All Things Bright and Strange

by James Markert

  Ellsworth brought in extra chairs and they ate around the kitchen table. He missed Anna Belle, and he’d be willing to fight for her, but she was there of her own free will, after all. He’d need to come up with a better plan to lure her from Eddington’s influence.

  Not much was said as they ate, although they from time to time stared at each other surreptitiously, like they were all adding two and two together but were afraid to admit they’d all come up with five.

  “What kind of a name is Tony-Too-Tall?” asked Ellsworth with a bit of venom. “You’re not that tall.”

  “I was when I was a kid.” Uriel spoke like he’d been itching to. Chewed with his mouth full and clinked the spoon against his teeth with every bite. “I was always the tallest in my class. Shot up young, then stopped around thirteen, when all the rest of the boys were getting going. But before that, they always used to say, Tony, you’re too tall for this, too tall for that.” He shrugged. “Tony-Too-Tall.”

  Ellsworth stared at him like he was a dumb bug who didn’t know better than to walk across his kitchen floor in broad daylight. “I get that. I mean the Tony part. Where’d Tony come from?”

  “My mother let me change it when I was six because who would ever name their kid Uriel? You know? So why’d you change your name?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Tony nodded, waited for an elaboration, but when none came he went back to eating. He clinked the spoon against his teeth again, and Ellsworth banged his fist on the table.

  Everyone jumped. Tanner spilled a dollop of stew on his shirt. Ellsworth glared at Uriel and said, “Why were you with the Klan that night?” He glanced at Raphael. “What did you want with Raphael? How was my wife involved?” He leaned with his elbows on the table. “And why are you here again?”

  Uriel took another bite before answering, careful not to click the spoon on his teeth this time. “I think why I’m here now is obvious.”

  “Is it?”

  He surveyed the room, then settled on Ellsworth. “What has the boy told you?”

  “He doesn’t remember much. Just that he was secretly carted up here during the night.”

  Uriel pushed his bowl aside and folded his hands atop the table. “I was born in Bellhaven, back before the turn of the century.”

  “I don’t remember you.”

  Gabriel said, “Let’m talk, Ellsworth.”

  “If you’re going to understand what brought me here with the Klan that night and why I’ve returned, I’ll need to start from the beginning.”

  “Then start.”

  “Okay then. I was born three months early. Doctor told my parents I wouldn’t live to see past my first year. Mother prayed the rosary at my crib every night, while Father buried himself in a bottle. If I may?” Uriel unbuttoned his shirt low enough to reveal a birthmark on the left side of his abdomen. It was about two inches tall and fuzzy along the edges, but the shape was clear. “What does this look like?”

  “It’s a cross.”

  Uriel buttoned his shirt. “My mother was very religious, and she believed I was touched by God. The early delivery. The birthmark. The fact that I slept all night from day one, even as wind from the woods thrashed at the window above my crib. She was convinced it was spirits and demons trying to get at me. When I was four months old she walked past the yellow trees with a rosary, felt as long as she kept going she’d make it. But then she stopped. The longer she stood still, the slower her breathing became. She heard voices but somehow broke free from them. Then, as she hurried back through the woods, she felt pain in her hands. The rosary had burnt scars where it was wrapped around her fingers and across her palms. She had gray in her hair where before it was brown.”

  “So you moved from Bellhaven?”

  “The next day,” he said. “My parents argued, but Mother insisted we go. She was convinced there was something in the woods trying to kill her child.”

  “Where did you go?” asked Gabriel, suddenly more curious than the rest of them. She sat on the edge of her chair, looking like she had something to tell and was learning from the new arrival just how to do it.

  “San Francisco.” Uriel looked around the table. “Mother wanted to get as far away as possible, so we didn’t stop until we hit the West Coast.” His eyes settled on Tanner. “I was seven going on eight when the great earthquake hit the Bay Area.”

  Tanner leaned forward, alert. “The one in 1906. Yes, I arrived in the aftermath, felt the aftershocks. It’s the only time I ever left Bellhaven since the quake here in ’86.”

  “How long did you stay?” asked Uriel.

  “Not long,” Tanner said with guilt. “Two days. I’d long past become addicted to the chapel by that point. I had to hear my wife’s voice again.”

  Uriel went on. “There was a strong foreshock twenty seconds before the main quake. My father was a firefighter. He was on his way to check on me and Mother when the main quake hit. Rumbled like a train for forty-two seconds. I counted every one of them, hunkered in the doorway between our bedroom and the kitchen. Our chimney collapsed on my father, killed him. Mother was distraught. I took her hand and guided her from the house.”

  “At seven,” said Gabriel. “The son protecting the mother.”

  Uriel nodded. “It leveled the city, but the worst was still to come.”

  “The fires,” said Tanner, with eyes that relived it. “The entire city burned.”

  “Four days they burned,” said Uriel. “Four hundred and ninety city blocks destroyed by flames. Gas pipes broken underground. Downed electric lines. One fire broke out on Hayes Street. A mother was cooking breakfast for her family and accidently burned the house down.”

  “The ham and eggs fire,” said Tanner.

  “That’s what it became known as, yes,” said Uriel. “Mother cried every night, prayed for her Uriel to give her strength. And I did. I wasn’t scared. But the memories are etched in my mind. The fires and all the destruction—it changed people.”

  Tanner looked at Ellsworth. “They picked sides.”

  “How so?”

  “Hundreds of thousands were left homeless,” said Uriel, taking back over. “Refugees evacuated across the bay to Oakland and Berkeley. People camped at Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and the Panhandle. All along the beaches too. Many were homeless for two years after. And people did help. Many people risked their lives to help others. There were superhuman acts of strength in rescuing others from debris.”

  He looked at Tanner. “But he’s right. They did pick. There was humanity aplenty but also terrible riots and violence. I saw men and women beaten for no reason. A lot of looting, even by the soldiers brought in to protect us. People wandered with crazed eyes—good people gone off the tracks. There were fights in the streets over food and water and shelter. Some people shot looters on sight or set fires with intent to harm. I saw violence no seven-year-old should have to see. And once I did, for years I couldn’t unsee it.”

  Uriel rubbed his face, exhaled. “Even at that age, I played my part in the cleanup efforts. I couldn’t lift anything heavy, but I had ideas no child my age should have. Engineering ideas on how best to remove the debris, how to clean the streets, how to keep the crowded parks and beaches in order and handle garbage disposal. That sort of thing. I was ignored initially, of course, but then the men started to listen. Some of my ideas really helped.”

  Uriel took a drink, raked fingers through his hair. “One night I was tired and crying from having seen too much. I’d been having nightmares about it all. My mother rubbed my back and told me what she knew about Uriel the archangel—the angel of the earth. That he was one of the wisest archangels, an expert in problem solving and spiritual understanding, weather and changes in the earth.”

  Father Timothy said, “The archangel who helps with floods and fires, hurricanes and earthquakes and natural disasters.”

  “Yes, Father. But I told her to stop. I didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want everyone in town looking at me like I
was different. I wanted to be a regular boy with a regular name. My mother asked me what name I would like to be called, and I said Tony. My father’s name was Anthony. At the fire station they’d called him Tony.”

  Ellsworth rubbed his face and blew wearily into his hands. He bit into a piece of corn bread and chewed. “It’s good,” he said to Rabbi Blumenthal. “The corn bread.”

  “My mother’s recipe.” The rabbi spoke solemnly, not like a man who had blown up the back of the jailhouse earlier that day. He nibbled on his fingernails, twirled the hairs of his beard, and repeatedly glanced out the kitchen window toward the woods. The chapel was calling him.

  Reverend Cane was restless too. And Tanner looked uneasy, but he tended to get more fidgety at nighttime anyway. Alfred bobbed in his chair. He hadn’t touched his food.

  “I was born with a caul.” Gabriel waited for their eyes to turn toward her. “It’s rare. A membrane covers the baby’s head and face, except mine covered my entire body like a cocoon. The midwife had a difficult time removing it, but from what I was told, I busted through. My mother said I was aware, even then. I had enough control of my arms to do it.”

  Tanner said, “I remember when you were born.”

  “Biggest baby the midwife had ever seen.” Gabriel chuckled. “Nearly killed my poor mother. Word traveled fast about my size, but not about the caul. My mother had made the midwife promise not to tell about it. Some see the caul as good luck, a sign of future greatness, but not everybody. She named me Gabriel because of a voice she heard in a dream. ‘God is my strength,’ the voice said.”

  Father Timothy had gone pale. “Gabriel is the only archangel sometimes depicted as female in art and literature.” He removed the white cloth from the basket he’d brought with him, revealing ten bottles of red wine. “We’ll need an opener, Ellsworth. And glasses.”

  “Second drawer on the left. Glasses are in the cabinet. Where’d you get all that?”

  “Prohibition loopholes.” Father Timothy rooted through the drawer. “Sacramental wine. I suppose now is as good a time as ever to admit that I manipulate the numbers in our congregation in order to get more of it. I can’t do without my wine, so I’ve been stockpiling. Consider this my donation to . . . whatever it is we’re doing here tonight. Free of charge.”

  Reverend Cane said, “You imply that you typically sell it?”

  “Of course I sell it,” said Father Timothy. “What are they calling it? Bootlegging? The money all goes back to the church, I assure you.” While he removed glasses from the cabinet, he looked over his shoulder at Reverend Cane. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” And “He who is without sin among you—”

  “—let him first cast a stone,” continued Reverend Cane. “I know how it goes.”

  “Then either cast more stones or help me with these glasses.”

  Reverend Cane pushed his chair from the table to lend a hand. “I don’t drink.”

  “Well, tonight you do.” Father Timothy popped the cork and poured Reverend Cane the first glass of red wine. “It seems the end of days is right outside our door. No better time to start drinking than now.” Father Timothy poured himself a full glass and downed a third of it in one tilt of his head. He refilled and then poured wine for the rest of them.

  Reverend Cane sipped his.

  “Good?” Father Timothy asked.

  Cane took another drink, his teeth already stained red. “I’ve been to burlesque shows.” Gabriel coughed on her wine. All eyes in the room focused on Reverend Cane, who continued with his loose tongue. “The kind where the ladies are scantily clad and they dance on the stage to music. I go into Charleston, to a little place called Delly’s. In disguise, of course, so no one can place me.”

  Father Timothy smirked. “You don’t say?”

  “I do, and I pray for forgiveness daily.”

  “Are you coming to me for confession, Ephraim?”

  Reverend Cane took a full gulp of wine.

  Father Timothy said, “Well, in that case I absolve you from your sins. Don’t go to Delly’s anymore.”

  “I’ve been to Delly’s,” said Alfred, looking down at the table. “But don’t tell Linda May. It was before we got married.”

  Ellsworth said, “Am I the only one who hasn’t been to Delly’s?”

  Rabbi Blumenthal said, “I’ve never been to Delly’s.”

  Father Timothy sat back down. “I absolve everyone who has entered Delly’s. Now can we get back to Bellhaven? ‘God is my strength,’ the voice said. Gabriel, please continue.”

  Gabriel gulped wine like it was water and refilled it from the second bottle Ellsworth had just uncorked. “What my mother called a blessing, I viewed as a curse—my strength and courage and, well, my size. I was walking at five months, carrying pails of water from the well at two years. Even as a child, I had the strength of a man. And I was larger than any of the other children—certainly the girls. That was enough to earn me ridicule in the schoolyard. I always felt confused. Uncomfortable in my skin.” Her eyes teared. “The giant with the strength of an ox but with the brain of a mule.”

  Ellsworth reached across the table and squeezed Gabriel’s hand, gave her a look that said, “You’re one of the smartest people I know.” He then turned his focus back to Uriel. “You never finished your story.”

  Uriel poured more wine. “Like her, I was uncomfortable with who I was, and what I saw after the earthquake was always on my mind. And to make things worse, my mother died of a weak heart when I was only nine. I lived in an orphanage until I was sixteen but never really belonged. I kept to myself, and the other kids teased me—and worse. They hit me, pinched my skin, put cigarettes out on my back. So I ran away. Stole every bit of money I could find inside the orphanage, hopped a train, and headed east.”

  “Why east?” Ellsworth asked.

  Uriel shrugged. “Because west would have put me in the ocean. I wanted to get as far away as I could. Each state where the train stopped was going to be my home, but after only a few days I’d feel the pull to keep going. I hopped one train after another until ultimately I ended up in Savannah.” Uriel glanced at Ellsworth. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just something similar to what my wife would say. She felt a pull to come here. A pull towards . . . a pull towards me.” Ellsworth poured more wine, thought of the train wreck. He filled Rabbi Blumenthal’s glass again and told Uriel to go on.

  Uriel said, “I got into more fights than I could count. Made a friend named Shakes, who gave me a book called The Clansman. Read The Leopard’s Spots, too, and was taken in by it all. Then me and Shakes, we went to see that film, Birth of a Nation, about the original Ku Klux Klan. It was like a light went on in my brain. I’d finally found some channel for my hate. I was there on top of Stone Mountain in 1915 when William Joseph Simmons roused up the Klan again. Me and Shakes were recruited by a local Kleagle—that’s what they called the Klan organizers.”

  “They?” asked Father Timothy. “You’re no longer a member?”

  “No, Father, of course not. I left them the night after what happened here in Bellhaven, I promise. I saw the sins of my ways, and I hope for forgiveness.”

  Father Timothy watched Uriel suspiciously. The new Klan was violently anti-Catholic.

  “I was misguided,” said Uriel. “But I thought I’d found a home. I was convinced the Klan was the reason I’d been pulled across the country—to help guard the nation against the sins that were causing it to crumble. The Jews, the Catholics, the foreigners coming across on boats by the thousands. Divorce and adultery. The blacks. We preached 100 percent Americanism. Nativism. I went and got this bald eagle tattoo on my neck to show how committed I was.”

  He eyed everyone. “I apologize to you all. My thoughts have changed since then. Anyway, I paid my initiation fees, and they handed me a white costume and Bible. I didn’t have a religion so to speak, but I became a Methodist. And I have to admit, I never felt so comfortable as when I was able to hide my true self behind
a hood. I wasn’t different anymore, you see? With the white hood and cloak, I looked like all the other Klansmen. We all had the same thoughts and ideas.”

  Uriel laughed as he sipped more wine. “And now the Klan is violently enforcing Prohibition—busting up speaks and stills all across the South. Believe you me, I wouldn’t be sitting here drinking with a Catholic priest, a black boy, and a rabbi if I was still in the Klan.” He smiled, then his laughter died. He swirled red wine around his glass. “A couple years in, one of our Kleagles got word that a plantation owner near Macon had an incident with a black boy—a Catholic black boy to boot, which was about as rare a find as a four-leaf clover in a desert. Shakes said we couldn’t get luckier than finding Catholic blacks.” He looked at Raphael with apologetic eyes. “So thirty of us packed our belongings and headed to Macon, but by the time we arrived at the plantation, the boy here had already been sneaked out during the night.”

  Ellsworth said, “It’s Raphael.”

  “What?”

  “You called him the boy. His name is Raphael.”

  Ellsworth and Raphael shared a glance. “Is any of this coming back to you yet? Eliza sneaking you out here? How did she know?”

  “I don’t know,” Raphael said. “We never seen her before.”

  “She just showed up?”

  “And said she’d been watching over me.”

  Reverend Cane leaned in, his elbows on the table. “Why?”

  Raphael didn’t answer, so Ellsworth did. “After I was stabbed, you all rushed me into the woods. To the chapel. Perhaps that initially saved my life; perhaps it didn’t. But it wasn’t the reason for my rapid recovery. At night, at my bedside . . .”

  Raphael shook his head. “No, Mr. Newberry. Don’t.”

  “I need to tell it.” Ellsworth nodded toward Raphael. “He put his hands on me, directly on my wound. Did it several nights in a row when he thought I was asleep. I know that’s how come I healed so rapidly. Raphael, does this have something to do with the incident at that plantation?” Raphael nodded. “You remember everything don’t you?” Raphael nodded again. Ellsworth said, “You claimed not to because it frightened you.”