Jacob, p.6
Jacob, page 6
“Jacob—!”
He laughs softly and takes my arm again, affectionately. He leans in and whispers, “No. Not that. I’m hungry for someone who understands. If that was all I wanted, I’d have already taken it.”
In the dark of the pub, Jacob studies me. He sniffs the wine in his glass, then sips it slowly. “Pleasant enough,” he admits.
“Your senses are unnaturally heightened?”
“It’s part of being a predator. The apex predator.”
“Is that how you see yourself?”
“That’s how I am. But that’s not all I am.”
We sit in silence while I consider that.
“Go ahead. What is it you want to ask?”
“You never finished telling me your story. You said you came back to Seattle. You found that Monsieur was gone, his house burned down—”
“The whole block. Almost nothing left standing. Even a month later, the whole area still reeked of smoke and ash.”
“I’m sorry. That must have hurt.”
“Yes. More than you can understand.”
“I think I can guess.” He waits for me to speculate. “You said you were an orphan at thirteen. So he was a father to you. And a teacher. A mentor….”
“Go on. What else?”
“Um. A lover?”
Jacob snorts. “Humans. You think everything is about sex. And if that’s not enough, you pour romanticism over it like ketchup—” He holds up a hand to stop my objection. “You do. You can’t help it. The sexual act is a surrender to the physical nature of your body. You become an animal, frenziedly mating, humping and bumping and pumping at each other, as if you’re desperately trying to shut up all the voices yammering in your heads—and then, when you’re done, when you’ve finally achieved a few brief seconds of deafening bliss, you collapse exhausted on top of each other, trying to catch not only your breath, but consciousness as well—what you think is consciousness, the illusion of your self, and that’s the sadness you feel, that you have to be human again, instead of the honest animal you were while you were thumping. And then—right there, that’s the moment of guilt, maybe not guilt, maybe that’s the wrong word, maybe there’s no right word for the emotion—the despair of having to abandon the reality of what you just experienced so you can come back to the artificial world of words and manners and rules. All the constructions that keep us from being what we really are. Animals.” His words bite, but he doesn’t smile. He’s sincere. “So you pour your emotional syrup over the whole affair to justify it.”
“And you don’t?”
“You have no idea what’s possible.”
“Are you saying there’s no such thing as love?”
“Of course not. I’m saying that you don’t know what it is. Because most of you die before you can discover it. Most of you are addicted to the illusion of it.”
“Are all of you that cynical? Or just you?”
“I’m not being cynical. I’m telling you what I know.”
“Oh.” I consider it. “You and Monsieur—?”
Jacob’s expression flickers away for just a moment, a century and a half, then he returns and meets my eyes. “Monsieur and myself? Was that love? Wrong word. It might have been. If we’d had time. Sex—? Yes, he could have had me if he’d wanted me. I’d been a peg-boy and a street whore. He knew that. Do you know what Seattle was like in those days?”
“A rainy seaport with muddy streets?”
“On a good day, yes.” He refills my wine glass. “In those days, Seattle’s population was mostly male. Lumberjacks, teamsters, blacksmiths, boat-builders, whalers, fishermen, barkeeps, undertakers, and the men who sold them shovels, horseshoes, and harpoons. It was a pretty rough town. So not a lot of women. But men like sex. Men need sex. A man gets laid, he’s a lot less likely to be violent. All those endorphins, you know. They’re good for you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Sex is an addiction for men. Do you know what an addiction is? It’s the pursuit of a memory—the memory of pleasure. You discover sex as an adolescent and you spend the rest of your tumescent life trying to recapture those first moments of wonder and discovery. It becomes an obsession, looking for the right orifice.
“In Seattle, you had your right hand—or your left. Or you could find a friend and pretend you were just helping each other out. Or you could find a fairy—yes, that’s what they were called—very effeminate men who would enjoy servicing you. Or you could go to a boy-house and spend a dollar for a peg-boy. Or you could take a street-boy into an alley and hope he wouldn’t knife you. Or you could go to a brothel.
“Did you know how much whoring there was in Seattle? A lot? More than that. More than you can imagine. You’ve never seen anything like it. None of you have. But it was a frontier town—and it was men who settled the frontier first. For years, most of the city’s income came from the tax on whores. It was collected monthly. And yeah, even the boy-houses paid. They all did. It was Seattle’s most lucrative industry.
“The richest woman in the city was Miss Lou Graham. She ran a very high level brothel. The girls wanted to join her business, because it was a chance at an education. They’d learn how to behave in society and land a really rich husband. They usually married off within two or three years. Do you know how rich she was? She donated more money to start the city’s school system than all the rest of the donors combined. You want to think about that. Buildings. Books. Teachers. Maintenance. That’s wealth.
“If you were a woman in Seattle, then yes, Miss Graham’s house was the fast track to a better life. If you were a boy, no. Not gonna happen. Yeah, it was fun to talk and pretend that we might find a rich patron who would take us off the streets, but no—with all the boys available, why would any man of that nature choose any boy as a permanent companion? You’d have to be a very special boy, wouldn’t you? But the street-boys weren’t special. We were hungry, dirty, ill-mannered, always looking for an advantage—not the kind of creature you wanted to bring into your house, let alone trust.”
“But you and Monsieur—?
“Monsieur knew what I was. He didn’t care. He could have taken me any time. And we both knew it. I’m sure he was tempted. Was I scared of him? Yes. That first night and for many nights thereafter. If he didn’t want me for sex, then what did he want me for? And on the night I realized what he was, what he really was—I should have been horrified, shouldn’t I? I should have run screaming from his house. I should have run to the police and told them about the monstrous creature who lived there.
“But I didn’t. Because by then it was too late—”
“You’d fallen for him?”
“No. Worse than that. Much worse. I’d become comfortable. I’d gotten used to bathing every day, wearing clean clothes, eating at fine restaurants, reading books—especially the books, I’d never known the world could be so immense, so interesting—we discussed each day’s reading over dinner. I liked it—all of it. I was enjoying my life with Monsieur, being his daykeeper. I didn’t care what he was. I wasn’t giving up the good life.
“By the time I knew what he was—I also knew what he wasn’t. He wasn’t any of those things that people said about his kind. I knew that the same way I knew I wasn’t any of the things that people said about me or my kind. Monsieur was—” Jacob stops abruptly, remembering. When he returns to the conversation, it’s with a sad smile. “He was a better man than any of those who are so quick to judge.”
“So you did love him.”
Jacob nods. “Perhaps someday you’ll understand. Yes and no. I never got the chance to love him as we both wanted. But I loved him in the expectation that one day I would.”
I wait for him to continue. He studies my face. “You’re having trouble with this, aren’t you? It doesn’t make sense to you. You’re a mayfly. You don’t have the luxury of tomorrow. You have to mate tonight. Your mating is desperate, frenzied, rushed—because tonight might be the only chance.”
“I think you exaggerate—”
“Only to make a point. What you don’t understand is something you won’t understand until you experience it.”
“Are you offering it to me?”
“No. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“So why tell me about something I can’t understand?”
“Because you’re not through writing. This conversation is your next story.”
I wait in silence, not answering.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Everything is source material to a writer. Walk past his or her keyboard, you’re going to end up in the story somewhere. A writer’s mind is a black hole, it sucks in everything that gets too close to it.”
“If I didn’t want you to write about me—about us, The Community—I wouldn’t have sought you out.”
I want to ask why, but instead I return to the previous question.
“Okay. ’Splain me. How do you love? People like you.”
“Slowly,” he says. “Very slowly. So slowly you can’t see it. Think of a tree. You see it as a static moment. You do not see it as a process. But it is every bit as alive as you. Every moment, it breathes, it feels, it hungers, it tastes the world around it—and it grows. You just can’t see it.
“Day after day, you can’t see any change, so because you can’t see it you assume there isn’t anything happening. Only as the seasons pass would you notice the tree responding to its environment, stretching itself toward the sunlight, putting forth leaves to catch the life-giving rays, opening its flowers to attract flying insects—you might notice when it buds and grows fruits for birds and animals to eat, but you wouldn’t notice them spreading its seeds in their droppings. But mostly you don’t notice anything until finally the leaves turn gold and red and fall to the ground when summer fades. The tree hardens itself against the brutality of winter and you’ll notice how bare it is. When it finally awakens again when spring thaws the ground, bursting forth with new leaves, maybe you’ll notice that the tree is a little taller, a little thicker, little fuller. And maybe after a few years, after many years you’ll notice that it towers over you now, giving you shade against the day and shelter against the storm. But you—trapped in your mayfly existence—you can’t notice any of that without time, a lot of time.
“And so it is with us. We have eternity. We don’t have to eat every day, we can go dormant for years, lying in our silent retreats—a heartbeat once a second, once a minute, once an hour, once a week. Seemingly dead to any observer who cannot see the processes at work. But from the inside, when you live that slowly, you see the wheels of the universe turning majestically. We see everything differently, we experience the race of the glaciers as a mad rush. We watch the writhing of rivers and the crumbling of mountains. So we move through our lives methodically, patiently, without hurry or stress. Because we know we have time. All the time we want.
“Our relationships? Beyond your comprehension. Beyond all human comprehension. When you have eternity, you take your time to get the moments right. The mating dance is prolonged. I was too young to know this when I lived with Monsieur. I was still a mayfly. Impatient, driven by hormones and adolescence. I ping-ponged back and forth between frustration and despair—and anger as well, sometimes even to the point of madness.
“But every evening, he’d come downstairs in his elegant dressing gown, all graceful and calm and oh, so pleasant. He’d look at me, deeply—he had the most beautiful eyes, pale gray, almost luminous. I couldn’t look away. He would look into my face for long, almost painful moments—not commanding, but searching, his gaze shifting almost imperceptibly from one emotion to the next, curiosity, skepticism, concern, affection, wondering, analyzing—I learned to surrender to his eyes, searching them in return, I was looking for understanding. Now, today, I can understand the irony of that moment. I could not find what I was looking for until I was looking from his side.”
“You do that now?”
“Everywhere.” He smiles knowingly, his eyes fixed on mine for a long thoughtful moment. Finally, he returns to his story. “I cannot say how long we’d spend just looking at each other, but this was the ritual every night. Whatever it was he needed to see, when he was finally satisfied that he’d seen my heart, Monsieur would whisper, ‘Very good, Jacob, very good.’ Then he’d pour us two glasses of very old wine. In the winter, we’d sit by the fire. In the summer, we’d go out to the garden.
“The evenings were bright, made brighter by the gaslamps. They burned brighter than you think, but they were warm. The mantles inside gave off the most beautiful incandescent glow.” Jacob shakes his head, smiling at some remembered moment. “Electricity is not an improvement. It spoils the mood. It just isn’t romantic.
“But Monsieur and I, we had the most marvelous evenings. I didn’t realize just how wondrous those days were until they were gone. You can’t imagine the adventures we had, exploring the landscapes of history and architecture, art and philosophy. And novels too—oh, the novels! Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens and a most marvelous Frenchman named Jules Verne. New books arrived from New York every month.
“Sometimes I would get to the new volumes before he could. When that happened, he’d ask me if I thought a book might be worth his time or not. But more often, he was passing books to me. Sometimes we’d both be reading, other times, we’d sit opposite each other and discuss what we had read. Sometimes he would recommend a specific volume from the shelves, something that he thought would illuminate some point or other. But most of the time, he encouraged me to choose for myself. Our discussions—” Jacob stops himself. He refills our wine glasses. “Sometimes we argued ferociously over some detail, what it really meant. Did I think Monsieur Verne’s outlandish submarine adventure was really possible? Or was it too fanciful to be taken serious? I wanted it to be real, I argued it was inevitable. He was skeptical, but he’d already seen the beginnings of the industrial revolution, so he had to admit it might be possible. He just didn’t understand how an iron boat could stay afloat underwater. Neither did I, but apparently Monsieur Verne believed it, and that was good enough for me.
“But I know that Monsieur loved the arguments, And so did I. Sometimes they went on for hours as we picked over every bit of evidence, every aspect of an idea. We weren’t arguing with each other, thoughtlessly contradicting each other’s assertions—no, it was never about who was right, it was about the progression of statements that allowed us to examine an idea in depth—exploring the possibilities, discovering the meanings. The rules for any discussion were simple—you had to be able to justify your assertion with facts and logic. I think that was the very best part of my education. Monsieur trained me to be a thinking man—a good man.”
“A good man? But you kill people to eat.”
“Yes, sometimes I do kill people. And sometimes I feed on them. Sometimes I have to. Sometimes I want to.” He stares across the chasm of years at me. “But today I’m not going to kill.”
“I’m not your type?”
“You’re still not ripe.”
“I suppose I should take that as a rebuke….”
“Take it however you take it.”
“So, if I’m not that interesting, then why—”
“I didn’t say you’re uninteresting. I said you’re not finished. Not complete. Not ready.”
“What is it you’re looking for?”
“If you have to ask—”
“Please don’t play games with me. It’s arrogant. It’s patronizing. If I want to be treated rudely, I can go back to the convention.”
“I’m looking for the kind of conversations I used to have with Monsieur. Conversations that challenge, that excite, that astonish. I want to be moved, touched, and inspired. I am what I am—something beyond your ken—but I still have a soul. A hungry soul. I’m looking for someone to argue with.”
“Ah. Well that lets me out.”
“Why?”
“You have a century and a half head start on me.”
“Yes, I do. What do you have?”
“Um. Curiosity.”
“That’s a good place to start.”
“I can’t argue with you. I don’t have the—”
“Stop that.”
“But it’s true—”
“If you’re going to argue for your limits, you’ll make them real. Stop it.” He made as if to rise.
“No, please. Don’t go. I just—” I took a breath. “You’re intimidating.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I want to know your story.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I want to write it.”
“That’s still not enough.”
“I want to know what it feels like—!”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” He waves the empty bottle at a passing waiter. “Another, please?” He turned back to me. “Now, you. Try arguing from the other side. Argue why you should be important to me.”
“Um, I can write your story.”
Jacob is unimpressed. He glances in the general direction of the convention center. “There are a hundred other writers who can. At least. And there are at least a thousand wannabes who’d suck me off for the chance.”
“I can write it better.” I hesitate. It sounds arrogant, but I speak it anyway. “Better than all of them.”
“Why?”
“Because most of them won’t take you serious. I already do.”
“Tell me more about that.”
“They’ll do it for the money. Or the fame. Or the mystique. Or because they’re chronovores and starsuckers, wannabes and frauds, all looking for credibility.”
“And you’re not?”
“Doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is the job. I want to get it right. The story has to be told by someone who cares enough to tell it from the inside.”
Jacob leans across the table and stares into my eyes. For a moment, I’m taken aback. Disconcerted. Then I realize what he’s doing and I surrender. I don’t know how long we sit that way. The waiter puts another bottle of wine on the table, but he doesn’t interrupt. He must think we’re lovers. He must think Jacob is about to propose. Or maybe he thinks it’s a staring contest, I don’t know. Jacob’s eyes are dark, his pupils are deep. And I’m lost in his gaze. I start wondering about the boy he was, what he saw, what he felt? He’s that same boy now—but with a century and a half of experience being that boy. There are so many questions I want to ask. He was there when this world was built. He saw it all—
