CHAPTER SIX
In the Map Room
Marilyn hadn’t been sleeping well in over a week as she thought about Max Rosenbaum’s request and something else, too, something that was running underneath the surface, just below where she could see it. Sometimes, after hours spent fighting insomnia, she would roam restlessly out of her body and, peering from her bedroom ceiling, she would look down on her form, a lump under a peach-colored chenille bedspread, and shake her head impatiently and then just as suddenly fall back into her body with a shock that would leave her nerves jangled for hours. When she did sleep, her dreams rushed by in an uneasy torrent and in the morning she would try over-black coffee to make sense of them but it was like trying to hold water in your hands.
Rowley, her mixed spaniel-and-border collie, would look up at her, his tawny eyes cautious, from his worn sheepskin bed in a cardboard box near the kitchen door. Rowley adored Marilyn but he could smell when one of her changes was coming on, it was like something was burning somewhere just under her skin, and it made him ache for his mistress. He knew she couldn’t help the things that could then happen, she was more creature than human, and Rowley felt a fierce protectiveness because of it. Marilyn had found him abandoned in an alley near where they lived together some seven years ago and Rowley never forgot the first smell of her fingers when she picked his half-starved puppy body up and carried it home.
On Friday night, she tossed and turned and when an elephant charged in her dream she saw his foot coming down on a small vial and she screamed. So neither she nor Rowley were too surprised when her favorite painting, a little grey circus elephant with a bright blue background hand-done by her great aunt who had gone into the orders at twelve, leapt off the wall and burst from its frame right in front of them. When Marilyn came home from work that late Saturday afternoon, the elephant canvas was splayed on one side of her orange covered couch and the walnut wood frame in four pieces on the other, just as it had been when it flew off the wall that morning while she drank her first cup of coffee. She hadn’t imagined it, like she had told herself all day. The dog was staying well away from the mess, and the way he cocked his head to one side, his ears half pricked up as if to say, “What’s next?” It was then that Marilyn made up her mind to call the professor. She picked up the receiver on her cheap black desk phone and dialed the numbers, the round dial clicking with each rotation of her finger, and waited for his voice. A shiver ran down her spine. Another week of troubled sleep and her second floor duplex in the cut-up old house would be a shambles, she knew from experience. At sixteen in the throes of her first love gone wrong when she and her mother lived here the whole place had nearly exploded, candy dish, pickle jar, family pictures, perfume bottle, one night even a shoe flew through the air. And to a lesser extent the same thing had happened when her mother had finally shuffled off the mortal coil some fifteen years later, wheezing her last breath in the bed that Marilyn now tossed and turned in. Something was stirring, so perhaps if she helped this professor with his peculiar work he could help her feel more normal or at least keep her home from becoming a wreckage site.
Max drove a ’66 pale green Impala, a throwback from happier days when, as a young professor with a devoted wife, he had bought himself what seemed like a slightly racy car because he, Max Rosenbaum, was going places. Now it rumbled down North Street away from the shabby houses and seemed very much like just another aging car in this neighborhood except for the fact that Marilyn, still her in waitress uniform but also with a coral silk scarf wrapped glamorously around her dark hair, smoking a cigarette out of the lowered window, was perched in the front seat. Max punched a button on the radio and someone was singing a shivery longing ballad and the air felt damply warm with spring and possibilities.
“I don’t know if St. Pat’s carnival is still going but if it is we could stop by and say hi to your pal Father W.,” she offered languidly as the car pulled up to the intersection of Eldorado. The sun had just set, leaving a syrupy twilight, and the sky was that beautiful darkening blue that always reminded Max of a velvety carpet.
“My pal?” he said in a sort of wise-ass way but his smile was warm so it that took any sting out of it. “Whatever the lady wants, the lady gets.” Inside he wondered if she wanted to let Father Weston know that she was talking to him just in case. In case of what, he thought, but suppressed the familiar doubt and fear that now bubbled up anytime he approached the kind of study that had once made him famous.
The parish and school grounds were full of booths, and a tent and the big old-fashioned strings of outdoor lights and Japanese lanterns crisscrossing the asphalt made a gay little scene as they neared, but the cars were thinning and it seemed mostly over. A panel truck inexplicably roared out of the school driveway and ran the red light as Max laid on the horn like any good ex-Chicago driver might. “Who the hell is that?” he shouted, scared as the truck kept speeding away from them. Marilyn shrugged, her eyes narrowing, a quiver in her heart as she saw a large man turning lightning quick towards Father Troy and a couple. His back was to her as they called to him but it was like she knew by heart the distance between his shoulder blades and the way his waist tapered. She shivered; shaking it off, the night was cooling down, that was all.
Suddenly Father Weston in a long black frock and roman collar was standing leaning into the car.
“Carnival’s over, kids. I could use an old fashioned in the worst way. What are those people waving at me for? Good God, Father Troy, he is a real lily of the valley. You should see his latest project. If you’re up for talking I’ll be at the Brown Jug later. Bless you and be careful.” Father W winked at Marilyn then and turned, heading towards a little cluster of people near the Parish office. The big man broke from the little crowd just then and started loping back across the playground towards them. To get Father W? It was hard to tell, but Max wasting no time had put the car in reverse and pulled away out onto Eldorado Street.
Max headed towards campus weaving his way through the long line of cars and Chevy trucks cruising aimlessly up and down the main drag and managed to look just once in his rear-view mirror for anyone following.
The visiting Professor Rosenbaum had keys to only one building on campus, the old liberal arts and science building, built of red brick in 1901, the year the small university was founded by liberal minded Presbyterians. On a Saturday night the whole campus was pretty much empty except for the two modern dorms on the far side of the athletic field. Max swung his car confidently up to the visitor spot next to the liberal arts building and quickly got out so he could open Marilyn’s passenger side door. Flowering trees had been planted decades ago and the smell of pink crabapples just blooming filled the air. Marilyn sat for a moment before she got out pretending to enjoy their scent as she thought over why she had decided on an impulse to trust someone she barely knew in this way.
“Come on, we’ll go to the Map Room, no-one ever goes there,” he said, and she could tell by the way he offered her his hand when she got out -- cool, dry but with the faintest throb in the fleshy part of his thumb joint -- that he was a little nervous too and trying to cover it up.
Charlesworth University’s Map Room was a sort of magical place for Decatur, Illinois. It had two long leaded glass windows that could open at the bottom for fresh air, so the room while old never felt musty. There was a long library-type table with the classic green glass-shaded lamp, a big atlas on a book stand, and two or three cracked leather chairs. Maps of the world could be unrolled like oversized window shades on each wall. Of course they were out of date, with countries and boundaries changing with both World Wars and then the Korean and now the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the various communist revolutions -- it would have been impossible to keep these big sepia colored maps with countries marked in vermillion, indigo blue, hunter green and saffron up to date but Max pulled the big maps down on each wall, saying that just knowing there was a bigger world out there made him feel better, and Marilyn felt a sudden lightness. He
had been talking for some time, all the way up the worn blue stone stairs to the third floor where the Map room was located and as he pulled each map down: Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Max’s voice was low and soothing as he mentioned that they were going to do a little hypnotism, just to open a crack up in Marilyn’s psyche, nothing too big, just a sort of beginning exercise. He said he had been hypnotizing people for years and to no bad effect. He thought he might be able to help her understand why she was acting as her own poltergeist, with a sort of spontaneous telekinesis. Max talked about how Father W suspected that Marilyn had a deeper connection to her soul than most people and that he, Max, thought so too. He talked on about how hypnotism was a technique for giving yourself a kind of pass to deeper understanding that your conscious mind might throw roadblocks up at. That all Marilyn needed to do was relax and focus on his voice and nothing else except her breathing. His voice sounded more like water falling the longer he talked about how the soul was real and we were all part of the Divine and didn’t Marilyn know that and that was perfectly okay if she felt a little sleepy. Did she know that nearly a century ago it had been proven that a soul had a weight of twenty-one grams, and when a person died they were always that much lighter because the soul travelled on. To its next body, next incarnation, next sojourn.
Marilyn was standing stock still in front of the country labeled Siam. Her eyes were closed but her hand made a Buddhist hand gesture. Marilyn’s pinky and index finger were extended while her second and ring finger bent down onto the palm and was closed with her thumb. The Karana Mudra, recognized Max with a thrill, used to cast out demons. “Here,” she breathed. “He pursued me here.”
“Who? Who pursued you, Marilyn? ” Max asked as if he was asking her what grocery stores she liked. Marilyn breathed through her nostrils as if expelling something and shook her head impatiently. Max made a quick jot in his notes and kept talking. He didn’t want to make any rash judgments, just observe and record.
“Sometimes when you get in touch with the Presence within, things come to the surface.” Max said in his rain-coming-down voice and Marilyn glided away from him to the map of the Americas. She stroked the saffron-colored states of the Middle Atlantic and moved north to the Berkshire Mountains until her finger landed on a little town called West Pittsfield. “Here, too. We crossed again. It had been a long time. I had nearly forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?” Max asked softly. She didn’t answer and instead turned to the map of Europe. Italy was marked in a faded hunter green and Marilyn caressed the boot shape with her hand pulling it out into the Mediterranean not to Capri but the larger island next to it that Max had never really noticed. Ischia. “Here. It all started here.” Then her eyes widened into big black pools and you could see her mind racing as if she was seeing something from a long time ago as a small tortured scream escaped her throat. Max knew it was way too early to tell if she was a hysteric or if she was calling up some kind of repressed memory but in any case it was time to end the session. He clapped both hands onto her shoulders and pressed down steadily saying, “It’s okay, it’s over now. You can wake up. Wake up, Marilyn.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Riding Around After Dark
Gar loved Father Troy’s bicycle and knew the priest wouldn’t mind if he took it out for a spin. Tomorrow was going to be a big clean up day around the parish as everything had to be done by Monday’s classes and he had special dispensation to work right through the morning Masses to get everything put back. Even with the help he’d get from the folks after church, Gar knew it was an all day job. So getting out tonight and taking a break was only natural.
He didn’t say a word to anyone, just eased the bike down the drive and took off with the light fading. The bicycle had a big battery head lamp on the front and he clicked it on against the oncoming darkness. His mind roamed over the images from the carnival. His memory lingered on the faces of the young mothers who had watched him eat their food. It was so easy sometimes to make people feel things. All sorts of things. He liked that about himself, the way he penetrated people’s outer masks and how they took him in. He tried to keep his mind off the conversation he had overheard in the parish office. It was provoking and he didn’t want to think about that now. No, something else had his full attention, made his heart leap up into his throat in a thrilling way. He had sniffed something on the wind in the thick twilight just when the carnies pulled away, petty mean bastards. He clamped down his thoughts on how they had run off like the weak cowards they were. Still it was nothing. Gar knew. Maybe he could help the poor Clearys somehow but not now. Now he was following his nose for the source, it was out there and had come close to him that very night, he could sense it and every nerve was tingling at the thought. It had been so long. He didn’t dare think about how long it had been because he would just become one big aching hole immobile from sheer desire if he thought about that. He pumped the pedals harder, speeding up coming close and beginning to pass a big Ford pick up burning gas at the light. Just then some fool teenager in the truck rolled down his window and spat, “Hey, you moron, get that tricycle off the road.”
Gar just shook his head at the kid, his big head like a bear’s. Let it go, he thought. Until the kid said again, “I said get that thing off the road you muther-fucker.”
The kid just shouldn’t have done that because Gar hadn’t realized he was still angry in a way at the carnies, not until he had yanked the kid’s door open with an easy lunge. Even as the car tried to speed up Gar just held on, hearing Father Troy’s bicycle clatter to the ground. He wasn’t worried, this wouldn’t take a minute. Using his upper body strength he jack-knifed himself into the truck’s bench front seat even as the smart-ass kid squealed and tried to roll the window up. The driver couldn’t have been over sixteen, with a bushy head of hair and pimples and looking across at Gar now in horror he slammed on the brakes sputtering, “Mister, we’re sorry, just leave us alone.” The big Ford screeched to a stop in the middle of the block and cars started honking as both Gar and the kid heaved forward into the windshield. Not more than thirty seconds had passed since the kid had run off his mouth but now the glass on the Ford pickup’s window windshield was cracked in a long lightning-streak line.
“Watch your mouth around strangers, son, you never know who they might be.” was all Gar said as he hopped out, leaving the driver in the middle of a Saturday night mess with the smart-ass dazed and a big egg shaped lump beginning to form over his right eye. Gar was back up on Father Troy’s bicycle and speeding down East 22nd Street away into the night more annoyed with himself now than with the kid. He had been in the groove there for a moment following the source but now the air was all broken up and the scent disappeared into the car fumes and he knew suddenly he wasn’t going to find it tonight. His legs pedaled faster, as he fought the rising panic. There’s still time he told himself. It was just a temporary set-back.
He pressed on, past the town central, cycling past the K-Mart, the Mobil and the Standard Oil stations on twin corners, and the bright neon of the Wrangler Steakhouse. He sped right past a dumpy little brown building with a crowded parking lot and an old fashioned bulb-lit sign in the shape of a jug, intent now on just moving. He wanted to ride out his anxiety about how the grains of sand were trickling faster through the hourglass of his unnaturally long life and how he had to have the source if he was to go on and going on was imperative because he knew the horror waiting if the sands ran out. At the intersection of County 48 and Pershing there was a restaurant with a giant fat kid made out of poly-something holding up a huge burger. “Big-Boy Burgers” is what the sign said, and in the spot closest to the road clearly lit by the overhead lot lights Gar saw a panel truck with an aqua bear in the front seat. That was the good thing about a bicycle, you saw so much more, he thought. A burger might go down real good right now and serve to take his mind off the disappointment of losing his way.
The Lincoln Log Motel was on Highway 48 just outside of town, and the
night clerk was the owner’s stepson, Justin, an overweight high school dropout with bad hearing and a penchant for ice cream and late-night television. When the two carnies -- one skinny with a pony tail and the other bigger with light brown eyes and a beard -- checked in asking for one room with twin beds, it was just a little past eight and M.A.S.H. was blaring on the small set in the lobby/office area and Justin was digging into a carton of Blue Bonnet Spumoni ice-cream. The Lincoln Log Motel offered clean rooms, privacy, and very little else, and that seemed fine with two carnies who signed their names Jack Johnson and Don Smith on the dotted line and put in their truck’s license plate. They were carrying a brown paper sack with what looked like a twelve pack of Bud inside and a Hustler and Playboy magazine peeked out over the top. They only asked if they could be in the rear of the motel away from the road. Justin sighed as he gave them their room key, thinking about how his favorite re-runs wouldn’t be on for another three hours. The carnies got back in their truck and pulled it up to the space in front of their room, nicely out of sight from prying eyes on the road.
The ponytailed carnie who had called himself Don Smith, at least the Don was true, was lying on his stomach on the bed closest to the door jiggling his leg. On the quilted teal polyester bedspread lay two plastic baggies, one had some primo Thai buds in it and the other twenty-five Black Beauties. An old friend of the bearded carnie who tonight went by the name Jack Johnson was supposed to drop by sometime before ten to make a buy. Jack was in the bathroom with the Hustler magazine and there was nothing to do but wait. Beer cans were tossed around the room, but they still had a couple of cold ones left. It had been a lousy day as far as the pony-tailed carnie was concerned and this dump was making Gary, Indiana look good. So when there was a soft knock at the door, Don exclaimed under his breath, “About time!” and sprang up to answer, the speed giving him a little extra zing.
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