I laughed. “It sure would.”
“Of course, we’d have to settle it with Papa.”
“I am sure he would agree with us if we told him how it was from God Herself.”
“Oh!” She fairly laughed. “Oh, Adami…”
Then she hesitated.
Prudence regarded me with an uncertain smile. “Say,” she said. “If you’re not Adamiah, then who are you?”
I felt my own smile stiffen.
“Erm.”
She waited.
I listened for my inner voice, but I heard nothing inside of me but a grave silence.
I was forced to give quick counsel to myself. It had been a long journey, filled with trials, tribulations, and pitfalls galore, but I felt confident that I had learned my lesson over these last months. My pact with God had come to its conclusion. My trial time was over, and now I had naught but to act with all the hard-won integrity of the most valorous born-again man I had so diligently worked to become.
“Well, Prudence.” I chuckled. “You are going to be further amazed at God’s miraculous and coincidence-laden plan when I tell you this.”
She smiled thinly and dipped her head, waiting.
“Well…” I took a deep breath. “The man you see before you – the same man who will soon be your own husband and helper – the man whom God Herself sent to you here on this island outpost – is none other than one… Mister Didier Rain!”
Prudence continued to smile, but I could see she was turning this slippery bit of news over in her pretty brain, trying to get hold of it. Finally, she arched her back and cocked her head, peering down at me sideways.
“The poet?”
“One and the same.”
“You mean the fellow who wrote Foolish Love?”
“Can you believe it?” I laughed. “Of course, we had best keep it a secret from the others, as I am still wanted for a murder which, I assure you, was mostly just an unfortunate accident.”
She turned away from me.
I waited, figuring the lady must have just been so overwhelmed with happiness by the enormity of God’s miraculousness that she had momentarily lost her ability to speak.
“Prudence?” I said. “Dearest?”
She tottered. And then she whirled back my way.
“Sir!” she hissed. “That is the meanest, cruelest, most despicable thing anyone ever could have said to me!”
“Huh?”
“How could you?”
“But…”
“You know how I suffered at the temptations caused by that little book of poems. And now you’re just taunting me by saying you wrote it yourself!”
“No, ma’am, I promise you I am not!”
“Do you take me for a fool? What kind of an evil man are you to take such joy at tormenting me for my sins at a time like this?”
“I did not mean…”
“You, sir, are the lying devil!” She stamped her foot. “I look forward to my wedding banquet.” She kicked sand on me. “And eating you up for dinner!”
And then she spun and stomped off.
It took me a moment to comprehend what in the blue blazes had just happened. The situation had turned so quickly it made me dizzy. I stared at the plot of sand between my legs.
One minute it seemed I was walking on water, and then in the next I was a drowning man.
“Well, huh,” I muttered to my feet. “How do you like that?”
Done in by the truth.
NEXT DAY WAS THE wedding.
A bell was rung and all of New Eden’s citizens made their way to the Ark for the glorious occasion.
Adamiah had summarily usurped my place at Prudence’s side, and now the final phases of the Prophecy were to be fulfilled in short order. Everyone was eager to have the ceremony over and done with before anything else could go off kilter in God’s big beautiful plan.
The Shiners all filed past me at the Waiting Tree. Some glanced on my wretchedness with cruel or curious sneers, but most of them refrained from acknowledging my existence in any way at all. It seems people are disinclined to get too friendly with their lunch.
I saw my nemesis pass by in his grimy white suit, but he did not look my way. I was tempted to call out and appeal to his merciful goodness, but it seemed a futile gesture that would likely only lead to the further depreciation of my already well-dwindled dignity.
Lamia passed by with her cuckolds.
And then came Prudence. She strolled by on the arm of her drooling docile father. She wore a cloud-white gown of diaphanous silk and floated over the ground with all the splendor of heaven’s purest angel. I could not tell if she saw me, as she was wearing a veil that hid her blue eyes. I would like to think she at least allowed me a final fond reminiscence before she disappeared into the church.
An involuntary sob welled up in my throat.
“Woe,” I sniffled. “Alas.”
It was with considerable sorrow, compounded with my own naked shame, that I watched my dream slip away.
The last stragglers eagerly ambled up the gangplank into the sanctuary before the doors were closed behind them. After a while, someone inside commenced to speaking – probably Force or Will – and then the congregation answered back with muffled hallelujahs and laughter and a general matrimonial hullabaloo.
*****
Beulah and her girls showed up at my tree with a big bucket, a saw, some pliers, and a knife.
“Hello, ladies. Forgive me if I do not appear pleased to see you.”
The smallest girl giggled at my paltry joke and set down her bucket.
Beulah stood with her hands on her hips. “Well now, Brother, it’s a shame you feel that way.”
“And how do you suggest I should feel?”
“Why, I should think you’d feel blessed.”
I laughed. “How do you figure?”
“Scripture says so. Scripture tells us that whoever gets chose for the sacrifice gets hisself a one-way passage to paradise. A man can’t get much luckier than that. All your sins get washed away too, no matter how wicked a life you lived.”
“Hmm.”
“Why, even before any of us sets in to gnawing on your bones, you’ll already be nuzzled up smacking on the God Mother’s very own teat. I hear say Her milk is sweeter than bleached sugar.”
“Well,” I said. “I suppose I will know soon enough.”
The old crow bent over me, measuring me up. She took hold of my chin and turned my head first one way, then the other.
“Kind of scrawny, ain’t he?” said the biggest girl.
“He’ll do for a stew.”
It was unnerving to be thusly discussed.
“What,” I could not help but ask, “is your general procedure?”
Beulah ran her fingertip along my jugular. “First we bleed you out into the bucket.”
“You do not put me out of my suffering?”
“No, on account of how we need your heart working to pump you dry.”
“Oh.”
“That’s how Sister Wilhelmina had it done the first time.”
“She directed you?”
Beulah nodded. “She was a devout woman. Did just what God told her. Sacrificed herself for us all when there weren’t no other food to be had.”
“Mighty big of her.”
The bitch then poked her finger against my sternum. “What’s that?”
I craned down at my tattoo. “Once a raindrop, now a tear.”
She laughed. “More like a door, I’d say.” She patted my glyph with her palm. “That’s where we’ll pluck out your heart for the bride and groom’s special dish.” She reached down between my legs and gave me a loveless grope. “Along with your giblets.”
“Cruel irony,” I muttered.
By that point, I had learned quite enough of the butcherly arts. As there appeared to be no way around the inevitable, and as it was becoming ever more dreadful a subject on which to dwell, I was ready to move on and just be over and done with it.
Beulah took up the knife and examined it. The blade glinted in the sunlight.
But then the smaller girl stepped forward and tugged on the hag’s sleeve. “Sister,” she said. “Sister, if we start in on him now, we’ll be sure to miss the nuptials.”
They all three glanced toward the Ark.
I did not fancy prolonging my mental torture, but a worm of hope wiggled inside of me right then. I cleared my throat. “A prophecy does not get itself fulfilled every day.”
They looked back my way.
“I would die with a sizeable regret if I were to know I was the cause of you ladies missing out on this once in a life time chance to watch the holy bride and her groom tie the knot.”
Beulah scratched her thumbnail against her belly and considered. “We’ll not have the banquet ready if we don’t get started.”
“Surely the celebration will go on for days,” I argued, “what with all the merriment and dancing and such. There will be plenty of time to do the cooking.”
She regarded me and bobbed her ugly head. “True enough.”
“No one would want you to miss out.”
“Can’t we please?” said the little girl.
“All right then,” said Beulah. “We’ll watch up to the kissing, and then we’ll hurry back out and get him gutted and cooked.”
They all three turned and, after dropping their gruesome tools into the bucket, scurried off to the church.
*****
I did not know right off what I hoped to gain by this postponement of my inevitable conclusion. It seemed only to serve to intensify my already quite intense apprehension. Anxious sweat poured down my face and stung my eye. A general quiver gripped my body and I was overcome with a spate of nervy whimpers.
“Oh, God,” I moaned. “Oh, God!”
Although it was not my conscious intention, this fretful utterance evolved into an invocation.
“Oh, God. Oh, Dear God.”
It seems a man in the throes of his final pickle cannot help but make one last appeal to that enigmatic figurehead of the cosmos.
Next thing I knew, I was praying.
“God,” I blubbered. “It appears we have come”—sniff-sniff— “to the end of our bargain. You apparently feel I have failed to live up to my end. I am truly sorry for this. I assure you that when we made our original contract on Cloud, it was my full intention to do your bidding according to your blessed guidance. The blundersome foibles and errors I have committed along the way were not for any lack of effort. They were accidental and due only to my defects as a failed poet and generally faulty hominid.”
I paused to sob, then continued.
“I suppose it is too much to hope that there is a reduced form of redemption for a man in my diminished standing. I cannot help but recall various reprobates from the Bible and like legends who, in spite of their grievous missteps, were allowed to garner your coveted grace even after committing what for anyone else would appear to be an irrevocable sin.”
I looked at the blue sky.
“I do not mean to be a presumptuous groveler in the matter, but perhaps there is room on such a list for myself.”
I looked at the blue ocean.
Now it was no doubt the utmost of arrogance for me to think I could win favor with the Almighty through calculated logic, but such was my Socratic inclination. Further, that I would use constructive criticism as my foremost argumentative ploy was likely pretentious at best, and doubtless ill advised. But I could not help myself. A man wants to leave his mark on the world, right up to the end, and since I had failed to use my earthly time to write an epic poem for the ages, the only way I saw to do this was to bend the ear of God in hopes that I might be given some credit if my advice was at all applied. After a mighty sniffle, I squared myself and started in.
“Now you no doubt know more than I do,” I said. “That is a given truth. And yet, perhaps it would benefit you to see your creation not only from your privileged vantage as its creator, but from the earth-bound station of the created. I feel I can help you on this subject, as I have been floundering along here for many years and have firsthand experience with some of life’s more intrinsic discrepancies.”
I sensed no blatant disapproval to my suggestion, so I courageously persisted.
“First and foremost – a man’s penis should not outweigh his brain. Neither figuratively, nor in actual heft. That, I must point out, is the most glaring defect in your otherwise fabulous design.”
I regarded my own nub dozing on the sand between my legs and nodded.
“Yes, to be sure. Unless your intention is to cause chaos, pain, and tragic drama amongst your flesh and blood puppetry, you had best come up with a better way to further the species. The smooth running of the world depends upon it. You should also sever said procreationary apparatus from its close association with the heart. For I can tell you from my own familiarity with the subject, there is no more powerful discombobulator of a man’s moral compass than his weighty groin-housed throb as it is concomitant with its female affiliate.”
I was not immediately struck dead by lightning for this suggestion, so I continued.
“Secondly, if I may be so bold, you err toward subtlety.”
I cringed in anticipation of the sure-to-come holy smack to my head, but none arrived.
“If you truly care for your earthly spawn, then you might think to make your guideposts clearer for us to follow. As it is now, there are too many chances to get lost from the straight and narrow, and too many opportunities for misinterpretations. Sly signs and symbols are all very artful, and no doubt make your big poem of the universe come out looking like the ultimate star-sprinkled masterpiece. Your little angel friends are no doubt very impressed. But the rest of us are just mortal commoners down here, doing our best to get by. Right and Wrong might look like opposite sides of the coin from your cloudy perch, but from where we are, they are too often taken for twins.”
My list of grievances and their remedies could have filled the afternoon, but as I was suffering a case of distractionary dread, prompted by the bucket and butcher tools parked before me, my focus became disrupted. This was further compounded by my sense of limited time, as well as the commotion I saw materializing in the distance.
I squinched up my eye, trying to understand what I was seeing. A fleet of canoes was coming round the headland, their passengers paddling in rhythm so that their wet blades flashed in the sunlight.
“Well,” I spluttered to God. “I hope this consultation was helpful. I also hope that, given the pending inevitabilities, Beulah’s prophecy proves correct and that – unless you turn out to be male after all – I will soon find myself suckling at your bosom.” I shrugged. “Failing that, if you could at least see fit to turn down the heat in my personal corner of hell, I would appreciate it and consider us settled up on our contract.”
The canoes drew closer. It looked like all the Polynesians on the island had loaded into their many boats and were engaged in some sort of festive flotilla. Each vessel had its large painted eye peering out from its prow, and the gunwales were all draped with colorful flowers. The brown-skinned passengers – men, women, and children – were decorated with flower garlands and palm frond hats. They were singing. Their joyful music mixed naturally with the lapping waves.
Like a bent echo, the people in the church commenced to answering the natives with their own tune. Their dissonant hymn merged with the familiar bellow of the organ and pulsed within the white clapboard walls. Placed as I was between the natives and the Shiners, I felt suspended between two unlike notions of harmony.
The natives paddled their boats close to the shore. I figured they were offering some sort of tribute to the pale-skinned counterparts on this special day, but only one boat drew up on the beach while the others drifted a ways out.
A lady and a tiny girl climbed out of the canoe and came trotting up the beach right by my tree. They both stopped and regarded me, holding hands. The girl spoke t
o the lady in an interrogative tone.
The lady answered the little girl’s question in her native language, assumingly about me and my situation, and then she ran on toward the church, leaving the girl with me.
“Good day,” I said.
The girl smiled, her dark hair fluttering on the breeze. She wore a grass skirt and a ring of red blossoms around her neck.
A notion hatched in my mind.
“Say,” I said. “How would you like to help me out?”
She only continued smiling.
I cleared my throat and straightened up, thinking how best to get my message across to her. “See that knife there?” As my hands were tied, I gestured with my chin.
The girl took a step forward and peered into the bucket.
“Yes, yes. Do you see the knife?”
She bent and reached into the tools, not immediately grabbing them, but only touching them, and stirring them around.
I looked over my shoulder at the church. The music droned on, both from the Shiners, as well as from the singing canoes.
“We need to hurry,” I forced a smile, doing my best to appear calm and friendly. “Do you see the knife?”
She reached in and lifted up a tool.
“Oh, well. Those there are pliers. What we are interested in right now is the knife. Knife.” I could not think of a way to pantomime a knife. “Knife,” I repeated. “Kni-ife.”
This proved ineffectual, as the girl dropped the pliers back in the bucket and lifted out the saw.
My desperation intensified, and I motioned again to the tools, repeating the word knife, over and over again.
The girl wagged the saw so that it made a humorous winnowing noise. This amused her for a moment, and she became too distracted to pay me any mind.
Finally, it occurred to me to draw a picture in the sand with my toe. “Here, here. Look at this.” I quick smoothed the ground with the back of my leg and then, twisting awkwardly, did my best to produce an image of a blade and handle.
The little girl watched, apparently curious at my contortions.
“Like this,” I said.
The drawing was crude and irregular but looked enough like a knife to serve its purpose.
Fortuna and the Scapegrace Page 29