Fire Watch (30 page)

This is the best argument of all, Reverend Hoyt thought. A happy ape is a breeding ape. A baptized ape is a happy ape. Therefore …

“I understand,” he said, looking at the young man. “I have been reading about orangutans, but I have questions. If you could give me some time this afternoon, I would appreciate it.”

The young man glanced at his watch. Natalie looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps after the news conference. That lasts until …” He turned to Natalie. “Is it four o’clock, Reverend Abreu?”

She tried to smile. “Yes, four. We should be going. Reverend Hoyt, if you’d like to come—”

“I believe the bishop is coming later this afternoon, thank you.” The young man took Natalie’s arm. “After the press conference,” Reverend Hoyt continued, “please have Esau put the ladder away. Tell him he does not need to use it.”

“But—”

“Thank you, Reverend Abreu.”

Natalie and her young man went to their press conference. He closed all the books he had checked out from the library and stacked them on the end of his desk. Then he put his head in his hands and tried to think.

“Where’s Esau?” the bishop said when she came in.

“In the sanctuary, I suppose. He’s supposed to be putting the webbing on the inside of the window.”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Maybe Natalie took him with her to her press conference.”

She sat down. “What have you decided?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday I managed to convince myself he was one of the lower animals. This morning at three I woke from a dream in which he was made a saint. I am no closer to knowing what to do than I have ever been.”

“Have you thought, as my archbishop would say, who cannot forget his Baptist upbringing, about what our dear Lord would do?”

“You mean, ‘Who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves.’ Esau said that, you know. When I asked him if he knew that God loved him he spelled out the word Samaritan.”

“I wonder,” Moira said thoughtfully “Did he mean the good Samaritan or—”

“The odd thing about it was that Natalie’d apparently taught him some kind of shorthand sign for good Samaritan, but he wouldn’t use it. He kept spelling the word out, letter by letter.”

“How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?”

“What?”

“John 4. That’s what the Samaritan woman said to Jesus at the well.”

“You know, one of the first apes they raised with human parents used to have to do this test where she sorted through a pile of pictures and separated the humans from the apes. She could do it perfectly, except for one mistake. She always put her own picture in the human pile.” He stood up and went and stood at the doors. “I have thought all along that the reason he wanted to be baptized was because he didn’t know he wasn’t human. But he knows. He knows.”

“Yes,” said the bishop. “I think he does.”

They walked together as far as the sanctuary. “I didn’t want to ride my bicycle today,” she said. “The reporters recognize it. What is that noise?”

It was a peculiar sound, a sort of heavy wheezing. Esau was sitting on the floor by one of the pews, his chest and head leaning on the seat. He was making the noise.

“Will,” Moira said. “The ladder’s down. I think he fell.”

He whirled. The ladder lay full-length along the middle aisle. The plastic webbing was draped like fish net over the front pews. He knelt by Esau, forgetting to sign. “Are you all right?”

Esau looked up at him. His eyes were clouded. There was blood and saliva under his nose and on his chin. “Go get Natalie,” Reverend Hoyt said.

Natalie was in the door, looking like a childish angel. The young man from Cheyenne Mountain was with her. Her face went as white as her surplice. “Go call the doctor,” she whispered to him, and was instantly on her knees by Esau. “Esau, are you all right? Is he sick?”

Reverend Hoyt did not know how to tell her. “I’m afraid he fell, Natalie.”

“Off the ladder,” she said immediately. “He fell off the ladder.”

“Do you think we should lay him down, get his feet up?” Moira asked. “He must be in shock.”

Reverend Hoyt lifted Esau’s lip a little. The gums were grayish blue. Esau gave a little cough and spewed out a stream of frothy blood onto his chest.

“Oh,” Natalie sobbed and put her hand over her mouth.

“I think he can breathe better in this position,” Reverend Hoyt said. Moira got a blanket from somewhere. Reverend Hoyt put it over him, tucking it in at his shoulders. Natalie wiped his mouth and nose with the tail of her surplice. They waited for the doctor.

The doctor was a tall man with owlish glasses. Reverend Hoyt didn’t know him. He eased Esau onto his back on the floor and jammed the velvet pew cushion under his feet to prop them up. He looked at Esau’s gums, as Reverend Hoyt had done, and took his pulse. He worked slowly and methodically to set up the intravenous equipment and shave a space on Esau’s arm. It had a calming effect on Natalie. She leaned back on her heels, and some of the color came back to her cheeks. Reverend Hoyt could see that there was almost no blood pressure. When the doctor inserted the needle and attached it to the plastic tube of sugar water, no blood backed up into the tube.

The doctor examined Esau gently having Natalie sign questions to him. He did not answer. His breathing eased a little, but blood bubbled out of his nose. “We’ve got a peritoneal hernia here,” the doctor said. “The organs have been pushed up into the rib cage and aren’t giving the lungs enough space. He must have struck something when he fell.” The corner of the pew. “He’s very shocky. How long ago did this happen?”

“Before I came,” Moira said, standing to the side. “I didn’t see the ladder when I came.” She collected herself. “Before three.”

“We’ll take him in as soon as we get a little bit more fluid in him.” He turned to the young man. “Did you call the ambulance?”

The young man nodded. Esau coughed again. The blood was bright red and full of bubbles. The doctor said, “He’s bleeding into the lungs.” He adjusted the intravenous equipment slowly. “If you will all leave for just a few moments, I’ll try to see if I can get him some additional air space in the lungs.”

Natalie put both hands over her mouth and hiccuped a sob.

“No,” Reverend Hoyt said.

The doctor’s look was unmistakable. You know what’s coming. I am counting on you to be sensible and get these people out of here so they don’t have to see it.

“No,” he said again, more softly. “We would like to do something first. Natalie, go and get the baptismal bowl and my prayer book.”

She stood up, wiping a bloody hand across her tears. She did not say anything as she went.

“Esau,” Reverend Hoyt said. Please God, let me remember what few signs I know. “Esau God’s child.” He signed the foolish little salute for God. He held his hand out waist-high for child. He had no idea how to show a possessive.

Esau’s breathing was shallower. He raised his right hand a little and made a fist. “S-A-M—”

“No!” Reverend Hoyt jammed his two fingers against his thumb viciously He shook his head vigorously “No! Esau God’s child!” The signs would not say what he wanted them to. He crossed his fists on his chest, the sign for love, Esau tried to make the same sign. He could not move his left arm at all. He looked at Reverend Hoyt and raised his right hand. He waved.

Natalie was standing over them, holding the bowl. She was shivering. He motioned her to kneel beside him and sign. He handed the bowl to Moira. “I baptize thee, Esau,” he said steadily, and dipped his hand in the water, “in the name of the Father”—he put his damp hand gently on the scraggly red head—“and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

He stood up and looked at the bishop. He put his arm around Natalie and led her into the nave. After a few minutes the doctor called them back.

Esau was on his back, his arms flung out on either side, his little brown eyes open and unseeing. “He was just too shocky,” the doctor said. “There was nothing but blood left in his lungs.” He handed his card to Reverend Hoyt. “My number’s on there. If there’s anything I can do.”

“Thank you,” Reverend Hoyt said. “You’ve been very kind.”

The young man from Cheyenne Mountain said, “The Center will arrange for disposal of the body.”

Natalie was looking at the card. “No,” she said. Her robe was covered with blood, and damp. “No, thank you.”

There was something in her tone the young man was afraid to question. He went out with the doctor.

Natalie sat down on the floor next to Esau’s body. “He called a vet,” she said. “He told me he’d help me get Esau baptized, and then he called a vet, like he was an animal!” She started to cry, reaching out and patting the limp palm of Esau’s hand. “Oh, my dear friend,” she said. “My dear friend.”

Moira spent the night with Natalie. In the morning she brought her to Reverend Hoyt’s office. “I’ll talk to the reporters for you today,” she said. She hugged them both goodbye.

Natalie sat down in the chair opposite Reverend Hoyt’s desk. She was wearing a simple blue skirt and blouse. She held a wadded Kleenex in her hands. “There isn’t anything you can say to me, is there?” she asked quite steadily. “I ought to know, after a whole year of counseling everybody else.” She sounded sad. “He
was
in pain, he
did
suffer a long time, it
was
my fault.”

“I wasn’t going to say any of those things to you, Natalie,” he said gently.

She was twisting the Kleenex, trying to get to the point where she could speak without crying. “Esau told me that you tucked him in when he stayed with you. He told me all about your cat, too.” She was not going to make it. “I want to thank you … for being so kind to him. And for baptizing him, even though you didn’t think he was a person.” The tears came, little choking sobs. “I know that you did it for me.” She stopped, her lips trembling.

He didn’t know how to help her. “God chooses to believe that we have souls because He loves us,” he said. “I think He loves Esau, too. I know we did.”

“I’m glad it was me that killed him,” Natalie said tearfully. “And not somebody that hated him, like the
Charles or something. At least nobody hurt him on purpose.”

“No,” Reverend Hoyt said. “Not on purpose.”

“He
was
a person, you know, not just an animal.”

“I know,” he said. He felt very sorry for her.

She stood up and wiped at her eyes with the sodden Kleenex. “I’d better go see what can be done about the sanctuary.” She looked totally and finally humiliated, standing there in the blue dress. Natalie the unquenchable quenched at last. He could not bear it.

“Natalie,” he said, “I know you’ll be busy but if you have the time would you mind finding a white robe for Sunday for me to wear. I have been meaning to ask you. So many of the congregation have told me how much they thought your robes added to the service. And a stole perhaps. What is the color for Trinity Sunday?”

“White,” she said promptly, and then looked ashamed. “White and gold.”

Fred Astaire is my hero. He used to report to his movies six weeks before filming started and practice his dance routines, wearing out a couple of pairs of tap shoes (and Hermes Pan, who claimed he could only dance backwards the rest of his life), all so he could stand there and look like he had just made it up. In the words of almost everyone who ever saw him dance, “He makes it look easy.
”

That’s what I want to do, even though it looks like I’m going to wear out dozens of pairs of shoes before I even come close: make it look easy.

“Do you suppose Walter Hunt would have invented the safety pin if he had known that punk rockers would stick them through their cheeks?” Mr. Mowen said. He was looking gloomily out the window at the distant six hundred-foot-high smokestacks.

“I don’t know, Mr. Mowen,” Janice said. She sighed. “Do you want me to tell them to wait again?”

The sigh was supposed to mean, It’s after four o’clock and it’s getting dark, and you’ve already asked Research to wait three times, and when are you going to make up your mind? but Mr. Mowen ignored it.

“On the other hand,” he said, “what about diapers? And all those babies that would have been stuck with straight pins if it hadn’t been for the safety pin?”

“It is supposed to help restore the ozone layer, Mr. Mowen,” Janice said. “And according to Research, there won’t be any harmful side effects.”

“You shoot a bunch of hydrocarbons into the stratosphere, and there won’t be any harmful side effects. According to Research.” Mr. Mowen swiveled his chair around to look at Janice, nearly knocking over the picture of his daughter Sally that sat on his desk. “I stuck Sally once. With a safety pin. She screamed for an hour. How’s that for a harmful side effect? And what about the stuff that’s left over after all this ozone is formed? Bicarbonate of soda, Research says. Perfectly harmless, How do they know that? Have they ever dumped bicarbonate of soda on people before? Call Research …” he started to say, but Janice had already picked up the phone and tapped the number. She didn’t even sigh. “Call Research and ask them to figure out what effect a bicarbonate of soda rain would have.”

“Yes, Mr. Mowen,” Janice said. She put the phone up to her ear and listened for a moment. “Mr. Mowen …” she said hesitantly.

“I suppose Research says it’ll neutralize the sulfuric acid that’s killing the statues and sweeten and deodorize at the same time.”

“No, sir,” Janice said. “Research says they’ve already started the temperature-differential kilns, and you should be seeing something in a few minutes. They say they couldn’t wait any longer.”