by Rager, Bob
What if he had been kidnapped, wouldn’t he remember that? If men wearing ski masks had taped shut his eyes and mouth and dragged him over the backs of Puritan hard wooden pews and… Well yes, that would be memorable. And if the men then had, whoa, their fella…
The interview or interrogation of the young James Madison ended “at the parents’ request”. The kid’s mother probably freaked out by the notion of same suits, shining bright lights into a 16-year old’s eyes.
But what choice did they have? Suppose whatever specialist from CIA was called in a Pediatric Terrorist Advisor, the PTA and left alone with little Jimmy Madison, would he remember? Well, anything is possible. He would remember something, but would the memory be of something real; a fact?
The precedent avenues of exploration were blocked; little Jimmy Madison would never see the inside of a court room or give halting mumbled answers to questions from the experts in childhood or understand a black robed judge. By now whatever was real about that day was fading if not already gone, disappearing from little Jimmy’s mind until there was left so little that just a few words were enough to explain it. “We just played games.”
Chapter 6
St. Andrews and Seminary was a modest structure; a roof and 25 rows of doors divided by two aisles making left, middle, and right sides; a brick house and a church yard discretely maintained at cost. The paint was always a fresh eggshell matte, and the altar was dressed in with a silver chalice and candlesticks stamped with Revere’s hallmark. To the untrained eye, it was yet another brick and white spire church in a landscape of countless other dull landscapes from Camden to Savannah.
But to the unhurried observer might notice large marble plaques at the end of each aisle on the left; the brief passage “To the Memory of George Washington, and to the end of the right aisle, the symmetrical “To the Memory of Robert E. Lee”.
One never saw the President’s motorcade wandering down Route 1 past hamburgers stands and discount stores to visit Truro Parish Church, but Washington had prayed there too.
General Lee wasn’t a draw enough by himself; when was the last time a President popped up at Woodlaw Plantation?
The good folk of St. Andrews rose to their responsibility with a cheerful indifference - staring was really unnecessary, and whoever might sit in the pews, the liturgy was the central attraction. Thus, it was this atmosphere of purpose, obedience, and indifference that made it possible for little Jimmy Madison to attend the Eucharist, listen to the Gospel, and receive Communion, just like anybody else.
If he assumed someone was watching him, he didn’t even try to catch them at their game, as if he could. Although he idly wondered if he was worth the expense of satellite tracking his visit. Perhaps he was for their sake, in a town of half a million people and four hundred thousand spies he understood the necessity of logging in productivity of filling out time cards and expense reports.
Having no other ideas, he returned to St. Andrews in time to meet a group on tour with a docent, young woman with a bulletproof cheerfulness. She was that age of line-filled faces, storm colored hair, and invulnerable poise. She wore sensible flat shoes, a corduroy shift, and a jacket. “Here,” she said to her little crowd, “is George Washington pew.” The crowd murmured, a wave of ducking and straining passed over their haunches. They were all large now; when had everyone grown so fast?
He ducked his head low and lingered near the pews in the rear of the Washington side. He looked around at the colorless glass and studied the choir loft just visible in a triangle framed by the railing of the upstairs’ balcony; no doubt there was a charming term for this church feature – but he didn’t know what it was.
Up there, little Jimmy Madison had wobbled and bobbled in time to the music. Oh, he remembered all night, no matter what he may have led Glandings to believe, a small dark-haired boy while peeping out of a fluted collar and scarlet mantle; small even for six, but standing on a riser, he was clearly visible from this particular spot in the pew below.
What is on the mind of a six year old? When he had been six, he hadn’t been in a choir – he remembered Sunday school. He made lambs out of spools and pipe cleaners from home; his father smoked a pipe then, some time between the cigarettes and the huge cigars that stayed with him the rest of his life, something called a “signature” these days. These scenes came back as in a panorama of vignettes, snap shots framed by scallop edges and steeped in a pale ochre. A set piece, a treasure of recollection, a whole year of his life yielding up one moment, all done up like a greeting card, from his past.
In his photographs, Jimmy was an angel; his large eyes, pale sapphires under long, thick lashes, a retroussé nose above plump lips and a mouth curved in a limpid expression. He was in fact, as beautiful as a Renaissance cherub, even to his paleness and full red cheeks.
Yet the boy’s eyes seemed off – unfocused, seeing another world beyond the camera.
So much as he saw the possibility of the boy’s outwardly beauty compelling attention, the boy in the photograph certainly had, he was puzzled by the task of spending hours keeping a 6 year old amused; hours of playing games, of toy trucks and potty breaks and snacks and more toys, video games, and of course, paying attention, lest the child wander off. He didn’t have the patience, but someone else had.
…He listened with little attention, his thoughts wandering until the music surprised him with a familiar chord, a stirring of light peals as children’s voice climbed and darted in the air above.
There, he saw little Jimmy aquiver with music, his eyes fixed ahead as if nothing had happened, the same silly little pleated collar, the scarlet robe, the adorable picture.
He heard again Glandings’ words, “They want to keep it that way,” out of the press, to maintain to the world that nothing had happened. Another secret.
Only the boy knew what had happened. And whoever had been with him.
“Last seen by Mrs. Dora de Los Angeles, the boy’s nanny”. She was found locked in a broom closet, deep in a nest of a series of rooms under the meeting hall, a basement really.
She and Jimmy in turn were last seen by Miss Tiffany Jane, intern; he shook his head, another child named after a jewelry store; she had probably been sent off to her family’s suburban home in her congressman’s district, with a photograph of Jimmy and Vice President Clarke, along with a note thanking her for her “service”.
As for Mrs. Dora de Los Angeles, he had an address somewhere off Route 50 in Arlington, in a district of post-war high rises and convenient stores.
He was annoyed when he finally found the street in the address; around the corner from La Dispenso and a check cashing store; irritated by the reminders of the day to day grinding together of immigrants hope.
He pushed a button on the intercom panel at the entrance and then another one until with a tremble, the hazy glass door popped open. Although outside was a seasonable 40 degrees, the inside of the building was humid and warm. ‘Rice cookers,’ he thought, ‘by the hundreds’, tropical climate to lull senses, and the stomach into believing the soul, if not the body was ‘back home’ in El Salvador, Michohocan, Sierra Leone, the Sudan.
The air grew thicker as the elevator rose; thicker and warmer. He wiped beads of sweat on his forehead, held the brown envelope across his chest to make certain it was easy to see. At the door, he tried the doorbell and knocked, adding a cheerful “Delivery!” then waited looking sideways. He knocked again and again sang out “Delivery for…” he held this envelope in front of him and made an effort to read an address that was not there, “…for Mrs. De..” he faltered, and waited.
Across the hall, a door opened and came a voice, “It’s Mrs. De Los Angeles.”
“Yes, Mrs. De Los Angeles,” he grinned.
“Well, she’s not here, she’s go to the Philippines; she go back.”
“If you know where, I’ll write it down and make sure she gets this delivery.”
“Oh, the Philippines,” the shadow said slowly, as long as h
e had a nibble on the line the line and he had to carefully play it out, “when is she coming back?”
“She’s not coming back.” The words drifted out of a dark gap from a door to his left. He slowly, deliberately turned so not to frighten the faceless speaker.
“When? When did she go?”
“I not know. She gone.” The words trailed off behind the closing door.
“Fine,” he thought. Glad to leave the suffocating atmosphere of the lost world behind him. He looked up at the steel grey sky above. “Good luck Mrs. De Los Angeles, I hope you can go back home again.”
Chapter 7
Tiffany Gelman lived in a town house around the corner from a vegan bakery and 3 different coffee shops in the District’s choice neighborhood for interns, young lawyer associates, and middle rank real-estate equity speculators.
Through the glass of name-brand chain coffee shops, a place he avoided because he could smell its industrial strength disinfectant, he watched young, white people, their laptops spread across their knees, sitting in chairs just too small to be comfortable, all ignoring each other and, instead, staring vacantly at ads for ways to cure floppy erections, breast enlargements and invitations to earn degrees in medical terminology. The place looked like a shelter for homeless graduates of second-rate colleges and refugees from New York who viewed the District as a consolation prize, a safe bet, a second chance after they flamed out on Manhattan’s West side.
He picked up a bouquet of flowers at the Mega Food store at the next corner; he chose the brightest colors, the yellows and oranges, more visible through a peephole.
On the card he scribbled “Best Wishes” and in very loose cursive, “Pamela Clarke”, large enough to be seen through a crack in the door.
A young woman opened the door almost immediately. She was still in her early 20s, about 5 feet, vaguely brown hair pulled back behind a black headband, trying to look older.
“Yes?” she asked, the door open so wide practically welcoming home invaders to march right in.
“I have a delivery for Tiffany Gelman” he said.
He held up the card long enough to see her eyes spring open.
“Yes, I’ll get her right now,” the young fool turned away, leaving the door open.
‘I suppose,’ he thought, ‘I could walk over to the living room just off to my left and pick up the cell phone on the coffee table, stick her hand bag under my arm, and leave in about a minute or less.’
He looked over his shoulder; anybody could be watching this open door; the house where the single young white woman lived; the place they left in the morning in their carefully cut, expensive office clothes, carrying their genuine leather totes, tastefully devoid of logos.
A tall woman strode from a back hall. She was older than he expected and that instantly put him on guard. The young ones believed almost anything you told them when they first came to town, a form of delirium, the Potomac Fever. After a year, (the slow ones might take as long as two years,) the same woman could stare down a White House staffer 30 years her senior.
Tiffany Gelman gazed at the card with an intensity that could scorch a hole through it. Her eyes were a straight thin line of resolution as she flicked he card into the bouquet’s leaves and petals as if trying to fling away its taint.
She tossed her arms over where her breasts should be, flaring her shoulders like a cobra in a blouse.
“Who are you exactly?” she demanded.
‘God,’ he thought ‘I’ve been asking myself that for years.’
“I’m just delivering these flowers, ma’am.” He stepped back from her in case she did something crazy, like hit or push him. He felt very exposed – his back to who knows what passing by on the sidewalk or watching him from a corner, or a dark empty door.
“Look,” she said, “I’m calling the police.” She turned around quickly pushing the door closed.
“No, no, don’t do that,” the words rushed out of him. “It won’t do any good. Mr. Glandings sent me here.”
She held still an instant and turned back to him.
“Mr. Glandings? He called, he said someone would come by and ask a few questions.”
She looked at him from top to bottom, her eyes sweeping over him like searchlight wandering around a vacant lot.
She didn’t have to say it, her expression, her narrow lips picked up at one corner in dismissal, but she said it anyways, voice like someone who’s gone to a good school, in “be the nice to help” way. “You’re not what I expected.”
She turned around and walked into the foyer, then turned back to look at him. “Well, come on in, let’s get this over with.”
Maybe she’d never been foolish and quick to believe; newcomers came to town with daydreams, fantasies called “working with the system, or the “legislative process”, or “public service”. A recent version was called “paying back”, and another particularly lilting on the tongue, “becoming part of the solution”.
But a few, a handful, was it so, that his own fantasy that there were just a tiny number that arrived with the penetrating stare of seasoned practitioners playing the hand dealt rather than indulging in wishful thinking.
“What did she think of Mrs. De Los Angeles?”
“She was reliable and clean,”
“Why, Mrs. Los Angeles?”
“She was a trained nurse, her references checked and…” she faltered, “She had very good references and experience in pediatric nursing.”
“Oh, was little Jimmy sick a lot?”
“No,” she began to jitter and stumble, “He’s just a typical American boy, likes toys, trucks, saying his prayers, likes bedtime stories.”
“Oh, do typical American boys next door need full-time nursing care?”
Tiffany’s mouth curled up at the corners to approximate a smile.
“Why did Mrs. De Los Angeles leave the country?”
“They all do, they all want to return to the Philippines,” she said, not caring to hide her impatience in stating the obvious.
“Who’s taking care of little Jimmy now?”
“His mother,” Tiffany said the words separately as if speaking to a slow listener. “His mother always takes care of him,” she held her eyes as if to make sure he heard her.
“What do you remember about that day at St. Andrew’s?”
“We arrived at nine o’clock right on schedule, just in time for little Jimmy and Mrs. Dee, uh, Mrs. De Los Angeles to join the others in the choir. Jimmy and Mrs. Dee went upstairs. Vice President Clarke and Mrs. Clarke came in and sat on the Washington side where the President always sits, and the Processional started. Music, and the service. Everything went the way it always goes. I walked outside to wait at the bottom of the steps, the ones that go upstairs, and I waited. They didn’t come down. The President and the Vice president were taking pictures, and I thought somehow that Mrs. De and Jimmy had come down and walked passed me. That’s a funny little place and the stair in the lower part of the church is so odd.”
“I walked across the cemetery and looked for them in the meeting room. I didn’t see them and returned immediately to the, whatever that little courtyard is, then I went upstairs. A few of the small kids were there with their parents. I couldn’t ask or say anything, so I went downstairs again. I went up to Fred Meltzer and told him I couldn’t find Jimmy, he took over from there.” As Tiffany Gelman talked, the stiff pose of her brow weakened into a flurry of lines across her forehead and nose.
“He was gone just like that, like magic. A helicopter came overhead, the Secret Service took over, they took the President and the Vice President away as quickly as possible.” Her granite facade returned with these words.
“We stayed, and the place was searched. The custodian heard sounds coming from somewhere below the library. They always hear sounds coming from dark places,” she said.
“Who? Custodians?”
She smiled her steel-trap expression.
“He thought it was the usual ghost
s making mischief. Ghosts, mischief, bouncing around underneath Washington library or underneath what they call that room; The Secret Service went down there and found them locked inside a cupboard,”
“Were you with the Secret Service when they were found?”
“No,” she looked at him quizzically, “I returned with Vice President Clarke as soon as she heard he had been found. She went to meet Jimmy at Children’s Hospital.”
Chapter 8
“I thought there was a blackout on the news? The official story had been that Jimmy had a stomach problem and a little fever and was going to the hospital as a precaution.”
“How long was he there?”
“He never really entered the building, he was examined in the ambulance and the doctors said he was fine. He didn’t have to go in.
“Mrs. Clarke didn’t want any more disruptions in his routine,” she said, “She was quite,” again the jitter and stammer, “she was quite firm about seeing Jimmy had a routine. Children need routines,” she said as if speaking from a script.
“Now what’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask them that.”
She looked down to inspect her immaculate manicure when she looked up again, her expression said, “you’re still here?”
“Looks like you’re packing.”
Tiffany looked around the room at the cardboard boxes, the rolls of strapping tape.
“I’m doing advance work for the November elections.”
“Oh, is that a promotion?”
Tiffany’s eyes blazed at him with anger. Then her shoulders sagged. After a long pause, “I don’t really know anymore,” she said. She sounded bewildered, probably for the first time in her life.
Chapter 9
His name was Thomas. Not Tom. Thomas.
He pressed his face into Thomas’ chest, a space for his nose in Thomas’ sternum, a triangle of hair that gave off a citrus aroma mixed with a little salt.