The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus' Little Sister

by V. M. Franck

Raven

  Avery stumbled into my studio, wobbled across the room and flopped onto the chair beside my desk.

  "I can't belieeeeve it," he said, his voice slurred, "but it haaaas to be true."

  Jerked out of the lifetime of the people of the rose, disoriented, I focused on my brother.

  "What?" I loved him, but I didn't want to see him, ever. "Are you drunk?"

  "No. No, well, maybe. But he drinks you know. He does. So that makes it all right. Do you knooow who he is?" His face was botchy red, his eyes glazed.

  "Who are you talking about?" I saved what I was working on and backed it up on the portable hard drive.

  "Jessie."

  "A friend I met at a writers' conference." I took a sip of coffee and moved away from my brother to one of the room's many windows. Rain, illuminated by the light on the deck, danced on redwood boards.

  "The one in Santa Barbara you went traipsing off to for no good reason?"

  "For no good reason?" I said, annoyed. Sometimes strangling him seemed like the only workable solution.

  "Nobody needs to know what Demmy did. It's no one's.... Say, this is a good picture of him and Peter. I thought you hung it at the center months ago."

  "Someone else wanted one just like it."

  "It's exceptional. Don't you see? Don't you know who he is?"

  "How much did you have to drink?"

  "Yes, of course, with him."

  "You're not making sense. Are you talking about Jessie?"

  "He said it would be all right. He always had a mighty fine wine. A mighty fine wine." He began humming.

  "Is that Dad's favorite song? I thought you hated it."

  I swigged the last of the coffee and considered what to do next. He was obviously intoxicated. I didn't want him around, but he was not in the condition to drive home.

  "Jeremiah was a bullfrog, sis. He had mighty fine wine. That's what Dad always said, some mighty fine wine. I get it. I finally get it. Bull frogs are good at pulling weeds, you know. That's what Jessie said. They're good at saving the world, too, from what I've heard." He hobbled over to the beanbag pillow in the corner, collapsed and zonked out.

  I picked up the phone and punched in the number. I had never liked Matilda, Avery's wife. Maybe calling her was not a good idea. She was such a prude.

  The phone rang. I connected with the answering machine.

  In a clear tone of a southern belle, a voice said, "This is the Christ's Church Parsonage, Matilda speaking. The kids and I are at my folks. We should be home late. If you need to speak with Avery, he's probably next door at the church. The number is..."

  I hung up.

  Smiling, Jessie and Felipe ambled into the studio.

  "Ah, there he is," Felipe said. "We weren't sure where he'd gone."

  "Jessie, why you wearing that robe?" I asked.

  "I found it in my closet," Jessie said.

  "I had a guy pose for the Jesus picture in it," I said.

  "It did the trick," Felipe said. A smirk on his face, he perched on the corner of my desk.

  "He thought you were the second coming, didn't he?" I said, a grin breaking free.

  Darkness shadowed in from the corners. The only light in the room was where we stood. "You should have seen him when Jessie walked across the water to him," Felipe said, giving a hardy chuckle.

  "How'd you manage that?" I looked at my brother lumped in the corner and laughed.

  "I'll have to show you sometime," Jessie said, his face twinkling.

  "Now the trick is to get him home," Felipe said.

  "His wife isn't there, thank goodness. So I didn't have to talk to her priggish little self," I said. "As much as I don't like the idea, we'd probably better let him sleep it off here."

  "What would be the fun in that?" Jessie said. "We were thinking of leaving him in the car in his driveway," Jessie said, "so he'll wonder how he got there."

  "Come on, Raven," Felipe said, "would you be a sport and drive his car home?"

  "Well..."

  "You know you want to," Felipe said, playfully tugging my hair.

  "I can just see Matilda's expression when she smells alcohol on his breath," I said. "She takes Prozac and Librium, but alcohol's a sin. A sin. She says Jesus lifts her up."

  "I don't' remember doing that," Jessie said.

  "Let's do it," I said.

  "Okay, but first I have to run down and change," Jessie said. In minutes he was back.

  Felipe grabbed Avery on one side and Jessie the other. They dragged him downstairs, his feet kerthumping on each step, across the living room and out to the car, stuffing him in on the passenger side. I climbed in beside him and handed Jessie my keys. In moments we were out on I 205, took off at the Mall 205 exit and headed toward the bedroom community of Parkrose. When I reached the house, which looked like a sixties style doctor's office with it's big windows and high ceilings in the front, I pulled into the driveway and climbed from the car. The guys stopped beside me. They shoved and tucked, until Avery was in position behind the wheel. Jessie disconnected the spark plug wires.

  "How'd you guys like to go to High Rocks Pub?" I said.

  "You're driving," Felipe said.

  In fifteen minutes I parked near the pub. Once inside we found a table in a booth away from the dance floor and ordered drinks. The band was on break.

  "Good old Avery," Jessie said, finally. "It should be some awakening."

  "In more ways than one," Felipe said.

  "What got into you guys?" I said, giggling.

  "Boredom," Felipe said. "We're supposed to be watching out for you, but nothing has been happening."

  "I'm beginning to think Zak's paranoid," Jessie said.

  "Avery started talking about Jeremiah being a bullfrog," I said. "Dad used to sing that song all the time. It drove Mom and Avery nuts. Mom is a teetotaler, you see. Dad's a little more reasonable. He had an occasional binge when something went wrong. When he would start singing that song, Mom would pack us up and take us to Grandma Duval's house a couple of blocks over. One time Demmy and I sneaked back to see what Dad was doing. He'd called his buddies. They were playing cards, drinking and having a grand time. It was fun watching him cut loose."

  "So Avery caught the religion bug from your mom?" Jessie asked.

  "Pretty much, although Mom isn't such a fanatic."

  "Maybe this will straighten him out," Felipe said.

  "That would be a miracle," I said.

  "Like Jeremiah's wine," Felipe said.

  "I always did like that song," Jessie said. "Our dads had something in common. My dad used to play it all the time when he'd get tipsy," Jessie said. "He'd tell me I was Jeremiah."

  Chapter 24