Thomas Pierce - Hall of Small Mammals - Stories

“I was working by then. I didn’t need their help paying for another car.”

“Sure, of course, but that didn’t mean they needed to buy him a new car that same Christmas! Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean you have to be nice or lie,” she said.

They were almost home now. He was tired of fighting with her and was ready for bed. Plus, she was right.

My baby brother, the contagion , he almost said aloud. No one could say that Rob had ever been boring. No one could possibly say that.

• • •

Rob had been dead for almost four months when Mrs. Oliver started emailing all her updates. Bert didn’t mind this shift, though her written messages did tend to be short and cryptic.

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: SEPTEMBER 29, 2014 08:33:02 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

ANOTHER RESEARCHER DEAD. IN RUSSIA. FROZEN R JUST AS DANGEROUS! — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 2, 2014 08:16:59 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

R ON CONTAINER SHIP. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 4, 2014 08:42:28 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

SHIP ON THE ATLANTIC!!! MUCH DISCUSSION OF WHERE HE GOES NEXT. NATSEC ISSUE, AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, YES? — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 15, 2014 09:14:22 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

HAVE YOU HAD A MEMORIAL YET? IMPORTANT TO GRIEVE, I THINK. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 18, 2014 23:01:13 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

THINKING OF YOU TODAY. NO WORD ON R. SORRY. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 20, 2014 12:30:56 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

TIBETANS SAY BODY IS EMPTY AFTER THREE DAYS. (MY AUNT IS A PRACTICING BUDDHIST!) — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: OCTOBER 31, 2014 11:44:08 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

CONTAINER SHIP FOUND!!! MORE SOON. — MO

Bert hadn’t realized that the ship had ever been lost, but he was glad to know that Mrs. Oliver had located it again. When he told Delia this bit of news, she only nodded. They hadn’t been talking about Rob as much lately.

“Is this ever going to end?” she asked him. “I never would have guessed it was possible, but your brother’s turned out to be more of a pain dead than alive.”

“I think that’s going a bit far,” he said.

“I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told you,” she said. “Six years ago, the Christmas after your dad died, your brother walked in on me as I was stepping out of the shower.”

Bert waited for her to continue. “And?”

“ And, ” she said, “ and he didn’t leave right away.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. It felt too long. Nothing happened, other than that, but he just stood there, looking at me. Like a little reptile. And I could just… tell.”

“Tell?”

“Tell what he wanted.”

“Did you cover up?” Bert asked.

“Of course, yes,” she said. “What kind of a question is that?”

But he couldn’t help but wonder at the speed of that covering-up. Delia was a good-looking woman, and Rob had been an attractive younger man.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because,” she said, almost pleading, “Rob is not worth… all this energy.”

But Bert wasn’t sure. He’d read once in a magazine that even the Neanderthals, more than a hundred thousand years ago, had buried their dead, arms folded, panther bones and stone points scattered around the body. That this practice had been going on for so long, Bert figured, was significant. It was important to treat the body, no matter how irritating its former occupant, with a little respect.

Maybe, Delia joked once, instead of his having a tombstone as a memorial, the scientists studying him could simply name the disease after Rob. Bert relayed this to Mrs. Oliver, explaining that Delia had never been his brother’s biggest fan, that she’d been troubled by the way Rob treated people, specifically women. (And incidentally, he asked, surely they’d already ruled out the possibility of a sexually transmitted disease? Ha ha ha, Mrs. Oliver wrote back to that.)

His exchanges with Mrs. Oliver were an escape from the frozen-yogurt deliveries and the management trainings and the accounting, a little bit of international intrigue delivered right into his otherwise lackluster in-box. Perhaps it would continue this way forever, these reports on his brother’s never-ending itinerary, updates that conjured up an image of Rob standing at the bow of a ship, its prow slicing forward through a sea of churning gray waves on its journey to the end of the earth.

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 2, 2014 10:16:12 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

R MOVED ONTO A NEW SHIP. CDC VISIT PLANNED. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 4, 2014 09:52:40 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

CDC ON SHIP WITH R TODAY. HOW YOU HOLDING UP? — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 4, 2014 16:16:28 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

R CAN’T BE CREMATED OR LIQUEFIED OR ANYTHING ELSE. TOO DANGEROUS, THEY SAY. NEW OPTIONS BEING DISCUSSED. MORE AS I HAVE IT. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 19, 2014 12:02:14 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

TWO MORE PEOPLE ON SHIP CREW DEAD!!! MUCH REVIVED TALK OF WHAT TO DO WITH R. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 20, 2014 21:40:04 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

MOST RELIGIONS SAY ZERO PERCENT OF SOUL REMAINS IN BODY AFTER DEATH. COMFORTING, YES? R WILL NEVER NEED THIS VESSEL AGAIN, I DON’T THINK. — MO

FROM: MARISSA OLIVER

DATE: NOVEMBER 25, 2014 23:01:21 EST

TO: HUBERTYAW@POP-YOP.COM

SUBJECT: R

R HAS BEEN DECLARED A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON. WILL CALL WITH MORE AFTER THANKSGIVING. — MO

• • •

Bert was checking in on one of his Pop-Yop franchises (his busiest location, at the outlet mall) when he got the call. He took his cup of lemon tart soft-serve outside to an empty stretch of parking lot to walk the white parking space lines like tightropes as he snacked and listened.

“First,” Mrs. Oliver said, “I’d like to retract part of my previous message. The part about your brother being a biological weapon.”

“So he’s not, then?”

“Let’s just pretend I never said it. Can you do that for me?”

“Okay,” Bert said, and raised the little pink spoon to his mouth.

“But here’s the good news. In a few days his ship will come within a hundred miles of Norfolk. Any chance you could get to Norfolk?”

Bert stopped walking. Norfolk was a six-hour drive. “Maybe. Why?”

He could almost hear her smiling as she detailed the bureaucratic magic she’d performed on his behalf. She’d appealed to the right people, she said, and made them see how cruel it was to deny Rob’s family the right to properly grieve. So, when the ship passed close to Norfolk — that is, if Bert was up for it — they were going to put him on a helicopter.

“So I’ll get to see my brother then?”

“See your—” she said. “Oh, no. Bert, you can’t step foot on that ship. But they’re going to fly you over it. It’s the best I could do. Under the circumstances, I thought you’d be happy.”

He was happy, he assured her. She was very kind to have made the arrangements. She’d gone above and beyond what was required of her, he had to acknowledge that, but still, he’d need the night to consider. He drove straight home to talk it over with Delia, who was elated at the prospect. “Of course you’re doing it,” she said. “It’s not even a question. You’ll do this and we’ll be finished. Goodbye, Rob.”