Donald Pollock - The Heavenly Table

Ellsworth leaned in for a closer look. “Why, that don’t look no bigger than Clancy’s pond,” he said.

Now Slater wasn’t sure how to respond. Although the ignorance of some of the locals didn’t surprise him at all anymore, he now wondered if perhaps Ellsworth was pulling his leg. To not know the location of a foreign country was one thing, but to confuse a great ocean with a Huntington Township fishing hole was something entirely different. Even that crazy-ass preacher, Jimmy Beulah, one of the most backward-thinking men that Slater had ever met, had a rudimentary knowledge of the vastness of the earth, though he did still believe it to be as flat as a griddle cake. Oh, well, either way, the sooner he took care of their questions, the sooner he could get back to his music. He was right on the verge of finishing his first original composition, a slow, mournful piece in eight movements meant to capture the educator’s dread of returning to the classroom after the bliss of the summer break. Tentatively titled “Might as Well Hang Myself,” he had been working on it off and on for the past several years. “Anything else I can help you with?” he asked the couple.

“No,” Eula said. “I just wanted to see where they’re sending my boy, that’s all. We appreciate ye takin’ the time.”

A few minutes later, as they were driving home in the wagon, Ellsworth asked her, “What are ye thinkin’ about?”

“Oh, nothing much,” she said. “Eddie, I guess. Wondering why Mr. Slater don’t get himself a wife or at least hire a housekeeper. What about you?”

Ellsworth was also curious as to why Slater didn’t have a woman. Even a man who put flowers in his hair should be able to find some kind of mate. Then again, maybe the teacher just didn’t want the worries and responsibilities that came with being hitched. He and Eula had a better marriage than most he knew about, even with all the troubles they had gone through the past few months, but there were still occasional moments when he caught himself recalling with fondness the years when he was a single man. He didn’t know how he had done it, staying out all night running with Uncle Peanut or coon hunting with the Holcomb twins or hanging out in Parker’s back room, then working all day and doing it again the next night. Heck, these days he could hardly stay awake long enough after supper to finish a pipe. Age had finally caught up with him, as it did with everyone eventually. Even his memories were beginning to feel tired. He gave a little sigh, then said, “Do you think he’s read all them books?”

“Probably,” Eula said. “Why else would he clutter up his house with ’em if’n he wasn’t going to?”

“Well, I’ll tell ye this, after seeing him a-layin’ under that tree half-naked like that, I’m damn glad Eddie decided to take up soldiering. I bet they don’t put up with any of that silly horseshit in there, by God.”

“I don’t care nothin’ about that,” Eula said. “I just want him to come back in one piece.” She started to sniffle, and from somewhere out of her dress she took out a hankie to wipe her nose.

“Ah, don’t you worry,” Ellsworth said, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close. “He’ll be fine. Shoot, the next time we see him we’ll probably have to salute and call him General Eddie. Now wouldn’t that be something?”

ON HIS WAY to the Senate Grill for his usual afternoon pick-me-up, Benjamin Hamm, a longtime physician in Meade, turned the corner at Paint and Second Street and saw Jasper Cone a few yards ahead, bent over in the middle of the sidewalk, wiping the crud off his measuring stick with the ragged remains of an old shirt. The doctor stopped in mid-step, then backed away and crossed the street, hoping to avoid him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the young man; he was just too busy today to get into another tedious discussion about Emerald Hollister’s intestinal worms or Jasper’s suspicions that Mrs. Castle over on Caldwell Street might be suffering from hemorrhoids. Because of his access to everyone’s privy, Jasper could at times be spot-on when it came to diagnosing certain health problems among the citizenry, but it was still, Hamm thought, an invasion of privacy if he discussed them, even with somebody in the medical field. So, for example, if the Appleby girl that lived on Piatt Avenue wanted to puke up every morsel of food she ate, or Mule Miller took up eating glass again, that was, ultimately, their own business.

The doctor had known Jasper ever since moving from Baltimore to start his medical practice. He’d no sooner hung up his shingle when the boy’s mother, a high-strung, intensely devout Catholic with a pinched face and brown, puffy eyes, sent for him. He’d had a couple of walk-ins that morning with minor ailments, but this was his first house call, and he was, to say the least, a little nervous. “What seems to be the problem, Mrs. Cone?” Hamm had asked, looking around the cramped parlor. Religious icons made of plaster sat in a neat row on the mantel; a few Bibles and prayer books lay open on a table in front of the horsehair sofa. A wooden shrine to the Virgin Mary, illuminated by several candles, was set up in the corner.

“It’s my son,” the woman said, a sob catching in her throat as she looked toward the narrow stairs leading to the second floor. “He’s…he’s…” she stuttered.

“Well?” Hamm said, hoping it was something easy, like constipation or a stomachache. With the ink on his medical degree barely dry, he didn’t think he was quite ready to tackle something life-threatening yet. He was sure his lack of confidence would soon go away, but a few more days to settle in before he confronted something complicated or ghastly would be a blessing.

“It’s not something a lady can talk about,” she said, wiping delicately at a tear running down her powdered cheeks. “Just look him over and you’ll see. An adjustment, that’s what he needs.”

“A what?”

“An adjustment,” she repeated. “So he’s normal.”

Shit, this must be bad, Hamm thought, as he looked down at the string of rosary beads she was squeezing in her hand. “What’s his name?” he asked.

“Jasper,” she managed to whisper right before she gave a little swoon and carefully crumpled onto the horsehair sofa.

Hamm climbed the stairway with a sense of dread. Though he really didn’t believe in a divine being anymore, he stopped near the top and crossed himself anyway, hoping for some guidance and preparing for the worst. It was inevitable, he had been told in medical school, that he would lose a patient now and then, but why did the first one have to be a child? “Just do your best,” he told himself, as he walked toward the open door at the end of the hall. However, when he entered the room he found a boy standing rigidly in front of a bed, looking quite healthy except for a frightened look on his rather plain, bony face.

“Well, lad,” Hamm said, after introducing himself, “can you tell me what’s wrong? I can’t make heads or tails out of what your—”

“I don’t want you cuttin’ on it,” Jasper interrupted.

“On what?” Hamm asked, figuring the boy must be suffering from a cyst or tumor of some kind.

After a moment’s hesitation, Jasper unbuckled his pants and let them drop to the floor. He wasn’t wearing any drawers. Hamm stood there speechless for a minute, staring at the long slab of meat hanging between the boy’s skinny legs. “So this is what your mother was talking about?” he finally said. “Your penis?”

Jasper nodded grimly, then reached down and pulled his pants back up over it. “She wants you to whack some of it off, but I’d rather you maybe tried to shrink it like those Africans do with the heads and stuff.”