The Off Season

by The Off Season (epub)

  The Archbishop wore a nicely tailored business suit. He was stout but not chubby, his eyes reflective, his nostrils experienced. He was a man who knew about empires, dark brethren, tsetse flies, and novels by Rudyard Kipling. He put his feet on his desk and puffed on a pipe. Bookcases were lined with Bibles and bound copies of 1940s Esquire magazines. The Archbishop did not wave a censer, he did not say “Apage, Satanas,” and when he raised a pink and chubby hand it did not turn into a claw. The Archbishop’s voice was not hooded like an Inquisitor.

  “You’re out,” the Archbishop had said. “Take off the collar.”

  Joel-Andrew admired the ploy. “It’s my collar. Bought and paid for.”

  “It’s my church.”

  “The First Amendment to the Constitution,” Joel-Andrew said. “Freedom of religion, freedom of assembly. Thomas Jefferson.”

  “Beat it, bum,” the Archbishop said. “And get a haircut.”

  “Roger Williams,” Joel-Andrew said. “Anne Hutchinson. John Woolman.”

  “And take a bath,” the Archbishop told him kindly. “But after you get your kiester out of my office.”

  And that was all there was to it. Joel-Andrew issued forth stripped of ecclesiastical authority. He went back on the San Francisco streets.

  The dreams insisted. Joel-Andrew lay finally helpless before the dreams. His teeth clashed. His muscles knotted with tension. The one memory he really could not bear returned in a dream.

  He had seen the girl again. She reappeared on the night of his second day in San Francisco. Gay and twinkly lights illuminated the street. A rock group called The Apothecary Weekly slapped the night air with driving drumbeats. Bells tinkled along the Haight, and incense wove little currents through which Joel-Andrew walked. Because he had just arrived in San Francisco, his clerical clothing was intact. His shoes were shined. Policeman waved to him and smiled. Freaks offered him a toke. For the entire day Joel-Andrew watched everything and everyone. He tried to understand the will of the Lord.

  “Like, man,” a young voice drawled, “like man, there’s a chick back there doin’ a real, real downer.” A kid no more than fifteen pointed down an alley. The alley lay black as the innards of hell. The kid’s hair tangled, his eyes bright and speedy. “Bum trip,” he said. “But this is where it’s at,” he said, vague but enthusiastic. He bopped away.

  Joel-Andrew entered the alley. He found her dead, naked, and being eaten by rats. There was very little blood. He sat beside her all night. Weeping. Praying. Powerless. Trying to understand the will of the Lord. He kept the rats away. When dawn arrived he wrapped her in his coat and carried her into the deserted street. Rigor mortis locked the body. The coat fell awkwardly away from soft places where flesh was bitten and gone. A police car cruised toward him. The cop called a meat wagon.

  “You’re being too good to these people, Father. You got to get tough.” The cop drove off.

  That was the first soul he lost, the first one that lay beyond the power of the Lord—and that soul lay beyond the power of the Lord, because all the Lord had in that situation was Joel-Andrew. All the Lord could do was keep the rats away.

  Joel-Andrew’s body shook beneath the dream. His mind shook. Then he realized someone’s hand was shaking him. It was Kune, and Joel-Andrew was pulled from San Francisco to Point Vestal beneath Kune’s gentle hand.

  “I need the mattress,” Kune explained apologetically. He turned, speaking to someone behind him. “Put her here,” he told the Irish cop.

  Joel-Andrew sat up. He leaned against a dusty wall in the dusty basement. He wiggled his toes, found his legs still worked. He stood as the Irish cop lowered Collette to the mattress. Kune bent over her.

  Whistles and screams came from the distance. Machine-gun fire. Thumps of explosions sounded from the forest.

  “Will she be all right?”

  “It’s touch and go,” Kune said. “A matter of metabolism.” He took Collette’s pulse.

  “What is happening?” Joel-Andrew still felt slugged with sleep. He could not connect what he saw with what he heard. The dream still pulsed. His anger grew. The Parsonage trembled. Joel-Andrew was becoming furious.

  “How can I help?” The Irish cop banged a fist against an open hand.

  “Just stay in control,” Kune told him. “I’m pretty good at what I do.”

  “What is happening?” Joel-Andrew asked again.

  “We take a bit of a drubbing,” the Irish cop said, “although we give a thump or two in return.”

  “Those aren’t firecrackers,” Kune said.

  “Mistakes have been made,” the Irish cop told him. “We be presently brawling with the Navy.” The Irish cop headed for the doorway. “I’m bleeding well on my bloody way.” He sarcastically mimicked The Sailor. “The Irish will na’ allow the flaming Limeys a monopoly on this entertainment.”

  Chapter 30

  Silver clouds drifted across the night sky. Missiles arced, pooted, spit, fuzzled, screamed. Missiles rose from frigates and whooshed above the boat basin where gratified Chinamen took pleasure because the Navy joined their New Year’s celebration. Along Main Street tourists watched, yelled patriotic slogans, judged this an extravaganza second only to the Super Bowl. Tourists saw multicolored lights, signal flares, rockets flaming high from a site near the pharmaceutical company. As colors intensified—green, red, blue, purple, orange—normally inscrutable Chinese gave a massive cheer.

  The beginning of the affair may be laid to the morose cop who touched off the battle through awakening enthusiasm. His life and death had, to that point, been unsatisfactory. He was melancholic by nature, never lucky. He had chain-whipped his pal, The Sailor, more than five thousand times. He was wise about the worthlessness of power.

  Following Gerald’s instructions, the morose cop pulled the police van within a hundred yards of the pharmaceutical company. Gerald and The Sailor took up appointed positions. The morose cop switched on the many-colored lights, and the lights looked like Saturday night in Seattle, or like the last throes of a used-car dealership. Lights silhouetted the seven-story pharmaceutical company which looked like opening night at a porno flick.

  From the Strait where the missile frigates cruised, the pharmaceutical company shone as visible as the center circle on a target. Machine-gun fire rattled from the pharmaceutical company as Sicilian gunmen hosed the brush, the forest, the rocky ground. The Sicilian gunmen were good at what they did. They put down a cover of fire beneath which no man could move. Being Sicilian, however, and thus emotional, they were long on anxiety and short on tactics. It was no great job for the Irish cop, accompanied by Agatha, to sneak to the rear of the pharmaceutical company and rescue Collette.

  The morose cop, pinned by enfilading machine guns, but happy, fired distress flares. Flares shot high above the pharmaceutical company, then drifted on lacy parachutes. They were red and white and blue, spelling anxiousness to every horizon. Fluttering sounds of a helicopter came from a downtown roof. The TV network chopper hove skyward. Above the grand panorama of Strait and silver sky, the TV helicopter looked like a ladybug with a case of the hots.

  The morose cop fired signal rockets. Rockets arced above the pharmaceutical company, lighting stained glass windows like incandescent suns. The Sicilians, blinded, fired until gun barrels melted. Sounds of the helicopter closed; then the shadow of the helicopter hovered before the pharmaceutical company. Above the whoosh of rockets, the news anchor’s voice gave an in-depth analysis of sexual misconduct in Congress. The situation heated up. It would take only one little mistake, and surely the Navy would chip in and help.

  The morose cop made that mistake. He fumbled his gears, and the police van rose on its hind tires like a rearing stallion. It snorted—flashing lights of blue, green, purple. The police van scorched through the field of fire. The morose cop barely jumped from the speeding vehicle as it hesitated on the edge of the cliff; flashed, fooled around, spinning its wheels and making decisions, then tumbled flashing over the cliff. Mete
oric. When it struck rock, three hundred feet below, heat-seeking missiles exploded.

  The roar tickled onlooking Chinese, but the missiles nearly concussed a school of minnows. The missiles destroyed the secret passage and the elevator shaft leading from the pharmaceutical company. Boulders flew high in the air, and, as small rocks sprayed into the Strait, the sky filled with grapeshot. One or more pebbles struck the missile frigates.

  The all-seeing tower, intrigued, watched the minnows shake their tails, gather themselves, and groggily head seaward. Clams dug deeper into the beach. The all-seeing tower saw the morose cop roll away from the edge of the cliff. He took cover behind unthrifty shrubbery. The helicopter chip-chipped, cast a shadow. The news anchor’s voice chattered an in-depth discussion of perverse practices among South American male sand fleas.

  Missiles from the frigates rose above the dark Strait. In diminished but still-bright light, six Sicilians broke from the sanctuary of the pharmaceutical company. They fled to their limo. There followed a great squealing of tires. The Sailor and the Irish cop pelted them with cherry bombs, but by the time the first naval fire arrived, the Sicilians were a rapidly diminishing dot on the road leading out of town.

  The first cluster of missiles hit a drifting flare. The silver sky turned white. Downward concussion pressed the helicopter toward the ground, and newsy voices tensed until the helicopter gained altitude. The chopper sat high above the second cluster of missiles when they hit the dying site of the first cluster. The helicopter was blown skyward. It zoomed back and forth, back and forth as the cameraman rigged a telephoto lens. The third cluster of missiles fell in the nearby forest. They chipped bark from an ancient cedar, and frightened a family of mice. The all-seeing tower watched as the cedar mumbled in slicky-cedar language, and dug deeper with its roots.

  The fourth cluster of missiles landed in a pasture. They startled a cow. She gave no milk for three days.

  As the Navy found its range, the fifth cluster of missiles bracketed the pharmaceutical company. The missiles finally landed in an auto-wrecking yard, busting the windshield in an 1895 Daimler.

  The sixth cluster slammed into a distant mountaintop. It chipped ice from a glacier.

  The seventh cluster chased a snowy owl across fencerows, the owl only escaping because the missiles diverted to strike empty wine bottles in a drainage ditch.

  Above the pharmaceutical company, the helicopter chugged, then choked. The eighth cluster of missiles cruised beneath the copter, the missiles eventually exploding above the forest. The explosion so perturbed two Sasquatch that they hid in a cave and cuddled up to a snoozing bear.

  The all-seeing tower watched as three parachutes bloomed from the helicopter, and it watched as the helicopter tumbled and whirled from the sky. The all-seeing tower watched the helicopter smash into the roof of the pharmaceutical company where it exploded; and while—as all of this was happening—Gerald waited as the parachutes descended. Gerald rescued the news anchor, her cameraman, and pilot. He herded the three into the ’39 LaSalle and drove them to their hotel.

  The Navy fired until dawn, while the shattered top of the pharmaceutical company flamed. After three hours, the pharmaceutical inferno, feeling ignored, called it “half a day” and put itself out. The pharmaceutical company now stood only six stories tall, raggedly, one side blown away by the busted helicopter. Missiles sped overhead. Cannon fire stained the landscape black. No fatalities occurred, no injuries, but a couple of forest trees bent slaunchwise. A member of the Martha Washington Brigade, at the tender age of eighty-one, listened to the cannon fire and experienced her first bout with sexual arousal.

  The silver night proved sleepless for many in Point Vestal, although a few people sought rest. Hookers worked until midnight, then caught a few winks. Janie’s Tavern closed at 12:30; The Fisherman’s Café gazed with darkened windows into the street. Tourists began snoring by 1:00 AM. The bookstore’s unlighted windows displayed an illuminated text from Josephus. Mice slumbered in uptown basements, but cats did not.

  An infiltration of cats moved silent through the black and silver streets. Cats erupted noiseless from behind garbage cans, or shimmied down trees. Cats shadowed patrolling members of the CIA and the Grand Army of the Republic, cats flipping white tails, then disappearing around corners to the confusion of the FBI and the Forest Service. A strike force of cats seemed nearly suicidal as it dashed from an opium den. The strike force singled out two narcs, surrounded them. The cats rubbed against the narcs’ legs, purred, pretended favoritism. Immigration agents arrested the narcs on a charge of conspiracy, while the cats melted into the shadows. The cats’ gray fur and white tails were perfect camouflage in the black and silver night.

  The strike force established (and in fewer than three hours) one of the highest records of bravery in the annals of cat history. The trick worked, and the strike force played it over, and over, and over again. The victims did not catch on. Government cops arrested each other. The Grand Army of the Republic declared itself betrayed by its leadership. Government cops hissed, whispered, resisted silently as covers were blown. Well before dawn, while Navy missiles still fizzed above the busted pharmaceutical company, every Fed in town—except the WPA foreman who had designed and built the 307-step staircase—moldered in cells beneath City Hall. Cats dispersed to quiet corners where they took catnaps, or prepared for the big parade.

  At the boat basin, firecrackers ceased at midnight, but the Chinese were unsleeping. As Chinese New Year arrived, chaos once more departed from the Chinese world. For five days the lunar calendar had been playing catch-up ball: because, on the lunar calendar, each year contains five days when all bets are off. To the wily Oriental mind, chaos rules the universe during those five days.

  But now it was the Year of the Tiger. Customs, forms, obligations and proper behavior reigned. The Chinese, on foreign soil and surrounded by round-eyed devils, wanted only to see their bones resting in their native land. At the boat basin, through the rest of the night, small campfires illuminated the serpentine form of an enormous dragon. The dragon stood on wheels, like a float for a parade.

  The all-seeing tower watched through the silver and exploding night. When it saw that Joel-Andrew had still not worked up a case of wrath, it turned from him. It did not watch Joel-Andrew when he entered into silent communion with The Parsonage.

  Joel-Andrew carried no wrath because Joel-Andrew felt that wrath belonged to the Lord. What Joel-Andrew owned was fury.

  The memory of a girl dead in a garbage-strewn alley finally cleansed his mouth of equivocation. The suppressed memory, which had once rendered him wordless, flew forth. To Joel-Andrew, the figure of August Starling, the customs of Point Vestal, the smoggy shapes of Seattle, came together in the memory of that doomed girl. As Kune hovered above the drugged form of Collette—Kune practicing medicine—Joel-Andrew readied himself for work. He understood why the Lord had chosen him for the solitary life of a prophet. When the offenses of men became too great, most people cowered or fled; they changed their names or dug foxholes. When they figured they had too much to lose, they spoke of compromise. The Lord did not need a relativist.

  Because Joel-Andrew knew that in this world some things eternally ought to be, regardless of cost or consequences. And, in this world, some things eternally ought never to be. Regardless of cost or consequences. Never.

  Chapter 31

  Picture it happening. In light rain, black and silver dawn nudges over the San Juan Islands. Point Vestal dozes. Wood smoke rises from brick chimneys, crows fly cawing and contentious, ravens croak and flutter. Massive Victorian houses stand silver-roofed with mist and rain.

  On the hill beside the cliffs, the shattered pharmaceutical company stands like a broken remnant of an obscene cathedral. Brickwork is black with footprints of explosion. Windows stand blown and agape. On the loading dock an enormous ebony coffin, like an unblinking eye of darkness, awaits transportation.

  Movement begins, and for the most part is jolly. D
arkly stumbling men sip coffee from paper cups, hack lungers, talk softly to team after team of black horses. Horses nicker, whinny, snort, and go clop-clop. Hostlers prepare spans of animals, harnessing them with black leather, backing them into traces of ebony hearses. Hostlers kneel before the horses, giving each hoof a shine of jetty black shoe polish. The horses breathe steam, the steam interpenetrating with swirling steam from the coffee. Since horses and hearses are the big feature in the parade, they must be on location early. The parade route begins at the top of the hill. It ends at the reviewing stand before August Starling’s commercial building.

  As daylight increases, so does movement. On the Strait, missile frigates cruise with shot wads, while an occasional porpoise giggles. The Navy has no more missiles. Signal flags bloom in colorful confusion among halyards. Shouts of protest rise dimly from the basement of City Hall, where federal cops lie neutered. The CIA does not care that Point Vestal is without a police van. The FBI does not care that government is helpless. The IRS wants breakfast. Federal cops run tongues across unbrushed and fuzzy teeth, blush, have old memories of being spanked by their mothers. Entering the boat basin a tour ship toots, runs ahead-slow, carrying the new messiah.

  Elsewhere, happiness or determination greet the day, depending on whether one is a ghost or a cat. The cats of Point Vestal promenade the morning street. They hum inappropriate music, mostly Gershwin, King Oliver, Donizetti. Mice creep from uptown basements and peer timidly over the bluff as they watch cats walk a hundred feet below. The mice, who have not seen a newspaper in days, remain puzzled. The cats are bawdy. Some are attired in red ribbons, and wear captured federal ID, the silver badges blinking beneath a black and silver sky.

  Victorians attend to toilettes. Starchy collars are pressed, wool jackets dusted. Victorian ladies have spent the night fixing each other’s hair. Pink pleats, crimson tucks, pastel blue hems are pressed with flatirons. Undergarments gleam the whiteness of purity, while boots and slippers glow. It is a fine show, a gorgeous show, a heart-stopper. In addition, it is a tough act because the Victorians have nary an Irish servant. The Victorians glance at each other, give tight but dutiful smiles.