Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet

by Joanne Proulx

  The string of cars trolled up Water Street through a bright spring day. The sun beamed straight through a million miles of black space to press through new leaves, to bounce off flagpoles, to land squarely on the sidewalk, painting downtown Stokum a thousand different shades of light and shadow. Everyone who hadn’t shut down to attend the funeral lined the road, waving small American flags. Hank was there, hunched up in front of the T-Shirt Shack, right where I’d left him when I’d come down to see about the One Drum shirts and we’d ended up outside, talking Stan and Oprah Winfrey. I raised my hand and waved, but he didn’t see me. He just kept staring at the cars, looking all lost and confused.

  McCreary Park marked the end of the somber storeowners. We rolled past the neat square of grass with its bright white bandstand, its perverted pulpit, and right on by the For Sale sign planted in front of the Kites’. All the curtains were drawn at the next-door neighbors’, turning the panes of glass into blind rectangles. If nothing else, I’d have to say my evening at the Cramps’ was pretty fucking memorable. I didn’t know how the doctor was holding up, having just lost his son. And I hadn’t seen Ted since I bailed on him that night. I know he’s kicking around town, though, still looking for broken folks to save. Still believing he’s right and I’m wrong. Still believing in a God who chooses sides.

  If I do run into him again, I’m thinking he shouldn’t have any hard feelings. I mean, I know Ted was hoping for a long-term relationship and all I gave him was an aborted one-night stand. Still, in a real roundabout way, he got what he was after. He wanted deliverance, repentance and baptism, and the way I see it, the trio happened. I was delivered the moment I walked away from him on Water Street. I repented to, and was forgiven by, my buddy Fang. I was baptized in a skanky basement shower. I know it’s a long way from Ted’s narrow path; still, salvation is what he wanted, and it seems to me salvation is what went down.

  So it wasn’t all bad. And somewhere between here and the Cramps’ front door, I even managed to figure a couple things out. One. Yeah, everyone is going to die. But first, we get to live. And that’s big. That’s beautiful. That’s not to be missed. Two, and maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel normal here, but the way I see it, anyone, if they’re paying attention, could have a list like mine stuck in some private drawer. People they know, strangers they don’t, claiming a line on their page. The difference would be, the details—the whens and the hows—would have to be filled in after the fact rather than before. The difference would be, the person making the list would have to care enough, and listen hard enough, to hear the music playing in the people passing through their life. And the list wouldn’t be months long. It would stretch over a lifetime, and would always, always, end with the name of its maker.

  As for my premonitions, they seem to be in remission, for the moment anyway. Whether they come back or not, whether they had anything to do with some mental mutation I share with my uncle Mick, whether they’re a gift or a curse, doesn’t really matter. It isn’t really the point. Because the list goes on. The high notes keep sounding.

  The last one I heard was the one-breath wonder of Laura Cramp’s baby, and it will never leave me. It sunk in so deep, it became a part of me. Or maybe it was always there, simmering inside, waiting to be recognized, waiting to join the distilled hum of a hundred million other souls that plays somewhere just beyond our reach. After being pressed up tight to life and death, it’s what I believe in—a distilled hum that I plan to follow through this life and maybe the next, like my own personal anthem. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is. If you’ve heard it, you know it is. And I guess, if you pinned me down and kicked me, I’d admit that’s my version of God. An all-inclusive sort of deal, without a lot of rules. Just listen for the hum.

  When things get quiet, though, I still worry about Fang. I guess it’s what I’ve done, and the real reason I’ve been mad at him, for half of my life. I’ve seen him a couple times this past week, and he seems okay, although he’s still sticking close to the basement. I called him, but he definitely wasn’t interested in attending the Slater funeral, soldier or not, drug connection or not. I’ve tried to persuade him to come back to school, and he said he would, but I’m not sure I believe him. Still, my plan is to swing by his place Monday morning so we can head to Jefferson together, arm in fucking arm if necessary. We’ll see how it goes.

  When I look back on things, I can honestly say that the first time I saw Fang, standing on top of those monkey bars in kindergarten, smiling that crazy smile, I knew his courage was more about despair than belief. I mean, back then I couldn’t have put it into words, but even as a kid I sensed the weakness that made him strong. I knew he’d do what I wanted. And if I’m ready to confess my real sins, I have to admit that I used that info to push him to the farthest edge of fearlessness so I could watch from below. For a long time it seemed harmless enough. We both reveled in the afterglow. I have the pictures to prove it. But when Fang finally called my bluff, when he poured his desperation from the roof of the school, when he stepped into midair and forced me to witness his misery, I was the one who was scared shitless, not him. I was the one who refused the truth.

  I was just lucky he gave me another chance, and that second time around I went to claim it.

  WE FOLLOWED THE LINE of cars into the cemetery parking lot. The air was thick with churned gray dust. Gravel popped beneath a town’s tires. A chorus of slamming doors sounded through the lot. As we made our way across the grass, weaving through the headstones, I could see the flag-draped coffin suspended over an earthy rectangle, held up by a sturdy-looking contraption made of brass and thick nylon straps. Beside the grave, a few chairs had been set up for the family. Mrs. Slater was in the middle, slumped forward, sheltering her face with one hand. Her husband sat straight-backed on the chair beside her, his eyes hard and flat, the lines of his face cut sharp by grief. Dwight was on the other side of his mother, wearing sunglasses, his hands holding tight to his knees. For some reason I felt ashamed looking at them, and I ended up staring at the coffin instead, which somehow seemed a whole lot easier.

  There was already a crowd when we arrived, and more coming up behind us, but not much noise, just a bit of quiet murmuring that faded out completely when the minister began to speak. He reminded us that Dwayne Slater had made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, had died for all of us, before the white-gloved soldiers stepped forward to fold the Stars and Stripes covering the casket. When the flag was presented to Mrs. Slater, she clutched it to her chest. Both Dwight and his father nodded solemnly at the soldier who stooped down to speak to them, but Mrs. Slater’s eyes were fixed on the grass a yard or two to the left of the man’s polished black boots.

  As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the minister recited the psalm about lying down in green pastures and walking through the shadow of the valley of death and fearing no evil. And when he asked us to bow our heads for a minute of quiet prayer, I did it, man. I did it.

  When the minister gave the nod, the honor guard raised their rifles and fired three rounds. The only noise afterwards was the wail of a startled baby.

  I’d been worried I might get choked up at the Slater funeral, turn it into some sort of personal weep-fest for all the people who’d checked out on me over the last eight months. But I didn’t cry. The truth was, I barely knew the deceased, and the whole thing was for him, and the people who wept were the ones who’d loved him. The only time I went soft at all was right at the end, when the Pastor asked the mourners to offer comfort to their neighbors.

  I guess it was a church thing I didn’t know about, but all of a sudden my mom slipped her arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder. “Peace be with you,” she said. Then my dad kind of draped himself over both of us so we formed an awkward triangle, a misshapen circle, and in that graveyard we held on to each other for a couple long, tight seconds. I pulled out first and turned to shake the hands of the people waiting behind us.

  “Peace be with
you.”

  “Peace.”

  “Peace.”

  It was only when the crowd started to move a bit—some drifted toward the parking lot, others went forward to drop roses onto the coffin—that I saw Faith again. She was on the opposite side of the grave, standing on the crest of the hill. Behind her, the headstones fell away and it was all blue sky above the vast grayness of Erie. I don’t know if she’d been looking for me, but she raised her hand when she saw me staring. Her smile brought everything close and made everything seem possible, and for a second I believed I could have picked a pebble from the ground and thrown it straight across the lake to bounce down the streets of Cleveland or Pittsburgh or maybe even New York City.

  Faith didn’t come over to say hi. She waded deeper into the cemetery and, pulled by her cosmic force, I ditched my parents and followed. That’s how I ended up at Stan’s grave with his old girlfriend beside me, so close I could have reached out and taken her hand in mine.

  “Ever been here?” she asked. I was embarrassed to say no. I’ll never know what she would have done if I’d told her I’d never even thought about coming up here to say goodbye, or what she might have said if I’d admitted Stan’s dying had always been more about my being abandoned than his being dead. And we would have been there until the fucking Fourth of July if I’d tried to explain all the crap I’d waded through on my way to discovering that what I’d really lost when Stan died was nothing more and nothing less than my holiest friend.

  Stan Miller, Our blessed son, the tombstone read. July 7, 1985–October 8, 2002. Trailing clouds of glory do we come, From God, who is our home.

  I was surprised the quote engraved on that thick marble slab was from one William Wordsworth and not the Bible. I’m still not sure what to think about that. Maybe, like Laura Cramp, when pressed up against the rocky reality of their son’s death, the Millers’ faith finally started to crack. Then again, maybe they’re just big Wordsworth fans. I don’t know. The only thing I do know with any certainty at all is that soon, very soon, I’m going to turn to Faith and I’m going to tell her two things about myself that she may not know.

  I’ll tell her I am worthy. I’ll tell her I am no longer afraid. And even if it’s only for one night, even if I have to throw her over my shoulder and carry her a hundred miles up the highway, we’ll go to that concert in Detroit. Together, we’ll push our way to the front of the crowd, so we can reach out and touch Jack, the seventh son, and when Meg strikes her cymbals and the first chords sound, we will raise our arms. And we will sing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Heaps of gratitude to:

  My agent, Samantha Haywood, for her confidence and enthusiasm, and to my bold yet always graceful editor, Nicole Winstanley. It has been an honor.

  The fabulous team at Penguin Canada, where truly, the fun never stops: David Davidar, Steven Myers, Jennifer Notman, Tracy Bordian, Yvonne Hunter, Don Robinson and Mary Opper.

  Lauren B. Davis for her early encouragement, Barry Callaghan for accepting that first story, and Michael Helm, of the Humber School for Writers, for teaching me the value of every word.

  My friends, fellow writers and first readers: Regan Orillac, Bill Marvin, Janet Richards, Anu Kanniganti and Jerome Mertz. Here’s to a hundred sparkly evenings at Plaza Berri.

  Carrie-Lee Brown, for the gentleness of her critiques and the strength of her friendship.

  Dr. Chantal Proulx. For answering those strange questions.

  Dan and Cheryl Vasiga. For loving the kids.

  Kerrin Hands, for turning my story into art.

  Renate Mohr, for breathing literary life into Ottawa.

  Martin, for believing in me, caring for me, keeping me whole.

  Brady, Cody and Behn. Men when it mattered most.

  Simon, Sophia and Elise. Everything for you.

  Before all else, before all others, my parents, Mary and Michael Vasiga.