Meeks (20 page)

Psst, I said. And then,
Excuse me please
.

What? answered the voice flatly after a delay.

Do you have any advice?

He hesitated. I try to be innocent of everything except the words I'm speaking.

I should protest my innocence?

Not unless the character has been written to protest his innocence. Though that doesn't necessarily mean he's innocent. It gets very complicated. But any
trained actor
can easily tell the difference. (I heard the man rasp his calloused hands together in the faint chill of the air, and then silence.)

Hello? I called out to no one.

After a decent interval, there was thundering applause and cheers, and the sound of inveterate conversationalists tuning their instruments. I peered again through the open window and could see a portly father unfurling a soft blanket on the ground as his children looked on skeptically. Families new and old were arranging their objects and appetites around the afternoon picnic. There was the hum of many voices operating agreeably and cooperatively toward pleasure, and though I was tense with anticipation—possibly stage fright, I admitted to myself—I fell into a deep and sudden sleep that pulled me from the chair. I was startled by my collision with the ground, concluded that I was on the floor unexpectedly, and, in the next instant, I lost consciousness.

Bedge came to collect me, as he had promised. My neck ached from having slept so soundly and awkwardly on the hard floor of the police station. Bedge dusted off my dark coat fussily.

What happened here? he kept asking and clicking his tongue with disapproval.

I'm sorry, I said. I shook my head. I was trying to wake up, to clear my mind. While I was in this state of mild confusion, which was, frankly, a blessing, in that it had deadened my nerves, Bedge led me out of the station.

Ben

"Where
were
you?” Ben took the hammerer by the collar of his smock.

"Hands
off.
” Ben released him, imprisoned his angry hands in his pockets. “I just went for a walk. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal,” said Ben, “is that the three of us are responsible for each other, and if they'd come to check on us and said, ‘Where's your brother?’ then it would have been over for us, and you'd be off walking around in a dream. Actors!"

"You really need to relax. You understand they've already
got
us, right? That it couldn't get any worse?"

The heavens watcher was lying in the grass, listening; he looked up at the hammerer. “I tend to agree with you, but, really, it could get worse. God knows what happens in the prison, and there's that,” he said, pointing to the coiled rope high among the branches.

Ben turned his back on them and sat back on the root. He watched the newly minted mothers and fathers, the newly minted husbands and wives, folding their blankets neatly and scooping up their picnic baskets and leaving the ground littered in pistachio shells and discarded fat from their sandwiches and orange peels and apple cores.

"We'll have to clean all this, I suppose,” said the hammerer.

"Or eat it,” said the heavens watcher and tried to reach out discreetly for a leathery nub of salami.

The hammerer sat beside the heavens watcher. “Want to hear some gossip?"

"I suppose."

"Guess who's playing Captain Meeks this year?"

"You?"

"Well, funnily enough, I
was
going to be in the play this year. My dear brother was supposedly arranging everything. Where would be if not for our dear brothers, Brothers?"

"Then who's playing the Captain?"

"The park bum!"

The heavens watcher shrugged. “Good for him."

"And bad for me—but no point in being bitter. I was genuinely hopeful, and it seemed things were about to change for me. Things didn't change. Except to get worse. But I'm still optimistic that things might
yet
change for me. You see? The artist's heart is eternally open to disappointment."

"And brothers still steal from brothers, still delight in fooling and exploiting one another,” added the heavens watcher.

"A brother must serve his brother, but he must also serve himself, live as if he has no brothers,” said Ben over his shoulder.

"Where's that from?” asked the heavens watcher.

"My brain,” said Ben.

"I take it you have no brothers?” said the hammerer. “Which would explain your refreshingly philosophical take on brotherhood.” He slammed the hammer down on the hard root of the tree and searched the crowd. “Where is my dear brother, anyway?"

"Relax,” said Ben. “They could yank any of us from the crowd."

"They should take me,” said the heavens watcher suddenly and stared at his hands.

The hammerer shook his head. “Easy, Brother. You're a good man. Whatever it is you think you've done, I guarantee you we've done worse."

"Speak for yourself,” said Ben. “I did nothing wrong; I was betrayed."

"What is
wrong
with you, Brother? Not
everyone
is out to get you—only them,” he said, and pointed to the Brothers of Mercy, who were starting to make their way through the crowd: “Brothers and Sisters! Come together, come together!"

The heavens watcher covered his face. “I stole another man's suit from his closet while he was sleeping. I might as well have killed him with my bare hands. He's here somewhere, I'm sure, smocked just like me."

Ben looked away immediately. The hammerer put his arm around the heavens watcher. “It's OK, Brother. We've all ended up in the same place. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"We'd better go. It's starting,” said the heavens watcher and got to his feet. Ben and the hammerer stood, and they walked with everyone else toward the stage. The men in the trees worked their theatrical ropes, generating peals of metallic thunder and the hollow chop of heavy boats moving through the shallows of the harbor toward shore. There was the pounding, hoisting step of powerful axles building speed, the hard scrape of machinery dragging itself out of the water and through a bramble of branches. Almond-shaped shadows drifted across the stage and into the streets; searchlights swept over the crowd, just as the lanterns had pierced the fog on that famous moonless night.

Two policemen led a group of men in dark suits toward the stage steps. Ben felt the crowd surge forward. He and the other men surged forward with the crowd.

"Oh, my God. It is him,” said the heavens watcher, sounding suddenly frail.

"Who?"

"The man I killed."

Ben saw Finton among the prisoners, too. He was stooped, dazed, in a humiliating black suit. Ben wished he had never seen it. He looked away, pretended to study the Old Row of Bachelor Houses. The wind picked up and passed over the ivy-covered facades of the buildings until the row of old houses looked like the surface of the dark green river, disrupted by gusts. The wind pushed its way through the rows of trees in the park; the leaves on the trees shook noisily and then went soft.

The heavens watcher covered his face, “I can't watch this happen. I'll die! I'm going to volunteer. Or else I want you to take that hammer and crush my skull."

"Get a hold of yourself,” said the hammerer.

"You don't understand. I was such a profound disappointment to my mother, who was a
saint
. I've broken every heart I ever touched."

"But have you really touched that many?"

"Many."

"Where are you going?” Ben heard the hammerer's terrified whisper behind him, as he started walking toward the corral of prisoners. “Stop, Ben. Stop now."

Meeks

A great roar rose from the crowd when Bedge and I came into view. I lowered my head, suddenly overcome by self-consciousness. The people came to life, jostling one another energetically behind the human barricade of broad-bodied policemen. I glanced up uncertainly, and Bedge smiled conspiratorially at the reception we were being given.

I could see the factories, like a majestic fleet of beautiful white ships forever cresting our horizon, the tireless engines of industry, the cloudlets of steam rising from the stacks. I heard the wind through the trees, smelled the sugar in the air, saw young women sipping their sunny lemon drinks, and I was happy again, happy to be outside beneath the trees, happy to see the people, all the amusing variations on existence arrayed before me. Bedge led me to the platform and signaled that I should wait at the base of the stairs. He bounded up the steps to take his place onstage. Bedge peered into the crowd until every conversation had died under his silent gaze, and the people were silent and still.

Listen, Brothers and Sisters!

We are listening!

Captain Meeks saved us from the Enemy. Do you know this story?

Yes, but we want to remember!

Let us always tell this story to one another!

Yes, it feels good to remember!

The words Bedge spoke passed over my brain in a wave that was almost nauseating in its familiarity. He reminded us that Captain Meeks alone had the wisdom and strength to perceive a true Enemy across the water, to call him out into the light. So long as we kept the Captain's ways, we would be safe.

The Enemy is always watching us! Bedge bellowed. From across the water, from the edge of the woods, can you see his savage eyes in the dark? He is waiting, Brothers and Sisters, waiting for us to grow lazy, to lie down in defeat. We must never give up!

We will never give up!

Bedge reminded us that unhappiness and turmoil and contradiction can proliferate only in the dissatisfied and unfulfilled heart, and that in the rogue and questioning heart, the Enemy could still find purchase, settle in, start to destroy us, one by one.

Ours is a world formed by love, by the loving word of Captain Meeks!

Let us be grateful to the Captain!

Bedge paused, allowing an expected solemnity to spread through the crowd. But there's a problem, sighed Bedge. Some hearts refuse to be whole, cannot be made whole again. Some people have been unhappy.

We confess that sometimes we have been unhappy!

I have told you about how the Enemy lives across the water?

You have told us!

I have told you about how doubt endangers our hearts?

You have told us!

I tell you now that we must destroy that doubt within ourselves, and we must learn what that doubt looks like in others, whom it inhabits.

We believe you!

And I'm telling you that the Enemy is living right here among us. Never forget that!

We will never forget!

Do you know why we gather in this way each year?

To remember the First Day!

Yes. And just as Captain Meeks, on the First Day, brought the Enemy to this place and hanged him so that we could be free, so each year, we bring our Enemy to this place and hang him, so that we can
remain
free.

Like all people, I felt most exhilaratingly contaminated by doubt in the final moments before the Enemy of our hopes was symbolically destroyed. Soon our hearts would be pure again, free of all the error and curiosity about other ways of living that had crept in. The Brothers of Mercy let loose a hail of words: Let's work, Brothers! Let us do this work today!

I watched Bedge keenly, hung on his every word. I remembered so well being a boy, when I used to shudder at the ominous words of the old Chief of Police, when I used to bury my face in my mother's lap and beg her to tell me that everything would be all right.

The moment was drawing near when I would climb the steps and stand before the people and speak for the Captain. In keeping with tradition, I would frown like the Captain, square my shoulders like the Captain, boom my voice like the Captain, and say, I want you to be free, Brothers and Sisters. There is no sacrifice too great. Then I would look around for the Condemned Man. Is it you, I would say, No, they would say, Is it you, I would say, No, they would say.

I wondered . . . how does a Condemned Man really think and feel? Does he take stock of the world, even in jest, collect everything he knows, so that he can take it with him when he goes? And would this be a loving or vengeful act in a man condemned to death, the hoarding of reality in the old, cold hold, only to capsize the ship?

Then what happens? I used to ask my mother.

The Condemned Man has been hanged.

Then what happens?

Nothing.

For the first time in my life, I doubted my mother or simply wished that she was wrong.

I was trying to think of what might happen next. I remembered that one year, when I was very young, I wandered off into the crowd, determined to get a closer look. How did they accomplish this elaborate illusion; where was the contraption that made it possible for the hanged man to seem to die (but, in fact, to be saved)? I reached the front of the crowd easily; I was small and determined. A young policeman, a rookie, smiled down at me. I was pinned between the rowdy crowd and him. What's your name? he asked. My name is Meeks! (These seemed to be the first or best words I had ever spoken, even now.) I'm Bedge, he said, and he patted me gently on the head. In the next moment, the bells rang out, and the crowd pulsed forward, knocking me to the ground. I was instantly terrified, separated from my mother. I could hear the hooves of the police horses scraping noisily on the street; I was afraid I would be trampled. Bedge scooped me up and carried me to a safe spot under the stage. I lay on the ground and peered into the shadows under the stage. The Condemned Man was still swaying slowly in the mouth of the trap door, the taut rope creaking.
Hello?
I said, but his face was hidden by the black hood. Then the Brothers of Mercy appeared and started to cut the man down—one of them saw me hiding, and I scrambled out from under the stage and ran again.

I ran out of the park and hid in the doorway of a old building. The streets were empty; a yellow bulb swung overhead, slicking the shadows with oily yellow light that revolted me. I could hear the chaos of the multitudes in the park, but I was being forced by events to test on my heart a new hypothesis—that I might be completely alone in the universe. It was getting cold and dark. The wind was picking up. A figure was headed for me; I raised myself up and peered: Mother? Rather, it was the man in the black jacket. The collar of his shirt fluttered against his neck. I thought optimistically, Perhaps Mother has sent him to rescue me. He glanced at me coldly, as I shivered with terror in the doorway, and he walked on. I knew better than to call out to him.