Floyd hung up.
"Dad? Dad? Goddamn it!" he shouted. He slammed the receiver back into its holder and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He was tired, very tired. The flight from New Orleans to Dallas had followed a very late night at the concert hall, and Gwendolyn had kept him awake until after dawn that morning. He had another show that night, and the strain of the constant schedule of flights and performances was beginning to tell on him. Not twenty-five anymore, he reminded himself. Can't party until dawn, drink so much, snort so much coke, screw so much. Gotta slow down.
Gotta straighten things out with Rowena.
He dialed the phone number of the old Proctor Inn in Bradford once more, slowly, almost painfully. He waited and listened. He heard the receiver once again being picked up;
"Ay-yah?" Floyd said.
"Dad, listen to me—DON'T HANG UP!—I'm calling from two thousand miles away on a stage courtesy phone, but all the calls are being charged to the rental fee of the hall, so this is costing me a small fortune here! Okay? So listen, okay?"
A pause. "What do you want, boy?" Floyd asked coldly.
Simon sighed. "Dad, I know that Row's angry, but I have to talk to her and try to—"
"She ain't angry, boy," his father said heatedly. "She's disgusted and she's ashamed!"
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Dad—"
"Listen, boy, what the hell'dya expect was gonna happen? Row's a good girl, a normal human being! How'dya expect her to feel after what she was subjected to?"
Oh, great, Row, he thought. Run home and describe everything. "Look, Dad, I'd had a little too much to drink, and I—"
"Simon, you're a disgrace. You've been a source of shame to me all your worthless life, and now you're shamin' your daughter. She doesn't want to talk to you, she doesn't want to hear any apologies, she doesn't want to have anything to do with you."
"Oh, really!" he said, offended and annoyed. "That's gonna be damned hard, with us living under the same roof!"
"Simon, listen to me. You shouldn't come back here. You should—"
"What the hell do you mean I shouldn't come back there! It's my goddamn house, for Christ's sake!!!"
"Boy, if you come back here after the concerts are over, she's likely to do something foolish, like run off and marry the Sloan boy. And she's too young for that."
"What are you talking about?" he shouted. "I told Jeremy that I didn't want—"
"They're keepin' company real close, boy. Ever since they come back they been with each other every day. He stays over sometimes."
Simon saw red. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE STAYS OVER? JESUS, DAD—"
"Oh, he sleeps on the couch downstairs," Floyd said easily. "He ain't like you, boy. He's a good boy. Worth twice of the likes of you."
Simon took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then, forcing calmness, he said, "Dad, listen to me very carefully. You tell Row that I'll be home in about two weeks. Tell her that I have to talk to her and explain things. Tell her that I expect her to be home when I get there. And you tell Jeremy Sloan that if he lays a hand on my daughter, I'll break his fuckin' neck! You got that?" No answer. "Dad? You got that?"
Floyd sighed. "Thank God your momma isn't alive to see—"
This time it was Simon's turn to hang up on somebody. Goddamn stupid old fool, he thought bitterly. You think I like truckin' around the whole goddamn country like this? I'm keeping a roof over your head, you stupid old man!
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and be turned around to see Mark Siegal standing there, looking concerned and just a bit frightened. "Hey, Simon, I think we got a problem."
"What's the matter? It isn't Adrienne, is it?"
"Oh, no, no. She's okay."
"I mean, ever since that night, she's been weirder than usual."
"How can you tell?" Siegal laughed slightly.
Simon laughed also, but humorlessly. "No kidding, Markie. Every night when we go onstage, I expect her to—well—"
"Flip out?" Siegal finished for him. "Forget it, man. People don't have nervous breakdowns that easily."
"I guess not," he agreed. "But sometimes I wonder about her, and about Gwen too. I mean, neither of them are exactly normal people. They're both space cadets." He and Siegal laughed again, and then Simon asked, "So what's the problem?"
"We got a massive demonstration outside. The stage manager—what's his name—?"
"Sokolowsky," Simon reminded him.
"Whatever. He put in a call for the cops, but the city's kind of annoyed at so many of their guys being assigned to us as it is."
"What kind of demonstration is it?" Simon asked. "We talkin' fans, or what?"
"Hardly! We got a crowd of pulpit-thumpers out there."
"Shit!" Simon spat. "Are they blocking the ticket booth?"
"Of course they are. That's why they're out there. They got signs and loudspeakers and all that stuff."
Gwendolyn walked up behind them. "Is aught amiss?" she asked.
"What?" Simon spun around. "Oh, hiya, Gwen. You and Larry work out the chords for the golem song?"
"The what?" Siegal asked.
"Tell you later." To Gwendolyn, "Worked out okay?"
" 'Tis fine," she said. "But your face is troubled."
"Oh, it's nothing. There are some demonstrators outside screwing up ticket sales. It doesn't matter, really. The concert practically sold out already anyway."
"Then why are you troubled?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Just bothers me, that's all. I don't need a bunch of Holy Rollers giving me bad PR right now. We’ve never done a gig this far west, and—"
"What are Holy Rollers?"
"You know, Bible Belt bigots."
She considered this for a moment, trying to sift through his rather imprecise description and arrive at a meaning. "Mean you ministers?"
"Yeah, sure, there's gotta be ministers out there. Right, Markie?"
"Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's some guy out there on a platform, waving a Bible around and screaming bloody murder."
Gwendolyn's eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. "Damn all ministers," she muttered darkly. "I hate them, my love, I hate them with every fiber of m'body. Be damned to all of them."
Simon laughed uneasily, surprised at her vehemence.
"Yeah, well, it's not all that important. Besides, they're just trying to protect their—I don't know, their 'flocks' from our influence. Just ignore them. They don't matter. They're fighting a losing battle in this society, anyway."
Gwendolyn was not listening. Her balled fists were beating very lightly at her sides, and her eyes flashed a steely light. "Take me out unto them!" she commanded.
"Hey, Gwen," Siegal said. "Forget it. It isn't that important. Really, just forget it." Even though it was his concern which had brought the situation to Simon's attention, he did not like the look in the woman's eyes.
"I will go out to them," she insisted. "If you will not accompany me, then I shall confront them alone!"
"Gwen," Simon laughed nervously, "there isn't any need to confront anyone at all. Just forget it!" The phone beside him rang, startling him. He reached for it impulsively. "Hello? Rowena?"
"Simon? That you?" said the distant, tinny voice. He was disappointed. "Oh, hiya, Harry. What's up?"
"They told me I could find you at this number, so I—"
"Yeah, yeah, right. What's up?"
Harry Schroeder's words were unintelligible as Gwendolyn said loudly, "Simon Proctor, I will go out to them. Are you coming or not?"
"Wait a minute, Gwen, wait a minute." To Schroeder he said, "Harry, are you at your office?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Let me call you back. We got a situation here."
"Yeah, sure, okay. Don't forget, okay? It's important."
"Okay, okay. Talk to you later." He hung up and turned to Gwendolyn. "Listen, Gwen—"
"Bah!" she spat in disgust. "Do you fear ministers?!"
Simon stiffened. "Hey, look, I lived in Brooklyn for ten years. I ai
n't afraid of anything!"
"Fine!" she said. "Then accompany me!" She spun about on her heel and began to walk toward the corridor beside the stage which would take her to the front of the concert hall. Simon cast Mark Siegal a pained look and reluctantly followed after her.
Siegal watched them leave. "Their first fight," he muttered to himself with amusement.
Gwendolyn walked to the entrance doors of the hall without looking back to see if Simon was following her. She knew he was. She pulled open the large metal doors and walked out into the angry, shouting crowd. If she felt any fear, she was successful in masking it, for her face bespoke nothing but arrogance, anger, confidence, and pride.
"That's one of them," a voice in the crowd rang out.
"That's the one who says she's a witch!" another shouted.
"There's Simon Proctor! There's Simon Proctor!"
"Get out of Texas!"
"Go back east!"
"Sinners! Sinners!"
"Leave our children alone!"
Simon came up behind Gwendolyn and said, "Look, this is nuts! Let's go back inside. This is dangerous!"
She turned to him, a look of annoyance and disappointment flashing at him. "I trust my Master, Simon Proctor. If you cannot trust him, then at least trust me."
A middle-aged man approached them through the crowd, pushing his way to the front, parting the sign-carrying, shouting throng. His clear brown eyes blazed with righteous indignation and wrath, and he held an old, tattered Bible before him as if it were a shield. He came to a halt in front of Gwendolyn and stared at her with disgust. Simon stood behind her, attempting to remain calm, fighting the urge to cower or flee.
"I am Ted Earl, pastor of Calvary Church," he said in a loud, booming voice. The crowd quieted down instantly, listening to their leader with rapt attentiveness. "Mr. Proctor, we've come here today to demand that—"
"It is I who have come out to meet with you, not he!' Gwendolyn interrupted. "Do not ignore me, minister, for the power of Satan moves through me, not through him!"
"Yes, I know who you are," Earl said angrily. "I've seen the news shows. I saw you frighten a man to death. You belong in prison, or in a mental institution, not on a stage corrupting our children." His remarks were followed by a frenzied outburst of cheers and imprecations from the crowd.
"So you know me," she shouted over the din as the crowd began to close in upon them threateningly and Simon's face began to lose its color. "Then you must also know that I am powerful and to be feared!"
"You are to be pitied and to be shunned!" the minister cried out. "You are come among us as a leper, a moral leper! You are a woman possessed, a poor, loathsome tool of Satan!" More shouts and cries of agreement.
Gwendolyn smiled and her eyes went wide as she nodded. "Well! At last I meet someone who has some inkling of the truth!"
"You are—" Earl began.
"I am Gwendolyn Jenkins!" she outshouted him. "I am a servant of Satan and a witch, and I defy you to test your powers against mine!" There was a stunned silence. "You claim to serve the Almighty God, do you not?"
"I have been washed in the blood of the Lamb," Earl said. "I have come here to stop this blasphemy from polluting our city. I have not come here to engage you in a contest of tricks!"
"Ha! Tricks, is it! Do you remember the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, minister? Is your trust in your feeble God so much less than his?"
This statement brought cries of outrage from the crowd, and Simon felt a few hands shove him roughly forward into Gwendolyn. He began to tremble, terrified at the mindless presence of what was rapidly becoming a mob.
"Elijah was a prophet of God!" Earl shouted. "I am but His lowly servant!"
"And as big a fool," she laughed harshly. "The power in this world belongs to the lord of this world, not to your silly, petulant deity!"
The hands which began to grab at her were thrust imperiously away, but there were too many for her to resist them all. "You are a blasphemous animal!" Earl shouted. "You will not be permitted to spread your perversions here among our children!"
Simon felt a fist thud into the small of his back, and then another struck him in the face. He fell backward, jolts of pain radiating from his mouth and spine. The sound of the police siren and the commanding voice from the bullhorn, ordering the crowd to move aside, seemed to him to be like the bugle of the cavalry in the midst of an Indian attack. He managed to pull himself to his feet, and grabbing Gwendolyn roughly by the arm, he stumbled back to the doors of the concert hail and ran inside.
A policeman followed them in, a young man with a square jaw and an overly officious manner. "Are you two injured?" he asked.
"No, no, I'm okay," he stammered.
"I am unharmed," Gwendolyn said evenly. The officer nodded curtly and then returned to the fledgling riot without. She turned to Simon and said, "Damn all ministers!"
He took her shoulders in his hands and shook her. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" he shouted. "Were you trying to get us killed or something?!"
"Tosh," she said easily. "No harm is done."
"Yeah, sure, because the cops showed up! If they hadn't, we might both be on our way to the fucking hospital right now, if we weren't beaten to death!" He released her and turned away, shaking his head in amazement. "My God, Gwen! You don't say the things you said to a mob like that!"
She shrugged. "You are too timid a man, Simon. You must be stronger, more forthright, like your—" She stopped speaking abruptly.
"Like my what?" he asked.
She studied him for a moment and then smiled. " 'Tis of no matter. I love you as you are. Naught needs changing."
Siegal and Mahoney came running up to them, Adrienne following behind them nervously. "What the hell happened?" Siegal asked. "I heard a lot of shouting and then the siren—"
"Miss Congeniality over here nearly got us killed just now!" Simon spat, jerking his thumb at Gwendolyn. She smiled patiently.
"No shit!" Siegal exclaimed. "You okay?"
"Some Holy Rollers belted me a couple of times, but I'll survive." He turned back to Gwendolyn. "Listen to me good! You pull anything like that again, and we're through, you got me? We're yesterday's news, we're finished!"
She reached up and stroked his cheek, grinning with amusement. "And do you think I would be so easy to dismiss?"
"I'm not kidding, Gwen!"
She nodded, still smiling condescendingly. "Yes, yes. Very well. I am sorry"
He stood for a few moments, staring at her. He had not expected an apology, and he did not quite know how to react to it. Then he sniffed and said, "I gotta go call Harry." He walked away from them, back down the corridor toward the back of the stage.
Gwendolyn watched him go, still smiling. Mahoney asked, "Hey, Gwen, what the hell happened out there?"
She shrugged. "A trifle. 'Twas nothing."
"Yeah? Simon didn't look like it was nothing!"
"He was frightened and upset."' She began to follow Simon. "Hold on," Mahoney said, starting after her. "What happened?" Siegal and Adrienne followed a pace behind him.
"A crowd of enemies threatened us and denounced us, and I stood up to them," she said over her shoulder, continuing down the corridor.
"Enemies—what—?" Mahoney began.
"Like Moral Majority types," Siegal explained. "They were demonstrating out there, carrying signs and stuff like that."
Mahoney laughed with disbelief. "And you started an argument with them?! Are you nuts?!"
Gwendolyn stopped short and turned viciously on the slender bass player. "I'll not be rebuked by you, nor by any man! Guard your tongue!" She spun around and continued to walk away.
Mahoney's Gaelic temper rose to the surface. "Hey! Who the hell—?"
"Shhh, no," Adrienne said, taking him gently by the arm. "No, Tom. Leave her be. Ignore her. She is strong willed and dangerous."
"Yeah, but, shit! All I did was—"
"I know, I know," she soothed. "I have known
her for many years, and you must heed me when I say that it is useless to spar with her."
Mahoney's anger began to subside. "Well—"
"Please," she said, a hint of fear and desperation creeping into her voice. "It will but worsen matters."
He shrugged as if reluctantly allowing himself to be pacified. "Oh, well—okay, okay."
They walked on toward the back of the stage in silence, and they found Simon babbling excitedly into the telephone with Gwendolyn standing beside him, gazing at him quizzically. Whatever it was which had made him so excited, it was obviously information to which she was not as yet privy.
"Okay. . . . Okay, yeah, sure," he was saying with enthusiasm. "Yeah, the itinerary's the same. . . . No, no problem. . . . Let them edit it themselves. . . . Yeah, day after tomorrow in Phoenix'll be great. . . . Right. . . . Twelve noon. . . . That'll give 'em plenty of time to set up." He paused as Harry Schroeder spoke to him at length. "Holy shit! That's a great idea, a great idea! Are you sure we can get permission from—?" Another pause. "And they agreed?! . . . Fantastic! Fantastic! This'll make a fortune, Harry, a fortune!" Another pause. "I'm not getting carried away at all! I just know how these things work, how much dough they make. Harry"—and he laughed into the phone—"you are a genius, a genius! Yeah. . . . Yeah. . . . Okay. . . . Okay. . . . Right, day after tomorrow, noon, at the hall. Okay. Bye." He hung up.
Mark Siegal grinned questioningly. "What happened, Simon? You win the lottery or something?"
He turned to them eagerly. "Where are Larry and Carl?"
"Working out an arrangement," Siegal said. "Why?"
"Go get 'em."
"Why? What's—"
"Markie, just go get 'em!" Siegal shrugged and then ran off to find the other two members of the band.
"Hey, Simon, what's the big news here?" Mahoney asked.
"Hold on, hold on," he said happily. "I want everybody to hear this." He took out a cigarette, lighted it, and smoked it in silence. A few minutes passed, and at last Siegal returned with Herricks and Strube in tow.
"Okay, so here they are," Siegal said. "So what's going on?"
"Okay, listen," Simon said seriously. "Harry Schroeder has set up a deal with Shalcom—"
"Shalcom?" Herricks asked. "Aren't they the people who produce all those concert videos?"
Candlemas Eve Page 28
