Big Machine (9 page)

So instead we tried to guess
what
we were really doing.

The Washburn Library held an inventory of impossible events, documented, recorded, and even photographed until they seemed to be more than just hearsay. Euphinia and Grace argued that if you read these reports together, you had a different picture of the world. That the field notes, the files, were like dispatches from an undiscovered country. An atlas of the afterlife. And by working together—those of us in Vermont,
those in the field, and with the Dean as our captain—we had become a kind of crew, navigating the deep waters between this world and the next. We were sailing toward the shores of the dead.

But what was waiting to meet us?

There is a voice whispering in the darkness
.

It wasn’t all gloom and mystery, though. There was a kind of joy even just in saying the names of the Unlikely Scholars who had written these reports. Merle Waters and Avery Evans. Diana Green. Maxwell Kudjo. Aloysius Bomford and Patricia Morrissey. Some of these folks had filed dozens of reports about dozens of strange places or things, while others, like Maxwell Kudjo, only had one. We tried to suss out what the differences could mean. Had Maxwell quit, or had he died? We still hadn’t found answers about Merle Waters.

One name came up more than all the rest. One man who’d submitted so many field reports that his output practically matched all the other Unlikely Scholars combined. His name was Solomon Clay. As far as we could tell, he’d been working for the Washburn Library since the forties. We made jokes about this, imagining some stooped and crotchety old black man climbing into a sewer with a notebook and a camera, cursing and spitting the whole way down.

Solomon Clay. Who climbed the Grand Teton to find a glyph scored into Exum Ridge.

Solomon Clay. Who traveled to Polk County, Wisconsin, and recorded a disembodied voice saying mass in Norwegian inside a deserted Lutheran church.

Did we really believe all these things? It’s hard to say. Violet and I were the most skeptical, but mostly because we thought we were smarter than the others and we feared seeming gullible. Violet and I treated the work as a pseudoscience, like phrenology or investment banking. We understood what connections the Dean expected, and we found them. Euphinia and Grace were least skeptical, because of the experiences that had brought them to the Library. In between were Sunny, Verdelle, and Peach Tree, who, to be honest, were willing to believe as long as they got to keep their cabins, these new lives.

We’d get into long arguments after our dinners. The problem was that all this evidence in Scholar’s Hall could disprove as much as it proved. Merle Waters’s photographs might only confirm that some crazy bastard built a Gothic revival home in a very inconvenient place. Or Merle Waters’s disappearance might endorse the belief that she’d been devoured by whatever crouched inside those ruins on Pimentel Hill.

Violet had the hardest time with these debates. She’d yell, she’d ball her fists, she’d pace the room. Sometimes she looked epileptic while trying
to argue for rational explanations. And the more Euphinia or Grace held to her belief, the more irate Violet became. Until she’d curse the whole Washburn Library, put every aspect of it down, just so the rest of us would admit she was right. She’d rather claim the Library was a monument to ignorance and superstition than accept that someone had good reasons to disagree with her. I don’t think anybody held it against her. She was young. If things truly got heated, Violet even used insults.

One night she lost her temper and shouted, “Y’all think the damned Unlikely Scholars are like spiritual X-Men!”

The cabin became colder and colder as each of us walked out. I guess Violet had made us feel silly and naïve.

But then, two weeks later, we received our costumes.

AND DURING THOSE TWO WEEKS
I moved my needle and dope, like usual. Took them out from the top shelf of the broom closet and hid them in my bedroom closet, under the spare blankets. Then took them from the closet and popped them behind the toilet, right under the plunger. Does that sound a little nasty? Then you don’t want to know some of the places I’ve hid dope.

Saturday morning, two and a half months into my tenure, two weeks after Violet’s bitter joke, I woke with the urge to get supremely high. No. That’s not quite true. I woke with the urge to cross a snowy field, kick in Violet’s door, and grab her tight. Or maybe I just wanted to blot out Violet with a more familiar pain. Either way, I woke up with a yearning that felt like the need to shoot up again. The needle and the junk were sitting in my fridge, chilling. I’d hidden them in the butter dish.

For people who’ve never shot up or snorted or smoked heroin, it can be hard to understand the allure. Catch sight of a man or woman whose arms are purple from old needle bites, look at the sunken face of a longtime user, how could anyone want to end up that way? But that’s like passing a car accident and wondering why anyone, anywhere, drives. Don’t focus on the mishaps; consider the pleasures instead. Taking heroin is like sinking into a tapioca hammock. If that doesn’t sound good, then congratulations, you will not enjoy heroin. May I suggest cocaine?

So I woke up with the desire, despite being off the stuff three years. Peach Tree had been right: the urge doesn’t go away. You only learn to ignore
it. But that morning I felt the tingling so strong it lifted me out of sleep, and I was at the fridge, opening the butter dish, even before I felt fully awake. Had the butter dish in my hand, the cold like a soft kiss on my palm. All I had to do was lift the top and swing.

But then two strangers came kicking at my door.

Two very well-dressed strangers.

Small men in green suits and brown checked ties. Their outfits were identical, and so were they. Not salt and pepper, but pepper and pepper. I peeked at them from my kitchen window, the butter dish still in hand. I pushed the fridge door shut with my foot and watched quietly.

The one closer to me kicked the door again. Their hands carried small but heavy-looking cases. I tried to figure if I could shoot up without them hearing me, but when I tried to lift the lid, the butter dish fell to the ground. It didn’t shatter, but bounced loudly across the tiles. My needle rolled one way and the six packets of H went another, still held together by a red rubber band.

And as soon as that happened, the twins looked at me.

“I see you right there,” one shouted. “Stop that reckless eyeballing and come open this door, dummy!”

Right then, from the tone, I knew who they were. What they were.

Sheriffs.

I’d been evicted enough times to recognize that style.

I ran to the front door and pressed my body against it. I held on to the top lock so it couldn’t be turned. I peeked through the little glass panels at the upper end of the door, right down on their square heads.

“You can’t serve that eviction notice if you can’t get in!” I said.

They both looked up now, and the other twin said, “You are dumber than dirt, fool.”

I knocked the door with my good knee. “Well, who’s on the outside? You cold yet?”

“We been sent to do something for you, not to take anything from you, dummy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “You’re not getting in that easy.”

They looked at each other. Their hair had been straightened, in that old style, and then slicked down on their scalps with grease.

“I’m about through,” one said to the other.

His brother shrugged wearily, then looked up at me. “What kind of proof you want, fool?”

“Open those cases,” I said.

They set them down, four all together. Then one of the brothers, the guy who’d said he was through, lifted one, and his brother popped a little lock. I expected to see handcuffs and mace and extra ammunition.

Instead there were scissors and measuring tape, rolls of thread, square pieces of chalk.

The brother holding the case looked at me and sighed.

“We’re not cops, you dummy. We’re tailors.”

NO ONE HOLDS A GRUDGE
like an old black man. The Chinese have shorter memories for the misdeeds done against them. So when I finally let the little tailors inside, after hurriedly hiding my stash in the oven, I didn’t expect any camaraderie.

They walked in single file and set their cases down on the kitchen table. The four packs were heavy enough that the table’s legs shook.

“You got some heavy yarn in there,” I said, trying to be friendly.

The first brother looked up at me. “Why don’t we just get this over with.”

The pair had faces like Boston terriers, somber eyes that were a little too large, and jowly cheeks that only emphasized their frowns. This made them seem vaguely disappointed, no matter the tone of voice. The two had better posture than an English gentleman, and because of this the tops of their pomaded heads were about level with my shoulder.

“I’m Fayard and this is Harold. Raise your arms.”

I hesitated, but didn’t fight them, even if the tone was bossier than I would’ve liked. I raised my hands, and the brothers pulled out their yellow measuring tape.

While one worked on my upper body, the other kneeled and checked my legs. That one, Harold, grabbed the bottom of my pants and snapped them hard.

“You ever had your pants hemmed, fool?”

Fayard had his tape wrapped around my chest, but stopped checking it long enough to look down and see where the bottom of my pants flopped against the floor.

Fayard sucked his teeth, then shook his head. He pulled on my shirt sleeve. I’d fallen asleep in the shirt the night before. Its cuff came down to my knuckles.

“What size is this shirt?” Fayard asked.

I shrugged. “Large?”

Harold shouted from the floor. “Large!”

Fayard pursed his lips and blew out, a whistle meant to shame me.

“What size are yours?” I asked them. “Juniors?”

Harold stood up, stepped back, and opened his coat. He spun around once, slowly. The sleeves of his jacket just reached his wrists, and the bottom of his slacks floated an inch above my tiled floor.

“At least ours fit,” Fayard said.

I MADE THEM TEA
after they’d taken all my measurements, and this seemed to make them happy. They hadn’t asked for drinks, but appreciated the hospitality.

“Come over here,” Harold said, tapping the kitchen table lightly. “Let that tea steep a minute.”

Harold opened another of the cases and took out a series of photo albums. Inside, there were all these pictures of folks tricked out in elegant clothing. Teenage boys and girls, women and men. Many smiled, some didn’t, but each person had this aura, this zest. They looked happy. These weren’t recent shots. They were all in black and white, looked like they’d been fished out of an archive. Maybe Scholar’s Hall? By now even the teens in these photos, the ones still alive, might be a hundred years old.

“These pictures were taken by a friend of the Library’s named James. He had a studio in Harlem many decades ago, and he photographed all the Unlikelies in his time.”

I pointed at the pages. “These people were all Scholars?”

Fayard said, “Couple of them
still
are.”

I liked looking at the photos even more after hearing that, but felt distracted by Fayard, who opened my drawers looking for spoons. He didn’t touch the oven, but he wasn’t far from it, and I felt scared. Like he’d pull the door open and see my works right there on a rack.

I must’ve been staring hard, because Fayard stopped searching, leaned back against the oven door, and watched me. Had they seen me stash the heroin?

“The tea’s coming,” he said. He made a twirling gesture with his right hand. “You go on and listen to my brother.”

I nodded and looked at the photos again, but felt as if my own fingertips were on fire. I wondered if my eyes were misting up. What if he turned the oven on? How quickly would the plastic parts of the syringe melt? How long before the plastic baggies bubbled?

I looked back at Fayard again and said, “That tea’s gonna get cold.”

Harold tapped the photo album, but I wouldn’t look at the shots, so Fayard nodded and brought all three cups over. He came around the side of the table and pulled out his chair.

“Come on, now,” Fayard said quietly. “Let’s find you something nice.”

The brothers went through every page with me and told me to point out the pieces I liked. Some suits, hats, shoes, even one guy’s cane, and they put each item on a list. They told me the proper names of each piece and the types of fabrics. Said it all slowly, the way you do when teaching someone a new language. Harold and Fayard wore
gabardine suits
and
Wembley ties
.

And I listened. Tried to. For a while I still wanted to tear the oven door off its hinges and get that dope inside me. But by the time I could recognize the Borsalino Alessandria hat, the urge had ebbed.

When we were done, they told me to expect delivery of the wardrobe in two weeks.

Those exact clothes?

“We can copy anything,” Harold said. “And it hardly costs a thing.”