by Paul Theroux
‘It’s like a religion that makes you feel better,’ she said.
‘Not just feel better – it actually makes you healthier,’ I said. ‘That’s what religion ought to do.’
‘But what are you supposed to get out of it?’
‘You live for two hundred years.’
‘You sound just like him,’ Vera said.
‘Hey, there he is.’
Vera was walking ahead of me as I stocked up at the A & P Future Store at the South Sandwich crossroads – buying melons and nuts and beans and flour. I looked around, expecting to see Millroy.
She hurried to the magazine rack and picked up a tabloid, the Examiner, and held it for me to see. That same old photograph of Millroy looking like an oversized lightbulb, and the headline, Why I Fired Millroy from my TV Show. It was a story about the end of Paradise Park by Eddie Mazzola, from the station. I bought it and read it. Foul-mouthed preacher, it said, speaking about Millroy’s talking about toilets and bowels.
That made me more watchful for Millroy’s name, and after that I took a bike trip alone to the CVS pharmacy near the rotary and looked at the magazines in the rack. On the covers of some women’s magazines, I found Millroy Saved My Life and The Day One Diet – Does It Really Work?
A magazine I had never heard of, called Longevity, had a small picture of him in a corner of the cover, and the line, Saving yourself the Millroy Way.
The whole cover of Newsweek was taken up with the words LIVING LONGER – America Searches for Answers, and I knew that Millroy was mentioned in the article inside, because I had taken that call from the reporter. I bought it and read it when I got back to the trailer. But there was only one short paragraph about Millroy (the Boston-based Day One Church), and the rest I could not understand.
I went to other stores, just to look at the magazines and newspapers. Millroy always said there was nothing in them, and there was nothing you could do about the news, so why read the papers and make yourself unhappy? People would go on starving or fighting or praying on all fours, whether you read about them or not.
Now he was in those publications.
One magazine had nothing more than his name on the cover, Millroy.
Him again.
You had to be famous when just your one name explained everything about you. Millroy had always avoided publicity. He hated having his picture taken. He would not answer the phone. He turned reporters away. But that had not worked – in fact, it might have made him more famous, because it seemed as though his hiding only made them chase him and try to find him. He became famous by refusing to cooperate.
I said to Vera, ‘I had no idea Millroy was this famous.’
‘Where have you been?’ she asked me again, and when I did not answer she said, ‘You were probably too busy to notice.’
Not too busy, but too close to the man and his magic.
All this publicity might have made me doubt him. Instead, it made me a believer. I had left him because I felt I did not know him anymore, but now I realized that no one knew him. These articles did not describe him. And I was not as ignorant as I had thought. I knew his strangeness, his kindness, his magic, his dreams. I had met him when he was a magician in the county fair. I had seen him have a psychic duel with Floyd Fewox, I had watched him destroy Mister Phyllis. I had met the mystery woman, Rosella, who knew him better than anyone. All this made me feel important, knowledgeable, strong. I knew Millroy’s secrets.
Once I had thought I could run away from him – go home and be rid of him. I imagined going back to school in September, sticking it out, and trying to study. Go back to raking Gaga’s leaves and doing Dada’s dishes, listening to my Walkman in bed, going to Craigville for pizza, fishing when the blues were running, watching TV, and maybe next year getting a cleaning job at a motel in Hyannis, saving up to buy a used car. Until last summer, when I had met Millroy at the Barnstable County Fair, it was the only life I had ever imagined for myself. Just the other day I had tried to take the bus back to this life.
But I came home to find that he was here – on TV, in magazines and newspapers. Vera talked about him more than she did about Dada. She said her friends talked about him. No one understood him. No one knows me, Millroy had said to me more than once, and it was true. But everyone knew his name. And things that had been concealed from me became obvious as I watched his show with Vera. Now I realized how much I had missed before – that he had revealed himself to me, that I knew him better than anyone. It made me miss him, it made me lonely. Did he know that?
It was so different, seeing him in Dada’s trailer – not simply because Dada was dead and Millroy was in the trailer now where Dada had been. More than that, he had power and presence, he seemed more magical. We had sat in the diner, the Sons and Daughters and I, and we had laughed, seeing Millroy work magic or listening to him describe what he called ‘The Journey from Fatland.’ We screeched when he showed us footage of people eating, and when he was not traveling he sat with us during the re-broadcasts, and we laughed even harder, knowing what was coming.
Why was it that Millroy was not funny when I watched him on the TV in Dada’s trailer? He was strict. He was serious. His eyes bulged. No jokes. He ranted and did hostile strongman tricks. It was all life or death. Vera was frightened and I did not blame her.
‘If he lightened up I’d believe him,’ she said.
She could only calm herself by being skeptical.
‘Hey, everyone dies eventually,’ she said.
I could see that Millroy terrified her.
Life is fatal, people say. But let’s see, Millroy said on the next Day One Program that Vera and I saw. Take this narcissus.
‘Might as well change the channel,’ Vera said from the far end of the trailer, where she was cowering.
But I wanted to see him. I sat on the remote switch.
The Book uses the word ‘rose’ when the actual Greek text says ‘lily’ or ‘flower.’ But we know that in the Age of Day One the bulbs of flowers were eaten. ‘Dove’s dung’ we read about in the Book of Kings – that’s an awful pretty flower, your so-called ‘Star of Bethlehem.’ You can roast the bulbs like chestnuts, or dry them or grind them with flour to make bread, as Elisha must have done in Samaria.
‘There he goes again.’ It was impossible in this small trailer for her to back away, so Vera was making herself small.
Consider the lilies of the field – consider that they have edible rootstocks, that they’re good in soups and stews, and excellent as a dessert, drizzled with honey.
Chewing on a lily bulb, Millroy said, Tastes great. But what about this other stuff you eat?
Before him on the table were beakers labelled Milk, Beer, Whisky, Cola, Tropical Fruit Drink.
What happens when you put this stuff into your body?
He lifted an earthenware pot which held a lily flower rooted in its bark-mulch soil. The heavy, yellowy-white blossom swayed, nodding as he set it down.
Shall we try it?
‘What the heck’s he tryun to do?’
Millroy poured some milk into the pot, then some beer, then the whiskey, the cola and the tropical drink. The liquid dripped and drizzled through the holes in the bottom of the flower pot, into a basin.
Think it’s going to grow and put forth more blooms?
As he was speaking, the lily drooped and the blossom turned brown. The petals fell. The leaves softened. Then the whole thing flopped over the side of the pot and liquefied into ribbons of black slime.
It dies the way your body does.
As a trick, as the truth, we would have found this very funny at the diner, and Millroy would have laughed with us. But the collapse of the flower was a little horror verging on tragedy. It was serious and solemn.
The flower is here one day and then she is gone.
Why did he say she?
Isn’t that so?
Vera sucked wind and stared at me.
‘See what I mean?’ Vera said. ‘You don’t know what to think about that guy.’
My mouth was too dry for me to say anything.
‘Kill it,’ Vera said. ‘Let’s watch a game show.’
I did, I surfed with the remote switch, but I went on thinking about Millroy. That Day One Program was another indication that something was wrong. It was his quavering voice, and the way he put his face against the TV screen, the way you put your face against a window pane, as though he was looking for me. And then she is gone. Now, at this distance, I realized that no one knew Millroy as I did. I heard sounds that were inaudible to other people, I saw things that were invisible.
Millroy was sorrowful, he was tense, he was fidgety and impatient. I knew that the whiskey and milk and the rest of the forbidden liquids had not affected the lily – there was not enough time to show it dying. He had killed the flower with his own strength – passed his hand across it and drawn out its life, all its energy, with time-lapse magic.
I don’t like using magic, he had said, often enough. Miracles and magic are the last resort. Even the Lord knew that. I only do it when I’m desperate. But these are desperate times.
Seeing Millroy on TV I understood him better. I had needed this distance to put him into focus. And now I could see that he was suffering. Millroy was not the man described in the press. He was not the man whom Vera spoke about. He was someone I knew. He was my only friend. I remembered the old woman Rosella saying, He needs you.
Still, I stayed here in the trailer in Mashpee, not knowing what to do next. Vera needed me, too. She told me how glad she was that I was with her – how I had taken Dada’s place. She said that with me around she felt like making plans. I’m getting real focussed, she said. Like I was stressun out before, but now I want to put out some good energy and stop stressun.
Millroy’s next program was about angels. Angelology, he called it.
There were giants on earth in Day One, he said. Look at the Book of Exodus. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose, and they bore children to them. The children of the sons of God and the daughters of men were angels.
He looked so sad.
There are still sons of God on earth, he said. And still daughters of men.
He peered out of the TV again, looking around with big searching eyes, and such heat in them I began to squirm when he glanced in my direction. He looked haunted, he looked thin, he was not eating. He was weak.
You have to feel that someone is watching over you. That someone cares. That you are not alone.
He missed me.
‘Most of the time I don’t even understand what the heck he’s talkun about,’ Vera said, calling out from the kitchenette.
Perhaps no one knew, these days. He was talking to me. And now I was sure that something was wrong.
‘Want some root beer?’
‘No thanks.’
Millroy’s voice was still echoing but I could not tell whether it was coming from inside or outside my head. It was like Millroy earphones clamped on my head, his voice in both of my ears, with a twang of Vera’s voice behind it all.
‘And there’s some Ring Dings in the frigidaire.’
But I was listening to Millroy, who was urging me to listen.
‘And a whole bunch of Bolsters in the freezer,’ she said. ‘Your favorite.’
I just want to say one more thing to you.
I replied to him, but if I could not hear what I said how could he?
Life does not have to be fatal.
I still could not hear my own voice, though I heard Vera’s dark whisper like a shadow behind Millroy’s voice.
‘You talking to me, Jilly?’
I made another sound because Millroy was saying You know?
‘I thought you said something to me,’ Vera said.
On Millroy’s sweaty head small drops were beaded all over the tight skin on his skull and some were running down the sides of his face and into his mustache.
But life seems pretty meaningless now, doesn’t it?
‘It sure does,’ I said.
That’s because you feel all alone.
‘Who are you talkun to, Jill?’
I muttered something that meant I wanted her to shut up, but it only made her come farther into the room, nearer the set.
I feel the same, Millroy was saying. I need to be in your life. And you need to be in mine.
‘Amen,’ I said.
I heard that. That was from the heart.
I said something grateful, made a joyful noise.
‘You talkun back to that guy on TV?’
Millroy smiled as though he had heard what Vera had said but was ignoring her, and only paying attention to me. I said something more and then positioned myself so that he could see my face.
‘They call him “Anal” Roberts,’ Vera said. ‘Get it?’
‘No,’ I said. Tears were coming out of my eyes and wetting my cheeks. Never mind, I was happy.
I need you back in my life, Millroy said. You need me in yours.
I shushed Vera as she tried to interrupt.
‘Why are you talkun to him?’
‘Because he’s talking to me,’ I said.
‘Get a grip, Jilly.’
Millroy winked at me – he had heard that. He was smiling.
Life is only fatal when you’re alone, he said.
‘That is mind control,’ Vera said.
She made a dive for the TV set.
‘He is trying to mess with people’s heads.’
‘Not people – just me,’ I said.
When she switched the set off, I squawked and turned it on again. But before the picture flickered and shook and pasted itself on the screen, the program ended, I could hear Millroy protesting in the dark, his voice sounding suffocated as he said, Are you there, muffin?
I could not see him, and a second later there was a Burger King commercial, and then a cartoon about Diet Crunchettes and finally Body Shaping began.
‘It’s some kind of cult,’ Vera said, sounding angry and scared.
She pretended to be tidying the kitchen but really she was whimpering with fear.
Later on, she said, ‘Like it just hit me, kinda. You goes to your Dada’s gravestone and you get stressed. Jason Tobey told me. The Pocknetts seen you pushing your bike. You’re real stressed. So you start talkun to this TV evangelist. Hey, it’s mind control.’
The program had left me in a peculiar mood, as though I was a little wind-chime, and I was still ringing, vibrating softly. Vera did not know me at all. Only Millroy knew me. I had not come home. No – leaving Millroy I had run away from home. I was lost here. Vera Turtle had no idea.
There is nothing to fear, Millroy had said. You are not alone.
He had been talking to himself as much as to me. These last two Day One Programs had been like conversations between him and me, a kind of pleading on his part, and me sitting there trying to keep my lip from trembling.
And it was so strange, after this last program – Vera doubting and fearful and confused, talking about Millroy as though he was the most dangerous and famous man in the world – I walked out of the trailer and biked down to the Mashpee crossroads, to the pay phone on the wall of the Trading Post, and dialed the diner, Millroy’s private line.
‘Who is this?’ he said, taking a sudden breath as he heard me say hello.
‘It’s only me.’
‘Angel, where are you?’
‘Never mind. I’m on my way back.’
‘God,’ he said, and the way he said it, sounding so relieved and hopeful, made me feel strong.
‘Anything wrong?’
‘Everything.’
It
was almost inhuman that Millroy never cried, nor shed a tear, and yet he spoke this word in the hay fever voice of someone trying not to sob.
34
He was so glad to see me, coming towards me fast and looking toothy, as though he wanted to eat me, I was almost frightened – yet there was something worse even than that. The first thing he said to me at the South Station bus stop was, ‘Millroy was very anxious. Millroy doesn’t fret but he was very concerned about your personal safety.’
It made me look around expecting to see someone else, maybe his brother.
‘And don’t believe any misapprehensions you’ve heard about Millroy.’
That was it, the way he talked about this person Millroy, who was actually himself. It scared me, as though there were three of us now in the diner, worrying each other to death.
He did it again later on, just a mumble.
‘They’ve been trying to start rumors about rat droppings,’ he said. ‘But Millroy does not countenance rat droppings, or animal scats of any kind.’
And wagged his head, no, no, no.
‘Not Millroy.’
It made him smile and I imagined he was seeing this other Millroy in his mind.
Then, suddenly, he put his nose into my face.
‘Buddy, what have you been eating?’
That was only the first half-hour. The day got stranger. I said hello to the Sons and Daughters – ‘We got so much to ax the Big Guy,’ Peaches said, which meant that they wanted me to do the asking. I went into my cubicle. My little space was exactly as I had left it, everything in place, and I sensed in the way it was so tidy that Millroy had missed me. Anyway, hadn’t he said so?
A whirring sound came from Millroy’s room: was he shaving his head with his electric razor, and talking? I peeked through the door crack and saw that he was not shaving his head, or even his chin. He was talking on the phone and running the razor in and out of the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver.
‘We can’t help you,’ he was saying.
Whee-whee-whee, went the razor.
‘We are on a plane – a flight to Denver – whee-whee – where we have a facility.’