Tradegy Of Crows: Chapter 2 (3) Maria found that memory hard. She hung on the details, soaked up the red and yellow autumnal remembrances, and jumped into imaginings of Boston days of usual warmth. And she had stretched arms in so many recollections to skies, to fresh cut grasses, to piled fallen leaves. Earth, she had scattered about her mind, was her defense. In the hue of her skin, she showed a calm end to summer’s flame, a cool light and soft heat. She had channeled it. The mockery of wind as Charon’s boat traveled could not disturb her. That stale breath of waste wasn’t registering. The heat of Hell was no summer sun. It was nothing at all, though. She felt resignation of a simple kind, chasing a twinkle. A starlit traveler, Virgil seemed to her some sort of distant awakening. He was the open hole, the exit at the end of a long dream. She hoped she would remember it all when she woke up. Yet, there was something else, and she could feel it in the oddest way. It wasn’t the darkness, the heat, or the stir of images. Of all things, the waves bothered her. They were barely there, and at times she was certain there were no waves. Yet, somewhere below that steady plunk of the oar, she could sense a miniscule rise and fall. And in between each rise and fall, an unheard splash was patting the boat. She leaned a little to the water, but the boat leaned a little too. She steadied and stayed in place. “We’re almost there,” Brian said breaking a long held silence. The others turned when they heard him speak. “Are you all right, Jen?” “What?” she said. “Oh, yes, I’m okay.” No one was. Maria was surprised at herself for thinking that thought. She almost didn’t notice, except that she had almost laughed and wasn’t sure why. “Do you understand it?” Brian asked touching Jen on the shoulder. She raised her head slowly and smiled. “…Why the boatman raged at us?” “I know,” Maria thought. She stared ahead and allowed Brian to explain it without interruption. “You’re not going to Hell, Jen,” Brian said dropping his hand down to his side. “We’re all… something. Something very special.” “Yeah,” James whispered scanning the distance. It was big, wide as a Western American desert sunset, like some place you could never call home without calling the whole world home at the same time… yet, why would anyone want to call it home? Where are the trees? “It’s a sad place,” Maria said. “Yes, indeed,” Brian stated scratching the side of his nose. “And we’re here.” “I’m not scared,” James said. “Not of most things.” “There’s nothing to see now, but they’re will be. So much is certainly to come,” Brian said turning to James. “It’s strange, but I’ve been so wrapped up in thinking about what’s ahead and where we’re going that I sort of forgot about everyone else here.” “I can’t believe we’re here…” James said. “… Together,” Brian murmured. Maria tried to watch them, tried to pay attention, but found herself mesmerized by strong thoughts, words she had spoken about things she’d never forget. “All this is real,” someone said. “It’s really happening. We knew this before he even told us.” When she was five, she knew something better than surprises: great expectations. She pulled dandelions on picnic days, hopped to her mother, and presented, expecting a smile and a long hug, “And we know what’s on the other side of this shore, too.” Strange children played freeze tag until the sun gave out. She had dreams about the last few minutes of running, turning fast, jumping and dodging into shadow. “It’s so strange… It’s strange, but I know where we’re going.” She heard uninteresting grownup talk, and she’d ask to run, when the talk had stopped, she’d hear her name called… “Maria, are we ready…?” “Yes,” she said looking back for the sun. It had gone, but she still felt like running. On the ride home, she traced a glitter of a star brightening in the increasing dark. Virgil sparkled and she dreamed to it. It was all so strangely similar. She marveled at the ease of remembering long trips home in her mother’s blue minivan. Her mind had no complex filing system, but she somehow knew that Virgil was starlight. She was watching him as she’d watched the North Star from the backseat on of the van. But surely it was only coincidence. She hadn’t known Virgil then. She could have never suspected what would happen. Surely, she never imagined it then. And surely those weren’t exhaust fumes rising by the edge of the boat. Hazzard tossed a spent end of a cigarette into the darkness; it skipped across the water three times before ending in a tiny explosion. The boatman slowed as an edge drew nearer. Brian stared out that way, and James pointed. Jen looked straight ahead and gasped. Maria smiled. There was nothing there at all. The shoreline was a stony beach with brittle black rock chips scattered about a dull hard surface gray. Maria looked to see if any waves were coming in or going out. Nothing was headed with them, and nothing was headed out. The waters had become stagnate, a deep, deep purple on the verge of black sitting like hours old coffee in a dusty cup. A crude dock met them on the other side. Charon plunked his oar and the boat spun perfectly aligned. He grumbled and his eyes flashed on each of them departing. Virgil instructed them to wait upon the shore. A few words were exchanged between the two figures. Charon had ceased to be anything so spectacular, but she did not know when the change had taken place. Looking back to them it was hard to know the boatman was even there without the shine of Virgil to command him into view. Maria watched their guide step from the ferry, and that was the end of it. All eyes were on the coming star. “Tomorrow is the day that will mean more to you than the whole rest of your lives,” Virgil spoke loud and strong. “Behind you, just beyond this shore is a dark valley… the sightless zone where you will find the greatest minds ever borne unto the earth before Christ. You shall hear them, speak the concerns of your age, and take with you the wisdom essential to your quest and the quest of your generation.” A click was faintly heard, only a little like somebody biting down. “Tonight, you must rest. Some of you have been considering your questions from the moment we crossed the gates. Tonight, it would be wise to find ease upon these quiet shores. Do not tax your minds, too much. You will be needed at your best and brightest soon.” Another click was heard followed by a wheeze and cough. The star turned and sat upon the ground a few feet away. Brian wandered to the darkness nearby to touch the edge of the basin. Maria went there, too. The others walked slowly behind. It dropped down into somewhere, but no one was quite sure about anything else. “It could be hundreds of feet,” Brian said. “Or maybe, just right there….” “Do you think they can hear us?” James asked. “Who?” Jen asked. “You know who,” Brian said. And as Maria stood imagining, the others drifted away. Sleep was coming on quickly, and the star was such a fine light to dream by. She turned back from the edge to find a place to settle down. Just before taking her eyes from the darkness, she caught a second’s view of an orange spot spiraling into the basin, out of control. *** She ran through the papers that used to be his. She sat behind the desk that used to be his, drumming her fingers, brushing those errant locks of hair out of her eyes as she read the files. He could have helped her. He still knew where everything was. The new worker hadn’t changed a thing, just as Uriel hadn’t changed a thing when he arrived. He could have pointed to the precise section, the correct date, the exact file, the crucial column, the dreadful gap, and the unnoticed omission. But, he didn’t want to think about that just yet. She was quietly murmuring to herself. He leaned against the wall, wings pressed and fanning out along side of her, but at a good distance, at a safe distance. He whispered something, just repeating some sounds he had heard beneath the sweep of her hand and the murmurs falling off her lips. Staying close to silence, he concentrated on the best of what he heard, trying to compress it into a few syllables that summed it all up. *** Hazzard disliked his fellow students for the most part. This was common knowledge to anyone who had ever asked him a question about class or literature in general. To analyze his reasons for hating his fellow students, the entire rest of this book would have to present a lengthy dissertation on youthful indiscretion and psychological abnormality. To say Hazzard was never quite right is a pretty risqué judgment, but many respectable teachers, doctors, and childcare professionals have made that call in a nutshell throughout his life. To some long time friends, he was a sporadic abnormality, an intense, self-proclaimed martyr to an undisclosed cause on some days, an idiot without the commonsense necessary to cross a city street on other days. Most adults who knew him in his youth were left with a combination of worry and astonishment that culminated in a hesitant shoulder shrugging. By his second year of college, most of the members of the Department of English had at least one bizarre Scott Hazzard story, not to tell, but to barely recollect whenever his name was mentioned. Brian took several classes with Scott Hazzard in which Hazzard’s performance varied from enlightening to non-existent. This is typical of most students, though. They have good days, when they seem to understand exactly what Camus was getting at, and they have bad days when they fall asleep during a discussion of metaphorical significance in Howard’s End. Brian understood that perfectly, but there was something disturbing about Hazzard’s nonchalant, haplessness coupled with sudden rash, even vulgar displays of intellect. He would fall asleep in a classroom of only twenty students, drool on the hand-out, wake up in the middle of a conversation, sputter something surprising on topic and then pass out again. And there was often a 20-ounce soda bottle that everyone knew was something other than soda. And he’d solute stupidity, but not blatant stupidity. Whenever someone would say, “I think it’s definitely significant” or “I feel like this is very personal stuff” then he would raise his bottle and chug violently. Whenever the professor asked any kind of question to open class discussion, the bottle rose with the voice of the first speaker. Brian didn’t let it faze him that much. Hazzard could drink straight through anything he had to say, though. Once, their Shakespeare professor asked a question about the gender issues in “The Merchant of Venice”. No one responded, and so Brian, who could not stand absentminded silence, spoke all that should have been obvious to the others from the previous three days of class discussion on the topic. Hazzard whipped a soda bottle out of his bag filled with some yellowish juice with red hues floating on the top. Brian stretched out the response, Hazzard drank. At the end of it, Hazzard made a surprisingly on topic statement, refuted one or two insignificant points Brian had made, then folded his arms on his desk to take a nap. Jen had been an early associate of Hazzard’s. She didn’t have very many friends at the time. Those friends she did have were far too stuffy for her tastes. The alternative to hearing them bicker was sitting in her room listening to the music from Rent and writing in her journal. Hazzard was acquainted with a few of her stuffy friends. He would visit every now and again, usually in a state somewhere between buzzed and significantly drunk. He’d listen to the music quietly, strike up conversations about the quality of the acting in various on and off Broadway productions, and leave her with a few laughs. She was very fond of laughing, though, and she brought laughter wherever she felt most appreciated. After finally meeting the right group of people, she found herself actively involved in campus activities, crewing theater productions, and attending parties with young, charming talent. Without a moment to spare, she breezed through the next couple of months. Her stuffy friends grew bitter for some reason. She didn’t bother to find out why. Towards the end of freshman year, Hazzard showed up at her door, collapsing into a pile beside her dresser. She bent down to help him up, but he exploded to his feet, lighting a cigarette. Opening her door, he blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. She stood in her nightgown rubbing her eyes. “I’ve never seen Rent. I’ve never seen any of them,” he said stepping into the hallway. “And I don’t like actors.” He closed the door gently and didn’t say a word to her after that. She thought it was quite bizarre, but never took any note of the story. It was just lingering in the background of her mind, almost recalled whenever she saw him. James had a few classes with Hazzard, like Modern British Literature and English Lit. I. If anyone asked him if he knew Hazzard, he’d probably say, “just from class,” but there was a specific incident that James usually recalled whenever the name came up. In the middle of a lecture about Nietchze, Hazzard began ripping out pages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, tossing them through the open window. After an entire chapter had fluttered two stories down to the faculty parking lot, he raised his hand and put on a wide smile consisting almost entirely of pointy teeth. The professor eagerly called upon him to enter the class discussion. What followed was a seven-minute rant about “bullshit elitism” and “over simplification of the idea of heroics”, with some standout segments including, “most of the world is mediocre, and we’d be happy that way if arrogant bastards didn’t hold unattainable goals above our heads and claim failure as virtue” and “losers are what makes every hero great. What happens if every loser decided to quit playing? That’s what this guy’s afraid of, that’s why he wants us to screw ourselves over this overman bullshit… and would you people stop saying uber-man, that’s not the German pronunciation, and please, a show of freakin’ hands for whoever actual read the text.” Someone responded with a question. Hazzard tossed the torn book into the center of the room and walked out slamming the door behind him. James liked that day in class. It was awesome. James thought Hazzard had some kind of principles. What they were, no one could ever figure out. No one asked. Hazzard spoke in short bursts, never answered questions, never fought over his ideas, presented them as right, and continued scribbling in his journal, drinking his tequila sunrises, and thinking about short story ideas. James liked that image of Hazzard, because it seemed consistent with his own opinion of the course curriculum. James had decided that the first step to becoming a writer was going through the motions, getting a degree, preserving some brain power for later. James could wait, and did wait. If Hazzard couldn’t wait, though, James understood it. The motions were tedious; something implacable was definitely off in most of those classrooms. It was at least interesting to see that someone else did more than merely notice. James told himself to remember some things that Hazzard had said, but he never ended up having a pen and paper handy. Years later, he might remember, but he had no idea how to write him as a character in a play or short story. He made no real sense. Thus, James smiled and shook his head a lot when it came to Hazzard. A little voice always said, “go, man, go” whenever Hazzard would start a rant. Another little voice said, “there he goes again” as well. Both voices were little, though, and since Hazzard barely left his room, he was seldom recalled. Brian recalled a series of incidents in which Hazzard had muttered things in passing. He never caught them in time, and Hazzard refused to repeat himself. After barely saying two words in a class on Shakespeare’s later plays, Hazzard volunteered for the lead role in a mini-production of Act V Scene iii of the Winter’s Tale. During one scheduled practice, Hazzard’s hands wobbled their way down the pages of his textbook as he attempted to read his part, pausing every line or two to swear under his breath. Brian was cast in a non-speaking role, but he came prepared with a paperback edition of the later plays that was far less cumbersome than the heavy, hard cover textbook. During the practice, Queen Hermione embraces King Leontes, and Hazzard refused to look at her through the entire process. It wasn’t improbable that Hazzard was attempting to make a mockery out of the presentation. He did seem to have that kind of sense of humor about things. While seeming completely disturbed all through practice, Hazzard might be laughing with friends five minutes later. Brian had seen that act a few times before, his storming out of class, only to appear in the commons eating an ice cream sundae, his blurting about utter hatred for Walt Whitman, only to select a section of Leaves of Grass to memorize for his final examine in American Romantics. He was just like that. Brain didn’t care to put the words down to describe him. ‘Showoff’ almost covered it, but it was certainly something infinitely more immature. Outside of the practice, Hazzard walked by him saying something to the effect of, “Why do I design these elaborate situations to torture myself?” Brain asked him to repeat it. He continued walking, giving no response. Adjusting his hat, Brian smirked, not impressed at all.
Copyright © 2001 Scott W. Hazzard |