The Ancient Hours

by Michael Bible

  He laughed and tried to wave.

  Love you, I said.

  I’ll call you when I’m out, he said.

  And that was it. The last words he spoke to me. Two days later he was out of jail and I called his house and his father called me a faggot and told me never to call there again. Paul told everyone he was going into the merchant marines. Instead, the next day he parked behind RadioShack and overdosed.

  I was sitting in the library and got a call from Cleo.

  Are you alone, she said.

  Yes, I said.

  It’s Paul, she said.

  What happened, I asked. Where is he?

  I knew by her silence he was dead. There was nothing else to say.

  I believe there’s a weird magnetism that exists in the universe. It brings people together and it takes them from this earth. Paul came and left the way a storm comes over the countryside and leaves in the blink of an eye. I walked out into the library parking lot, into the sun. The heat was baking the pavement and the trees were blurry. I wanted to die. I sat in my car with AC on full blast and wept for hours like a child.

  Soon I heard the sound of jazz. I rolled down the window.

  Knock it off, I said to Johnny Nightshade.

  He only played louder. I asked again. He kept playing. After everything I said he answered with the sax. Like he was mocking me with his tune. I couldn’t take it. I lost it. In a full blind rage I jumped out of the car and ran toward him. In my head this music was the thing that killed Paul and all I had to do was make it stop. The next thing I remember, I was flat on my back and a brass saxophone bell was coming down on my face. He broke two of my teeth out and gave me a concussion.

  I woke up in the hospital. Cleo was there with ice cream. I could hear a love song on the radio. It was a golden oldie and reminded me of summer. Suddenly, maybe the drugs I was on, maybe the grief, I had a vision of being on a band trip in eighth grade to Raleigh and seeing the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen sitting in a cafe. I watched her from my hotel window. When she stood to leave I noticed she was pregnant. I was thinking of her when Johnny Nightshade walked into my hospital room. His saxophone safely in its case.

  What are you doing here, Cleo asked.

  I’ve come to apologize, he said. I heard about your friend Paul.

  My mind was foggy and I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Also, it seems strange to say it, but that was the first time I remember anyone telling me they were sorry. He seemed genuine. His cabbie hat in his hands.

  It’s OK, I said.

  I’m gonna do whatever it takes, he said. I’m gonna make this up to you.

  You can start by leaving him alone, Cleo said.

  He looked at her strangely. The way a mailman looks at a ferocious dog. Then he turned to me. I was tired of being angry. Sick with pain. Exhausted. I missed Paul more than anything.

  I forgive you, I said.

  From that day on, I became friends with Johnny. We played chess together downtown. Talked about life. He’d tell me about his time as a professional hitchhiker in the seventies and I’d tell him about the facts I learned from the library. About how some birds can sleep as they fly and how the 1881 earthquake in Lake Springs, Arkansas, made the Mississippi River run backward and the bells in Boston ring. He introduced me to his mother, Trudy. She was in her seventies and they lived together in an old crumbling farmhouse near the edge of town. His father had died a few years before.

  Johnny could see how I was hurting. He understood the pain of losing someone. It was as if Paul’s death changed something in the order of the universe. It made room for Johnny to come into my life. He told me he channeled the despair of losing his father into music. We were playing chess one afternoon downtown. It was almost winter and he was wearing a long coat and a scarf.

  Sometimes I can’t shake the emptiness, I said.

  He nodded, seemed to know exactly what I was telling him.

  I used to fly big planes when I was in the Air Force, he said. You didn’t have time to be scared you were too busy flying.

  What do you mean, I asked.

  That’s why I took up the sax, he said. I’m too concerned about finding the next note to worry about my life.

  I don’t have anything like that, I said.

  That afternoon he took me down to Hubert’s pawnshop and bought me a used set of drums. I told him I couldn’t accept them but he insisted. We set them up in his old barn and played through the winter beside a kerosene heater. We played Charlie Parker and riffed off Coltrane and Brubeck.

  That weekend, after a jam session in his barn, Johnny said he’d booked us a gig at a coffee shop in High Point. We drove through a blizzard to get there and five people showed up. By the time we got home, he said I should just sleep over at his place. He made me a room upstairs and his mom made us tea. For once, I felt comfortable. Like I wasn’t so untethered from the earth.

  I drifted off to sleep but was woken up in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes. Johnny was in his underwear at the door.

  Everything OK, he asked.

  Fine, I said.

  I didn’t think much of it so I went back to sleep. Then deep in the night I woke up and Johnny was in my bed. His hand was down my pants.

  What are you doing, I yelled.

  I jumped out of bed.

  I thought you might be cold, he said. Sometimes it’s good to sleep together on winter nights.

  Get out, I said.

  I’m sorry, he said. I thought you—

  Go, I said.

  The next day I didn’t say a word. We acted as though nothing had happened. I didn’t say anything to anyone. He just took me home. It was too embarrassing. Johnny kept calling and calling but I wasn’t picking up. I started to spend my nights in the computer room again watching death videos and drinking myself to sleep.

  One morning I woke up to find my parents in my room.

  We need you to come downstairs, my father said.

  Johnny and another woman were sitting in the living room.

  What’s this, I asked.

  I’m Debra, the woman said. I’m from a group called Christian Recovery that seeks to intervene with troubled youths.

  We love you, Johnny said. We want what’s best for you.

  What are you talking about, I asked.

  The drinking, Debra said. The homosexuality. The drugs. The searches on the family computer.

  I’m feeling ambushed, I said. I need to go.

  Johnny put his hand on my knee.

  We’ve got this, he said. You can trust us.

  5

  MY NAME IS NEBUCHADNEZZAR and I ride through life bareback on wild ponies. The wind speaks my name on mornings when the mist makes the countryside seem heavenly and rare. The river is my last best friend and war is my enemy. I wait until midnight to crush philistines in their sleep. Raid the villages and burn patriarchs in their beds. My horse is immortal, calico and fast, born on the Fourth of July.

  My father was killed by a beesting, my mother died from grief. And so I made my way through the mad world as a scavenger of knowledge. Taught myself to read. Learned the mathematics of the stars. Lied to enter college at age sixteen and graduated with honors. I moved to Harmony and lived amongst the highborn all day and the lowlifes all night. Untethered from polite society, I partied with everyone. Gentlemen and ladies, farmhands and milkmaids. Then one morning I saw the great Cardinal train out of Greensboro and I hitched a ride west. In the territory, I lived with sad gauchos and learned the ways of the horse. There was a border war going and I serviced the lusty soldiers home on leave and their lonely wives back at the homesteads. When the conflict was over, I got on as a brakeman headed back east and worked my way up. Moved back to Carolina with a nice little nest egg and an occupation I revered.

  I became a conductor
on the night trains to Asheville, all speed and steel. I waved my hat in the wind like a fool every night under weird constellations. Came home tired with coal on my face. I believed the righteous word of Jesus at that point. Mother Mary was my mother. The Holy Ghost was my friend. That was until the war came and stole everything from me. A smoldering hellscape from here to the sea and the rich still rich and the poor still dying. The rebels were weak millionaires who forced the country boys to kill on their behalf. I was dragged into the conflict after the rebels took over my farm to use as a barracks and the Unionists burned it to the ground. Now I fight both sides. At night I play the banjo around a big fire.

  Champagne is scarce but I drink it when I can. For example, say I kill a man and take over his mansion and throw a big party. I’ll bust out the big magnums from the cellar and toast to the end of the world. I dream of a utopia for all mankind where love is legal and the champagne falls like rain.

  Let me tell you how I lost my faith. It was winter when I saw both sides of the war let their soldiers freeze to death. Each night through my scope I saw the night watchmen become like statues and they’d bury the poor sucker in the morning and put another boy at his post. Meanwhile, the generals and colonels slept warm in their tents with fires kept going through the night by another poor boy. I thought no man who loves Jesus would let this kind of misery continue. Now you might be saying, but Neb surely you saw worse out in the field of battle. Guts spilled and eyeballs rolling out of heads. It’s true, I saw those things and many more. But I retained my stupid faith because I thought it was in service of something greater. When I saw how the officers treated their own soldiers I knew it was part of the Big Lie.

  I’m now low most days and haven’t brushed my teeth. I let my beard become wild and my mind ripple and hum. At dusk I plan an attack and by night I play my tunes. Happy as a bluebird in a bluebird tree.

  Then one night I’m out marauding and there’s a cotillion in a big house. I watched through my scope on the hill. I watched for ways to burn them alive. Where to light the blaze, how best to lock the bastards inside. I walked down the hill to get a closer look. I was gathering my matches and kerosene when a dancing couple caught my eye. They were lovely in a tender way, desperate and happy in the moonlight, and I could sense they were caught up in another world. They despised the money and the sin. They could’ve been anywhere in the world at any time and it would be the same. I knew them like I knew myself because I was them. The grief they wore was my grief because they were missing the same thing I was missing. I knew what I had to do. I went back to the cave and changed into my tuxedo and trimmed my unruly whiskers. Under my long coat I secured two repeater pistols and an ammo belt.

  Inside there was a string quartet playing songs of the Romantic period and a long table of finger foods. I helped myself and made my way to the dance floor. The room was crowded with rich boys who dared not lift a finger for the war except to finance it. In the corner was the owner of the place. I knew him only as Fizgerald. He came to me and asked my name.

  I’m from Harmony, I said. A gentleman like you.

  Who are your people, he asked. Do I know them?

  I nearly shot him dead right there, but I knew better.

  I’m the third McMillan son, I lied.

  I went to school with old Pierce McMillan, he said. Thought his third son died at Chattooga.

  Thought wrong, I said. I survived.

  Welcome to Shady Oaks, he said. I want you to meet my son and his new wife.

  He took me to the couple I had seen through the window. Light fell on them in halos. Up close I knew it was them. Although they had different names, I knew I would see them again in another life.

  I took their hands and brought them to my face.

  This is Pierce McMillan the third, Fizgerald said.

  Don’t bring up the war, Paul said. I can’t stand to think of it.

  I wish it was all over and we lost, Cleo said.

  I brought their arms around me and we danced a lascivious dance. In the middle of the song I brought them close to my face and kissed them both. The patrons looked at us, disgusted. An old woman retched in a punch bowl. More than one moved to break us apart. The whole room was whispers and gestures. I recognized one man as a former customer. He went to Fizgerald and pointed my way.

  I whispered to Cleo and Paul.

  Stay close to me when the deal goes down, I said. We won’t have much time.

  It was then that Fizgerald approached me and grabbed my collar.

  You are not in fact the third McMillan son, he said. You’re the criminal and anarchist named Nebuchadnezzar.

  Nonsense, I said.

  I took his champagne from him and hushed the music.

  Long live everything, I toasted.

  Then I shot a random man between the eyes. Next I fired the gun at Fitzgerald’s chest but he dodged and it grazed him. He moved for his rifle. I shouted to Cleo and Paul to run for my horse outside. I locked the doors. I lit the fuse and we rode away into the night.

  We spent six months on the run. Fitzgerald survived the blast and sent a posse into the mountains to find and kill me. For many weeks we lived in bliss, Paul and Cleo and me. Making triple love to each other under falling dogwood blossoms. Drinking fresh water from the river. Shooting deer and wild hogs for supper. It was a grand old time and I cherished the days.

  Near the end of the last month Paul fell sick with fever and I could not find a doctor in time. We buried him near an apple orchard and nearly died of sadness. It was only me and my pony and Cleo then, alone in the forest.

  I want to escape, she said. But I have no home left to go to. No living kin.

  I have done this, I said. I will have to kill again.

  No, she said. No more death.

  She rested her head on my shoulder as we watched a gathering storm.

  Why do you keep calling me Cleo, she asked. It’s not my name.

  It will be some day, I told her.

  Then a bullet went through her eye and she slumped dead. Our camp had been discovered. It was a five-hour gunfight and I killed nine of their men but in the end they caught me. I waited for my hanging in a prison with only my sorrows and dreams. They put me in with defectors and I slept there for four days and nights.

  Then the storm came. Out of nowhere I heard the old familiar sound of a steam engine but there were no tracks nearby. It was a twister and it was coming straight for the prison camp. The guards ran in fear and left their posts unmanned. The winds blew down the doors and broke the chains and we all ran out into the storm and some were sucked away into the sky. Although I was weak from scamp food and water I managed to find my way to the road and ran until I found a creek and spent the night. I winked at Jesus and saw a shooting star and lived happily ever after.

  This is what I dream of on the last night of my life. Captain Tom moved me into the holding cell, where there is no window. I’m on suicide watch. They don’t want me doing it before the government gets their shot. Lately I’ve been thinking about my end and what words I should say. I can’t conceive of what the darkness will be like. I only hope Paul and Cleo are there. I hope they have forgiven me.

  6

  I WOULD LIKE TO PUT A FEW things straight. After my little intervention with Johnny and Debra from Christian Recovery my parents sent me off to the same rehab camp Paul went to. It was a church-sanctioned place. Deeply cruel. They locked us up together for days in cabins. The teachers fought us. If we tried to leave, they made us sleep outside with broken jaws and dislocated shoulders. If someone was caught drinking or smoking they were locked in the dark for twenty-four hours. The mind begins to fracture without stimulation. You begin to hallucinate. That’s when I first began to see my own past lives.

  They selected a few of the boys to work in the faculty house. If you wanted special treatment you had to get in good with Dr. Rex, the
headmaster. He wasn’t a real doctor. Had a PhD in theology from some Baptist college. They’d set this place up in an old summer camp. When I first arrived we were woken up at 5 a.m. every morning and made to run for miles through the woods before breakfast. We worked long hours in a call center selling Christian vacation packages to the Holy Land. But after the first month I was moved to the headmaster’s house staff. We did the laundry and cleaned his rooms. Then he asked me one day to help him with his back. At first it wasn’t anything too bad. I’d rub one spot on his back and he would thank me. But for days and days that’s all he’d talk about. How I’d worked wonders on him.

  He asked me to come to his room one Sunday night after Bible study. When I walked in, he took his shirt off. He told me to use oil. I knew it was weird but it was better than night exercises. When I was done, he told me to wait downstairs while he showered.

  I’m surprised you didn’t find this already, he said.

  He pulled a Dr. Pepper from the fridge and opened it, poured us both a glass. He let me watch TV for an hour and ordered us a pizza. He turned the TV off and we sat awkwardly in his living room.

  I got to go back to the dorm, I said.

  Suit yourself, he said.

  As I left he thanked me again. Told me he’d never felt better. He patted me on the back.

  This was great, he said. But I think we better keep this night between me and you. Wouldn’t want the other boys to get jealous.