"Daddy!" she cried, her voice filled with shock and pain.
Her father looked over at her absently, his red eyes able to open only halfway. He tried to focus on her, but could not. "Huh?" he muttered.
Gwendolyn looked up and grinned maliciously. "Ah, the virgins have arrived!" she cackled. She stood to her feet and released her grip on Simon's erect organ. Rowena turned her eyes away. "My dear little friend," she said to Adrienne, "you are not in truth a virgin, as we both well know."
"Gwendolyn—please—" Adrienne whimpered.
"Our friend Larry has made a most impolite observation," she said, ignoring her and strolling over to Herricks. He took the rolled-up bill from his nose and got unsteadily to his feet. "He made the comment that this night was—how did you say it, my dear Larry?"
He blushed slightly. "I didn't mean nothin'. It's just an expression."
"Colder than a witch's tit, I believe those were the words." She laughed and, grabbing both his hands, placed them upon her breasts and squeezed them hard. "I have already demonstrated to him that my bosom is warm, but I think he wonders still about yours." She released Herricks's hands with a laugh and turned back to Adrienne. "It is up to you to defend our kind, my dear friend." The smile remained on her face, but it became suddenly cold and hateful. "You will give yourself to this man, here and now."
"Please," she moaned. "I don't—"
"Remember who you are, and who I am," Gwendolyn said sternly. She pointed to an empty spot on the carpet. "There. Right now. Obey me!"
Rowena exploded at her. "Who the hell do you think you are, Goddamn it!"
She laughed. "Oh. He will, no doubt, no doubt!"
Adrienne reached beneath her dress and pulled her underpants down to her ankles and then stepped out of them. She began to walk slowly, mournfully over to the place which Gwendolyn had indicated.
"Adrienne, stop it!" Rowena shouted. "You don't have to do this!"
She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around to see Karyn, staggeringly drunk, her blouse open, her breasts and belly both protruding outward, standing there and smiling insipidly. "You know, kid, no offense, but you belong in, like, a convent or something, you know?"
Rowena grabbed her hand and thrust it violently from her. "Karyn, you're disgusting!"
As Lucas reached around Karyn from behind and began roughly kneading her breasts, she giggled, "Nobody's perfect."
Adrienne lay down upon her back, wordlessly, her eyes closed, her pale face frozen into a blank, impassive, distant expression. "Adrienne, no!" Rowena shouted.
"Becalm yourself, child," Gwendolyn said. "Our dear friend Adrienne has not known a man for many years. She fights it, but she feels the need burning deep within her. And so must you."
"You—you—bitch!" Rowena spat.
"Aye, that and much else." She nodded in mock agreement. She gestured over toward Jeremy. "There is a man whom you desire, who desires you. Both your loins burn with desire for each other, do they not? Does not your womb need to be filled by him? Give yourself to him now, and stop this childish play!"
"You—I—I—you—" Rowena stammered, growing red with fury and embarrassment.
Herricks stumbled over toward them, his eyes glaring at Adrienne with a bestial need. She pulled her dress up past her waist, and bent her legs at the knee, spreading them wide apart. Her face was a frozen mask, wax-like, blank.
"Adrienne, stop it!" Rowena cried. "I'll leave, I'll go home, so help me God I will!"
"Then go and begone!" Gwendolyn said, laughing "Hell has no need of nuns!" She turned to Herricks. "She is yours."
As Herricks leapt upon Adrienne and impaled her roughly, Rowena cast one last desperate look at her father's besotted face and then ran from the room, slamming the door loudly behind her. She ran down the two flights of stairs, too upset to stand patiently and wait for the elevator, and then rushed into her room, weeping bitterly.
"Daddy, I'll never speak to you again," she wept to herse'f. "You're a horrible man, horrible! I hate you!"
She grabbed the telephone from the night table beside the bed and dialed the desk. Pull yourself together, she thought. Calm down.
She waited a few moments and then said, "Yes, this is Rowena Proctor in room 432. Please connect me with USAir."
She waited. "Yes, I'd like to arrange for a ticket from Chicago to Burlington, Vermont. As soon as possible." She waited again. "That will be fine. . . . No, not round trip. One way. One ticket."
"Two," Jeremy said from the doorway. "Make it two tickets, Row."
She looked at him and began to weep afresh. "Two tickets, please. Two one-way tickets to Burlington." He walked over to her and they hugged tightly. She was barely able to concentrate on the voice which spoke to her on the phone. "I love you, Jeremy," she said.
"And I love you, Row. I love you very much. And I'm very sorry about this whole damned thing. I've had it with this bullshit, honest I have." He kissed away her tears. "I'm gonna go back home and get a job and start acting like a normal human being, okay?"
"Okay," she sniffed. She snapped her attention to the phone. "I'm sorry, what did you say? . . . Fine. That will be fine. Thank you." She placed the phone down. "We have to pack. The plane leaves in two hours. We can call Gramps from the airport in Burlington. I'm sure he'll come and get us."
"It'll be awful early in the morning."
"He won't mind, not when it means we're coming home." They embraced again, and she continued to weep, and he continued to soothe her. "I hate them," she muttered. "I hate all of them!"
December 8
It was what Southerners refer to as sweater weather in St. Louis, Missouri, and it was a welcome change from Chicago's blustering, biting cold. The troupe had arrived in the self-proclaimed Gateway to the West late in the evening of the previous day, generally hung over, washed out, and miserable, and most of them were taking the opportunity to sleep and rest. The concert scheduled for the coming night would be the first ever Simon Proctor and Witch's Sabbath had played this far west, and all were hoping that it would be as great a success as the others thus far on the tour. It seemed that almost overnight they had gone from being a regionally known band on the brink of catastrophe to a national news item; but they were professional enough and experienced enough to know how quickly such luck could dissipate. So they slept and rested, anticipating the evening with anxiety and eagerness.
Most of them slept, that is. As the morning sun rose over the city and its rays began to dance upon the brownish waters of the Mississippi River, Adrienne Lupescu strolled quietly and morosely along its banks, ignoring the rude catcalls of the dock workers and the wolf whistles which followed her along the shore. She walked with her head down, her hands thrust into the pockets of her long cloak, the cool morning wind whipping through her brown hair. She heard the sound of light footfalls behind her, and she stopped and turned. Gwendolyn Jenkins was following her some twenty yards away, and she stopped also. The two women stared at each other for a few moments, and then Adrienne walked on. She could hear the footsteps recommence from behind her, and she strove to ignore them..
She came to a railing which bordered an observation deck overlooking the river, and she stopped and leaned against it. Gwendolyn stopped walking for a moment, and then slowly came closer. She stopped about six feet away and imitated Adrienne in leaning against the railing and gazing out at the muddy water. Neither spoke for what seemed a long while. At last Gwendolyn said, "The water seems impure, sullied."
"This age is impure and sullied," Adrienne muttered.
Gwendolyn shrugged. "It is as any age."
They fell silent again. Then Adrienne spoke, without turning her eyes toward the other woman. "Why did you do that to me?"
"You know why," she replied.
" 'Twas unkind and unfair," Adrienne said.
"Aye," came the reply, "and what you did was unkind and unfair. All would have been well, but for your weakness and fear."
"Then you should have chose
n another," she spat. "I'll not apologize for being what I am!"
"Chosen another!" She laughed incredulously. "And when did I choose you?! You chose to be part of the plot, you joined the scheme from its first day! I never chose you, my dear. You chose me, me and Betty and Mercy and the others! You chose US!" She sniffed. "All would have been well, had you not been one with us."
Adrienne did not reply. They leaned over the railing and stared down at the river bank as the sluggish waves lapped upon it. They stood silently as the sounds of the awakening city reached their ears. Adrienne sighed. "You needed not to shame me before the girl."
"What matter? The girl is of no importance."
"She is my friend," Adrienne said weakly, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
"You have no friends," Gwendolyn said bitterly. "Once you had friends, as you may recall, but you abandoned us when we needed you. Or at least, you attempted to abandon us."
"I miss her. She went home to New England." Adrienne wept.
"Then make it a good miss, for she has no place in this, neither she nor that eunuch she loves."' A grim chuckle. "He will be best man, I think, when I marry Simon Proctor. We'll be needing a virgin's blood."
"I want to go home," Adrienne cried. "I want to go home!"
"Home! Whither be home?! Mean you to New England, or to your more recent abode?"
Adrienne grew visibly more pallid. She did not reply. "No more of this nonsense. Come, return with me. We perform again tonight."
"I don't want to sing tonight."
Gwendolyn Jenkins turned and faced her, folding her arms angrily across her chest. "Oh, indeed! And when was your opinion asked?" She walked slowly, threateningly toward her, and Adrienne recoiled from her approach. "I asked not for your opinion!"
"And—and yet, I may have one," she muttered timidly.
"No, you may not!" Gwendolyn hissed. "No more than you asked my opinion before denouncing me in court as a liar! No more than you asked my opinion when you strove to put my neck in a noose! Nor did you ask Mercy Lewis or Betty Parris for their opinions before you put their lives in jeopardy!"
Adrienne was walking backward, away from her, trembling. "I was afeard—I was afeard—"
Gwendolyn stopped walking, and laughed. "Then, now, always. A rabbit you are, silly girl, a frightened little rabbit." She shook her head. "Come, she said evenly. "Let us return." She turned and began to walk purposefully back along the route they had just come. Adrienne watched her for a few moments and then followed at a slower pace, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
December 10
People tend to think of New Orleans as a relatively normal city except, of course, for the brief annual outburst of madness of the Mardi Gras. But this attitude falls far short of the truth, as anyone who has ever spent time in New Orleans can attest. It is a city of perpetual carnival, of perpetual merrymaking, and Mardi Gras is but a highly publicized example, albeit in an extreme form, of a perennial view of life.
Thus it was that Simon Proctor and Witch's Sabbath approached their New Orleans concert with some trepidation. This would be a difficult crowd to entrance, shock, amuse, or surprise. This would be a crowd which had seen it all and done it all. Winning them over would not be easy, especially inasmuch as the band was still a relatively unknown commodity in this part of the country
They need not have worried. The Orleansoisie were predisposed to drink in the bizarre and the arcane, and the stage show presented to them that night was like liquor to an alcoholic. They sucked upon the musical pipe and Simon filled it with audio and visual opium. From the moment Gwendolyn sauntered onto the stage, the cheers and shouts were almost continuous, all but obliterating the lyrics and the blasting music. The old, chilling sea chantey which Simon sang dripped with violence, hatred, and death, but it was the frenzied, lascivious dance which Gwendolyn executed hither and yon upon the stage which aroused the crowd. She banged a tambourine above her head and upon her thrusting hip as she spun about in time to the old song of murder and pillage.
"Sailed I have on the open sea,
Waging war on the ships of kings.
Skilled I am at piracy.
'Tis a skill that battle brings.
Long have I sailed this outlaw hull
'Neath the flag of the bone and skull,
Sailing o'er the blood red waves
Of a sea of dead men."
The words were largely unknown to the audience, and would doubtless remain so, as they remained largely unheard over the din of the frenzied crowd; but the atmosphere and attitude of the song communicated themselves, and tumult arose from the multitude when key words reached their ears through the maelstrom of cheers.
"Give me a cutlass sharp and bright,
Give me a swab to cool my gun.
Give me a hot and a lusty fight,
Give me grog and give me rum.
Like a plague I roam the world,
Killing the men and raping the girls,
Stealing silver, gold, and gems
From the hands of dead men."
The Caribbean rhythm which Mahoney and Siegal imparted to the song on bass and drums merged in an odd but somehow compelling manner with the language of the seventeenth-century ruffians who had once sung the song to the rhythm of raising sail or hoisting anchor. Gwendolyn seemed to snap her hips abruptly from side to side with each heavily accented beat of the song.
"When I die and go to hell,
I will sit on Satan's knee.
What a tale of terror I'll tell
Of my life of piracy.
Many are the thieveries I've made,
Rape and murder my stock in trade.
I have turned my path into
A road of dead men."
During the musical frenzy which Strube tore into before the last verse, Gwendolyn picked up a prop skull from behind the amplifiers and began to prance about the stage, holding it aloft, pretending to taunt the grinning sardonicus with her lips and her bosom. Then she spun about madly until she came to rest beside Simon and joined him in the chorus.
"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink! and the Devil be done for the rest!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Raise the Jolly Roger high!
Fly the skull in the crimson sky!
Fifteen thieves drinking rum in a toast
To the souls of dead men!"
The song ended with an abrupt, ear-splitting blast from all the instruments, and the audience, startled, allowed almost two seconds of silence to intervene between the final note and the mad applause which then ensued. Simon stood imperiously upon the stage, a king, as it were, surveying his kingdom, and he called out into the microphone, "For you, Lafitte! For you, Jean Lafitte, cutthroat, pirate, buccaneer! For you, demon of the high seas!"
The ovation was deafening, cries of ecstatic, intoxicated enthusiasm for Simon and the band mingling with shouts of praise for the infamous Louisiana pirate of whom, were the truth to be known, very few of the people in the audience had ever heard. But that was of no matter. The cheers went on and on.
December 12
Simon drummed his fingers impatiently upon the wall beside the hanging telephone and then glanced up at the wall clock which hung above the stage door entrance. He listened to the unanswered ringing on the other end of the line and muttered, "Shit!"
Then he heard the receiver being picked up and Rowena's voice, distant and a bit fuzzy, say, "Hello?"
"Hi, Row? It's your dad. Listen, honey, I wanted to—" She hung up
Simon breathed heavily, anger mixing with embarrassment and guilt, and he dialed the number once more. Goddamn dial phones! he thought irritably. Takes five seconds to call a number on a push-button phone, and here I gotta wait for the fuckin' dial to spin back. . .
He waited, listening to the clicking as the connection was made. Once again he heard the phone ring, and once again heard the receiver being picked up
. "Hello?" Rowena said.
"Rowena, don't hang up! Listen to—"
She hung up.
"Goddamn it, Row!" he shouted into the dead phone. He dialed again, ripping the dial around angrily. He waited again, listened again, continued to drum his fingers on the wall.
The receiver was picked up. "Ay-yah?" said old Floyd.
"Dad? That you?"
"Ay-yah."
"Dad, listen to me. Can you put Row on the line and keep her from hanging up? I gotta talk to her."
"Sorry, boy, I can't do that."
"What do you mean? Put Row on the line!"
"Nope."
Simon took the receiver from his ear and stared at it in astonishment. Then he said, "Damn it, Dad, I want to talk to my daughter! Will you put her on and keep her from hanging up?"
Candlemas Eve Page 27
