Samantha Hunt - Mr. Splitfoot

1

We are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

We float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

We know that this is impossible.

2

We the people.

We believe all the words which thou hast spoken.

We cannot understand the words.

We fled all that day into the wilderness, even until it was dark.

We commanded the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us.

We will, we will rock you.

3

We cross this great water in darkness.

We lost a great number of our choice men.

We will change them into cedars.

We see there was no chance they should live forever.

We will change them into cedars.

4

We have spoken, which is the end.

We should call the name.

We should call the name.

We know that this is impossible.

FAR FROM HERE, THERES A CHURCH. Inside the church, theres a box. Inside the box is Judass hand. Nat is slight and striking as a birch branch.

Who cut it off? Ruth asks. How?

But Nats a preacher in a fever. His lesson continues with a new topic. Baby deer have no scent when they are born. Nat conducts the air. Keeps those babies safe as long as their stinking mothers stay far away. This is how Nat loves Ruth. He fills her head with his wisdom.

My mom doesnt stink.

You dont even know who your mom is, Ru.

Of course I do. Shes a veterinarian. She already had too many animals when I was born.

I dont believe you.

Ruth looks left, then right. OK. Shes a bank robber. When youre asleep, she brings me money.

Wheres all the cash, then? Are you hiding it in some big cardboard box?

So Ruth swerves again, returning to the version of a mother she uses most often. I mean my moms a bird, a red cardinal.

A male? Your moms a boy?

Yeah.

No, she isnt. Shes a stone. Bones. I spit on her. Nat steals confidence from thin air.

Ruth pulls her long dress tight across bent knees. She doesnt even know enough about mothers to fabricate a good one. Her idea of a mother is like a non-dead persons idea of heaven. It must be great. It must be huge. It must be better than what shes got now. Im just saying, wherever she is, she doesnt stink.

Nat flips the feathers of his hair. Wherever she is. Exactly. He holds his hand in a ray of sunlight. Im here now. He lifts the hand that touched light up to her ear, squeezing the lobe, an odd, familiar affection between their bodies. Nat touches the scar on her face, tangled knots of tissue, keloid dots on her nose and cheeks. Do you know how they deliver mail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon?

No.

I taught you this before. Please. Nat is cruel or Nat is gentle. Nat hates/loves Ruth as much as he hates/loves himself. Hell say, Sleep on the floor tonight or Im taking your blue coat. I like it or Stop crying right now. But hell also say, Eat this and You can dance, girl and Stay the fuck away from Ruth, or Ill slice your ear cartilage off and give it to a dog to chew on. When the Father raises a switch, Nat gives his back. Are you just someone who wants to stay stupid?

No. Tell me.

Mules.

She wrinkles her nose.

Dont believe me? Youre welcome to shop elsewhere.

I believe you. Youre the only shop in town.

They are alone in Love of Christ!s bright living room. They are happiest when they are alone together. Tell me what you know about light.

Not much.

Its the fastest thing in the world.

Faster than Jesus?

Way faster than Jesus.

Dust turns before her eyes. OK. I believe you.

Nat looks right at her, smiles. What killed Uncle Sam?

She imagines a forgotten relative, an inheritance, a home. Whos that?

Samuel Wilson, the meatpacking man once called Uncle Sam. Symbol of our nation? Hes buried just down the road apiece. You didnt even know Uncle Sam was dead.

I didnt know Uncle Sam was a real person. What killed him?

Stupidity, girl. Stupidity.

His, she wonders, or mine?

Nothing is near here, upstate New York. The scope of the galaxy seems reasonable. Light, traveling ten thousand years to reach Earth, makes sense because from here even the city of Troy, three miles away, is as distant as Venus. What difference could ten thousand light years make? Nat and Ruth have never been to Manhattan.

The Love of Christ! Foster Home, Farm, and Mission is a brick bear spotted with mange. Handiwork from days past ledge and brace doors, finger-joint chair rails, and hardwood floors is being terrorized by state-provided, institutional, indestructible furniture common to dormitories and religious organizations. The houses wooden floors are smooth as a gun butt. In summer Drosophila melanogaster breed in the compost pile. Each snaggletooth of a homestead constructed during the Civil War pleases Father Arthur, lord of the domain, founder of Love of Christ! Hand of the creator, he says. Clapboards that keep out only some of the wind; sills that have slipped off square; splinters as long as fingers. The house is always cold with a useless hearth since the State frowns on foster home fireplaces. Meddlers! Father Arthur unleashed his rage against bureaucracy, using a sledge on the innocent, elderly chimney. Now once a day when the sun reaches alignment, a sliver of light shines into the house through the busted-up flue, a precise astronomical calendar if anyone knew how to read it.

At Love of Christ! children feel the Lord, and the Lord is often furious and unpredictable, so Father Arthur cowers from corrupting influences. No Walt Disney, soda pop, or womens slacks pass his threshold. The children milk goats, candle and collect eggs, preserve produce, and make yogurt from cultures theyve kept alive for years. Blessed be the bacteria. The children remain ignorant of the bountiful mysteries filling the nearby Price Chopper.

Boys at Love of Christ! wear black cotton pants and solid tops from a limited palette of white, tan, or brown. The girls wear plain dresses last seen on Little House on the Prairie reruns. Simple fabric, a few pale flowers, a modest length for working. Fingernails are clean and rounded. Teeth are scrubbed with baking soda. The old ways survive, and seasonal orders dictate.

But like the olivine-bronzite chondrite meteor that surprised a Tomhannock Creek farmer back in 1863corruption has a way of breaking through. New charges arrive with words from the outside: mad cow disease, La-Z-Boy recliner, Barbie doll.

You know what Myst is? Ruth asks Nat.

M.I.S.T. Yes. A secretive branch of the Marines. Surprised youve heard of it. He works with more confidence than facts.

I thought it was a video game.

Video game? Whats that?

When they had mothers, Nats read him books and fed him vitamins until a bad man bit off the tip of her right breast and told her hed be back for the left one. She didnt stop driving until she reached New York State. She left Nat at a babysitters house, disappearing with a hero from the personal ads, a man who appreciated firm thighs more than tiny kids and perfect breasts. Nat set fire to his first group home. No one died.

Ruth never knew her mom, but when she was young, her sister, Eleanor, lived at Love of Christ! El was like a mom. She petted Ruth at night, told Ruth she was beautiful despite the messed-up scar on her face. When you were a baby, El said, you used to point at birds. Then Eleanor turned eighteen.