The Centaurus

Dust, lint, spittle, poverty, stuck-together stuff in gutters- all the trash and chaos behind the made world pours through the rent opened by this last subtle prick. Caldwell says, “Christ, the only place I can go if I leave this school is the junkyard. I’m no good for anything else. I never was. I never studied. I never thought. I’ve always been scared to. My father studied and thought and on his deathbed he lost his religion.”

Zimmerman lifts a benevolent palm. “If my last visitation report is bothering you, remember that it is my duty to tell the truth. But I tell the truth, to quote St. Paul, in love.”

“I know that. You’ve been damn good to me these years; I don’t know why you’ve babied me along, but you have.” He bites back the urge to tell a lie, to blurt out that he didn’t see Mim Herzog coming out of his office mussed. But that would be nonsense. He did see her. He’d be God-damned if he’d beg. The least you can do is walk in front of the firing squad on your own two legs.

“You’ve received no favors,” Zimmerman says. “You’re a good teacher.” On this amazing statement Zimmerman turns and walks away, with not a word about Mim or dismissal. Caldwell can’t believe his ears. Did he miss something? He wonders if the ax fell and was so sharp he didn’t feel it, if the bullets just passed right through him like a ghost. What had Zimmerman, underneath it all, said?

The man turns back. “Oh, and George.”

Now here it comes. Cat and mouse.

“About the tickets.”

“Yeah.”

“You needn’t mention it to Phillips.” Zimmerman crookedly winks. “You know how fussy he is.”

“O.K. I got your meaning.”

Zimmerman’s office door closes, the frosted glass opaque.

Caldwell doesn’t know if it is relief or a symptom of disease that is making his kneecaps tingle and his hands feel numb. The time has arrived for him to use his legs again and they are slow to obey. His torso swims down the hall. Rounding the corner, the teacher surprises Gloria Davis the hopped-up bitch leaning against the wall allowing young Kegerise to rub his knee between her legs. With his I.Q. he ought to know better. Caldwell ignores them and pushes into the auditorium past some Olinger High grads, Jackson is one of them and he can’t recall the other’s name, standing there with their mouths open looking down at the game. Living corpses, they didn’t even have the sense to stay out once they got out. He remembers Jackson always coming to him after class whining about special projects and his love of astronomy and making his own telescope out of mailing tubes and magnifying glass lenses and now the poor bohunk was a plumber’s apprentice at 75¢ an hour and sopping it up in beer. What in hell are you supposed to do to keep them from ending like that? He shies away from these his old students, the hunch in their shoulders reminds him of the great whole ski

Waste, rot, hollowness, noise, stench, death: in fleeing the many visages which this central thing wears Caldwell as if by God’s grace comes upon, over in the corner, leaning against the stacked folding chairs beside Vera Hummel, Reverend March in his clerical black and backwards collar.

“I don’t know if you know me,” Caldwell says. “My name is George Caldwell and I teach general science here in the school.”

March has to leave off laughing with Vera to take the offered hand and say, his smile pointedly patient under the curt mustache, “I don’t believe we have met, but of course I’ve heard of you and know you by sight.”

“I’m a Lutheran so I guess I’m out of your flock,” Caldwell explains. “I hope I’m not interrupting you and Vera here; the fact is I’m badly troubled in my mind.”

With a nervous glance at Vera, who has turned her head and might slip from his side, March asks, “Oh. What about?”

“Everything. The works. I can’t make it add up and I’d be grateful for your viewpoint.”

Now March’s glance travels everywhere but into the face opposite him as he looks through the crowd for some rescue from this tousled tall maniac. “Our viewpoint does not essentially differ from the Lutheran,” he says. “It’s my hope that someday all the children of the Reformation will be reunited.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Reverend,” Caldwell says, “but as I understand it the difference is the Lutherans say Jesus Christ is the only answer and the Calvinists say whatever hap pens to you, happens to you, is the answer.”

In his anxiety and anger and embarrassment March reaches sideways and almost seizes Vera bodily to keep her with him during this preposterous interruption. “That’s ridiculous,” he says. “Orthodox Calvinism-and I count myself more orthodox than not-is fully as Christocentric as the Lutheran doctrines. Perhaps more so, since we exclude the saints and any substantive Eucharistic transformation.”

“I’m a minister’s son,” Caldwell explains. “My old man was a Presbyterian, and as I understand it from him there are the elect and the non-elect, the ones that have it and the ones that don’t, and the ones that don’t have it are never going to get it. What I could never ram through my thick skull was why the ones that don’t have it were created in the first place. The only reason I could figure out was that God had to have somebody to fry down in Hell.”

The Olinger High basketball team forges into the lead and March has to raise his voice furiously to make himself heard. “The doctrine of predestination,” he shouts, “must be un derstood as counterbalanced by the doctrine of God’s infinite mercy.” The crowd noise subsides.

“That’s my problem, I guess,” Caldwell says. “I can’t see how it’s infinite if it never changes anything at all. Maybe it’s infinite but at an infinite distance-that’s the only way I can picture it.”

March’s gray eyes are exploding with pain and irritation as the danger of Vera’s leaving him grows. “This is burlesque!” he shouts. “A basketball game is no place to discuss such matters. Why don’t you come and visit me in my study sometime, Mr.-?”

“Caldwell. George Caldwell. Vera here knows me.”

Vera turns back with a wide smile. “Somebody invoke my name? I don’t understand a thing about theology.”

“Our discussion of it has just been concluded,” Reverend March tells her. “Your friend Mr. Caldwell has some very singular adverse notions about poor abused John Calvin.”

“I don’t know a thing about him,” Caldwell protests, his voice becoming plaintive and high and unpleasant. “I’m trying to learn.”

“Come to my study any morning but Wednesdays,” March tells him. “I’ll lend you some excellent books.” He firmly restores his attention to Vera, presenting to Caldwell a profile as handsome and final as if stamped onto an imperial coin.

Make Nero look tame, small town aristocrats, Caldwell thinks, retreating. Heavy and giddy with his own death, sluggish and diaphanous like some transparent predator who trails his poisoned tentacles through the adamantine pressures of the oceanic depths, he moves along behind the backs of spectators and searches the crowd for the sight of his son. At last he spots Peter’s narrow head in a row on the right near the front. Poor kid, needs a haircut. Caldwell’s work tonight is done and he wants to go down and get Peter and go home. Humanity, which has so long entranced him, disgusts him packed and tangled like germs in this overheated auditorium. Even Cassie’s empty land by contrast would look good. And the snow is piling up outside. And the kid could use the sleep.