by Fred DeVecca
Sarah, though very pretty, was not a classic beauty like Julie. She was also tiny, having inherited her mom’s physical stature, so the two small redheads seemed a natural pairing, though Sarah’s hair was straighter and more straw-colored as opposed to Julie’s blazing hellfire curls.
I knew it was leading up to this, and sure enough, after enough beer had been consumed, Michael stood and cleared his throat. Holding his bottle of IPA aloft, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, in honor of our special guest this evening, this lovely lass sitting in the corner ….”
Sarah stood up and bowed, which got its intended laugh. We all knew she was not the lovely lass Michael spoke of. Julie counteracted by making an exaggerated move to pull Sarah back down and then stood to take her place, bowing and waving, queen-like, to the hooting lads.
The two girls then put on a funny silent slapstick routine of fighting for the spotlight, each one pulling the other down in some different clumsy way and taking her place, bowing, curtsying, even doing a few tap dance steps. They looked for all the world like a practiced, old-time comedy team.
Finally they both stood together holding hands and erupting in uncontrollable laughter, Julie tilting her head and leaning it on Sarah’s shoulders, doglike. They were freakin’ adorable.
The dangerous femme fatale, the scourge of L.A., had morphed into a sweet, pure child before my eyes.
Michael took the floor again. He was about to sing his favorite song. The choice was inevitable, given its title, which played beautifully on Julie’s name: “This is a very old traditional song, written by that guy over there.”
He pointed at me. Yes, I wrote this song, a long time ago. The stuff about it being traditional was a joke.
“It’s about,” Michael went on, “our Julie of the Deerfield.”
I wrote it as “Our Jewell of the Deerfield,” and I have no idea what I intended it to mean. Like so many things in life, it just was.
It was a slow, sweet ballad about the river flowing through town, and it was simple enough that we continued to make up new verses, often spontaneously as we were singing it. That’s the oral tradition at work. The tune wasn’t hard to sing, but Michael had the rich, ringing tenor voice to make it sound spectacular.
Rivers flow and people go
down by the Deerfield
Time moves slow
and there’s so much we don’t know
down by the Deerfield
But the spirits rule
when the air is cool
and it takes a fool
in the drowning pool
to overrule
Our Jewell of the Deerfield
By now everyone had joined in. The voices and harmonies were shaking the walls. The bat circled ominously, perhaps frightened by the volume.
To my surprise, as it felt like we were getting near the end, Sarah stood up and belted out a verse, clearly one she was making up spontaneously, in what was a surprisingly lovely, clear voice:
Our Jewell swept in
on the springtime wind
and we knew she couldn’t stay
Then, not to be outdone, Julie stood, and in an angelic voice—why had this girl never been cast in a musical?—completed that same thought, in rhyme, almost as if the girls had composed this in advance, which of course they had not:
She may have sinned
and her prospects dimmed
the day they swept away
that Jewell of the Deerfield
Then she added a heartbreaking and mysterious coda:
The bodies merge
with the river surge
Will there be a dirge
for Julie of the Deerfield?
It ended with an abrupt, sudden, and eerily complete silence. In the hall’s still air, the bat was nowhere to be seen.
It was a strange verse to be making up on the spot. Was she afraid of being swept away by our river?
The mood was less jovial now. The odd verses from the girls resulted in a curious pause. The energy soon faded, and the guys began to file out into the late, dark, moist spring night.
All the Morris guys were gone. Dexter said his goodbyes too. Mooney, Sarah, Clara, Julie, and I remained. I started locking up and turning out the lights.
The theater was totally dark now, and the only source of light was the streetlamps shining in through the lobby window.
“Those last verses got a little weird,” Julie said, “but it all makes me want to go see the Deerfield. Let’s walk and talk.”
So we did, all of us. It was a good suggestion.
Chapter Eleven
Not a Bad Deal
We walked and we talked, and it was good talk, but it ended suddenly, as if some greater force stood in our way.
It was gloomy for a spring night, still cool, but summer’s warm promise was there too. The warmth and coolness met up to create fog and mist so thick it was hard to see. There were peepers chirping off in a distant swamp, providing us with a rhythmic accompaniment. I recorded it. It was close enough to birdsong.
The five of us headed down Bridge Street. Hardly anyone else was around. Shelburne Falls shuts down early, even on the most pleasant of evenings.
Mooney and Clara strolled ahead, turning off toward the falls, and behind them the two girls walked on either side of me. Then I did hear the birds—drawn out seeps and chips from sparrows. They serenaded us until the roar of the river overcame the birds and the peepers. As we got closer, droplets of water from the falls began to splatter our faces like tears, dampening the soggy night even further.
“I believe I’m going to like working here,” Julie said to me as we walked by the yoga studio. Then she added, “What do you believe?”
She was probing me. She wanted to know more details about this guy who had been assigned to essentially not leave her side for a month. I figured I’d play along and go where she was leading me.
“I believe in a lot,” I answered, “but not what they wanted me to believe.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“You know—they. They—the ones who tell you what to believe.”
“You mean like when you were a monk?
“Yeah. That’s part of the ‘they.’ ”
“Do you believe in God?” she asked.
“I believe there’s something in all of us. And in everything—animate and inanimate. Is it God? I don’t know.”
“Something in all of us? That doesn’t sound too radical to me.”
“Well, it is when you think that maybe that is God. And that’s all God is. That’s kind of where I was at.”
“Okay, now I get why you’re not a priest anymore,” Julie said.
“No, I was never a priest. I was a monk. There’s a difference.”
“And what is that?” Julie was staring at me with those green eyes in the black night.
“A priest is ordained. He can say mass, give sacraments. A monk is someone who dedicates his life to God by withdrawing from the world into a separate community.”
“Okay. That’s not a good job for someone who doesn’t believe in God, is it?”
“I didn’t say I don’t believe in God, did I? I’m still sorting it out.”
“Doesn’t sound to me like you’ve sorted much out.”
“Yeah, but I’m working on it all the time. They don’t like people who work it out. They like people who know. And mostly people who know what they’re told.”
“Who do you mean by ‘they’?”
“ ‘They.’ The people who make the rules. The people who run monasteries. The people who tell you what you’re supposed to believe.”
“So ‘they’ sounds like pretty much everybody.”
“Pretty much. Yeah.”
“Have you worked out anything at all? Sounds to me like you haven’t.”
“I’ve worked out that the world is perfect. And that we’re all basically the same soul. And that God works through us all. All the time. And if you’re forced to pin it down, if they
held a gun to your head or something, it would all boil down to the idea that God is love.”
“Do you pray? How do you pray to God if God is love?”
“I pray. All the time. If indeed you accept what I do as prayer—many don’t. Although that’s not really necessary. No one has to pray all the time. You just have to pray till it works. Then you can stop.”
“You didn’t answer my question. How do you pray to God if God is love?”
“Well, that was the big problem with me there. They believed in what they call ‘intercessory’ prayer. That means accepting that the one who prays, in this case the monk, or in other cases the priest, acts on behalf of the person he is praying for. He pleads their case, if you will.”
I was silent for a moment, wondering why Sarah didn’t offer her perspective, but she was just watching the two of us curiously as if we were performing a skit and unaware of her presence. In a way, it was true. I was a little embarrassed to have excluded her—not that she seemed to mind. I wiped the spray from my face and picked up the thread.
“Me, I believed that all people are God. No need for anyone to act as intercessor. All each of us has to do is be aware of the presence of God in himself. The rest takes care of itself.
“So, I didn’t pray the way they wanted me to pray. To me, prayer is simply recognizing the presence of God. In any situation. Anywhere. Everywhere. And that’s it.”
Julie gave me a sidelong look, eyes narrowed. “Well, you’re talking like you believe there is a God.”
I shrugged. “You know what they say? ‘Act as if ye have faith and faith will be given to you.’ ”
“That’s from Mark, isn’t it? Or is it Paul?”
“It’s from Paul—Paul Newman. The Verdict. They use it like it’s really from the Bible, but it’s not. They wrote it for the film. Written by David Mamet, believe it or not. I like it. I act as if I have faith.”
She nodded. “Good idea.”
“Yes. When in doubt, be positive.”
“Well, whatever,” Julie said. “You pray. In your own way. Good for you. I don’t. I don’t know how to.”
“Yes you do. I’ve seen you.”
“You’ve seen me pray?”
“In your own way. I saw you dance. Same thing.”
“I dance sexy. And I completely lose myself. Time doesn’t exist. I just get caught up in the rhythm, the movement. I’m lost. How is that prayer?”
“When you dance—are you lost? Or are you found?”
She laughed at this. Yeah, it was funny, but I meant it sincerely.
Her next words kind of startled me. “I’m still going to hell though.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know. Everything I’ve done.”
“What hell? Is there a hell? You’re not going anywhere bad. You got too much love in you.”
“I’m going somewhere. I can feel it. And I’m just along for the ride.”
“So are we all. Some consider it being passive. Me, I consider it adaptation. We go with the flow. And we adapt to it. The important thing is to enjoy the ride.”
Then I asked her, “You know everything can be undone, don’t you?”
“You mean like all that born-again crap?”
“Well, only in the loosest possible sense. Sure, Julie, we all have to be born again. But it’s got nothing to do with the way they usually use that term. We all have to change our souls. That’s what ‘born again’ means. It’s got nothing to do with accepting Jesus. It’s got everything to do with accepting love. That’s when you’re born again. That’s when the bad stuff gets undone.”
“Forgiven … or undone?”
“Undone. Stuff gets undone retroactively. A bad action, a bad reaction, an illness, a sin. Enough love makes it disappear. I’ve seen it over and over and over. I hurt you, I lie to you, whatever. Then I give enough love—to you, to the universe in general—and it all vanishes. All is well again.”
“Jesus,” she replied, “I think that actually makes sense. Not sure why, exactly, but it rings true. Okay. Now I’m getting a better sense of what you believe.”
“Well, then you’re a few steps ahead of me. I don’t know what the hell I believe anymore. I don’t believe in suffering though.”
“Jeez, I’m surprised to hear you say that. You seem like a guy who suffers constantly.”
I was taken aback. It took me a few seconds to answer. “I’m sorry it looks that way to you. I don’t believe in suffering. If I did, I’d be a Buddhist. They believe all life is suffering.”
“Yeah, but don’t they also believe that there is a way out of that suffering? By seeing things as they are? By accepting reality? They call it dhamma.”
“Yeah, they do. And that’s always been the problem for me—Christians believe in miracles. Miracles are the way out of that suffering. Buddhists believe in reality, dhamma. Dhamma is the way out of all that suffering. I like both beliefs, but I’ve never been able to reconcile them.”
“How about this? You believe in reality. Things are real. Then a miracle happens. So then the miracle becomes real. So you got both. No problem.”
I looked at her and we both laughed. This girl was smart. And she actually thought about things. Important things. I liked that.
I said to her, “These days I don’t know what I believe.”
“But once you were sure enough that you withdrew from the outside world for it, into a monastery.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, seems to me you’ve done that again. Not the monastery this time, but here—your damn Hill of Tears, your little house, your dog, your theater. Here.” She made a slow turn, encompassing everything with her arms. “That’s where you withdrew to this time.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“Yeah. I know,” Julie said, “that’s why we chose you.”
We all silently looked at the water roar over the falls. We had been standing apart from Mooney and Clara, so I wasn’t sure how much they’d overheard. Then Mooney said, “Did they toss you out of the monastery, or did you leave on your own? That was never clear. Nobody would talk about that. Nobody.”
I replied without hesitation, “They tossed me. I was willing to stick it out. I’m not a quitter.”
“They tossed you because they didn’t like what you believed in?”
“That’s about it.”
He wasn’t letting up with his intense interrogation. Eyebrows raised in skepticism, he said, “I would have bet they tossed you for drinking.”
“No. I didn’t drink while I was there. I drank before I went in and I started again when I got out, but in that respect, anyway, I was good there. It was a Catholic Franciscan order. I went in there when I was twenty and it took them two years to ask me to leave.”
“What did you guys do in there?” asked Sarah. So she had some interest in this too.
“We meditated and we prayed—two things I don’t do anymore, at least not the way I did then. And we raised German Shepherds, and we sang—two things I still do. Oh, yeah, it was pretty medieval in there, so we Morris danced. I still do that too.”
“I thought Morris dancing was pagan. You guys were Christian,” said Sarah.
“Morris dancing might be pagan and it might not be. It might be Christian too. Nobody knows. It’s all lost in the mists of time. What we do know is that it’s a ritual and they were big on ritual there. It’s musical, and they were big on that too. And it relates to the natural patterns and movements of the earth; they liked that stuff too. I totally got that part of the monastery. If that’s all we did there, they would never have tossed me. It’s the other parts that I didn’t get.”
I thought on this a bit further. “Well, actually, I think I did get those parts too. It was they who didn’t get it.” I thought a minute, then with a laugh added, “At least I got a dog. They let me take a dog.”
“That can’t be Marlowe,” said Sarah, “He’d have to be like thirty years old now.”
&nb
sp; “No, that one was Marlowe’s great-great-great-great grandmother. That’s four greats.”
“That’s funny,” Sarah said. “We’ve been talking about God and now we’re talking about a dog. And dog is God spelled backwards. Both concepts are extremely spiritual, right, Frank? In fact, I don’t see much difference between the two.”
“Well,” I said, “there is one big difference.”
And they looked quizzically at me before I went on to say, “The difference is that the dog comes when you call him.”
After a few breaths, Julie asked, “And that’s why you’re here in this town instead of in a monastery, right?”
I did not even have to answer. We walked on.
“So all you got from two years in there was a dog, Morris dancing, a bunch of songs, a head full of doubts, and an urge to drink?” she went on.
This time I was going to answer, but before I could, as her face was stained by droplets of water from the falls, she concluded, “You know, Mister Movie Man, Mister Duck, that’s not a bad deal.”
“Not a bad deal?” I asked her. “And please don’t call me Mister anything, especially not Mister Movie Man. You can call this guy that.” I pointed to Mooney, who smiled at the title.
“Call me Frank. Or Frankie. Only my mother and you girls can call me Frankie. Or Francis. Francis works too. I’ve got a lot of names.”
“Okay. No, it’s a pretty good deal. Look at me, Frankie, I know a bunch of songs and I’ve got a head full of doubts and an urge to drink like crazy. But I don’t have a dog and I don’t Morris dance. So you’re two up on me.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”
“You’re starting to make some sense to me now,” she said. And then she gave me that devastating smile. “Everything is perfect and all will be well. You got a good deal.”