by James Yaffe
“How about dinner?” she said. “There’s plenty stew, and it tastes better the older it gets.”
I had to refuse the invitation. I told Mom I was meeting somebody for dinner tonight, and though her expression didn’t change I could feel her inside radar switching on and humming. “So? It’s somebody I know?”
I knew the question she was dying to ask, and I didn’t prolong her misery. “It’s a woman I just met. She’s got a job at the courthouse, she’s a paralegal assistant to one of the judges.”
“Educated then? And intelligent, I hope? Your last two or three—”
“She’s a nice bright person, Mom. She’s just been divorced, and there’s nothing serious going on with us. It’s the first time I’ll be taking her out, all we’ll be doing is having dinner and going to a movie.”
I broke off, exasperated with myself. Why was I apologizing for myself and justifying myself to Mom, the way I used to do when I was a dating teenager?
“And naturally,” Mom said, “it would be too much to expect if she happened to be Jewish?”
“I haven’t got any idea if she’s Jewish. That’s not the big thing on my mind when I meet a woman. ‘Hello. How are you? Are you Jewish?’”
All right, I knew this answer was slightly dishonest. The woman’s name was Virginia Christenson, and I was damned sure she wasn’t Jewish.
“I don’t know why it matters to you so much anyway. Shirley was Jewish, and you never liked her very much.”
“This isn’t true,” Mom said. “I was fond of Shirley. She was a lovely girl. It was only her crazy ideas and the snotty things she said that I didn’t like. So, if you can’t stay for dinner, why don’t you tell me quick about your assault-with-a-deadly-weapon?”
I was as glad as she was of the chance to change the subject. Already, since her settling in out here, she had been useful to me in one or two cases; the thin mountain air, I was happy to see, didn’t slow up her mind any.
So I now filled her in with everything I knew about Roger Meyer and the Reverend Chuck Candy’s Christmas decorations and the conversation in Ann’s office with Roger and his parents.
As I talked, Mom’s face grew more and more serious, and her chin sank into her hand. When I was finished, she gave a little sigh and said, “It don’t look too wonderful for this boy, your client, does it?”
I repeated what Ann had said about our chances, and Mom nodded. “And already it’s happening, what she predicted. Did you see the paper this morning?”
“No, I didn’t. I was in a hurry when I left the house.”
“Because you overslept yourself, and you didn’t even get a decent breakfast, am I wrong or am I right? The paper’s out in the kitchen, I’ll get it for you. Read what it says on the editorial page.”
We have only one newspaper in Mesa Grande, The Republican-American, and its editorial position is somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun. A year or so ago it came out in favor of mandatory life sentences for third-time convictions for welfare fraud. It also came out, believe it or not, against aid to the contras in Nicaragua; its position was that the United States should stop pussyfooting with incompetent foreign troops and send in the Marines “to kick those atheistic Marxists out of our hemisphere once and for all.”
Roger Meyer’s arrest got big headlines on the middle of the front page.
Minister Shot in Anti-Christmas Assault;
Harvard Student Held for Attempted Murder
A box underneath a picture of the Reverend Chuck Candy—fat face, big nose, ten-gallon cowboy hat, wide smile, apparently waving to a crowd—urged readers to “See editorial on Page 12.”
The editorial on page 12 was also framed in a box, so that nobody could possibly ignore it. And another unprecedented thing: it was signed by the publisher of the paper himself, Arthur T. Hatfield.
I won’t depress myself by quoting that editorial word for word. Hatfield dwelt at length, and with plenty of repetition, on the sinister attack on religion, morality, and “Christian values” which was undermining the fabric of society in our times, jeopardizing the strength of America, corrupting our children, and striving to establish the Kingdom of Satan in the fair city of Mesa Grande, just as it was already established in other cities across the land, notably New York and Los Angeles.
He referred to the Reverend Candy as “a God-fearing and law-abiding pillar of the local religious community” who, simply because he wanted to decorate his house during this holiday season and thus bring the message of Christ’s birth to his fellow townspeople and especially to the children of Mesa Grande, had been intimidated, threatened, and ultimately shot at with a deadly weapon by those whose interest it was to prevent that message from being delivered.
Then Hatfield referred to Roger Meyer as “this young radical from Harvard College coming here from the East to disturb the piety and faith of our city.” And in another paragraph Roger was linked with “practitioners of the religion—or should we say, anti-religion?—of secular humanism who, feeling no commitment to Christianity themselves, seek to undermine or destroy all traces of Christianity wherever they may be found.”
The word “Christ-killer” wasn’t actually used in this editorial, but even an idiot would have had no trouble finding it between the lines.
After awhile, Mom said, “You’ll be talking to this Candy tomorrow, this minister?”
“First thing in the morning.”
“I’m sure you’re planning to ask him all the obvious questions. And I’m sure he’s got his answers all ready for you. So here’s a question to ask him that maybe he isn’t expecting. How late do he and his wife usually stay up at night? What time is their usual bedtime?”
“But why should I care?”
“Am I asking you to care? I’m only asking you to ask. And when you find out, give me a call—I’ll be here all day tomorrow, I’m giving the house its big weekly cleaning—and maybe I’ll have some other suggestions for you.”
Her question made no sense to me, but I promised her I’d ask it anyway. Knowing, of course, that she wouldn’t tell me the reason for it until she was good and ready. Mom dearly loves a mystery.
* * *
I went home, shaved and showered, and put on a suit and tie in preparation for my date.
Actually you don’t have to do that out here in the foothills of the Rockies. Most people dress up only on the most formal occasions, weddings and funerals usually. But let’s face it, I’m a New Yorker, at least in my guts, and it will never seem natural to me to go out on a date without a suit and tie. If God meant us to wear open shirts and jeans, why did he create Brooks Brothers?
All right, the less said about this date, the better. Virginia Christenson had seemed like a nice, good-natured woman every time I passed the time of day with her outside her judge’s chambers, so my reaction was perfectly normal last week when she let me know that her divorce decree had just become final.
“It’s really a relief,” she said. “Would you believe it, I haven’t dared go out with any men for almost a year. But now, thank heaven, I can start having a social life again.”
When a hint like that practically walks up to you and smacks you in the face, you don’t ignore it, do you?
But the fact is, you have to spend a whole evening alone with somebody if you want to be sure of finding out what she’s really like.
Consider, for instance, the commercials they show before the main feature in our local movie houses. This particular set was full of Christmas cheer: Volvos bouncing along mountain roads, accompanied by “Jingle Bells”; boys slipping cut-rate diamond rings onto girls’ fingers, while “Joy to the World” was being caroled in the background; Santa Claus, in the form of a beautifully stacked young woman with a white beard, a floppy red hat, and a miniskirt lined with white pom-poms, jumping out of a giant can of Seven-Up.
I started to whisper to Virginia some sarcastic comment about this obscene display, but I never got it out. She was too busy laughing and crying out,
“Now that’s just too cute for words!”
After the movie, I told her I’d better take her home, because I had a terrible migraine headache. Another two or three hours of her sighing and gasping at every Christmas wreath and every snatch of “Silent Night”—“Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you just love Christmas?”—and I’d be ready to make Ebenezer Scrooge look like the Pope.
I wasn’t a bit tired once I had dropped her off at her house. I decided I might as well keep the evening from being a total loss.
I drove east, into the Fairhaven section, and I had no trouble finding the street where the Meyers and the Candys lived. Blocks away the traffic was already getting thick, and pretty soon it was moving bumper to bumper, with a lot of horns doing a lot of honking. It took me more than fifteen minutes to approach the shrine. About half a block away—as I drove by a small house with a few lights in its windows; the Meyer house, I supposed—I could hear the strains of “Little Town of Bethlehem” blasting out in full brass.
Then I was moving past the Candy house. My original idea had been to stop the car, get out, and take a close look, even though there was a definite chill in the air. But it was clear that I’d have to give up this plan. All I could do was inch past the place; if I stopped, I’d arouse the wrath of the long line of cars behind me. Plenty of time, though, to stare at what there was to see.
Even the Meyers’ description hadn’t fully prepared me for this neon monstrosity. Explosions of tinsel and flickering lights, an obscene crowd of head-shaking, arm-waving dummies letting out shrieks and giggles on the grass. And over it all, “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” thundering out like a marching song at a pep rally.
Soon my car came to a large empty lot at the end of the street. Cars were using this space to turn, screeching and grinding in the effort to maneuver without banging into other cars. My own ancient Ford is small enough so that I managed to turn without problems, then I started down the street again, moving in the other direction.
This brought me closer to the street across from the Candys’ house. Nothing but trees on this side of the street. Then my lights picked out a figure I hadn’t noticed on the way in. He was standing on the curb, staring at the Candys’ house. His clothes, as usual, were not much more than rags, and his face was blotchy and unshaven; his wrists and ankles, thin as matchsticks, seemed to flare up in the glare of my headlights. Maybe it was that glare that made his eyes look as if they were on fire too; a kind of crazy excitement glittered out of them as he stared at that house which was a caricature of a Christmas tree.
Was his mind, or what passed for it, taking him way back to some Christmas tree of his childhood? Dimly, in disjointed flashes, was he remembering, or almost but not quite remembering, what he had been before he became the mad prophet of downtown Mesa Grande, preaching the gospel of the Sacred Egg to sniggering unbelievers?
My headlights swept past that ragged figure, and he clicked into darkness again, like some actor on the stage when the spotlight moves away from him. I went on driving, and at last I was in the clear.
Thursday, December 22
As soon as I got to my office next morning, I called the Reverend Chuck Candy’s house to set up an appointment. No answer, so I tried the number of the Church of the Effulgent Apostles of Christ. A business-like female voice told me the reverend would talk to me, and a moment later a thick Western drawl came oozing into my ear.
“Reverend Chuck here, how you doing, having a nice day?”
I didn’t answer the question. People are always asking you that question in this part of the world, but nobody really expects you to answer it. So I started to tell him who I was and why I wanted to see him, but the voice spoke up again, interrupting me, and I realized I was listening to a recording.
“I’m not available for conversation just right now,” it said, “but that don’t mean I’m not hankering to hear what you got to say. Come on down here to the church, and take a look around at our beautiful new sanctuary and the altar made out of genuine Colorado marble and the game room for young people in the basement, with three ping-pong tables, and the chances are I’ll be giving you my personal greetings before you can shake a stick. But if you got more questions you need to ask right now, you just hold on a bit and my secretary’ll come on the line and take care of you.”
The voice cut off, and so did I. I decided to bypass the secretary and go right out there to take advantage of the Reverend Chuck’s hospitable offer.
* * *
On the way I made a short detour. I wanted to have a quick talk with my friend Francesca Fleming, and took a chance I’d find her at the restaurant she owned, Fleming’s Flake. It wouldn’t be open for business this early, but Francesca spent a lot of time there, keeping her eye on the help and the cash flow.
Fleming’s Flake, located near the campus of Mesa Grande College, was a popular hangout for the students. It specialized in with-it food—bean sprouts sprinkled all over everything—but it also served steaks and had a pretty fair wine cellar.
Francesca herself was a little like that. She had flaming red hair, wore Indian shawls and beads and headbands, had three ex-husbands though she couldn’t have been more than forty, and plunged headlong into every advanced cause that might be going, from feminism to anti-nuke protests to clean air to picketing the college because it wouldn’t get rid of its holdings in companies that did business with South Africa. But she also had her hair done regularly at the beauty salon of the Richelieu Hotel, our fancy resort on the outskirts of town.
The restaurant was in a small white house on a side street. It had frosted-glass doors and pseudo-stained glass windows, all with the same insignia worked into the design: FF, the two F’s intertwined so they vaguely looked like lovers in an embrace. This was the restaurant’s mildly raunchy monogram, and Francesca was obviously fond of it, because she had it stamped on everything—the menus, the napkins, the tablecloths, even the little white doggie bags that the waiters gave you when you wanted to take some food home with you.
The place wasn’t open yet, and I had to ring the front bell for awhile. Then I heard Francesca’s voice from inside, yelling, “Coming, coming! Don’t get your ass in an uproar!” Francesca always yelled or barked, she never spoke in a normal moderate tone of voice.
She pulled open the door and greeted me with a hug and a loud laugh. Her outfit, even at this early hour, was outlandish; a lot of strings and lace streaming from her like tinsel on a Christmas tree. “How’s the servant of the people?” she shouted. “I heard you served somebody pretty interesting the other day. A mass murderer, wasn’t it? Typical American man in the street!”
“He’s a member of an oppressed minority,” I said. “Surely you don’t believe that oppressed minorities should be deprived of their constitutional right to kill each other?”
She roared with laughter; she loved it when people insulted her. Then she led me across the restaurant—tables piled on top of tables, a few waitresses bustling around, a busboy using a broom to smooth out the sawdust on the floor—to her office in back. It was small and plain, equipped for business not for show.
She waved me to a chair and offered me a drink. I told her it was a little early for me. I noticed she didn’t take any herself either. She leaned back in the swivel chair at her desk and clasped her hands behind her head. “I’m at your disposal,” she said.
“I need some information from you,” I said.
“In my capacity as this town’s chief source of juicy gossip?”
“In your capacity as resident expert on this town’s religious life.” Francesca got this expertise from her work with the local chapter of the ACLU. (The American Civil Liberties Union, if there’s anyone whose heart doesn’t beat faster at the sight of those initials.) “What do you know about a local minister named Chuck Candy? He’s connected with something that calls itself the Church of the Effulgent Apostles of Christ. I never heard of it before.”
“Your office is going to be defending thi
s kid that took a shot at Candy?” she said. “Good for you. Actually, it’s no wonder you never heard of this outfit. Do you know how many churches there are in Mesa Grande? Eight hundred ninety-six—that’s about one for every three hundred people—and those are just the ones that are listed in the Yellow Pages. Count them, if you won’t take my word for it. And how many distinct and individual sects, including a whole lot that hardly anybody has ever heard of anywhere else? Fifty-three, believe it or not. And most of them don’t have any affiliation with the big well-known sects. They’re not Baptists, they’re not Methodists, they just growed.”
“Where do Candy and his church fit in?”
“That’s another reason why you never heard of him before. The Effulgent Apostles of Christ are comparatively new in town. Just opened up four years ago. For the first year, while his church was being built, he operated out of one of those downtown movie theatres that went out of business and the owners couldn’t find any buyers. He’s another one of the unaffiliated, of course, and there’s no way I can tell you the exact size of his membership. Size is the big secret for all these fly-by-night outfits. Let’s put Candy’s congregation at two hundred families, the upper limit—definitely not the most successful around, some of the older ones manage to pull in thousands. Still, the Effulgent Apostles are keeping up the payments on the building loan.”
“Where’d he come from originally?”
“Somewhere south of here—Arizona, New Mexico maybe—some small desert town. He went to one of those Bible colleges, there’s one to every square foot in certain sections of the country. He didn’t learn much grammar or logic there, but he picked up the jargon. He used it to found a church that had the same name as this one here. Did a fair business in prayer meetings and so on, but I suppose the pickings weren’t good enough for him in those low-population areas. So now we’re the lucky town that’s got him.”