The Book: A Novel Calling

by Leo Nation

  As the applause thunders on he returns his gaze to the spectators and bows again. But his mind is on us as he marches across the stage.

  “I thought that was you!” he laughs and sticks out his hand. Grinning at Woman he shakes my hand vigorously.

  “You’re right,” she says. “It is us.”

  “Man! Woman!” he shouts, seeming to enjoy the sounds of our names. He throws his arms around Woman and they linger in a warm hug.

  “It’s Boy!” she says over his shoulder.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he says.

  “We can’t believe you’re here,” I answer.

  “Man!” he repeats, grinning through the colors on his face. He steps back and leans on his cane. “I didn’t think I would see you again.”

  “That’s two of us, Kid.”

  “Woman!” he says, savoring her name.

  “We were sad to see you go,” she says.

  “I know. It’s okay. It was good.”

  “We had to do it,” I tell him.

  “I know. It was time. The trip was fantastic.”

  “It must have been,” I say. “How did you end up in this place?”

  “It’s where I belong.”

  “You walked in space to get here?”

  Boy laughs, “That’s about it.”

  “You look happy,” Woman says.

  “I made a big discovery crossing through the universe,” Boy says. “I love to sing and play and dance.”

  “How did you discover that?” I ask.

  “It came to me during our journey, right out of the Blue, it just hit me. I knew instantly what I would do with my life. I can’t imagine doing anything else. Have you ever considered how old you are?”

  “On my next birthday….”

  “No, not that. It’s not it.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “What we saw is wonderful.”

  “So tell us!” Woman cries. “You look so different.”

  “It’s the makeup.”

  “No, she means under your makeup.”

  “You’re right. I have changed.”

  “I was born on—”

  “No, no, no,” he laughs at me. “You are older.”

  “What do you mean?” Woman says.

  “We saw the universe in four dimensions.”

  “Tell us what you’re talking about.” I say.

  “You began at the beginning.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Everything in the world started at the same time.”

  “How could that be?”

  “It’s true. We saw everything. The universe has been expanding and growing and becoming more interesting and complex since the beginning of time.”

  “How does that affect us?” I ask.

  “You came out of it. Everything flew out in every direction at once. We saw it all.” Boy laughs, adding, “Man, I know who you are.”

  “Who?”

  “It,” Boy says. “You are It!”

  “Is he making sense to you?”

  Woman smiles and says, “I like the way he said it.” Not really an answer.

  “You saw everything at once?” I say. “That sounds complicated.”

  “It wasn’t easy but enlightening,” Boy says. “It changes you in amazing ways. I didn’t know who I was. Now I do. A lot of people would rather not know what we saw.”

  “Why is that?” Woman says, innocently.

  “Like it or not, it alters you.”

  Boy grabs his tuxedo jacket by the lapels and looks at his clamoring audience. “I have to go out there for a minute. Think about what I said. It’s the truth.”

  He walks onstage into the light. The crowd roars with approval. He waves his arms and smiles, and now he laughs. They clap and shout out bravos. Boy strolls to the piano and he bows grinning into the light. A few more gestures of appreciation, a few more waves of his hands, and he returns to us leaving the applause behind him. He smiles at Woman.

  “Everybody is a little bit black and part Gypsy,” he says.

  “What?” I laugh.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Not much to go on.”

  “It’s not small. It’s big, in fact it’s huge.”

  “I have to think about it,” I say.

  “That’s what you should do.”

  “You surprised me.”

  “Me, too,” Woman says.

  “Some people hate the idea,” Boy laughs.

  He returns to the stage and takes a few bows. Upon returning, he says, “So, Man—what do you think?”

  “About what you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s all right with me.”

  “I hope it makes things simple.”

  “Why would it?” Woman asks.

  “Have you ever heard of smart bombs?”

  “No!” Woman cries.

  “Some people make missiles that carry viruses through the sky so they can land on other people.”

  “That can’t be!” Woman exclaims.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” I ask.

  “It’s related. You’ll see. Some people work at building something they call ‘warheads’ that can kill a million people in an instant—or spread a terrible disease, like the plague.”

  “Holy shit!” I blurt.

  “I don’t believe it,” Woman resists. “Why would anybody want to do that?”

  “They have a big problem. They can’t accept the truth. That is the connection. They refuse to believe that we are all a little bit black and part Gypsy.” He laughs. “So they go to war.”

  “Why do they care?” Woman asks.

  “What difference does it make?” I say.

  “Some people need to feel a special privilege; they base their lives on it. They will do anything to be superior.”

  “That is slow,” Woman says, stunned.

  “It’s weird,” Boy says. “I know.”

  “Crazy is more like it,” I add.

  “It’s not smart,” Woman says. “It is very slow!”

  “They know what they know,” Boy laughs, “and they can’t let go,”. “They want to be on top and keep it that way. I thought you should know. It may be painful but it does exist. It is true.”

  “I guess it is better to know,” I say.

  “Of course it is,” says Woman.

  “And that need makes them kill people?”

  “Yeah, well, not all the time.”

  “I am glad we don’t live there,” Woman says. “Who could bear to live in a place like that?”

  “You’d have to be crazy,” I repeat. “Why do they do it?”

  “That is the question,” Boy says.

  Woman and I have been edging to the exit without quite knowing it. It must be the harshness of the information he shared. I suppose we need to get away from the ignorance he described. At the door I yank on a big lever and it opens.

  Sunlight splashes into our eyes.

  “Dammit!” I squawk at prickles of pain.

  “Ooh!” Woman cries. “Mmmm!”

  Standing in the threshold Boy holds the door with one arm. As I start through he touches my shoulder.

  “I am glad you came,” he says.

  “Me, too, Kid. Where is everybody else?”

  “Where they should be, I guess. I don’t know. We went separate ways. Don’t forget what I said.”

  “A little bit black?” Woman says.

  “—and part Gypsy?” I add.

  “Don’t forget because it’s important.” He looks into my eyes. “It keeps everything in balance,” he says with a smile. “It keeps everything in the right place.” He laughs and removes his painted fingers from my shoulder. “Come back and we’ll make music together.”

  “I would like that,” says Woman.

  “I’ll write a new song for you.”

  “And sing it for us,” I request.

  He hangs on the doorway as Woman and I walk away outside.
r />   “Come back for a song.”

  “We will.”

  “Promise?”

  “You have my word.”

  After a few more steps down the road we stop to look at him. Still hanging by an arm in the curved portal, he stands in a golden glow. As I lean on my knees and look at the ground, Woman cries out, “You seem so much older.”

  I lift my head and notice a flicker of sadness in his eyes as he smiles. “We saw many things.”

  “That was one helluva performance!” I cry.

  “Just come back.” he insists.

  “So long, Kid.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Boy,” says Woman.

  As Woman and I walk away she says, “That was a nice surprise.”

  “If you forget the missiles and the warheads, and the germs, too, yeah, it was nice.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Of course I do. I agree.”

  We walk for a while without words, and strolling at her side I gain a mellow feeling. But now, she cries out, “Look over there. Do you see it? Look at that!”

  “The tree?—on that little hill?”

  “No, look down—leaning on the tree.”

  “It has two seats!” I say.

  “It looks like fun,” she replies.

  “A bicycle built for two.”

  “Let’s ride!”

  ∞ 29 ∞

  With no handlebar behind me, Woman must wrap her arms around my waist. We push off a bit wobbly at first, and now we gain traction and work up speed. As we try to steady our balance we pump over the top of a hill. Suddenly everything drops from under us; I feel a thrill in my stomach as we descend close to gravity speed.

  I hear a sweet voice in my ear. “Isn’t this fun?” Warm lips touch my naked shoulder and I feel a frisson. “Look at the sky!” Woman cries.

  A shot of energy sprints through my body; I’m as happy as a honeybee soaking pollen from a sunflower. Our speed increases. Fresh air gushes by. We are dropping way too fast. I squeeze the brake levers. “Wait a minute!” I shout. No reaction—nothing. We race through a skinny strait like a rocket trying to leave Earth.

  Not knowing what to do, I squeeze again.

  “Try the brakes,” Woman shouts.

  “Damn!” I cry.

  “Slow down!” she shouts.

  “Holy mackerel!” I blurt, as the bike abandons the ground and sails over a slight elevation. I feel no friction under us until we slam down hard on the path. I look down at a streaming flow of gravel under my feet. Again, I try working the brakes.

  “Jesus!” I shout.

  With Woman choking my naked waist I zip through a dog-leg passage and hang tight to the handlebar. As I lean into a turn and up a slope trying to slow things down, my knuckles are white. The bike jolts up the embankment and back down. Picking up speed on the path we practically aviate to the embankment on the other side.

  We hit the ground hard. We bounce through slapping grass. “Oops!” I turn and try the brake levers as we veer across the trail again.

  Feeling like one of the Wright brothers on a flimsy aircraft with no goggles, and forcing myself to glare straight into the wind, I dodge a pothole and swerve away from a big boulder. We run up a rise in the road and sail into a vision of a valley so vast it takes my breath.

  “Hold on!” I shout—“Too late!”

  The front wheel stops on a huge boulder standing in the way, but we don’t. Churning like peasants in the wind, upside down and around in time that seems stopped, we fall.

  “Ouch!” I say, as my bottom smacks the earth, adding as I skid “Ouch! … Ouch!”

  Woman lands ahead of me. She doesn’t cry or complain, but rather, she laughs, “I think we just broke a record.”

  “For land bikes, maybe we did,” I laugh. I stand up, aware of the pain as I rub my backside affectionately. I turn around I get a good look at a yellow-green smudge on my red rump. Now it really hurts.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Woman’s eyes are radiant.

  “I’m fine. How about you?” she asks. “That was wonderful!”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s great to survive.”

  I lift the handlebars of the bicycle. “Look at this wheel—mangled beyond repair.”

  “End of the road for you, Old Bike,” Woman fairly sings. “Time to say goodbye.”

  She runs to a tree and turns around grinning; she reaches up and grabs an orange. As she pulls it away from a reluctant branch, she says, “This one is for you, fresh as can be.” She throws it to me and I catch. Now she tugs another piece of fruit. The limb bends slightly before it lets go. Woman tears into the orange peel and, as I arrive at her side, I smell citrus in the air.

  I dig my thumbnail into the peel of my orange; fresh juice squirts onto my hand. The sweet-sour aroma of orange juice and pungent rind enters my nostrils and my mouth waters. I take a bite of the glistening orange and sweet flesh bursts between my teeth. “Mmm!” I say, very happy with life right now. “How sweet it is!” To the universe I add a heartfelt “Thank you!”

  Woman merely mumbles, “Mm … mmm.”

  I slowly drawl, “The sweet joys of this life!”

  Woman laughs as I look over her shoulder.

  “Oy!” I say.

  “What it is?” she asks.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  She looks around. “Oh!”

  “It’s even bigger,” I observe.

  Inside a metal cage above the door sits a lighted bulb, like the first one. I watch Woman’s nose wrinkle as she speaks, “Can it be?”

  “Want to find out?”

  “I do.”

  We toss the oranges away and head for a short marble stairway leading to a high curving door. Together we ascend—one, two, and three.

  We open the door of a new Pot of Gold and walk in. As the great door closes behind us daylight disappears. I look around in every direction and see virtually nothing.

  Woman is probably blind as I am.

  I hear whispers tossed in the dark.

  “It’s a theatre,” Woman says.

  “How do you know?”

  “Wait…” she replies.

  I see a faint outline of Elizabethan costumes clustered and scurrying by without facial features. I hear a buzz of humans on the other side of a thick curtain standing before us. I have a feeling this time that a play is about to begin. Woman lifts my hand to the curtain and we pull to one side.

  “There is an interesting bunch,” I say.

  “Indeed,” she replies.

  The house lights are bright. Men and women and children of every shape and size and color shuffle about shaking hands, patting shoulders, circulating, giggling and laughing. Some of them signal Hello across the great hall. I spot a classy couple conversing with teenagers dressed in painted tee shirts and blue jeans. Children chat with middle-aged men and women in East Indian attire; they all laugh easily. Young adults are talking with elegant folk dressed in fancy gowns and tuxedos, and they seem quite relaxed and comfortable. People from the West speak freely with people attired in African and Asian costumes.

  “They come from everywhere,” Woman says.

  “What faces!” I add.

  The house lights flicker and people head for their seats as the general commotion starts to die down. With our heads touching together Woman and I observe the figures in the great hall. Beside us a masculine voice speaks: “Welcome to my theatre.”

  I turn around.

  Standing in a shaft of soft light from the theatre a tall young man in Elizabethan costume says, “I’m crazy about these people, they love to applaud.”

  He turns and swaggers upstage.

  He has the look of royalty in his gait. His black tights and billowing white shirt, draped by a lazy black star over his shoulders, and a crisp sound of black leather boots on the wood give him a distinct aura of nobility. From another time, he appears to be accustomed to real privilege.

  The curtai
n pulls away.

  Woman and I follow offstage.

  A cone of white light drops through the dark to center stage, and the young Prince steps into the bright spot. Judging from faces I see in the front row, he has gained full attention.

  Under his clear blue eyes, his nose is straight with an intelligent arc midway. His hair is dark, thick and curly. He cocks his head and smiles like a sailor on liberty in Amsterdam.

  The spotlight widens as the young man spreads his arms, and another, smaller light appears on his face. A few people clap and quickly realize it is not the right time. Woman’s eyes are fixed on the handsome young actor, who raises his right arm like Julius Caesar about to proclaim prizes pillaged in foreign lands.

  The big room bristles with expectation.

  “Bravo!” someone shouts, unable to wait.

  Another spectator rejoins, “Hooray!”

  And still another cries out, “Opa! Olé!”

  The young nobleman hasn’t yet said a word. Multicolored streamers fly in different directions through the auditorium. Two men climb onto their seats and howl like cowboys ending a dusty cattle drive in a saloon.

  They wave their arms and kick out their legs, dropping down hard on seats that create a whooshing metallic clank. The climate in the hall is like an arriving storm of celebration.

  The young actor, undaunted, holds his position steadily. He takes a deep breath and he looks over the heads of the audience. He pulls himself straight and with ringing clarity he states, “To be or not to be, is not the question.”

  “Uh, oh,” I whisper.

  The Prince points away and with a gleam in his eyes, he says, “Whether ‘tis nobler—in the mind!—to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of external troubles—is not the question!”

  “How about that?” I whisper.

  Woman is entranced, probably because of his striking good looks. All lights go out. We stand in darkness. All around us is ebony. “Stay with me,” I say, as I take her hand.

  The actor’s sonorous voice rises.

  “To be or not to be fully human … that is the question!”

  ∞ 30 ∞

  I wonder what that is, up there at the end of the aisle. It looks like a swinging light, a lantern in the hand of a very old man close to the entrance. He lifts his arm and soft light falls on his long beard and grizzled hair.