Chapter 9
ECONOMICS
I was there the first time Cyrus taught Alex to kill. It was two years after my experiences with Roland, and Cyrus had an old dog that needed to be put down. The damned thing had been screaming for days, and we - me, Roland, and Alex - were brought to the back of the property to a wooded area with a small stream.
Cyrus never told me or the others point blank why, only we knew. I knew. Alex knew. Roland knew. Even the damned dog knew. His head hung low, ears drooped, he shook all over. We didn't shake.
Cyrus was using his resources wisely. He had a dog that needed to be put down, and he had a son who needed to learn how to put "dogs" down. It was economical.
I remember when Cyrus put the .357 in Alex's hand, though, it didn't feel right. Something about the way Alex twisted the gun, took off the safety, turned his head, I didn't feel well about it. But when I looked to Roland, he simply leaned against a tree, stock still, and folded his arms. I knew then it was happening no matter what... it was what it was.
Cyrus had Shakespeare - the brown lab - lay down. He motioned for Alex to stand a few feet behind him, and Alex did. Then, we all put bright orange ear plugs in our ears.
Cyrus put his finger on one of the skull bones that protruded over Shakespeare's neck. "Right here," he said to Alex and handed him the gun. "One bullet here, and we start digging."
Alex cocked the gun, and before I could blink he fired. One. Two. Three. Four. Five shots. They were so loud, I smacked my ears with my hands and shut my eyes tight for a split second.
After a few moments of ringing, I could hear Shakespeare. When I looked, he was still alive, quivering, crawling along the dirt, whimpering. Alex had not pierced the head.
Alex had poured into Shakespeare like a claymore mine, and the dog was now bloody and white from a milky foam was seething out of a hole in his back. His left paw was blown completely off.
My throat stiffened. I watched as Shakespeare's tongue lamely licked at the dirt and a river of blood sloshed onto the thin grass.
"Goddamnit Alex!" roared Cyrus. Alex stared blindly at his Father. Cyrus grabbed the gun from him and knocked him in the face with it. Roland, meanwhile, calmly strolled from his tree and retrieved a pistol from his inner pocket. He pointed it at Alex. I remember the darkening in Alex's eyes, how he winced despite himself, and that pleased me.
"Move out of the way, so I can do your job for you," Roland said. Alex scooted towards me. When he moved, Roland shot the dog in the back of the head twice, and Shakespeare stopped turning.
"Need I remind you that I am in charge?!" fumed Cyrus. He quickly walked across the dirt and dead leaves and pushed Alex to the ground. "What was the use of that? What did you think that would accomplish? Tell me!"
Alex stared at Cyrus, and I think that was the bravest moment he had ever had, not looking away. But it quickly broke, as do all great things supported by bad deeds, and Alex began whimpering like he and Shakespeare and switched places. "I just..." Alex said.
"You just what?!"
"I just wanted to do well."
Cyrus pushed Alex to the ground with his foot. "What is it exactly that you think we do here? Hm?"
"I... I... don't know." A tear trickled from Alex's left eye.
"Exactly. You don't know." He pointed at Shakespeare. "You don't fucking know. Well here is your first lesson. We never do this to one of our own. Never! You want to torture something, and you choose the family dog...!" Cyrus shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry," Alex said.
"Fuck you are. Get up!" Cyrus yelled, and he took his foot up from Alex's chest. "You're going to dig that damned grave on your own. I want it perfect."
Alex pulled himself up, wiped his nose and slunk past Shakespeare to where one of the shovels lay against a tree. "You'll need the spade first," Cyrus said. Alex, wiping his eyes, walked the two feet of distance to where a spade lay on the woods' floor, reached down, his blonde hair falling into his eyes.
"Now start digging," said Cyrus. "And you'll keep going until your body hurts. And you'll still keep digging. And then your arms will give out. And then you'll claw through that dirt a spoonful at a time. You won't stop until I say."
Alex sniffed, looking less like a king and more a pawn. He squinted at the ground below his feet. Halfheartedly, he broke the ground with the spade, split the first slice of soil in two, wedging the pieces apart until he could gain further entry.
Then, he hit a new spot of soil and did the same thing. And again. And again. He was better at digging graves than shooting dogs, I thought, as we watched him for a good hour, saw the tiny beads of perspiration form on his forehead and roll down the sides of his face. I watched the grit begin to collect into the tiny crevices between his nose and cheeks, saw the light seep from the part in his mouth until there was only an exhausted, drained husk of a boy, and yes, this contented me.
Roland leaned against his tree. Cyrus clenched his fists now and again. I stood, too wary to move amongst the enormous strands of tension strung through the air.
As time passed, I eyed at the leaves in the trees surrounding us, saw them blow in the wind, drop sometimes, their red and yellow blotting out the darkening ground, sometimes landing on Shakespeare, sometimes hitting me. They reminded me of butterflies that could not stay afloat.
After the first hour, the three of us found seats in the dirt. After the third, I knew rigor mortis had set in for Shakespeare, but Alex was moving ever fervently, toiling to show that he couldn't be beat. After the fourth, the sun was going down, and Roland went to the house and came back with sandwiches for himself and me and Cyrus. He brought flashlights - giant, million candlelight ones - and set them up in a circle around Alex.
We kept watching him, watched the dirt fly in the air in front of the flashlights like a cleansing mist. It felt like a campout, except calmer.
After the sixth hour, Alex was done digging. Cyrus gently placed Shakespeare into the hole, kissed his head, apologized for his son's behavior, and then we watched for the next hour while Alex filled in that hole, packed the grains neatly like files in a filing cabinet.
We retrieved all of the flashlights, trekked back to the house, and as we walked, Cyrus said to Alex, "I thought you loved that dog."
The words that came from Alex's mouth were garbled from exhaustion, and I almost missed them. "I did," he said.
We went to one of the East Wing's dens. Alex walked straight upstairs, headed to his room. Cyrus followed him and was gone, leaving Roland and me behind. That was when Roland asked me:
"What would you call that?"
"What Alex did?" I said.
"Mm-hmm." His eyes peered at me in the dim light.
"I don't know. I don't understand. He went insane."
Roland looked at the cuticles of his nails, but didn't really look at them. "And that's just the beginning," he replied. He slowly gazed up at the ceiling and cocked his head, his eyes distancing.
"I'm not going to work with that boy. Teaching him to kill... it won't be me. Not like how I was with you." He put his right hand on his hip and used his left one to place against the wall. "We need to get you a lock for your room." When he said this, an awareness crept into me that had not existed before. "As you know, Jack... I'm not always here. Cyrus isn't always here." He shook his head. "I'm glad I taught you well. I'm glad you were the first to learn."
"Roland," I said.
"Hm?"
"Can Cyrus bring me back? Like he does with you?"
Roland smiled at me, and he opened his mouth to laugh, but no laugh arrived. "There's no need to worry about that. Adults die in this house. Children do not."
At this, I noticed the feel of my heart slowing, and I remembered the first time, when I had killed Roland, that I thought I would die with him. I suddenly felt very tired. "Roland?"
"Yes?"
"What do you see... when I kill you?" I asked.
He paused for a great while, and in t
his pause he seemed more statue than human, and that frightened me more than he had ever before. "It doesn't matter what I see," he whispered, and it felt as though a doll were talking to me, not a man. "Because you and I... we are similar, but we aren't the same."
"What are you?" I asked.
"Not Cyrus. Not Alex. But not you." I did not press him further. I did, however, have one more question.
I whispered his name yet again.
He didn't say anything for a moment, as though he knew what I would ask and dreamed not to answer. "...yes, Jack?" His words were so low, they sounded like the beating of a heart.
"If Alex dies, can Cyrus bring him back?"
Roland pulled out his pack of cigarettes and hit them against his palm. He stared at them as he hit them and would not look at me. "No," Roland said. "He cannot."
It was then that I felt the conversation was over, and I headed in the direction of Cyrus and Alex and my room.
Before, I could reach the stairs, however, Roland said, "Two things you should remember, Jack. Just two things." I turned to him as he lit his cigarette. "Nothing comes between a man and his son. No matter how bad the boy gets, no matter how good of a service you provide for Cyrus, you are worlds apart.
"The second. There is a certain amount of equaling that goes on in this world, and what Alex did to Shakespeare... some equaling is due. When that equaling comes, you best get out the way. Each and every time, you best sit back and watch - for there will be other times. And as you watch, you get it through your head, that no matter your fury, no matter your pain, it's the equaling that's Alex's fate. The equaling gets the job done. Every time. Not you.
"The same goes for every person.
"The same goes for every time I'm on that slab."