He smiled sadly, then blinked twice, as if to change the subject.
Weakened as I am, he said, I find myself in danger of passing into that realm from which no further positive action will ever be possible. Would you mind,madame? Terribly?
Mindful of his frailty, I lifted him up and, centralizing my considerable strength, exploded him upward, holding in my heart the intention of sending him back to that distant place to which those of our ilk must return when in need of a fresh beginning.
Up he went.
Merci,he called weakly from already a great distance away.
—
I dropped through the roof, through the attic, into the room of my charge, and gently reentered the orb of his thoughts.
Outwardly, he lay as before (eyes closed, lips slightly parted, one hand under the covers, the other above) while inwardly he found himself back at his old school. Having just learned what a plebiscite was, his classmates were holding one. On him. On what he’d become, how he’d done. Always there’d been fifteen of them. In the school. Fifteen students. Then little Mag Ebner got run over by a tractor. A tractor driven by her own mother. That made fourteen. Somehow, for the plebiscite, they’d resurrected Mag. And her mother. Who, after killing Mag, had put her head in the oven. She hadn’t died then but two years later.You’d see her out on the porch, spitting blankly into an invisible cup. Now both were alive again, ready to vote. Glory be. That made fifteen. Fifteen voters, excluding him. Plus their teacher, Miss Eva. One by one they stood up, said what they thought of him. In the end, he won: sixteen to zero. Loving him, proud of him, they urged him to go ahead and vote, vote for himself. Which made it seventeen to zero and Miss Eva read aloud from a joint proclamation: No matter how many negative, accusatory signs might be manifesting, he, K. J. Boone, must remember that, against heavy odds, he’d lived an extraordinary life, full of tremendous accomplishment, and had always done his best and, in sum, had done nothing wrong, not a goddamn thing, and was leaving behind no lasting harm, zero, nada, none at all: a world better for having had him in it, period, full stop.
Miss Eva had admired him early, before anyone else, and had never been shy about saying so. Which’d meant the world to him. God bless her. He felt, just now, like being honest with her. He approached her desk.
Yes? she said, warm as ever, the area around her desk smelling, as did the papers she would hand back, of rosewater.
He hadn’t thought it up.
He wanted her to know that.
Thought what up, dear? she said.
What was the—what was the word. For the thing he hadn’t thought up but one of the Mels had. Or that stooge of one of the Mels. He couldn’t remember which of the Mels that guy had been the stooge of.
With the giant hands. When you shook that bastard’s hand you felt like a baby shaking hands with a man. But you could easily lay Big Hands low.
Sit over there, you terrifying giant, he’d say. I don’t want youover here by me. Sit there, in that corner. You’re sneaky, Conrad, you make me nervous, I’m scared you’ll nab my wallet. Or pitch me out the window, you horrifying monster.
Conrad, that was it.
Fee, fi, fo, fum, Conrad.
Then big-handed Conrad would meekly slink over to wherever you’d put him.
Always sniffing after a check, that guy.
In one of those huge hands, a check looked like a goddamn postage stamp.
Because Miss Eva was being made by his mind, she knew exactly what he was talking about.
And rose in her fondness to his defense.
Thatpetition,you mean, she said.
Petition, he said. Yes.
Oh, it was nice to be known so well.
Well, as far as that goes, Kenneth? she said. For all its faults? That petition was powerful. Wasn’t it? A powerful tool. You’d stand onstage there in some packed auditorium and say: Right here, signatures fromseventeen thousandscientists who don’t believe the science here is rock-solid. Wouldn’t you?
Yes, he said.
He surely would. He’d hold the thing up dramatically, let it unfurl.
And unfurl.
