The School on Heart's Content Road by Carolyn Chute Read Free Book Online

the reporter and Gordon St. Onge, both having arrived in the shade of the merry-go-round’s roof, are not shaking hands. No nice hellos. The reporter wears a stripy dress, bracelets, shoulder bag, camera with strap, the weight of that other world outside this place. That which makes Gordon St. Onge’s undigested heavy noon meal freeze.
    The merry-go-round is of monsters; wide-mouthed, horned, pop-eyed, some with human heads and spear-ended tails like Satan’s. No pretty polka-dot high-stepping horsies. The reporter, Ivy Morelli, is scribbling away on her lined pad after pushing her sunglasses to her head. Her hair is black—no, it’s purple, a tint, no doubt, created for urban interiors.
    The man is Titan-sized, unlike the reporter, who is small, even for a woman.
    In the lacing of one leather work boot, the man, this Gordon St. Onge, has gotten a daisy snagged. His brown hair is not long, not short, not touched up with a comb for this special occasion. Green work shirt. Sleeves rolled up. No visible tattoos. No wristwatch. Which might explain why he was twenty minutes late.
    Does the reporter note the belt buckle? You, crow, have noticed that coppery blushy sun. Probably made by kids. It has the face you would expect for the sun, grandfatherly, toothless, eyes closed, too bright even for itself. And the dungarees. New. Oddly fitted. Also made by kids?
    Reporter swipes at a deerfly.
    Reporter writes across her pad: VIKING .
    Then she adds: COULD EAT A WHOLE REINDEER .
    Reporter whacks another fly. Bracelets bonk and clank. Her bowl-cut hair slides from side to side in an attractive way.
    The man whom you, crow, know very well through many generations of crows—this man is uneasy today.
    The woman, who is young, is also nervous. But stalwart. Even wise-ass, almost crowlike.
    The two humans are now talking fast, overlapping, arguing.
    You tip your head, enjoying.
    Now the man steps around the woman, the wild grasses hissing and snapping around his pant legs. Keys on his belt loop jangle once. Squatting in the hot blue shade, he checks the oil and gas of the carousel generator. He yanks the cord hard, then harder. Again, harder. The engine sputters to a ragged hum. Another adjustment. The engine purrs. Now the lever. The circle of monsters creaks into motion. One of the heads is gold, like the domes of some state capitals.
    Reflections of monsterific colors brighten and darken upon the reporter’s face, her small mouth even more clover-colored now than its formerly honest pink, the eyes in their dark lashes a cold no-feeling blue. Trying to look objective? She cocks her head. Her silky bowl of black but purple hair slides to one side, then back. She has stopped taking notes. Just staring.
    She watches Gordon St. Onge’s work-smoodged hand on the lever, so familiar in its humanness but in another way new, and now she raises her eyes into and through the traffic of beasts. There is only one that actually rises up and down. It is yellow and black and gleaming as a hornet. It has wings. But not a hornet. It gives off an agonized lowing sound. And it farts. In its eye sockets are red Christmas twinkle lights. One begins to work now, after a long warming.
Twink! Twink! Twink!
    Beyond the slow, hot, miserable trudge of creatures, Gordon St. Onge’s face is clear. He has a mad-scientist aspect, one eye squinting, fluttering, blinking, almost in sync with the yellow and black creature’s Christmassy eyes. This man is suffocating in burning indecision. His beard is short, darker than his untidy hair. Chin of the beard graying, kingly. Brown-black mustache heavy. His crowded teeth are revealed as he wags his head and gives Ivy Morelli a goofy grin, not goofy and full of sport but goofy as in apology. Doglike.
    You, crow, watch all this. You hear the man say, “You have to imagine your own calliope music.”
    From this perch you, crow, can see over the treetops to the Settlement, its