John Gardner - October Light

“Let him be,” Santisillia said. “He’s way up in the sky. He can’t get down.”

“I say he’s comin down,” Dancer said. He leaned over and shouted in Alkahest’s ear. “Wake up and look sober or I’ll blast your faggotty head off. What you mean, man, settin there, ignorin your social responsibility?” He held the gun three inches away from the tip of Dr. Alkahest’s nose. Dr. Alkahest opened first one eye, then the other, and abruptly smiled from ear to ear.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked coyly.

Santisillia said, “You want to murder the Captain, why don’t you just shoot him?”

Alkahest was making a powerful effort to keep his eyes open. If he was to die, it was important that he feel it, actually hurt for an instant, get the whole sensation. It was his inalienable right. He shook his head, batting his lashes and rolling his half-closed eyes, smiling widely.

“That’s better, rich man,” Dancer said. Alkahest trembled with excitement, pinching himself, picking at himself. Dancer chattered on. “I appreciate your sittin up and doin your duty. And to show my appreciation I’m gonna confer a honor upon you, understand? I gonna glorify you, Jack. On account of I can see you’re one smarrrrt doood, and you been educated and all that shit, and also because I have happened to observe you are higher than Jesus, I’m makin you Attorney for the Defense.” He pointed at Captain Fist. “Now get ready to defend him.”

Alkahest looked at Fist — still bound and gagged — then back at Dancer. At the sight of the Captain’s wicked little eyes, fouler than plague, Dr. Alkahest smiled and went woozy. “I’ll do my best,” he brought out, and giggled.

Dancer nodded. “You gonna have to.”

1

Despite the discomfort of his sleeping position, James Page awakened late. Out by the barn, the cows were noisily bellowing to be milked. The sunlight, what there was of it, luminous gray as a month-old boiled egg, came spilling into the bathroom not horizontally but from fifty degrees up. He was sick and full of pain. His head was splitting, his scratches, bumps, and cuts were all whimpering, his dry lips were strangely stuck together, so that parting them made slivers of the skin tear off. As if his eyes had been open before he came awake, he was aware abruptly, without transition from sleep, of the sink and its pitted pipes and trap, the blistering gray wall behind it. All he saw was unnaturally motionless, unreal, as if it were a cunningly built model of itself, or as if the world had gone through some catastrophe and, surviving, was at perfect rest, regathering its strength. His rear end was numb, his neck stiff and painful, his gray-haired bare legs freezing.

He couldn’t remember at first what had happened or why he was here, sitting above foul waters his swollen and blood-clotted nose couldn’t smell. But by lifelong habit he was disturbed by the mooing of the cows by the barn, the cackling of the chickens, troubled, maybe, by one of these ’possums that had been moving into New England these last few years, settling like a plague; and he blinked, turned his head, and reached with his left hand for the wall, with his right for the sink, intending to raise himself. He saw the shotgun and looked hard at it, registered its weight, its curious purity of purpose and line, the two shiny triggers, the pock-marked stock — many’s the woodchuck and skunk he’d shot with it — then remembered what he’d done. His heart went out from under him. He ached too much to feel, just now, the full shame or shock; what he felt was worse, and duller: simple and absolute despair and the farmer’s bred-in knowledge that whatever his misery, however profound his self-hatred and sense of life’s mortal injustice, he must get up and go milk the cows, feed the pigs and horses and, if he could get to it, winter the bees.

He bent forward and pulled up his trousers, then, knees screaming, straightened up. With stiff, numb fingers he hooked the top fly-button, hooked his belt, then worked, slowly, clumsily, at the rest of the buttons. He took two steps forward, put his hands on the sink, and carefully, for fear he might pull it off the wall, leaned on the edge. He glanced at the mirror and was arrested. On the side of his head stood a pearshaped black lump, black as an eggplant, with cracks running out from the center like the faults on a broken tomato, radiating spokes of split-open flesh, bloodless, as if the wound were an old one and he’d picked the scab. Scratches went out from each side of his mouth, and on his upper lip dark clotted blood formed a moustache. His nose, below the swollen black ridge, was as red with burst vessels as an old, half-dead wino’s. All this damage in one night! he thought. He assumed that his nose would be like this henceforth, the ruin looked final; but in this, he would find, he was mistaken; in a week the nose would be practically normal. Surprisingly enough, the old man was not distressed by the ruin. By virtue of the depth of his self-hatred he was beyond that, almost welcomed it as justice.

He became aware again of the cows’ mooing, and leaned to look out through the window. Outside, the world was gray, the glory of foliage all gone, no leaves still clinging but the dull brown of oakleaves, the gossamer tan leaves of beeches. The pastures were as drab as the barn walls, no color but here and there the maroon of a brier. The rain had again, for the time being, stopped. He turned on the faucets, pushed in the plug, splashed cold water on his face, and began to wash up. When the blackish, caked blood was almost all washed away, he groped along the rack for a towel and dried himself. He was reaching for the door when he remembered the shotgun. He took it up and broke it, removed the empty shell and the loaded one, put both in his pocket, and, closing the gun, indifferently leaned it once more against the wall.

He had a dizzy moment, pain that went through him like a brash yell, and it made him yell himself. Out in the barnyard the cows mooed more loudly, as if they’d heard him.

He rubbed the sides of his face with his fingertips — the old man never used pain-killers — and, having no choice, he moved on.

At the top of the stairs he hesitated, his clogged nostrils catching some peculiar scent, and after a moment he turned again, bent half double, and walked to his sister’s door. He stood there looking in, having no intention of entering, though the door was open as if in invitation. The smell was stronger, something burning, a smell from his childhood. Through the door’s foot-wide opening he saw Sally in bed, sleeping with her hands over a paperback book. Her dentures were in and had slipped out of position — the uppers hung crookedly between her dry, crinkled lips like the wax vampire-teeth children wore, dressed for a Halloween party. He again had a picture of Sally as a teenager, taking her bath in the kitchen tub. He nodded as if someone had spoken.

He was staring at her door, and it came to him that somebody — Lewis, of course — had scraped off the paint. He remembered now that he’d heard him doing it. He was saddened. They deserved no kindness, Sally and he, though he was grateful. His eyes traveled up the door cross, admiring his son-in-law’s workmanship, and with a jerk of his heart he saw, perched above, the crate of apples. It seemed to take on weight as he stared at it — the weight, perhaps, of her murderous intent. Despite his headache, despite his wild alarm, he smiled. He looked again at his old, sleeping sister.