Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow Page B

a barn, a Colonial-style house, and dozens of two-inch-high plastic citizens. Beside the drawing board reposed a wheelchair, its seat occupied by a fearsome Godzilla punching doll. Martin imagined Brandon using the doll therapeutically, hitting back at the evil lesion on his spine,
bam, bam, bam.
    â€œThe dinosaurs were his favorites,” said Patricia, taking a stuffed triceratops off its shelf. She set the Godzilla doll aside and, triceratops in hand, climbed into the wheelchair. “He’d sit right here, head bobbing every which way, and I’d act out little dramas for him, life in the late Cretaceous. The triceratops was always getting into trouble. The stegosaurus loved ice cream. So did Brandon. At least he’s not in pain anymore. There were days when that’s all I could think about. ‘Please, God, stop his pain.’”
    â€œGod is out of the loop,” said Martin, examining a sketch that seemed to make his point: a Vestan spaceship melting the Brooklyn Bridge at the height of rush hour. “He’s left the scene”—he grimaced, realizing what he was about to say—“of His crimes.”
    Hugging the triceratops, Patricia rose from the wheelchair. “Play with me.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPlay with me. Get on the floor. Play with me. These toys have never been properly played with. Brandon . . . couldn’t.”
    â€œNeither can I.”
    â€œPlease. Try. Please.”
    They pulled off their shoes, sprawled across the rug, and played. Seizing upon Brandon’s building blocks, they made a multicolored tower, so high it overshadowed the drawing board. They worked with the dead child’s Play-Doh, Patricia fashioning a blue elephant, Martin a yellow giraffe. They lovingly rearranged the Fisher-Price settlement, filling the Colonial house with healthy relatives, the barn with hardy animals, and the school with robust children—a utopia, they decided, a world that had no words for prostate cancer or spina bifida.
    â€œI loved him so much,” said Patricia. “Not because he was sick, and not in spite of it either. I just . . . loved him.”
    She yanked a cylinder from the foundation of their tower. The construction collapsed spectacularly, block tumbling over block—and then, finally, the scream did come, a bright red howl rushing from her mouth and blowing through the Fisher-Price community like a tornado.
    Martin’s palms grew damp. His heart raced. Instinctively he leaned toward her, and for a full five minutes they silently pressed against each other, embracing and shivering. Like shipwreck survivors, he thought. Like two freezing castaways, adrift on an ice floe, heading nowhere.
    Â 
    Believe me, I dislike these interruptions as much as you do, but I thought you’d be intrigued to know that the appearance of a shipwreck metaphor in our hero’s consciousness foreshadows an eventual obsession with nonmetaphorical shipwrecks and similar cataclysms. Among the exhibits to which Candle will be drawn while perusing the Kroft Museum of Natural Disasters and Technological Catastrophes is the rudder from the steamer
Larchmont
.
    Maybe you know the story. At eleven P.M. on February 11, 1907, the
Larchmont
was rammed near Block Island by the schooner
Harry Knowlton.
Most of the
Larchmont
’s passengers were drowned in their cabins. Dressed only in their pajamas, those few who managed to escape on life rafts were beset by sub-zero winds and heavy seas. Ice soon covered them, freezing their hands and feet solid. To end his agony, one survivor slit his own throat. All told, three hundred and thirty-two people died that night.
    For my money, the funniest part of the
Larchmont
story is the name of the company that owned and sailed her. The Joy Line. Get it? The Joy Line. Whatever you may think of our Creator, you can’t fault His sense of humor.
    Â 
    Martin spent the weekend in bed. Trembling with grief,