I smacked my lips and tried to moisten them with my tongue. For the first time in ages, I greatly desired an alcohol-permeated beverage to settle my apprehension. I immediately chastised myself for my weakness, gulped down a pint of sour nut milk, belched, and then reached for Amour Fou.
It might have best served me to utter forth a prayer unto God right then, but instead I read “Moon Night.”
“…let loose ‘em… on this ancient dry isle… together we’ll be.”
Just as I finished reading, a bell commenced to clanging, calling all God’s Shiners to gather up at her church.
I slid the book under my pillow and squinted out the window to the bright and restless Pacific.
Vast it was.
Full of nonsense and fish and hidden meanings.
And arguably female.
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws,” I muttered, “scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
After that, I hollered, “Hooey-poo-hooey!”
Then I went to the church.
*****
Entering the Ark was like stepping into a rainbow.
Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows and washed the interior with hues of green and yellow and blue and red. One felt to have drifted into an otherworld of prismaticated whimsy. The overall setting felt surreal, doubtless designed to transport the faithful from the hardships of their workaday squalor outside the sanctuary to a vibrant and comforting prevue of their luxuriant destiny in heaven.
As I was now part of the clergy, I sat on the platform at the front of the room facing out to the color-besplashed crowd. Mosiah sat on my right side. Lamia – perched on her throne and flanked by Force and Will – sat on my left. In the future, Prudence would join me front and center, but on that morning, she chose to position herself in the first pew, so she could better observe my performance.
She wiggled her fingers as a private signal between us.
I grinned, woozy with nerves, and dipped forward in response.
A sea of devotees stretched out behind her. I studied them, endeavoring to attach the names I had learned to their corresponding faces. The women all waved languid fans and sat perched between their husbands. From my raised vantage it was easy enough to observe how the bigamous order of New Eden played out across its population. Some of these threesomes had produced offspring, and so a miscellany of variably aged children was scattered throughout the otherwise mass of adulthood. They fidgeted in their seats, gawked at me, and generally acted the way children do when they would rather be outside playing tag and running about.
I spied Twyla. She wore an expression of profound frazzlement. She sat squeezed between her poker-faced manmates, cuddling her squirming newborn. Something in the arrangement struck me as darkly comical and off-kilter. One speculated at the little family’s home life. One pictured the husbands taking turns at the certain pleasures and duties of their station. One could not help but imagine both male partners secretly wondering if the babe proffered from the plot of their shared wife’s womb looked to be the product of the seed of their own loins, or that of the loins of their whiskered bedfellow.
Of course, I considered, all that awkward ambiguity could be avoided if only Eden switched over to harems.
To this end, I studied the flock in the manner of a shepherd sorting his rams and ewes.
The men appeared to outnumber the women in the church. There were no single white ladies except for my Prudence. (How she must have endured temptation all those years she awaited my prophesized arrival!) My lady had told me that the church had advertised for its male members in mining camps and sailor ports in order to keep up with what she called the demand. Lonesome and otherwise luckless lads applied in droves. These newcomers were warned of the church’s stringent rules and unusual practices, and then, if still willing, they were made to make the promise. I considered this same strategy from a new angle. Perhaps now we could enlist more brides from the mainland in order to turn the clan’s imbalance in the other direction. Perhaps we could even solicit skilled recruits from some of the San Francisco bordellos. Or maybe the island’s local ladies could be conscripted into matrimonial service for the greater good and populationary furtherment of the tribe. The handful of Polynesian beauties sprinkled throughout the crowd sat mostly apart from the others and did not appear to be attached to any of the menfolk.
(I understand that this preoccupation with mating arrangements might seem gratuitous and misguided in light of all else that was going on that day. I can only offer as an excuse the force that had built in my own propagatory machinery and its subsequent tendency to take center stage in a man’s thoughts at even the most inappropriate of times.)
Once the faithful had all filed three by three into the Ark, the doors were closed, and Mosiah made his way to the pulpit.
“Let us sing,” he said, and began waving his arm like the arthritic needle of a metronome.
A lady in the corner started in pounding on an organ.
Oooch!
The instrument was apparently suffering some intestinal distress. Add to that the tone-deaf organist’s unique sense of tempo and minor-leaning note choice, and the resultant bellow and wheeze did not sound so much like a song as it did the plea of a fatally flatulent ox begging to be put out of its misery. To my ear, no discernible tune issued forth from the valve-laden contraption, but the congregation all commenced singing – more or less on cue – and so I figured I would have to develop a more finely tuned aural awareness if I were to ever gain an appreciation for such originalistic (if godawful) music.
The hymn was a composition unique to the Shining Redemption’s singular sense of scriptural legend. It spoke of the greatest women of the Bible, exalting such Amazonian heroines as Moses for her leadership, Solomon for her wisdom, and Noah for so rightfully earning herself such a large portion of the rarified Grace of God during the Great Flood.
As I had formed my original ideas of these notables in my schooldays, it took effort to reimagine them now as female. It was somewhat like performing surgery on the individual characters in my personal pantheon – a gruesome operation in which beards were shorn, testicles lopped off, and breasts stitched onto otherwise masculine chests.
The song ended with a final long gasp from the organ, and then Mosiah, bracing himself on the pulpit, addressed his people.
“Welcome, brothers and sisters,” he began. “May God’s light shine on you each this day.”
The crowd returned his blessing in chorus, “And may God’s light shine on you!”
“It is a special day in the history of our church. After many years of waiting – indeed, after many centuries – it appears the Prophecy will be fulfilled!”
The crowd could not contain its enthusiasm at this news. A din of praises and applause filled the hall. The room seemed to fairly rock with commotion and I shuddered, feeling somewhat sick to my stomach.
“Yes. At last – washed up onto Eden’s shores, in much the same miraculous way as Jonah found herself washed onto the very shores of Nineveh – our messenger has been delivered to us.”
Mosiah turned to me and reached out his arm. “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “I give you…”
He then doddered.
An emerald ray filtered down onto the old man from a window, causing him to appear – from my vantage at least – like an emaciated bullfrog about to leap for a bug.
He held me in hesitating regard.
Ice bullets popped out under my shirt.
I fairly squirmed while waiting for the antediluvian windbag to dispense with his unnerving pomp and finish his damn sentence.
At last, after a resigned sigh, Mosiah squared his shoulders and boomed, “I give you – the Chosen One!”
The room burst into a deafening round of boot stomping and cheers.
Mosiah signaled for me to join him, and so I stood and, wobbly kneed, ambled toward the pulpit.
He slapped my shoulder and shook my hand.
I smiled and waved to the raucous multitude.
The hoots and clapping and hallelujahs continued until the preacher signaled for it to stop.
“Now if all goes well today, Brother Linklater here and my Prudence will become husband and wife in just three days’ time. It should be quite a celebration. After that, as the Prophecy commands, I will be stepping down so that your new pastor can pilot the church as God directs him.”
This announcement was met with some respectful Amens and soft-spoken Bless-yous, but although it seemed the people loved their old prophet well enough, they were obviously eager for a new man to take the tiller.
“It has been quite a journey for us all,” said Mosiah. “Let us never forget the persecutions and ordeals God has helped us to overcome. And let us never forget those who sacrificed so much so that we might carry on.”
From nowhere, Sister Beulah materialized beside us with the jar. Her helper girls followed close at her heels, and then they all three stood next to me and Mosiah.
A hush fell over the room.
“Now we must always be sure,” continued Mosiah, “that it is an honor and privilege to be chosen from the holy jar. We should all take comfort in knowing that it is also a guaranteed passage to paradise for whoever gets drawn, and that our lucky loved one will soon be suckling at the very bosom of God.”
A few heads nodded across the room, resembling colorful water lilies bobbing on a choppy pond.
“Remember also, if you will, our church’s history, and those dark days of hardship and hunger in the wilderness.” The old man’s eyes sparkled. “Remember how my own dear Wilhelmina set an example for us all to follow.” He wiped his nose with a knuckle. “It is the promise of her original sacrifice that we so joyfully commemorate today to show our faith to God.”
Mosiah paused, giving those who understood what the Sam Hill he was talking about some time to contemplate the aforesaid sacrifice.
“Hallelujah!” someone chimed. “Praise be to the Mother of us all!”
“So let whatever man is drawn this day go into our sacred ritual with an upheld head. Let him meet his enviable fate with the noble attitude of Christ as he went unto Golgotha – with a calm and admirable acceptance of his destiny. You may rest assured that God has picked you alone for this high honor, and the Shining Redemption will forever hold you up as an inspiration to those of us continuing on with our earthly struggle.”
Mosiah motioned for Beulah to step forward, and then, grasping my elbow, he urged me to move beside her. He looked into my face and nodded. “May God guide your hand.”
The taller of the two girls moved forward and ceremoniously lifted the lid from the jar, and then she stepped out of the way.
Beulah tipped the pot my direction.
All the ladies in the church ceased waving their fans.
Everyone stopped breathing. The air seemed to have been sucked from out the hall.
I felt myself poised on a moment’s fateful brink – a sensation I cannot say I much enjoyed.
Beulah shook the jar, pointing at it with her bony chin, indicating that I should dispense with my dallying and do my duty.
I dried my palm on my pant leg and then thrust my fist down the monster’s throat, letting it settle among the content’s. The jar felt to be stuffed with dead leaves. I wriggled my fingers amongst them, doing my level best to let God use me as a medium for Her will. Something told me that I did not want to be held solely responsible for whatever choice was about to be made.
After a while, I pinched a folded slip and drew it out.
I peeked sidelong at Prudence. Her rigid posture and fretful expression did nothing to assuage my apprehension.
My pulse began violently squirting through my veins. After all, it must be remembered, my own nouveaunym had recently been added to the nomenclatural miscellany from which I now drew my hand. Knowing how the gods so enjoyed having their fun with me – typically just as I was on the cusp of good fortune – I felt anything but surefire confidence inundating my general attitude.
“Go ahead,” said Mosiah. “Read it for us all to hear.”
I gazed out at the people before me. They looked to have turned into statues. I unfolded the paper, silently repeating in my head the name written thereon.
I gulped.
I wobbled.
I squirmed for what to do.
Then I examined the expectant crowd, struggling to recall names.
With a nervy but decisive warble, I finally announced for all to hear – “Clarence Ackley!”
A hot wind rushed through the Ark right then as everyone let loose their collectively bated breaths.
In the next instant, the members began murmuring and craning around to find the man whose name I had culled. It did not take long to spot him. He sat to the side of his wife and her other husband about half way to the back of the church.
This cherry-picked chap looked to be seized with disbelief. His wife, too, appeared to be suffering some sort of gape-mouthed palsy. Only the other husband appeared at all acceptant of the news. Truth be told, his own comportment was one of barely contained delight. He seemed to be stifling a grin.
“God bless you, Brother,” called Mosiah.
Ackley huffed.
He trembled.
And then all hell broke loose.
TO SAY THAT BROTHER Ackley largely ignored Mosiah’s guidance, and subsequently demonstrated an undignified behavior in acceptance of his fate, would be to err toward euphemism.
The man outright balked.
He jumped to his feet and pointed straight at me. “You snake!” he screamed. “You two-faced, lying devil!”
The congregation recoiled as a unit, so shocked were they by the fellow’s vehement and unseemly resistance to God’s will.
“You ain’t holy!” Ackley continued his rant. “Everyone can see plain enough.” He leered at the crowd for support to this statement. “Can’t you all see?” He glared back my way. “He’s phony as a slug nickel!”
Whether it was because this was an unfair accusation (based on only the slightest farthing of truth), or if it was on account of the blinding relief enjoyed by the other men who had just escaped the dubious honor of being plucked from the holy pot, no one stepped up to defend the wild fellow in his unpopular allegation.
“Now, good Brother,” soothed Mosiah. “You must be calm and accept God’s plan.”
Ackley regarded the old man as if he were crazy. He gawped around at his peers, searching for a friend. Do I put up a fight, he seemed to be asking himself, or do I take flight? When no commiseratorial support could be found, he made a desperate dash for it, stepping up onto his wife’s thighs and launching over her other husband out into the aisle.
“Stop him!” bellowed Mosiah. “Stop him!”
Ackley rushed for the doors.
The men in the church were quick to act. They swarmed from the pews and tackled the absconder before he could break free of the Ark. The throng tumbled forward in a masculine somersault of grunts and flailing limbs. After some general kicking and thrashing about, Ackley ended up belly down with a big man straddling his legs and another sitting astride his back. Others knelt at his sides, pinning his outsplayed arms and pummeling him with their fists.
A pair of young boys circled the ruckus, trying to get a good view of the action.
The rest of the congregation was on its feet, some of them shrieking in horror, while others, it could not be denied, were cheering like patrons at a cockfight. It was a bizarre and unholy scene, albeit one bathed in rainbow light from heaven.
“Careful!” Mosiah’s voice rose above the din. “Be careful with him! We don’t want him bruised!”
This warning reached the aggressors’ ears and they promptly ceased with their drubbing. They held their struggling captive gripped tight and wrestled him to his feet, dragging him to the front of the church and turning the battered fellow so that he faced Mosiah and me at the altar.
Mosiah spread his a
rms to the room and the crowd grew quiet. He peered down from on high at the hunched and panting captive. Ackley hung his head, a shaft of red light illuminating him forebodingly.
“Look up here,” said Mosiah. His voice had grown soft as a dove’s.
Ackley did not look up.
Mosiah sighed. “Brother.” He sadly shook his head. “We envy you. This day God has chosen you above all the rest. Do you not understand what an honor that is? Do you not see how you are fortunate?” He held his hand to the crowd. “Of all the men in Eden, She has blessed you with Her grace on this very special day.”
Mosiah waited for a response, but Ackley only stared at the floor.
The old preacher sighed once more, and said, “Take him to the Waiting Tree.”
Just as they wheeled him around, Ackley lifted his face. Blood leaked down over his mustache. He glared full on into my eyes, teeth gritted, shooting daggers.
I shuddered as I absorbed his hate. I well knew that look. Surely I did. I had seen it more than once in my life, in my fellows, and reflected back to me from windowpanes and mud puddles. It was the ice-cold look of a man who felt he had lost in life’s little crapshoot and was seeking a scapegoat on whom to pass the blame.
They hauled Ackley out of the church.
Mosiah tried to calm the congregation and steer the Ark’s mood from the dismal turn it had taken back to one of lighthearted joy. “Let us pray for our fortunate brother.”
He led the clan in an uplifting orison unto God, extolling, as was his wont, the virtues of submission to Her will.
I stood at his shoulder, head bowed. But I was not paying much attention to the details of his prayer. My mind was too distracted with sorting the jetsam of my own thoughts – of the afore-occurring events, and of my questionably blessed role in their unwinding. I suppose it could be said I was suffering the slightest inkling of doubt – a suspicion that my preceding actions had been somewhat ill conceived.
I peeked down at the stub of paper still held squeezed in my fist. I furtively opened it up and reread the name there written.
Fortuna and the Scapegrace Page 24
