American Nocturne Page 19

  Seth moved his head from side to side, staring at the spaces that used to be his arms, and tried to push what was being said into the background. That part of him that wasn’t sure whether Philo intended to kill him started imagining all the things he could never do again. He would never hold his wife, never squeeze her breasts or run his thumb over her nipple. He would never feed himself, never run his fingers through his hair, or scratch his nose or shave. At the same time, that part of him that was sure that Philo intended to kill him tried to persuade him not to care. He wasn’t going to be doing any of those things ever again, anyway.

  What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs in a ditch? Phil.

  “I was adopted, you know,” Philo continued. “The Gormans adopted me as an infant. I was lucky, I suppose. I understand my mother was a drug addict of some sort. The Gormans were wealthy, so I was afforded every advantage. The finest private schools, tutors when necessary. Vacations in Europe. But they always let me know I was adopted, from the time I could understand – could barely understand – they told me and wanted me to know that being adopted meant I was loved and fortunate. They told all their friends and neighbors. I suppose they didn’t want the inevitable who-does-he-take-after questions, probably assuming that people were compelled to see if a boy had his father’s nose and whatnot. They meant well, but it created a deep resentment in me, a nagging, merciless uncertainty. Especially after my sister was born. My parents didn’t believe they could have children of their own. That’s why they adopted me. But by the time my mother became pregnant, they had already told me about the adoption. Me, and everybody else. Growing up, I doubt I ever truly believed I was worthy of my station. Because of people like you, Seth.”

  Philo’s words had started to penetrate. Seth didn’t want to hear them, didn’t want to listen, didn’t care what this maniac had to say. But he was listening, listening intently. Something inside was telling him to.

  “People like you, Seth, were the ones who perpetuated notions of ‘good breeding’ and who looked at me like I was some lower form of life infecting their pristine environment. I could feel their eyes on me in the halls at school, at the snobby summer camps, even at family social gatherings. It didn’t help that my sister was so perfect at everything. So pretty and well-behaved and loved by all. I always knew I could never be one of them, not like she was, not in their eyes. Inferior genes.”

  Philo continued talking like the leader of a filibuster, relating numerous facets of his childhood, about his education, about his choice of careers. He explained how he was determined to prove how wrong they all were, how his peers were merely winners of life’s lottery, having been born to a privileged upbringing that none of them had earned any more than he had. He told Seth it all came together for him in a high school sociology class, when he read about how biological determinism was being discredited more and more with each new discovery. He knew then he wanted to be one of those responsible for the discrediting, and he devoted himself to the study of behavioral science.

  After seeming to talk himself out, Philo left the room. He returned only periodically over the next few days to provide Seth with liquid meals fed to him through a straw. More than once, he administered a shot of a painkiller that put Seth to sleep for long periods of time.

  When Seth woke from a particularly deep sleep following one of those shots, he saw that both his legs had been cut off at, or just below, the knees, he couldn‘t tell which. Tourniquets were clamped around each of his lower quadriceps, the ends capped by large wads of white bandage with the now-familiar red stain. He could still feel his feet, was almost certain he could wiggle his toes. They just weren’t there anymore.

  What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs trying to stand up?

  Neal.

  “It’s almost time,” Philo said, standing next to him, offering the straw. “Do you finally want to admit you were wrong? I’ve given you a good number of clues as to what you were failing to consider.”

  When he squeezed his eyes shut, Seth could still feel the pulse in his feet as the blood pumped through them. “Fuck. You.”

  “It’s so obvious, Seth. Really. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I can‘t believe you’ve overlooked it, as thorough a scientist as I’m sure you fancy yourself. Actually, that’s probably not accurate. I‘m sure you dismissed it, rationalized it away. But I knew the moment I thought of it, I knew it was the way to prove I was right. Not to the rest of the world, maybe. But to myself. And definitely to you.

  “Tell me, Seth,” Philo continued, lifting the can of shake so the straw was touching Seth’s mouth. “Did you hear the rumors?”

  Seth said nothing. Philo’s words passed through him like a stream of ghosts. He wanted to be dead. Or at least left alone to wallow in self-pity. He wanted to scream, unleash a torrent of venom, but he didn’t have the energy. He wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but he couldn’t curl and he felt too empty for tears. He wanted anything but to be there, subjected to Gorman’s sermonizing. He was sure being lectured like this would eventually drive him mad.

  Philo slapped him across the face. Hard.

  “Answer me, Seth. Did you hear the rumors?”

  Seth glared, unable to even cover-up. The feeling of exposure was absolute. Philo slapped him again. Harder.

  “What rumors!”

  “That’s better. The ones about me and my sister, of course.”

  The murmurs among the student body. Whispers that Philo had raped his sister. Seth remembered.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “She wasn’t my blood sister, you know. But it still felt… wrong. In a titillating way, mind you. I suppose I did it to get back at my adopted parents. It wasn’t forcible, not really. She and I were always close, despite the favoritism. I was 23, she was 16. She kept the incident a complete secret. Even after the baby.”

  Seth closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear anymore. As if sensing he had said enough for one day, Philo left the room without further comment. He returned several times over the next few days to feed Seth more of his liquid diet.

  For no particular reason that Seth could tell, the desire to live started to creep back into his attitude, coming and going like a tide. He missed his wife. When the tide was in, the thought of seeing her again, even in his condition, was highly motivating. She would pity him, but he would have a unique opportunity, the chance to learn the true depths of her love. He would nobly offer her a divorce. She would refuse, and her commitment would be a source of strength for him to draw on. He spent hours thinking about how to build a life as a quadruple amputee. There were special wheelchairs and computers with controls a person could operate with his mouth. He could dictate books and concentrate on refining his theories. He could still accomplish things that would make his father proud.

  At other times, the tide would recede and he realized his wife would be repulsed, that it was self-deluding to think otherwise. The twin weights of pity and obligation would crush her. She would turn into a bitter woman, cheated by life, and he would be the reason. He would never be a real man again. Ever. Visions of his father, laid out on the bed, bones swimming beneath loose skin, chilled him. It dawned on him that that was what his mother must have felt, what she truly was, deep inside. A bitter and cheated woman. He wondered if she secretly hated his father for hanging on so long, and if his father’s tenacity in clinging to life wasn’t necessarily a sign of strength, but of weakness. The idea made him want to retch, and the will to survive abandoned him. He only hoped his death didn’t leave his wife thinking he had run off and left her.

  When Philo entered the room pushing a two-wheeled dolly four days after his last lecture, the tide was in, the thought of never seeing his wife again too painful for Seth to consider, and he was thinking about how he wanted to live.

  “The moment of truth has arrived, Seth.”

  Philo maneuvered the dolly next to him. Seth heard the sound of something disconnecting behind him and felt the
straps around his chest and torso tighten. He could feel himself start to sway, a rocking motion, and the board he was pinned to moved with a sudden bump. Then Philo stepped back out in front of him and slid the board, and Seth along with it, off its incline. After a good deal of effort, Philo managed to get the lip of the dolly underneath it and tilted the board back, holding onto it near Seth’s head to keep it steady.

  A voice inside Seth asked, what do you call a guy with no arms and no legs hanging on a wall?

  Art.

  Because he was being pulled, Seth could not see where he was headed. He watched the doorway withdraw into the distance as he moved down a hall. They stopped, and Seth heard a door open. Then he felt himself tipping back farther and heard the hollow falls of footsteps carefully taking steps down, one by one.

  “What are you doing, Philo?”

  “Don’t worry, Seth. I won’t let you fall.”

  The large tires of the dolly dropped suddenly, clunking onto the first step. It was like that the whole way down, drop, clunk, drop, clunk, the hallway receding a bit further each time, one more wooden step away from the light, until Seth could see he was descending into a basement. Philo lifted him upright when they reached the floor.

  “Here we are,” Philo said. He circled back in front of Seth and began loosening his straps. “Tell me, how much do you know about feral children?”

  Seth craned his head to look around, but the board was in his way.

  “You see, I realized some time ago that feral children are the key. Operative conditioning, Seth. Children raised by wolves learn to adopt animal-like behavior. Unless found very young, they never develop language, and they adapt to their wild environment despite not being evolved to it.

  “But even as I realized that the answer lay somewhere in their world, I knew the known cases couldn’t supply the proof I needed. For one, there have only been a handful in recorded history, and the details are sketchy. And even when it came to the well-documented ones, people like you would say their development was retarded, like a seed deprived of nutritious soil. It’s not that their environment created their personality, or so the argument would go, but that it never let it take root. The same with cases of isolated children. Lack of human contact and learning was like depriving the brain of oxygen. It didn’t actually change who that person was, it prevented that person from ever developing. Am I right?”

  The desire to let out a frenzied scream was strong, but Seth remained silent. His heart was pounding at the walls of his chest like it wanted out, causing his stumps to revolt in a drumbeat of excruciating pain. There was something intense building around him. He could feel it in the air. Something primal.

  “So I wondered how I could put this knowledge to the test,” Philo continued. “I knew my ability to publish was gone, and the kind of study I needed… well, there would never be people lining up their children to be test subjects.”

  Philo unbuckled the final strap, the one beneath Seth’s armpits, around his chest, and Seth dropped forward. Philo caught him and carried him to a corner of the basement. Seth realized, with a stab of self-pity, he must only weigh a fraction of what he had before.

  Seth found himself on his back, a thin mat beneath him. He tried quickly to get a look at his surroundings. To his immediate left was a concrete wall, and the staircase blocked most of his view to the right. He twisted his body, finding it almost impossible to get any leverage without his limbs, feeling sutures tearing open beneath his bandages as he pushed with what was left of one arm and propped himself with what was left of the other. The pain in his extremities shrieked, only partially muted by the adrenaline pumping through his heart. Whatever was going to happen to him was going to happen soon, and he couldn’t bear to just lie on his back and wait for it.

  What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs in a pile of leaves?

  Russell.

  The basement was like a collection of shadows divided by fragmented cones of brightness. The glow coming from the top of the stairs illuminated the area in front of him in a faint streak of light. A single bulb in an overhead socket lit the area on the other side of the staircase, as did one directly overhead. Philo stood at a point in between. Behind him, on the other side of the basement near a large table against the far wall, Seth caught sight of a skeletal corpse. It was propped up on a metal-frame bed, a cadaverous arm above its head still shackled to the end of a chain. It wore a blouse that was probably at one time white, and its mummified face was framed by long, straight hair the color of faded straw.

  Philo moved toward the staircase and raised his arm, looking to the far side of it. “Seth, I’d like you to meet Adam.”

  A blonde-haired boy of about six stepped out of the darkness. He had round cheeks and matching cherubic lips. The boy looked up at Philo, then over to Seth. Philo placed a tender hand on the boy’s hair, stroking it.

  “I had always been very close to my sister’s daughter, Cynthia. I confided in her long ago that I was adopted, that her mother and I were not actually blood-relatives. She came to me upset one day, not long after my father had died, and told me she was pregnant and did not know what to do, afraid that her mother would disown her. That’s what my father intended to do to me, did you know that? He was going to save the family name by telling everyone I wasn’t really his son. So when Cynthia came to me, I knew she was right. My sister would be horrified, more so than Cynthia could imagine. I took her in, gave her a place to stay, and then it occurred to me. The child could provide the perfect proof. A completely controlled environment from birth. The Gorman genes could be put to the test.

  “So, Adam was born down here, raised in this basement. He can read and write, and I’m sure his standardized test scores would be in the uppermost percentiles. So here is your proof, Seth. A child that is clearly the product of his environment. I can assure you, he comes from the finest stock.”

  The boy took a step forward, glanced back over his shoulder toward Philo. Philo dropped his head in a nod, a gesture of encouragement, and the boy locked his eyes on Seth again. Then he smiled and ran over to the table near the bed with the corpse and turned on a small lamp. There were items on the table Seth couldn’t quite make out. Near the edge, obscured by a shadow, one object stood out. It was shaped like a foot.

  The boy rummaged through the items on the table and picked up a large carving knife, knocking something to the floor in the process. Seth saw it come to rest within one of the cones of light. The gnawed bones of a forearm, some remnants of meat and tendon still clinging to it, the hand still mostly intact. His forearm. The left one. Seth could see his wedding ring still on its finger.

  What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs in a pot of boiling water?

  Stu.

  The boy walked back to Philo, beaming, and Philo grinned his approval. “You’re welcome to try to reason with him, Seth, plead with him. Be my guest to try anything you want. See what’s stronger, genes or environment. I already know the answer. Good-bye, Seth.”

  “Philo!”

  “Don’t worry, I will call my lawyer tomorrow, like I promised. I won’t mention dropping the suit just yet, but I will, eventually. Right now, it’s my best defense. I mean, really – how stupid would I have to be, right?”

  Philo gave the boy another pat on the crown and headed back up the stairs. About half-way up, he stopped, his pants leg and shoes visible on the staircase. He took a few steps back down and lowered his head, looking to Seth.

  “I almost forgot,” Philo said. “What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs?

  “Why bother? He can’t come to you.” His voice was deadpan until the last syllable, which contained a hint of a laugh to match the toothy smile he flashed before continuing up the stairs.

  The child watched him disappear. As soon as the door was thumped and the light from above extinguished, he turned to Seth. The corners of his mouth curled into a wide, innocent expression of delight.

  The boy drew closer, raising the
knife. Seth started to say something, but saw the pointlessness of it as the boy’s eyes came into full view. He lowered himself off of what remained of his limbs and settled onto his back, letting himself breath for what seemed like the first time in minutes.

  What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs with a hundred pound weight on his chest?

  Cy.

  There would be no reasoning with this child. Seth knew that. A slight chuckle escaped as he exhaled another deep breath and an odd feeling of satisfaction swept over him. He thought of his wife, his father, and silently recited what might qualify as a small prayer of thanks, believing it was no small thing to go to his grave confirmed in the knowledge that he had dedicated his life to pursuing. He even forgave Adam as the child plunged the knife into his stomach, ripping him open from sternum to groin. There was no reason not to.

  The boy was just doing what came naturally, he told himself, so he really wasn’t to blame. What might have passed for a smile set on Seth’s face as he faded off, far away from the pain being inflicted on his body. The joke was on Philo. Proof, he thought. Proof, indeed.

  His father’s eyes weren’t the only things the boy had inherited.

  To Judge The Quick

  EZEKIEL HEARD THEM approaching, an angry rataplan of hoof-beats, drumming like summer thunder. The vibration followed the sound, thumping the soles and heels of his boots, telling him before he looked up that it was horses and not cattle. Horses being ridden hard, but horses, no doubt. The tremors of a stampede would have been felt right before anything reached his ears, not afterward. He knew that, just as sure as he knew the busy tattoo was too high pitched to be longhorn, and too discernible as to each hoof to be more than six animals. He conceded the possibility of five, if his hearing had grown duller than he wanted to believe. But six was his best guess.