The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone

by George C. Chesbro

  “You’ve told Garth about your maid of constant sorrows?”

  “Oh, yes. Garth knows everything about me.”

  “Your maid of constant sorrows is your madness?”

  “No. It’s personal, Mongo, and I don’t want to talk about her with you.”

  “I’m sorry, Marl. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Don’t apologize; I told you I’d like you to feel free to ask me anything you’d like. When you ask me a question I don’t want to answer, I’ll just let you know.”

  I smiled, nodded. “Like I said; you don’t seem all that crazy to me.”

  “You seemed a bit nervous when you first walked into the unit. You don’t now.”

  “I was never nervous for myself. Frankly, I don’t much like the idea of Garth hanging out in here. All of the patients in this unit, including you, are potentially violent. I’m afraid Garth could be hurt—if not by you, then by somebody like Mama Baker, who doesn’t have your kind of control.”

  “If Garth had been in here last night, Mama wouldn’t have gone off.”

  My response was to shrug.

  Braxton smiled, continued: “Don’t you think your brother can take care of himself? He certainly has in the past. In fact, he came within a punch or two of busting up Jake Bolesh and a jailful of deputies when Bolesh had you locked up in Nebraska. I believe that was just before Bolesh injected you with the stuff that caused your bodies to change.”

  “Obviously, Garth has gone through some radical changes,” I said, ignoring the clear invitation to discuss Valhalla—while taking note of the fact that Garth had indeed been telling Marl Braxton all about it, in detail. “He’s a bit mellower now, to say the least. If he was attacked, I’m not even sure he would make a move to defend himself.”

  “Don’t worry. I’d never let anything or anybody hurt Garth. But he won’t be attacked; it’s not meant that he should be harmed.”

  Something in the other man’s voice made me sit up straighter. “Why not?”

  Marl Braxton set his half-empty bottle of beer down on the floor, then folded his hands in his lap. “Because Garth is the son of God.”

  I was sorry I’d asked, and I tried to cover my embarrassment by taking a long swallow of beer.

  “Garth is the Messiah,” Braxton continued evenly. “He’s been sent by God to save us from ourselves.”

  “Oh,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. And I couldn’t resist adding, “Son-of-a-bitch.”

  Marl Braxton laughed loudly and easily. “All of a sudden I’m seeming a little crazier to you, aren’t I, Mongo?”

  “Yep. That you are.”

  “Well, at least you’re not trying to patronize me by denying it. I can see that what I’ve said comes as a shock to you; it came as a shock to me when I first realized the enormity of just what it was Garth represented.”

  “It will come as a shock to my mother and father. Listen, Marl, I’ve got a flash for you. Garth doesn’t even believe in God.”

  “I know that,” Braxton said evenly, apparently unperturbed by my revelation. “Garth told me. It doesn’t make any difference.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference that the man you believe is a messiah doesn’t even believe in God?”

  Braxton shook his head, ran his hand back over his widow’s peak. “Garth is still God’s messenger, the Messiah, whether he chooses to believe it or not. Do you believe in God, Mongo?”

  “I certainly don’t believe in messiahs, or divine intervention. I consider them primitive notions—answers to human longing, fear, and suffering that have always been a big part of the problem. Garth’s got one thing right; any help we get is going to have to come from ourselves.”

  “Can you see his aura?”

  “Whose aura? Garth’s?”

  “So you can’t. There’s a blue-white light all around him; he literally glows with holiness. Eventually you’ll be able to see it, as will others.”

  Marl Braxton paused and looked at me, as if waiting for a response. His casual assertion that my brother was some kind of divine messenger had indeed shocked me, precisely because he had seemed so rational up to that point. I did not want to begin to condescend to Braxton’s insanity, or appear to be mocking him, so I decided it was best to leave the subjects of my brother’s divinity and his blue-white aura alone. I said nothing.

  “But you’ve certainly witnessed Garth’s healing powers,” Braxton continued.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘healing powers.’”

  “Oh, I think you do. You just don’t want to talk any more because I’ve made you uncomfortable, and you’re no longer certain how to deal with me. You shouldn’t feel that way. Everyone around here has witnessed Garth’s healing powers; they just don’t understand where his gift comes from. Like you. It occurs to me that you’re now caught in a curious kind of netherworld between this world of madness and the other world of madness you come from. Garth will tell anyone who cares to listen about the Triage Parabola and the Valhalla Project. They don’t believe him, but you know that everything he says is true. The fact that Garth is the Messiah is obvious, and it’s just as true as the things that were done to you by Siegmund Loge. But you can’t accept it.”

  “You’re confusing two different things.”

  “Am I? The kind of healing power Garth displays could only come from God; there’s no one else on earth who can bring about the changes in people the way he does, with a few simple words or a gesture. I believe he’s healed me; because of Garth, I believe I can now escape from my maid of constant sorrows and function away from here. I’m in no hurry to prove it, and I don’t even intend to tell Dr. Wong. Garth’s in no hurry to carry out his mission, and his time is my time.”

  “What’s Garth’s reaction to this belief of yours that he’s the Messiah?”

  Again, Marl Braxton laughed. “He says I’m crazy.”

  Suddenly I felt a wave of affection for the other man, and my unease fell away from me. It didn’t matter what he believed; what he believed might be insane, in my view, but in my view it was no more insane than the religious fantasies of millions of other people around the globe. The only difference was that the others banded together and received tax waivers.

  I grinned, cocked my thumb and forefinger like a gun, pointed it at him. “There you go.”

  Braxton stood up and stretched. “You want another beer, Mongo?”

  “I’m still working on this one. Thanks.”

  “You know, the proof of what Garth is can be seen in what he says and does, but it’s also easy to see a pattern in Garth’s life over the past few years as God was preparing him for his mission.”

  “What pattern?”

  “First, his trials at the hands of Siegmund Loge, and then his involvement in the hunt for Veil Kendry—Archangel.”

  “So he’s told you all about Archangel, too,” I said with a sigh.

  “Yes.”

  “You know, Marl, I just happened to be slightly involved in those matters, too.”

  “Yes,” Braxton replied easily, “but it’s also now clear that your involvement was incidental to God’s plan for awakening His son. You’re not the Messiah; Garth is.”

  “Loge’s Valhalla Project and the Archangel affair had nothing to do with each other,” I replied, aware that I was probably crazy for carrying on such a crazy conversation with a bona fide, card-carrying crazy man. Yet, I not only found myself liking and respecting Marl Braxton, but increasingly curious about the pathology he was now clearly displaying. I remembered Chris Yardley, and my inability to convince him that it was in his best interests not to tell everyone he met that he was Jesus. Marl Braxton’s pathology was different, inasmuch as his fantasy was projected onto Garth, but I was still curious to see what effect, if any, my rebuttals of facts and common sense would have on him. The fallen D.I.A. operative with the top-secret past was intelligent and articulate; as long as he didn’t suddenly decide to try and hand me my head, I found I was pe
rfectly content to sit and discuss his nonsense with him.

  “The doors of perception—true perception—were opened for Garth at the hands of Siegmund Loge,” Braxton patiently explained to me as he sat back down on the edge of his bed. “The naked truth of our situation was deeply implanted in him, and it exploded into full bloom in his consciousness when you brought him Der Ring des Nibelungen.”

  “Marl, I had exactly the same experiences—and I’d be just as happy if I never heard the Ring again.”

  “Nobody ever has exactly the same experience as someone else. You were simply God’s tool, your role to be Garth’s companion and solace on his two great spiritual odysseys. The proof is in the fact that, even though you triumphed over Siegmund Loge, you didn’t change the fact that our species was doomed. In fact, all during the time when you were resting on your parents’ farm, you had to wrestle with the possibility that the two of you, with Mr. Lippitt, had doomed humanity when you destroyed Siegmund Loge.”

  That touched a sensitive nerve, and I slowly finished my beer before I spoke again. “What does the Archangel affair have to do with it?”

  “The seeds for Garth’s awakening had been sown by Siegmund Loge, but they lay fallow for years. They had to be watered by the nitrophenylpentadienal—which would have killed him, if it had not been cut off when it was. The Archangel affair not only saved his life, but provided the emotional catalyst which sent him into the holy sleep from which he awakened as the Messiah. In Garth’s body, nitrophenylpentadienal became a holy substance.”

  “Oh, come on, Marl; this is getting more complicated than Revelations.”

  “The pattern is there,” the other man said earnestly, “for those with eyes to see it. Like you, Siegmund Loge was a tool of God. He provided the crucible in which the soul of the son of God would be fired and reshaped. Also, he set up communes around the world. The people who were in those communes are out there, waiting; they’ll know that Garth is the Messiah, and they’ll form the first troops in an army of love and compassion that will change the world, and save us from extinction.”

  “Bullshit,” I said with more feeling than I’d intended to show. “Believe me, Marl, even the Messiah wouldn’t want anything to do with the people who were in those communes. I mean, I’m talking about seriously stupid, absolutely mindless people—which is why Siegmund Loge was able to suck them into his operation in the first place. I’ve met and talked with some of those people, Marl; you haven’t. You wouldn’t be able to tolerate the company of any one of them for more than five minutes. Hell, they thought Loge was the Messiah; a few of them thought Loge was God.”

  “Loge was a false Messiah; his true mission was to prepare the way for Garth, and this was accomplished.”

  I shook my head. “Garth told you you were crazy for thinking he’s the Messiah. Does my brother believe any of this other business?”

  “No,” Marl Braxton replied easily. “In fact, he said the same things about the commune people you did.”

  “But that doesn’t make any difference?”

  “That doesn’t make any difference. Garth doesn’t fully understand yet.”

  “Then how can you be so damn sure that you understand so much? Does God speak to you?”

  Something that might have been dangerous glinted for a moment in Braxton’s dark eyes, then was gone. “God doesn’t speak to me, Mongo,” he said calmly. “In fact, God doesn’t speak at all. Hearing voices is Mama’s problem, not mine; my maid of constant sorrows is—was—my problem.”

  “Speaking of voices, Garth hardly says ten words at a time to me. Why does he spend so much time talking to everybody else?”

  “Not everybody else; only those who understand pain.”

  “If Garth has told you about Valhalla and Archangel, then you must know that I understand a few things about pain.”

  “It’s true that you’ve suffered great pain, but you’ve never been broken like Garth and me. For now, Garth’s words are only for broken people.”

  “The world isn’t made up of broken people, Marl. Loge’s lesson—if it can be called that—is that there are far too many insensitive, stupid people in the world, and they’ll destroy us all.”

  Loge’s lesson was that people with fantastic notions like Marl Braxton’s would destroy us all, but I thought it better to keep that thought to myself.

  “Garth will change that,” Braxton said.

  “How’s he going to do that if he can only speak to broken people?”

  “There are many more broken people than you think. Not all broken people end up in mental institutions. They’re all around you, but you can’t see them because you’ve never been broken. Garth knows who they are; he’ll find them, and they’ll find him.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly, looking down at the floor. I was rapidly losing interest in Marl Braxton’s pathology, and couldn’t see any way in which it could help Garth. Quite the contrary.

  “I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “Garth will carry out his mission, and bring his message to the world. We will all be changed.”

  “Okay. I can use a change.”

  “Thanks for sitting down and talking with me, Mongo. I really appreciate it. In a nut house, time tends to drag.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How did you get that scar on your forehead?”

  “A bad guy cut me. With the help of a friend, I changed him.”

  “You killed him.” It wasn’t a question, and there was a faint hint of amusement in the other man’s voice.

  “I changed him.”

  “The scar is fresh. You were cut fairly recently, right?”

  “Right. Why?”

  Braxton shrugged, but he continued to stare thoughtfully at my forehead, as if he were reading some message there. “Just curious,” he said at last. “Are you in a hurry? Do you have to be any place?”

  “No.”

  “Would you mind hanging around a while longer? I really enjoy your company.” He paused, laughed easily. “There are too many crazy people around here who do talk to God.”

  “I don’t mind hanging around and talking, but I’m a little tired of the subject of my brother’s divinity,” I said seriously.

  “Then we’ll drop it.”

  “Why did you bring it up in the first place, Marl? Somehow, I have the sneaking suspicion that you knew what my reaction would be.”

  “I wasn’t sure. I wanted to see if, by now, you’d come to realize that Garth is the Messiah. You haven’t, so that’s that. I’d love to discuss some of your monographs with you, and have you sign my copies.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “And you’ll help me finish up my weekly allotment of beer?”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Which I did. Marl Braxton and I talked easily for another hour or so, until Garth came back and joined us in the room. I left shortly afterward, depressed by the sight of Marl Braxton’s Messiah sitting on the floor, head bowed, seemingly oblivious to both Braxton and me while he listened to his music.

  I was skittish and ill at ease when I left the clinic, and I didn’t feel like going back to my small apartment in the staff building. I drove into New York to see a show, just for something to do, and then treated myself to drinks and a good dinner before driving back to Rockland County.

  But my sense of foreboding wouldn’t leave me, and I couldn’t sleep. I knew I had to make a decision one way or another on what to do with Garth, and then learn to live with it. I thought of calling my parents, which I had been doing every other night anyway, to ask for their advice, then decided against it. They were old, and it didn’t seem fair for me to lay on them all of my doubts and conflicts, especially when they weren’t around to judge the situation for themselves. They would only tell me to do what I thought best.

  I wondered how many other patients, either in the clinic or the larger facility, believed with
Marl Braxton that my brother was the Messiah, and would begin to act toward him accordingly. I suspected there were quite a few, and the number would grow. Certainly, Garth didn’t need that.

  All through the night I paced, trying to weigh the obvious risks of taking him out of the clinic against all my other misgivings. I didn’t want him in a place where people were thinking he was the Messiah; if he couldn’t live with me in his own apartment, then I at least wanted him in a nice, quiet sanitarium where there were no potential conflicts of interest among the staff, where Garth could simply rest, and where I might eventually be able to bring about a change in his musical diet.

  I also decided against calling Mr. Lippitt, because he would also have a potential conflict of interest and I did not want him to be put in an embarrassing situation; I didn’t want to complain about Slycke and the clinic, and I certainly didn’t want to get involved in D.I.A. politics.

  All I wanted, I finally decided, was to get Garth someplace else.

  Having made my decision, I finally fell asleep just before dawn. I was jarred awake slightly before eight by my telephone ringing—the school calling to ask if I could come in. I declined, thanked them for using me, and expressed regrets that I would not be available for any more assignments; I was taking my brother home with me to New York City.

  I made a series of phone calls to check on Garth’s rights and mine, and to make preliminary contingent arrangements for Garth’s psychiatric treatment in the city. Then I got dressed, ate breakfast, went out into the morning, and headed toward Building 26.

  12.

  “This badge has been cancelled,” the harelipped guard inside the kiosk said as he placed the square of beige plastic I had given him somewhere behind his desk. “May I have your keys, please?”

  “You may not,” I replied curtly as anger—and anxiety—welled up inside me. “That’s a Z-13 badge, in case you didn’t notice, and I’m ordering you to give it back to me.”

  “It’s been canceled. You no longer have authority to enter this building or to carry your keys, Dr. Frederickson.”