The Natural Order of Things (20 page)

“Liver! Lung! Ovary!”

After decapitating the frog, Tom raised the dripping point of his protractor high above his head and, running around the lab, stabbed the other frogs, methodically gouging out eyeballs and genitals, severing legs, snapping bones sickening in their elasticity. His classmates recoiled from the viscous, milky fluid that meandered across the surface of the countertops and trickled to the floor. Nobody tried to stop him. They were afraid he might turn the weapon on them, or even on himself; self-mutilation wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Best to wait for Father Loomis to take charge, to
do something
, but the old man was in a daze, his finger buried deep in the back of his jaw, trying to dislodge a hunk of sausage, a soggy lump of toast. Before coming to class, he always ate a hearty breakfast and almost never flossed.

If Coach Kaliher hadn’t been passing through the halls and wrestled Tom to the ground, things may have gotten completely out of control. By some miracle no one was hurt, though in the turbulent confusion, Coach Kaliher was forced to take some extraordinary measures. He put the boy in a stranglehold, pounded his head on the floor, and he may or may not have called the boy a “fucking psycho”; accounts vary on this last point, but given the circumstances, it was certainly an understandable reaction.

Tom writhed and squirmed. He kicked over a chair and managed to shatter a glass jar. He gasped and spat and sputtered vicious threats. His face went pale, then turned eggplant purple. His smashed nose spurted blood. Meanwhile, his classmates, happy for any opportunity to make mischief, formed a circle around Tom and did a spirited Irish jig in his honor, their mirthless laughter ringing through the hallways.

Now, with thirty minutes to kill before his appointment with the tutor, Tom Wentworth takes a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood, passing abandoned factories and warehouses, ungainly edifices of a dead industrial age transformed by the shifting shadows and lacerating winds into sculptures of strange shape and contour—giant locusts and ancient armored lizards hunkered down in the drifting, yellow leaves and swirling coal fire soot. Outside the creaking iron gates of the public park, Tom pauses to observe the homeless women who have come here to stake out their benches before sunset. In filthy trench coats that exaggerate the slump of their shoulders, they look like a nightmare version of the parish ladies who visit the school chapel on Sunday mornings, wrapped in red velvet and white ermine. Through the metallic autumn light, they move as though straining under the weight of chainmail, inadequate protection against the terrible things that will come for them during the darkest hours—the long-tailed rats that scurry across heaps of broken brick to nest beside their bundled newspapers, and the elusive “madman” who selects his prey with great deliberation and takes his sweet time before carrying out his despicable deeds.

Tom tries not to think of this scene in terms of its goodness or badness. He enjoys wandering the streets without the burden of having to measure the value of things. The Jesuits try to place a value on the whole of creation. They use words like
assessment
,
appraisal
and
analysis
. Humanity has been placed upon this earth, they believe, to quantify the cosmos—physically, psychologically, spiritually, morally—and by adhering to the correct methods and utilizing the proper instruments, the priests, never short on ambition, hope to perceive the very mind of God. Tom takes this as a sign that the Jesuits have yet to escape the seductive spell of modernity altogether. Like scientists, they insist upon independent observation, because even men with an unreasonable belief in the supernatural yearn for evidence and incontrovertible proof.

At four o’clock, Tom ambles over to the rectory at 1545 Dickinson, the Ancient Homestead, as the students call it. He knocks three times and waits for Ms. Higginson, the housekeeper, to open the great, paneled door. The peephole darkens and a magnified eyeball regards him with suspicion. A bolt turns, a chain rattles and unfastens. The residents have gotten into the habit of locking their doors during the day. Their precaution has turned to paranoia.

Ms. Higginson thrusts her nose through a narrow opening. “Wentworth?”

Tom takes a step back. “Yes, I’m—”

“You’re five minutes late!”

Her voice lashes him like an old bicycle chain. Small particles of rust and grit burst from her lips and float on the wind. She is a tall woman—broad-shouldered, solid, severe, with a complexion as gray as the afternoon sky, an indoor face unaccustomed to sunshine and fresh air. She looks like one of those sepia-toned photographs from his
history textbook of nineteenth century washerwomen, their sleeves rolled up past their elbows to show off their well-defined triceps.

She sneers with disapproval but waves him inside. “This way, this way!”

Tom stumbles over the sill and almost falls to his knees. Ms. Higginson clicks her teeth. How many oafish boys has she led into this house without the courtesy of saying, “Please watch your step,” just for the small pleasure of seeing them trip and turn red with embarrassment?

She leads him through a maze of corridors, her heels going
clippity-clop
against the hardwood floors like the shoes on a grizzled packhorse. Trying to suppress a smile, Tom recalls the lurid tales he’s heard about Ms. Higginson: she has insatiable urges, it is said, and has seduced the burly maintenance man, who is often seen coming and going at odd hours, his clothes disheveled, his face distraught; she also serves as a kind of madam for the priests and on the weekends procures women of every stripe for them—short, fat, lean, shaved, bristly, bushy. It’s well known that the Jesuits have their fetishes.

“Now then,” she says, “what is it you’re supposed to study?”

“Study?”

She sighs. “Really, Wentworth, must I repeat the question?”

Tom stammers. “Augustine? No, Aquinas.”

Ms. Higginson rolls her eyes. “Oh, the Jesuits do get strange ideas.”

The interior of the rectory reminds Tom of the nursing home where on the weekends he mops the piss-splattered floors, wipes off trays smeared with pureed vegetables, tosses big bags of medical waste into the incinerator, and, since there seems to be no one else who can be bothered with such a menial task, listens to the elderly residents as they struggle to put the ruined battlefield of their memories in some kind of sensible order. Despite the onerous nature of these chores, Tom rather enjoys the job. Because there is an almost complete absence of supervision, he can come and go as he pleases, and this in turn has made him a more dedicated worker. Rarely does he show up to the nursing home empty-handed. Each day he brings the residents small gifts scavenged from the garbage heaped on the curb—charms and bracelets and plastic trinkets—things meant to distract them while he removes the lethal bottle from his backpack. When they see the skull and crossbones on the label, they gasp and whimper like children. As a joke, he twists the cap off and says, “Open wide …” The chemical stings their eyes, irritates their skin, smells sharp and oily like the formaldehyde that will be used to disinfect and embalm their decaying remains.

Ms. Higginson snaps her fingers.

“Stop daydreaming!”

They continue walking, and she leads him into a spacious library. Except for the firelight coming from the hearth, the room is quite dark. Long shadows leap across the bookshelves and oak paneling.

“Wait here,” she says. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She disappears into the vast curling gloom of the house, and for a few glorious moments, Tom is left alone to savor the silence and to feel the pleasant warmth of the fire. He marvels at the number of books, and wonders if the priests ever bother to read these century-old variorums and antiquated encyclopedias or if the books are just meant for show. One volume in particular catches his eye, and from its fragile cover, he parts a sea of dust. In the cracked leather binding, he sees the faces of saints and sinners, the
anguished cries of apostates, the acrimonious scowls of heresiarchs. Even the title strikes him as slightly monstrous:
Black Mass and Black Death: Gentile da Foligno in the Time of the Bubonic Plague
. The pages are stiff and brittle like bloodless autumn leaves, and as he flips through them, they crackle quietly like kindling—combustible and easily ignited.

He scans the small print from right to left, a little game he enjoys playing. From what he can tell, there lived in fourteenth century Italy an eccentric but well-intentioned priest who married off some affluent schoolboys to a group of prostitutes. This, the priest reasoned, was the only way to protect the otherwise defenseless women from certain exposure to the deadly disease. Tom closes his eyes and takes a moment to contemplate the tale. Surely anyone who would commit such a wicked act should be condemned … but condemned to what? He dreams of the appropriate punishment, a thousand eternal torments, but in the midst of this sublime meditation, he hears a voice, odd infantile gurgling, vulnerable as the pages of the book he is holding.

“Oh God help me please oh please God help me help.”

Tom spins around and peers into the darkness. At first he can’t see anything too clearly, but then, gradually, as his eyes adjust to the gloom, an awful vision begins to emerge. The priests have assured him that the things he sometimes sees are not always real, but this vision persists and will not vanish from the shadowlands of his mind. Somehow it is made even more terrible by the sounds of the settling house, the creaks and groans of the joints and floorboards. Using the book as a kind of shield, he approaches the misshapen wretch. Concealed under a thin sheet like a circus freak behind the curtain of an arched proscenium, the gibbering, drooling, cadaverous creature, its desiccated flesh pale blue, vaguely aquatic, almost translucent, squirms in a hospital bed and claws at the air with nails so jagged and yellow that they seem capable of infecting anyone foolish enough to get too close.

“For heaven’s sake! Still dawdling?”

Ms. Higginson stomps back into the library, this time carrying a bowl of steaming soup. She kicks each wheel of the hospital bed with the toe of her shoe and checks the guardrails to make sure they are secure. Then she places the bowl on the dining tray, and without ceremony, without even saying grace, she shoves a spoon toward the creature’s mouth, waiting for its purple tongue to slither from its toothless black lair to lap up the broth and bobbing bits of congealed chicken fat.

“Would you like a reading lamp, Wentworth?”

The thing slurps and pants and coughs, leaving dark droplets on Ms. Higginson’s blouse. She doesn’t seem to notice. With the cold precision of a machine she dips the spoon back into the bowl and dangles it above the creature’s twisted lips. “As you can see, we keep it dark in here. Father has become sensitive to the light. You do know Father Loomis, don’t you?”

Tom utters a faint “Yes?”

When she notices the look of dismay in his eyes, she says, “Ah, you probably recall how heavyset he used to be. At first, it was inconvenient to move him up and down the stairs, so we decided to put his bed in the library. Of course now that he’s lost so much weight, we can lift him more easily. But he seems to enjoy being in the presence of books. He’s like one of those antique volumes.” She leans over the rail and shouts into the old man’s ear. “Isn’t that right, Father? You like it here, don’t you?”

With great effort, the old man manages to lift his head from the pillow and grabs Ms. Higginson by the wrist. He gurgles and wheezes and marks the bottom of the hour with his ghastly refrain: “Oh God help me please oh please God help me help.”

She pushes him back down with both hands. “Oh, I do think this arrangement will work quite well. Don’t you agree, Wentworth?”

“Arrangement?” Tom whispers.

She wipes the old man’s chin and dabs the corners of his mouth. “The Jesuits didn’t explain things to you? How typical.”

“They told me—”

“Never mind any of that. We’re aware that you’ve had a great deal of experience at the nursing home, and we believe you can be of some use to us here. You are to spend some time with Father Loomis, reading to him a little each day. A simple enough task. Even for someone like you.” She points to the book in Tom’s hand. “I see you’ve found a copy of
The Black Death
. One of Father’s better efforts, I must say. We’ll take that as a sign. He wrote it many years ago as a young seminarian. It’s out of print now. A pity. He was such a great scholar. Studied the history of disease. He could have taught graduate classes in epidemiology at a Jesuit university if he wished, but he preferred to stay here and cultivate young minds.” She shakes her head in mild disbelief. “Well, you may as well get started.”

She picks up the bowl, straightens her long twill skirt, and stands to leave.

“You mean, you’re not staying?”

She laughs. “I have other things to do, Wentworth. This rectory is falling apart. The boiler is on the fritz again. I have a man coming to fix it. That fire won’t burn forever, you know.” On her way out, she pauses in the doorway. “Father Loomis has his good days and his bad. On good days he’s been known to rise from his bed. Like Lazarus. The important thing is to make sure he doesn’t wander off.”

Tom watches her leave. She is probably standing in the hallway, waiting for him to call her name, but she is a fool to believe he is just another diffident schoolboy. In fact, Tom Wentworth finds this whole situation rather amusing.

He leans over the bed and says, “Good afternoon, Father. Do you remember me? No? I didn’t think so. Here, maybe this will help you to remember …”

From his bag he retrieves his deck of pornographic playing cards and holds them up to the old man’s face. In order to describe the alien things pictured there he uses the words “snatch” and “twat” and “box,” speaking them loud and clear. “Sinful, isn’t it, Father?” says Tom. He places each card beside the pillow and then fans them out around the old man’s head.

Beneath the sheets, Father Loomis begins to convulse. He rasps and groans and pleads clemency from a tyrannical and pitiless judge. Gone is the fat, cantankerous science teacher. What remains is a jumble of calcified bones that, through some kind of ancient and forbidden magic, have been reanimated, and no medicine in the world can quell their macabre clattering or silence the old man’s mournful and inexhaustible petition to heaven.