The Next Queen of Heaven: A Novel

by Gregory Maguire

  Jeremy sat in the car, fiddling with his car keys. He’d hoped the others would arrive earlier, so he could get away with ordering only a cheap coffee. But no sign of Marty’s car—Babs, the Chariot of the Odds.

  Irresolute, staying put until he got too chilly, he watched the late afternoon Sunday patrons come and go. He’d been in Thebes for how many years now, and still he felt he had only a feeble grasp of what made it tick—what made it refuse to die. Around here, most guys his age had been married a good decade. They were saddled with dead-end jobs in the sand and gravel industry or with failing family farms too far from anything to sell to developers. The men tended to drink themselves to sleep most nights. Their wives, according to the oracles of the faculty lounge, did the same. And to judge by Jeremy’s own workload, their kids were prematurely soured underachievers, blanched and neutered by their daytime TV habit.

  If only Jeremy were laid off from his part-time tutoring job, or fired, he’d have to quit choir directing because he couldn’t afford to live on church income alone. And then something else would have to happen. A chain reaction knocking him toward good luck, maybe.

  He caught himself stalling, avoiding even this little conflict of ordering ahead of the others. Acquiescence as a virtue? Hardly.

  He settled in their regular booth, feeling like the first actor on the set for a gay knockoff of Seinfeld. Avoiding the waitress’s eye, which suited her fine as she was avoiding his, Jeremy looked out the window, saw the guys arriving in the Dodge Dart with the pushbutton transmission. Marty Rothbard had bought it for ninety dollars from some old geezer over in North Derby. It was older than Marty. He called it Babs because its headlights were out of kilter and peered inward at each other.

  He studied his friends as if he hadn’t seen them before. This, he knew, was his songwriter’s habit, a kind of voyeurism. The regular plundering of his friends’ emotional lives to create something new because his own experience remained so slight these days.

  Jeremy waved, but they didn’t see him in the window. Russet-cheeked, ferret-eyed Sean Riley had a long red scarf wrapped two or three times around his neck, and a bright blue knit cap with a white pompom. Marty Rothbard was trim and meticulous, in a leather bomber’s jacket that emphasized his hard-kept waistline. Marty looked full of stage cheeriness and Sean withdrawn. A little more rawboned, maybe.

  With fuss and fanfare they made their entrance. Sean sank onto the opposite bench, lounging, and Marty Rothbard slid in next to Jeremy. “I think you’re nuts,” said Marty. “Jeremy, he’s nuts. I think he’s got the deliriums already.”

  “I’m just saying,” said Sean. “Think about it.”

  “Think about what you want, Svetty’s on her way.”

  A hefty woman who looked about fifty or twenty years either side of that, Svetlana came pitching menus at them. “Boys.” Her Slavic accent made the word a kind of sonic implosion. “Vhat’ll you vant, boo-oys.”

  “Svetlana darling, we want you and only you. But fries on the side would cheer us up.”

  “Meck id sneppy. Boss in shit mood. Business dead.” Svetlana Boyle—she had married the unlikely Finbar Boyle, probably to get her green card—scratched her ear with the rubbery end of her pencil and flicked a speck of Soviet-era earwax onto the floor. “Coffee?”

  “Do you have something good for us?” asked Sean.

  “You vait. Bozo Joe joost like KGB tonight. Mebbe if it get busy he help, he on floor, ve discuss. Or not. Coffee?”

  Three coffees. Jeremy didn’t order a burger. Svetty Boyle glared at him as if he must be responsible for everything wrong in her life. As if his buying one burger could improve the economy of Thebes, her marriage, and her accent. As she shuffled away, Sean yawned.

  Marty lit right in. “Break up our tie vote. What do you think, Jeremy? Instant death or long slow painful decline? Which would you choose?”

  “Are those the only choices?”

  “I know you intend to be assumed bodily into heaven, but for the sake of conversation.”

  “This is a cheery subject,” Jeremy said. He dared to arch his eyebrows questioningly at Marty, since Sean’s head was lowered as if he was studying the pattern in the Formica.

  “That flight that went down last night. In the Atlantic,” said Marty.

  “Egypt Air,” intoned Sean. “990. This morning, actually.”

  “Oh,” said Jeremy. “Yeah, we prayed about that in the petitions today.”

  “Everyone dead in a matter of moments,” said Sean. “A better way to go, or not? You’re off on a holiday, something goes wrong, fifteen minutes later you’re dead. No muss, no fuss, no endless scenes, no long good-byes, no drawn out pain, no expensive therapies.”

  “You’re sick,” said Marty.

  “That’s my point. Accident is preferable to sickness, as long as it’s quick and fatal.”

  “It’s not all about you, though, is it?” said Jeremy. “I mean, even your own death isn’t only about you. It’s about everyone else you know, too. That airliner—can’t even think about it. But what about all those relatives today? In New York and Cairo? No one got to say good-bye.”

  “I think that’s sick,” said Sean. “Prolong your suffering so you can prolong their suffering? If they wanted to say good-bye they coulda got their asses in the goddamn car and driven to the airport.”

  Some other patrons came in—several corpses in white powder and high collars, blood dripping from their mouths. They sat across from the guys and grinned at them, as if newly emerged from graves to lend a fresh perspective to the discussion. Next, a mother with some kids dressed in prefab drugstore costumes, who sat as far away from the adult ghouls as they could. “We might be in luck after all,” said Marty. “A couple more tables and Bozo will have to inch his butt off the stool and help, and we’re cooking.” But for the time being Svetlana traversed the floor on her own, a Volga tugboat in plimsolls.

  Jeremy changed the subject. “Let’s get down to business. Any luck?”

  “If we could do without the piano,” said Marty, “there’s any number of choices.”

  “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it. We need a piano. That’s the point.”

  “We need a piano, Marty,” echoed Sean. “We need to perfect our fatal harmonies. Hey, that’s a good name for us. The Fatal Harmonies. Better than the Off Nights.”

  “I know it’s Halloween,” replied Marty, “but enough with the fatality tonight, will you? Just because you have the lowest T-cell count, you’re claiming unfair advantage.”

  “You ever come to mass,” said Jeremy, “I’ll show you fatal harmonies. Peggy Mueller has a soprano voice like a short-range missile. When she turns devoutly to the figure of Jesus on the cross, singing to it, it looks like she’s going to open her mouth and flay Jesus all over again using only her tremolo.”

  “See, Jeremy’s showing his hand: he’d prefer a long drawn-out death, not instant annihilation,” said Marty. “Flaying, Jeremy, please. Don’t get me started.”

  “They’ll have to augment the historic agony of Christ by inserting another Station of the Cross between numbers ten and eleven. Station Number Ten-A. Peggy Mueller Lacerates Jesus with an Obbligato.”

  “I stay away from church for ten commanding reasons, I don’t need any new ones,” said Sean. “You can’t reconvert me.”

  “Convert me,” said Marty to Jeremy. He stroked the lapels of his bomber jacket as if they were mink and then undid a top shirt button. “Maybe you can make me a Jew for Jesus if you’re passionate enough about it. I’m open to try.”

  “I’ll send you a pamphlet. Come on, guys. Focus. We can’t hold our pitch well enough to work a cappella, and the guitar and bass just isn’t varied enough.” Jeremy was all business. “We need a place with a piano, and a place large enough for guitar and bass. Any other thoughts?”

  Marty said, “There must be a piano in the Mildred Cleary Elementary Prison, isn’t there?”

  “Of course. A spinet about a thousand years
old. It hasn’t been tuned since the invention of central heating. But we couldn’t get our foot in the door there. Three gay men in a grade school? There’d be a mob. There’d be a riot.”

  “Even after hours?”

  “You come from some bizarre Jewish tradition where people regularly exercise the faculty of reason. This is upstate New York, Marty, not Park Slope. Children are our precious resource.”

  “We’re not necessarily a gay group,” said Sean, examining the bowl of his spoon as he spoke. “Couldn’t we, like, just not mention we’re a gay group?”

  Jeremy and Marty glanced at each other. Sean hadn’t come out to his family and he was still living with them, so his reticence was second nature by now. But really. With HIV and AIDS incubating right there in the booth with them, like holy ghosts—well, that kind of timidity just wasn’t on any more. There was no time.

  “You were going to look into the meeting room in the rectory, weren’t you?” said Marty. “Weren’t you going to ask your priest today?”

  “I got sidetracked. Some woman from Cliffs of Zion fell down the stairs or something. I never got to see Father Mike.”

  “Suicide attempt? ’Fess up. Show and tell.”

  “Pretty much a non-story. Somebody named Scales.”

  “I know them,” said Sean, who had grown up in Thebes. “I mean I know who they are. You mean the Scales family on Papermill Road? There’s a mother with three kids, ages sort of straddling late-high school and early-career-in-fast-food?”

  “Sounds like the one. Mrs. Scales came into Our Lady’s and a statue fell on her head. There was a lot of to-do so I never got to see Father Mike.”

  “Well, let’s keep looking,” said Sean, “because I’d curl up my little leprechaun feet and wither if ever I set one of my ruby slippers in a Catholic church again.”

  “Oh come on. We’re only talking the rectory. The church building isn’t heated during the week and it’s too cold at this time of year to practice there. Your T-cell count being what it is. No, I’m still waiting to hear from Father Mike about the rectory. I talked to Sister Alice, his staff assistant.”

  “The privacy of the confessional still applies, I hope.” Sean’s parents were staunch churchgoers.

  “I wasn’t confessing anything,” said Jeremy. “Anyway, until Vatican III happens, you don’t confess to nuns. It really has been a long time since you’ve made your Easter duty, Sean.”

  “When I’m on my deathbed I’ll have Father Mike in for a highball and a Gitane. I’ll renounce the world and transfer my assets into the heavenly portfolio. No need to rush things, though.”

  Sean drew heavily on the coffee stirrer. It was amazing he still needed his fix, since his lung lining had been described as quilted. How did his system process the smoke?

  “Anyway, Sister Alice is nice enough. So is Father Mike. They’ll help if they can. I was sort of hoping that we’d have some choices. Didn’t anyone else come up with anything?”

  “I do remember the Scales family.” Sean sat up a little straighter. “Kirk Scales. He was in my brother’s school play last year. He was the dead kid in Our Town. What a little godsend that one is!”

  “Do tell,” said Marty. “Start with his toes and work up.”

  “Guys,” said Jeremy. “We’ve got a problem to solve here. We haven’t found any other available piano? It’s hard to believe.”

  “Look,” said Sean. “Let’s take care of business and get out of here, okay? I don’t like the clientele tonight. Sitting across from the walking dead. They don’t like sitting across from us either, by the look of things. Call me superstitious, but it creeps me out.”

  “I think you’ll have to come back,” said Jeremy in a softer voice. “Svetty Boyle can’t slip away unnoticed. This place isn’t going to get busy enough for Bozo Joe to shift his behind away from his throne back there and help her.”

  “Fuck,” said Sean.

  “Hey, leave it to me.” Marty zipped up his jacket with a flourish and arranged the collar to stand at attention, emphasizing his strong chin. Jeremy gritted his teeth. “If I can get Bozo to come over, you skedaddle back to the bathroom hall. Svetty Boyle will see you. You have the cash, Sean?”

  “Actually I’m a little short. I need to borrow twenty.”

  Marty shrugged. Jeremy shook his head and handed over his last twenty. “You’re not going to—I hope you don’t—” he said.

  “Get moving,” said Marty. Sean stood, caught Svetlana’s eye, and began to meander toward the men’s room. Marty reached out and grabbed Jeremy’s wrist before he could withdraw it. Marty gave out a falsetto squeal that turned all heads except Sean’s.

  “Jesus, don’t,” begged Jeremy. Marty used his chest voice in a credible imitation of Dusty Springfield doing “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.”

  “No, no, no.” Jeremy tried to pull his hand away but Marty had both hands around Jeremy’s wrist now.

  “Believe me,” he sang, letting out a little tremolo. The vampires giggled and hissed. He put on the volume. “Believe me.” The diva belt. Oh God. Oh God.

  “Shut up, you fag,” said one of the vampires.

  “It’s a Halloween act, how’s he doing?” said Jeremy to them. Here comes Bozo Joe.

  “What the hell you think you’re doing?” said the owner. But Marty’s eyes were closed now and he was swaying, swept away by love. “You pay the bill and get out if you wanna sing. You’re disturbing the customers.”

  Svetlana was off the floor, out doing the deal. It wouldn’t take long. Marty began the second verse. “You want I should call the cops?” said Bozo Joe. “As if they don’t have enough trouble on Halloween?”

  “Sorry about this, he gets this way,” said Jeremy between clenched teeth. “Marty, please!”

  Then Sean was back, dropping into his seat, and Marty stopped as if unplugged. He blinked two or three times at the owner and said, as if waking up, “Oh, something just comes over me, this feeling I just can’t hide. Inappropriate. I know.”

  “Svetlana,” called Joe, “get the check. This table’s done.”

  Sean patted his chest to show he had gotten the grass. Svetlana appeared in no special hurry, grumpy as ever. The Vampires had decided to retaliate with a performance of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” only they weren’t being nice about it.

  “Let’s get out of here before this turns into the story of Matthew Shepard,” said Sean.

  In the parking lot, Jeremy got into the backseat of Babs so they could finish the conversation. He rolled a joint but didn’t smoke. Communion once a day was enough. Marty and Sean passed the roach back and forth. “Do you think Bozo Joe is calling the cops because we’re still here?” asked Marty a few moments later.

  “Nah. We make the place look popular if someone drives by,” said Jeremy.

  “Anyway this is medicinal pot,” said Sean.

  There was a moment of peace. The car began to fill with blue-brown fog; in the fading sunlight through the windshield, the Off Nights sang a little. If they could only do concerts in automobiles, they’d be bigger than the Backstreet Boys. Bigger than Monica (“Angel of Mine”) and R. Kelly and Celine Dion (“I’m Your Angel”) and Sarah McLachlan (“Angel”) put together. They were angels in the smoke. Jeremy was getting a sympathetic buzz just from the fug. Bigger even than Mariah Carey (“I Still Believe”). A girl could hope.

  Silence after the sound.

  “Put another way,” said Marty, “those folks on Egypt Air last night didn’t have a chance to smoke a last joint.”

  “I’m going,” said Jeremy. “You owe me twenty, Sean.” He bumped his head as he got out.

  He sauntered to the edge of the parking lot, where the sidewalk crept by, to clear his head. Breathed the real air deeply, feeling the giddiness ebb and return. Along came a pint-size Mr. Potato Head and a skeleton who was wearing his full-face mask backward so he could see where he was going. The skeleton said “Trick or treat?” in a perfunctory way, jus
t in case.

  “Sorry, I’m, uh, not supplied.”

  They passed without comment, looking for sweeter pastures. The Frankenstein face grinned its plastic rictus at Jeremy as the kids walked away. Jeremy found himself thinking, maybe Bozo Joe had something ripe enough for them. Or Svetty Boyle.

  7

  TABITHA SURPRISED HER brothers by choosing to go to school without being nagged into it. “Anyone ever needs proof that your circuits are fried, this is it,” said Hogan, watching her dress. “Look: Kommandant Mom is off duty on account of a concussion, and for once she’s not stationed at the bottom of the stairs with her arms folded and her foot tapping. And here you are like, like a bobby-soxer, all ponytails and kneesocks. Your tits are so prompt they’re going to get to school ahead of you and erase the blackboard for which loser teacher? Is it Hess in science lab?”

  “Don’t be vulgar. I failed science lab last year and Hess won’t let me back.”

  “You’re being Mom. That’s it. I get it. Why? Guilty conscience? I know you didn’t push her down the stairs that day. You were home sleeping it off.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m just making the best of a bad situation. What if I’m not there, and some social worker snoops in at school? Mr. Reeves might say I’m playing hookey. The bad apple. Maybe they’ll take Mom away to a rehab resettlement camp somewhere.”

  “Works for me. Works wonders for me.”

  “Right. Then they’ll notice we’re minors and you go to a foster home, Hog. Or given you’re sixteen, to some sort of school more like a jail.”

  “They have juvenile delinquent girls in this jail you describe? Paradise.”