The Cast Stone (34 page)

“And what was that?”

“Don't be a smart ass. I get it. You asked me how many trees are in the Bible to get me to think about God and nature. Nature, that's your thing.” John leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Like I said, I get it; references about trees rejoicing, trees singing. Yeah, trees are in the Bible in a big way, and yeah, trees are an important part of the story, a part of the story that scholars tend to miss. You showed me that there are things about the Book of God that you know more than I do.” John sat up straight. “You win that round, I concede. You have a unique understanding. You know something that I didn't.”

Ben didn't like where this was going. John was working himself up for something. This thing about trees was not about bettering him, it was to give him something to think about, to consider in his interpretation of his ultimate authority. John had accused him of worshiping trees;

Ben had just wanted John to know that John's God also had an affinity for the forest nations.

The door opened and the two guards re-entered the office, the guard with the belly came in first, she followed.

“Handcuff this bastard.” John stood, kicked back the metal chair, it scraped against the floor.

She held him by the right shoulder, he held the left, it was his weight that pushed Ben face down on the desk, his left cheek pressed into the fibreboard finish. He could see her, felt one of her hands on his elbow, the other on his shoulder. She gripped his shirt, a solid grip, different than the hand on his other shoulder. That hand was flat against his back and pressed down, hard.

The opening of the drawer vibrated through the desk. Ben felt it in his cheek and the slam of its closing. John held a screw in front of Ben's face, about an inch long between thumb and forefinger. “See this, asshole, wonderful technology, self-tapping. That means that I don't have to drill a hole first. This little beauty will bore itself into solid metal. Screw with me and I'll screw with you.”

Ben fought down the fear. Breathed, drew in a chest full against the pressure on his back. The screw pulled hair with the first twists, tore them out by the roots. It ripped through the skin without effort and began to bite into the bone of Ben's skull. Pain has colour. This was brilliant white with orange and yellow flashes, bright to the point of blinding. Pain has heat. The fire began above Ben's right ear and spread around his head, flamed through to the desk and danced down his spine. Pain has sound. Ben heard the bloodrush, heard the roar, heard the scream of it in his ears. It wasn't his scream. He was too busy breathing. Bringing in air to put out the fire.

John Penner wasn't thinking about God as he torqued the screwdriver. This had nothing to do with grace, the right way to pray, the wrong way to pray, which direction to send the prayer. This was about John. Simple. This had nothing to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, though John could tell you every sin ever alleged to have occurred there. This had nothing to do with Canada, or God Bless the United States of America. This wasn't political, secular. This was simply
Don't fuck with John
Penner.
This came from the idea that Ben was screwing with John's head, and now John was screwing with his.

He didn't taste the bile in his mouth, or feel the throb of his own headache. That would come later, when Ben was carried back to the cell block and John sat alone at the desk, gasping, gagging. Then he would absorb the bitter acid at the back of his mouth, across his tongue, coat his teeth; teeth clenched until his jaw ached and pain throbbed in his temple. When he unclenched his jaw and the tension in his arms, so strong that he shook, drained away with the sweat from his chest and his throat, then John would realize what it was that he had done, even though he had planned it, every detail of it, from putting the screwdriver and screws in the desk, to arranging for the guards to return exactly two minutes after they shut the door; now the full realization hit him, hit him hard that Ben did not scream, or beg. When the guards stood him up, it wasn't fear in his eyes, it was pity. Ben stood against the pain, breathed hard against it, and felt sorry for little John Penner.

Ben walked between the two guards, held his head up and breathed, drew in air, deep, held it, pressurized his lungs, released the air for room to draw in another deep breath. The pain tried to pull his head down. He held it up to keep his air passage open for the cooling air against the fire in his skull.

He felt a tug at his right shoulder. She was pulling at him, turning him toward the hallway in her direction.

“No, this way.” The guard with the belly pulled at Ben's left shoulder.

“The infirmary is this way.” Strength in her voice.

“We weren't told to take him there.”

“We weren't told not to.”

The guard with the belly was confused, off balance, even though he stood flat footed. She turned Ben. He breathed and followed. The guard with the belly caught up, took Ben by the left shoulder again, but now he wasn't leading, he was following.

John Penner opened the computer, looked into the camera that read his retina, identified him, and gave him access. His shaking subsided as he entered information onto the form.

The subject complies with all requirements. His attitude
toward authority is within the normal range. Release
recommended.

He read the form over again. It felt right. It felt like redemption. He pressed his right forefinger to the little scanner at the bottom corner of the keyboard and his signature appeared in the form's authorized box.

Rosie woke with a steady pain in her head. Menopause was a long time ago, she thought, as she walked softer than usual around the house, getting dressed, getting breakfast. Those headaches throbbed. This pain was unwavering, burning inside her skull. Maybe she should go back to sleep. Try again in a few hours. But the sky in the east was brightening. In less than an hour it would be daylight. Rosie waited with a cup of tea and a biscuit that ran over with strawberry jam, pampering against the pain.

It was going to be cold out there. She looked out the window at the pines still black against the birth of morning. Cold, and the snow was getting deep. Maybe she should have picked medicine last summer while it was nice, brought it into the house and stored it in a jar, handy. Maybe start a medicine chest of her own, pick a little of each that she knew for certain, put them away and keep them. Put labels on the jars, this one for headaches, this one for sore throats. Then she would have to keep her house clean. Clean of people who had angry thoughts, and people who used alcohol or drugs. She would have to keep herself clean. She couldn't indulge in fantasy or foreboding. She couldn't rant against the stupidity that entered her house through the television news. Medicine needed to be kept in a clean place. If it wasn't, if it became contaminated, it picked up the anger, frustration, stupidity and could put that into the person who took it.

No, this was the better way. Rosie walked through the snow, Duchess at her heels. The fungus she was looking for grew down by the lake, in the willows. It was easier to find now that the leaves were gone, easier to see. She didn't find the one she remembered from last summer. She found another one, a smaller one, enough for what she needed. As she thanked it before picking it, she thought, this is the right way to keep medicine. This is where it belongs. In the big medicine chest, and the labels were in her memory. She remembered Ben's mother, old Eleanor, telling her of a time before.
“Everywhere we looked, there was our food, there was
our medicine.”
Everything was where it was supposed to be. Everything was as it should be. Some days are hard. Those days you just have to get through. Some days are better. Some days are really good, and Ben would be coming home soon.

That falling dream again, falling through darkness as thick as black water, smothered scream, heart racing, pounding louder than the scream that didn't make it past her teeth. An afternoon nap should not end this way. It was supposed to be an indulgence, a refresher, a break from the stress of work. She checked the time on the clock radio, twelve minutes, that's all; she had only been down for twelve minutes, not enough, not nearly enough. She thought about putting her head back down on the too small cushion but it wasn't on the couch anymore. It was on the floor. She thought about picking it up, knew it was useless, knew she would just lie there, too afraid to fall asleep again.

Monica hated the smell of this; gasoline fumes burned her eyes, there was nothing about this that smelled right. The tiny hollow glass wand connected to a rubber hose hissed as she stirred oxygen blended with hydrogen into the goo, and slime of Styrofoam dissolved into gasoline, putting the bubbles back in. This was the dangerous part. Flow anything past anything and there was a risk that static electricity would build up. Enough static and it would want to go somewhere, jump from one surface to another, spark, a single tiny flash to ignite the fumes and oxygen and Monica would not have to worry about getting the mixture fully fluffed. She would never worry about anything ever again.

She hated all of this, this windowless concrete cave, that bare electric bulb, this rough wooden workbench. She hated the steel door and its complicated latch and lock. She hated the tank where electrical current ran through water, breaking down the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen is
lighter than oxygen, it rises up here and comes out the red hose.
Oxygen is heavier. It comes out here, this blue hose.
She hated the sound of Ed Trembley's voice in her head, but listened to him again
. “It's simple. Just common everyday stuff, water and
electricity. They can't prohibit those, or gasoline, or Styrofoam.”
But mostly she hated the black steel barrel in the corner there, with the bolt-down lid and the bright yellow trefoil symbol painted on its side.

Maybe she was hating this because out there, on the other side of the steel door, was where Ed Trembley had shackled the American soldiers, where he fed the contents of the barrel to Rick Fisher, where Wally the other soldier died, and Ed left the body chained to the water pipe until it began to smell.

A feeling crept into the bomb shelter, mixed with the fumes of gasoline, mixed with the escaped hydrogen and oxygen. It wrapped itself around Monica and her hate armour, worked itself through the hate shield and touched her. Loneliness drained the hatred, drained the strength that kept her standing. Her knees weakened and she would have sat down, there on the cement floor. All that kept her standing was the fact that if she sat down without grounding out the glass wand, a spark would end all feeling.

Monica sat on the couch, the little cushion still on the floor. She held the bottle of cranberry juice in both hands, because neither hand by itself was strong enough on its own. She held herself up with the little strength she had left. She wanted one thing in that moment, she wanted another human being to touch her, touch her anywhere. What good were legs, if you had nowhere to walk to and hands never stroked them. What good was a flat belly if no one ever kissed it, or a throat, or arms, or even hands. When was the last time someone touched her hand? Just touched it, a finger. When was the last time someone shook her hand, just in greeting, just in politeness even? She remembered the last time she made love. That was easy. That was here on this couch. Was that the last time a human had touched her? Was long dead, forgotten Ed the last human to touch her?

Her body dragged her mind back from the past. She experienced the couch against her back and beneath, experienced the fabric of her clothing, the tightness of an elastic waistband, the bite of her bra strap. She felt the ache in her flesh to be touched, not even caressed, just touched, anywhere.

A man's callused hand, cupped, thumb against forefinger, held her. He didn't drop her. She jumped. Monica found the beginning of the falling dream. She sat motionless on the couch, absolutely still and pushed with her mind against the darkness, sought in the black for more of the image, looked for a face beyond the hand. Nothing. Her mind found only emptiness. She came back to the couch. Breathed again, broke the meditation, became aware of her body, now without the burning desire to be touched, now that she was aware that it was her who jumped from human touch, her choice to leap into the void.