I was about to try my hand at sitting up when the door cracked open and an old woman peeked in.
“Ope!” she chirped and ducked back out directly.
In an instant, the door swung wide and there, like a radiant annunciation, stood Prudence. She paused only long enough to form a smile, and then she rushed across the room, kneeling at my side and grasping my hand.
“Oh, Adamiah,” she said. “Oh, beloved.”
She commenced to kissing my knuckles and caressing my wrist.
I was largely caught off my guard by her sensational ministrations, and I felt myself to be lurching back to life all over and of an instant under the rejuvenating power of her lips and fingers.
“Oh, Adamiah,” she said. “Adamiah. Adamiah. Adamiah.”
Even from within my discombobulation, I knew this was not quite accurate, and I felt I needed to nip the lady’s misrecognition of me in the bud before she had so thoroughly removed herself from realism that she could never return to its grimness. I formed some lines in my head, palliating them somewhat so they would not be too harsh for her ears.
I am sorry, went my sad news, but you are mistaken. I am not your Adamiah, only his handsome grieving friend.
I licked my cracked lips and then struggled to bring forth this message, but regrettably, all that came out of me was a hiss.
Sensing my difficulty, Prudence quick turned to the pitcher and poured some water into the cup, holding it to my mouth so I could drink.
“There you go, my darling.”
She put the cup back on the table, and once again took hold of my hand, peering earnestly into my face.
The old lady had come back into the room and stood by the door, skinny as a broomstick, grinning and waving a fan.
I licked my lips once more, gulped, and gazed up wanly at Prudence.
Oh, was she ever lovely!
She thoroughly surpassed all of my fantastical imaginings of how she would be in real life.
Her blue eyes!
Her gentle touch!
Her voluptuous mien!
Perspiration bejeweled her brow. Tendrils of black hair were lightly plastered to the damp skin at her temples. Her cotton dress was printed with pink and yellow flowers and was cut modestly, allowing one just the slightest glimpse of her rounded breast tops. They, too, glistened with sweat. The dress was sweat soaked all around the collar and under the arms, but whereas this might have been repellent in your standard female, it only served to enhance Prudence’s overall comeliness and sultrified splendor.
Her piquant femininity whelmed my senses.
Oh, I thought.
And oh.
*****
From a retrospective viewpoint, it could be argued that what I did next – or rather, did not do – was the most questionable course of action out of the two most obviously available. But I like to think that it was not so much a devious choice as one inspired by the very pact I had earlier made with God. Something was going on here that I did not fully understand. Some invisible plan was unfolding. That much was apparent. And whereas it had always been my practice to react impulsively in such situations, even foolishly, a hesitating wisdom was now urging me to move forward with an unpracticed intelligence and restraint.
Use caution, whispered a voice. Be prudent.
(Whether said voice was the moral murmuring of Christ, or that of some wily trickster hiding under my bed, is somewhat up for debate.)
At any rate, I chose not to speak right then. I elected to remain silent and not yet tell Prudence about the demise of her betrothed, pretending, instead, that my throat was too raw for discourse. I touched my fingertips to my Adam’s apple and shook my head, shrugging my shoulders to indicate my regret at not being able to bring forth words.
“Oh, dear one,” said Prudence. “That’s just fine. You’ll have plenty of time to tell me everything soon enough.”
I smiled.
She stroked my shoulder reassuringly, and this sensation triggered a reaction in me that was both alarming and, truth be told, quite agreeable.
*****
Now we all have mechanisms of inner guidance. Some even contend that said supervision was put into us while we were being pieced together in the womb. Surely it is an instrument of God, designed to direct us along life’s most honorable and beneficial course. But sometimes this mechanism becomes damaged along the way and thereby malfunctions. I had always suspected that some long-forgotten ordeal had knocked my own device out of whack and rendered it untrustworthy. For irrefutably, many a flawed decision dotted the unfortunate route of my hindward-regarded path. But now it seemed my internal guide had been suddenly resurrected. Perhaps it was because I was practicing such an admirable caution with the unfolding circumstances. Or perhaps it was through the healing powers of Prudence’s magical touch. Either way, it appeared now that my mechanism was working perfectly, with gusto.
In fact, it appeared my internal compass had externalized and was directing me to an indisputable conclusion.
What should I do? I asked my inner guide. Which way should I go?
The answer came to me somewhat crudely, but in a simplified way I could easily understand. For right then and there, in the manner of a compass needle finding true north, the member between my legs stiffened, oscillated, and pointed directly at the lovely maid hovering at my bedside.
How could I ever argue with such a divinely vouchsafed blatancy?
After a moment of cross-eyed concentration, I decided the best course of action right then was inaction. To this end, I yawned, and let my eyelids droop to half-mast, feigning an overpowering weariness. To be sure, I could have enjoyed Miss Merriwether’s dotings all the livelong day, but I needed some undistracted time to think.
“Oh, darling,” she said. “You need to rest.”
I nodded pathetically and faked another yawn.
“We’ll leave you now, but I’ll be watching in if you need anything.”
I nodded some more.
Prudence bent and kissed me on the cheek, and then, accompanied by the old woman, she left the room and closed the door.
My wangdoodler, already quite engorged, felt about to pop. I peered down at the herring-shaped lump stretching up onto my belly beneath my gown.
“A miracle,” I mumbled. For it had been a good long while since my lethargic little friend had felt inspired to so fervently erectify.
That is when I felt the presence of someone else in the room, and realized that Christ, too, was watching the area of my swollen plonker.
I squirmed, and self-consciously moved my hands to cover my lap.
“What are you looking at?” I rasped.
But he did not answer, only peered down from on high with a holier-than-thou smirk.
SO HERE WERE THE particulars of the situation as I understood them that day while lying in my bed –
Cloud, although Nilsson had called her unsinkable, had sunk with her crew.
Adamiah was drowned.
I alone had survived.
And now Prudence believed I was Adamiah.
Hmm, now.
And furthermore, hmm.
It was like a mathematical problem with me as its most integral integer.
Obviously, the gods – and most especially, the God of the Shining Redemption – had singled me out for fortunate treatment. No doubt this was on account of the deal I had struck earlier with said deity during the voyage. What other conclusion could I draw? As I sorted it out further in my thoughts, I became increasingly impressed by how all the different parts of the equation were falling so coincidentally into place.
My mind went back to the soothsayer’s prognosticative words – I see a little death – a rebirth – a fondling bosom – riches – comfort and contentment.
That all-seeing gal must have been in league with Providence! And whereas her treachery had seemed absolute at the time, now I realized that that alabaster angel had merely been acting as an agent of God in setting me toward my bright an
d joyful destiny.
Hoo-boy! I thought. Well now!
I had already endured the death part of the prophecy – surely I had – and now I was apparently born again.
Not as Didier Rain, I realized.
And not as Hoper Newfangle.
But as none other than Pastor Adamiah Linklater.
Some magical transmigration of souls must have occurred during the demisatory process and now Erstwhile Me, newly housed in my hapless friend’s corpse, was food for fishes, while Nouveau Me had assumed his esteemed position in the world of the living. And although it is undeniably boorish to bad-mouth the dead, it seemed clear that God had become displeased with Adamiah for his duplicitous lies in misleading Prudence’s father and posing as a preacher. The old Adamiah, although ever so earnest and willing, was most certainly unqualified for such a post in New Eden.
But I, on the other hand – the New Adamiah – well, I fit the ticket in perfect fashion. I knew the Bible inside and out, had a poetical way with words, and was able to speak before a crowd in the bloviatory styles necessary for impressing the impressionable.
“God’s ways are truly mysterious.”
All my life I had felt destined for happiness, if only that happiness would take the bother to seek me out. And now, here at last, I seemed poised for the fruition of that long-enduring hope.
The magnitude of the opportunity began to overwhelm me.
I looked into my hands, somewhat stunned.
“I am a wealthy man,” I chuckled. “And a virgin!”
A nervy surge of joy shivered through my body.
“And what is more,” I stammered, “Prudence Merriwether will be my wife.”
My heart flopped and flittered.
I then lifted my gaze toward the ceiling as if in the direction of the generous god who had so tendered me these wonderful gifts.
“Well, thank you very much,” I said solemnly. “I give my word as a gentleman and former poet – I appreciate this one more chance and will not let you down.”
In that hallowed moment, with that flood of good fortune so thoroughly inundating my common sense, my intentions had never been more true-blue.
IN THE DAYS THAT followed, I regained my strength.
And my voice.
Or rather, I should say, Adamiah’s voice.
Although the wordage of my thoughts remained that of my quondam identity, some force overpowered them in the process of their transference until they leapt from my lips mutated into the humble and prosaic idiomaticisms of the late Brother Linklater. That is to say, I spoke as Adamiah. It was as if I had taken a role in a play and now, as I healed, I was becoming the character whose part I had so wholeheartedly subsumed.
I sat up in my bed and idled away the hours with Prudence. We had not seen one another since she and her family had left Ohio for parts west, and so we had a lot of catching up to do.
“Do you remember our little ditch?” she asked.
“For sure. And the little shiners and frogs we used to catch there of a summer evening while your father was giving his services.”
“And do you remember the winter time?”
“Oh, yes,” I chuckled, “how we used to slip and slide on the ice, and how your cheeks would turn rosy in the cold air, and how you once gave me a little puppet toy on a stick for a Christmas present.”
(I could tell by her blush that she was especially pleased I had remembered that detail about the puppet.)
“Oh, Adamiah! It seems like forever since we were children, and yet all this talk makes it come back like it was only yesterday.”
I had to agree.
Prudence waved a paper fan between us, agitating the sultry air. She glistened with an ever-present sheen of perspiration, as if she had just been doused with sea spray. As she spoke, her breast rose and fell and rose and fell with her hot little pants of breath.
“I miss winter sometimes,” she confided. “And snuggling down into bed beneath heavy blankets.” She peered out the window, the fan fluttering at her slender throat. “It’s always so warm here in Eden that we rarely sleep covered up.”
I nodded and smiled wistfully, but honestly, after so many months of freezing my ass in San Francisco, I felt only to be just thawing out, and rather preferred being too hot to the alternative.
“Usually we get a soothing afternoon rain,” she said, “but it hasn’t come in these last few days.”
“Ah, well, maybe it will come again tomorrow.”
It was enjoyable to reminisce with Prudence, chin-wagging about the weather and this and that, but by and by a more insistent and distracting issue came to the fore of my immediate concernage.
As awkward as it is to say, I found that every time Prudence moved into my proximity, my procreative tent pole would stand on end under my gown front, displaying all the steadfast rigidity of a Doric pillar. I could not tell if the lady noticed this architectural uprising, as I either held a pillow over my lap area, or lifted my knees in an effort to disguise my enthusiasm as nothing more than a poonch of cloth, but one could not help but feel that a hungering and sequestered part of the fair maid was calling out to a hungering and eager-to-oblige part of me.
This sublingual tête-à-tête between our private parts made it difficult to concentrate on the more topicalized dialogue we were trying to have, as the inflammation of my nether-rod seemed to drain much-needed blood from the region of my thought-forming brain. I found myself stammering inanely, and at an uncharacteristical loss for words. Only one simple solution to this problem presented itself to me – Copulation.
It seemed that only once said hunger was satisfied could we reasonably go about our business as civilized conversationalists.
Prudence wiped the sweat from her collarbones and licked a bead of salt water from her lip.
One could not help but suspect she was feeling a likewise irritation in the corresponding area of her own amorous regions.
I had just about reached my limit and was almost to force the moment to its crisis, throwing myself on Prudence’s carnal mercy, and begging that she join me in creating the two-backed beast, when I heard a familiar voice sounding in my head –
Do not go there, it whispered. She is pure and unusual and not your typical cut-rate whore willing to lift her skirts for the sake of your animalistic pleasure.
Huh?
Remember, Rain – this could well be your last chance for redemption. Don’t do no sinning!
The voice sounded as if it were originating from under water, or under dirt, but it was a clear enough message, and I could not deny its logic and fatalistic counsel.
I regarded Prudence’s lightly heaving dress-front, envisioning the soft, feminine prize held therein. She seemed to lean toward me, fairly thrusting her damp and cloistered breasts in my direction.
I bit my lip.
Perhaps I was misreading her suggestive posture and palpitationary breathing.
An ache pulsed in the middle area of my person.
I most surely did not want to jeopardize my odds for ultimate success.
I let blow a sigh.
Oh, bother and tarnation! I internally cursed. Why, oh why, does life always have to do this to me?
“Are you feeling faint?” asked Prudence. Her voice seemed full of air.
I affected a smile and answered, “Oh, no, umm… I’m just so happy to be here with you.”
She slipped her hand over my own.
Her eyelids half closed, and she slightly arched her back.
Oh, man!
And that is when I had a hopeful thought.
“Say!” I said, squeezing her hand in both of mine. “I know we are only just coming back together after all these years. I have missed you so much. You can’t imagine the dreams I’ve had. I know we might ought to give ourselves some time to get reacquainted before we do anything brash. But,” I shrugged, “when should we get married?”
“Oh, Adamiah!” she laughed. “How happy I am!” She kissed my knuckles. �
��But don’t you remember what God told me about our wedding day?”
I smiled, struggling to recall any piece of information Adamiah might have told me concerning that particular subject.
She waited for my reply, but then, at last, she laughed. “Silly goose! Don’t you remember? God told us we was to have a June wedding.”
“Oh yes!” I said, as if suddenly remembering. “Yes. Yes. That’s right. Now I remember.”
She seemed pleased I had finally recalled our old plan.
“And so,” I ventured, hardly brave enough to endure her possible answer, “what month are we in now?”
“Why…” She held up her fingers, slowly bending each one down as she silently counted. “Why! We’re in the first days of May.”
“Oh!” Something plunked inside me. “So, well, only one more month until we can couple…er…are coupled as husband and wife?”
“That’s right, my darling.” Her fan quivered like a bird’s wing. “I can hardly wait.”
“Me neither,” I admitted. “Me too.”
AND SO, IT CAME to pass that I entered the most excruciating month of my life.
Every time my dewy and panting fiancée stepped into my vicinity, my cock-eyed condition recurred to the point that I could hardly speak without a stammer.
Yes, it is a reasonable enough question – why did I not simply take the elongated matter into my own hands and privately alleviate my suffering? Surely that is what any sensible fellow would have done in my place.
But since dying – and then being reborn – a circumspective aptitude had overcome me as a decision maker. Some measure of Adamiah’s wholesome self-restraint had seemingly jumped from him to me, and now I found myself reluctant to blindly dive into muddied behavior without first giving it a good hard evaluation. I had asked God to give me signs. We mortals too often shrug off divine guidance as nothing more than random coincidence. But I was determined to get it right this time round, and so I reexamined the happenings that had led me to the blessed, if uncomfortable, circumstances I was in at the moment.
Fortuna and the Scapegrace Page 16