The Natural Order of Things (22 page)

“Billy is a gifted boy,” she hissed, pushing the fork ever closer to his ceratoid artery. “He’s smart. He knows a lot more than you give him credit for. Do you know what
I
think?
I
think with just a little more encouragement from his father, Billy can accomplish some extraordinary things.”

Billy gnawed at a leathery strip of bacon with great determination.

George nodded and, through clenched teeth, whispered, “Yes, dear, yes, you’re absolutely right …”

His wife seemed to be mulling over her options, contemplating the benefits and drawbacks of murder. Her eyes twitched with something primordial, barely mammalian, as if one of the gray moles nesting in the tangled weeds around the front porch had scurried into the bedroom late at night and tunneled deep inside her brain, gobbling up every last morsel of her compassion and sanity.

The clock began to chime.

“Dammit, I’m going to be late for work.” She threw the fork down on the table and then hurried to the closet to get her lunchbox and welding hood.

It took a few minutes before George realized he was bleeding. With a paper napkin, he gently dabbed at the thin trails of blood trickling down his neck and pooling in the hollow around his collarbone. He trembled at how very close he’d come to confessing everything, every terrible detail of the past few months. From now on, he would have to proceed with caution. He had no desire to be blinded or castrated. There were women like that, women who were capable of maiming a man; he’d known a few in his time and had the scars to prove it. Concealing the truth from his wife had suddenly become a matter of life and death. The risk was especially dangerous since it involved their son. Still, he had no choice but to carry on. The alternative was to remain completely dependent on her. She held the purse strings and seemed more determined than ever to turn his existence into a grueling spiritual pilgrimage to the impossibly distant shrine of sobriety.

Before leaving the house, she kissed Billy on the cheek. “I’ll see you tonight for trick-or-treat.” Then without acknowledging her husband, she stormed out of the house and marched down the street to catch the bus.

The phone starts ringing (another creditor, more likely than not, calling to harass him), but George considers any phone call a welcome distraction. Brushing cigarette ashes from his coat, he stands up and shouts to his son, “Hey, Superman, don’t fly off anywhere!”

He goes inside the house and picks up the phone.

“Hello.”

“That you, Fenner?”

He pauses a moment before responding. “Ms. Higginson. How nice to hear from you. It’s been awhile.”

“You sound a little uneasy, Fenner. Something wrong?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“My wife. She’s not over there at the rectory, talking to those priests, is she?”

“Haven’t seen her since last week.”

“Well, then, everything is just fine.”

“Not quite everything.”

“What could possibly be wrong?”

“Don’t be dense, Fenner. You know.”

“Afraid I don’t, Ms. Higginson.”

There is a long pause before she finally says, “Boiler is on the fritz again.”

“Ah, so that’s it.”

“How soon can you be here?”

“Could it wait till tomorrow? I’m in charge of my boy today.”

“Poor child. He’s probably running wild in the streets.”

“Everything’s under control. Billy is always safe when his daddy is around.”

“Well, bring him with you. If he’s still in one piece.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. It’s Halloween. My wife wants us all to go trick-or-treating. It’ll be getting dark in another hour.”

“I’ll gladly call another repairman, if you’d like. Plenty of men looking for work these days.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Matter of fact, I was thinking of heading out the door anyway. Just finished my last cigarette. Gotta go to the corner store and stock up.”

“Better get a move on then. The priests will be back soon.”

“Must be a desperate situation, eh, Ms. Higginson? A real emergency.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, Fenner. The boiler’s overheating. That’s all. It happens sometimes. You should be grateful.”

The line abruptly goes dead.

After hanging up the phone, George struts over to the mirror above the mantle. Using his fingers, he plucks the coarse black hairs sprouting from his nostrils. He regrets not having showered or brushed his teeth that morning, but he never expected to leave the house. Unemployment has turned him into a recluse.

He steps outside and walks over to the garage. The place is a wreck, and in order to reach the makeshift shelves hammered into the back wall he must scale a treacherous deadfall of plywood and particleboard. He has been meaning to build a tree house for
Billy but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Under a pile of greasy rags, he finds the adjustable wrench, pliers, channel locks, a chisel, tools so old and rusted they can no longer serve any practical purpose, but he can’t very well show up at the rectory empty-handed. A proper tool set, no matter its condition, makes a man look professional and gives him an air of authority. People passing on the street are more likely to regard him as an honest tradesman, one who has fallen on hard times perhaps, but a tradesman nonetheless, a skilled laborer who is willing to work long hours for a day’s wages.

After securing the latches on the toolbox, George goes to the front yard and finds his son racing around the maple tree, the mud-splattered cape billowing up behind him.

“Hey, you, stop monkeying with them birds!” With an impatient huff, George yanks the boy by the arm. “Let’s go. We have a job.”

Father and son start the five-block journey to the rectory on Dickinson Street. Billy struggles to keep up, his grunts becoming more pronounced with every step. George turns to him and says, “Listen, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you, right? If you follow my directions, we should make out like bandits. This is going to be a lot more fun than trick-or-treat. Now here’s the plan …”

Standing behind the elaborate cast-iron gate, Ms. Higginson looks not unlike one of the statues in the overgrown cemetery across the street, an imposing monument of a middle-aged woman carved from an enormous block of gritty sandstone, perfect in her bleak solidity. Broad shouldered and flinty-eyed, she watches over the rectory like a sentry guarding a house of the dead. She seems so totally impervious to the world and its distractions, so rigid and immovable, that George is surprised a pigeon hasn’t fluttered down from one of the corbelled turrets to light on her head and drape her in flowing ribbons of white excrement. Without saying hello or commenting on little Billy’s Halloween costume, she opens the gate and directs father and son through the shadowy courtyard and into the house.

“Hurry along,” she says.

George winces. The rectory smells of incense, cheap aftershave, chicken broth, formaldehyde. It has been a few weeks since his last visit (for some reason the word “reconnaissance” comes to mind), and as he passes through each of its enormous rooms, he lets his eyes linger over the curious relics prominently displayed in cabinets and pedestals—a triptych of martyred saints painted on three wooden panels; a crucified Jesus stretched across a cracked canvas, the savior’s bloody fingers struggling to pry loose the nails driven deeply into his shattered palms; chalices of silver and gold etched with ancient symbols; an ivory cross; shiny amulets; ridiculous jujus. Museum pieces of inestimable worth.

Upon reaching the end of a long hallway, Ms. Higginson calls to Billy. “Over here, boy!” She opens a door and points. “Wait for your father down there. It shouldn’t take him long.”

George whistles. “The basement, Ms. Higginson? Seems a bit spooky for a child, don’t you think?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “I won’t have some rambunctious boy wandering around this house.”

“Aw, can’t he wait in the library?”

“Out of the question. He’ll make too much noise.”

George shakes his head. “He won’t say a word, I promise you that.”

“Down he goes, Fenner, or I’ll call Malachy McSweeney and ask him to do the job.”

“Him!” George shrugs. “Alright, alright. You heard the lady, Billy. No time to waste.”

He shoves the toolbox into the boy’s hands and pushes him toward the stairs. With a little yap of fear, Billy begins the steep descent. In the darkness, the boiler skirls and screaks like a steel dragon chained to the floor of a steamy dungeon. The galvanized pipes overhead cast ominous shadows across the boy’s face. He stands against one of the sooty cinderblock walls and with imploring eyes looks up at his father.

Before slamming the door closed, Ms. Higginson hits a light switch and says, “If he knows what’s good for him, Fenner, he’ll stay right where he is.”

“Oh, yes, he’s a very meek child.”

“Alright then.”

She leads George into the kitchen where the table has been set for dinner, the white tablecloth and napkins neatly pressed, the silverware polished, the fine bone china dried by hand to avoid spots and streaks. George marvels at this fancy presentation, a still life that could easily grace the cover of a magazine, and wonders what’s on the menu tonight. A big pot of chicken soup simmers on the stovetop, but George knows that for an appetizer the priests always eat their God, served in the form of a small, white wafer of unleavened bread. It is forbidden to chew him, but chew him they do. This causes god to become wedged between their tobacco-stained teeth and cemented to the roofs of their mouths. With palsied fingers, with toothpicks, with dental floss, the priests try to loosen their delicious deity, but this only complicates matters and creates a particularly thorny theological question. As God hangs wetly from the floss in small beads, almost like some culinary rosary, the priests wonder if they should consume the remnants before discarding it. Surely it’s an abomination, a sacrilege of the highest order to throw god into a garbage can or to dispose of him in a toilet bowl. Since they aren’t in the habit of reading every papal encyclical, the priests aren’t sure what the Church teaches on this matter. Even for staunch defenders of the faith, canon law can be a most troublesome thing.

Well, no one can follow
all
of the rules
all
of the time, as George Fenner can attest. When he spots the bottle of red wine at the center of the table, for instance, he claps his hands and then reaches for one of the crystal glasses.

“Don’t!” Ms. Higginson says.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“The priests mark the bottle.”

George laughs. “Those tight-sphinctered devils, they get plenty of this stuff every Sunday, I promise you that. Blood of Christ, my foot.”

“I thought you gave up the booze.”

“Let’s just say there are occasions, Ms. Higginson, when I feel justified in taking a sip or two. It gives a man strength.”

“Is that what you tell your fellow drunks at the weekly AA meeting?”

“Everyone cheats now and then. Maybe you should have a little for yourself. Might help you to relax. It can hardly be paradise, working here for these curmudgeons.”

“They’re good men, Fenner. They do a lot for this community.”

“You’re starting to sound like my old lady. She has this crazy notion that the Jesuits are miracle workers who can cure our son. Laying of the hands and all that.”

Ms. Higginson huffs. “Is that what you think? That your wife comes here to consult the priests about your boy?”

“What other reason can she possibly have?”

“She comes here to give me the evil eye.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s no fool, Fenner. She knows what we’ve been up to, you and I.”

“Like hell she does.”

“Women can sniff out treachery. She’s toying with me, waiting for me to break down and confess my sins in front of the priests.”

George takes a step forward and whispers in her ear, “But you won’t confess, will you, Ms. Higginson?”

She uncrosses her arms and shoves him against the table. With her calloused housekeeper’s hands, she unbuttons his flannel shirt and pulls it from his back. He smiles, kisses her neck, lifts up her heavy wool skirt. Physical intimacy transforms her from a cold statue into a scratching, writhing hellcat. She pants and whimpers and grinds her powerful hips against his gyrating pelvis, but before things can really get started she digs her nails into his shoulders and gasps, “Dear God in heaven!”

“What’s wrong?” asks George.

“Your little boy …”

“Ha, he doesn’t mind.”

“But he’s
watching
us.”

George turns.

Standing in the doorway, clinging to his red cape and sucking his thumb, is little Billy Fenner. He gazes with indifference at his father’s grizzly buttocks and Ms. Higginson’s muscular, white thighs.

“Get outta here, you!” George grabs his flannel shirt from the floor and lobs it at the boy’s head. “Back into the basement!”

With a loud bellow and croak, the child scampers down the gloomy corridor.

Ms. Higginson says, “Maybe we should stop.”

But George pushes her down so she is sprawled across the kitchen table like a ritual sacrifice, and in no time at all the two of them fall into a mutually satisfying rhythm. At the Jesuit school, the chapel bells begin to chime. Soon the priests will say grace and break bread at this very table. It’s an image that gives George Fenner such a perverse sense of pleasure that he nearly climaxes prematurely.

Thirty minutes later, father and son hurry back home through streets teeming with groups of neighborhood children in their Halloween costumes.

When they are no longer within sight of the rectory, Billy nudges his father and places a small rectangular object in his hand.

George pats the boy’s head. “Ah, the cat burglar strikes again.”

After several weeks of training, Billy has become a true master of deception, conveying to one and all an air of dim-witted innocence. If he puts his mind to it, he can creep through any house virtually undetected, and over the past few months he has managed to pilfer numerous odds and ends from the homes of relatives and acquaintances. Occasionally his work yields big dividends—prescription pills, bags of marijuana, a collection of rare coins, watches, credit cards, a book of blank checks. The Tanzanian shopkeeper pays handsomely for the looted goods, tens and twenties are the standard rate of exchange, and he never asks questions. With the proceeds from these sales, George is able to maintain some semblance of a social life, sneaking a few pints at the local brewery while his wife works at the foundry.