Between the Bridge and the River

by Craig Ferguson

  The Reverend explained to Fraser that occasionally when people drank the holy moonshine they would be rendered sightless for a time, but as far as he knew, their vision had almost always returned. Fraser said that was just fine with him, that his eyes could use a rest anyway, and as long as someone handed him a chocolate biscuit, he was good.

  The rest of the troop were unharmed except for the vicious hangovers they had been stricken with, but they were soon helped by Potter, who went outside and picked eight watermelons from the patch near the swamp. They were still cold and dewey from the night and when they were cracked open they spilled their life-restoring red juice as freely as enthusiastic martyrs.

  They were manna.

  Pinkerton held a piece of dripping watermelon over Mickey’s mouth to give the groggy, dehydrated old man some moisture. The red juice dipped over Mickey’s cracked lips in a fruity communion, and as the liquid dribbled down his throat, he coughed and spluttered.

  He looked warily at the strange crew around him. They looked warily back. “What’s happening here?” he croaked in a tired frog voice.

  T-Bo gave him the whole story, about him taking out the gun and having a fit and how they had panicked and that his camper was unharmed and sitting outside of the church.

  Mickey told them that while he was out he’d suffered strange dreams, that his dead wife, Agnes, had appeared to him in the company of a bad-tempered French policeman and had told him it was time to lighten up and have fun and go with the flow and a whole lot of other hippie-speak and then the policeman had whacked him across the mouth with his nightstick.

  Fraser and Pinkerton agreed with Mickey that they thought the policeman seemed to be a little keen on excessive force. Mickey was changed, though, the anger was gone.

  Pinkerton announced that they must all take the camper van and travel to the convention in Alabama, that this was their calling, their destiny.

  Mickey agreed and said he would be happy to drive, that he wanted to go with the flow.

  As they stumbled aboard the camper, Fraser, who was being led by T-Bo, said that they should give the vehicle a name.

  “It’s got a name. It’s a camper,” said T-Bo.

  “No, he means a name like Titanic or Queen Mary,” said Cherry.

  “How ’bout Queen T-Bo?” said Vermont. T-Bo glared at him and he apologized.

  “I’ve always thought of her as taking the name of my wife, Agnes,” said Mickey.

  They all agreed that it was only right that Mickey choose the name of their craft, given that he owned it, so Potter grabbed some red paint from his little shed and painted on the front of the RV, just above the radiator grille:

  AGNES DAY

  They had to wait for a moment while Potter explained to the graves of his family that he was going on a little trip and would be back soon. Then Mickey started up Agnes and the big bus rattled slowly out of the woods, through the little dead town past the Gupta gas station, and toward the turnpike.

  They had been traveling for about an hour when they saw a minivan parked at the side of the road. Half a dozen large black ladies seemed to be fussing around something, and the sight looked comical to Mickey, who tried to describe it to Fraser.

  Fraser said that they should stop and the Reverend Pinkerton said that Fraser spoke with the tongues of angels and was blind, so they stopped.

  The ladies were the Salome Henderson Gospel Sextet from Miami. They had been headed to the convention in Alabama in a minivan because Salome herself was afraid to fly. In the minivan she had fainted and the others feared she’d had a stroke or heart attack. There had been a great deal of panic and hysteria in the little van and the result was that Magdalene Brightwell (a distant cousin of the unfortunate Lashanda Brightwell, Tootsiepop Ted’s fourth victim), who was driving, had pulled to a stop rather too suddenly. The vehicle had gone into a skid and they had hit the crash barrier. The van was badly damaged on the front end and Salome had still not regained consciousness. The ladies were in a panic and begged the Reverend Pinkerton for a cell phone to call an ambulance when he went over to them to inquire if he could help.

  Pinkerton said that they had no need of an ambulance, that he had a holyman with him who could heal the unfortunate Salome.

  Fraser was led out of the truck and the ladies looked dubious as the battered blind man in the orange dress was taken over to the unfortunate Salome, who was lying prostrate at the side of the highway.

  Fraser put his hands on Salome’s forehead, then ran his fingers over her ample body. The ladies clucked and shuffled a little at this but Reverend Pinkerton shushed them.

  Fraser felt the side of Salome’s head, then he bent over and whispered into her ear, “Come back. Please come back.”

  Suddenly, Salome sat bolt upright at the side of the road and inhaled deeply, as if she had just surfaced from a deep dive.

  The ladies of the gospel sextet and Fraser’s little troop whooped and hollered and clapped and high-fived and a miracle was declared.

  Fraser said that he wasn’t sure if it really was a miracle, that maybe it was a bit hot and airless in the van and perhaps Salome, who had to be close to three hundred pounds, had overheated and just fainted. But no one wanted to hear any of that nonsense. They were pilgrims on their way to a gathering and a holyman had delivered them a miracle. This was what they had been waiting for.

  That the minivan was trashed was of little consequence to the Salome Henderson Gospel Sextet because Pinkerton said that they should travel in the Agnes Day. The ladies were delighted to accept, although Magdalene said that they should get in touch with her brother, Thomas, who owned the van so that he could send a tow truck. The Reverend and Salome, who seemed to have formed an attraction almost instantly, assured Magdalene that everything would be all right.

  So Fraser, blind and battered, sat in the back of the Agnes Day as it rumbled toward Birmingham, Alabama. The ladies of the Salome Henderson Gospel Sextet sang devotional hymns in their beautiful, clear voices and the rest of Fraser’s disciples joined in.

  Fraser thought about what the guys in the Press Bar in Glasgow would think of him now. He wondered what jokes they would come up with. He smiled to himself. They weren’t bad men, just afraid. Afraid of change, afraid of everything. That’s probably why they drank so much. For Dutch courage.

  He thought about Gus, his old boss. Fraser wondered if he could have his job back. He could wear his orange dress and do a little preaching as Salome and the girls made beautiful music. He chuckled to himself. Probably not. Maybe Margaret, his agent, could book them a little tour of the Highlands. He thought about Margaret. He wondered why she had never asked him if the allegations against him were true. He supposed she probably knew more about him than he knew himself at that point.

  He thought about George, his old school friend he hadn’t seen in years. He wondered about that strange experience in the trench. He wondered if George was dead, like Brinsley and Carl and H.P. Love-craft and Virgil and Corporal McLachlan.

  It felt stuffy and he asked T-Bo to open a window.

  The big camper was getting a little crowded.

  They now had a baker’s dozen.

  The holyman plus twelve.

  In the firmament high above the turnpike, the regularly scheduled Delta Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta and a small Federal Express cargo plane rushing a fresh donor heart from a car crash victim in Savannah to a hopeful patient who was already being prepped for surgery in a hospital in New Orleans passed within fifteen hundred feet of each other.

  This is a perfectly acceptable distance and neither of the planes was in any danger at any time. The pilots had acknowledged each other by radio and exchanged a few pleasantries.

  Because of the atmospheric conditions, both aircraft were leaving brilliant white vapor trails behind them, and given the trajectory of their respective routes, the trails formed a perfect saltire in the heavens.

  A white cross on a clear blue sky. The banner of Sai
nt Andrew.

  The flag of Scotland.

  THE ROAD TO GOD: TWELVE

  THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW FAITH was Saul’s salvation. It gave him something to be interested in, something to be enthusiastic about, and also, given that he had received his instructions from on high, something that placed him in complete control even though he was a motionless fat man in a hospital bed. He actually began to think that his condition helped people buy his story, so he hammed it up a little with the holyman shtick. He said “unto” and “thy” a lot. It seemed to do the trick.

  He told Leon that the Holy Visitor (who appeared every other night for a while) had told him it was time for a New Way, a New Church that was to be headed by both of them. In the way that Rome had been built by Romulus and Remus, Leon and Saul were to build the Holy United Church of America.

  At first Saul played the L.A. card. He had Leon bring some of his flakiest friends into the hospital and he recounted his experience. He elaborated a bit on his Holy Visitor—he stopped short at calling him Jesus, since he knew that for maximum impact he needed to be as nondenominational as possible while still adhering to the look and feel of the established churches, and he didn’t want to rule out any disaffected Jews.

  Saul collected a little group of spiritual VIPs around him. He knew how to play Los Angeles—basically, just tell people there is a room they can’t get into. A room that contains successful people in the entertainment industry.

  Saul was surprised to see Meg Roberts show up. It turned out that after he had his stroke, she had been very kind to Leon, and although their romance had not rekindled—she was now living with her counselor from the Malibu treatment center that she had attended for her addiction to hypnoyoga—they had become friends again.

  She was actually a very sweet woman, gullible, well meaning, and open. Perfect for Saul’s design.

  The Church grew slowly at first. Saul was visited three times a week by his chosen disciples. They sat around his bed and he told them what information he had received from the Holy Visitor, how they should raise money, how they should spread the word.

  He found (and paid) a friendly doctor who said his partial recovery could only have occurred by divine intervention. It was in fact a miracle.

  More cynical doctors said that the reasons for Saul’s recovery were inconclusive—which helped his case for a miracle even more than the paid doctor.

  He told his little congregation that they were as the first apostles in the New Order, the Holy United Church of America. Then after about a month, he tipped off a paparazzo he knew and made sure that Meg and Leon and the others (who included the former child star Jonathon Daimler-Thomason, who at seventeen had been thrown out of three rehabs and was tabloid gold) were photographed as they left the hospital.

  He fed a line to a syndicated gossip columnist and sat back, although he really did nothing but sit back these days anyway. The woolly-headed public’s disappointment at not being involved in show-biz would take care of the rest. He was dead on.

  Within three years, the Holy United Church had bought their first property, an old movie theater in the San Fernando Valley. They had the place renovated and had services three times a week.

  Leon would sing quasi-devotional easy-listening songs like “Feeling Groovy About God” or “My Soul Is Open,” and Saul had himself wheeled onto the stage, where he would thank the congregation and say that the Universe was happy that they had come. His bed was draped in purple robes not unlike the ones he had seen the Reverend Pinkerton wear but he didn’t talk too much; he wasn’t much of a public speaker before and the massive stroke had not improved his technique.

  Leon would sing some more and a movie star or comedian would testify as to how they were lost until the power of the Holy United Church had saved them—emotionally, financially, professionally, artistically, the usual crap.

  There was nothing really different in the doctrine they were spouting, it was basic stuff: Be good, help others, try not to lose your temper, and of course, the big-time perennial favorite—forgiveness of sins.

  Saul had come up with two ideas, the two strokes of genius that he felt were their big money spinners. They were: (1) The Holy United Church of America told the people that God only wanted them to be happy in any way that they could, and if that meant committing sin, then they should go ahead and commit sin and then atone by doing good in the community, but if they didn’t have time for that, they could pay for someone else to do it. The Holy United Church would be happy to make the arrangements, just sign here. (This is not new, of course. Some people are happy to let another person die for their sins.) And (2) you could join the Holy United Church of America without renouncing any of your other beliefs. The Holy United Church said that people of all beliefs were welcome—Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, anybody. They were nondenominational worshippers of God without prejudice. Tithe only 5—yes, only five—percent of your earnings (tax deductible) and you were saved. Guaranteed!

  They were off to the races.

  Two years after they bought the property in the Valley, they had raised enough money for what Saul really wanted.

  Saul knew that that if they stayed in Los Angeles, the Church would eventually fall from grace and be replaced by some other fashionable movement. Already Meg Roberts had stopped wearing her green handkerchief.

  They had to reach the Great American Public: Once you hooked this bunch, you were in. These were people who were loyal to a fault. It had taken them three years after the scripts turned to shit before they stopped watching Oh Leon!

  This was the audience/congregation Saul wanted.

  Plus he noticed that most of the competition in the evangelism field wasn’t that strong. A bunch of pudgy white guys with very bad hair, or Negroes who yelled too much. He had Leon, the freaky power of his own obvious infirmity, and Hollywood kudos behind him.

  And Saul wanted out of town. He kept thinking Roscoe might come back, he could hardly sleep for worrying about it. He wondered why the thought of the fat man’s return terrified him so much. He took extra drugs to sleep, on top of the ones he took for his condition.

  So the Holy United Church of America—Saul and Leon, the joint heads, or pastors as they now called themselves—bought TEN, The Evangelical Network based in Atlanta, for eighty million dollars (they raised and borrowed money at extraordinary rates from converts to the faith) and moved back home to the South.

  IN THE GARDEN

  CLAUDET TE RETURNED TO THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE. She waved across to the ugly English composer Anthony Boyd-Webster, who was still sitting at a harpsichord under the twisted branches of one of the olive trees. Boyd-Webster smiled back at her but did not stop playing his tinkling, medieval-sounding rendition of the Velvet Underground classic “All Tomorrow’s Parties.”

  The garden was bathed in moonlight and Claudette felt the warm summer night’s breeze on her skin. She was wearing a light linen dress that somehow was a wedding gown even though it was cut a little like the habit she had worn as an apprentice nun. She had an overwhelming feeling of well-being.

  Jesus looked fabulous.

  He was barefoot but wearing a dark-blue Donna Karan single-breasted suit and white open-necked shirt. He walked across the grass to meet her.

  He took her hands in his and he smiled at her.

  “You’re fired,” He said and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

  She awoke smiling and felt the bed for George before she opened her eyes. He was gone. She read the note he left her, her heart suddenly pounding. She dressed quickly and ran outside but she had no idea where to go. In a panic she ran down Rue Madame and headed toward the river.

  She turned and bumped into an officer who was just leaving the big police station across the square from the cathedral of Saint-Sulpice.

  “Hey!” snapped the cop. “Take it easy.”

  “Sorry!” she said and hurried across the square past the big theatrical fountain.

  Th
e cop yelled at her to stop.

  She turned around and looked at him. He was weird. She was desperate to get away but had no idea where to.

  “Pont-Neuf,” said the gendarme.

  She looked at him for a second, puzzled.

  “Pont-Neuf,” he said again.

  She turned and ran in the direction of the famous bridge.

  THIRTEEN

  THE CONVENTION OF TELEVISION EVANGELISTS had been Saul’s idea. It was his way of absorbing the competition into his own church. He brought in TV and radio preachers from all over the country. He let them rant and rave their particular brand of devotion in front of a large gathered congregation who had paid up to sixty bucks a head (tax deductible) for the pleasure of seeing them. He televised these guys and sold the shows at home and overseas and used their performances on his own network, which was anchored most of the time by Leon, of course.

  The first two conventions had been hugely successful and had brought thousands of pilgrims and converts to Atlanta. Saul chose to hold the third convention in Birmingham, Alabama, because they had a massive new hotel and conference center there and were providing huge cash incentives to anyone who would use it. Plus, Alabama had a lot of good God-fearing poor folks who had been enthusiastic supporters of the Church, and it wasn’t too far for him to travel. He could have his air-conditioned ambulance take him there with the minimum of discomfort.

  He also decided that for the third year they would send invitations out to television evangelists overseas—you never know, they might get a few bites from there too.

  * * *

  Saul was having his afternoon massage when he first saw Fraser. Dolores was working his lower back. She was an attractive physiotherapist with a drug problem, who had to work with the hideous Saul to support her habit. He made her stick her finger in his anus every time—he couldn’t feel it but he wanted to know she had done it. He checked by smelling her hand.

  He was watching the local television news coverage of the pilgrims who were flocking into town for the big roundup. The place was packed, this would be the best yet. There was more money pouring into Birmingham than they had seen since the slave trade.