Some People Talk with God

by John Enright

  Dinner that night was cold KFC. Vernon apologized, and it was pretty awful, but he had been busy all day. The “Budweiser holiday” he called it. “Cops everywhere in town, having a field day.” Vernon did not go out again. “Ain’t like the old days,” he said. “I don’t need the money that bad.”

  After dark there were again the sounds of distant fireworks. Mixed in among them were distinct sharper reports. “Neighbors got their shooting irons out,” Vernon said. They were sitting outside on the bench by the kitchen door. “That’s a twenty-two. That one there was a bigger handgun, thirty-eight or forty-five. Whoa, an assault rifle, AK forty-seven or something similar. They got to be liquored up. That ammo is expensive.”

  Then from down the valley behind them came a different deeper baritone boom. “Now, that is what I like to hear,” Vernon said. “That’s an old muzzle-loader long gun, flintlock probably. Haven’t heard one of them in years. I wonder who has got one of those.”

  Dominick looked around the yard and noticed that the dog was missing. “Where is old Mustang?” he asked.

  “Who knows?” Vernon answered. “Mustang is often gone. This place, me, we’re just part of his life. Who knows how many folks out here think of Mustang as being their dog? You got another one of those fancy cigars? Get that grease taste out of my mouth.”

  ***

  Amanda wanted to call the sheriff, but Denise would have none of it. “Pointless,” she said. “They won’t come out until after the fact, and besides, this weekend they will be real busy elsewhere.” Actually, the day of the Fourth, hot and still, was quiet and uneventful. A few more cars than usual passed by down on the road, slowing as they cruised past; but there were no more intruders.

  No one had been tending the kitchen garden since Susan’s departure, and it was looking pretty sad. Amanda took it upon herself to water it just to have something to do. While she was doing so a few of the girls sulked in the shade on the back porch. She overheard part of their complaining. Some of the girls wanted to leave—either because they wanted to go home for the long holiday weekend or because they didn’t feel safe in the house after the previous night’s invasion—but Denise would not let them. She had even confiscated everyone’s car keys. She had also scheduled a special command convocation for that evening at sunset. Denise had a little rebellion on her hands. When another girl came out onto the porch, the ones there shut up about their discontents and changed the topic to the weather. Amanda herself had no intention of leaving. She had just done that, for one thing, and it hadn’t worked out. She had come right back. She had nowhere else to go.

  Denise had her two close cohorts, her lieutenants, who bossed the other girls around. They projected a siege mentality. Denise kept lookouts posted and conducted occasional reconnaissance tours out to the barn and back, carrying her shotgun. Around sunset they all gathered in what Amanda thought of as their altar room downstairs, and she locked herself in her room. One of the plusses about being home was her DVD collection. There were certain ones she used medicinally, like pills, to change her mood—to sooth her, say, or get her spirits up, or just help her achieve an acceptable state of denial—videos that she had played scores of times before but craved again as a safe escape. That dusk she put on Immortal Beloved, a film about Beethoven with lots of his music and a scene that always made her cry.

  Amanda was lying in bed watching her video and almost there to the desired state of thoughtless absorption when the first rocket screeched overhead. It exploded with a crack-boom somewhere behind them, lighting up the sky outside her window. She was on her feet and at the window by the time the second one was launched down on the road. She saw the flash and heard the whoosh almost simultaneously. For a second it looked like it was aimed right at her window, then it too swooped higher above the roof before it exploded in a flash of red. Whoops of excitement came up from the road, where she could see sets of legs dancing around in a car’s headlights. The third rocket swerved erratically to the left and didn’t go off, a dud.

  Amanda had to find and put on her sandals before rushing to the door. She was not just going to stand there and be fired at. She forgot that she had locked the door and fumbled with the dead bolt. On the stairs she heard the next rocket launch and then crash into the front of the house. Cheers from the road. As she reached the bottom of the stairs the doors to the front parlor altar room were pushed open and Denise in a long lime-green robe emerged, carrying her shotgun. Behind her the girls in their virginal white togas clustered in confusion in the candlelight.

  “What? Where?” Denise asked when she saw Amanda on the stairs.

  “Fireworks rockets, from the road,” Amanda said. “Firing at the house.”

  “I’ll deal with this,” Denise said. Then she turned to the girls, still in the room. “You all stay here. Do not let anyone break the sacred circle.”

  At the front door Denise switched on the outside porch lights before unlocking the door. Amanda turned them off. “They’ll see you,” she said.

  Denise turned the lights back on. “I want them to,” she said. “I want them to see what they are dealing with.”

  Another rocket went off, lighting up the sky above the house as Denise walked out onto the front veranda. She yelled a few foreign words that Amanda did not understand but that sounded like a curse if she had ever heard one. Then Denise raised her shotgun and fired in the direction of the road. She walked to the top of the steps, yelled out the same words and fired again. As she broke the gun to reload, pulling shells out from an inner pocket in her robes, her fire was returned from the road—several guns going off. Amanda could see their muzzle flashes and hear their popping reports, but she had no idea where the bullets went. Denise just laughed and fired both barrels again. There were a few more shots from the road as two cars executed quick three-point turns and drove away.

  Remnants of the rocket that had hit the house were still burning in the bushes by the corner of the verandah. Not all the starburst charges had gone off, and some were still exploding in the flames. Amanda ran to get the garden hose. Denise disappeared. That sulfur smell of gunpowder smoke—Amanda remembered it, but it had no association, not even Fourth of July. She wondered if her recently new car down in the driveway had gotten any fresh bullet holes, and for some reason that made her think of dead horses strewn on old black-and-white battlefields like part of the landscape. The rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air.

  After she had hosed them down awhile, all the flames and embers were dark. She was still all alone outside. She carried the hose around to the back of the house, looking for any more hot spots. She didn’t find any. The moon was now up above the tree line, stretching out long insecure shadows. They could come back again, she thought, but she figured they wouldn’t. They were just boys. They had had their fun for the night, their little battle. It was a long enough ways to the nearest beer joint and back for them not to bother returning. How many rockets could they afford anyway?

  Amanda’s pack of Pall Malls was still on the table beside Nemo’s chair on the kitchen porch. She sat and lit one and realized that her hands and her hair and her clothes all smelled like the smoke from the firecracker fires. She would have to shower and shampoo before going to bed. Inside the house all was still dark and silent as if there was no one home. When she went to go in she discovered that both the kitchen door and the front door were now locked, but she knew of one kitchen window that could not be locked, and she let herself in that way. The front hall smelled of incense, and the sound of Denise’s voice reading something cadenced came through the tightly shut parlor doors. In the shower Amanda debated with herself about calling Morgan, but in the end decided not to.

  ***

  The next morning Mustang was back, and Dominick was strangely glad to see him. Dominick had never had a dog, never had any kind of pet. His mother would never have tolerated such an unnecessary inconvenience, and there were no pets at the boarding schools he had grown up in. Of course, he had shared ho
uses with other people’s pets over the years, but they had always been easy to ignore. Somebody else had taken care of them. The disinterest had always seemed mutual. He could not understand the impulse to have a captive member of another species. All the connotations of that seemed negative to him. He had never trusted people hooked on pets. There was an irrationality there akin to devout religiosity, some sort of arrested adolescent development. But he was glad to see Mustang—who totally ignored him—out at his place in the shade of the shed Friday morning. He was company. Dominick talked to him even though he was beginning to suspect that Mustang was stone deaf. Was this cabin fever setting in? He would have to move on from here soon, but his ribs did not seem to be mending at all. It had been a week now, and he was getting tired of the whole pain and pill routine.

  Dominick could not remember having heard the telephone at Vernon’s ring before. It was a regular old-fashioned telephone ring, the kind you never heard any more except in old movies. A “land line” it was called these days, a phrase that always made him think of land mines. He was propped up in bed with a pile of old National Geographics he had found in a box in Vernon’s “dining room,” which was really just a storeroom now where no one could have eaten in many years, it was so packed with stuff. He was reading about Clovis points and a theory of Amerindian migration that had been revised several times over since the article had been written thirty years before. He was charmed by the fact that whenever prehistoric dates were revised they were pushed farther and farther into the past, as if time, like the universe, was expanding at an ever increasing velocity. Not only were you moving forward through time, but the past was accelerating backwards at an even faster rate. He let the phone ring. It was on the wall in the kitchen three rooms away and easy enough to ignore. It was probably a wrong number anyway, as Vernon only used his cell phone—another funny term that Dominick associated with the one call you were allowed after being arrested. Surely that jail pay phone was a cell phone. When was the last time he had seen a pay phone, a phone booth? Had all of them been swallowed up by the ever-deepening past?

  The second time the phone rang Dominick was in the kitchen, fixing himself a sandwich, and it was harder to ignore, so he answered it. The voice, a man’s voice, was vaguely familiar and asked for him. “Speaking,” Dominick said.

  “Dominick, this is Frank Barnett. I hear you have had an accident. How are you feeling?”

  “Why, I am doing alright, Frank. How are you?” Dominick said. What the hell was this all about? The yellow wall telephone had an extra-long spiral cord—that early attempt at a mobile phone—and as Dominick talked on the phone, with the receiver crooked between his shoulder and his ear to free his hands, he walked about the kitchen, putting things back in the refrigerator, opening a can of ale, carrying his plate to the kitchen table and sitting down.

  “I’m fine, Dominick, fine. Good to hear your voice. You are probably wondering why I am calling.”

  “I am wondering how you got this number, Frank. How you knew I would be in this kitchen fixing myself a late lunch.” Dominick took a bite of his sandwich.

  “Yes, well. I got this number from a woman reporter at the local newspaper, a Ms. Douglas, who told me you were recuperating. From a fall, is it?”

  “You could call it that. And how did you find this Ms. Douglas? Just curious.”

  “Oh, your sister Amanda told Morgan that the last she knew of your whereabouts was this Ms. Douglas checking you out of your hotel.”

  “A person just can’t get themselves properly lost anymore, can they?” Dominick took a sip of ale. “What’s up, Frank? Why are you calling?”

  “I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d look you up. If you will believe that.”

  “Not likely. What neighborhood is that?”

  “I am staying at a place called the Mount Morris Manor outside of Hudson, nice place. This is a local number. How far away are you?”

  “Across the river and into the trees. Is this about the Van Houten place deal? This is uncommon speed.”

  “Oh, well, Morgan, Ms. Custis, was eager to catch you before you, ah, disappeared again into the Bermuda Triangle or wherever, and I happened to be up in Albany on business, so I thought I would just do my own mini-disappearing act from my life for a few days—you are an inspiration that way, Dominick—and come down here with her and the papers. Beautiful country around here, great view out my room’s windows.”

  “If Morgan is there, say hello to her for me,” Dominick said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

  “So, Dominick, are you well enough to travel? I would like to get together and discuss this offer and, purely out of curiosity, get out to see the place myself. Could we get together?”

  “What’s your number there, Frank? And the name of the place again.” There was a notepad with a pencil on the wall beside the phone. Dominick went over and wrote down what Barnett told him. “I’ll give you a call back. I’ll try to get over this afternoon, if I can get a ride.” He called Vernon’s cell phone and commandeered his cab for the balance of the afternoon. Then he called Barnett back to tell him he would be there. Before shaving and changing into street clothes he took three of the white pain pills, washing them down with another ale. He was floating a bit, enjoying the absence of pain, by the time Vernon arrived.

  Passing through town on the way to the bridge, Dominick had Vernon stop at the only store there that sold decent cigars, and he restocked. It felt good to be out of the house. The town and the roads were crowded with holiday weekend visitors.

  Vernon knew the place they were headed. “Rich friends,” he said.

  “A man who wears expensive suits, a lawyer.”

  “And me unarmed,” Vernon said. “I’ll keep the motor and the meter running.”

  ***

  It was silly, childishly silly, but Amanda had trouble getting past it—the fact that Morgan had shown up behind the wheel of a snazzy little red sports car convertible with the top down. It wasn’t the car so much—it was just a rental—but the fact that Morgan was driving it.

  “All this time I thought you didn’t drive, which is why I always had to own the car and be the chauffeur,” Amanda said as soon as Morgan showed up.

  “Oh, I can drive. I just chose not to, that’s all.”

  “I thought you didn’t have a license.”

  “I don’t. I never have.”

  “They rent cars to someone who doesn’t have a driver’s license?”

  “I had a friend rent it for me. What is your big problem, girl? It’s just a car. I saved you a trip. What happened to your new chariot, by the way? It looks like you were caught fleeing a shotgun wedding.”

  “We have had a few skirmishes out here the past few days. Unfortunately, my car has been the only casualty, friendly fire at that.”

  “Skirmishes? What do you mean, skirmishes?”

  “Local Christians on an anti-Wiccan war path. Nemo’s girlfriend ran an article in Wednesday’s paper about the place, and we have had unfriendly visitors since, young men mostly.”

  “Why? What did she say?”

  “She just gave the impression that we were establishing some sort of female pagan temple out here, that’s all.”

  “Is Denise here?”

  “Everybody is still here. Denise is the one with the shotgun.”

  “Well, that shit has got to stop,” Morgan said. They were in Morgan’s room now, and she was standing at the window, looking out. “What happened there?” she asked.

  Amanda joined her at the window. Below them were the scorched-black bushes where the rocket that hit the house had burned itself out. “Last night’s rocket attack,” Amanda said.

  “Well, damn. Where is Nemo anyway? Do you know?”

  “The last I knew of my brother, Ms. Sissy was checking him out of his hotel over in Hudson. He wasn’t there.”

  Morgan went to the bed and got her cell phone out of her purse. “Well, I think I will have a talk with Ms. Sissy about the ser
ious repercussions of her article. Do you have a copy?”

  When Amanda came back from her room with the newspaper, Morgan was just signing off from a phone call: “Follow it up, see, but don’t call me. I’ll call you. Bye.”

  Morgan took the newspaper and just glanced at the article’s headline and photo. “You haven’t spoken with this Ms. Sissy about this, have you?” she asked.

  “No. What’s to discuss?”

  “Well, I am about to track her down and give her an earful. Inciting young men to attack innocent women—that’s irresponsible journalism. She owes us big time.”

  “But what?” Amanda could not see the point of this.

  “I’ll think of something. The first thing is to get her and her newspaper on the defensive, back on their heels.” Morgan flipped to the editorial page, where there was a phone number. As she dialed it she said, “Go on, get out of here. This is my job. Could you bring me up something to eat? Is there any yogurt? That’s a dear.”

  Chapter 21

  The Mount Morris Manor inn was exemplary of what Dominick figured Amanda and Morgan envisioned for their Diligence Retreat—an old estate house reborn as a stylish commercial venture. The grounds were extensive and manicured—landscaping would be an additional expense at Diligence—and the manor house itself was only half the age of the Van Houten house and in a later style both more expansive and relaxed. Whereas the Van Houten place had been a well-off minister’s homestead, Mount Morris had obviously been designed as an outsider millionaire’s summer playhouse, not built for a reverend. It was painted pink for one thing, pink with white trim and a veranda that encircled the whole first floor. All the cars in the car park could have been entered in a “which one costs more” contest.

  Frank Barnett was waiting for Dominick and met him on the veranda. He was dressed in creased tan Bermuda shorts and a bottle-blue polo shirt. Neither item looked like it had been worn before. Dominick had brought his cane, more for effect than necessity—an outward sign of his otherwise hidden affliction. Besides, there once had been a time—around the time this house was brand new—when gentlemen routinely carried canes or walking sticks. He leaned on his cane as he lowered himself into a wingback wicker porch chair.