The Off Season

by The Off Season (epub)

  “Then miracles may exist?” Kune’s voice was reluctant, but he obviously strove for an open mind.

  “The Parsonage seems to be over that way,” Joel-Andrew said, and pointed in the general direction of August Starling’s burger franchise. He took Kune’s elbow. The two men stepped gingerly over water-slick ice. “Miracles are only sprinkles on the doughnuts. The important thing is that Good and Evil exist. You just met one incarnation of evil.”

  “Then August Starling really isn’t August Starling? August Starling is Evil in the shape of August Starling?”

  “It is almost that simple,” Joel-Andrew told him. Through freezing mist, blanketing clouds, tenuous footing, Joel-Andrew steered Kune toward the sound of bells. When nearly at the doorway of The Parsonage, they realized that something peculiar had been going on.

  Kune giggled. Gurked. Snorted. “Oh, my,” he said, “we seem to be short a burger franchise.”

  The all-seeing tower rose into the ice-ridden night, and The Parsonage sat squarely on the lot once occupied by the burger franchise. Both men paused.

  “I see how it was done,” Kune murmured, “but where did the burger building go?” He peered into the darkness. From the susurrous waters of the Strait came an interrupted murmur, as cold wavelets broke in slightly different patterns. “Dumped it in the Strait,” Kune giggled. “The Parsonage sure had its dander up.”

  Joel-Andrew had not figured on a major confrontation just yet. “It must have looked like hopscotch,” he murmured.

  And, no doubt, it had looked like hopscotch. The Parsonage set its lot (150 x 200 feet, one maple, three apples, a pear and two cherries) on the lot of the burger franchise. The burger franchise was forced to move over. The Parsonage moved again. The burger franchise moved. Joel-Andrew figured The Parsonage must have moved four or five times before it finally got the burger franchise nudged into the Strait.

  Chapter 26

  Gray-fingered dawns followed gray-fingered dawns. Time came and went, tick-tocking, sometimes tock-tocking. Winds of evil blew through our streets. Joel-Andrew visited members of the ministerial association and tried to persuade them to confront August Starling. The ministerial association also felt dark winds, but could make no decisions. The IWW man organized his strike, and the Victorians picketed. Joel-Andrew stood alone.

  On the morning after the big blowout at Janie’s Tavern, Gerald had a crawful, and rousted the Victorians from the tavern. The all-seeing tower watched as Gerald herded rumpled Victorians into the custody of The Parsonage. The Victorians were hung over, guilt ridden; and articles of clothing raggled and taggled in rumpled memory of an orgy that would supply copy for every pulpit in Point Vestal—and that copy would be good for an extra long month of sermons. The sermons were doubtless delivered, but time was about to become crisscross, so none of us remember.

  On the Strait, nothing could be seen, except, rising above the waves, a forlorn plastic sign depicting a giggly hamburger. When the IWW man tacked the “Strike Headquarters” sign across the front of The Parsonage, The Parsonage felt proud.

  And the all-seeing tower—knowing as it did, the state of all minds and hearts—understood that Gerald had made a wise move. Enough ghostly preachers walked stairs and corridors of The Parsonage to ensure that the Victorians would keep their braces snapped. It would be a cinch for Gerald to control the crew in The Parsonage. Plus, of course, The Sailor and the morose cop worked with Gerald, sort of.

  Controlling the rest of the town proved less easy. The merchants’ association, the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor and city council stonewalled. They knew they were rued, whooed, screwed, and tattooed. If the ghosts stayed on strike, everybody could kiss a tourist season on the hem of its departing skirt. In its awful need, the town turned to the man of the hour—and Starling, as surefooted as a mouse on Swiss cheese—scampered toward the pinnacle of his grand scheme. He promised to lead Point Vestal to its inevitable destiny—the center of the map.

  “For indeed,” August Starling explained with sweet reason, “when we combine blessed immortality with indulgences and Victorian charm, the town could hardly become less than the center of the map.” August Starling opened negotiations with the strikers. He kept six Sicilians with their machine guns in the background.

  Meanwhile, Joel-Andrew made quiet moves. He respectfully confronted the mayor and members of city council. He contacted Jerome, and issued a challenge to open debate with August Starling. He preached before The Fisherman’s Café careful to stay on rational grounds. Perhaps he was too conservative. Recall, though, that Joel-Andrew had experienced enough busts on the charge of being a fruitcake.

  Starling’s hired preacher, the Reverend Thaddeus Goodman (Goody) Friendship, spoke of the sin-absolving power of cash. Joel-Andrew challenged Goody to a preach-in; no holds barred. Goody yawned. Joel-Andrew spoke of love and life. Goody responded with “life everlasting.” The chess game, with the soul of Point Vestal as prize, opened beneath those cold, and icy, and gray-fingered dawns. The all-seeing tower watched.

  “Because,” Joel-Andrew explained to Kune on a rare evening in the basement of The Parsonage, “the all-seeing tower is arriving at a higher state of grace. Are you familiar with the philosophic idea of the ‘Witness?’”

  “They come to the doorway of The Parsonage sometimes,” Kune murmured. “I have tracts. But tracts or not, I happen to know Point Vestal is not the whole world. I am taking my evidence to Seattle. I’ll talk to attorney generals and the CIA, FBI, Department of Immigration, plus district attorneys. I’m going to contact every legalized legbreaker until one of them takes action against August Starling. Maybe I can get the system to work.” Kune’s face seemed far more relaxed in the dusty light of the basement.

  “A Witness,” Joel-Andrew murmured, “would never give out tracts.” Then Joel-Andrew explained that a true Witness watched, and said nothing. “The whole idea,” Joel-Andrew explained, “is that when an immoral man knows he is watched, he will accuse himself and clean up his act. All a Witness has to do is watch. The minute the Witness says anything, the effect is spoiled.”

  Days foundered and stumbled. Time lay like a landscape above which the all-seeing tower peered. The all-seeing tower watched Samuel canter back into town. It watched Samuel’s wrath, as Samuel consulted with Bev and learned of recent events. When time jumps increased, and our streets filled momentarily with Indians and Chinamen, the all-seeing tower stood mute. It watched children stand puzzled and fearful before darkly lighted Christmas trees. It watched the ministerial association form ranks behind Samuel. It watched the Reverend Thaddeus Goodman (Goody) Friendship cruise Main Street like a ’47 Buick.

  The all-seeing tower watched Collette—attended by the Irish cop—as she left the bookstore basement and once more opened her antique store. The Irish cop threw away boxes of dead roses while Collette still shivered. August Starling had mentioned, often enough, that his wife would soon join him from Boston.

  Kune prepared to depart for Seattle. His long hair flowed washed and glowing. He confided to Joel-Andrew that he felt few fears and no expectations. At the same time, he had to give the system a chance. When Kune departed for Seattle, he was shadowed by a narc, who was shadowed by another narc. The all-seeing tower watched.

  Time flowed, horsed around, turned back on itself. Sometimes the clock at The Fisherman’s Café became confused. The tide tables stuttered quietly among their pages, and even clams on the beach were befuddled. Sea gulls avoided the town, but the number of ducks increased in the saltwater swamp. Orca and gray whales cruised the Strait. Their rolling backs, their shearwater fins, and the spouts of the grays became sights as familiar as the black and icy streets. Dolphins, seals, sea lions snorted, burped, glugged. The beasts did not approach the town, but seemed, themselves, to be Witnesses. The situation did not really get loathsome until two days before Christmas.

  “August Starling’s actions make no sense.” Joel-Andrew sat among Christmas decorations in Janie’s Tavern as he ta
lked to Maggie. Maggie looked into black streets. A parade of horse drawn ebony hearses tiptoed past, gorgeously decorated in red, white, and blue bunting. Spans of perfectly matched black horses bowed their heads beneath icy rain and the weight of the hearses.

  “This is opening day of the August Starling Layaway Plan,” Maggie said. “At his new business address. Will you be joining the cheering boosters?”

  “Count on it,” Joel-Andrew said. “I’m going to go one-on­-one with a TV preacher who’s playing like he’s John the Baptist.” Joel-Andrew cultivated calm, because wrath wasn’t going to make it with this particular house. “The Reverend Thaddeus Goodman Friendship has been passing gas,” Joel-Andrew told Maggie. “He says a savior is headed for Point Vestal. You would think a savior would be scheduled to show up at Christmas. Goody insists that everyone repent.”

  “August Starling has a timetable,” Maggie said. She looked down the nearly barren bar. Happy hour was no longer held at Janie’s Tavern. Three drunken loggers, two drunken fishermen, and one member of the Loyal Order of Beagles brooded, sad and silent. Frank’s tummy seemed smaller, and his whiskers looked like wilting ferns. Black lights replaced the once colorful neon, and the jukebox played a dirge. Joel-Andrew no longer had a job. He owned fourteen dollars and eighty-three cents, plus a nearly full jar of peanut butter. He did not think of himself as wealthy, but he was in pretty good shape.

  “You might help your cause,” Maggie said, “by asking our crowd a simple question. If they are so blamed right, then why aren’t they happy?” Maggie stared dismally at steamy horse droppings sizzling on the icy street. “What’s to be repented?”

  “People spend money on food and shelter,” Joel-Andrew explained. “Money that should go into the tourist business.”

  “Don’t sit there trying to pass foolishness off on your elders.”—Maggie sipped white wine, belched genteelly—“or your betters.”

  “It’s a problem I have,” Joel-Andrew admitted. “When things get crucial, I kind of hide behind words. I’ve been doing it since my ministry in San Francisco.” Joel-Andrew looked at Maggie and responded to her honesty. “The Lord trusts me,” he said, “and I’m scared silly of my anger. If my anger ever gets loose, and starts to wield the Lord’s power . . .” Joel-Andrew looked toward The Fisherman’s Café. In darkly lighted windows, a large poster offered a free funeral to the first volunteer to cast off this earthly veil for purposes of advertising. No one had yet stepped forward, but the Chamber of Commerce was optimistic. “You see what I mean,” Joel-Andrew said.

  “Use your mother wit,” Maggie said. “Focus only on Starling. The reason August Starling is not bringing his messiah to town on Christmas is because people stay home on Christmas. They don’t go touristing. August Starling has not begun to sell anything, except in Point Vestal.”

  “I’m not losing the battle yet,” Joel-Andrew told her. “But I’m not winning, either.” He sighed, his fatigue both great and evident. “In the old days, a prophet knew exactly what to do. He rode into town yelling ‘Repent.’ He preached in the streets. He promised destruction before the winds of heaven. But now, Goody plays the act. Plus, everybody has ignored stuff like that for centuries.”

  “You’re not winning because you miss motives,” Maggie explained. “The funeral business will turn reams of cash, but it’s really a cover for the drug trade.”

  “I’m not missing that. Starling wants Point Vestal, and he’s not far from getting it.” Joel-Andrew pointed toward Frank, toward the drunken loggers and fishermen and the man from the Beagles. “The whole town deals drugs by default. If I take that message out there, I’ll whip myself. If I even think about it too long, I’ll fall into wrath and misuse power. Today I’m going to make August Starling take a fall. That may stave off a bad confrontation.” Joel-Andrew looked sadly at the poster. The poster began: “Point Vestal Wants You,” and it promised a funeral heretofore reserved for royalty. “You can speak truth to power,” Joel-Andrew explained, “but when you speak truth to weakness, weakness gets mad and queasy. It accuses you of its own insecurity.”

  Sometimes time waffled. Sometimes a day passed in normal manner. On other days it remained noon—or three o’clock—forever. Some Tuesdays would fade into night, and when the black and icy day returned it was still Tuesday. On that 23rd of December, 1973—when August Starling opened for business, and when the forces of Good and Evil first joined: and Joel-Andrew and Obed got in a few licks—it seemed the day would never end.

  When Gerald herded impeccably dressed Victorians toward downtown, it was about 11:30 AM. The Victorians were accompanied by Suffragettes carrying strike signs painted in red. The man from the IWW marched tall and proud, although weaponless, because Gerald made him give up his grub hoe handle.

  The Victorians remained defensive after their debauch, which accounts for steely gazes, proper stances, their air of detachment, their dutiful calm. That they held the whip hand in strike negotiations did not hurt their detachment, either. When the Victorians passed the drowned burger franchise, they gave little sniffs of scorn. At their backs, and higher up the hill, the pharmaceutical company raised turrets into a black sky.

  To the Victorians, Point Vestal had transformed. The pinks, purples, blues, and greens of former days were painted away. Storefronts gleamed black and glossy, like wet hides of matched horses pulling hearses. Black satin drapes hugged merchandise displayed upon black velvet: funerary urns, stitched hankies reading “farewell,” ebony-tinted condoms, teddy bears with the very darkest fur, and with mournful faces.

  August Starling stood before his renovated commercial building, surrounded by the GAR, the Martha Washington Brigade, the Mothers Against Transgression and Sensuality (MATS). August Starling’s building rose darkly. In front of the building, horses stamped, steamed, stood in their traces before gorgeous hearses. The black horses wore black saddle blankets with gold stitching—“August Starling Enterprises,” “Point Vestal Immortality Company”—and the horses snorted, pawed, and sneezed foam.

  “Bit of a show, eh, mate,” The Sailor whispered to the morose cop. “But a sight too gay for an honest sailor.” The Sailor, recovered from his hangover, thirsted for another.

  “It isn’t a bit gay,” the morose cop said. “It’s August Starling at his worst.”

  In the modest hotel beside the building, black wicker furniture stood on blood-red carpet. Lace twirled phantasmic, brocade positive as a commandment.

  “The August Starling layaway plan,” the morose cop said. “I expect we’ll all be laid away before the day is out.”

  “The upper chambers,” The Sailor whispered, “are filled with Chinese and Indians. The bloody heathen are curious.”

  “In Point Vestal you never look above the first story of any building,” the morose cop said. “Chinese and Indians are there?”

  “And whales upon the Strait.” The Sailor glanced at the blackened front of Janie’s Tavern. “But for a bit of coin . . .”

  “I could use a drink,” the morose cop admitted.

  August Starling stood before his renovated building. He was young, optimistic, darkly handsome; like a friendly lawyer, or a solicitous used car salesman. He chirped, addressing people as “neighbor,” “friend,” “colleague,” “pard,” and “bro.” At his right hand, Goody Friendship intoned, “We pray for the heathen.” Goody turned from prayer to display lapel buttons proclaiming Point Vestal as the new Eden.

  “Starling passes it around that The Parsonage did him a favor when it drowned his burger place,” the morose cop said. “Something to do with tax write-offs. Starling loved the television news report. Says that ‘advertisingwise, it attentionizes the market audiencewise.’ A man has to wonder what that means.”

  “A bloody curious century,” The Sailor admitted. “But picking pockets no longer gets a poor lad hanged.” The Sailor mixed in the crowd before August Starling’s renovated building. He casually bumped a gentleman who adjusted his watch. He eased back toward the moros
e cop. “A few quid,” he muttered, “but enough to entertain two jolly fellows.”

  The morose cop stepped backward, tsked-tsked, no longer looked morose. “We must play the hand we’re dealt,” he whispered. “We must stay here, at least for a little while. Otherwise it becomes too obvious.”

  “Gerald?”

  “Gerald is busy overseeing this crowd,” the morose cop said. “My old pal, the Irish cop, is staked out in yonder building. I expect he saw you pinch that wallet, but doesn’t care. I shouldn’t wonder but that Obed is back there in the shadows.”

  “Cats and Irishmen,” The Sailor whispered. “Aboard ship a cat is held a lucky creature. Irishmen, however . . .”

  “August Starling is announcing a tour of his layaway facilities,” the morose cop whispered. “Does it strike you that this day seems to be lingering?”

  “That,” The Sailor explained, “is why that toff I bumped keeps adjusting his bloody watch. I make it as about ten in the morning.”

  “We’re headed backward,” the morose cop complained. “Before long ‘twill be sunrise. Janie’s Tavern will not even be open.”

  The crowd flowed into August Starling’s display room with small gasps, murmurs of desire, an occasional “oof” of amazement.

  Coffins on the right of them, coffins on the left of them, stately coffins before them, coffins standing, lying; ranks of coffins like dominoes, like gun carriages. Coffins potent as artillery.

  Coffins enameled red, enameled ebony. Coffins ornamented with gold leaf. Coffins in football brown, navy blue. Coffins padded with velvet, chintz, serge; padded with duck down, kapok. Coffins with reading lamps and magazine racks. Coffins sporting wet bars, AM/FM radios, televisions, kitchenettes, microwave ovens, electric beer bottle openers. Coffins fitted as recreational vehicles, fitted as fiberglass boats. Coffins carrying double beds, bidets.