“How do you like your job?” I ask as we drive off, to pass the crime cordially.
Didsbury shifts gear. “It’s okay, I guess. It’s pretty much like anywhere else. We all pretend to get on, but really we hate each other.”
I expect to be challenged, but we aren’t. That’s it. One of Didsbury’s colleagues could have come back to pick up a book he’d forgotten, but it didn’t happen. We might have been stopped by the police who might have insisted on searching the van, but it didn’t happen. You either get away with it or you don’t, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you.
We carry the wardrobe in as Didsbury whistles and I gasp and moan. He’s perfectly calm, although he’s the one who stands to lose something substantial. We lay Don out and I make a note to do something nice for him, send flowers or donate to his favourite charity.
“Remember,” says Didsbury. “Don doesn’t leave my sight.”
Didsbury’s a farmer’s boy – I don’t know why farmers are cast as simpletons or fools, because they’re not. To make it as a farmer you’ve got to be switched on: you’re dealing with nature, a very unforgiving employer.
Some adjustments have to be made. Don has bushy chest hair, so that has to go. He also gets a severe haircut. After I’ve hennaed a tattoo of a fish on his chest, and fitted Don with a 230
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pair of Miami Dolphins shorts, I leave in different clothes, with a baseball cap, dark glasses. Who was that you saw?
“You got six hours,” Didsbury reminds me, checking that the air conditioning is on full. Now Sixto, as a concerned friend, phones for an ambulance and the doctor. I’ve spent a fair amount of time cultivating Dr Greer, who has a reputation as the only doctor who makes house calls in Miami. Will he come? Or will it be some uninterested locum?
I go round the block to a bar and sit down. The portering and the nerves have made me desperate for a drink. The bar is empty and the barman is fussing with something round the back. I let out a couple of “hallos”.
“Have a bourbon,” urges a voice behind me.
“A water’s fine, thanks.”
“I didn’t say I was buying. I said have a bourbon. I can’t stand drinking alone, and Stan here’s barely human.”
The speaker is a wizened boozehound, and Stan is an even more wizened boozehound, who lets off a snotty snort of a laugh, revealing a mouth with two teeth. Stan slaps his thigh, in that well-known gesture, to confirm to any casual onlookers that he is suffering from hilarity.
Their pastiness suggests they belong in some chilly northern city, they look like third-generation lushes whom fresh air would kill: utterly out of place, like trouts in an armchair.
“A mineral water, please,” I say to the barman who has come within hailing distance. He is confused by this and stands in a contemplative pose.
“Stan. Stan! Stan! What we have here is a coward. What we have here is someone who wants to live… for ever.”
“No, I’m someone who wants to have a glass of water.”
Stan, if it weren’t for the dehydrating effects of alcohol, 231
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would be wetting himself by now. Another lengthy foghorn laugh rips out.
“No, I know your type,” continues the alpha boozehound.
“You want to live for ever, you want to temple your body. You’re a weaselly little wanter of immortality. You drink water and you nibble celery like the rabbit you are.”
The barman is taking an incredibly long time to manage the task of opening what I am sure will turn out to be an expensive bottle of mineral water, and finding a glass to pour the water into. I have a powerful urge to leave, but I badly need a drink.
“You don’t have the cojones for bourbon. You’re not man enough to raise a glass to the grim reaper. Stan and me, we just don’t care. We’re booze braves. Our balls are bigger than watermelons.” The force of his mirth tosses Stan around: he needs a seat belt to prevent himself from injury.
The barman has now wandered off, very slowly, presumably to look for a glass. All I want is a glass of water, for which I am prepared to pay, promptly. I’m here, the water is here: why can’t we be united? To be a good barman requires more ability than the wages suggest.
“I bet you’re thinking here’s some miserable old drunk, who has fucked up doozily and is crawling into a bottle. Here’s a bozo, unhappy in love, no money. He’s drinking because he has no future, no friends, no one who’ll listen to him but a worthless leech like Stan.”
“Well,” I say, not in the mood for charity.
“But you’re wrong. I’m happy. I bet I’m happier than you. I’m not drinking because I’m unhappy; I’m not drinking because I want to forget. I am drinking because I love it. I love boozing, and if I drop dead today I don’t care. I’ll go out grinning because I’m happy, and you, you mineral-lapping rabbit, you, 232
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you’re miserable. I can tell it. You’ve got boo-hoo-hoo plastered all over you.”
The barman, having absconded in his quest for a bit of lemon, finally achieves the union of water and glass. I seek the point furthest from the blotto brothers and turn my back, to signal that conversation is not desired.
“You think I’m some delusion-prone delusion-lover… off on a delusion masterclass, sitting here, saying I’m happy when I’m not, unliving my life, but I am happy, pal. Let me tell you why: I own the bar.”
Stan falls off his seat and can’t make it back.
“That’s right: this is mine, all mine. It’s a fascinating story.
You’ll want to hear a fascinating story, right? I had this cousin, Barry. Barry was never very happy. He didn’t drink and he hated me, mostly because I was happy. I didn’t really care because I was happy, but I did notice how he made comments about my drinking and doing nothing and letting my women pay for everything, because he did it very loudly and very often.”
Here Stan high-fives him from the floor.
“Barry didn’t drink, and he worked hard. He worked hard though it didn’t do much to make him happy. He started poor like me, but had all sorts of crappy jobs, busboy and junior dishwasher to get through school; he got two degrees, one in electrical engineering and one in computing, I think it was computing, although I can’t remember exactly, because I didn’t really care. Then he started up a business, some computing shit, doing I don’t know what because I don’t give a shit. He explained it to me once but I wasn’t listening and he made a pile. Not rich enough to get his face in the magazines, or not in magazines worth reading, but you know, nice. Now Cousin Barry never had a wife or any children, whether that’s because 233
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he was too busy, or wasn’t into it or was simply too stingy to have any offspring, who knows? I don’t give a shit. But he didn’t have any other family but me.
“Now the idea that I might end up with his money terrified him, cos although he was sure the drinking would take me first, he was worried one day, you know, his plane might nosedive, he might munch on a sickly shellfish and through a terrible twist of fate the old booze filter here would be left with the cash. ‘The otters,’ he’d say to me, very loudly and very often, ‘the otters will get everything.’ He wanted to set up some ottery or whatever you call a home for, you know, otters with sad stories. He’d tell me that very often, although he hated me. He kept in touch, mostly so he could tell me about the distressed otters. He was waiting for me to get angry about the otters. Did the old booze filter here give a shit? No, I was happy. Suddenly, Cousin Barry gets a rare parasite, probably from his otters, is a sensation in the medical journals and drops dead. I was sad, family’s family, and actually I enjoyed the calls about the otters, those graduates of the school of hard knocks with paw ailments. But, but it turns out that there’s a tiny problem with Barry’s will. The problem is that Barry did it himself. As I said he started poor and he hated spending money. Barry would have picked a nickel out of a dungheap with his teeth. I’d gue
ss even at the end he was boosting toilet paper from hotels. So he saved himself a few hundred bucks. The end result: the otters get dick. The otters go boo-hoo and I get a bar where I’m my own best customer.
But I don’t want you to conclude I have such a sunny disposition because of the money. Ask me what I’d be doing if I didn’t have the money, if Barry had made some otters very happy?”
“What would you be doing?”
“I’d be drinking. Just more slowly.”
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Stan foghorns again although I’m sure he’s heard this one before. I make for the door.
“Hey, you’re not going to live for ever. Have a bourbon and show cirrhosis who’s the boss.”
I wonder how to kill the time while I’m dead. I considered making an appearance at the church or somewhere where I’m known, as bilocation is always an impressive trick, but I feel somehow it could be used against me. He couldn’t have been dead because he’s on camera at Publix.
I sit on a bench and take in the sunshine. It truly is one of the great pleasures in life; it’s very hard to be worried or unhappy.
My phone rings. It’s Didsbury.
“Man, you’re deader than a doornail. You’ve joined the great unbreathing, the motionless majority. You’re ready for the soil nap.”
It’s a very strange business getting what you want. First of all it’s a very unfamiliar sensation. You have doubts that you’ve got it. Then you’re not so pleased to have it; it doesn’t look quite as great as it did.
Don is relieved of his duties as a part-time me and returned to bereavement central (with the accompanying desperate grunts from me). Then I wait a few hours and have the resurrection. I felt very bad about calling Dr Greer.
“Look, sorry to bother you, but I don’t think I’m dead.”
“This I have to see.” I sit there in my Miami Dolphins shorts (not the ones Don was wearing), with my tattoo on display.
“You look… very much different than earlier.” Is there a trace of suspicion in his eyes? Nothing he can do about it if there is.
“How do you feel?”
“A bit tired, but otherwise okay.” I’m uneasy about wasting the time of someone so decent and professional.
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“You remember anything?”
“No. Went to bed last night and just woke up.”
“That’s what I call sleep. Remember you need to lose weight.
Man, I’ve never got it so wrong, but everyone gets a resurrector once. Sure someone didn’t slip you some zombie juice?”
G
It’s no use doing something remarkable if word doesn’t spread.
Well, some remarkable things are rewarding in themselves. Sleeping with the hundred most beautiful women in the world in a month for example, though most of us would still like the news trumpeted. But what if you can hold your breath for nine minutes?
Or really speak a dozen languages fluently? You’d want others to know, you’d want some whoops for your talent and dedication.
Virginia has a scowl of mild disgust. I remind myself the scowl is all-purpose, so I don’t take it personally. She’d rather not be here, interviewing a loser spat out by death, and who can blame her?
“So, all sorts of exciting stuff happening around your church.
You died?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“And how long for?”
“No one’s sure, but a day or so, earth time.”
“So Mr Corbett, tell us all about it?”
I’ve considered this carefully of course.
“It’s hard to describe,’ I start. “It’s very hard to describe. You’re trying to put something unearthly into earthly terms, it’s like…”
I hesitate as if I’m thinking, but I’m merely holding back the line, “trying to turn mayonnaise into music. What I experienced was too… wide to be fitted into words.”
“Did you see light?”
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“No. You see, light is a physical term, something we know physically. It was like light, but not light.”
“Hmm. Is there anything you can tell me about that time?”
“Well,” and here I’m willing to dispense free hope. Hope is the one drug that does nothing but good. “As I say, I can’t describe it in physical terms, but it was… comforting.”
“What brought you back?”
“Me. I decided that my work here wasn’t finished.”
“Uh-huh. What is your work exactly?”
“I have some teaching to do, and many people to help.”
“Hmm. What is your teaching?”
“Don’t expect any reward.” For some reason this now sounds stupid, and my honed wisdom falls to the ground like a dead, repellent insect. Virginia keeps writing for a long time without any more questions. A photographer takes my picture with a loud yawn. He only takes one picture and leaves.
“When do you expect your article to run?” I ask.
“Soon. But it isn’t my decision.”
G
The Hierophant isn’t in a coma, but he doesn’t move and he doesn’t say anything. The doctors are getting bored with him. They like to make a judgement and issue a prescription, and there isn’t a medication to combat capitulation, when you have decided that the game just isn’t worth it any more. Also, doctors aren’t much interested in the elderly: it doesn’t seem worth the effort. When you’re in your twenties and you go to the doctor with anything less obvious than a broken leg, they tell you you have a virus: go to bed, take a pill. When you hit forty they blame everything on your age (what do you expect? You’re on the way out).
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The Hierophant hasn’t eaten anything and he hasn’t washed.
He doesn’t smell good. He has to my knowledge been wearing the same blue shirt for three days, and I can assume the same goes for the other articles of clothing.
“Can I get you something to eat?” I ask. The eyes register my request, but there is no response.
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask. Obviously he’s not, but I hope this might provoke an utterance.
“Would you like a drink?” No response. I left a glass of water yesterday and it’s been emptied, but he must be in danger of dehydrating, which won’t help putting him in a more dynamic frame of mind.
When my marriage collapsed I went to a party with a neighbour I barely knew. After a trip to the loo, I found my companion had vanished and I was in a room full of people I didn’t know.
They were jabbering away and it was as if everyone there was a couple holding an intense conversation in a language I didn’t understand. I had no way of breaking in. I’d been in situations before where I was awkward, or didn’t have much to say, but this was different: I didn’t belong. No one was unfriendly, but just as blue isn’t orange, there was a gulf between us. As if I was wrapped in inch-thick cellophane. I wonder if this, the chocolate aside, is something everyone feels sometime. You’re in the wrong room, on the wrong planet.
But I understand the Hierophant. I’ve been close to this as well. Not speaking because you don’t see any value in communication.
“Okay,” I say. The Hierophant is barefoot. I place a couple of matches between his toes, and I light them. The Hierophant watches them burn for a few moments. He fidgets slightly. I snuff out the matches.
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Five minutes later. “Hell, Tyndale, that really hurt,” he says.
But then nothing more.
I resolve to shake the Hierophant out of this. He wanted the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ to be on the list of the most happening churches. It will be. With a resurrection to boot.
What the hell has happened to my miracle?
G
I chase Virginia with no result.
However, one of the few benefits of having a small congregation is tha
t it’s easier to make it larger and more happening.
Just getting Gamay and Muscat in the hall is about a ten-per-cent increase, and their bulk really eats up the space. They have brought four “friends” with them who look like scared skateboarders forced off the street, because they are; but bodies count, not audience enjoyment, and a morning in church won’t do anyone any lasting harm.
“Tyndale, man, you mustn’t think we’re afraid of getting our hands dirty. Couldn’t we off some vatos for you?” whines Gamay.
“That’s not the job. You have to do the job given. The job given is to get ten more worshippers next Sunday.” I explain again the importance of discipline, and how failure to deliver will mean failure to join.
“How about torching some competitors?” continues Gamay.
It’s more and more evident that Gamay isn’t just primed to commit violence, he’s itching to do it.
“Get more people for next Sunday.”
“You know, Tyndale, we’ve spent a lot of time at your bidding and we have nothing to show for it. If I’d worked at Publix packing bags, I’d have been better off; even a dollar an 239
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hour would be better than this, because we’re getting zippo an hour.”
Gamay stares at me and the hatred is unmistakable. It’s like that when you have a pet alligator or python, one day it’s too big to be flushed down the toilet. One day you see it’s big enough to harm you, one day you’re aware it doesn’t like you very much.
“Do you have a problem? Because I’d like to make it clear if you do have a problem that’s too bad.” I really should be afraid of Gamay because he could pulp me, but if he hit me it would be the perfect excuse for disqualifying him from membership.
There’s going to be ugliness, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t use that old technique of putting off finding a solution. Only now that Sixto’s employers have gone kaput, does it occur to me I could have got rid of the DJs by putting them on a plane and sending them to a real multinational criminal organization.
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