* * *
Steve sat in front of the fire in the barn, knees to his chest, shoulders straight, the position of Indian forefathers in museum dioramas. It was a small fire started with newspaper stoked with broken branches and an old tree stump. Flames encased them in red light and reflected in the snaggletoothed pieces of glass left along the edges of the TV screen. She could tell by Steve's swollen features that he was drunk and by his wide, dilated pupils that he'd recently snorted lots of cocaine. In front of him was a fairy circle of white plastic carnations and fallen feathers, in the center a carefully folded blood-soaked rag, the hospital's name stamped along the hem.
Ted's flushed face was weirdly translucent as he flipped the blanket up and spread it over the barn's dirt floor.
“Your dad was in the hospital today giving communion to some old lady.” Steve squinted his eyes, as if trying to squeeze out tiny tear bullets that would pockmark Ginger's face. Ted grabbed her hand; it was a warning that Steve was in one of his crazy moods.
“What a bunch of shit.” He poked the fire with a stick.
“Lay off her,” Ted said. “She hurt her ankle.”
“Fuck her ankle.” Steve stood up, his spit hissing on the embers. “What about all that shit she said to you in the mall?” He pointed at her.
Ginger felt her face flare up, her heart pound against her ribs. He's going to kill me, she thought, and Ted won't do a thing.
In the backseat Ted arranged the army blanket and the peony pillows from his bed. Everything he owned was in the car and Ginger could tell by the fast-food wrappers on the floor and the half-filled plastic gallon of springwater that here's where he'd been hiding out. She got under the blanket and put her bad leg up on the armrest. Ted made the rounds, the long gray parking lots, the dark fast-food chains, and the strips of ratty woods, over and over until it was three in the morning. Ginger watched light play in the long strands of Ted's hair and Steve's body rising and falling as he slept, hunched against the passenger door up front. Strip-mall lights strung out mile after mile like a necklace of meteors. She felt trapped in a film loop, the scenery out the window painfully familiar, but for all the kinship she felt it might as well be outer space.
“I thought I heard someone trying to break in down here,” her father said as he stood above her bed. “The door rattled and there was a knocking at the window and a voice like your mother's warning everybody to eat properly and not to bump the fontanel on the baby's head.”
“You're dreaming,” Ginger said, trying to see if he had on his striped pajamas or black suit. Slowly her eyes focused on his white clerical collar floating below his face like a leash. “Go back to bed.”
“I can't sleep. Mulhoffer invited the assistant minister from Deerpath Creek to preach tomorrow. He said it would be a nice change of pace.” Ginger heard the mellow sax notes of one of his jazz records in the stairwell and could smell that her father had been smoking cigarettes. “Promise you'll come,” he said, stepping closer to her bed.
“You know I will, Dad,” she leaned up on an elbow.
“Are you sure you didn't hear anything?” he asked. “Sometimes when I look out I think I see her over where she tried to grow those pear tomatoes, walking in and out of the tree line in her flannel nightgown.”
Ginger's eyes adjusted and her father's face took form and definition. She saw that his eyes were closed and his chin tense and bunched.
“Do you think she was happy, Gin?”
“No,” Ginger looked the other way, “she never was.”
He cleared his throat and Ginger heard the mourning doves start up on the telephone wire outside, and the starlings in the maple and the ravens on the windowsill and the fat vulture that crouched on the streetlight waiting for another bloody roadkill. And her father said, “Go back to sleep. I'll just sit here for awhile at the foot of the bed.”
The usher smiled, showed his capped teeth, and slipped her a bulletin printed with a close-up of a daisy. He nodded toward the altar. “Packed house.” He winked. “Better duck into the cry room.”
Inside the soundproof room a little boy with pale brown hair pushed a tiny cement truck around on the carpet, and in the front row a baby fretted—drool darkened its mother's shoulder. Ginger found a seat in the back corner below the speaker suspended high on the wall. A hymn sounded, its reception through the black cloth tinny and distorted like a transistor radio. Through the thick glass Ginger saw that every pew was packed, and even while the people sang, each head remained so still they might as well be stones with wigs attached. It was a German thing, complete physical command over even the most passionate scenario.
The Mulhoffers sat in their usual place up front, alluding subtle control. It was all passively situated in the slightly arrogant slant of Mrs. Mulhoffer's head, the squarely confrontational positioning of Mr. Mulhoffer's shoulders. Her father was only partially visible, an outstretched black shoe and a bit of linen cloth, one anxious eye and the bridge of his nose. This fragmentation gave Ginger the sense he'd come apart like a paper doll and had been hastily taped back together. Beside him the Deerpath Creek pastor, in a blue suit and red tie, exuded the low-key confidence of a corporate raider.
The organist pushed the pedals and the notes got thicker and the hymn rumbled to a stop. In the silence the cars on the highway could be heard rushing by, but the sound was subtle and unobtrusive as water moving in a riverbed. The man walked up to the pulpit and looked down into the first pews. Beside him on a small table were two boxes of breakfast cereal. He beamed at the audience, took his folded sermon from his inside jacket pocket, and bowed his head.
“Grace, mercy, and peace unto you from God our father, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.” Her father visibly cringed, put both his hands to his brow, as if he had a headache. Today he wore his richest robes, the raw silk, the densely embroidered stole, and his heaviest bronze cross. But the material was wrinkled and it embarrassed Ginger that her father looked disheveled. It was like he'd come from the past and the trip through time had soiled his apparel and wrung his body out.
“People are strange, aren't they?” the man began cheerfully. “We tend to judge a person by their outward presentation. In other words, we'll size them up by the type of car they drive, the clothing they wear, even the brand of cereal they eat. Think about it, if a fellow drives up in a sixty-thousand-dollar Mercedes 480XL, gets out wearing a Nautica button-down sports shirt with designer polo pants and a matching belt with Timberline on the heel of his one-hundred-fifty-dollar loafers, the guy is too cool, he's the cluck of the roast, the talk of the town, he's on the fast track to the top.
“But if you were to take the same exact fellow, have him drive up in a rusted-out 1979 Pinto with a K-mart sports shirt, Sears on the rump of his bell-bottom blue jeans, Made in the USA on the rubber heel of his ten-dollar tennis shoes, he's a graduate of Cotton Belt Tech and Beauty School and eats a generic brand of cereal. The guy's a bona fide nerd, a geek with a capital G. None of the girls would want to go out with him, no one would want to associate with him, we would call such a person a loser. But it's the same guy in different wrappings, so what's in a name?
"It appears everything.
“We have here a generic box of cereal, Crisp Rice.” He held the box up for everyone to see. “Now you would think with the savings that are offered with generic goods that they would take the food market by storm, but the reality is that generic food only makes up three percent of U. S. food sales. We're kind of suspicious of this stuff, aren't we? Maybe it's substandard? Let's get honest; there's no telling where they got it. Maybe they put the good stuff in the brand-name boxes and swept the generic stuff off the floor. We don't know this product. We're suspicious of it. We don't trust it. So we don't buy it.
“Same is true of the generic God. A few years ago I saw an interview with a famous movie star just before he died of cancer. When asked if he believed in God he answered, ‘Why yes I do. I believe someone is in charge of all this, he and or
she or whatever rules over all things, I do believe there is a God.’ People all over the country were thinking at least he believes in God, at least he's going to heaven. But my dear friends, there's nothing further from the truth. People today are being deceived by this generic God. By saying I believe in God and thinking they are on their way to heaven, and that is an Absolute Lie.
“You've seen those commercials on television where some famous athlete gives an endorsement for a product. Now can you imagine if I did a commercial like that? ‘Hi, my name is Joe Shmoe, running back for the Virginia Vanguards. What do I eat before I go out on the field before the big game? I eat this.’” The man held the black-and-white box up and turned as if to speak with someone off-camera. ‘''What is this stuff? Does it have a name? No name? Oh.’” Then back to the congregation. ‘''I eat this cereal. It is cereal. And cereal's gotta be good for you so go out and buy some today.’
“Now would that make you go out and buy this product? Obviously I didn't even know anything about this product—it wasn't a part of me.
“The same holds true for a generic God. Ninety-seven percent of all Americans, according to a Gallup poll, say they believe in God. The Bible tells us God wrote into the heart of every person that he exists. Everybody knows there is a God. You see evidence of it all over the world. You can go into the darkest corner of the Amazon, where no man has ever gone, and you'll see something that represents God: a totem pole or a sacred rock. Climb the Himalayas, you'll see people falling down in front of a bronze, hand-crafted object, giving tribute to God. Everybody knows there's a God. The problem is not everyone knows the Real God. They know everything about God but they don't Know God. How about you, my friends? Do you know the real brand-name God? I know you sense his presence but do you know him? There is a heaven- and-earth difference, my dear friends, between having knowledge of God and knowing God. And the consequences are exactly opposite.
“You know, earlier I tried to do a commercial for this generic cereal and failed. Why? Because I didn't know what it tasted like or anything about it. But if I were to do a commercial for this one"—he held up a box of Kellogg's Rice Krispies—"I grew up with this stuff. I've heard commercials about this ever since I was a little boy. I eat this stuff, not very often anymore, but I used to as a kid. Now, if I were to do a commercial on this, I think I could come across more convincing. And I'd be more prone to buy this cereal, because I know the product. It's a part of me.” The man bowed his head.
“Let us brand God's name into our hearts. God grant this for Jesus’ sake. May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in faith in Christ and Jesus. Let us stand before the altar and profess our faith. I believe in the living God, creator of all human kind, that creates the universe by power and love. I believe in Jesus Christ. . . .”
Mrs. Mulhoffer turned to look at her husband and Ginger saw that her cheek was flushed, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. Mr. Mulhoffer nodded slightly to affirm her, but he disapproved of such shows of emotion and he straightened his shoulders and sat up taller against the pew. Tiny hairs stood up on the necks of all the middle-management men. And in the cry room their wives gazed dreamily at the Deerpath Creek pastor walking in long victorious strides back to his seat. He looked like the sensitive guy on their afternoon soap and he'd spoken their language, TV commercials, cereal, sports. The word pandering came to Ginger's mind.
Her father's eyes were closed, his shoulders hunched forward as if he were trying to protect himself from the words of the sermon. The organist started up with an unfamiliar tune, more like a pop song than a brooding Germanic ballad. The guest pastor smiled to himself and her father, turned his body, and glanced out the window at the blurry cars speeding away on the highway, her father's face set in a superior expression that even Ginger sometimes hated, the one he wore when he tried to explain that TV was bad for you, that reading was better than video games, and that Disneyland was purely for pagans.
Ten: SANDY
The hunchbacked troll staggered in wearing a paisley shirt and a brown suede vest, smelling of crabgrass and wet fur. Nervously, he jiggled the cat's-eye marbles in his pocket as he leaned against the back wall and rooted around in the stack of dirty magazines. From a brown paper bag he pulled a tiny orange and peeled it with great reverence, lifting every last stringy ligament off the fruit. He offered her a wedge, pressed it between her chapped lips; his fingertips tasted of salt and smoke, and the orange so much like happiness that she started to cry. Anything could set her off now, birds tittering behind the boarded window or the sound of water rushing through the pipes in the wall. He stood over her and said he hated to see her so sad and would she like to hear his silly song, the one to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle.” She nodded her head and the troll began to sing.
Swim Swim Sad little fish / How I hoped to make a wish.
That this girl will spit up gold / Into a dish or into a bowl.
Swim Swim Sad little fish / How I hoped to make a wish.
He used an outstretched pointer finger to conduct himself and giggled so hard afterward that his lips spread up and his weedy teeth showed. From the bottom of the bag, he pulled a pomegranate, broke the red leather skin, gobbled up a handful of crimson jewels, and spit the seeds into the carpet. He offered her a few of the bloody kernels, but she shook her head and lifted the afghan up to her nose; static like crazed punctuation flew out of the blanket's wool weave.
She'd shown her brother how to make sparks between the blanket and the sheet, told him she was a witch, that she could do other tricks, make a tiger appear on the living-room couch or a dolphin leap out of the bathtub. She could fly out the window if she wanted, all the way to China. One day, when their mother was gone, she promised to show him how to levitate his cereal bowl, how to get a ghost to make his bed.
The bear claimed to be a warlock. If you had a headache, you could call him and he'd put a clove of garlic into a silver bowl of olive oil and say a prayer to Saint Teresa of the Little Flowers. He didn't want any payment, only a little respect, and he did this for her daily because she always had a headache and a sore throat and a runny nose. But the bear wouldn't listen, just shook his head and explained about the pink room upstairs where lavender clouds moved lazily along, and the unicorn waited, watching over the little girl who French kissed her pillow every single night. There, he said, a thousand butterflies sang a song about angels and rosebud bedspreads as they swayed in unison over a rippling lake, and a white pony with a pink mane and eyelashes long and black as a movie star's drank, and the blue unicorn, its horn made of crystal, ran through the shallows, sending up sprays that sparkled like diamonds.
“Your old dad is going to teach you about the birds and the bees,” the troll said, tapping his forefinger against her knuckles, trying to get her to hold his fingers like a baby, his mouth fixed into a stiff smile, as if he'd only seen the facial expressions of people on TV. “Hey dolly. Hey cutie pie,” he said as he stroked the skin of her cheek, told her she smelled like butter, that her skin drove him insane. Tears glazed his gray eyes and he looked up into the ceiling and whispered, “Little baby girl.”
In his new manifestation as a butterfly, the caterpillar was only interested in sentimental stories of transformation, tales that made his mascara run and turned his tiny nose pink. “When Donna Polito gave birth to her second child,” the butterfly began, his blue and silver wings making a glittery and glamorous backdrop, “she felt a singular moment of joy at baby Miranda's first cry and then nothing. Her world went black and she slipped into a coma. Infection ravaged her body. She needed a machine to breathe. After fifteen operations, the doctor told her husband to make plans for her wake. But he couldn't do it. ‘Maybe love will succeed,’ he thought, ‘where medicine has failed.’” The butterfly looked at her with the pleading eyes of a TV evangelist. “So that night he recorded the voices of his two young sons and the next day brought the tape to the hospital room where his wife lay near death. ’Mommy come
home!’ they pleaded on the tape. Suddenly his wife's eyes fluttered open.” The butterfly paused to dramatize this moment by batting his own long lashes obsessively. “You see, she'd dreamed she heard her children's voices and she looked into the eyes of her husband and whispered, ‘Take me home.’” The butterfly dabbed at the corner of his eye with a wisp of fluffy milkweed and said, “Something similar could happen to you, but only if you hope hard enough, my dear.” And he flew out of the pink spotlight and the unicorn stepped inside the circle of light and nudged his wet nose against her cheek. His crystal horn sent out rainbow slivers like a prism.
“You were chosen, for your similarities to raindrops and day-old kittens, to the first white crocus and a baby's tender heart,” the unicorn began. A gold filling in his mouth shone like a piece of glass in the sand. He raised his creamy blue hoof and balanced it on the edge of her mattress. “These are the qualities of a princess,” the unicorn confided, “and so we directed the troll to you.”
The troll fed her pear slices and a few cubes of Swiss cheese from a cracked floral plate. He wore the clip-on bow tie, the red shirt with the lima bean–shaped grease spot, and sat on the edge of the bed, gingerly, as if he didn't want her pee stains to soil his clothing. As always she was mesmerized by the reflection in his glasses, today the image only vaguely familiar. The wet gag hung around her neck as she shredded the rubbery cheese and limpid pear flesh against her back teeth. She leaned forward slightly and asked him what had happened to the cat. His eyes startled and he yanked his head back as if a chair had talked or a piece of pizza. Setting the last pear slice back onto the plate, he lifted the cloth from her neck and retied it tightly around her mouth, the corners pulling like a horse's bit. He stood, walked to the boarded window, his hands in his pocket worrying the marbles.
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