Rich Friends (44 page)

“And cure,” Roger said.

“Also,” Vliet said, “they're handy at the table.”

“They're for killing,” Genesis said, his tone purposefully mild.

Vliet said, “Cricket, I'll buy a trip to see that weaving.”

“Oh yes, the backstrap looms,” Alix said. “I never have understood how to work one.” She glanced at Roger.

Roger said to Genesis, “I'd like to talk to you, sir.”

“See you outside, then,” Vliet said, extending a hand to Cricket. “Upsy daisy.”

Genesis was watching. Cricket's eyelids fluttered, then she took the hand. Vliet pulled her up. Genesis stared at the door after they left.

To Roger the hall seemed warmer, and he thought of wiping his forehead but decided against it. Genesis' chair threw him off-balance. It was the only furniture around, and either Roger sat on the mat, as Cricket had done, a disciple at dusty, bunioned feet, or stood in front of the older man, a suppliant. He managed uneasy compromise. Half squatting, he rested his back on a panel.

“They couldn't get away fast enough,” Genesis said. “Why did you stay?”

“It's Orion.”

“What about the boy?”

“He's got a lesion on his cheek.”

“Lesion?”

“An abnormal scab.”

“You a doctor?”

“Medical student. Fourth year. I'm pretty sure it's basal cell carcinoma. Cancer.”

“We don't believe in doctors.”

“He needs one.”

“I put on herb poultices. Ointment.”

“You don't cure cancer with applications.”

“Then it can't be cancer. I cured it. The bleeding stopped.”

“A scab's formed twice, but the bleeding'll start a third time. That's the pattern with basal cell.” Earnestly Roger leaned forward. His thigh muscles pulled. “If this is gotten early enough, his chances are fine. There's a terrific hospital for the Peninsula.”

“No.”

“It won't be any problem. We'll drive him down. The clinic's free.” Roger wasn't sure if Peninsula Community Hospital had a free clinic, and it didn't matter. He'd pay. With what? Who cared? He'd borrow from Vliet.

“He's not going to no clinic, free or otherwise.”

“Isn't that up to him?”

“He won't go,” Genesis said, crossing his arms and looking away. A dismissal.

Roger didn't move. He was remembering an autopsy, a man younger than himself, manila tagging the brown arm, water flowing along canals in the cement, water under and around Death. Younger than he. Roger had felt nauseated, as if he'd taken a beating. Death was an affront to his own healthy body.

“If it's what I think,” he said, “there should be complete surgical excision.”

“And you told him?”

“I told him to see a doctor.”

“Well?”

“He said you've cured him.”

“I have.”

“But you aren't qualified—”

“They come to me,” Genesis interrupted, “to find a way from their pain. I show them a road, nothing more. Knives aren't part of the road. Nature is.”

“This won't cure itself.”

“He gave you his answer.”

“He's been brainwashed.” The dim air began to pulsate in front of Roger's eyes. “Is it really such a big deal to you, sir?”

“The cutting, you mean? Yes, it's a big deal to me. And to Orion. The boy believes in our way. Faith, that's all that matters when you come right down to it. Faith.”

There was silence. Roger told himself to keep calm. He could hear faraway voices, and somewhere in the hills, a quail's fluty call. “Oh Jesus!” he burst out.

“We don't blaspheme in this place.”

“Maybe it'll be a biopsy, nothing more.”

“You've got one idea in your head.”

“Yes, curing.”

“No. The knife.”

“He needs a doctor. It isn't important what I—”

“Mutilation,” Genesis said.

Roger felt an echo of pain in his own cheek muscles and wondered, foolishly, if the blotch had moved to his face. Alix said he took disease personally. “I can't let you do this!”

“You can't?” Genesis asked quietly. “Can't you just.” He raised an arm, chopping down. Old Testament prophet with black belt invokes Divine wrath. The violence of the gesture contradicted his mild tone. It was funny. Neither the young nor the older man noticed any humor.

Genesis said, “We do not mutilate ourselves.”

Roger jogged down shallow steps, he strode across blue tiles. At the dust-coated Porsche, he spat the bitter taste from his mouth and waited for the others.

When they were driving through unpaved ruts, he asked, “Know what that scab is?”

“On Orion's face, you mean?” Cricket grabbed the seat in front of her as they bounced over a pothole.

“Basal cell carcinoma,” Roger said.

Vliet whistled. “For sure?”

“I haven't taken a biopsy, if that's what you mean.”

“Your word's fine with me,” Vliet said.

“He needs surgery.”

“They don't believe in—” Cricket started.

“They have faith, not doctors!” Roger shifted gears. “To me, Orion looks like he's got more anxieties than faith.”

“It's like a real religion to them,” Cricket said.

“He'll have to lapse for a while!”

“Listen to yourself, Roger, will you?” Vliet said.

“We have to get him to that hospital.”

“I don't suppose you've given thought to one minor matter,” Vliet said. “This is none of your damn business.”

“Whose is it, then?”

“Orion's. Genesis'. Christ, what assy names. And this Genesis is one guy I'd just as soon not tangle with. The man's a power-hungry banana.”

“Psychotic with schizoid delusions.”

“That's your considered opinion?” Vliet asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then you know enough to stay clear.”

“You always were chicken,” Roger muttered.

The sunbaked path twisted. Roger made a sharp left. Tires squealed, dust rose.

“Easy there. It's not paid for yet,” Vliet said. “Roger, listen, will you? Thou shalt not, it has definite implications. It implies that there's a heavy chance people shall. We don't need to be told
not
to do something unless there're possibilities we will do it. Strong possibilities. We put up rules, Roger, because we're afraid certain impulses will get the better of us. It's pertinent, this business of knives. In my view, this old fart's afraid he'll use 'em. And once he starts carving, he won't stop until he's cut up all the piggies.”

“Vliet!” Cricket's voice was sharp. “You've got Manson on the brain.”

Alix leaned forward, gripping Roger's shoulder with her left hand, the one with the garnet, and he held the hand to him, his thumb stroking the delicate line of knuckles. Her touch soothed him, and he was able to think. A winged bug hit the windshield, leaving a creamy bruise.

“In Hopkins,” he said, “we use the Moes Technique. You remove a little each day so you can stain and fix the slides. The pathologist knows exactly what came from where. You know when your borders are clean. They probably aren't using it here.”

“We'll never find out,” said Vliet.

Roger asked, “Is the cottage available a few more days?”

“Christ, I'd forgotten. You never give up, do you?”

“How can I?”

“Easily.”

“Vliet.” The voice had its old dominance.

“All right, all right, help him, you upright, bullheaded bastard. Get that crew after your ass.”

“Do you want me to call RB?” Alix asked.

“I'll do it,” Vliet said.

“Hey, Cricket,” Roger said over his shoulder. “You talk to Orion. You're his friend.”

5

“They don't give appointments,” Cricket said. “Roger had to hack at them. This afternoon at three thirty.”

“I can't make it,” Orion said.

“Why? The rush is over.”

“I'm in charge of the register. There's money to be counted.”

It was eleven thirty the following morning. Monday. (Around six, Vliet—yawning prodigiously—had left Carmel for Los Angeles, and the spell was broken: the peculiar unity that each of the four had feared never in this world could return, had, only to be shattered by the early Monday
vroom
of a Porsche motor.) REVELATION would open for lunch in fifteen minutes. Orion was folding napkins.

Cricket set her round-nailed forefinger on the stack. “Remember? You told me to get a doctor.”

This, their first reference to her son. Orion gave a nervous little cough.

“You were right,” she said.

“I'm the only one allowed in the register.” Pride tainted his apology.

“By then you'll be through.”

Orion glanced toward the sheltering oak. A pimply man poured honey from a five-pound can into a glass pitcher. Bees buzzed down from overhead branches.

Orion said in a low voice, “Father Genesis, he's changed.”

“Yes, I thought so.”

“He's, uhh, firmer. If you don't keep the Rule, he believes, uhh, you don't belong with the Select. He's right, of course. If you don't go along with what we believe you should … you shouldn't.…”

“He'd throw you out?”

Orion sighed. “He could.”

“I don't believe it.”

“Listen, Cricket, this is the only place I ever belonged. Here, my head's together. I owe it to him, Father Genesis. My life, you know, depends on his life.”

“You honestly, truly think he's that different? He'd send you away?”

“I can't take the chance.”

“The scab's bad,” she said.

“How?”

Cricket's gray eyes were direct. “Roger says skin cancer.”

Orion clenched a napkin. His hands turned white.

“Taken care of,” she said, “Roger says it's the most curable kind, skin cancer.”

“How's he so sure what it is?”

“He's sure you've got to be examined. Orion, Roger's always been into medicine, he really knows what he's talking about.” This last she said with a bubbling hint of enthusiasm.

In one respect Cricket was a fink. She was an out-of-sight-out-of-mind-person. She didn't miss people—except Vliet and her parents. She wrote few letters. She wasn't much on putting in long-distance calls to old friends. Reunited, however, she was immediately hooked. As Roger, whom she loved with sticky familial bonds, had stepped off the plane, she had seen him as beautiful, exciting, strange. All weekend she'd been dazzled by how fine a human being he was, by the two strands of white in his thick brown hair, by his medical knowledge, by how easy he'd become (Alix's influence). Cricket trusted Roger completely. Orion's untreated pathology had become as shaking to her as to Roger.

Orion was pushing back his hair, fingering the raised mound.

“They'll run tests, Roger says.”

“If you break the Rule, you walk over everything REVELATION stands for. You betray Father Genesis.”

“He'll understand.”

“No way.”

“Roger says, put off, it could be too late.”

A bee landed on the table. Orion brushed it away, then stared pleadingly at her.

“Cancer?” he whispered.

She knew she'd won.

“Community Hospital,” she said. “Go to Emergency at three thirty. Roger'll be waiting for you.”

He nodded blankly.

She kissed the air near his cheek. “Blame me,” she said. “Or say Roger pushed you. Blame Roger.”

Five. The beach was deserted except for noisy gulls. Cricket, barefoot, walked on cold sand. Chill seeped into her bone marrow, forcing pain through her ankle, bringing her to a limp. After a while she huddled near a large rock, gazing at the purple line that drew the horizon.

Orion was in hospital, in professional hands, and she wasn't thinking about him. She was thinking about Vliet. These past two years she had seen him holidays and at family gatherings. Sometimes he'd phone: “There's this G-rated movie, let's take it in.” He treated her, as always, like a cousin-sister, a little kid. She, as always, loved him in every possible way.

Her thought processes blurred.
Once on a high mountain we lay down.… Small snail, he said, topnotch stuff.… From this came another person born into Genesis' thick hands.… The Van Vliet nose, our baby had it, and perfect, tiny fingers … dying, die, death.… The most meaningful hours of my life, and not Vliet nor Mother nor Daddy know
. Cricket kept her secret for one simple reason. Guilt. It was alien to her, this ungovernable flood of self-recrimination, self-hatred, sorrow, grief, blame. She had been solely responsible for a life. She had let her son be born too soon. She had therefore let her son die. If one has a whole orchard of guilt apples, one might not be struck dumb by taking a single bite. I just can't deal with it, Cricket thought.

She shifted so her spine rested on rock, and went back to Vliet.
Saturday lunch, club sandwiches, and he asked if I had boys after me in San Francisco. “Nothing serious,” I said, smelling the bacon in his sandwich. “I didn't figure you were serious, Cricket. Still, a little puppy love is important in growing up.” And I smiled because he was smiling, and he fingered mayonnaise from the corner of my mouth
.

Cricket leaned forward to massage her ankle. She noticed a brown pelican one-legged on driftwood. She took off her lens cap. The shot would be too red. Late-afternoon sun photographs too red. But that big beak! Just look at that wondrous beak! Heavy wings rustled. Cricket trotted after the pelican. Blonde curls standing up in the wind, Cricket forgot all past griefs and raced to capture a bird from an endangered species on Kodacolor X.

6

After Roger and Alix had dropped Cricket off at the beach, they went directly back to the cottage and now were on the patio chaise, Alix curled facing Roger, she reading
Swann's Way
, he on his back with one finger twined in her hair, his free hand holding the
New England Journal of Medicine
. Next door, Janis Joplin wailed:
I keep pushin' so hard, an' babe, I keep tryin'/To make it right to another lonely day
. Roger set the magazine on his stomach to negotiate one-handed page turning.