6

Economics Lesson

While his father cut his time at the office in half, and then to a third, Tom dreamed of the vulture again. By the time of the last dream, Hartley Flanagan had lost forty pounds, and even if he had felt like pretending to be a healthy man and going through his routine of legal work and workouts at the Athletic Club, he would have been embarrassed by the way the skin hung on his cheeks, his suits on his bones. Finally he had energy enough only for the hospital and home.

By now, we are in basketball season - one week into winter weather. Tom is not his usual energetic self in school these days, and his work has fallen off: he is afraid of failing his exams, afraid he is going crazy, of being kicked off the JV basketball team; mostly he is afraid of what is happening to his father. Death has never been so real to him as it is now, and when he thinks of a future without his father, without a father, he sees a black valley bristling with threats.

Yes, the vulture says to him. So now he can understand it.

Yes. That is so. A black valley full of threats. But, dear boy, what else did you expect. To be a child forever?

No, but…

You did.

I did.

The vulture, still in that hot sandy place where there are no shadows, nods intelligently.

And you know what happens when you go into that valley?

Tom cannot answer: a fear as large as himself has slithered into his skin.

Why, you die, boy. It's that simple. Without protection, you die.

His father's corpse swings around on a rope to face him.

I am your father now, boy. Me. I'm your old man now, me and everything else in the valley.

The fear inside him began to shake.

The vulture came toward him, looking him brightly and intelligently in the eye.

Foul thing. Carrion-eater. Maggot.

Enough, little bird. The vulture rustled its wings, stabbed its great yellow beak forward, and impaled his hand. His own screams woke him up.

Skeleton Ridpath, that same night, is dreaming of an anthill in which the ants have the faces of the freshmen - they are scurrying around on little plots and errands,

rushing through corridors and passageways, twittering to each other. He has a rake, and is about to shatter the anthill when he hears a loud booming noise, a crashing like huge waves. For an instant he sees a nondescript brown hat pulled down to shade a probing inhuman face, and terror fills him, and then he wakes up and the booming, crashing sound is all about him. He knows what it is, and is almost afraid to look at the window; but finally he d-s look, and tastes vomit backing into the chamber behind his tongue. An enormous white owl, weirdly bright against the black window, is opening its shoulders and battering the glass. He can see every feather of the big wings. The owl wants in, it demands to enter, and Skeleton knows perfectly well that if he opens the window it will tear him to pieces. Its head is almost the size of his own. Poor Skeleton shudders back against the wall, a primitive part of his mind afraid too that the eagle on his ceiling will come to life and swoop down to take his eyes. He covers his eyes with his fists and shoves his face into the pillow.