A woman passed on the other side of the street, hurrying and afraid. Walking through fog and mist, Joel-Andrew remembered events leading to his excommunication. The year had been 1966. He heard the clear voice of the Lord, saying, “Go to San Francisco.”
So he stepped with regret, with hope, with fear from his small congregation in Providence. He rode a bus across landscapes of which he had never dreamed. He saw the Lord’s Creation from windows of the bus, and again and again he hungered to step down, speak to folks, examine the Creation. Yet the voice mentioned no wayside shrines, no pause for devotion. The voice said, “Go to San Francisco.”
The first night he walked along Broadway and hung a right onto Grant. He found himself in an Italian neighborhood—coffee shops, spaghetti stores, dago red, onions, garlic, hollers and heavy breathing, while a Caruso record played on a jukebox. Expressionist painters wore colorfully daubed jeans, and a poet stood on a mailbox and read. Three Jamaicans congregated in the middle of an intersection. They played a symphony for drums on upturned garbage cans. A police car cruised past, drove carefully around them, continued on. Joel-Andrew watched surprised and pleased. An entire life spent in Rhode Island prepared him for none of this.
The following morning he strolled in Golden Gate Park where he saw a man dressed in tuxedo, boiled shirt, tie; but who also walked on bare feet and sported a carrot in his lapel. Joel-Andrew listened to an impassioned harangue about something from a self-anointed spokesman, the harangue delivered by bullhorn operated from batteries in a grocery cart. Joel-Andrew fought feelings of distaste. No prophet he knew ever needed a bullhorn.
The park glowed. Bands of eucalyptus cast tall halos above grassy clearings where people walked wearing beads and sometimes clothes. Sunlight touched cherubic faces of abandoned babies, touched tangles of forsythia from which issued ejaculative groans. Hell’s Angels rode swift and quirky bikes or swapped their women for motorcycle parts. The Hell’s Angels were benevolent, protective, and warded off the police. They rarely chain-whipped ladies, or put the boots to children. Foggy San Francisco air pocketed beside lakes where all the ducks had been eaten, and where little piles of duck bones seemed monuments to an otherwise benevolent nature. People cavorted danced, played tunes on wooden flutes. Bells tinkled. Incense tickled noses, and in the distance hard-rocking music carried across the grass, played by an outfit called Moby, and the Self-Inflicted Injury.
Joel-Andrew was shocked, innocent, also very young. Pungent smoke wafted above beautifully trimmed lawns. Joel-Andrew knew enough about drugs to identify aspirin, so he did not know what he smelled. He discovered, walking through clouds of the stuff, that he emerged feeling far, far away from Providence, R.I.
The place was doomed Atlantis; beautiful and terrible, flower-filled and broken-spined. Or, Joel-Andrew thought, maybe it was only like ancient Rome. Maybe he could turn things around.
“This too shall pass,” he prophesied, his thundering voice drowned beneath rock music. “As seasons change, drawing decay through freezing blasts of winter; as the world emerges to a new spring . . .”
“It never snows in San Francisco,” a freak drawled. “Get it together, man.”
Joel-Andrew walked on Haight Street. Starving dogs staggered past, wearing chains of woven daisies. Head shops—decorative, exotic, fascinating—reminded Joel-Andrew of the luminous and miraculous Orient. Strangers smiled, vomited in gutters, fell stoned and grinning from doorways. Pretty girls admired his clerical collar. Handsome young men viewed his clothing and called it “a good trip” or “a real gig.” People told him he was relevant, while flowery painted buses passed and people overdosed in upstairs rooms. “O Lord,” Joel-Andrew prayed, “I’m not the man You need. I’m not big enough to handle this.”
Then he met the girl who began his true ministry. He found her in the entry to an alley, leaning against a wall. She was nearly naked, probably fourteen, a thin girl with long unbrushed hair and brown eyes. Smudges of dirt darkened her cheeks like a child who played with makeup. Her eyes closed, but her mouth trembled, and her eyelids fluttered in a terrible attempt to open. Her hands trembled. She raised her hands to her face, her fists digging into her eyes. Old bruises, dark and green, covered her small and used breasts.
Joel-Andrew had no more than an intellectual view of hell. Behind him, sitting on the sidewalk, someone chanted “om.”
Softly, and with the love of the Lord in his voice, Joel-Andrew said exactly what he should never have said. “Can I help you?” he said. “I am here to help.”
Her eyes opened. Joel-Andrew’s intellectual view of hell vanished. Her eyes stared, stared, stared. Her eyes were greater than oceans stocked with sharks. Deep in those wells a mortal soul fled screaming.
Then her mind connected. The scream became a cry, a thin and improbable wail along the hollow alley. She turned, screamed louder, and fled—and—although Joel-Andrew knew he was a fool, he was not so great a fool that he chased her. He would drive her into the path of a bus or taxi. The drug was too deep. He knew he would never see her again.
He was wrong. He saw her again that same night.
Joel-Andrew fought his memory. There are things even a prophet’s mind should not know twice. His violin bounced on his back. He slapped his cold cheeks to bring him back to the present. He had struggled in that vineyard of San Francisco, had made his mistakes, but now he worked in a new vineyard. In the cold fog and mist, he told himself to pay attention or he would make mistakes in Point Vestal.
Obed felt complainy, his white tail drooping like an ironed out question mark. As they passed the boat basin, figures of taciturn fishermen flickered. From the saltwater swamp, a thin Christian Scientist wail called the names of children. The road headed uphill. High schoolish chortles came from beneath shrubbery. A beer can arced onto the road. It tinkled in a tiny aluminum voice. A ’66 Plymouth, parked by the roadside, rocked gently with giggles from the backseat.
“Homecoming week,” Joel-Andrew told Obed. “Pom-poms, mums, marching bands. Letters on the sweaters. Football heroes. Young love.”
And, Joel-Andrew had to admit, years of experience in the Haight gave no handle on August Starling, or even Kune. In comparison to the normal community behavior in Janie’s Tavern, both Starling and Kune were sociopaths.
It took more than an hour to arrive at the top of the hill. Occasionally an old car roared past as people drove home from Janie’s Tavern. Mist lightened as the road climbed. In deep silence Joel-Andrew could hear August Starling hollering, “Dolor—dolor—oh, woe, oh, woe is me.” The quieter voice of Kune said, “You had it coming, creepo.” A match flared. Kune lit a small campfire. Joel-Andrew shivered, moved forward.
Kune’s yellow eyes shone sparkly, like the tiny saucers of a child’s tea set. On some low level showed Kune was having a wonderful time. “Transmigration,’’ Kune muttered. “Transmogrification, transmutation, transnatural.” Kune giggled and pointed at August Starling. “That boy’s sins have whelped.”
The tree thy axe cut from its native sod,
And turns to useful things—go tell to fools,
Was fashioned in the factory of God . . .
August Starling yelped, whined, lathered.
“What year is it?’ Kune asked.
“It’s 1973” Joel-Andrew said. “It was 1973 when I left Janie’s Tavern, and there have been no changes.”
“There has been one,” Kune said. He leaned toward the campfire to warm his hands. “The fork in the road has disappeared.” Kune again pointed at August Starling. “Our corpse molester can’t go back in time. He’s stuck here in 1973.”
“He’s got to go back,” Joel-Andrew told Kune. “He just received a vote of confidence from the whole town.”
Farewell! through wastes of distance now
I gaze with eyes astrain;
O’er billowy years that ebb and flow
Sweet voices of the Long Ago . . .
August Starling sounded awash in happy misery. At the same time, A
ugust Starling’s voice gained a note of confidence. Obed flicked his tail, looked worried.
“Because,” Kune said, “if he can’t go back in time, he can’t dink with Point Vestal history. We’ll arrest him for murder, throw him in a cell with the ghost of The Sailor, let him simmer . . .” He turned to August Starling. “The town historians have a rap sheet. You make Al Capone look like an uncommon cold in a convent.”
Campfire light flickered over Joel-Andrew’s face, but August Starling did not flicker. As Joel-Andrew watched with interest, puzzlement, and then a touch of horror, a dried-out skull clacked its jaws beneath the young face of August Starling. Starling looked like one of the trick-pictures beloved by Victorians. If one viewed the picture from one angle, he saw beauty. From a different angle he saw death. The illusion faded.
“My clerical friend.” August Starling’s voice grew confident. “You witness great trial that a cold and inhospitable world has untimely thrust upon one of the most stalwart and dutiful of men.”
“I’ve tried and tried,” Kune mourned “Impossible to get this pinhead speaking anything resembling English.”
“And who, pray tell, is Al Capone?” August Sterling’s slim form stood erect. With his beautifully barbered hair and mustache, with his neat little beard, he might pass for a missionary, or possibly a door-to-door brush salesman.
“Submachine guns,” Joel-Andrew said. “Rackets. Protection money. Guilds, associations, rotgut. Bribery, gambling, payoffs. Politics, St. Valentine’s Day massacre . . .”
August Starling interrupted. “And what, pray tell, is a submachine gun?”
Kune turned to Joel-Andrew. “We got to set this guy on simmer. Not just in the jail. Under the jail.” Kune had been temporarily happy that August Starling, trapped in the present, could not change the past. “It’s a handheld Gatling gun.” Kune explained submachine guns to August Starling.
“O brave new world that has such people in’t!” August Starling stood above the fire and busily cast a shadow while admiring technology. August Starling had not yet seen hand grenades, automatic car washes and napalm. He carried no acquaintance with nerve gas, television sets, or mass-circulation magazines. It was love—Joel-Andrew had seen it before. He figured Starling would have his new world doped out within two days.
“All you’re going to see,” Kune said, his face grim, “is a nineteenth-century cell, in a nineteenth-century basement fulla dying ghosts and no heat.” He turned to Joel-Andrew. “This little priss has thirty murder raps, drug running, extortion, slave labor, press gangs, death ships, bribery, cathouses, insurance scams; plus, of course, the import-export business.”
“I see the problem,” Joel-Andrew admitted. “It’s all more-or-less legal in San Francisco, but the Lord doesn’t like it. We’d better consult the Lord.” He lowered his head. August Starling chortled lewdly. Obed snored. “O Lord,” Joel-Andrew prayed, “deliver us from evil, and even into the hands of righteousness.”
Normal pressures of sea and air and gravity churned like atmospheric butter. The barometer did a hop and skip. A gust of wind popped like a hiccup.
There came a whisper, a faint rushing, a confused zephyr. The landscape altered slightly. The campfire winked like a hot little coronary in the deep and awful night shadow of The Parsonage. The Parsonage had moved again, or else it came to answer Joel-Andrew’s prayer. The all-seeing tower of The Parsonage rose above the campfire, while downhill, but visible in the thin mist, flicked the gumball light of a ’39 LaSalle police car.
“It’s a night for records.” Kune was astonished. “Ollie Jones wins the pool championship. Now we’ve seen The Parsonage move. No one ever really saw it move before.”
From far away, a ship’s horn sounded on the Strait, low and mournful like an elegy for souls of dead sailors. High above, the all-seeing tower blanked a thin moon. A pencil of light shone through a window on the second floor of The Parsonage. The light extinguished.
Joel-Andrew and Kune did not know that, during Joel-Andrew’s long walk up the hill, Bev and Samuel went directly to The Parsonage when leaving Janie’s Tavern. Joel-Andrew and Kune did not know that Bev and Samuel sprawled on the second floor, experiencing dizziness. No one in Point Vestal had ever actually seen The Parsonage move, nor had anyone ever been in The Parsonage during one of its moves. Samuel and Bev dazedly discussed options. They peered from the second-floor window.
“Before we get absorbed in our troubles,” Bev giggled, “we’d better count our blessings and admit it was a smashing ride. In the whole history of dalliance, no one ever saw a dallie like that.”
Samuel peered from the window. “It’s that imitation, itinerant Episcopal,” he whispered. “He’s with Kune and a vaguely familiar-looking stranger. Gerald is arriving in the police car.” Samuel was old and getting wiser by the minute. He would not admit that his Methodist hanky-panky, framed in a parsonage, earned a lot of extra zip. In his quiet way, he sorted puzzle pieces of his problem, and blamed the whole thing on Presbyterians.
“We could just ’fess up,” Bev giggled. “The whole town gives us credit for an affair, anyway.” She brushed her long hair, put a blush of powder on her cheeks. “Besides,” she said, “if we ‘fess up, Gerald will give us a ride home.”
“Confess to what,” Samuel asked. “Bird-watching? Enumerating screech owls? All we were doing was enumerating screech owls.”
“There was quite a bit of screeching going on.” Bev felt even more giggly, irrepressible.
“In the fields of the Lord,” Samuel added, and for no apparent reason. He stood at the deeply shadowed window, looking onto the scene. The vaguely familiar looking stranger, who—of course—was August Starling, asked questions about pinball, slot machines, arms budgets. Starling’s voice sounded innocent, clear, and guileless as a child. Joel-Andrew answered politely. Kune glowered. Obed snoozed.
Night shadows of The Parsonage licked at edges of the campfire, cast darkness into the very heart of fire. From high in the all-seeing tower, low muttering echoed into hallways of The Parsonage, sounding like a tough-minded preacher musing as he wrote his fifteenth point into a sermon.
The 1939 LaSalle parked. “Oh, dear,” Bev said, “Gerald looks ready to gnaw the hind end off a Sasquatch. I’ve never seen him look so mean.”
“Homecoming week,” Samuel whispered. “Homecoming week is very hard on Gerald.”
Tall, lean, and sinewy, Gerald rarely flickers. Except for a few weeks off, he is the only policeman Point Vestal has had since 1932. Gerald does not like the New Deal, but does like J. Edgar Hoover—admires him, even—and Gerald is so tough, he could run the Democratic National Convention with a squirt gun. Young Dobermans have been known to follow him around, just to pick up a few tricks.
“Illegal campfire.” Gerald hitched up his pants. “Trespassing on sanctified ground.” Gerald tilted his hat. “That tomcat looks like a pork chop, and it has no pet license.” Gerald looked at Kune. “You’re a real disappointment, Doc. Bad enough you walk all night and all day; now you hang out with a known vagrant.” To Joel-Andrew he said, “Impersonating a preacher, inciting to riot during town meeting, walking without a driver’s license, no visible means of support, no credit card.”
“I’ve made a citizen’s arrest,” Kune said to Gerald. “This is August Starling, and the charge is murder.”
“We were here first,” Joel-Andrew explained. “The Parsonage just arrived.”
“Failure to yield to a haircut,” Gerald said. “Disorderly conduct, possession of a violin, conspiracy to smuggle Bibles, aiding and abetting alcohol in the presence of an Indian—I mean Maggie—untrimmed toenails, and footwear unbecoming the propriety of Point Vestal.” Gerald looked at Obed who was waking up. “Fornication, mouse-napping, harboring fleas . . .”
“That is August Starling,” Kune said. “Prostitution, drugs, capital crimes.”
“Almighty grace has brought you here,” August Starling said to Gerald. “Midst greater woes than can be shown / w
ith deeper sighs than can be known . . .”
“Button it,” Gerald said. He turned to Kune. “Rules of evidence,” he explained. “All you’ve got is history. The statute of limitations has run on a lot of it. You’ve got no bodies. They became skeletons ninety years ago, those he didn’t drown. You got no proof.”
“I own the honor of being a deacon,” August Starling said, and set about proving he had never done a wrong thing in his life. He pointed out that the blessed land of America was the blessed land of freedom. Chinamen yearning to be free had every right to immigrate; and, in helping them, he, August Starling, was a patriot. Drowned Chinamen were not his doing, and that, as all positive-minded men would agree, each person had a right to the pursuit of happiness. If a man was locked up for smuggling Chinamen, Starling argued reasonably, that man could not pursue happiness. No blame could thus attach to his boat crews because they drowned Chinamen who tried to be free, while the boat crews were about to get caught by the Immigration Department, and thus jailed in violation of the Constitution. Perhaps, Starling argued, laws sometimes fell at cross-purposes, but he, Starling, had not written the laws. Starling’s voice hummed innocence.
Gerald scratched his head. Kune moaned. Obed muttered an obscenity in Portuguese.
As for other charges, Starling argued with sweet reason, he had no dealings with prostitution, although as a loyal (and possibly noble) son of Point Vestal, he had provided lodging for homeless women. Certain drugs passed through his hands, but they were medicinal. Joel-Andrew listened to the childlike twitter of Starling. Starling actually believed what he said.
“There will be days of wrath,” Joel-Andrew said. “Innocents will rise from the sea and walk. This I prophesy.” The ground trembled. The campfire flickered.
“Impersonating a prophet,” Gerald said. “Do it one more time, and you are busted seventeen ways from Sunday.” He turned to August Starling. “Make one wrong move in Point Vestal, and I’ll throw you in a cell with the ghost of The Sailor.”
The Off Season Page 9
