Henry of Atlantic City

by Frederick Reuss

  He woke up a little while later, just as they were pulling up in front of the O’Briens’ house. Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien and Father Crowley were all waiting on the doorstep. Mrs. O’Brien waddled down the walk and grabbed Henry and hugged him and said, “Lord, oh Lord,” about fifty times, and, “Thank God you’re safe.”

  Mr. O’Brien just said, “You shouldn’t have done it, boy. You had us all pretty scared.” He shook his tired head back and forth. They talked to the imperial guards for a few minutes. After that everybody went into the house and Mrs. O’Brien called Henry’s father.

  Henry didn’t want to talk because everybody was watching him. “I’ll come to see you as soon as I can, kid. Promise me you’ll try to be good.”

  Henry asked if he was going to be punished.

  “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to punish you. Just try and be good. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  Mrs. O’Brien and the imperial guard who had asked him his name and then the priest got on the phone and talked to Henry’s father. Mr. O’Brien took Henry into the kitchen and made him a liverwurst sandwich.

  The next Saturday Father Crowley came to get Henry again and this time he talked to Mrs. O’Brien for a while. They all went upstairs and the priest looked at every book Henry had in his room. “These books don’t belong to you, Henry,” he said. “They belong to the Philadelphia Public Library. They have to be returned.” He said he was going to Philadelphia next week and he would return them but Henry would have to pay the fine.

  Then they went to the rectory. There was no stopping for ice cream. They went straight into the same room as last time. The priest put Henry’s books down on a table and sorted them into two piles. “Okay, Henry, what do you want to talk about?”

  Henry said nothing.

  “How about we talk some more about gnosticism?” The priest sat down on a chair in front of the fireplace and pinched the bridge of his nose. “First, let’s get something straight. I don’t want to hear any smart-aleck talk.”

  Henry said I’m not a smart aleck, Father, I am a saint.

  NEW YORK CITY

  It was Christmas vacation and Henry’s father came to pick him up. He wasn’t driving the Maserati Quattroporte but a Jaguar XJS. He brought presents for the O’Briens’ and Mrs. O’Brien opened both of them even though one was for Mr. O’Brien. She put the book about hot-air balloons on the coffee table and the set of crystal ice cream dishes in the cabinet.

  “How’s everything going?” Henry’s father asked.

  Mrs. O’Brien said things were shaping up. “Slowly but surely. Father Crowley is very interested in Henry. They spend almost every Saturday together. Don’t you, Henry?”

  Henry didn’t say anything.

  “There are still problems at school, though.” She looked at Henry with a fake look. “Isn’t that right, Henry?”

  Henry didn’t say anything. He wanted to get going.

  When they were in the car Henry’s father sang, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder, flying high into the sun.”

  Henry asked what had happened to the Maserati.

  “I traded it.”

  Henry asked why.

  “It was time for a change.”

  Henry asked if Jaguars were better than Maseratis.

  “Not better, just different.”

  Henry asked if Jaguars had a great history like Maseratis did.

  “Not history, kid. Heritage. Jaguars have heritage.” He patted Henry on the knee. Then he put on a cassette of Christmas songs. His father sang along with the music. He knew all the words. It was sunny and cold outside and they drove for a while just listening to the music and not talking. It was good to be with his father again.

  Henry couldn’t wait to see the Palace. Procopius said that after the Nike riots Theodora and the Emperor Justinian worked to rebuild the old sanctuaries and fortifications. They also built many new ones. The old wall of Constantine was a ruin. The city had expanded beyond it. Theodora and Justinian not only wanted Constantinople to have magnificent buildings, they also wanted to protect the city from invasion. The Hagia Sophia was destroyed by fire and the emperor hired Isidorus of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles and ten thousand Isaurian workers to rebuild it. Hagia Sophia means holy wisdom and Henry wondered what wisdom there was in a big old church.

  Henry looked at his father driving and singing and thought what belongs to him is mine. As long as the son himself is small he is not entrusted with his own. When he becomes a man, his father gives him all things that belong to him. He thought of Father Crowley. They called him Father but whose father was he? He sang songs in church and read things from the Old Testament and the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and letters written by Paul, who used to be Saul until he saw God and fell off his horse. Sy once told Henry that Paul was one of his heroes because seeing God made him forget who he was and when you had that kind of amnesia the world was a thrilling place to be.

  Henry opened up the glove box. It was filled with cassettes. He took them all out. His father looked at him and patted him on the knee. “Put on whatever you want,” he said.

  Henry was thinking about all the things he would do when they got to the Palace. First he would see if Theodora still swam in the mornings. He would sneak up to the second-floor balcony overlooking the pool and wait until she arrived. He had a dream one night that he dove into the pool and swam behind her. She let him follow her through the water down into its deepest depths. But in his dream he somehow also never dove in because he was scared of drowning. It was like that in dreams. You could do one thing and also the exact opposite and both somehow seemed real.

  Henry remembered the first time he saw Theodora up close. She came to the Palace right after Henry and his father moved in. It was a long, long time ago and Henry didn’t really remember the old apartment near the Gate of Eugenius. He sort of remembered Ten Cents a Dance, a woman who lived with them when Henry was little. Henry’s father called her that because she was a dancer at the Taj Mahal. She came from Bulimia and was nice at first but then she got mean. After she moved out Henry and his father moved into the Palace. Right after that Theodora came. Henry knew about her before she arrived because he heard everybody talking. Henry’s father called her a pain-in-the-ass MBA type and said they were all going to have to learn to deal with her. He also said it was a good thing she was drop-dead gorgeous because she was going to need all the help she could get running the place.

  One day Henry was playing in the men’s bathroom near the aqueduct of Valens. The aqueduct brought water into the city over the hills. He had just turned on all the faucets and was about to run away and hide when a big gray-haired man came in. Henry slipped into the janitor’s closet. It wasn’t the emperor but a man Henry’s father called the Big Cheese. Sy said he was head of restructuring. He’d been at the Palace for two days. Henry followed him out of the bathroom and down to the slot machines. Kids weren’t allowed so he waited outside in the lobby and counted the chariots and the horses and the lepers and the beggars who were always hanging around waiting for their luck to change.

  After a long time the man came through the lobby with Theodora. When she saw Henry she beckoned him over. “We even have our very own Eloise,” she said to the gray-haired man and put her hand on Henry’s shoulder. The man looked at Henry and didn’t say anything. Henry was scared. He thought he was caught for turning on all the faucets. The man just looked at Henry and then nodded and they continued on. Henry followed them outside and watched the man get into a limo and drive away.

  Henry asked his father why Theodora had called him Eloise.

  “It was a joke,” his father said.

  Henry said he wasn’t Eloise.

  “We’re lucky she didn’t call you history, kid.”

  Henry asked what Eloise meant.

  “It means she’s gonna let you stay is what it means.”

  Henry asked why.

  “It’s some kid book about a kid who lives in a big hotel. T
he first thing she said to me was that you reminded her of it. Good thing too.”

  Henry asked why.

  They were having breakfast on the balcony and his father was wearing the boxer’s robe he always wore in the morning. It said TYSON on the back and was made of pure silk and he had gotten it at a famous fight way back in the olden days. Henry’s father said it was one of the all-time great fights and he’d won a big bundle on it. He tapped his fingers on the table and took a sip of orange juice and pulled the belt of his TYSON robe. Then he said, “Because it means she’s got a soft spot underneath that hard ass of hers.”

  Henry couldn’t wait to get back to the Palace. He would watch the games and spend a day at the Hippodrome—even if Sy wasn’t there to take him. He would make a circuit of the gates. He would start at the apartment near the Gate of Eugenius. He would bless all the hotels and casinos and public baths and churches, for now he was Henry of Atlantic City, and every city needed a patron saint.

  Henry asked his father when they would be at the Palace.

  “We’re not going to the Palace, kid.”

  Henry asked where they were going.

  “I’m taking you to the Big Apple.”

  Henry asked where the Big Apple was.

  “We’ll be there in about an hour, kid. We’re going to have a great time together. Just you and me.”

  Henry had heard about the Big Apple. It was a city. Sy had told Henry about it one day at the Hippodrome. They were in the stands looking down at the track and waiting for the race to start. “It’s like life in the big city, Henry,” Sy said. “The fastest horse wins.” Henry asked which big city and Sy said he was talking about the Big Apple. Henry asked Sy if he’d ever been there. “I used to live there,” Sy said. Then he started yelling and screaming because the horses had begun to race. That’s the way it was in the Hippodrome. The horses ran and ran and ran while the people watched and screamed. Henry’s father stopped going to the Hippodrome when he became captain of the Blues. Before that he went almost every day.

  Sy liked to bet. “It’s part of my religion,” he said. “It proves that God made the world but does not intervene in his creation afterward.”

  Henry asked what that meant.

  “Take a look around.” Sy gave Henry his binoculars.

  Henry looked down at the track but the race hadn’t started yet and there wasn’t anything to see.

  “No! Look here.” He pointed to all the people in the stands.

  Henry still didn’t get it, so after a few minutes he gave Sy the binoculars and asked if he could have a Coke.

  “The reason God doesn’t interfere in his creation is because it’s against his rules,” Sy said. “Everybody who bets on a horse prays to God that it will win, right?”

  Henry said he didn’t know.

  “Sure they do. But think about it. If God answered all those prayers, then all horses would have to win! And that’s impossible, right?”

  Henry said he didn’t know.

  “Believe me, Henry. It is. So the way I figure it is, if God doesn’t influence outcomes, it means he can’t answer any prayers, right? I mean, a deity has to be consistent, right?”

  Henry didn’t say anything.

  “That must mean that God is estranged from his own creation. Deus absconditus. That’s the theological term. And it’s a good thing too.”

  Henry asked why.

  “Because it’s how odds came into existence, dummy.”

  Henry asked Sy what odds were.

  “Use your noodle, kid. You want me to explain everything?”

  Henry said yes.

  “Okay, odds are chances, and chances are the degree to which people believe that God will not change his own rules in the middle of the race and interfere in the outcome. Got that? Sure, anything is possible, but some things are more likely to happen than others, right? God can’t answer prayers—and that’s what makes people free to bet!”

  Henry asked Sy why he prayed that time when they went to the Hagia Sophia.

  “I’m glad you asked that,” Sy said. “Most people who don’t know any better ask God to do things for them. But that’s not praying. That’s just wishful thinking. When you pray you don’t ask God to do things for you. You ask yourself to do things for God. Since he can’t answer prayers, I figure he needs all the help he can get.”

  Henry asked what kind of things Sy could do for God.

  “Things that are hard, things a Deus absconditus could never do for you.”

  Henry asked what things.

  “Controlling your passions, for one. That’s what free will is all about. Personally, I kind of like the idea that the world will have to be destroyed so that it can be saved. But I figure it’s Homo absconditus who is going to do all the dirty work.”

  Henry asked who Homo absconditus was.

  Sy poked his finger into Henry’s chest. “You and me, kid.” Then he laughed out loud in a funny way and looked down at the racing horses through the binoculars.

  Henry asked Sy what passions were.

  Sy watched the horses through the binoculars. “Passions? They’re the things you always want too much of.” Henry said like what.

  Sy shouted, “GO! GO! GO!” and pressed the binoculars into his eye sockets. Then he slapped his thigh and said, “Like winning, goddamnit. Winning! Winning! Winning!”

  Sy’s horse lost the race but they stayed for two more anyway and his horses lost those races too. He swore and tore up his tickets and tossed them in the air. “I am alpha, I am omega, the beginning of all things and their end,” he said.

  Henry asked what that meant.

  “It means that God is a cosmic fuckup! And one day this whole mess is going to have to be cleared away.”

  Back then Henry thought Sy was just mad because he’d lost so much money. Now he understood a little better. Sometimes it had seemed as if Sy was only talking to himself, and it didn’t matter if Henry or anyone else was listening. But then he would get a funny look and say, “Right? Know what I mean?” as if Henry were the only person in the world Sy would ever say such things to. One time he told Henry saints and angels didn’t have passions because they didn’t want anything. They were allowed to interfere in God’s creation because they weren’t trying to get anything out of it. Saints and angels could have great power over people and that was also how they could go astray. That’s why there were good angels and bad ones. Sy said Napoleon and Hitler and Mussolini and Big Fingers Johnny were bad angels, and when God made people free to bet he also made bad angels by accident. But just because he made them by accident, it didn’t mean he could change any of his rules. It was written that those that have gone astray whom the spirit begets go astray also through him.

  Henry asked his father how fast Jaguars could go.

  His father stepped on the gas until the car was going super, super fast. “We’re gonna have a good time, kid,” he said and put on some more music.

  They went to a big hotel across from a park. Henry’s father said it was the most famous hotel in the city and he let a man drive the Jaguar away. The hotel was sort of like the Palace except there weren’t any slot machines. They went up to their room and Henry’s father said in the Big Apple you lived large. He told Henry they had a busy schedule and to get cleaned up and rested while he made some phone calls. Henry asked if there was a library.

  “Are you kidding? The best library in the world is just down the street! But what do you want at the library, kid? We have a ton of things to do!”

  Henry said he wanted to get some books.

  “No problem! The best bookstore in the world is just down the street. You want books? We’ll go get books. It’s Christmas, kid. You can have anything you want.”

  When Henry was taking his nap an angel appeared to him. But instead of appearing to him in a tongue of flame or holding a sword, it entered his ear and stayed there. It told him that the children of the heavenly man were more numerous than those of the earthly man. It said t
hat the children of the heavenly man had once been on the earth. They had passed through the degradation of the life of the flesh.

  Henry asked the angel what the degradation of the life of the flesh was and the angel said it was everything necessary to keep the body alive. It was everything that passed from the mouth through the entrails and out of the body.

  Henry asked if the angel was talking about shit.

  The angel said no, it meant the body, which turned everything that passed through it into shit.

  When he woke up from his nap, Henry’s father told him they were going out to see Sy and Jersey City.

  Henry said he thought they ran away.

  “Where’d you get that idea from?”

  Henry said Helena and Sy’s sister.

  “We’re meeting them for dinner, kid. How could we be meeting them for dinner if they ran away?” He handed Henry a big red shopping bag. “I got you some new clothes. Go see if they fit.”

  Henry went to his room and put on the new clothes.

  He looked in the mirror. He didn’t want to wear them because saints weren’t supposed to wear new things, especially fancy new things. But they weren’t supposed to complain either. As Henry got dressed the angel in his ear said that in this world those who put on garments are more precious than the garments.

  “How do the shoes fit?” his father asked in the elevator. Henry said fine.

  “You look like a million bucks, kid,” his father said and jabbed him in the stomach.

  Sy and the Whore of Jersey City were waiting inside the restaurant. Henry didn’t recognize them at first because Sy had a beard and wasn’t wearing glasses and looked fat and Helena’s mother had black hair instead of blond hair frizzed out and was wearing round granny glasses like Sy used to wear. They made her look old.

  “Well, well, well. Look who’s here.” Sy smiled when he saw Henry.

  Henry asked where Helena was.

  Helena’s mother got a funny look on her face and didn’t say anything.