Joy Williams - The Quick & the Dead

“Hey boss,” the taxidermist said, “that Pickless child? She’s adorable but she’s forever bothering me, wasting my time. You hired me as an artist, and she’s always intruding on me, taking my needles, rummaging through my tooth and eye drawers — those things are organized, I tell her.” He shivered, quite involuntarily, in the chilled air.

Stumpp looked at him irritably. Waves of an elusive melody had been bearing him outward, beyond the confines of this place wherein he had interred himself. This was one hell of an air conditioner. Airy-fairy flaky types, which the desert and these new millennial times seemed to produce in abundance, would likely lose their wits after a session with this baby. You had to be a strong man to fiddle around with the kind of consciousness this unit inspired. This was ethereal business, and he resented being interrupted by this oaf. If he mentioned even once again in passing that he’d done all the bears in the Kodiak airport, Stumpp would punch him in his pink wet mouth — with a mouth that repulsive, hadn’t he ever considered a beard?

“Pickless?” he finally said. “You came in here to complain about Pickless?”

“People are going to be bringing her roadkill next. It’s going to get out of hand. Your reputation will be wrecked. Besides, has she ever saved one of those things?”

“What do you mean, ‘saved’?”

“Repaired it so she could let the damn thing go. No, the answer is no, she has not. Because everything she’s got is missing something which it needs . If she wasn’t eight years old, she’d realize this. Half those birds she’s got in there go around in circles or tip over backwards because their backs are broken. You can’t release a one-eyed hawk. Those poisoned things she gets, she’s just torturing them. Their guts are moldering. Does she know the slightest thing about biology? About science? She should be playing with dolls. Or just getting over playing with dolls, though I’ll admit I don’t know how that works, I have two boys myself. Sons,” he said for added emphasis.

Stumpp regarded him silently. “Let’s move back to your office,” he said.

En route, they passed Emily, hauling something heaving beneath a towel in a small red wagon. She opened the door to her section, struggled through with her charge, and shut the door behind her.

Stumpp grinned and shook his head with happiness. He was enchanted by Emily Bliss Pickless. Wry little elf singing, dancing to itself. Though not exactly. That always finds and never seeks … but that was sentimental doggerel. Pickless was more than that, made of sturdier stuff. Tyke had depths unplumbed — he’d bet his bonds on it. She kept a little diary, not the ordinary childish thing with a little lock and key but a sheaf of pages in a box with a screwed-down lid that required two different screwdrivers. He adored her.

In the taxidermist’s office, Stumpp seated himself in the swivel chair behind the desk. “Why’d you throw this little gorilla away?” he asked.

“That kid probably pushed it in there,” the taxidermist said.

“Needs considerable more work,” Stumpp said. “Mouth in particular. Mouth looks like an omelet or something.”

“That kid needs to know some boundaries,” the taxidermist said. “Some rules need to be laid down. Whatever that little girl is doing — and God knows what it is — it doesn’t coincide with my work at all. We don’t complement one another one bit. It’s a confusing situation. People come in here now, and they get confused.”

“You’re the best there is, aren’t you?” Stumpp said. “The best in the business.”

“Lucky is the creature that gets as far as me.”

“How did you get into this business, anyway?” Stumpp inquired kindly.

“I’ve been doing it for twenty years,” the taxidermist said, “since I was fifteen. I started out with bats, the only mammal that can fly. Loved doing bats, then kept moving up. I did all the bears in the Kodiak airport.”

Stumpp reflected for a moment on his museum. It was nothing but a catacomb, a charnel house. “You’re fired,” he said.

The taxidermist felt the top of his head horripilating. “I have a contract.”

“That contract’s worthless,” Stumpp said. “You should’ve had a lawyer look it over.”

“I just bought a house here.”

“You might have to think about giving it up. That house might not be yours after all.”

The taxidermist wished it was fifteen minutes ago, before he’d opened his goddamned mouth. This profession was all he knew. The widowed skins. The winnowed skulls. This goneness, his clientele. “What’d I say, boss?” he said. “I didn’t say anything. But I take it back.” He’d picked up a large needle and worked it into the fat part of his own thumb. A thread was hanging out of his hand.

“I say, man, pull yourself together,” Stumpp said. “I’ll pay a year’s salary, but I want you to leave immediately. Remove all personal effects.” He pointed to a coffee mug upon which the likeness of the taxidermist’s next of kin — a grimly smiling woman and two thuggish-looking boys — had been imposed upon the plastic.

Within the hour the removal of the taxidermist from the building had been accomplished, and by closing time Stumpp had quite forgotten the man existed.

“Pickless,” Stumpp said, “I was thinking of shutting this whole operation down for a bit.” They were sitting in the cafeteria, sharing a small stale cookie.

“Good,” Emily said. “Then that’s settled.”

“Sick of the public’s remarks. Sick of hearing them say, ‘They’d be dead now anyway.’ Catch my drift?”

“They say that all the time.”

“Makes them feel better.”

“No reason to make ’em feel better about this place.”

“None,” Stumpp agreed. He had to undo much, had to unknot the past, unknot it …

“Wish I hadn’t eaten that cookie,” Emily said.

“How’s the work going?” Stumpp asked.

“Pretty much as expected.” Emily thought she needed to go on a fact-finding tour. That was what life was, was it not? A fact-finding tour?

“Have to take you back soon,” he sighed. “Backto your momma.” Stupid woman, thought her child was enrolled in summer school. Demanding curriculum, involving nature, computers, sailing. Why not sailing? Could sell the woman anything. Parents these days remarkably lax.

“My momma,” Emily said noncommittally.

Only fly in the ointment, this momma. “Do you want to meet my mother?” Pickless had inquired only yesterday. “Good God, no!” Stumpp had exclaimed. Terrible situation that would be. How to explain self? No way to do it. Didn’t wish this woman any harm, just wished she were on another planet. Shuttled away on one of those great gaming ships wandering through space — free drinks, free food, free chips. Or, if she’d prefer it, a good sanitorium somewhere. White clothes, white bedding, white light, white noise. No expense spared for Momma’s peace of mind. Pickless only eight, clearly a minor, but his own heart pure, would stand up to closest scrutiny. No heart ever purer. Thumping away in his chest, at last showing some commitment. He’d be elated to just sit on a rock in the sun with Pickless. Which was pretty much what he was doing, though they were perched on stools covered in dik-dik hide and bathed in halogen light.

“Do you believe in the story ‘Two by Two’?” Emily inquired.

“Hate it,” Stumpp said, surprising himself with his rancor. Pickless should be sufficient unto self. World leader, getting things done. Power of personality. Charisma. Blinded ordinary people into perceiving her as pipsqueak child. Book he liked by that fine African fellow, van der Post. About Blady . Blady the plow horse, discovered in a field by the right passerby, when rescued, becomes champion jumper. In the blood. Instinct, grace, like the tyke. Plus that propensity for fortuitous chance. Blady no nag, just waiting to be beheld in the proper light. Chance is what gets the damn thing done. The role accident assumes in life cannot be overestimated, and Pickless had the gift for accident. Now it was time to cut those corners, cut them. Had to crunch time now. Have to be unconscious, pre -conscious. That’s when great feats were performed. All in the past. Stones of Henge, pyramids of Egypt, ziggurats of Sumer, temples of Teotihuacán. No fatigue or reflection, no doubt. Just action action action.