Heathern Read Online Free Page A

separated us,
waving empty cups in outstretched hands, their cloud
buzzing as might a beehive's.
    "Money," they cried. "Please. Money for food. Money."
    I allowed my eyes to lose their focus, that it would seem
those people were not truly there. Shaking lesioned fingers
from my shoulders, I tried to push through. Someone
shoved a fist into my pants pocket, restraining me. "You got
money, bitch," my assailant said, yanking as if to rip away
my clothes; he was too weak to do more than hold me back.
His eyes were as dead as an angel's. "Give it to me." I tried
to escape but he wouldn't, or couldn't, free his hand.
    "Avi," I shouted; he swam toward me through the crowd.
"Get him away-
    "Gimme money-" Avi's hand encircled the man's neck. I
pulled him from my pocket as Avi lowered him to the
sidewalk. The crowd dispersed, seeming much calmer. Avi
let go, took my arm and led me off.
    "You killed him?" I asked, my leg still warm with the
man's touch.
    He nodded. "Forget." We dashed up the school's worn stairs. Avi used unarmed methods that shed no blood and
therefore left him sinless. Forget? I tried. Though I'd
housebroken compassion, I still wet my bed at night.

    Once buzzed in we entered a hall that was enlarged to
serve as foyer. Posters taped asymmetrically around the
walls bandaged the plaster's wounds. Some enumerated
medical litanies and the ninety-eight warning signs of
cancer. Another gave numbers to call in event of rape,
robbery, accident, or suicide, with no assurance of any
answer to any question. A third, drawn in garish colors,
diagrammed the proper use of contraceptives. One poster
was but a photo of kittens sitting among flowers. They
looked stuffed. A fiftyish woman sat behind a paintspeckled desk. She had fresh mums in a jar and fresh gauze
around her arm.
    "We're from Dryco," I said. "We have an appointment to
see Lester Macaffrey."
    The doctors must have taken her larynx in removing her
cancer; when she spoke she lifted a microphone to her
throat, her generated voice sounding more mechanical than
a Toyota's. "Third floor, second door on the right."
    As she returned to her work we began ours, ascending
the narrow stairs at the rear of the hall. Former residents,
the apartment-dwellers past, left nothing behind but their
vegetable tang, the faint odors of cooked lentils, boiled
cabbage and, as if we passed a marketstall, a whiff of
cilantro. It seemed too quiet to be a school. The drawings of
students hung on the walls we passed.
    "Good color sense," said Avi. "You expect a thematic
repetition, considering their age."
    Some of the pictures might have been drawn by any child
living in Beirut or Belfast or Johannesburg. Others were
identifiable as designs of our neighborhoods. In those,
crowds raced from distant buildings that spewed inky
clouds, soldiers shot young men in their yards, children ran
after wagons carrying off their dogs. An artist of a tradition al school sketched a suburban design, unexceptional but for
detail: a mother and father stood before their house,
holding the hands of half a child. The gallery continued
beyond the third floor; we went no further. Hearing at last
the sound of children's laughter, I wondered at whom they
laughed. On the glass of Macaffrey's door a stenciled
message read Knowledge is Danger.

    "Visitors," called a man's voice when I knocked. "Come
on in." Avi slipped ahead of me, opening the door; I saw
him, inside. Macaffrey's look was that of a million's; once
out of my sight, I couldn't have more accurately described
his look than a cloud's. "Sit with the rest or stand in the
corner."
    Choosing to stand, we noted absentees: there were no
desks, no chairs, no books or blackboard, no TV or tapeplayer. Only half the windows had glass; on this cool day all
wore their wraps. The unobservant might have found the
pupils no more memorable than their teacher. They must
have had homes, for all appeared washed, and if Macaffrey