For a few minutes he sat on the bed, thinking. At the end of the bed was a book. He picked it up. The Nature of the Atom. He opened it and read, turning the pages very rapidly, his eyes intent on the lines of print. But after a while he found himself too restless to continue. He closed the book and put it down.
Carl went to the desk, shoving the books and papers aside. He drew out a square metal box. The box was cold in his hands. He ran his fingers over the surface. For a time he pretended not to know how to open it. His hands touched each inch and corner of it, pressing, feeling its texture, its hardness, its cold smoothness. Suddenly his fingers found the catch of the box, and the lid snapped open.
Carl lifted out the great microscope, metal and glass, its bright mirror flashing in the sunlight that filtered through the burlap drapes. A torrent of glass slides showered out of the box, falling down onto the bed. Carl placed the microscope carefully on the desk and began to gather up the slides, one by one, until they were all safely beside the parent engine.
Presently he selected one of the slides and pushed it onto the stage of the microscope. He tilted the shaft backward, pushing his eye against the eyepiece, staring down into the tube.
At first he saw only darkness, the black of night. He manipulated the mirrors, the adjustments of the machine. And presently an object appeared, swimming slowly along, rising and falling, coming at him and going away again.
What was it? It was the reflection of the blood of his eye, the movement of his own body fluids. It was a part of himself that he saw. Only a part of his own being, reflected back at him. He changed the setting of the lens.
And this time the light, maneuvered into the hollow tube by his deft manipulations, brought the specimen on the slide into view. Carl caught his breath. The transfixed interior of a cell wall gleamed up at him.
For an endless time he gazed down at it, the section of rat liver, purple and ivory, a massive worm cut cleanly through, its vacant center revealed for all to see. His eye feasted on the pulpy puffed-up rat tissue. His eye took in every line and bulge of the fleshy ring, the doughnut magnified by the tube and lenses of the big microscope.
What was this, so small and far beyond ordinary sight? What had it meant to the rat, this single portion of its body, this bit of its physical self? Did the disembodied soul of the rat yearn for what lay here, for what rested on this slide, and on other slides, thousands of slides everywhere, viewed by cold and unsympathetic eyes, curious and objective, each beyond the possibility of any understanding, of knowing in any way what this pulpy ring might have once meant?
The ring, the section, was alive with import, full of sense and greatness. At least, for a little while. But at last Carl’s attention wilted. Torpor filled his veins. His hands, resting expertly on the adjustments of the microscope, began to become heavy and clumsy.
Carl folded the microscope back into its box, into the felt and hair interior where it lived. He slotted the slides into place and snapped the lid tight, sliding the box over to the corner of the desk.
He sat for a time, regaining his energy. After a time he began to look about him, at all the things in the room. The phonograph records stacked up at the end of the bed. The little record player, with its cactus needles and sharpener lying on the turntable. His box of recipes, the metal file box with cards squashed together, bulging and out of order. His model airplanes, German planes of the First World War, two black wings, the stubby body. The huge still of the Kaiser.
His stamp album. The magnifying glass and the cup of stamps. Carl leaned toward the desk. He thrust his fingers into the cup, groping for the gummy squares of wet paper, bright bits peeling loose from the sections of cut envelope.
The battle maps on the wall caught his eye. The front lines were no longer correctly indicated; they were all out of place, left behind by the shudders of the war. Carl rushed to the map, shaking drops of sticky water in every direction. He grabbed up a pencil from the desk, snatching it from the top drawer.
But again he saw the picture, the picture of the girl, torn from the magazine. He stopped, standing by the desk, staring down at it. Presently he sat down on the bed. He took the picture and a fresh piece of drawing paper, drawing them to him, onto his lap.
He studied the picture. His eyes told him everything about the girl. He did not need useless touch to tell him what he needed to know. The texture of her skin. The feel of her hair. He needed nothing but sight to tell him everything. He had learned to follow and to understand through his eyes alone. He had seen them, what he saw now in the picture, walking along the street, sitting near him in the bus, leaning out the window of the house next door to hang up washing on the line. He had seen them many times.
Carl began to draw, slowly, carefully, his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, his fingers gripping the pencil. There was a bright, feverish color in his face, a high redness in his cheeks. He drew with forceful, nervous strokes, the muscles of his arm rigid and locked, as hard and unbending as the wood of the pencil. When he was displeased his face darkened and the bright color dimmed. He smeared the black lines on the paper with sudden anguish, rubbing his finger against the rough paper.
Slowly, from the heavy, greasy lines, the figure of the girl emerged, an image rising from the smudges of the charcoal and oil and lampblack. A flowing mass of blackness. That was the hair, streaming around the face. He drew the neck and shoulders, the arms.
The original, the print torn from the magazine, fell from his lap, skidding into the corner. He did not notice or care. This girl, emerging on his drawing paper, did not come from any magazine. She came from inside him, from his own body. From the plump, white body of the boy this embryonic woman was rising, brought forth by the charcoal, the paper, the rapid strokes. He was giving birth to this figure from his own body. And as he drew he watched it struggle out of him, gaining form and substance.
The figure fought with the inky cloud, its birth sack, the charcoal and lampblack, and the waters of birth drained down his arm in dirty streaks, smudges of grim, like the dust of the street, the soot of factories.
He finished the arms and began the torso. Blood beat inside him, rising in a pitch of excitement. He put down his pencil, shaking and trembling. He could not go on. It was too difficult, too demanding. The ecstatic agony of birth was too much. He could not let it emerge, not just yet. The pain was too great.
Carl sat, staring down at the picture, perspiration dripping down his face and arms. In the warm closeness of the room, with the sunlight pouring through the tightly closed windows, his sweating body gave off a strange musky smell. But he did not notice. He was too lost in concentration.
In the steamy, musky room the boy was much like a kind of plant, growing and expanding, white and soft, his fleshy arms reaching into everything, devouring, examining, possessing, digesting. But at the windows and doors of the room he stopped. He did not go beyond them.
He was a part of this room. He could not leave it. Outside the room the air was too cold, the ground too wet, the sun too bright. Outside the room the objects moved by him too quickly to be grasped or consumed or understood.
Like a plant, he fed only on things brought to him. He did not go and get them for himself. Living in this room he was a plant that fed on its own self, eating at its own body. What came forth from his own vitals, these lines and forms generated onto paper, were exciting and maddening. He was trapped, held tight.
Carl’s fingers gripped the edges of the drawing paper. This picture, the head and shoulders of the girl, the tide of inky black hair, was something he wanted, that he had to have. It had worked itself out of his physical depths, and he wanted to pull himself after it, smother it with himself, cram it back inside him again. He bent forward, his face close to the paper, his lips brushing the dark lines, the swirls and currents, the motions of the girl’s form, her hair and arms and shoulders, the shocking white that would be the rest of her body, someday. Finally.
But the effort was too much. H
e could not last it out. Carl collapsed back onto the bed with a sigh, and the picture fell once more to the floor, with the dust and litter.
Dust and spiderwebs. Tiny webs crossing the deep black lines, the hair and face and shoulders he had drawn. Dimly, from a long way off, he could still see the picture, the form that had emerged from him, the part that had come forth from his womb.
But he was exhausted. He could not stir toward it. He could not cram it back into him again. It lay on the dirty floor, such a long way from him, resting silently with the trash and spiderwebs and debris. He closed his eyes.
Untidily, the boy dozed on the bed.
Carl stirred, blinking. How clear the scenes and sights of his boyhood were! He stood up a moment, gazing down the hillside at the buildings and towers below. He took a deep breath, yawning and stretching.
Presently he sat down again. He relaxed, letting his mind wander, back into his youth, into his childhood. Back farther and farther, into the depths of his memories. Around him the memories moved and swelled, drifting and murmuring.
The procession of old women were coming along the path. It was snow all over. They were carrying white, but it was not snow. The first old woman staggered with the heavy sheet of rock, thin, paper-stuck, powdery, and dropped it at the edge of the path.
The sheet of rock fell and broke apart, each section falling away, brittle, old. Carl looked down the path of broken paper and rock.
“Because you jumped.”
He had been angry. The old women lugged out the last pieces of rock. The great dark warm heap of chocolate flesh, the massive body that was Lulu the maid, was saying, and holding onto his arm: “But you had your tantrum in the mownin’. They is wrong. It was in the mownin’. Don’ you see?”
He did see. Yet the ceiling had fallen, just as in Henny-penny. Only it was not the ceiling. It was the sky. He went to the store with Lulu.
Along the road the ice and snow had turned to slush, yellow and crusted. He reached his hands into it. And the mittens became stiff with cold, and his hands had no feeling.
“Are you a little boy or a little girl?” he asked the heap of brightly colored rags, huddled on the steps. He was skating back and forth across the tracks made by people along the sidewalk, feeling the ice and pavement under his feet.
“I’m a girl,” the child said. It was evening. The sun went down. The air was dark. He could see the great white Merrit House in the distance, and in front of it the path of rocks and paper. He skated and hobbled across the ground, slushy and frozen, the water striking him. At the top of the hill he stopped, looking back.
The bundle of rags raised itself up. “I have to go!” it sang. “I have to go.” It turned and fled. Along the edge of the hill the child ran home, dancing, dashing, the rags flying.
Carl went inside. His mother was putting down the groceries on the table, getting out her key to see if there were any mail today.
He stood in the hall, gazing up at her.
The air was full of things. Carl had seen them come out of the trees. Each left a little body behind it when it emerged. The body was a tiny worn self, sitting on the branch of the tree. He pulled, and the little worn bit of shell case came away in his hand. He gathered them up all together, and presently he had a pile of them. They were not dead; they had no insides. It was strange.
Carl was at school. His mother had not found an apartment. It was dark, and the night air was full of the strange buzzy things that had come out of the trees. At the back door a woman was calling the children. Upstairs the two Donnie twins were being bathed. They slept in his room with him. They snored at night. Once under the bed he had run a piece of wood into his finger, under the nail. It was in the afternoon, and no one heard him. The room was always warm and stuffy, with the windows shut tight. He came out from under the bed crying.
Now, in the cold dark evening he looked up at the shadow of the building, and the figure of the woman by the back door. Far off in the distance there was a siren.
“Police!” little voices cried.
“Fire trucks! Fire trucks!”
Carl scampered over the grass. In the dimness the grass was black. He ran past the huge tent staked down at the corners. He ran along the hedge, across the plowed field, onto the bottom slope. He could not see the end of the slope. He ran and ran, down and down, until he came to the fence. The bushes had grown up against the wires of the fence and along the posts, and he had to push them aside, tugging at the thick stalks.
The slope dropped sharply on the other side of the fence. Below the slope, at the bottom, was a highway. He could see the lights of the highway going off into the distance. There were no houses as far as he could see. The highway went along and another highway cut across it. There was a sign of bright yellow where the two roads met, a strip of light in the vast darkness, the yawning immensity of night.
HANCOCK GASOLINE
Two tiny cars were drawn up at the side of the highway. He heard the sirens again, moving along the highway toward the hills. The hills were very far off, a black edge near the violet skyline.
Kneeling, peering through the bushes, he listened to the sirens fading away into the hills.
When he got up to go back, the air was heavy with night, cold and damp. He walked slowly, feeling his way along. He passed the plowed ground and came onto the grass. He ducked under the ropes of the tent and went up onto the driveway, brittle and crackly under his feet.
When he got to the door of the building the woman seized him by the arm. “Where have you been?” Her voice was shrill and sharp in the night air.
Carl pushed by her, murmuring. He went up the hall to the stairs. His room was hot and unpleasant with steam and the smell of baths. The Donnie twins were asleep.
He sat down on the bed and untied his shoes.
When Carl was twelve years old he was allowed to go to summer camp. He was very excited about it. Jimmy Petio was going along with him.
“I’ll drive you up,” his mother said. “I’ll drive both of you.”
Carl twisted uncomfortably.
“What’s the matter?”
“I—”
Mrs. Fitter put down the magazine she was reading, The New Yorker. “What’s the matter?”
“I thought we might hitchhike.”
Mrs. Fitter raised her magazine. “Now I’ve heard everything.” She adjusted her glasses. “Twelve years old and they want to hitchhike.”
Carl gazed out the window of the car. Mrs. Fitter drove up beside some trees and stopped. “Well, here we are.” She pushed the door open. “Don’t leave your sleeping bags behind.”
Carl and Jimmy dragged their sleeping bags out of the back of the car. Carl kissed his mother goodbye. She slammed the car door and started up the motor.
“Gosh,” Jimmy said.
The camp was immense and cool. Vast trees, their tops lost in a green tangle of branches, surrounded them. A bird squawked, flying far above, its cries echoing away.
A counselor approached them. “Fitter and Petio?”
They nodded.
“Your tent is down here. Come along with me.”
Jimmy and Carl laid out their sleeping bags on the two cots a few feet from their weathered canvas tent. Beyond the tent rose a wall of earth and roots and vines. Black and green mixed together, damp, silent, awesome. In front of the tent was a slender trail, and just on the other side of the trail was the creek.
Carl went over to the edge of the trail and gazed down at the creek. The water was deep and dark. A few tree branches drifted slowly along. On the far side land rose up again, trees and brush. Dimly in the brush more tents could be seen.
“What’s over there?” Carl asked.
“I don’t know.” Jimmy threw a stone into the creek. Ripples poured away, widening silently.
“It sure is quiet.”
“Let’s see where they all are.”
They ran back along the trail, the way they had come. They came to the dining building and th
e sand bar where everyone was out swimming. Shouts and splashes echoed around them. On the far side of the creek was a high platform and a diving board. A few brown shapes basked in the sun. The sand bar was swarming with swimmers. Canoes, red and blue and orange, drifted up and down the creek.
A counselor with boys hanging from him made his way toward them. “Did you boys just come?”
“Yes.”
“Put on your trunks and jump in.”
They ran back to get their trunks. They changed quickly. A moment later they were pattering back along the trail, the wind blowing against their bare bodies, tiny stones cutting into their feet. Jimmy hopped expertly. Carl did the best he could.
“Come on!” Jimmy shouted.
“I’m coming!”
They reached the sandbar, past the redwood dining building. The sand was warm and dry under their feet. Jimmy leaped into the water. Carl ran to the edge, making his way through the brown glistening bodies curled up in the sun.
At the edge of the water he halted, looking around him. He stood gazing across the creek, at the platform on the other side.
Jimmy’s head rose up in the water, spluttering and gasping. “What’s the matter?”
Carl did not answer.
“What’s eating you?”
Carl dived into the water. He swam around and came up to the surface. He paddled toward Jimmy. The water was icy. He gasped, goose-pimples breaking out all over him.
“It’s freezing.”
“It sure is.”
They crawled up on the sandbar. Water ran down their faces, dripping from them. They struggled to breathe.
“I’m worn out,” Jimmy muttered.
Carl was worn out, too. More by excitement than anything else. No one paid any attention to them. Most of the figures on the sandbar were asleep. A few splashed into the water from time to time. One boy struggled with another to get a huge green ball. Across the creek a lithe shape dived from the platform into the water.
“You just come?” a fellow said to them.
They nodded. “We just got here.”
“How long you going to be here?”