John Gardner - Stillness & Shadows

Eyes of chickens. It showed a kind of fixity — obsessiveness. Hinted at a kind of self-absorption, subtle hedonism, a curious detachment or withdrawal from the ordinary serious concerns of humanity that could make you uneasy, once you thought about it. Craine would keep an eye peeled, wait for more evidence. The man had a thing about chickens, possibly. His cat was called Rooster.

Yet he did seem harmless enough, Craine’s neighbor, and no doubt some people thought well of what he did. He’d published three of those skimpy little books — Craine had not read them, though he watched for them now, whenever he was in bookstores — and he taught English at the university. He was young — thirty-two — and bearded. Jewish. He wore suspenders and arm-garters. City boy’s hankering for the country, no doubt. Another mistake, and not without dark implications: potentially dangerous desire to live more lives than one. Except for the cat he’d taken in, and sometimes a girlfriend for the night, Craine’s neighbor lived alone. His room ticked and clicked. He was a collector of old clocks, also hourglasses. Sign of dissatisfaction, reactionary snobbery, faint-trace hatred of his fellow man. An alien, then: a kind of Martian in our midst …

Craine gave a sudden little jump. Watched! — Watched by whom? he wondered in brief, wild panic. Watched by the police? His right hand began picking at the front of his coat. His eyes teared up. It was monstrously unfair, like everything. There were dozens of them, only one of him, and they were young, clear-headed; no memory blanks. Ah son, my son, step off the straight and narrow for one little ball-ball-shuffle-shuffle-hop — mark my words, my boy …

And if not the police, since why should the P.D. be interested in him, in these days of cutbacks and tax revolt, the Age of Accountability, and election year at that, if he wasn’t mistaken (he had no idea what year it was; it was all pure rhetoric, games, games, games) … He clenched his fist as if to hit himself.

If not the police … Again the shudder passed over Craine’s shoulders, and he abruptly changed his mind, snapped his eyes open, drew the whiskey in its sack from his overcoat pocket, tucked the book under his elbow, and unscrewed the cap from the bottle for a quick restorer. As he drank, quickly and furtively, his Adam’s apple lunging, he glanced right, along the bookshelf.

Carnac was at the end of the aisle, as Craine had somehow known he’d be. He stood making a face with the half of his head still movable, his thick lip lifted, pink underneath, from the huge yellow mule’s teeth, his right eye wide open, tumulose in the shadow of his top hat. As Craine accidentally took a step in his direction, jolted and thrown off balance, trying to get the bottle recapped, trying to wipe his mouth with his overcoat sleeve, Carnac bent forward as if in shocked surprise and made his knees knock together, playing horrified darkie — maybe a little mongoloid idiot thrown in — and waggled both large, pink-palmed hands. “Lawdy!” he mouthed without a sound, “oh Lawdy Jesus!” Still holding the whiskey sack, Craine jabbed one finger toward Carnac, warning him, furiously stabbing in the general direction of the black, misshapen jaw. Whiskey splashed out as the bottle jerked. At the last minute, Craine remembered not to shout and, blushing, filled with righteous indignation, got the whiskey capped and back into his overcoat pocket, both hands shaking, then turned his back and bent closer to his book.

… rationalized in 58 B.C. , he read. He nodded thoughtfully, angrily.

It would be lunacy, of course, trying to talk sense to Two-heads Carnac, and more lunatic yet to shout at him, here in the stillness of Tully’s bookshop. That was no doubt what Carnac wanted. For Craine to shout, make himself appear to all the world a drunken lunatic. It was like an old movie, some slapstick comedy in which Carnac had cast him as the stuffed-shirt donzel who in secret took nips; the music teacher, maybe, who liked to touch little boys, or the self-righteous moustached policeman in the whorehouse, representative of lying society on its fat, white horse. Nothing could be stupider; Craine was nothing of the kind. A drinking man, maybe; but he put on no airs. Look at him! — baggy old overcoat, hat down half over his ears, knotted shoelaces … But you’d have better luck arguing with Jehovah than with Two-heads Carnac. What he really ought to do, when Carnac pulled one of those antics of his … Craine frowned, staring hard into the open book, mechanically wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then smiled, malevolent.

The white-haired professor, or rather doctor, padded by, behind Carnac, carrying the dictionary and magnifying glass, holding the glass out in front of him as if looking for clues. He glanced at the choir robe, then over at Craine, but showed no interest or surprise. That was the usual response, these days, and, reminded that Carnac was no more important than he let him be — like a roar out of the earth, or a tornado in the distance — Craine turned away again and once more lowered his nose into his book. As the print swam into view, four inches from his eyes, he began lipreading, forcing himself to concentrate. In the view of the Vedic priests , he read (the gray type waggling on the page like minnows), each sound in Sanskrit corresponded to some natural force in the universe, so that in theory at least, if one correctly pronounced the Sanskrit words meaning “Mountain, move,” the mountain ought to move . He read the sentence twice, uncomprehending, his mind on the black man who stood watching.

“Maniac,” he said again, decisively. Tears squirted into his eyes — eyestrain, partly, and partly a touch of the usual midmorning drunkenness. It couldn’t be emotion; he was feeling nothing whatsoever, numb-hearted as a stone.

It was a fact, Carnac’s mania. Carnac was Carbondale’s one authentic lunatic, if you didn’t count Craine, and Craine didn’t. (He lowered his nose toward the book again, eyes sliding left, then right.) Carnac read tarot, when he was able to speak English — he had fits of glossolalia — and since he read neither shrewdly nor tactfully, he was sometimes beaten up by his customers. The long dark blue choir robe and black silk top hat were only the more obvious signals of his lunacy. He claimed he was a dowser, an alchemist, an astrologer, and to prove it he walked with a long, gnarled staff, like Moses. Sometimes, depending on the company, he claimed he was the living voice of Christ or Mohammed. “Penny for Al Khem?” he’d say, running up to Craine. It was merely to torment him. He’d learned long ago, if he ever learned anything, that Craine would give him nothing. Yet the mad little black man would follow Craine for blocks, shuffling along drop-foot, waving his top hat as if to drive away some stench, begging and spitting, wickedly imploring Craine’s mercy with his one good eye. The two sides of Carnac’s face looked in different directions. He’d been hit by a train. He was not an intentionally troublesome man, just playful and crazy as a loon; all the same, he was trouble. He’d be arrested every two, three weeks or so, once for begging with a sign that said stop Christianity! And to Gerald Craine he was especially trouble. He’d elected himself Craine’s devil. He’d dart from some entryway, drooling and gibbering, picking as if at Craine’s clothes, but from six feet back, sometimes making sudden passes, like Mandrake the Magician. Meeting Craine on the sidewalk he’d stop, throw his arms out, strike the ground with his stick, and cry, “Whang!” Craine had once caught him by the neck and yelled, shaking him — at the time flashing panic at the rage that had come over him—“Two-heads, why are you doing this?” Craine’s voice went up an octave, like the voice of a child about to cry. “Whoo-ee!” Two-heads yelled, as if joyfully, snatching off his top hat. “We making contact, brother! The spirits say, ‘Two-heads, don’t you mess with him, baby! That dude in the service of St. Cyril!’—but I mess with you anyways.” “Saint who?” Craine had yelped, but Two-heads had managed to wriggle free and had run from him, swinging his rear end obscenely and shimmying all over, making shocks and waves fly up his choir robe like light off a pigeon. Craine had not pursued and had never again touched him. Two-heads’ neck was as muscular as an adder’s. Ever since, the very thought of that flesh under his fingers made Craine’s skin crawl.