Fool School (20 page)

"As the god Apollo begins to destroy the army of
Agamemnon, Ag's man Achilles declares that since 'we are being cut
down by war and plague together,' yoking two elements, a figure the
Greeks term
zeugma
, 'then let us ask a priest or a preacher,
a prophet of dreams, to tell us the root of the trouble.' Priest,
preacher, prophet. Every word of the same letter. This is a figure
which you'll be using often. Termed
alliteration
, it's a
most important tool for a poet. Always add alliteration. Permit me
to interrupt my discussion of Greek figures to present a little
something I've been working on."

Weatherford clears his throat.

"The Arthur allegory, arranged in alpha-beta order.
Arthur's allies averred an adventure, augmenting his aspirations
with ardent arms and altruistic alms. Arthur's aim was academic: to
affirm the auspices that were administered at the altar by
alb-adorned abbots, to achieve absolution in an age when axiom and
allegory alone were antagonistic, and, as all are aware, to acquire
the ancient artifact alleged to have accumulated the anointment
from the aches of the author of the angelic host.

"But before the brave brothers of Britain betook the
brash beck of battle beneath their blazing banner, before the
brandished blades of barbarians were to be broken and the braying
beasts banished, built was a bastion of benevolence and bright
beauty, bought with bullion and beset with bunting. This
blossom-bedizened base was to whither the blessed basin of blood
would be borne: the Castle of Camelodenum."

Weatherford coughs, blinks and looks up at our
reasonably attentive faces. "That's as far as I've got. You have
the idea, I'm sure."

"And now, Malcolm, you did a very fine job reading
the
Tristram
yesterday, would you continue?" Malcolm signals
affirmative and moves to the front. I feel pride in him,
vicariously, and shame. "And Tom." I hear a slight hesitation. "Are
you willing to try to copy down the words?" I yessir, and the
girl-boy distributes paper and quills and pours red ink from a
decanter into a dish for me. I thank her very quietly.

Malcolm's spoken French is perfect, but my spelling
of the French is far from it; I've found that the O sound, like bo,
is written
beau
, and can manage this. Other words and
phrases, like
qu'est ce c'est
, I cannot manage, it comes out
quescer çay
, which is visibly wrong, I am French and cannot
spell my language and I cross it out in frustration, but Malcolm's
good French moves on to other words, and even as he speaks slowly,
I cannot help but skip over words and spell in bursts of nonsense.
Frustration builds, and I would cry out, but for Weatherford's
posterior nethers.

I've got drips of red all over my paper as I dip my
nib again and again. My quill just can't keep up. If each word were
spelled aloud, then maybe, but forming whole words so quickly is
insanity. Rumpled, scratched rips form in my parchment, and I have
to work tirelessly to suppress my violence toward this diabolic
feather and the wisp-thin surface I write on. If God and Satan have
conspired to invent a hell for me, it will be writing words quickly
in a room full of hare skulls scraping against clay bowls. That is
my hell.

Weatherford seems to notice my discomfort, but I
think he chooses not to act, his eyes flick to me as he writes his
own words in the two books.

When it is time to stop, the darkness has become
complete out the window. Weatherford says, "That's enough for
today, Malcolm. Note the number of loops on the scroll roller for
our Hamlin, would you?"

"Six, sir."

"Class dismissed. Tom, wait, would you?"

Hero punches my shoulder as he passes. He's gotten
violent of late. Perhaps his body is changing, now that he's
permitted to eat.

The students are gone. Me and Weatherford and, sunken
into his corner, the perpetual Hamlin. "Tom, it was not your fault.
That's what I have decided." I thank him. "I admire your
persistence in trying to keep up. The writing will make good
practice and I expect you to do your utmost to produce good-quality
writing." Yessir. "Hamlin remarks on your progress." Thank you sir.
"Don't cross out words even if they're wrong. Many of the people we
sell our scrolls to cannot read the correct spelling, and will pay
for phonetic documents that look nice." Yessir. "Hamlin has spoken
about my nervous debility." Now we are on hazardous terrain. "I
demand equilibrium. If I do not receive it, I will ensure that the
consequences are as personally devastating to you as they are to
me. Is that understood?"

Another threat. Everybody here is preparing to be my
enemy. I nod, and Weatherford is down the stairs with his things.
With threats circling me like forlorn carrion crows I wait to hear
the outer door, then I depart.

On the stairs, bearing my shawm and recorder, I find
myself shaking. I make it halfway down, hear the sounds and smell
the smells of supper from below, but I find myself leaning against
the wall outside the acrobatics room. Ab'ly is throwing stones at
the wall, I'd thought he'd gotten them all round. My arms, my knees
give out, I twitch uncertainly, then powerfully, my midsection
shakes me like a frightened deer, I find myself on the ground,
shaking, and in my shaking Weatherford's threat is a choking cloud
around me, I don't know what's happening, maybe I've caught some
demonic possession, maybe the hare pottage was poisoned, but I feel
my head strike a staccato tambrel beat on the stone, I hug my head
with my arms, and Ab'ly takes me under my arms and pulls me into
the room onto the soft mats.

Ab'ly. Skin darker than mine, darker than Perille's,
a nut color, lightly tanned. Face lined, not elderly, but with a
grain, like quality wood. His Saracen outfit billows in balloon
sleeves like inflated bladders, I wonder in my infirmity how they
get sleeves to puff up like that. I say the man's name, say a word
of gratitude. Not sure if it came out right, my jaw is moving on
its own.

"Seen this before. No biggie." He pushes me onto the
floor and sits crosslegged on my chest, he's very heavy for a
spindly acrobat, and my shaking is forced into my hands and feet,
my hands are jumping spiders, flexing without my participation, I
hate having a body.

Gradually, the shaking subsides.

"Happened before here," he tells me kindly. "Too
much, altogezzer too much, for a young person. School's not easy.
Just let the wiggling fade away. That's the key. Patience."

It's getting better, and then it's over, like a
litany ending suddenly, and I feel ocean waves around me and no,
the ocean waves are inside me, up and down with the celestial tide,
and I am in control of my body again.

"Have I caught nervous debility?" I ask Ab'ly. I'd
rather not live life in fear of soiling myself.

"The others didn't catch it," Ab'ly tells me. "It's
just too much too much. Now rest and I tell you a story."

I've never had anyone tell me a story before. Well, I
mean in class, but not . . . not a soothing story. Not a parent
story.

"There was a shipwreck," says Ab'ly, "big big. And
when the sighing winds and splashing waves were all over, on the
beach there stood a man. Not a great man, not a hero. Only a man.
You know him? The man is walking up beaches, up hills, until he
comes to a mountain. The mountain a spear piercing the sky. Here is
man, here is mountain. You see? The man bent over, picked up a most
unusual rock from the ground, and it split in half, hollow. What
was inside? It was a city, houses and streets and a castle and an
entire civilization, only there were no people. No people at all,
for what people could fit inside this tiny city in a rock?

"But the man knew the world is broad, as big as it
gets, and he knew that somewhere he would find men and women and
little bitty babies who could populate the tiny city. So he went
searching high and low for tiny men.

"The country he is being wrecked on was strange to
him, and he got hungry in the belly. He experimented tasting tiny
tastes of the local fruits and berries to make sure they are not
poisonous. Very wise, wasn't he? He bent over the ground, checking
at every footstep for signs of tiny men, walking for too many how
many
so
many miles till his back was crooked as a sapling in
a storm. Everywhere he went he carried the city in a stone with
him, cradling it, hoping he could be the founder of one of the
great tiny cities of the world.

"Thus he went, scouring every foot of ground, and his
eyesight got very bad from bending over away from the sun, that's
what happens, no? Until he could no longer see where he was going,
and stumbled into the sand of the beach he had first climbed out
of. There was the shipwreck, and most of the ship was still
underwazzer, and as the stooped man explored the ship, he found a
colony of tiny fishes who had gotten trapped inside. Over time,
they had become very small, so they could live inside the puddle
inside the ship, yes? And the man put the city in a stone under the
wazzer, and he watched the fishes swim in and out, and was very
happy."

"What does it mean?" I ask. "The story."

"It means the answer you look for is not alwezz in
the place you look for it, sometimes it's somewhere else. And
always it's to give happiness to those who need it. Is it not?"

I'm quite departed from my fears, and at the
professor's urging I go down to bed. It's very late, and I'll
survive without supper. You get to bed faster without it, some
say.

Malcolm is waiting up for me. He has a very intense
look, the kind only he can manage.

"Tom, I need et. Et's been all I can do to wait for
you. Ef I don't have et I'll kell someone."

I mumble something about it being very late, but I
hear: "Tom." And I know Malcolm will not relent, and I am his. I'm
about to say I'll do it when he says, "Geve me what I want, Tom.
You swore. You swore."

He's agitated, at least as agitated as I was, I can
feel his violence filling the space, it would be best if he started
shaking like I did, to shake and--what did Ab'ly say?--wiggle until
all his violence and trouble is gone, like mine is.

I can give Malcolm joy. Perhaps it will ease his
agitation. I pull his breeches down, and he grabs the back of my
head, and there is slippery heat in my mouth, and I give happiness
to those who need it. It doesn't take long, but it's a profound
feeling, such an unusual deed, and Malcolm's intensity grows, his
breath is that of an animal, and I have a fleeting vision--yes--the
clerk, the slate and chalk--I hear Malcolm's gasping breaths--his
fingertips like claws--I push his hips away suddenly and
recoil--"You've caught the clerk's madness," I exclaim--he slaps
me, but then he recoils over the hump of his pebble mattress--"Have
I? I wasn't bit, Tom, I'll pledge an oath"--I demand to check for
bitemarks, and Malcolm takes his clothes off, desperate, I push him
down across his mattress and stuff his shirt in his mouth, so he
can't bite me, and I go over his legs, abdomen, buttocks, back,
neck, and there are the slight scars that Dag gave him, on the
chest and forehead, still healing, but there aren't any bitemarks,
none at all, and I put my mouth beside his ear and tell him I see
no bites--he spits out his shirt--"Now you, et's only meet"--I take
my tunic and breeches off and I feel suddenly exposed, much more
exposed, and his hard man's hands press me back and a tunic wraps
my face and those hard hands begin to explore my body, there is a
well of heat that is preparing to spill over, and I hear that
there's no bite marks, but then a hand wraps my nethermosts and I
hear "I like you like thes, Tom," and for the second time Malcolm
works my knobs as if his hand were a woman, and again a feeling
rises and I cry out for it to stop, I say it feels devilish, and
Malcolm says, "Then I'm the devil," and I feel his body sitting on
me, kneeling, and my arms get caught by his feet, I can't move, but
the feeling rises like a, a barn fire--no, like the sulfur of Hell
breaking through the surface of the earth, pressing up from inside,
and I feel my soul draining away from my forehead, I call out, but
a hand squashes my face and my legs kick meaninglessly and I'm
blind and fingers move my nethers around and I suddenly can't
breathe and I see God.

"Ha," I hear, "You'll nae accuse me of being a
wolfman again."

And Malcolm rises off my chest and my hands are free
but I have no will to move them, I am lifeless under God, I feel my
soul rising like hot air, light flashes in bursts before my eyes,
and my nethers are a pillar holding me up above the fires of hell
below.

It is night, black as vestments. Malcolm is curled
around me, and there is something sticky, and I ignore it. I don't
know what happened, but I feel as close to Malcolm as anyone's ever
felt for another, there is no devil here, the devil has departed
us. There are arms holding me, and I feel held. I don't understand
Malcolm, I believe I never will, but I am content to lie here with
his arms around me. I cannot sleep. I saw the face of God.

How could my body betray me to the devil like that?
And how could God rise up on the other side, as if the devil were a
path to God? I have no understanding. I feel sore and overpowered.
Not merely by my Malcolm, but by my lack of understanding. I am
overcome.

Sleep.

I awaken, crusted but newly strong. Food tastes
powerful in the cafeteria in the morning. Radiance emanates from me
and from everyone around me. The sun seems to burst joyfully
through the very stone, and a clear, imagined sound like Nuncle's
silver clarion declares the fineness of our middle world. I could
sing.

"I took a shit last night as long as my arm," Dag
tells Perille, and I don't mind, it doesn't spoil anything.