Pew(37)

When the truck finally stopped, we were beside a narrow church on the edge of a field. It had been built of wood and painted white. We went inside the church, where an organ rumbled and spun, wide circles of notes sprinting around one another, frantic, unyielding. We sat in a pew in the back of the sanctuary. I could see someone’s small body at the jaw of the organ, thrashing and heaving itself at the keys. The organ spoke the notes it had been built and tuned and kept here to say. An organ is a machine, I remembered, that can always cry louder than a human will.
Dr. Corbin turned to speak to me but I could not hear him through the music. His mouth moved and I watched his mouth move, and when it stopped moving, I nodded without thinking—whatever it was, I had agreed with it. We listened to the organ wail. Some time passed this way. It began to seem possible that a person might have pains and thoughts that resisted language and had to be transfigured through an instrument, turned into pure sound, spun into the air, and heard.
The organ stopped one song and began another. Another ended, another began. I began to both remember and lose the shape of the years that had led me here. I could remember a low, windowless room. Three paces by two paces. A damp floor. The taste of blood. A child. A long hunger. Some years. Some years, but gone now. They had ended and would never return and would never end. They were mine, or had been mine, but now they were somewhere else, somewhere near and far from me. They didn’t belong to anyone, those untouchable years. All that was left of them was their imprint, the empty field they’d left in me.
The organist flung one arm out to turn a page of music, but all the sheets went flying, scattered in the air. The music ceased, not even a shadow of it left, and the papers fluttered and fell the way dead leaves do. A soft curse from the pulpit. The organist crouched and began to collect the scatter.
Dr. Corbin put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. We stood and left.



THE TRUCK TOOK US farther down this road until we came to a low little building with a little sign outside it, burned-out neon—DINER. When we went inside, a chime sang at the door, but no one turned to look at us. Someone wearing dirt-flecked overalls sat hunched at a counter, pushing a sandwich into their mouth. Two small people in pale orange dresses sat in a booth across from each other, one of them forking into a slice of pie and the other staring into a coffee. No music was playing. The wide windows were faintly smudged with grease.
A voice came from the kitchen—Two plates?
Yes, ma’am.
Someone who’d been leaning against a broom handle looked up and nodded to Dr. Corbin, who took off his hat, held it with two hands, and walked with me to the back corner. We sat in a booth and over his shoulder I could see a small television screen by the front counter—a silent, cheering crowd, their mouths stretched wide, so many trembling throats, waving flags and banners, fists punched into the air. I watched the crowd that seemed to watch me.
Nice place here. Nice vegetables, and every day different ones. Nancy is there in the kitchen. She makes a good corn bread. Makes it every day so you never have to miss it.
The chimes at the door sang again as a woman in a brightly patterned dress came in. She glanced around the room, then paused as if startled by the sight of us.
Judy, Dr. Corbin said, as she approached our table. She looked at me, at him, then me again.
Mrs. Columbus, she corrected him, her eyes turning bright and bitter. It seemed she was using a lot of energy to just stand there above us. Her hands fidgeted with the handle of a yellow purse.
Well, Dr. Corbin said, didn’t I tell you true?
May I sit down?
Please, Dr. Corbin said, but Mrs. Columbus kept standing. You can see now for yourself, can’t you? Are you satisfied?
Dr. Corbin, is there something of which I am unaware that gives you permission to use such a tone with me?
Now, Judy, I just—
You may call me Mrs. Columbus.
Her every word was a stone. She was still staring at me.
Mrs. Columbus, I’m sorry. I apologize, I really do. It’s just old habit. We all look for you down at the church on Sunday, but you’re never there. We look every Sunday, Mrs. Columbus, and we’re always ready to welcome you back. I’ve always—
I was told I would have some time with the child.
But you can see for yourself, can’t you? Dr. Corbin pleaded. This isn’t—
That’s what I was told I’d get. That was the arrangement.
She closed her eyes and lowered her head. She was not praying. I don’t know how I knew this, but I knew she was not praying. For a few long moments she was quiet in that way that requires you to listen to it. A large truck went by outside, whipping the tree branches with wind, then a pipe sighed somewhere in the wall beside me, and the cash register opened and shut at the front of the room and all our blood kept going along within us, keeping time.
Well, Dr. Corbin said. I suppose you can have a moment here. He stood and left us, went outside, climbed into the truck, and watched us through the scummy windows. Mrs. Columbus took his place in the booth. She looked at me as if she had known me from somewhere, but couldn’t quite remember. Perhaps she did. Perhaps she still does.
I imagine you must be right tired of people trying to tell you things. I only say so because I know a thing or two about people trying to tell you something when they don’t have any clue about what you need … It’s enough to drive you half-crazy.
She set her yellow purse on the table between us.
It’s been just about a year since my son Johnny went somewhere, that or got taken. I still don’t know—no one seems to know. He was very close to Dr. Corbin, Johnny was. Took everything he said as gospel, you know. And I thought for a long while that was fine—Dr. Corbin is, for the most part, a good man, a good example for people about how to do right. But—you know, you can’t go losing someone without looking back and trying to find the moment you could have made it go the other way, made it not happen— Well. I can’t know for sure, but it’s hard for me to not see Dr. Corbin’s influence as having had an effect—too strong of an effect.