• Or: my inheritance entered me.
•You who read the words I here inscribe upon the pages of a Boorum & Pease record book or journal with the same dependable Mont Blanc fountain pen used in former days to draft my instructional missives to the world already know the significance of the ruined house to Your Great Race. It was within its sacred enclosure that the Great Old Ones imbued my early torments and humiliations with the salvific Splendor of Preparation. An Elder God spoke, and I learned All. His Voice was low, husky, confiding, weary with age-old authority, yet powerful, commanding. I heard some pleasure in there, too, for my Unearthly Father, whose True Identity I still knew not, was giving me the lowdown on the Mighty Task for which I had been placed upon this Earth. My Role came clear, my Nature given Explanation. Half-human, half-God, I was the Opener of the Way, and my Task was Annihilation. After me, the Apocalypse, the entry through a riven sky of my leathery, winged, beclawed, ravenous Ancestors the Elder Gods, the Destruction of mankind, Your long-awaited repossession of the earthly realm. I advanced through the rubble, added my rump's outline to the footprints of passing animals and was
I could certainly have gotten away scot-free if I had killed Maureen Orth, which was what I had in mind for her once I got the sex part out of the way. The only reason I ran into trouble was that she got home. Her sense of humor went south about a minute after I tied her up. I wasn't going to kill her in the
I wanted to see Maureen's close-set eyes fly open when I looked at some visiting pigeon, stopped its heart, and tumbled it stone-cold dead from its perch. I wished to add to the effect by announcing my intention of floating eight inches off the ground and lingering there for a count of, say, ten, even though the effort would have brought sweat cascading from every pore of my body. I depended on the lassie to declare, that’s a fib, nobody can do that. Then I wanted to see the expression on her homely mug when I proved her wrong. I looked forward to dazzling my pathetic sweetie with a few other tricks, too, before I killed her.
In the meantime, I couldn't help myself, I was impulsive, I know, a number of insecure maidens had accompanied me into the woods to end their pointless lives on the floor of my classroom. I did go to the trouble of interring most of the bodies, but I might as well have let them rot. The search parties never came near the ruins. In any case, I had outgrown this sort of exhibitionism by the time I was thrown out of the academy.
14 • Mr. X
• In essence, boarding schools are all the same, especially to those who are as smoke from the cannon's mouth and wind up getting expelled from one tweedy snakepit after another. Actual military school, in my case good old Fortress, of Owlsburg, Pennsylvania, to which my father sent me in a last convulsion of disgust, suited me far better than its civilian imitations. My father had informed me that failure at this last resort would derail the gravy train—no more monthly deposits into my account, no inheritance, no trust fund, finis—thereby compelling me to work at least hard enough to pass the courses. I rather liked my uniform's chill, fascist pomp. Because I entered in the senior, or Cavalry, year, one of my duties was to bully the students beneath me, those in Artillery, Quartermaster, and especially Infantry, which was packed like sardines with doe-eyed fourteen-year-olds in a desperate sweat to please their overlords. We were
I spent one of the happiest years of my young life in that place. As soon as I understood the deal, I drove out my roommate, a prep-school expellee like myself named Squiers whose babble had exhausted my patience before the end of our first day together. Thereafter, in my palatial single I was free to do as I wished. I did not at all mind the necessity, due to my parents' refusal to have me come home, of spending the Thanksgiving vacation and Christmas break at school.
The only sign of impending difficulty occurred early in March, when my calculus instructor and unit commander, Captain Todd Squadron, drew me aside to announce that he would be visiting my quarters at 2100 hours that evening. I found this news alarming. Captain Squadron, a by-the-book regular army type whom I had bluffed into admiration from the day of my arrival, lately had grown cooler, almost dismissive. I feared that he had seen through my performance. I hoped that he had not discussed my 'case' with an all-seeing dreadnought named Major Audrey Arndt, whom I had taken considerable pains to avoid. One other possibility was an even greater worry. After his arrival in my room, I discovered that both of these matters, the not so serious and the positively grave, were on his mind.
I saluted and stood at attention. Captain Squadron growled, 'At ease,' and gestured me to my cot. His oddly wary, knowing attitude was laced with the dismissiveness I had lately sensed in him. When I had perched on the cot, Squadron leaned against my dresser and gazed down at me for a long moment transparently intended to unnerve.
'What is it with you, anyhow, Pledge?'
I asked what he meant.
'You're different, aren't you?'
'I hope I might take that as a compliment, sir.'
'There's an example of what I mean, right there. After the Infantry intake, most transfers are foul balls.' He pulled at his uniform jacket, automatically aligning it with his trousers. 'They got bounced out of so many schools their parents just want to keep them in line. Even though most of them aren't too swift, they all think they're smarter than we are. Every last one has a big, big problem with authority.'
'Not me, sir,' I said. 'I respect authority.'
He gave me
We were all pledges, no matter what class we were in. I considered saying 'Sir, the pledge is not familiar with the term 'jukin' with,' sir,' but kept my mouth shut.
'It falls to us to straighten up these sorry-ass rebels as best we can. As a general rule, we have about a sixty-forty chance if we get them in their second year. If they come into Artillery, it's less than fifty-fifty we um pound some sense into their heads. By Cavalry, it's a lost cause. All we do is, we concentrate on teaching them to stand up straight and how to tell their right foot from the left one so they can manage the drills, and we push them through the course work until they graduate and get the hell out.' He folded at the waist like a puppet, tightened his shoelaces, and snapped upright again. 'If it was up to me, we'd refuse to transfer students into Cavalry. Eighteen is too old to adapt to our way of life.'
He turned to face the mirror over my dresser and gave the jacket another series of precise tugs. He lifted his chin and examined the effect. 'The little clowns come in laughing, and I have to waste a hellacious amount of time convincing them with all the means at my disposal, which are many, that we are not to be sneered at.' He caught my eyes in the mirror. 'I believe I can claim a one hundred percent success rate at carrying out that particular mission. Maybe those feebs were a long way from being soldiers when they walked through the gate for the last time, but I guarantee you this much, they were believers.' He was still holding my eyes.
'I became a believer as soon as I got here,' I said. 'Sir.'
Squadron turned around and leaned against the dresser without bending. His wide, blunt face was distorted by a broken nose that would have made him look like a fighter had it not been the size of the nose on a shrunken head. 'I'll give you this much, you had me fooled.'
'Sir?'
