by Tamar Myers
It was the ‘something more’ that was particularly troubling. This recently relocated church with sixty-six words in its name uses poisonous snakes in its worship services. New members are required to reach into a cardboard box and pull out a rattlesnake and hold it aloft while professing their faith. If they truly believe, the reptile will ignore them. If their faith is weak, they might get bitten and subsequently die.
The members base their belief on Mark 14:17-18:
And these signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; (18) they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay their hand on the sick, and they will recover.
However, I had it on good authority that Rev. Splitfrock preached that Herniaites who did not attend his church were not true Christians, and thus would surely die if they tried handling the same serpents. He said that we ‘so-called’ Christians were vermin, nothing more than rodents that his snakes would be happy to dine on. By the way, this heresy isn’t hearsay; I attended his four-hour-long preaching service one Sunday morning disguised as an old woman, which really wasn’t much of a stretch. It occurred to me then, and many times since, that the bigoted man was capable of releasing his box of poisonous reptiles into the crowd at the Billy Goat Gruff Festival.
That threat was in February, and now it was August. Since then, the good reverend had been interviewed by Toy, the sheriff, and the FBI. Reverend Splitfrock was not a man who could be easily intimidated, but he finally confessed that the ‘something more’ would simply be spontaneous blessings bestowed on tourists by his members. Fine, Toy said, but he didn’t want to hear any complaints from festival attendees about being harassed by religious extremists.
Much to my considerable relief, my Dearly Beloved got me into Hernia in plenty of time to do what I do best: boss people around. Before you judge me, I’m just being truthful. I know my strengths, as well as my weaknesses. I eschew committee work because I have no patience with folks who don’t get right to the point or engage in crosstalk. May the Good Lord forgive me, but I was born to be a dictator – a good Christian one, to be sure. I believe that a lot could be accomplished if one person was in charge of everything, and she issued all the orders, and everyone else snapped to it and obeyed. Of course, ‘dictator’ is such an ugly word, don’t you think? Therefore, I propose ‘empress’, and Empress Magdalena has such a lovely sound.
‘Earth to Magdalena,’ Chief Toy said about an hour after I arrived. ‘It’s still an hour until the festival is officially open, and already we have a problem.’
‘Reverend Splitfrock and his gang of holy heavies?’ I asked with a sinking heart. It’s been said in jest, but in a good way, that Hernia has more churches per capita than Rome. I hated to think that the church that excelled in names was going to be the rotten apple in the barrel, the one that spoiled our town’s reputation.
‘No, ma’am,’ Toy said. ‘Our problem is – well, just look around, and what do you see?’
‘Hundreds of tourists milling around, presumably waiting for something to happen. Although there seems to be a lot of angry buzz. They sound like a swarm of bees.’
‘Exactly,’ Toy said. ‘And it’s going to get worse. Both roads into Hernia are clogged and Route 94 is backed up as far as the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That’s twelve miles of cars headed this way.’
I gasped so hard that I inhaled a gnat that had gotten too close to my face for its well-being. Small as it was, my visceral response was to try and hack the insect up.
‘Are you all right?’ Toy asked.
I forced a smile. ‘I’m fine, dear. I was just taking a morning protein break.’
‘Back to the problem at hand. Any ideas, Madam Mayor?’
‘Count our blessings?’ I said.
‘Where are these people supposed to park?’ Toy said. ‘And what about security?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we will just have to have someone stop them at this end of the bridge, and then inform them that they have to find a spot along one of our charming side streets. As to extra security, why don’t I call up our volunteer fire and rescue members while you call the Somerset Police and see if they can spare a few officers today?’
We were having our conversation outside the Hernia police station, so that we could keep an eye on the crowd. Although I have told my children that I have an eye in the back of my head, one that can see what they’re doing behind my back, that might not really be the case. At least that third eye wasn’t functioning when the woman in the pink tennis visor and reflective sunglasses tapped me on the shoulder from behind.
I shrieked like a six-year-old boy. ‘What the Victorian sponge cake!’
The tourist was unflappable, and she immediately thrust a newspaper advertisement in my face. The ad took up a full half page and bore the following title: FAIR OFFERS FREE FOOD AND FUN FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY.
‘I can’t find any of what yinz promised. I drove all the way here from the Westwood neighbourhood in Pittsburgh with my three children, and my ninety-six-year-old mother-in-law, because of what it says right here in black and white.’
I snatched the paper from her hand. ‘Toy, it says here that we have carnival rides, like a roller coaster called the Devil’s Colon because of all its twists and turns. Also, a Ferris wheel with three rotating wheels. It’s supposed to be the world’s tallest. But get this, it says that we offer free food and drinks, including beer, all day and until ten o’clock tonight. Then at ten we’re putting on a lollapalooza of a fireworks display to eclipse any ever put on in these United States of America.’
‘Give me that,’ Toy said, and snatched the ad from my bony hand.
Immediately someone poked my bony behind, causing me to shriek like a nine-year-old boy (I was not quite as startled this time). I even managed to compose myself a little before I turned to lecture the child who had assaulted my dignity. Needless to say, I was quite unprepared to have a second newspaper waved up at me by a nonagenarian in a wheelchair. There were three crabby looking children standing behind her.
‘Here, lady,’ she said, in the raspy voice of a smoker. ‘You can have this. It’s from Pittsburgh’s other paper. The one that ain’t partial to you-know-who.’
The second advertisement was identical to the first. That said, it had cost somebody, or some group, a sizable chunk of change to deceive a large number of people and wreak havoc on our peaceful village. I am most certainly not a betting woman (gambling is a sin), but if I were, I would bet my farm and the inn that Rev. Splitfrock and his bunch of snake-handlers were the guilty party. Well, I’d have to give him credit for thinking up a clever way to maximize the chance that at a least one ‘so-called’ Christian was bitten during our celebration to honour our quite elderly, ‘satanic’ billy goat named Gruff.
FOURTEEN
Toy and I didn’t have any other option except to call in the big guns. I mean that literally. I called Sheriff Stodgewiggle up in Bedford, who thrives on confrontation, while Toy called the State Troopers. The latter blocked incoming traffic from the Turnpike, while the former brought four well-armed deputies wielding bullhorns.
At first there was mass confusion, and folks panicked. They initially thought that there had been a terrorist attack. Then when they realized that they had been duped into driving for over an hour under false pretences, they got angry. But frankly, who can blame them? If something comparable to that had happened to me, I’m sure that my sturdy Christian underwear would be tied in a knot – or at least in a pleasing bow.
At any rate, we did have one rather unpleasant incident. A heavily tattooed millennial kicked over a rubbish bin while taking the Lord’s name in vain. However, a keen-eyed deputy yelled a sharp rebuke over his megaphone, and thereafter the only tantrums on display were from Pittsburgh residents under six years of age.
As much as I dislike Sheriff Stodgewiggle (I love him because the Bible says that I have to, but I like c
ockroaches better), I will admit that he and his men did an admirable job of clearing our village of all the folks who had invaded us because of the two erroneous newspaper ads. What’s more, two of the deputies were off duty and volunteered to stay for the festival which had been delayed by only an hour.
And let me tell you, Deputy Hayes’s megaphone was a godsend – a word I do not use lightly. Toy won’t let me use his megaphone, because supposedly folks in China called in with noise complaints last time I did. Coach Listerbaum from the high school has said in the past that lending me his megaphone is tantamount to pouring kerosene on a fire – a metaphor that I’m still scratching my horsey head trying to figure out. As to why I don’t purchase my own – well, I’m just too ding-dang parsimonious. Anyway, I was thrilled for the use of Deputy Hayes’s instrument, and I put it to good use marshalling my many volunteers, plus managing our genuine record turnout.
Although the incoming traffic was still curtailed, practically every household in Hernia turned out for the first time, and in the end that is what made the event really special. Not that everything stayed hunky-dory, of course. I am speaking of my life, after all. You see, I still hadn’t gotten up enough nerve to tell my mother-in-law that her title was Hernia Citizen of the Year and not Queen of Hernia.
I waited until the very last minute to break the news. We were standing in the shade of a large oak, next to the goat cart, on the starting side of the bridge, which is the opposite side from Hernia. Predictably, when the would-be blueblood learned that she would be ‘installed’ rather than ‘crowned’, she was not amused.
‘Vhat? Zees eez a crime! To shteel a crown from an old lady is a crime und a dismal-wiener. I am vatching zee television, and I am knowing that for zees you can be inpreached, Magdalena. Den you vill be no more da mayor. Poof! All gone. Eez dat vhat you vant?’
‘Uh, in a word: no. And for your information, dear, while a dismal wiener might be a good description of a hot dog left out in the rain, it is not a misdemeanour. It’s merely poor judgment.’
‘I vant my crown!’ Ida hissed. OK, Ida is the one exception to the rule that no one can hiss without uttering an ‘S’.
I politely slipped an embroidered hanky from its storage within my bony bosom and dabbed myself dry. ‘I realize that being crowned queen is what you really want, dear. I can feel your angst to the tips of my surprisingly comely toes. But you see, whoever told you that there would be a crown was mistaken. There has never been a coronation in the history of this humble, but picturesque, little village.’
Ida’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yah? You are sure about dis?’
‘Just as sure as the world is round.’
Ida recoiled. ‘You tink I’m shtupid? The woild eez flat, you dummkopf! My precious Gabeleh take me on a cruise before he marry you, und zee whole time I see dat zee ocean is flat, yoost like your—’
‘Don’t say it, toots,’ I said, not too unkindly. I try to turn the metaphorical other cheek from time to time. Really, I do.
‘Mebbe I von’t, und mebbe I vill,’ Ida said. ‘But you know vhat eez a landshlide?’
‘Yes, dear,’ I said tiredly. ‘One kind involves dirt and rocks sliding down a mountain, and the other refers to an overwhelming victory in an election.’
‘Yah, but I am shpeaking of zee foist one. Eef zee woild eez round, den zee dirt and rocks vould keep rolling around zee voild, and dey dun’t, do dey?’
‘Dey dun’t,’ I said uncharitably.
‘So dere is your proof, dummkopf. Zee dirt and rocks go shliding off over the edge of the flat voild. End of shtory.’
‘If you say so, dear.’
‘Yah? Good. So now I want my crown,’ my mother-in-law said in Standard English. I was surprised, but not shocked, by her linguistic transformation. Nothing about the crone without a crown will surprise me.
‘Well, that’s just too bad, sweetie,’ I said, ‘because we don’t have one to give you. You will, however, be given a very handsome plaque made out of genuine walnut-coloured hard plastic, on which tightly glued, gold-coloured, plastic letters spell Hernia’s Citizen of the Yeer. You are not to worry about the slight variation in spelling, because Mary Gill of our very own Crafty Mothers Club said that she can fix that with a razor knife and a little superglue. Mary Gill promised me that you will hardly know the difference, especially if you hang the plaque in a low-light area.’
Frankly, I don’t blame Ida for being a mite disappointed in learning about the spelling mistake (which was Mary Gill’s fault, and not that of the nice lady in Beijing from whom she ordered it). However, I think that Ida was out of line for taking a swing at me with her purse. Like many women these days, her purse is large enough to cram a small turkey into, as she did last year when we took her home from a community Thanksgiving dinner.
‘Ouch!’ I cried out. ‘What do you have in that thing? The Rock of Gibraltar?’
Her response was to open the bag and dump its contents on my feet. ‘Ow,’ I said, as I hopped away from the heap of detritus, holding my left foot in my hands.
It might not have been the Rock of Gibraltar, but there was an honest-to-goodness rock about the size of a croquet ball. As well as two honest-to-goodness croquet balls, a cracked snow globe, three hair-clogged combs, two boar bristle brushes, a stapler, a can opener, a tired-looking toothbrush, three tubes of toothpaste, a jumper (sweater), a pair of stretch yoga pants, a pair of sneakers, an address book, two cell phones, a very small, yellow rubber ducky, a package of cinnamon rolls, five ballpoint pens, seven pencils, seven envelopes, a tin of mints, a bottle of antacid and a small framed cartoon of a mermaid.
‘Yah, I got rock,’ Ida called after me. ‘Dey not let me buy gun – say, I am more nuts den Hershey’s bar with almonds. So how else to protect myself? With fancy talk like Magdalena? It not work for me, I promise. Den mebbe you vant arrest me now for litter? Old lady who no get crown, just cheap plastic trinket from China?’
‘I don’t want to arrest you, you tiresome old biddy,’ I said. ‘And I can’t give you a crown, no matter how much you whine like a five-year-old. But I can promise you that I will make a big deal out of your installation as Hernia Citizen of the Year. I will use the megaphone that Deputy Hayes has let me borrow to announce to all of Hernia, and perhaps all of the known flat world – you know how loud I can be – that you are Hernia’s Unique Citizen of the Year. This is the first time that we will be bestowing that title on someone.’
Ida blinked. ‘Yah?’
‘Indeed,’ I said.
‘Nu, vhy yoost “unique”? Vhy not “most unique”?’
I groaned. ‘Because that’s redundant. If someone is unique, then they are already one of a kind, and that is you, Ida. There isn’t anyone in Hernia that compares with you.’
‘Yah?’
‘I’m positive.’
She nodded; that is to say, her head bobbled as much as she could force it to do so, given her lack of a neck.
‘OK then,’ I said, ‘come along. It’s time for you to take your ride of glory. Your triumphal procession into town, just like the Roman generals did when they returned to Rome from their military campaigns.’
‘Are you daft?’ Ida said, slipping into Standard English yet again. ‘Titus entered Rome bearing the spoils of our temple in Jerusalem after he sacked it and burned it to the ground. If you don’t believe me, then Google the Arch of Titus. Or better yet, visit it for yourself, like your Jewish husband and I did fifteen years ago.’
‘Oy vey,’ I said. ‘Give me a moment while I take my foot out of my mouth.’
‘Left foot, or right foot?’ she said. ‘And do you need my help, given how enormous your feet are?’
‘What?’ I said. ‘Who is this new Ida Rosen? Have you been abducted by aliens and replaced by a lookalike? Not that this could happen, of course, because alien space beings can’t exist, since they would have to have been created without sin, given that God had just one “only begotten Son” to offer Himself up as a sacrifice for o
ur sin.’
Ida’s head bobbled again. ‘Magdalena, I honestly don’t know what my son ever saw in you. It’s not just your looks, or your lack of a decent education, but it’s your paranoia, and your world view – which is simply bizarre, to say the least. To put it succinctly, you should be institutionalized. Just ask my daughter, Cheryl, a prominent psychiatrist. By the way, I’m a neurosurgeon. Allow me to translate that for a country bumpkin such as yourself – I’m a brain doctor. Capiche?’
I was flabbergasted. Nay, I was gobsmacked, a word which better describes the moment, for indeed, I felt like I’d been smacked in my gob. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
‘You think that I’m crazy?’ I said. ‘What chutzpah! You’re the one who spent four years leading a cult called the Sisters of Perpetual Apathy and dressing as a fake nun who self-styled herself Mother Malaise. You even turned the farmhouse across the road, the one that your son bought for you, into a convent for your followers. You can’t tell me that those are the actions of a sane woman. And by the way, during those four years, the entire town was holding its breath waiting for you and your band of misfits to drink the Kool-Aid.’
Ida snorted. ‘You want to know why I adopted the accent and acted like I did. To put you off guard, that’s why. You’re a religious woman. You know the story of Joshua and Caleb who were sent as spies to scope out the Promised Land. That’s what I did. When my Gabe told me that he’d met a captivating woman out here in the sticks, I sent my spies here. They got your number so to speak and reported everything to me. Together we formulated a plan to—’
To what? Before she could finish her sentence, Agnes, my co-chair, sounded reveille on a beat-up old bugle loaned to her by Peter Gingerich, the Boy Scoutmaster. It was time for Ida to climb into the goat cart and the procession to begin.
