The Pit

                                                                                The Pit

    I knew I shouldn't be daydreaming during Mass, but I couldn't stop thinking about the pit. That's what we called it, because we didn't know what else to call it, but the word hardly described the place. What was it? Why was it there? Does it have a bottom, or is it bottomless? Well, by tonight I would know that much, at least.
   
    "The Mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord." Father Quinn saying the closing prayer snapped me out of my reverie. The organist launched into "Holy God We Praise Thy Name," and as the congregation joined in the hymn, Father and I genuflected and left the altar. The clock in the sacristy read 6:10. Shit. Thump and Doc are going to be pissed, I thought. I ripped off my cassock and surplice, jammed them on a hanger, and stuffed them into the closet.
   
    "In kind of a hurry, aren't you, Luke?"
   
    "Uh, yeah, Father I am. I'm supposed to meet some friends and I'm already late."
   
    "Well, thanks for serving on such short notice. I don't know what I would do without you. There are so few altar boys these days, and everyone seems to be away for the Labor Day weekend."
   
    "No problem, Father. I'm glad to do it." I jammed my right hand into the holy water font and blessed myself, as I tore the sacristy door open with my left and bolted out into the crisp, September sunshine.
   
    "God bless you, my son and thanks again."
   
    "Sure thing, Father," I yelled back, acknowledging God's blessing. "I'll see you next week." Can a blessing go right through a door like that? I grabbed my backpack off the ground and threw it over my shoulder. The hammer and the rope made the pack bulky, but I managed to balance the load and get my bike underway.
   
    I was supposed to meet Doc and Thump on the railroad trestle at 5:30, but that was before Father Quinn called and asked if I would serve the vigil Mass. I knew they would be pissed, but they'd have to get over it. What the Hell else did they have to do anyway? I began to pick up speed as I pedaled hard down the steep hill toward the old mill. My bike rattled across the wooden planks of the bridge that crossed over the millpond. The straps of my pack were biting into my shoulders, from the weight of the hammer. I skidded to a stop, dumped my bike in the tall weeds that grew along the edge of the pond, adjusted the straps of my pack, and headed down the footpath that led into the forest. I was making good time. Soon, I would know the truth. More important, Doc and Thump would know too. Finally, I would prove to them the only thing that made sense: There was a bottom. There had to be!   
   
    The forest path was one of my favorite places in the world. All around me stood mammoth oak, heavy with acorns, stately, elegant elm, gnarled beech, silvery-white birch, and sugar maple. Some were tall and majestic; others, huge and imposing. All stretched their limbs upward toward the late-summer sky. A light breeze gently stirred the highest branches, causing the current generation of leaves to mingle quietly with each other. In another month or so they would fall to the earth and die, their essence returned to the sandy soil. Their image as leaves would cease; their essence would continue.
   
    Here and there, the angled sunlight pierced the leafy canopy with warm streams of blazing red and orange that spilled onto the forest floor in shimmering pools of enchantment. Bright patches of emerald, jade, and rusted-wood lent the darkening forest a sense of primitive wonder. The only sound was the murmur of the stream, its surface set ablaze by the evening sun. The shimmering water gurgled as it raced over and around the smooth, rounded stones of the shallows, running its course through space and time, before quietly slipping into deeper, darker pools under peaceful shadows of giant boulders and towering pine.
   
    What was it Father had said in his homily? That nature is more than what it simply appears to be. That it represents a Divine idea. That it points to something. He explained that one does not see this something clearly, but only dimly, like a reflection, a tiny reflection of the beauty and peace that exist outside of time. I had a sense of what he meant. The quiet wood seemed almost haunted with an unseen presence, as if it contained something of what it reflected. I could feel it. I could feel the peace. The feeling didn't last long. The screeching, nasal voice of Thumper broke the spell.
   
    "Hey, Lucanus, where the hell have you been?"
   
    "Yeah, Luke-anus," Doc chimed in. "Hurry the fuck up."
   
    "I'm coming," I countered as I struggled up the steep bank to the railroad bed.
   
    "Shit, man. We been waiting for-fucking-ever. Get your sorry ass up here," Doc taunted. "Where the hell you been anyway?"
   
    "I had to serve."
   
    "Serve? I thought you mackerel snappers went to church on Sundays. It's Saturday, you Irish puke. What the fuck, you turn Jew or something?"
   
    "Fuck you, Doc, you pagan piece of shit," I shot back. "I even said a prayer for your sorry ass."
   
    "Prayed for me did ya? Save your breath. I don't need nobody praying for me. As if it would do any good. There's nobody there to hear your stupid prayers anyway. What a waste of fucking time."
   
    "Easy, Doc," Thump said, as he reached down to give me a hand. I slipped the pack off my shoulders, flung it at Thumper's feet, and pulled myself up to the trestle. "Shit, this thing is heavy. What the hell you got in here?" Thumper groaned.
   
    "A ten pound sledge. We need some kind of weight, don't we?"
   
    "You bring the rope?" Doc asked, as we headed down the tracks toward the old vinegar house.
   
    "Yup."
   
    "How long is it?"
   
    "Gotta be forty maybe fifty feet, plenty long enough to reach the bottom," I said with certainty.
   
    "Yeah. If there is a bottom," Doc added doubtfully.
   
    "I already told ya, Doc. Its gotta have a bottom. It makes no sense otherwise," I argued.
   
    "Sense? Why's it gotta make sense? A lota shit don't make any sense. Hell, life don't make no fucking sense," he shot back.
   
    "It does if you're looking for the truth." I said. "And the truth is: there is a bottom, and I'm gonna prove it to you." We dropped down the opposite bank and headed for the willow-grove behind the old vinegar house.
   
    "Holy shit, altar boy, you crack me up. First it only has to make sense, and now, its gotta be THE truth? My old man's right. You papists are fucked up. He says that truth is whatever I decide is true for me, and my truth is: there ain't no fucking bottom."
   
    "C'mon, Doc, that's bullshit and you know it," I said. "Think about it. You really think you can make something true just by believing that it's true? You think it's that easy? No fucking way. I can't accept that. Something is either true or it's not. You can't just pick and choose. It's not a fucking menu. That's bullshit. Know what I mean?"
   
    "Shit, yeah. I know what ya mean. I know exactly what you fucking mean. You mean that it's bullshit if it's not your truth. That's what you fucking mean."
   
    "It's not MY truth, Doc. Just because I believe it doesn't make it true. The bottom is there whether I believe it or not." I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't so sure himself. He plays poker with the same look and I always beat him. Whenever he thinks his cards aren't good enough to win, he acts all brave, like he's got a monster hand, but it's just bullshit. Yeah, it was the same look.
   
    Thumper held up a poplar branch with a cocoon hanging from it. "Hey, guys, look at this."
   
    "Cool. Let's rip it open." Doc reached for the cocoon.
   
    "Leave it alone, asshole." Thump said, as he yanked the branch away. "It's gonna be a beautiful butterfly soon." He gently set the branch down, cradling the cocoon lightly in his fingers. "Some dumb old caterpillar's locked itself inside of there, and it's gonna come out soon with beautiful wings and fly away. What you want to mess it up for?"
   
    "He's right, Doc. Leave it alone." I said. "That caterpillar's looking for something better. Let him enjoy it."
   
    "Aw, fuck it. Let him have his fucking wings, but it don't seem fair."
   
    "What doesn't seem fair, Doc?" I asked.
   
    "It ain't fair that some creepy, low-life caterpillar can sprout wings and become a butterfly, can just change like that, and fly."
   
    "So, you think it's true, Doc? I mean that the caterpillar will become a butterfly. You believe that?"
   
    "Shit, yeah. Just don't seem fair, that's all."
   
    "You think the caterpillar believes it?"
   
    "How the fuck do I know? I ain't no fucking bug."
   
    "Well, what if it didn't? Didn't believe it I mean. Would it still become a butterfly?"
   
    "Shit, yeah. What are you, stupid? It's gonna be a butterfly whether some creepy little worm with too many legs believes it or not. That's the way it is. That's nature. Shit, Luke-anus I thought you were smarter than that."
   
    "Just asking," I said. "C'mon, there's the vinegar house."
   
    Now, no one knew just what the vinegar house was or why it was called the vinegar house, but it had the right sound for the way it looked. It was a ramshackle, weather beaten shack precariously perched on the east side of a steep embankment. It looked as if it were built from second-hand barn siding, with one crooked, glassless window, and a little tin smokestack with a pointy tin hat tipped to one side. It seemed to defy the law of gravity, teetering up there in the air, but sooner or later, gravity was going to win out, and the old vinegar house was going to tumble off the ledge and roll right into the willow-grove, and drop smack into the pit, and sink all the way to the bottom, whether anyone believed it would or not.
   
    The silver-green leaves of the willow branches glowed like the mantle of a Coleman lantern in the setting sun. The entire grove pulsated with an unearthly glow. One would never guess that such radiance could possibly contain within it anything as foul and unwholesome as the pit. If the vinegar house looked out of place on the hill above the grove, the pit looked positively alien within the grove. It seemed to have no earthly reason for being there. Oh, there were plenty of stories told over the years: how it's full of the skeletal remains of transient hobos, or home to some kind of swamp-thing, or that it had no bottom. Well, the stories would be set straight tonight. Only an idiot would believe the first two, and the third was about to be exposed as the hoax it was.
   
    I carefully, almost ceremoniously parted the glowing branches with my hands as we entered the grove. Even Thumper seemed to have a sense of reverance for the moment. Doc violently stripped two handfuls of leaves off several branches as he plowed through.
   
    The inside of the grove was dark and still - lifeless. I could smell the pit even before I could see it. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could slowly make out the dreadful shape in the ground before us. It was about the size of a railroad flat-car, maybe a little longer. It was surrounded by a rotted and crumbling concrete foundation over-grown with cancerous tumors of moss and fungus, and was filled with a fetid mixture of water, and rotting leaves and life. A cloud of swarming insects buzzed feverishly above it. It was their home, the place of their birth. They neither knew nor cared if it had a bottom. But, when they fell in and died - that's where they ended up.
   
    "C'mon, shit-head. It's getting dark fast, and this place gives me the creeps," Doc complained. "It's a waste of time anyway. I tell ya, there ain't no fucking bottom. Just look at that thing. Something ain't right about it. I ain't shitting ya. Who cares if its got a bottom? I sure as fuck don't. Screw this."
   
    "You're not getting scared are you, Doc?" I taunted. "You're not getting all superstitious on us are you? Well, if you're scared go on home. I came here to prove something, and I'm not leaving till I do." I lashed the end of the rope around the head of the hammer and then tugged it to test the knot. I approached the nearest end of the pool and carefully laid-out the rope on the ground, so it could flow freely behind the hammer.
   
    My taunting had the desired effect. Doc had his poker face on. Thumper just stood there staring at me, wide-eyed. He looked like one of this spring's fawns, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, but willing to stay if I was. Since I had supplied both the hammer and the rope I naturally assumed that I would do the honors. However, Doc, being the biggest, though not necessarily the brightest, was not going to look like a chicken. He snatched the hammer out of my hand, strode forward, and threw it as high as he could. Up and out the hammer flew, silhouetted against the evening sky, its trajectory traced by the length of rope. It seemed to hover for a moment, and then plunge - splash, dead center in the pool. Every eye was on the rolling, thick ripples that generated out from the impact. The water was so filled with decay it looked more like a thick soup than water. I glanced down to see the rope feeding smoothly into the mire. The sledge was plunging deeper and deeper, taking more and more of the rope with it. Suddenly, the rope convulsed, kicking up a small spray of dirt and dead leaves from the ground. It had snagged a large, dead branch just behind Doc. The end of the branch shot up, and it seemed to scratch and claw its way toward the pit, dragged along in a tangle of rope.
   
    "Doc! Look out!" The branch caught him just behind the knees and he buckled. He threw his large torso forward to compensate. The ancient, weathered concrete crumbled and dropped right out from under him. He did a perfect pratfall into the slime - headfirst. He went right out of sight. "Fuck! Thump! help me!" I screamed as I ran to the edge. I heard a rustle of willow branches and looked just in time to see them swaying at the spot where Thumper had bolted. "Shit! Doc! Oh, God please let him be all right!" First his shoulders, then his butt, then his head broke the surface. "Doc, you all right?" His head lolled to one side, a bright red scrape at the temple, where he had hit it on the edge of the pit. He looked right through me, eyes glazed and vacant, mouth open. His face slowly sank back below the surface.
   
    "God! Oh, God please help me." I was scared shit-less, my knees were rubber. I sucked in air as if it were courage, clenched my eyes and lips tightly shut, and dove into the fetid, stinking pit. I managed to get my shoulder up under Doc's chest and strained to get him up over the edge. I tucked his elbows into the dirt, so he could support his own weight, and, I'm not kidding when I say, I flew out of that stinking slough. Suddenly, I understood how spawning salmon did what they did: proper motivation. I grabbed Doc by the collar and belt and hauled his fat ass up onto solid ground. I checked to see if he was breathing, and fished a wad of rotten leaves out of his mouth. He coughed out a jet of stinking brine, and then sucked in a big gulp of air.
   
    I jumped to my feet and began to tear the clothes from my body. I didn't bother with buttons or laces, I just tore them off, and stood there buck naked, shaking, dripping slime. Doc managed to get to his knees and begin the same ritual. He didn't say a word, just made a shivering, whimpering sound as he tore at the buttons of his shirt. Soon we were both naked and frantically scrubbing ourselves with willow leaves, trying to remove the slime, desperately searching for leeches. No words were spoken. Hell, no words were possible, and even if they had been, they wouldn't be good enough. No, words would not do at all.
                                     
                                                  ***
   
    We dropped down off the edge of the bank and started down the tracks. Buck naked, and silent we padded along. The slight breeze felt clammy against my skin and hair, like I was covered in a thin layer of paste. The western horizon was a deep mauve streaked with scarlet, a peaceful, almost heavenly glow. The crickets were beginning to chime-in the evening. The rails of the tracks stretched out for miles ahead of us. "You all right?" I asked.
   
    He touched his temple with the tips of his fingers, winced slightly, "Yeah. I guess. - Thanks. I mean - I can't believe you did that. - Thanks, Luke."
   
    "Told you my praying would save your sorry ass."
   
    "Fuck you."
   
    "It sucks that you still could be right though."
   
    "Huh?"
   
    "The bottom, the truth, I didn't prove a fucking thing."
   
    "So?"
   
    "Yeah, I guess. It's just that, Shit! I wanted to prove that there was a bottom."
   
    "I know ya did," he said. "Fuck it."
   
    I don't know if it was the blow to the head or the peculiar light playing tricks, but he had this dreamy, searching look on his face as he studied the horizon. "Hey, ya ever notice how the tracks seem to come together when you look way down em?" He asked. "I never noticed that before. They come right together, there in the light. That's fucking weird."
   
    "Yup." I held my empty pack in front of me, like a fig leaf, as we walked naked along the tracks, toward the light. Doc glanced down at the empty pack.
   
    "Hey, where's the hammer and the rope?"
   
    "Rusting and rotting in the pit - on the bottom."
   
    "Yeah."