by Paul Theroux
Stacy made a face at the words and Willie snuffled.
‘And there’s lamb,’ Millroy said. ‘But I am looking for guidance about it. I wonder, do we really want to kill animals and bury their carcasses in our bodies?’
When they left that night to go back to Roxbury, Millroy said, ‘This is not a job. This is a life.’
And if there was anything they needed they should ask him, not their own folks. Next morning Stacy needed a blouse and Willie needed new shoes, and Millroy bought us all warm sweaters. The diner was still not open for business, but there was work to do – the putting away, the setting up, the training – serving Millroy as though he was a customer.
‘Your folks ever ask you where you’re going?’ Millroy asked, after a few days of our working together.
A little awkwardly and guiltily they said that they had quit school around the time they had started appearing on Paradise Park.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Millroy said. ‘That’s why you smell so good.’
There were shadows on the wall – people on the sidewalk looking through the front window at Millroy hugging us.
‘Willie, you’re a Day One Son,’ he said. ‘Stacy, you’re a Day One Daughter.’
And that evening just before they left, Millroy said, ‘Know anyone else your age who’s hungry?’
They brought Berry and Kayla, the brother and sister from Paradise Park, and Kayla’s friend, Mickey, a tall girl with lovely eyelashes and a soft way of speaking. Millroy said that Berry and Kayla could be a Son and Daughter, but that Mickey would not be able to stay. He did not give a reason.
After she left Millroy said, ‘She was gaseous. I was monitoring her emissions.’
Willie’s mouth was fixed in a smile that said What?
‘I smelled her.’
With five of us working, Millroy began taking afternoons off, saying, ‘I’m going to the station’ – his new show, nothing to do with us, not on the air, but still rehearsing. He would be away for a few hours, or sometimes all afternoon. Once he returned to the diner saying, ‘Restroom,’ and went into the back and locked himself in. Just before he set off for the station again, he said, ‘Never call it a toilet. Makes you think of “toil.” ’
‘I’m glad I’m here,’ Stacy said. ‘I need to spend more time around someone like Uncle Dick.’
But he was not called that. He was Millroy the Magician once more, with a new TV show, which would be back on the air soon. I knew nothing more about it, except that it was almost ready.
The Day One Diner was almost ready, too. Everything was in place except the neon sign on the roof. The larder was full of food, and so was the hatchway cellar – full of sacks of beans and flour, and barrels of dried fruit – which was reached through a trapdoor in the kitchen floor. Nearly all our pots and pans were put away, the plates and bowls were stacked in cupboards. We had seats for sixty-four people – twenty at the counter where there were high chairs (‘Never call them stools’) and the rest at tables. We had Day One place mats and Day One menus, the Book tag tea, and Book quote napkins.
Often, students from UMass, or people from the Armory or the Greyhound station, appeared outside at the door looking hungry, and they knocked and gestured, asking to be let in. At lunchtime there might be as many as ten of them, motioning and making faces. But we pointed to the sign Opening Soon, and we smiled like Sons and Daughters, as Millroy had told us to.
But the people sometimes got angry, seeing us inside eating.
‘Can’t be helped,’ Millroy said. ‘We can’t open until the TV show starts.’
‘You’re smiling, Big Guy.’
‘I have just realized why I was put on earth,’ Millroy said.
His happiness made him especially kind and generous to us during this waiting period. He worked magic for us, produced presents of clothes and money, or just tricks to amaze us, and he showed us how to strengthen our muscles. These days, Willie Webb and Berry were saying, Punch me in the stomach, and they called the diner the ‘Day-Oh.’ Millroy showed them how to get control of their bodies, and saying that speaking was also a bodily function, he corrected their pronunciation when they said axe him and thow it and thang and akohol.
We worked, we practised, we ate, we waited. The Sons and Daughters came in the morning and left in the evening. Millroy and I lived in the back, each in our own cupboard space, with the shutters pulled down. Millroy had no more nightmares of black crabs. But when we were alone Millroy often said to me, ‘I don’t know what I would do without you, angel.’
One Saturday Millroy was gone from early morning until late at night. The Sons and Daughters hung around and did not eat until he came back. It shocked me that Millroy did not eat. He said he was too tired for that. He was exhausted and hollow-eyed, his baldness very white and his mustache limp, the way he looked after performing a difficult or dangerous feat of magic. But he was smiling.
‘Tomorrow is Day One,’ he said.
So it was going to be one of those Sunday morning shows. The Sons and Daughters arrived early. Millroy sat us down in the diner and he plugged in the TV. He manipulated the remote switch, got Festival of Faith and then The Hour of Power with the Reverend Richard Schumacher, and Praise the Lord and Jimmy Swaggart Gospels and Healing Prayer, and a flicker of a show called The Prayer Fair, and a glimpse of the Reverend Baby Huber. And then he found what he was looking for.
There was first white lettering on the black screen: The Following Program has been paid for by the Day One Ministries.
‘No one owns me,’ Millroy said. ‘No one can pull the chain on me this time.’
24
My name is Millroy and I am a messenger, he said.
He leaned his wide bright face into the bigness of the TV screen.
I was once so fat I was imprisoned in the darkness of my body – trapped in my own fatness. Every day was a living hell, and I suffered just like you. But the Lord spoke to me saying, ‘Change your ways, Fatso!’
He laughed a little and went on, I was reborn and assumed the shape of this body you see before you –
Now you could see more of him – his health, his strength – and he smiled beautifully, showing his white teeth.
I have eaten some real strange items in my time, he went on, pushing his face against the screen.
The other Millroy here at the diner moved his face closer to watch himself on the TV set.
Put some real strange things into my mouth, he said. Like this –
He stuck his fingers under his mustache, then into his mouth, and detached his tongue. The tongue was big and pink, like a baby’s arm, and after he examined the thing it vanished among his busy fingers.
Or this, he said, his face flickering on the screen and with both hands he removed a live chicken from his mouth.
It was Boobie, with all her feathers fussed. I recognized her confused and goggling eyes and the way she kept ducking her head.
But like I say, I have a message for you, Millroy said.
And here was our own Millroy in the diner watching him, face to face, his real nose aimed at his shimmering TV nose. He was smiling, admiring, chuckling softly, nodding as though to say So true of his own personal revelations, and that was the best part of it for me: he liked what he saw.
Willie said, ‘Was that your real tongue?’
‘Cow’s tongue,’ Millroy said. ‘People eat them. But pay attention.’
Millroy on television was plucking a toad from his mouth.
‘This is, like, so gross,’ Kayla said.
‘They wanted an arresting opening,’ Millroy said. ‘Something punchy.’
And I have seen some strange items that go under the name of food.
Millroy the Messenger, working the nozzle of a stomach pump up his nose, began to squeeze the plunger, and his mouth was at once full, his cheeks bulging. He bowed his head and loosed a whole bloody hamburger onto
a plate and then spat a bundle of french fries next to it.
These will not satisfy –
He yanked the tube from his nose, he put the bulb and the rubber housing of the stomach plunger down.
– nor will they nourish.
‘Something memorable, they said.’
Berry and Willie were shaking, their hands over their mouths, eyes popping, trying not to laugh out loud. Stacy’s mouth gaped open. Kayla was watching through her fingers.
Now this message –
He was pointing to a book the size of the Boston telephone directory, about five inches thick, with a sunny Day One cover and looking like it weighed fifteen pounds.
– this message is going to let you live for two hundred years or more.
That was when the music started, blaring sunrise music – trumpets and roosters, and a movie of dawn coming up that was both egg-like and spiritual. Millroy’s face formed out of the yolk of the sun.
He was alone on a stage set that could have been either a kitchen or part of a church. The counter looked like an altar, the flowers looked edible, the cookware shone like church paraphernalia, and was that the Book or just a big cookbook?
But he did not mention the Book, no scriptures at all, no God, no Good. No youngsters either, no puppets, no films, no cartoons, no pictures even, hardly any props, nothing at first except Millroy. But it was not Millroy the Magician, and it was not Uncle Dick. He was different, yet he was someone I knew – Millroy the Messenger.
I have seen, he said. And I have seen –
And still talking but without glancing down he removed a shoelace from one of his sneakers, turned the shoelace into a snake, made it go rigid until it stiffened into a rod, which he twirled, leaned on, upturned and set alight, letting it burn like a taper and then, holding it like a roman candle, let it burst, ball after flaming ball, until there was nothing but a puff of smoke in his palm. He had not blinked.
I want to talk a little about the darkness of the body –
His right hand had been singed and blackened by the explosion. Staring at the camera, he reached down and detached the burned hand at the wrist, and when he clutched it turned it into a small bud which tremblingly bloomed – a pure white rose which he poked into his lapel with his new hand.
We can do a whole lot better than that, he was saying.
All this time he had been talking, but not about these tricks – he performed magic the way someone might scratch his head. With so much happening all at once it was hard to keep track of what he was saying, and the effect was hypnotic. What made my eyes like pinwheels – and the others’ too – was the magic and talk at the same time, because when the magic stopped we were paying attention, holding to the arms of our chairs with sweaty hands.
Part of the magic also was that Millroy had pushed so far forward he seemed to be slightly outside the screen and bulging into the room, making things happen. It was all action and suspense, and the flow of his steady voice, the man juggling and at the same time preaching.
Listen and be happy, be healthy and prepare to live on earth for two centuries. Forget everything you ever learned. We are going to have a real good time.
A moment later, he said, I am not a magician. I am not a prophet or a priest. I am not a saint or a miracle worker.
As soon as he said this you thought, Yes, you are!
I am a messenger.
Beside me in the diner, Millroy turned from looking at the TV screen to glance at the others, the Day One Sons and Daughters – Willie Webb smiling, Stacy still with her hands over her face, Berry frowning, Kayla shaking her head. Then Millroy looked back at the face on the screen, and he sat there fascinated, as though he was seeing it all for the first time, his Day One Program.
Moving his hands – you could not tell whether this was magic or just TV tidiness – he made some dishes of food appear – soups and fruits, nuts and grains, jars of honey, the thick reddish sludgy cereal he called pottage.
I was sick and I became well, he was saying. I was weak and became strong. I was fat and I became thin.
Up popped some more food – cucumbers and onions in baskets, grapes, melons, figs, corn and beans.
And when I speak of being sick I don’t mean some vague and obscure and oblique illness of the spirit that you shoo out of your system by praying, he said. I mean I felt plain rotten – fat, stupid, sick and lost. I can be specific. A weightlifter needs eight thousand calories a day. I didn’t.
He leaned into the camera again, his face filling the screen.
My bowel transit-time was seventy-two hours, minimum.
He stepped back and smoothed the cover of the big nameless book, and tapped it, but did not open it. The cover of the book was like a trap-door that he had decided not to lift.
The phrase ‘full-figured’ covers a multitude of errors, he was saying. But this book changed me. I read it and I got strong, I got healthy, I got righteous, and I got thin. When I tell you it was a kind of purification I am speaking the literal truth.
He let this sink in – he smiled, and shutting his eyes he seemed to be reflecting on a miracle. And then he became forceful.
Pretty soon I could do this.
He punched himself in the stomach so hard it sounded as though he was punching a wall – you could hear the thud.
And from his seat beside me in the diner, Millroy hitched his chair and watched with real pleasure.
I don’t want to blind you with abstractions. When I say your bowels shall sound like a harp I mean just that – like the Book says. Heavenly music from a healthy colon. Now look at this.
And he scooped some food from two of the bowls on the counter in front of him.
This is what I am talking about. A piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. Sound familiar? It sure will be when I’ve delivered the whole of my message. They taste great and they’re good for you, body and soul. Bring you back from the dead –
He touched the book, and the book was so square and solid it was as though Millroy was steadying himself with it. And he swallowed the food he had been chewing.
Who ate this in remarkable circumstances? The mystery man, who revealed himself to two strangers, when he took a loaf of bread –
Millroy did this with one of the Ezekiel loaves.
– and tore it apart to eat.
‘Road to Emmaus,’ I said. He had explained the Day One Diner menu to us, and which parts of the Book had inspired the dishes.
Instead of eating the hunk of bread, he used it to gesture to the other baskets and bowls.
What have we here? Cucumbers, leeks, melons, garlic, grain, pulses and pottages –
Fuddling some more, he conjured a spoon from his cuff and worked it around one of the bowls, pushing the thick mixture, and then lifting it to his mouth and tasting it. You could hear him swallowing and gulping into the microphone, popping and snapping like thick oatmeal on the boil.
Eat this for ten days and you’ll be fair and healthy. A man once ate this, and just by eating this lentil pottage he became greater than all the magicians and astrologers. He did not want to be defiled by eating flesh. He knew a thing or two about fiber. This gave him strength. Wouldn’t that make you want to try it?
‘Yo. Daniel,’ Willie Webb said. That was also on the Day One Diner menu.
Millroy smiled at him and turned to the screen, where the other Millroy was placing his hand on that slab of a book.
It’s all here, he said, and took up the bread hunk and the jug of water. How a man ate this and was so strengthened by this one meal that he journeyed for forty days and forty nights.
Stacy said, ‘Elijah the Tishbite.’
Tapping the big book again, Millroy said, It is all in this book. And the book advises roughage and bulk. That’s why so much of this food resembles wood chips and bark mulch. But never mind, it is delicious. And it is the
secret of life.
He tilted his head again and came closer and now he was glowing in the room again.
I want you to come with me. Let me take you away to a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey – a land called America. And if you eat –
Lifting a honeycomb to his mouth, his fingers thick and gleaming with its dripping syrup, he parted his lips, tested it with his probing tongue and then took a bite of its yellow sparkle.
Gosh, this is good! he said, interrupting himself. And if you eat this food you will never die.
He chewed the honeycomb again and the sound in the microphone was of chunklets of honey, sweet and crystallized, bursting against his teeth and slipping down his throat.
When I say ‘not die,’ I mean live for two hundred years. That should be your goal.
Now his teeth tugged on something chewier than the honeycomb.
Figs are nice too. Lots of figs in this book.
‘Nahum,’ said Berry.
Listen, there’s a recipe for bread in this book. Shall we make some and see how it tastes?
Instead of lifting the book, he cranked himself around and heaved open its heavy cover, then flicked pages until he found what he wanted, patting that page with the flat of his hand.
Take wheat, barley, beans and lentils, he said, measuring cupfuls of them and sprinkling them into an earthenware pot. He was still reading. And millet and fitches, and mix them in a bowl.
‘Got to be Ezekiel,’ Willie said.
Millroy plopped and turned the mixture with a spoon, and added some water and scooped it some more.
No eggs. Is there any taste in the white of an egg? He tapped the book. The answer is no.
He shoved the bowl into the oven behind him, then said something that might have been a prayer, or the sort of pronouncement he called a ‘mutterance’ that he mumbled over his magic.
Bread, he said, removing the earthenware pot, and he broke off a hunk and ate it.
All you could hear for the next few moments was the chomping of Millroy’s chewing, like a back-hoe hacking a hole in wet sand.
