A horn blared from the train approaching in the distance.
“That was a pretty messed-up story.”
“Hell’s full of all kinds of stories like that.”
He looked back at the blaring train, its smoke churning up like a way to follow. Maybe in his mind he was following that smoke up to the clouds and to the God too gold to be of any earthly help.
I went to get the bowl and spoon off the tracks, but Sal told me to leave them.
“That’s the ending of the story,” he said. “Something broken.”
Together we watched as the train roared over first the spoon and then the bowl, its broken pieces scattered to the ground.
“You know, Fielding, the thing about breaking something that no one much thinks about is that more shadows are created. The bowl when intact was one shadow. One single shadow. Now each piece will have a shadow of its own. My God, so many shadows have been made. Small little slivers of darkness that seem at once to be larger than the bowl ever was. That’s the problem of broken things. The light dies in small ways, and the shadows—well, they always win big in the end.”
18
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide
—MILTON, PARADISE LOST 4:75–77
THIS IS ME. Teeth marks here. Teeth marks there. Being eaten one bite at a time. I smell myself on my breath. Feel myself swallowed and plopped to my stomach. Clean myself out from my own teeth with a toothpick.
It was Carl Jung who said shame is a soul-eating emotion. It doesn’t eat you in one big gulp. It takes its time. Seventy-one years, it is still taking its time.
I am for my own teeth. I am for my own stomach. I alone eat myself to the dark.
It was the end of August, and me and Sal were in the woods by the tree house. There I saw a metal bucket of stones. I thought maybe Sal was building onto Granny’s grave. Then I saw the paint on the stones. I picked a few up. They all had the same image of a boat. More than that. It was a ship given the details of something grand like an ocean liner. Then the name written on the sides. SS Andrea Doria.
“What do you think?” Sal came up behind me.
I was stunned at the details of the ships and how the same image could be done over and over again without miss.
“I painted them at night, while you were sleeping.”
I dropped the stones back into the bucket. “Listen, Sal, if these are for Mr. Elohim—”
“Shouldn’t they be? All his pamphlets and meetings. He has no right to keep on me. I’ve been good. I mean, I could be bad, Fielding. I could be really bad for him, I could be the worst thing ever. But they always take away the trouble, and I want to stay.
“If only he would just be good. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about any bad he’s done or could do. You don’t have to worry about the teeth if they get filed down. And that’s all I want to do. Just file his teeth down a bit, so we can all live together.”
“You can’t throw stones at ’im, Sal.”
“It’s not skin bruises I’m after. I want to take him down from the heart. Only the Andrea Doria can do a thing like that.”
He picked up the bucket. “Would you go to the schoolhouse, Fielding? Where he holds his meetings. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
Feeling no more argument within myself, I went to the schoolhouse where Elohim and his followers were standing around a contained fire. Hunkering down behind a fallen log, I watched Elohim drop a wiggling burlap sack. The group crowded around as he opened the bag and reached inside, pulling out a garter snake similar to the one Dad had set free in the woods. The bag was full of them, and one by one, the followers grabbed their own.
By then, Sal had come along, hiding down beside me while I stared at the stone in his hand. I wondered if what we were about to do would be something we could never take back.
All eyes were on Elohim as he approached the fire with the snake in his hand, a harmless little black thing that slithered in and out of his fingers.
I’ve never forgotten the way he looked at that snake with hunger for its death. He started to chomp his teeth at it, biting large chunks of the air before swallowing big with an even bigger smile. All the while, the snake innocently twirled around his fingers, not knowing the flames were for it.
“Good-bye, boy.” Elohim tossed the snake like it was nothing.
The others followed. Snakes flying for the first time, landing in flames for the last. I closed my eyes and found another fire. One where snakes weren’t writhing in pain. One that was warming cold hands on a cold night, lighting the dark. Not one where hisses were cries. Not one that was pain slithering, trying to escape.