Some People Talk with God

by John Enright

  “I suppose whiskey would be contraindicative to those,” Barnett said.

  “So is flying an airplane, but I will take the whiskey. It seems to speed up the relief.” Dominick thought of the pills as his reinforcements being called up. The whiskey would be like the cavalry initiating the counterattack. Barnett brought him a glass with a couple of fingers of his smoky Scotch in it, not corn or rye whiskey like General Grant would have drunk. He drank it down as if it were medicine. Morgan had not said a word, not even hello. His back insisted that he lay down. “Excuse me,” he said as he stretched back, still holding the almost drained glass.

  “The walking wounded,” Morgan said. “Make yourself comfortable. Did Miss Sissy do this to you in bed?”

  Dominick chose not to answer her. “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  “We were considering shooting our way out, but we don’t have any weapons,” Barnett said.

  “We are not staying here,” Morgan added.

  “How about taking the Wiccans with you?” Dominick asked.

  “Do I look like a pagan pied piper to you?” Morgan said.

  “Just a wish,” Dominick said. “Invite both prayer groups to an all-American ecumenical meal at McDonald’s or Pizza Hut. Get them all out of here.”

  “Why don’t you do that?” Morgan asked.

  “I thought I’d stay behind to rest my ribs and protect the place. Besides, I just got here and I don’t have a car.”

  “You want to protect the place?” Morgan asked. “Does that mean you also want to come in as a shareholder?”

  “I am considering it, Morgan. The place sort of grows on you, and Amanda has nowhere else to go. But I don’t have to decide today, do I? I have barely looked at the agreement papers.” There was a certain satisfaction in holding Morgan off. She always came across as so damn sure of herself that denying her any immediate gratification seemed a necessary and proper corrective. He sat back up and finished off the Scotch. It or the pills or the stretch-out was working. He was a little light-headed. This time he thought of the pain as a beggar or blackmailer, whom he just had to pay off to silence for a while. But he had no clear thoughts as he looked around the room. He wondered how many of those pills he had taken today. The vial had seemed worrisomely light. He held out his glass and Barnett poured some more Scotch into it. Dominick took a sip. He hadn’t the slightest idea what to say. Surely there was something he should be saying. “I think I will go lay down for a bit, take a rest. Maybe everyone will leave on their own when it gets dark, and you can slip away. I will be in Amanda’s room.” He took the glass of Scotch with him, but only because he forgot that he was holding it.

  Chapter 23

  Nemo snored. Amanda did not especially mind the snoring. It was sort of homey actually. She had grown up in a house of snoring men. Every lover she had ever had had snored, some worse than others. Nemo’s snoring was polite, almost patrician. It was the other sounds he made as he slept, thrown in here and there amidst the snores—the grunts and growls and gurgles, animal sounds, like something a hibernating bear would make while dreaming about salmon—that got to her.

  Amanda had been sitting in her armchair when Nemo came back to the room, a bodice-ripper romance that she had read before open in her lap. She was not even pretending to read it. She was just sitting and listening—listening to but not really hearing the voices drifting up from the road, the whistle and rustle of the breeze in the trees, the sounds of a house full of people. The prayer meeting downstairs must have ended, because there were many voices now and traffic on the stairs and doors opening and closing. Then her door opened without a knock and in came Nemo with a glass of whiskey in his hand, which he put down carefully on the bedside table before dropping onto the bed. “I have to lay down for a bit,” was all he said before passing out. Now she had him to listen to as well.

  After a while Nemo’s noises got to her. They were distracting. Amanda began to feel as if she were eavesdropping on something personal and ought to leave. Besides, she was hungry. It had been many hours since she had grabbed some rice biscuits and peanut butter for breakfast. She headed down to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was busy. Most of High Priest Lloyd’s troop were as young as Denise’s devotees. It struck Amanda how young they all were, barely adults, for whom their childhood memories were still a long way from being historical. Right now they were acting like kids who had just been sprung from church. Some fixing of food was going on, but mainly they were hanging out, milling about in the kitchen and out on the back porch. The addition of Lloyd’s young men had made a difference, even if they were outnumbered two to one. There was a new social chemistry in the air. Denise and Lloyd and Denise’s lieutenants were somewhere else. No one seemed to notice Amanda’s arrival. A simple smorgasbord was being laid out on the table, and Amanda fixed herself a plate. No one seemed to mind. A tall young man with long brown hair and multiply pierced ears asked her if she would like some iced tea. He was pouring himself a glass at the time. He followed her out onto the porch.

  “You’re Amanda, aren’t you?” he asked as he sat down beside her on the edge of the deck. “I think it’s great that you have given a home to these sisters. This is such a nice spot.”

  “What’s your name?” Amanda asked, taking a sip of her over-sweet iced tea.

  “Brian,” he said, smiling.

  “Brian, I am only their landlady.”

  “Are you from around here, originally I mean?” Brian asked, undeterred.

  “I grew up nearby,” Amanda said, “over in Vermont.”

  “I’ve never been there,” Brian said. “Is it like this there?”

  Where Amanda had grown up was less than a hundred miles away across the river and north. Brian had tattoos on his arms and on his neck and who knew where else. He had a sweet smile and soft eyes. There had been a time when Amanda would have closed on him like a honeybee on a flower. “Brian, why are you here?”

  “To show our solidarity, Lloyd said. I’m not sure what that means, but I’ve always liked coming here. It’s so peaceful. What’s that bird?” he asked. A mockingbird was complaining about something out beyond the garden. Sometimes what they said sounded like complete incomprehensible sentences.

  “That’s a Northern Mockingbird,” Amanda said. “How long are you staying?”

  “I don’t know about everybody else, but me and Ashante—that’s my ride—got to go back tonight. I got to go to work tomorrow morning.”

  “On Sunday? What do you do?”

  “I work at the country club, at the golf cart shack. Do you play golf? You don’t like that tea, do you? They make it too sweet. All that sugar’s not good for you. Can I get you some water or something?”

  The tea is nowhere near as sweet as you are, Amanda thought. His hands were long and strong and slender, well manicured. “What instrument do you play?” she asked.

  “The mandolin mainly, but I am learning the zither. How did you know?”

  “Oh, we older women just know such things,” she said. She wanted to tell him that he should tell Ashante to go on without him, that she, Amanda, would give him a ride back to Saugerties in the morning in plenty of time to get to work at his golf cart shack. Then she remembered Nemo asleep in her bed and looked at her hands and reminded herself that she was probably as old as Brian’s mother. “Yes, Brian, thank you. Could you bring me just a glass of water?”

  Amanda scanned the group she could see on the porch and in the kitchen, wondering which of the girls was Ashante, not that it made any difference. Then she noticed Morgan and Barnett at the smorgasbord table with plates, helping themselves and chatting with the kids in there. There was something about this us-versus-them scenario that eclipsed all other differences behind the duality of us in here and them out there. Amanda could not hear what Morgan said, but it was something that made everyone around her laugh.

  Amanda put her plate down on the deck beside her glass of iced tea and walked off into the garden, which need
ed watering. Morgan’s routine and hers were now so divergent that she felt compelled to walk away. Earlier Barnett had wanted to talk business with her, Morgan’s business, and Amanda had just tuned him out. She could not understand why Morgan herself was not talking it over with her. She wondered what the mockingbird was going on about. She walked to the edge of the garden and into the field beyond. The sounds from the house dispersed behind her. Brian found her out there, halfway to the old barn. He was carrying her glass of water.

  “Looking for that bird?” he asked. “What’s it look like?”

  “Slate grey, big as a robin, white stripes on its wings. Thanks.” Amanda took the glass of water from him. There were ice cubes in it. Brian was a good head taller than she, taller even than Nemo. “What’s going on back there?”

  “Your friend was talking about a concert going on over in Hudson tonight, part of some arts festival.”

  “Oh?”

  “I guess she and her boyfriend are going to the concert, and she invited everybody else to come along. She said she’d pay for their tickets.”

  “That’s generous of her,” Amanda said. There had been a time when she would have been the first person Morgan would have invited along. “Who is playing at the concert?”

  “A couple of local groups then Thompson & Tolbert. The girls are all hot for them.”

  “Of course they are. Ashante?”

  “Nah, she doesn’t like that country stuff. We’ll still be headed back, but we will wait to leave with the others. Safety in numbers like your friend pointed out. Sorry, what is her name?”

  “Morgan,” Amanda said.

  “Yeah, Morgan. She’s cool. Hey! What’s that?”

  Brian had a good foot’s height advantage on Amanda’s view of the unmowed fields around them.

  “Hey, you. What are you doing there?” Brian called out.

  And then Amanda saw them—two heads in hoodies popped up amidst the tall grass and headed quickly away, still crouched down. Amanda’s first impulse was to grab Brian’s arm and then quickly scan the rest of the field for other intruders.

  “Just some kids,” Brian said. “But let’s go back.”

  Amanda was still holding on to Brian’s arm. He did not seem to mind. “Yes, let’s,” she said, and they turned together, headed back toward the house, its western face ablaze in the sunset. “What country club is it you work at?” she asked. Her hand was on his tattooed forearm, her fingers hiding a green and blue dragon’s head.

  ***

  It wasn’t easy, but Dominick managed it. He woke up. Someone was shaking his shoulder.

  “Sorry, old chap. But we really do have to talk.” It was that man Barnett.

  Dominick was in a room deep with shadows. His mouth was dry, so he had been snoring. “What’s up?” he said to indicate that he was awake. He was not in the least interested in what was up.

  “Well, Morgan and I are out of here, for one thing, and I have to head back to DC tomorrow, so I doubt we will have the chance to talk again.”

  “God speed,” Dominick said, again not really meaning what he said. He was still trying to figure out where he was. A strange bed in a strange room in a strange dusk light. Ah, yes, Amanda’s room in Diligence, upstate New York. Thoughts began to focus.

  “The crowd down on the road has thinned out, so we thought we would head back to Hudson soon,” Barnett said.

  Dominick had learned a way of getting up that hurt the least. It involved simultaneously throwing his legs out of bed, rolling, and pushing himself upright. It worked again, although he was light-headed for a few seconds. “You and Morgan?” he asked, his place in space and time becoming clearer.

  “Me and Morgan and most of the Wiccan kids—a convoy, if you will. Most of those kids don’t want to be here any more than we do. It’s Saturday night on a holiday weekend, for chrissakes. Nobody wants to either fight or be holed up here. They want to go out and boogie and maybe get laid later if they’re lucky. How are you doing? You want a ride out? There’s no room in our little sports car, but I could find you a ride with somebody else if you want.”

  “I believe I just got here.” In the room’s gloom Dominick saw a glass on the stand beside the table and took a drink, thinking it was water. It was whiskey and burned. He coughed.

  “You are supposed to sip single malts,” Barnett said.

  The Scotch woke Dominick up. “So what are we supposed to talk about?” He coughed some more and put the glass down.

  “The corporation papers, your deal on this place.”

  “Yes?”

  “Hold off,” Barnett said. “No rush.”

  “What’s changed? I thought you said the papers were alright.”

  “Oh, the papers are okay. It’s just the deal and who you’re dealing with.”

  “Morgan you mean.”

  “She’s a vixen that one,” Barnett said. “May I?” Dominick hadn’t finished the Scotch in the water glass. Barnett took a sip.

  “Aren’t you two …?” Dominick could not come up with the proper word.

  “She’s not my client. You are,” Barnett said. “If I gave you a piece of advice now that turned out to be bum later, you might conclude that it was because Morgan and I were … What is the word for it? “

  “Conjoined,” Dominick said, “driving around in the same rental car, spending too much time in the same places. Coupled.”

  “You do have to admit, Dominick, that she is one fine trim piece of ass.”

  “Not my type, I guess. But I like Morgan. Is she trying to screw me?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. She would not mind having the balance of Marjorie’s estate to play with, but I am no longer sanguine about what her actual plans are.”

  “Oh?” Dominick noted the “sanguine.” It meant Barnett had practiced this speech. No one, not even lawyers, used a word like that without rehearsing it first. “Why is that?”

  “Now that I have seen the place and seen how Morgan feels about the place and tried to talk with your sister about the development plans, the whole thing just doesn’t add up right. I don’t believe Amanda has even seen what Morgan is proposing to you. My advice to you is to just hold off, delay, disappear for a while—you are good at that—until this blows over and the Wiccans are evicted and the two ladies get their act together.”

  “Have you shared any of this insight with Morgan?”

  “No, of course not, and I would appreciate it if you kept my counsel confidential. I would like to stay friends with Morgan. In fact, I had better go. I don’t want to rouse her suspicions.”

  “You could tell her you were making one last pitch for me to sign.”

  “I would rather tell her nothing than lie to her.” Barnett made a sound Dominick took for a laugh. “In fact, one of the traits Morgan and I seem to share is our reticence to share inconvenient facts.” Barnett finished what was left of the Scotch in the glass. “Doing you a favor. You should be careful with this hard stuff and whatever pain pills you are taking. Stay in touch.”

  It wasn’t long after Barnett left the room that Dominick heard activity down in the driveway—voices, laughter, car trunks and doors closing. He watched from Amanda’s window as the convoy shaped up for departure. The red sports car convertible with its top down was in front, with Barnett behind the wheel. Morgan was organizing everyone else. It looked like most of the cars were leaving.

  Morgan was giving final instructions. “Stay close together and no stopping. No speeding either. If they follow us, we will just have to let them. If we keep it boring maybe they’ll just lose interest. Remember, we all stop at the McDonald’s on route nine just this side of Catskill to regroup.” Then she got in the sports car beside Barnett, and they headed out down the drive in the lingering twilight, the other cars trailing behind them.

  The crowd down on the road had thinned out considerably. There were just a half dozen cars and pickups there now. The preacher with his bad sound system was gone, as was the makeshift cross. The d
ozen or so people still there were sitting in beach chairs or in the backs of pickup trucks. It looked more like a tailgate party than any kind of protest. Only five cars and a pickup with a small Confederate flag on its antenna were still parked in the driveway in front of the house.

  Down at the bottom of the driveway Barnett honked well before reaching the people seated in beach chairs blocking the way, a friendly little beeb-beeb from the sports car’s horn. The line of cars crept forward as the people slowly got out of the way. Several people were walking alongside the red sports car, with their hands on the car as if they were either escorting it or trying to stop it. Barnett picked up speed as he turned into the roadway, and more people were now running alongside the car. Voices were raised, but Dominick could not make out what was being said or by whom. Then he heard Morgan call out “Fuck you!” as Barnett shifted into second gear and hit the gas. The other cars followed his lead and picked up speed as a barrage of bottles and cans and rocks pelted them.

  So much for not speeding and being boring, Dominick thought, but he noted that none of the people down on the road got in their vehicles and offered pursuit. Instead, they stood as a crowd in the middle of the road and watched the last cars in the convoy race away. A small cheer went up, and it struck Dominick that for the people down there, whoever they were, this encounter might well be considered a victory. They had laid holy siege to the keep of their enemy, and their enemy, or the bulk of them anyway, had summarily decamped, thereby proving the efficacy of something. Of what? Prayer? Solidarity? Virtue?

  As Dominick stood watching all this in the dying light, a tall, lanky man dressed in desert camouflage came down from the front veranda and went to the pickup truck still parked out front. He maneuvered it till he had it blocking the driveway directly below the house. Then Denise came out and helped him park the five other remaining cars in close to the house, all pointing out in different directions. It was almost dark by the time they finished.