“Not today, Sal. I’m about to take a shower, get the day going. And then I’ve got company this afternoon.”
For some reason, doodling, thinking about Christ’s multitude of foreskins maybe, she has given the sleeping prince a second dick. Give Beauty a kind of kisser’s on-off switch. And if she gets mad, she can bite one off and still have one to play with. Tommy’s, if memory serves, is circumcised. This memory comes not from the ice plant—she went blind that night—but from hairless childhood. To play it safe, she draws one with a foreskin, the other without. That way he’ll be good to go, no matter which way it swings in the afterlife. “Well, let me know, professor,” she says, trying not to sound hurt or angry, but no doubt sounding hurt and angry. “I’m only a phone call away.”
“That’s right. New Opportunities. You know, for West Condon. What do you think?” Ted’s tenth or twelfth call of the morning. He can’t even remember who he’s talking to now. Probably someone on the city council. The voice on the other end sounds like it’s coming out of a windy cave. Archie Wetherwax up a phone pole, maybe. Who will beg off so that he can stay home and play with his model train set. Nothing happening out on the bank floor this Saturday morning. Nothing at all. “We hope to acquire some new properties, see if we can lure some corporate and industrial investment to the area.” He’s still making swirly shapes with his penciled doodles like some kind of weird flowers, but now, whenever lines cross to create closed spaces, he finds himself blacking them in. Well, he’s an old guy with a lot of history, and she’s just a kid. He’s known all along there’d be no long-term gain. It was more like a casino night: fast, fun, full of calculated risk, empty-handed at the end. But he hadn’t realized her leaving, though it had to happen, would hit him so hard. “Yes, those fanatics are part of our concern, too.” It’s the priest he’s talking to now. Key ally. So wake up. “They’re responsible for a lot of our troubles here, Father Baglione, and we want them to move on before things get out of hand again.” He’s had his fair share of casino nights, but mostly out of town, while attending board meetings or sales conferences, pursuing investments, and the returns have been minimal but no debts or regrets, no troublesome residue. As a reliable donor to Republican party campaigns and a local organizer and counselor, he also gets invited from time to time to Governor Kirkpatrick’s hunting parties (have to call him), and there are always lots of women around there, too. Short-term investments with little or no payback, just a pleasurable way to get rid of excess capital. That of the pocket, that of the loins. One of his upstate partners has shown him how to make most of it tax deductible. He even includes condoms among his promotional supply expenses, buys them by the carton. “You saw last Sunday the problems we face, Connie.” The Lutheran minister has agreed to replace Wes Edwards at the Rotary Club and Ted wants him to focus his introductory remarks on the new action committee and its challenges. “We have to come together as a united citizenry, and we might as well start praying for it at the Wednesday luncheon.” In all his previous affairs, it has always been easy come and easy come again. So what’s different this time? Well, he has fucking fallen in love, that’s what. “Goddamn it, Jim, that’s stupid! I ask you what you think of our New Opportunities for West Condon idea and you can only make a lame joke about nude opportunities?” He hangs up on the drunken sonuvabitch with a bang, which causes the little Bonali girl out on the bank floor to start and glance his way. He shrugs and winks solemnly, turns away, recalling Stacy’s mimicry. He’d brought up the idea of her taking over Jim Elliott’s job, but she only laughed and then did an exact imitation of Elliott’s stupid look, his dumb remarks. To prove, she said, she’d be perfect for the job. He’s crazy about her. Never thought it could happen again, never wanted it to happen, and it did. She has brought something magical into his life. It’s as though he’s been spared from following poor Irene into the grave. An illusion, of course. Like religion, as Stacy would say. Though she believes in love like others believe in Jesus. He called his old fraternity brother up at the business school to ask if he’d seen her or heard from her. No, but he had another sharp student he might like. He was sorry he’d called. “Nick works for the bank, Burt. Guy I met at a business meeting up in the city. I don’t think he even goes to church.” It’s nickel-and-dime Burt Robbins he’s talking to. He’s telling him about his city manager idea and Burt has asked him if he thinks it’s smart to hand over that much power to the Italians. He says the mayor won’t like it. “The mayor told me he wanted to quit.” That surprises Burt, but Ted doesn’t say more, changes the subject, says he has been on the phone to a couple of old profs and may have found a good candidate to replace Edwards at the church. “Young fellow named Jenkins. Something of a scholarly type, like Connie Dreyer, but said to be good at reaching out to the community and building consensus.” Got the impression talking with him that he was something of a naïve ditherer and probably not even a golfer, but they’ve got to get a body in the pulpit soon, reopen the church before the doors rust shut. Ted has chewed his pencil through to the lead. He snaps it in two. Relax. She’ll be back, she needs him, she can’t stay away. He’s arrogant enough to believe that. Meanwhile, the break is a good thing. Instead of an idle drive in the country, he’s getting a lot of work done. He calls Lem Filbert to apologize for having to let his sister-in-law go, but it was a very serious matter. “She took advantage of my wife’s incapacities.” Lem says he hopes the crazy bitch ends up in the fucking clink and stays there, he’s fed up with her religious wackiness and she needs to have her ass kicked. Lem’s a good man and Ted tells him so while thinking about Stacy’s sweet little behind, so arousing when she turns it toward him. Lit softly by the fading light coming through the motel window. To be kissed, not kicked. He asks when his car will be ready and Lem says he plans to finish the painting this afternoon. Should be dry by Monday, looking like new. “No hurry, Lem. No use for it until then.” But, no, it’s not a good thing. He’s in pain. He imagines the drive. The sun. Her smile. Her hand in his lap. It’s a long long way from May to December… He’s not a hummer, but now he’s humming. There you go. Though that one’s about growing old. The days dwindle down to a precious few… He takes a deep breath and presses on with his NOWC calls (ah, damn the world and the way time fucks us!), trying to get his mind off her, and while he’s got Judge Altoviti on the phone, he inquires about Concetta Moroni, the woman he has just hired, sight unseen, as a home care worker. Altoviti says she’s a strong, reliable, big-hearted woman who was widowed by the Deepwater blast and could use the work; so, good, he’ll stick with her. Not all news is bad. Irene has become an evangelical; now she can become a Catholic. Just to be sure, he calls Nick Minicozzi upstairs and asks him to do a background check. “And while you’re at it, you might try to get me a rundown on the bank’s investments in Deepwater or in any of its managers, outstanding loans, that kind of thing. I think we put some money into a gasification project of theirs. Bad field position, but until that deal is signed and sealed, we still might have a play or two left in our locker.” September… November… When Nick asks, he says, “I may come out for a late nine.” Vince Bonali’s daughter, who gave him the Moroni connection, is doing some quiet housekeeping behind the counter, filling the time until they close at one. Then she’s off to the house to help out with Irene. Ted’s well aware he has set Tommy up with an in-house lay today, though he apparently needs no help. Consolation for dragging him back from university. The girl is cute, though far beneath Tommy. Should he call her father about NOWC? No. Lesson learned. He has just taken a grip on the phone to call Dave Os-borne at the shoe store, thinking about Stacy showing him the shoes she’d bought there (even her feet he loves, and the way she stands and walks on them, the way she turns the soles up when—), when it rings. Almost as if by grasping it he has triggered it. If you hold the blackened doodles to the light just right, they shine like silver. He hangs up with a whispered I-love-you and calls the garage. “Listen, Lem, if its drivable, I might take the Linco
ln out for the weekend after all and bring it back Monday. Yeah? Great.” He signals to the staff to lock up. To fall so hard. And feel so good.
II.2
Saturday 25 April
On a slight rise on the way into what he knew when a boy as the Presbyterian No-Name Wilderness camp, within view of the artificial bump of land their little movement grandly called the “Mount of Redemption,” Pach’ Palmers stops to take a leak beside the panel truck that is his present home. It’s his first time to see that goddamned mine hill since the day he got arrested on it. When he came back to West Condon after his release a couple of years ago, looking in vain for Elaine, he was able to pick up the old Chronicle delivery van, and once he got it running, he headed out here. But he turned back at the edge of town. He was starting up a new life. It seemed like bad karma, as Sissy would say. What a crazy time, what a crazy day. Life does throw up some fucking doozies. That one cost him a stretch in the slammer. Pach’ lifts his cock and aims his stream toward the Mount, wishing he could piss away that awful day, the worst day of his life.
What was he really thinking that day? Did he think the end of the world was coming? That Jesus was going to come flying down out of the storm, superhero cape flapping, and whisk them all off to Paradise? He was so hot for Elaine’s body, he didn’t know what he was thinking. He was holding on to her hand, hoping to find some place they could at least kiss, last chance and all that, but they were on a barren hillside with one sick rickety tree, surrounded by freaked-out Jesus worshippers, the whole world watching, and nowhere to go. And, anyway, there was no budging her. Elaine was completely lost to the insane moment and stood there in the rain, her tunic pasted to her skinny body, rain and tears streaming down her face, looking out on the crowds or else up into the sky. Down at the foot of the hill, those they called the powers of darkness were massing up, including all the reporters and photographers and state cops, and overhead: the mind-rattling yak yak yak of police helicopters. All their own people, showing off all they had in their wet flimsy tunics, were praying, singing, crying, and flinging themselves about in holy fits, their tunics turning black and brown in the mud. It was pretty arousing. He had a massive hard-on impossible to hide under his soaked tunic, which not even fear of the impending apocalypse could shrink. He was able to bend his underwear elastic band down over the head, and belt it in somewhat with the rope they all wore at the waist, but it kept slipping, and when it did it stuck out a mile. He thought: Well, Jesus, here I am, take me, sins and all. Then the town newspaper editor showed up. Mr. Miller. The guy who’d pretended to be a friend and fellow believer, but who’d turned on them like Judas. Exposed them. Made them look like dumbass jerks. Everybody said he was why Bruno’s sister went crazy, why she’d died in the end. So he was a killer, too. They were all charging down on him. The Antichrist. Or the Antichrist of the moment, anyway. He let go of Elaine’s hand and joined them. It was something he had to do. He remembered pummeling the guy there in the pouring rain, hitting him over and over, wishing he could kill him, the girl’s corpse somehow bouncing around in the middle of it all, pointing her blue arm at everybody. The guy’s clothes got torn off, and in the end Pach’ was pounding a lifeless naked body dressed in mud and blood. People were jumping on it. Somebody had an ax. Pach’ thought they had killed him. Only some time later did he learn the poor sonuvabitch had somehow survived. Elaine’s mother had had something to do with it. He was grateful for that. He was sorry about what he’d done. Doubly sorry, because when he went looking for Elaine again, he found Junior Baxter whipping her with a switch, and he laid into the spongy tub of shit—second time that spring, throwing him into the mud and punching him with both fists—only to have Elaine start clawing him and scratching him and throwing her nearly naked body down on Junior to shield him and screaming at Carl Dean to go away, go away. And with that, he lost it. He turned and pitched himself like a howling maniac at the advancing state troopers, taking down a couple of them before they all piled onto him. He was sent up to detention for six months for that, though he doesn’t remember anything after seeing Elaine’s little body on top of fat Junior with blood all over his stupid face.
Anniversary last Sunday. The nineteenth of April. He might have made it here in time had it not been for a leaky radiator. Just as well not. They were probably all over on that hill again and he would only have repeated the whole mess or made it worse. Five years. Long time ago. Seems like a different lifetime. Fuck, it was a different lifetime. Pach’—he wasn’t called Pach’ then—was an ignorant young dickhead with a susceptibility for big total answers. He was president of the Baptist Youth Group and full of furious opinions (how easy it was to speak of God and Jesus then; they were like pals on the track team, and he was elbow to elbow with them, slapping butts) when his high school reading and writing teacher Mrs. Norton drew him and his friend Colin into her goofball Seventh Aspect fantasies, and then, after the coalmine disaster, they followed her when she got mixed up with the lone survivor, Giovanni Bruno, a weird lunatic like all so-called prophets, one thing following another with a kind of mad irresistible logic. Religion’s appeal, no matter how nutty, to the down-and-out. He knows all about that, having been there all his life. The need for divine intervention to serve up just desserts, give the loveless something to love, cure the incurable, take revenge upon the wicked. Focused, God-sanctioned hatred. Oh yes, he felt all that, sometimes still does. He has an explosive nature; he knows that. He has learned to keep things in check, but as a kid he was just so damned angry all the time. He might have killed somebody and often wanted to. It was what made him let go of Elaine’s hand. He let go of everything when he let go of that hand. Everything. He hated Miller at the time. Now he thinks of him as pretty much the smartest guy he ever knew. Sure dumb of him to turn up out there, though, after all he’d done. Must have been Bruno’s sister who dragged him out. It was her body he was trying to reach when he got set upon. Pach’ can understand that. Same with Elaine now. Why he’s here. Except at least Elaine’s still kicking.
Trying to track Elaine Collins down is mostly what he’s done ever since they uncaged him. The six-month rap became a year for mouthing off and throwing his food on the floor and getting into fights with the other punks in detention, and they gave him another five in the state pen after he blew up and punched a sado guard. Laid the sick asshole out cold, sorry only that he hadn’t broken his neck. They might not have let him go anyway. His fucked-up parents had split and left the cheap development at the edge of town and he had no idea where they were, nor wanted to know, so as a juvenile there was no one he could be sent home to. No other relatives wanted him. He was too ugly. After a row or two in the pen, he settled down into his old camp counselor ways and they finally let him go after a couple of years. He was supposed to keep in touch with a parole officer, but he never did. He boarded a bus and came back here. He couldn’t have afforded the train, were it still running, but it wasn’t. The closing of the coalmines had also meant the closing of the railroads. West Condon itself was like it had always been only more run down, needing a fresh coat of paint. He wasn’t shopping, he was looking for Elaine, but she and her mother had left town along with most everyone else he knew, and, except for vague rumors of Brunist doings around the country, there was not much local news about them, so what he got out of the trip instead was his panel truck. He had wanted to apologize to Miller—tell him he was fucking right, they were all dumbass jerks, right on, man—but the Chronicle was closed. Miller had flown the coop, nothing left on the newspaper premises but a print shop run by an old schoolteacher and track coach he once had. Miller, the coach said, was reporting for network TV, something Pach’ never saw except sometimes in bars. Where no one was looking at the news. The paper’s rural delivery van sat out in the parking lot, its tires flat, battery dead, lights busted out, muffler falling off, hoses and fan belt shot, no shocks at all, but the body was not too rust-eaten and the engine looked repairable. The coach let him have it for a token dollar.
A tall, sour ex-coalminer named Lem Filbert had a garage at the edge of town and he hired himself out to him in exchange for a tow, some used parts, a set of retreads, a meal a day, and Lem’s mechanical know-how, serving as night watchman on the side for he was already sleeping in the thing, Lem’s widowed sister-in-law providing him some old bedding. A part-time nurse of some kind who had plucked eyebrows and was so religious she dressed like women in Bible pictures. She joined their group around Bruno at the end, but he didn’t remember seeing her out on the hill that day. Maybe she didn’t want to get her clothes wet. She was the one who told him Elaine’s mother was now married to the singer Ben Wosznik and was doing missionary work somewhere over near the Carolinas, and yes, far as she knew, her daughter was still with them. When he had the van rolling again, he headed east. Lem worked hard and demanded hard work, but he was good to him in the end, filling his tank and stuffing a few bucks Pach’ knew he could not afford into his pocket.
The Brunists, he discovered when chasing around after them, had gone big time while he’d been locked up. They had churches all through that part of the country, radio and television programs, billboards and piles of pamphlet handouts, songs on the hillbilly stations, tent meetings said to draw thousands. Hundreds certainly. He saw them, looking for Elaine. The end of the world? Still on. Sometime. Soon. Patience, jackass, patience—that old church camp skit. Back in West Condon, nobody had seemed to know much about any of this. So much happens in this country that no one ever hears about. On their home turf, except maybe for Lem’s sister-in-law, the Brunists were a joke. They’d all made fools of themselves, dancing around half-naked in the rain, waiting for a Rapture, as they called it, that never happened. It was embarrassing. They should have disappeared into jokes the next day, but instead they’re a big religion. Hard to figure. Of course, Jesus Christ: same story. People are weird. Key apparently has been Elaine’s mother. Old lady Collins is a powerhouse and an organizational genius and a saint. Everybody says so. He remembers her as a big, horsey lady with raw red hands, nearly six feet tall, dressed in print dresses and wide white pumps. She had a way of belting out battle cries like some kind of general or football coach and was at the same time given to throwing herself around and bawling like a stuck pig and talking to her dead husband like he was in the same room with her. Pach’ was always afraid of her and knew she didn’t like him very much.
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