Meeks Read Online Free PDF Page B

theater, until I thought we were all satisfied, and then I stared into the black river of the air, watched clouds drifting like majestic ships overhead. The milky light dissipated again, and the air turned cold. I could hear the faint sound of the brush scraping along the coarse material of my coat. I pretended that a lioness was licking my lapels, my chest, and the length of my body with her great rough tongue. (A mother is not shamed by any part of her son.) I could feel the pressure of the brush on the most vulnerable parts of my body. I could hear the laughter of the men, and then the asthmatic hacking of the man in the dark suit. He wheezed and spat, and Crab-hand tightened his awkward grip painfully on my wrist. I watched the sky fill up again with soft, white light, siphoning through the treetops. The strong smell of the paint, acrid and chemical, made me feel faint.
    After a while, I sensed that Crab-hand was kicking me in the side, and the other two men were laughing, until the third man launched another round of coughing, and we all watched in silence until he backed away and pulled himself together.
    Remember your place, said Crab-hand and spat at my face.
    Remember my place? I said as coolly as I could. (Simple repetition is usually one's best defense.)
    Crab-hand raised his horrible hand to hit me again, but then we all heard voices and laughter, mirthless and bristling with violence, the sound of our brothers, the Brothers of Mercy. The criminals ran. I, for one, seemed to be paralyzed. I could neither sit up nor see clearly, and then the voices dissipated and disappeared, and I was alone again.
    I'm an officer of the law! I shouted at nothing, and the wind blew hushingly through the leaves. Don't shush me, I said. I'm not a boy.
    I reached out in the darkness, and I laid my hand over the lush little hillock where my mother lay. Bedge and I had buried her there once, and there she had stayed.
    The next morning, I crossed the park to the police station. I had done my best to scrape the lewd paint from my trousers and my jacket, but the ghostly outline of what they had done was only more suggestive for having been distorted, and it turned heads. To anyone who smirked or commented, I shot back, I'll remind you that I am a policeman.
    I waited patiently for Bedge in the front room of the station. He emerged from a back room drying his hands on a small white cloth. His jacket was off, and his sleeves were rolled past his elbows.
    Meeks.
    Bedge, I need to speak to you privately.
    We're all your brothers, Bedge replied, in keeping with tradition, but he walked over and stood close so that I would not have to shout in front of the others.
    I need a gun, I said.
    Bedge shook his head disapprovingly and told me to follow. He walked behind his desk. I stood at attention before him. Things were becoming more regular by the second.
    I need a gun, I said again.
    You're upset—have you forgotten?
    Forgotten what?
    Today's your birthday.
    Is it? (What a pleasant surprise.)
    You'd forgotten, said Bedge smiling fondly, and he opened his desk drawer and pulled out an apple, polishing it on his sleeve before handing it to me. I dug my teeth savagely into the apple, forgetting everything else. I was starving.
    Bedge was silent for a moment before adding, I remember that your mother always gave you apples on your birthday.
    Then I had to stop chewing and could only shake my head, the pulp of the half-chewed apple lodged in my throat. I craned my neck and stared into the rafters of the police station, trying desperately to master the wave of grief that was trying to swallow my brain.
    Yes, I finally managed. She knew how much I loved apples.
    A rookie who was filing papers in the cabinet behind Bedge's desk said, Son of the apple woman loves apples, but Bedge silenced him with a wave of his hand. This wasn't the first time I'd heard my mother identified as such, and as always, my mind was seized by a beautiful, mercantile vision of my