The Off Season

by The Off Season (epub)

  “One of our better modern poets,” the stranger said. “Shall I read while you tend the reins?”

  Joel-Andrew was as comfortable with horses as a Pietist in a steam bath. “I’ll read,” he said, and began:

  What are the long waves singing, so mournfully, evermore?

  What are they singing so mournfully, as they weep on the sandy shore?

  “Olivia, oh, Olivia!”—what else can it seem to be!

  “Olivia, lost Olivia”—what else can the sad song be?

  —“Weep and mourn, she will not return, she can not return to thee!”

  “Ye gads,” said Joel-Andrew, “Is this early Allen Ginsberg?”

  The stranger’s eyes filled with tears he did not allow to fall. His jaw firmed, but his hands trembled holding the reins. The poem affected his very visage. Joel-Andrew guessed his age at thirty and saw a young man deeply troubled in spirit.

  “What is it?” Joel-Andrew asked softly. “Women, drugs, or a career change?”

  “Beauty,” the young man said. “Also, I think, a little fear. Perhaps we could have some music?”

  Obed, of the golden eyes and white tail, stood on the seat between them as Joel-Andrew unpacked his violin. As Joel-Andrew played a Gershwin medley, Obed swayed and purred in Portuguese. The violin sounded a small and civilized voice into a wilderness of wet forest.

  The young man drove and listened. The horse went clop. The forest dripped. Obed switched to Arabic.

  “When was that music written?” the young man asked when Joel-Andrew finished.

  “In 1920, maybe. Maybe 1930.”

  “Oh, preserve me,” the young man said prayerfully, “it’s happening again.” He looked at Joel-Andrew in supplication. “I’ve never heard of Allen Ginsberg. Tell me honestly, what is the date? Not the day, the year?”

  “It’s 1973,” Joel-Andrew said. “At least it was when I got here.”

  “It’s 1893,” the young man said. “At least it was when I began this journey. It is always 1893 when I begin this journey.”

  Nothing pleased Joel-Andrew so much as powerful forces, and powerful forces must be operating. “We have time to talk at length,” he said. “It looks like you’ve done this trip before.”

  “Any number of times. I almost always pick up strangers. They most always talk about 1950 or 1960. Now you talk about 1973.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “We arrive in Point Vestal,” the stranger said. “My passenger steps down where the road branches. I follow the branch to my house, and the road disappears. The next thing I know, I’m in front of the turnoff to Point Vestal, being pulled by this horse . . . I don’t even know the horse’s name . . . and I don’t even know where the buggy came from . . . and it is always daytime and always raining . . . and there is another five-hour drive ahead of me . . . and all I want is to return home in 1893 and answer for my mistakes . . . and see my sweet wife . . .” He looked at Joel-Andrew. “You aren’t even born yet. I’m dead by the time you are born.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Joel-Andrew said, “I’m pushing forty-five.” He ran a spidery and violin-playing finger around the inside of his clerical collar. “O, Lord,” Joel-Andrew prayed silently, “may thy servant once more be the instrument of thy power.” He felt the familiar energy, vast and loving, wash through him.

  “The Lord is with you,” he told the young stranger. “This time the road will not disappear.”

  The young man looked dubious but hopeful. “It will not disappear,” Joel-Andrew repeated.

  “You see,” the young man said, “some people believe I am mad. I was beginning to think they are correct.”

  “Your wife?”

  “In my whole life,” the young man said, “I’ve only seen her for a little less than six months, and that seven years ago.” The young man smiled tenderly. “We were married in Boston before I came west to make our fortune, and to build a house. I did both. Then I was shipped to an asylum.” The young man’s voice sounded sincere, and that troubled Joel-Andrew because the young man so obviously lied. The sincerity troubled Joel-Andrew. He had heard the same kind of rap from pawnbrokers.

  When they arrived on the outskirts of Point Vestal, the road forked. The young man clucked at the horse.

  “Will I see you again?” he asked, and his voice vibrated with hope. Joel-Andrew thought the man very, very young.

  Joel-Andrew made his voice reassuring, the bearer of serene power. “Follow your road,” he told the young man. “From what I’ve been told of Point Vestal, we may end up being neighbors.”

  The young man turned the buggy down the left fork. After the buggy traveled about fifty yards, the buggy and horse disappeared, but the young man did not. The young man stood in the middle of the muddy road. The road did not disappear. The young man smiled, then did a stiff little dance. He began walking the muddy road toward home.

  “The Lord did that,” Joel-Andrew called after him. “Be sure to think about it.”

  Chapter 5

  October in Point Vestal is grand because of mist and light, especially this October as we begin telling about Joel-Andrew and Kune and Obed the cat and The Parsonage. Fog wraps around steeples of our eighteen churches, and fog swirls about high gables where Victorian carvings seem natural nests for birds, or gargoyles.

  As we, who write this history, walk early-morning streets to our meeting at The Fisherman’s Café, it is possible to travel a couple of blocks without seeing a parked automobile. We may see Kune walking and disappearing rapidly into mist. We may hear the distant sound of Joel-Andrew’s violin. The stern figure of The Parsonage may rise before us (and we’ll explain about The Parsonage real soon, because Joel-Andrew and The Parsonage had close ties). Electric lights behind drawn curtains of houses are dim as kerosene lamps in the fog. We walk expecting to hear the whinny of a horse, the clop of hooves. A few people still keep horses. It is not always possible to tell whether the sounds come from the mouths and hooves of living horses, or echo from a livery stable turned into the town’s movie theater back in 1923.

  It is also in October that The Parsonage grows more restless.

  The Parsonage was once used by Presbyterian ministers, and it sat in one place for decades. Then things were done which will have to be explained later on. From the time of those mistakes, The Parsonage has never fixed in one spot for more than a few months. In October—especially with the approach of Halloween—The Parsonage gets skittish. When this happens, Presbyterians in town get mighty silent.

  One of the town’s main problems happens because each time The Parsonage moves, it takes its lot with it. The Parsonage sets its lot (150-foot front, 200-foot depth) and its trees (one maple, three apples, one pear, and two cherries) smack down between houses that have rested comfortably side by side for a century. The street plan of the whole town shifts maybe one-third of a degree. Any map of Point Vestal is slightly askew. It is a surveyor’s nightmare.

  We get werelight in November, but during October, sun pries at clouds and fog. An occasional beam illuminates a stained glass window or reaches the streets. The light comes through as copper, not gold, although sometimes in summer it is gold as the gold in the eyes of Obed the cat.

  And we find this book is being written rather more slowly than we hoped. These days we meet in October, having spent the summer mostly talking. In October, windows of The Fisherman’s Café are steamy.

  “It was October of 1973,” Frank points out as he sips from his mustache cup, “that August Starling appeared in the drawing room of the Starling House.” Frank chuckles, then blanches slightly. “That brought a few gasps from a few high places. Even in Seattle.”

  “You have to wonder about Joel-Andrew’s motives,” Collette says. “Bringing August Starling back to town.” Collette looks especially Irish this morning, her blue eyes a little misty. She probably read poems of Thomas Moore before bedtime. “Joel-Andrew was emotional.”

  “It was Joel-Andrew’s way,” Samuel explains. “
He never thought of consequences. He just saw another person in trouble and tried to fix the trouble.” Samuel brushes at his broadcloth suit. “Which is rare among Episcopals,” Samuel adds, or rather, intones.

  “The most unmethodical man I’ve ever met,” Jerome says. “Him and his dancing cat.”

  “Samuel and I were fantasizing about the past on the day Joel-Andrew came to town. The town gossips had it that Samuel and I were in an affair, or at least an assignation.” Bev is so straightforward, sometimes shocking the bewhiskers off Samuel. “That was the time The Parsonage seemed almost suicidal. You’ll remember it took up squatter’s rights on the cliff beside the approach to town. Not even an outhouse could live for long on that cliff, what with the winds.”

  Samuel says nothing, but juts his jaw forward and tries to look imposing.

  Frank blushes, and his beard trembles. Collette chortles. Jerome snuffles.

  “We were bird watching,” Samuel says.

  It is always endearing to watch a Methodist trying to rig a jib sail in a heavy wind. “Bird watching in the fields of the Lord,” Samuel adds, for no apparent reason, as we return to our history.

  We were much younger in 1973. Bev was fifty-three, Samuel seventy-three (and still occasionally doing some preaching), Frank was forty-three, Jerome forty-six, and Collette was a twenty-seven-year-old kid.

  Joel-Andrew was forty-five, and Obed the cat had one white whisker.

  They were two small figures, a man and his cat, rounding the curve in the road that takes a three-mile sweep along the Strait, descending from cliffs into downtown Point Vestal. Clouds scudded in copper layers, and mist licked thickly along the road. The Parsonage stood halfway down the hill, its widow’s walk looking toward Strait and sea. This late in the season, most of the apples were gone from trees that attend The Parsonage. The pear tree stood gnarled, cropped out; the cherries were losing their leaves. To Joel-Andrew, The Parsonage looked lonely. Joel-Andrew could not figure out why anyone would build a house in such an exposed and haunted looking place. No lights shone in The Parsonage. A thin trickle of smoke came from one of three chimneys.

  A small sign hung nailed to an apple tee. The sign said: “Presbyterian Parsonage.” Joel-Andrew gave a little shiver of excitement. The Parsonage certainly looked Presbyterian. It carried the severe lines of New England Puritanism, and (although technically Victorian) it carried no gewgaws or ornamentation to reduce its severe certainty. Stained glass ran like vestal ribbons bordering narrow, plain glass windows. One square tower rose at the front, like the bell tower of a church. A second, but octagonal tower, rose at the rear; and the octagonal tower actually carried some bells. Silhouetted in the gray sky, the front tower gazed all-seeing, 360 degrees into the forest, the Strait, the highway and byways. It was obvious to Joel-Andrew that the tower contained the minister’s office and library. He wondered (with a thrill) at the thousands of sermons which must have issued from that tower.

  “That police sergeant in Oregon gave motherly advice about Point Vestal,” Joel-Andrew muttered to Obed. “At least as much as any sociologist can.”

  Obed expressed the opinion that Joel-Andrew might be a real mouse-chaser when it came to passing miracles, but was a lousy judge of character. Obed shivered in his damp fur. He huddled beneath a trellised rosebush, his white tail flipping like a windshield wiper in the fog.

  There should have been a church nearby, but there was none. Joel-Andrew thought it curious business. He also thought a knock on The Parsonage’s door would do no harm. Perhaps this town even had a ministerial association. When the door opened, Joel-Andrew was shocked.

  Joel-Andrew could tell a Methodist a mile off, and to find a Methodist in a Presbyterian parsonage was like finding an Anabaptist with a vow of silence. Joel-Andrew backed up a rapid and hysterical step, like a man going to the can and mistakenly entering the ladies’ room.

  The tall man who faced him carried a weatherworn and hawkish face. Heavy brows ran above stern eyes. High cheeks sported a network of wrinkles. Thick hair that was gray, and a short beard, made the man (who wore a frock coat) look like a 19th-century whaling captain.

  “You are wet, poor fellow,” Samuel said. He eyed Joel-Andrew’s clerical collar. He turned, speaking to a woman. “My dear, we have an itinerant.” He motioned Joel-Andrew inside. Obed, having mercy on himself, was already inside and licking his coat by the fireplace.

  In its stern way, the room glowed. Joel-Andrew thought it fitting surroundings for an even lovelier woman. When Samuel introduced Bev, Joel-Andrew thought briefly of Dorothy Lamour. Then he reminded himself that he was in Point Vestal. Joel-Andrew was fascinated with this new version of reality. The year 1888 seemed to spread in front of him. The parlor was well illuminated by light from the fireplace.

  Ornate Victorian chairs, ribbon-backed and rose-backed, sat like dancing partners in a quiet minuet. Samuel’s formal coat was a complement to Bev’s long and vaguely antique dress. The dress flowed elegantly, like poured cream decorated with pearls. Her hair piled high, woven with gorgeous ivory combs. Gold-leaf frames surrounded hanging portraits of Presbyterians, so walls were disapproving; but the rest of the room—with pristine white wallpaper and twelve-foot ceilings—felt light and airy. Crystal, and other glass, reflected firelight. Floors snuggled beneath Oriental rugs.

  To Joel-Andrew, freshly come from soggy upstairs rooms above Haight Street, the purity and elegance of the scene were like strains of chamber music. Then his heart broke with happiness, with incredible love for Samuel and Bev.

  “Bedad,” Samuel said, “I do believe that cat is purring in Greek.”

  “Yes,” Bev said, “it is Greek.”

  Obed shifted to Latin. Obed showed off, and Joel-Andrew thought it in poor taste.

  “Latin,” Samuel said.

  “Yes,” Bev said, “but it isn’t as good as his Greek.”

  Joel-Andrew, who had spent his last several years among kids whose vocabulary consisted of “Wow,” felt such a spirit of camaraderie that he unpacked his violin. If Obed wanted to show off; well, then.

  The dancing which followed—as Bev remembers—as Samuel remembers—was a performance of delicacy that could be accomplished only by a cat; even though the cat scaled slightly overweight. It was an afternoon of entertainment in the best Victorian tradition, and ended in a triple flip with Obed standing on his front paws.

  “Our practices must seem strange to you,” Samuel said later over tea. “I assure you, Point Vestal is not so peculiar in every aspect. In many ways we are quite modern. In fact, we are a popular tourist town.”

  Joel-Andrew felt numb, felt he sat with Sterling Hayden and Dorothy Lamour somewhere off toward the end of the world.

  “Samuel and I are getting older,” Bev said. “I was born—well—some time ago. Samuel was born in 1900. We have seen a lot of change.”

  “And so,” said Samuel, “instead of simply yearning for the past, we sometimes meet in this abandoned house and live the past. It is sad that the house is abandoned. There is a grim but presently unimportant tale behind the abandonment.”

  Joel-Andrew, who was celibate, told himself he had seen shack-ups, daisy chains, one-nighters, and a biker with three nuts. He had not for a long time seen genuine romance, a genuine love affair. He remembered his parents.

  “And now,” said Samuel, “you must entertain us with your own adventures.”

  Joel-Andrew told himself he was in for a total wipe-out. He could not tell about the Haight. He could tell about his excommunication, but it would make no sense unless he did tell about the Haight.

  “I met a young man as Obed and I came to town,” Joel-Andrew said. “A man by the name of August Starling.”

  “Yes,” Samuel said.

  “August,” Bev said. “You came to a fork in the road and August disappeared.”

  “Because,” Samuel said, “August—as he probably told you—did a session in the madhouse. He tried to return home and was prevented. He died in Seattle in 192
2 of alcohol and madness. I was 22 on the day we heard the news, brought by a ferry-boat captain.”

  “It didn’t quite happen that way,” Joel-Andrew admitted, and suddenly knew that what he said would not be received as a simple and amusing story. “At least it didn’t happen that way this time.’’ He told his story. “. . . and then,” Joel-Andrew concluded, “we came to the fork in the road. I stepped down and watched. August Starling drove down a muddy road. The horse and carriage disappeared, but Mr. Starling did not. When I last saw him, he was walking a back road leading to town.”

  “Oh, dear,” Bev said when the story finished.

  “Damn,” said Samuel. “Blamit. Damn-blamit.” Samuel lowered his head. “Let us pray,” he said. “Fervently.”

  Chapter 6

  “Joel-Andrew saw a lot of things that day,” says Jerome, “but still knew nothing of Point Vestal history.” Jerome also says we have not yet given a true picture of Point Vestal. What we take for granted in the way of haunted houses would be considered remarkable elsewhere, even in Seattle.

  So be it.

  The road into Point Vestal curves from the cliff into town. On the left, as Joel-Andrew would discover, lies a saltwater swamp greatly beloved by ducks, grebes, Canada geese, mud hens, scoters, occasional auks and puffins; and where on dim days in 1973 a spectral rowboat plowed through reeds. The rowboat searched for bodies of three children who drowned in 1910. No one knows who actually piloted that boat, but we suppose it was the Christian Scientist teacher who took second-graders on a picnic and allowed them to roam.