Just as we were bringing the fire under control, a helicopter arrived from the east. Out jumped Thor Ohnstad, accompanied by a cameraman shooting for The Morning Show. Needless to say, Sheila and I were embarrassed to be caught on national television with our pants down. Our legs were covered with hives and mosquito bites. The poison ivy, oak, and sumac wouldn’t present for another day.
“We’ve had a search party out for you guys,” said Ohnstad. “We saw smoke from the air. You’re in luck. But hope we didn’t interrupt some primal ritual.” He gestured toward our state of undress and chuckled.
“Not what you think, Thor!” Sheila protested. Of course I wished she and I had been so engaged. We put our scorched pants back on and got in the helicopter, where we gave the nation an account of our shamanic journey to the Plant Spirit Underworld and the latest sighting of the Cardiff Giant.
Sheila pronounced the outing a success. As we disembarked, she said, “Jack, I’m on my way to becoming a whole Huron, reclaiming my ancestral identity. We were rescued because the Plant Spirits reminded us of the most primal means of communication.”
“What’s that?”
“Surely you must know, Jack. The language of my people—smoke signals!”
— Chapter Eleven —
HOLY RAVIOLI
Back at Bassett Hospital, Sheila and I were diagnosed with mild cases of West Nile virus. Lying in my bed with yet another IV attached, I had time to reflect a bit on these people and the string of calamitous events I’d witnessed so far. I’d already been shaken out of my inveterate lethargy. It hadn’t taken all that much—just curiosity, erotic yearning, and a limited suspension of the natural order.
The yearning for Sheila was like the ignition of an energy reserve I hadn’t known about. It was one of those first-sight infatuations now spreading heat through my frame whether I wanted it or not. She was a wholly inappropriate object of my lust—a celibate, after all. And we were incompatible up and down the line. How could I pretend much longer to honor her solemn New Age investments? She was always talking about energy, and I sensed she had her own reserve. Something I didn’t understand was making her a walking paradox: a worshipper of energy who, with little humor, kept it in check. I wanted to know why.
Esther too was an enigma. How could such an intelligent person buy into so robotic an application of the Kabbalah, a mystical tradition esteemed by many notables, including Harold Bloom. It was one thing for a benighted diva to follow her horoscope to the letter or a redneck to believe in alien abduction. It was another for an enlightened psychoanalyst to live her life—from romance to professional practice—in terms of the tetragrammaton, gematria, and kellipots.
Does the human brain have a special compartment for the absurd—one that doesn’t interfere with other synapses that are making efficient connections with the real world? These people were paying mightily when the real world of poison ivy, fungus, and amoebic dysentery put a kibosh on harebrained notions. They went on believing. Counter-evidence be damned.
Well, it was difficult to admit but now a portion of my own brain had been set aside for the paranormal—in the reanimation, or whatever it was, of the Cardiff Giant. Since this was perking me up in its own way, I didn’t reason much about it. On some level I too wished to believe.
I had a partial explanation for Sheila and Esther—they both felt deprived of a full primal identity—Indian and Jewish—and maybe found supplements in hocus-pocus. And come to think of it, I’d arrived in Cooperstown thinking I too was a fragment of a larger personality. But now I could say “Jack Thrasher, Jack Thrasher, Jack Thrasher” to myself and feel that more was accreting around the name, that at last it was beginning to mean something.
The greatest enigma, though, was Thor Ohnstad. Beneath the ready but facile sarcasm lurked something more substantial and maybe more sinister, or so I intuited. He was smart, he was the rationalist, he satirized the weak pates of others. But he himself didn’t add up. What was the source of his obnoxious nosiness? Why did he take such an interest in me, Sheila, and Esther? Again, I assumed it was something in his past and I was curious. I owed him much for setting me up with Esther and Sheila, but why had he gone to the trouble? This too was an identity enigma. Who was Thor Ohnstad?
Sheila and I improved rapidly. I by eating lots of institutional chicken soup and she by communing with the hospital poinsettia. I declined to tell her that these out-of-season poinsettia were rubber, hoping that fakes might trigger a placebo effect.
The triple scourge of poison ivy, oak, and sumac proved more resistant to treatment. The dermatology department asked if they could photograph us in the nude for the pathology archives. We had made medical history. I said yes, Sheila said certainly not. We were discharged Friday morning with a six-pack of calamine lotion and told to stay out of the woods.
That evening we dined at the Otesaga with Esther, Tony Homero, and Hazel Bouche. The two celebs continued to occasion gossip, having been seen together at the Horned Dorset, an expensive regional restaurant, and at the annual sheep dog trials, where people beguiled the hours watching sheep dogs chase sheep. These trials induced a stupor not unlike a hypnotic trance. Homero claimed to be the world authority on sheep dogs, having owned one, while Bouche claimed to be the world authority on French regional cuisine, having eaten some. Yes, they were a perfect match.
Still, I had my suspicions and was on edge to monitor Sheila’s response to Homero. The holder of baseball records and winner of tango competitions also had theological expertise. Mariolatry had been drilled into him at an early age by Carmelite nuns.
“Do you know how Mary, mother of God, got pregnant?” he asked before we’d had time to adjust our napkins.
“The usual method, of course,” said Sheila, for whom New Age didn’t include virgin birth. She was laughing as she looked up at him. This gave me pause because she rarely laughed. Already she and Homero were talking about sex, maybe sending signals?
“No, there’s a painting at my church that shows how it got done. Semen poured out of God’s mouth through a long tube that went up Mary’s skirt. That’s the Immaculate Conception.”
“That’s disgusting!” said Esther.
“But no evidence against it,” I opined.
The Jew in her protested. “Yes, there is evidence. If Mary died a virgin, how do you account for Jesus’s brothers and sisters?”
Homero looked stumped. I graciously intervened. “We all should know the answer. They were only half-siblings—Joseph’s kids by another woman before he married Mary.”
Homero pounded the table. “Yeah, Jack. You tell ’em, goombah. And anyways Mary didn’t die a virgin because she didn’t die. She got, uh, transumped into heaven, body and soul. She’s still up there, hasn’t aged a minute.”
Raised a Southern Baptist, Bouche chimed in. “Yes, she’s in the constellation Virgo. You can see her with the naked eye.” I thought she must get chilly up there, and what did she do for air?
Esther was squirming, and it wasn’t only her fungus. You can write an entire book on the Kabbalah and never mention Jesus or Mary. It’s been said, aptly, that Christianity is to Kabbalah what vinegar is to oil. She changed the subject.
“You guys look a mess,” she said to Sheila and me, covered as we were with calamine lotion. “Did you expect anybody to believe why you weren’t wearing pants?” Esther spoke in jest, but there was spleen attached. Sheila, jolted, dropped her napkin, and I watched from her left side as Homero, sitting to her right, picked it up and returned it to her lap. I was sure his large left hand brushed her thigh.
“Thanks, Tony. No, Esther, you know I wouldn’t butt in on your little thing. Jack’s all yours.”
Was her use of “butt” another signal to Homero? And “little thing,” hmmm. Of course, you know by now that I didn’t wish to be all Esther’s. I wished to be all Sheila’s.
“The Kabbalah teaches that nobody belongs to another. Jack’s as much yours as he is mine.”
Sheila
once again dropped her napkin, and I watched Homero again pick it up and slyly brush along her thigh and maybe her belly. I swear I saw her wriggle a bit in response.
Thor Ohnstad passed by our table and recommended the homemade lobster ravioli. He had hired a new chef with great pasta credentials away from a restaurant in Little Italy. There was a surplus of the ravioli because many hotel guests had departed earlier that day, fleeing the West Nile virus.
“Sheila,” he chortled, “did you expect anybody to believe why you and Jack weren’t wearing pants?”
In response to this witless remark, Sheila yet again dropped her napkin. Ohnstad and Homero both went for it, Homero winning out and again marking territory.
What happened next is for the history books. Well, this is a history book. The ravioli arrived and Homero fell over backward in his chair, his head thumping the floor. He picked himself up and announced, “The face of Mel Gibson is in my ravioli!”
We all looked at his plate. Sure enough, one piece of ravioli was notably larger than the others and irregular in shape. There, in semi-profile, was the canonical face of Mel Gibson.
“Praise the Lord,” cried Bouche and Homero simultaneously. “It’s a miracle!” Other guests in the dining room gathered round to witness the ravioli. “Let’s call in the bishop!” declared Homero.
Ohnstad approached and confirmed that it did look like Mel Gibson. “I’ll inform Tabby and Harris—this could be good publicity.”
Meanwhile, even spiritual people need to eat. Homero ate the adjacent lay ravioli, leaving only the holy ravioli at the center of his plate. “Waiter, bring me some Saran Wrap and a doggie bag. I’m taking this here to the church.”
We all piled into his Lincoln Town Car, chauffeur at the ready, for the quick ride to St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church on Elm Street.
Homero strutted down the aisle and got the attention of a young priest conducting evening mass in his running shoes. “Father, behold this ravioli. See, it’s the goddam face of Mel Gibson. Declare a miracle.”
This the priest promptly did, repeating the declaration to the mass media upon the arrival of Tabby and Harris, attended by their crew. Thus, they—not I—first broadcast the remarkable news. But I was an eyewitness to the event, and this cheered my Discovery Channel producers.
Within hours of the installation of the Holy Ravioli, the faithful began to queue up for a look. Soon the line stretched all the way down Elm Street and around the corner. And as you undoubtedly already know if you have read other histories of the period, this was only the beginning. The church received a congratulatory phone call from the president of the United States, hoping to curry favor with Catholics in time for his reelection. All the major networks and CNN gave it top billing. More than one hundred websites sprouted. After five days an entire town-within-the-town sprang up, taking over the Otsego County Fairgrounds.
Describing this community will tax my powers of narration. John Bunyan’s Vanity Fair couldn’t hold a candle to this assortment of tents, campers, trailers, SUVs, and painted vans taken off cinderblocks for the occasion. You might call it a microcosm of the whole damned human race in the early twenty-first century, more than two centuries after Voltaire, Gibbon, and Diderot declared an end to miracles. Though predominantly Christian, the population embraced a wealth of collateral beliefs and practices.
Ohnstad and I walked through the fairgrounds one evening, entering the stadium where auto demolition derbies were normally held.
“It’s boosted the economy just when we needed it. These people aren’t scared of the West Nile virus,” he said.
“No, they’re immune by grace of God.”
Many had come seeking cures. Television networks had crews and reporters lined up at the church exit to get firsthand testimonials. “Look, Pam, my feet aren’t flat no longer. Thank you, Mel.” “The bursitis is practically gone, dear Lordy.” “The hair loss has abated. Praise you, Mel, and you too, Jesus.”
The statue of Mary to the left of the central apse began weeping crystal tears.
In the gloaming, Ohnstad and I made our way through the makeshift town, where people already had their miniature yards festooned with rubbish. Like was seeking out like. Over charcoal grills and amid the stench of lighter fluid, groups huddled according to their convictions. In one corner we encountered spiritualists trying to raise a card table. In another, tattooists were offering indelible images of the Blessed Virgin at reduced rates. Satanists were performing a black mass with sluggish copulations on an improvised cardboard altar. Psychics were peering into purple balls while monitoring reality television. An Alien Abduction Focus Group swapped stories and scanned the sky. New Age devotees stood in their underwear and gauged one another’s chakras and meridians. There was no water underfoot, so dowsers sought out the Devil’s footprints. A rusty trailer became a studio for Kirlian photography where hawkers guaranteed orange auras and a halo to boot. The colonic irrigation folk were on the perimeter, close to the public facilities. Five channelers were competing for Queen Cleopatra—all went into trances and emitted her voice, though how she was able to converse simultaneously on five different frequencies was beyond me. Many others were getting calls from the dead over cell phones. “Hey, Louie, it’s for you—your mama. She sounds pissed.”
Transcending such focus groups, the universal human practices of spouse swapping, buggery, larceny, fibbing, braggadocio, drunkenness, gluttony, and flatulence were much in evidence.
Perhaps I sound a little moralistic, even elitist. But remember I’m a reporter and give you only the facts as I observe them, without garnish or inflation. And in no way do I mean to scuttle these various enterprises and belief systems—I try to keep an open mind. My touchstone is Hamlet’s caveat to Horatio, that there are more things in heaven and earth . . . You know the rest.
Remember, I myself had come to believe in the Cardiff Giant, at least in some measure. If he was one of those “things,” surely there were others.
Thor Ohnstad and I were waxing philosophic as we waded through this human fen. “Do you think science and religion are necessarily at odds, Thor?”
“Well, sport, just between us, I take a dim view of religion. Unusual in a businessman, I know. But I’d rather hear an inspirational speaker tout the higher mission of a cutlery company than suffer through a prayer breakfast.”
“My hunch is that the paranormal isn’t in quite the same bailiwick with religion. You can test paranormal claims. Does ESP work? Is that really your dead mother’s voice on the answering machine?”
“Yes, but how do these differ from religious-nut claims?” he asked. “Can’t we test whether that rube was cured of flat feet? Just look at his feet! Can’t we test whether prayer works? Just see if ten hours of fervent prayer can pop a pimple!” Ohnstad was warming to the topic. “I lump the paranormal and the religious together—it’s all superstition. Richard Dawkins agrees with me. That’s not to say they’re worthless—the human race needs its superstitions to get through the day. Just look at our women!”
“Our women?”
“Yes—I mean your women now. Sheila. Esther. Their noodles are full of stuff and nonsense. Why did that happen?”
“Why indeed?”
“Blame some of it on suffering and deprivation at an early age—that furrier father,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that, we can be sure.”
“They give him very bad press.”
“Sheila’s down on men. Guess she makes some kind of exception for you.”
“Not really,” I sighed.
He paused, then asked, “Have you noticed she seems to make an exception for Homero too? Unlikely, I know, but there’s evidence.”
“What do you mean?” I was getting nervous.
“You saw them tango. That buffoon touched a button our girl’s kept in hiding for years. Did you see her dropping her napkin at dinner? Maybe doing it on purpose so he’d pick it up?”
“Any evidence they’ve been seeing each other
. . . or sleeping together?” I asked this with fake nonchalance and held my breath.
“Not sure what’s going on there. No nasty with Homero for the past few days at least. You were in the woods with her, then the hospital. But earlier I was having trouble getting hold of her—she wasn’t picking up. Has that place by herself out in Cherry Valley, you know. And—come to think of it—those were the same times I was having trouble getting hold of Homero. Could be one of those improbable liaisons founded on lust alone. I’ve always felt Sheila conceals a volcano—no telling who might tap it. Maybe some lucky rube like Homero. You never know.”
I listened in loathing and despair. Volcano? That’s the same metaphor that had occurred to me. Move over, Othello. At least the Moor made the two-backed beast with Desdemona. I hadn’t got to first base with Sheila.
Blame this last metaphor on Homero. The next day would bring his induction into the Hall of Fame. Then, he would have no excuse to stay in Cooperstown.
I prayed for his departure.
— Chapter Twelve —
THE INDUCTION
Harris: “Tabby and Harris here for your Sunday morning cornmeal with navy beans and bacon. No recent sightings of the Cardiff Giant, but this is a great day for Cooperstown and the American Dream. Four players will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, including Tony ‘the Bat’ Homero, whose baseball fame has been happily overshadowed by his discovery of the Holy Ravioli. I’m honored to emcee the induction. Cooperstown has risen from a one- to a two-fold Mecca. Whether you’re a baseball buff or a Mel Gibson afficionado, you’ll find the right stuff in our little village.”
A record thirty-two thousand people crammed into the Clark Sports Center at 1:30 p.m. for the ceremony. The numbers swelled because many squatters at the county fairground had tired of follow-up audiences with the Holy Ravioli and were looking around for more action. The governor and baseball commissioner were in attendance, sitting on a platform along with thirty-three grizzled veteran Hall of Famers, four corpulent inductees, one Hazel Bouche, one Thor Ohnstad, and one Harris Scalia. I was standing under a hot sun with Sheila and Esther—all of us still scratching at residual hives, fungus, blisters, and mosquito bites.
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