Relentless Melt

ALSO BYJEREMY P. BUSHNELLThe WeirdnessThe Insides RELENTLESS MELTFirst published in 2023 by Melville HouseCopyright © Jeremy Bushnell, 2022All rights reservedFirst Melville House Printing: April 2023Melville House Publishing46 John StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201andMelville House UKSuite 200016/18 Woodford RoadLondon E7 0HAmhpbooks.com@melvillehouseISBN 9781685890322Ebook ISBN 9781685890339Library of Congress Control Number 2022952078Book design by Beste M. Dogan, adapted for ebookA catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congressa_prh_6.0_143736962_c0_r0 ContentsCoverAlso by Jeremy P. BushnellTitle PageCopyrightDedicationEpigraphPart OneChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Part TwoChapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Part ThreeChapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26 To the questioning, and the nonconforming “She wanted to hear someone say this very thing, that the cruelty existed in time, that they were all unprotected in the drive of time.”—DON DELILLO, “THE IVORY ACROBAT”“Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”—SUSAN SONTAG, ON PHOTOGRAPHY“The past, he reminded us, and all at once we felt it slithering through our ears and throats like a bolt of silk…”—KATHRYN DAVIS, THE SILK ROAD PART ONEOCTOBER1909THE EVENING INSTITUTE FOR YOUNG MEN 1Artie Quick restlessly paces the second floor of the YMCA building, passing the door to the classroom and then turning back, approaching it again, trying to build up the will to enter. It is 7:57 p.m., according to the wooden clock. Class begins in three minutes.Three minutes to eight, Artie thinks, that’s perfect. Three minutes to eight is the perfect time to arrive on the first night of class if you want to make absolutely no impression. It’s safely on time by any measure—the class laggards will surely show up later than you—but it’s also not too early. It reduces down to a mere shaving the period during which you have to sit there, waiting for class to start, looking at people while they look at you. It’s the perfect time, Artie thinks, beginning to sweat, even though it’s a cool October evening outside.Go in now, Artie thinks. If it gets any later you’ll lose your nerve. Any later and you’ll have to admit that you weren’t brave enough after all.Go in now. But not quite yet. One last glance at the wooden clock that hangs on the wall between classrooms. Now it’s 7:58. One last moment to squint at the tiny pentagonal window behind which the pendulum swings, to examine the face reflected in the dark glass. The willful jut of the jaw; the tiny notch of a frown line between the eyebrows. It isn’t the face of a person who’s not brave.Slowly, Artie smooths an errant cowlick back to the scalp, then turns, walks to the door, grasps the handle, and goes in, ready, seemingly ready, to begin the first session of a thirteen-week course of instruction on the topic of Criminal Investigation.Luckily, there’s an open desk close to the door, and Artie takes a seat there. At the front of the room a big man, a bear in suit and spectacles, writes his name on the chalkboard. Professor Winchell. Some other students are already seated at their desks; Artie can count the backs of eleven heads. A moth flutters about the room, looping erratically in the room’s unsteady electric light. The clock in the hall groans and begins to strike eight. Artie is still hopeful that a latecomer will hurry in—there are still a few open desks—but no one does. So much for three minutes to eight being the perfect time if you didn’t want to be the laggard.As the clock completes its chiming, Professor Winchell takes a watch out of his coat pocket and makes a tiny adjustment to it. Then, as the room falls back into silence, he looks over the assembled students and says, in an orotund voice: “Welcome to Criminal Investigation.”Standing beside his desk, he takes roll from a list, calling each student’s name in turn. Each of the assembled students mumbles “here” or “present” in response. Everyone, Winchell excepted, seems a bit nervous, a bit uncertain that they’re really supposed to be in this classroom: this is a bit reassuring. Even so, when Winchell nears the bottom of the list and calls out “Master Quick?” Artie elects to respond with “here,” rather than with “present”: it’s shorter by a syllable.Two more names and Winchell puts the list down, taking a moment to square it, so that its edges align precisely with the edges of his desk. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he says once the task is completed. “In advance of this session,” he continues, “you should have acquired the course text; I see many of you have it out already; that is good. Please open the text to page one.”Artie already has the book out and open, as well as a small notebook. Winchell hefts his own copy of the book—his hand trembles, and he takes a moment to steady it before he begins to amble between the rows of seated students.“Page one of our text,” Winchell says, “concerns the character traits every superior criminal investigator should possess. Vigor, health, courage, tact—covered here on page one. Important, indeed, although my own youthful vigor is perhaps not entirely what it once was.”A polite chuckle from the students, though Artie doubts Winchell is much over forty.“However. It is also crucial that the criminal investigator be knowledgeable. The criminal investigator, our text tells us—allow me to quote—has to solve problems relating to every conceivable branch of human knowledge; he ought to be acquainted with languages; he should know what the medical man can tell him and what he should ask the medical man; he must be as conversant with the dodges of the poacher as with the wiles of the stock jobber, as well acquainted with the method of fabricating a will as with the cause of a railway accident; he must know the tricks of card sharpers, why boilers explode, how a horse coper can turn an old screw into a young hunter. He should