Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ I can see why,” replied Hynek as the others stared down the long table at C. David Eddings.

“ A little-known English poet,” chanted Lawrence and Yoder together.

“ Oh, yeah,” chimed another as if he’d known all along.

Merrick said, “You mean this guy can’t even be original? He’s copying a poem out of a book?”

“ All I know is that it’s from an entirely lowercase poem by e.j. hellering, one I think entitled ‘all sacrifice to the stars.’ “

Jessica and Eriq were instantly interested in what C. David Eddings had to say, each on edge now, Jessica asking Eddings to continue. “Well… what I remember of it…” Eddings caught the look of pride in Sally’s eyes, glinting in the semidark- ened room. “I mean, I believe it has four verses, maybe five.”

“ You think you can get your hands on a copy?” asked Santiva.

“ Sure… sure, the library’s full of hellering.”

Nancy Yoder twittered again at this.

Merrick ordered, “Do it then, now.”

“ Try the Internet, Eddings,” suggested Blake. “It’s the quickest way to information.”

“ Not bloody likely,” replied C. David. “If they’ve got any of hellering listed, it’d probably be his more-favored poems. This one’s fairly arcane and a little too strange for even the ditto heads-the Internet dudes and dudettes.”

Eddings stiffly stood and marched from the room, daring only a quick glance back at Sally as Santiva and Jessica followed the little round man out, Jessica wondering if the romance was just blossoming or if it had been kindled earlier.

“ I was a student of e.j. hellering’s work and dark style when I was at the university,” explained Eddings.

“ Oh, and where was that?”

“ Northwestern, just north of Chicago… very elitist, snobbish place really, unless you happened to be in a fraternity or sorority, neither of which I qualified for, of course. At any rate, I studied modern British literature, which meant anything after 1899. Hellering falls under that umbrella, and I became quite enamored with the man’s poignant ability with words; quite lovely, really, and I suppose the use of the lower-case letters-which he’d come to be known for-piqued my curiosity.”

Jessica nodded, saying, “I remember now… e. j. hellering.”

“ Wasn’t at all hellering’s idea, you know…”

“ What’s that?” asked Eriq.

“ Using lower-case letters throughout his poetry.”

“ Really?” Jessica explained to Eriq that e. j. hellering had used lower-case letters in his signature as well as throughout his poetry as a kind of trademark, the same way that e. e. cummings had.

“ It was a publisher’s idea, something to put a spark into a dying art form-or rather to gather in more sales,” explained Eddings. “Same publisher, two sides of the Atlantic.”

They were inside the mammoth Miami Public Library, where the solemnity of the place was at direct odds with the bright, even blinding sunshine pouring through overhead skylights. The architecture reminded her of the airport. The large, open area at the center of the library was filled with palmetto plants and palm trees, basking beneath the skylights. People going about their interests created a tapestry of tap-dancing noises along the marble floor. Eddings went directly for the nearest unoccupied computer terminal. He brought up the screen he wanted and began his search through the mammoth archives for the long-forgotten poet. Jessica held her breath for a moment, believing hellering would have so much dust on him, there would be no way he could be brought to light.

But in the next instant, with C. David Eddings pounding rapidly from one key to the next, his mouse going at lightning speed, he announced, “Aha! Ahh, here it is.”

Eddings was obviously enjoying his sudden and surprising celebrity as the poetry guru or Obi Wan Kenobi of the moment. He gathered the call numbers with his Citizen pen, scrawling them down on a scrap of paper, and again they were off, this time for the basement and the stacks.

Eddings went directly to the book, as if this entire moment had been choreographed many times over. He smiled up at them as he flattened out the book of poems, and went right to the exact page to reveal the full poem and its title. Jessica and Eriq stared for a full five minutes at the complete poem, entitled “to breathe as’t’.”

“ This is incredible. Let’s make a copy,” suggested Santiva.

Jessica, annoyed, trying to read the verses, shushed him and returned to the poem. It read: to breathe as’t’ by e.j. hellering son of t whilst t feeds on feeds the soul those hungry of woman for touch, in the theatre… t requires little much: in the theatre your sweet jasmine of want gone sour, and sacrifice, your sweet belle whilst t strikes gone dully silent out for the highest in her last hour calibre of moment: sacrificed twice when breath and thrice and life are one. and given power each sacrificed unto t in her final breath as he deems as t deems all the whores to be… all the whores to be… t gives back t tenderly floats all the little girls all the little girls in the sea in the sea an opportunity… as opportunity… opportunity to be opportunity to be if only for a singular if only for one magnificent moment inclusive moment the daughter of t the daughter of t and to breathe as he… and to breathe as he… when audience cries, lungs full with venom and foam and lies, moments before she dies, an applause, a bow, arise! for t smiles down from taurus’s distant eyes! as t deems them all to be flush with his breath, so washed by his empowering hand they will be flowering and cleansed.

“ Jeez, and you say this was written in 1930?” asked Jessica.

“ Late thirties, thirty-seven or — eight.”

“ Here I thought sheer hatred toward women was a more modern development, along with gang rapes, wife battering and nasty lyrics out of rap groups like 2 Live Crew,” Jessica confessed.

“ A man ahead of his time, perhaps,” suggested Eriq.

“ Oh, no… no… no, hellering was a gentle man, a kindhearted man. This hardly reflects his feelings, but rather is a lament of twisted souls which he simply crystallized in a moment of artistry.”

“ You’re saying he could write this stuff objectively? That he didn’t feel the rage that he wrote about? Or that he was in control of that rage?”

“ I’m saying all of the above.” Eddings nervously wiped sweat from his brow. “Warm in here, isn’t it?”

“ Yes, it is uncomfortable,” Jessica agreed.

“ You’re a very lovely woman, Dr. Coran,” he near- whispered.

“ Tell me more about this guy hellering.”

“ He was a small man in stature, extremely bookish, not… not unlike myself; thin, however. A quiet man, no doubt, extremely controlled-tightly wired, as they say… but he had fun, his own brand of fun…”

“ Really? Then you see this poem as an exception to his major work?”

“ Oh, quite certainly. Although no doubt every man feels some rage toward women, as every woman feels some rage against men-and deservedly so, wouldn’t you say?”

The remark caught Jessica’s breath as she contemplated Jim Parry, how much she both loved and hated him at the moment. “Yes, I suppose I might say as much.”

“ But you are in control of your faculties, and you would not murder a man because of the arrogance or stupidity of his sex, am I right?”

“ Agreed.”

“ Like the artist, you do something constructive with the rage,” Eddings continued, going to a nearby copy machine to make duplicates of the poem.

She followed while Eriq, tiring of the little obit man, began to wander the lush stacks and stare at the old pictures on the walls.

Jessica shadowed Eddings and asked, “Do you mean then that the artist releases his anger in the process of, say, sculpting, painting, writing?”