there must be order!”
***
After a time the orange sash didn’t bother him. To his chagrin, he found other kids envied his authority, and volunteered to become library monitors themselves. Some kids enjoyed making sure the girls stayed on one side while the boys stayed on the other. Soon he had to patrol just two hours a week, enough to get Mr. Cruce to keep his word.
Mr. Cruce let him have any book he wanted, but he had to promise to keep quiet about reading books by women. Mr. Cruce told him the right people could break the rules. He told Philip that if a smart kid stuck with him, he’d be in the legislature himself when he grew up. Philip smiled and nodded when Mr. Cruce said those things, but they gave him nightmares.
One Monday morning, Philip marched up and down the length of the plastic divider on the boy’s side. Ms. Green had gone to the bathroom and left him in charge.
The plastic divider buckled. Philip stood tip-toe and peeked over. Linda Townsend crouched there, in her cat-eye glasses and pink snow boots, going through the girl’s fiction.
She looked up, surprised, and frowned at him. She didn’t like him. She didn’t envy the orange sash. “I hate this stupid-fuck library,” she said. “They don’t have enough books.”
Philip looked toward the front. Ms. Green had been gone minutes; she’d be back soon.
He pulled a book at random from the nearest boys’ stack. It happened to be Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. He dropped it to the floor and kicked it under to Linda Townsend.
Her eyes widened and she opened it. She undid her book bag, then hesitated, narrowing her eyes at him.
The desire for the book won out; she stuffed it in the bag and bolted for the door, running headlong into Ms. Green returning. Linda Townsend froze for an instant. She looked back at Philip. He folded his hands behind his back.
She blinked and then stepped around Ms. Green, vanishing into the hallway.
Ms. Green shook her head at Philip. “I don’t know what to think about that girl some days,” she said.
Philip told her he didn’t know what to think either. He turned on his heels, and continued patrol.
*****
The week of the midsummer classic the Mariners stood a dozen games over five hundred, the sky shone blue. In that pre- September 11th idyll so many things went right in the world, and Billy Funt discovered he had a six-year-old son called Nate.
That Nate was fruit of his loins he did not bother to refute. The boy looked just as he himself had at that age, as evidenced from the overstuffed photo albums his own parents had left him as his only inheritance. The same short nose, the same milky blue eyes. Billy had not been so arrogant as to ask for a paternity test on his own, but Nate’s mother’s lawyer had insisted. Billy did not speculate on the reason for this, perhaps it was in fact true, that, as she said, Nate’s mother was an ethical person and did not wish to hold Billy accountable without medical proof. It was all the same to Billy however, the whole thing was like a movie (and this was the summer before so many things in the world seemed like a movie) that he would be a father, that he would have a son.
Nate’s mother and Nate’s mother’s lawyer thought that Nate ought to know his father and father Billy ought to know his son Nate. To that end they arranged several weekend visits for sire and offspring, and today, the morning of the All-Star game, was the third of those.
Billy had intended to take Nate to the All-Star game, which would be a father-and-son thing to do, but his bud—his so-called bud—had refused to give up his seat and sell his ticket back to Billy, who’d done all the legwork in the first place, so Billy had relented and sold his own ticket to his buddy and that was the end of that. Billy had a vague idea that he could get another pair of tickets outside Safeco Field right before the game, but he’d never tried that before, and was leery of getting screwed by counterfeiters.