Dead Sleeping Shaman (11 page)

Eugenia smiled and put her hand out for my bill, ignoring Dolly.

On our way to the door, I glanced at the old woman in her fancy clothes. She looked up, but only from the bottoms of her eyes, as if glancing through a lorgnette. Her short nose went into the air as she fixed pale old eyes on us. I saw her lips move, making a comment about me to herself, I imagined. When I looked back again, she frowned and opened her mouth, seeming about to call out something. As the door shut behind me, I told myself I was suffering from a case of nerves. Just an old lady. Maybe a bag lady passing through town. My trouble was that someone was about to tell me how I’d be dead by the end of the month, just when I got a job that I could handle, when an agent was interested in my work, and when there was a dead woman crying out for justice. Sometimes life was complicated enough without looking for another twisted thread.

We got in my car and headed out to the End Timers’ camp.

People in dark places
become odd silhouettes; elbows at acute angles, noses elongated, chins sharp, bodies taller and skinnier. We walked in a dark place. Those around us—as we made our way up the campground two-track to the place where the End of the Worlders gathered—were silent, except for an occasional whisper. It was eerie to be among a hurrying crowd and hear no laughter, no mumbles of progressive conversation, nothing but the swish of feet in dead leaves as we headed where smoky bright lights filtered through tree limbs and loudspeakers blasted hymns I didn’t recognize but knew were hymns by the sometimes martial, sometimes maudlin, sometimes elegiac beat of the music.

A shiver of expectation crept up my spine as I stumbled along behind Dolly and Crystalline. We were as silent as the others, stilled by the single line of blood-red sunset on the horizon to our left and the feeling of being pushed toward death. Whoever this Reverend Fritch was, he knew how to set the stage—this hurrying toward the light. I shook myself again and again, remembering I was the skeptic here; the pragmatic reporter, and not a believer come to find a way around the endless torment awaiting the great unwashed.

Cars had nosed in everywhere along the narrow lane. Headlights shot beams into the trees, and then flashed off as more and more people pulled in and parked, then joined the parade back to where the reverend would speak.

When we reached the clearing where strings of bare bulbs hung overhead and banks of lights, like those at a night ballgame, surrounded a raised stage, the faces nearby went from silhouette to washed-out and blank. We stumbled into people and over tree roots as Crystalline whispered we wanted to get as close to up front as possible so maybe we could grab the reverend when he finished speaking. “Up front” was lined three rows deep with people in folding chairs set like immovable anchors in the sand. Crystalline, determined to get a good spot to watch the proceedings, elbowed her way forward, with me and Dolly behind her. She stopped behind the last row of lawn chairs, as close to the stage as she could get without having fistfights with the faithful.

With her feet planted firmly in the sand, Crystalline waved me and Dolly to her side. She crossed her arms tightly across her bright green jacket. When people behind us complained, she turned slowly, swishing her long red skirt around her hips and eyeing the hecklers with a look that could have frozen water.

Dolly, in full uniform, had her best “cop” face on, eyes going down to stare straight at the seated people, then up to those standing nearby, then, very slowly, back around to the front. Complaint around us died. Dolly planted her well-shod feet wide, and settled in for the show. I stood between the two women, feeling protected on one side by outrage and the other by officialdom.

By seven o’clock, the crowd stretched back farther than I could see. Here, in the light, I made out the faces of a few people I knew. Harry Mockerman stood off to one side with his lady friend, Delia Swanson, next to him. Harry looked particularly good in his suit (with a full set of buttons) and tie and slicked-back hair. Delia stood a foot taller than Harry, and was as square as a box. Every once in a while I saw her bend to talk to him. He was all attention. The smiles on their faces made me happy for both of them.

There were other Leetsvillians and people from Kalkaska and Mancelona I recognized. Maybe they’d come from all over the north country.

A young kid, in tee shirt and jeans—no coat—came on to the stage and caused an expectant stir in the crowd. He tested microphones that echoed and screeched around the open field. The kid smiled when people yelled that the mics were too loud. He only waved, nodded, and left the stage. Soon a gaggle of men in robes climbed back stairs to stand above us, whispering and looking around, toward where they’d come from. The men leaned close to each other from time to time. One very thin man stood alone. A woman—I thought, though it was hard to tell—came to stand beside him, saying something into his ear. He said nothing back.

After fifteen minutes of expectant waiting, the quiet man, tall, fifty or so, with a pronounced limp, came forward to the standing microphone. He threw the hood of his robe back, exposing his shaved head to glints of reflection from the lights.

His eyes were round and huge, set in an almost emaciated face. Those eyes, reflecting light, turned on everyone—it seemed he could take all of us in at once. The effect was of a man a little shy, but warm and shot full of a kind of awe I’d never seen before. We stood waiting, leaning forward, for what he was about to say.

The man bent to speak into the mic but only guttural sounds came out. Around me people fell silent; some whispered as the man threw back his head and howled as long and loud as a human being can howl. The sound, over that field of people, was grotesque; the kind of sound that reaches down inside and pours out agony. I felt my throat tighten, then a deep pain grab me—as if what the man called to was hidden inside, scratching its way to the surface.

People around me were as frightened as I was. There were sharp intakes of breath, a long silence, and then breath being released in short bursts. A woman somewhere began to moan. Another, farther back, sobbed. The emotion, running from person to person, was of deep and anguished sadness. Maybe the man was bringing on the terrible destruction as that last day approached, embodying the pain to come. It was beyond what I knew as unhappiness. Beyond anything human I had ever felt. I had to cross my arms over my body and hold on before I flew apart.

He bent in two, the bald, mute man, reaching down inside himself, then slowly throwing his arms into the air and wailing a louder, deeper wail. If the sound he made was of all lost souls from all the ages, it couldn’t have held more longing or been more unhappy.

When he stopped, it was as if a single note had bound us all together and now was taken away. I had to move my feet wide in order to stand erect. The thing that had held me up, made me a part of the body of people around me, was gone and I was on my own. Deep breaths were taken everywhere. From the back of the crowd came a nervous laugh, soon quieted by shushes.

The man moved back and disappeared from the stage.

Another robed man approached the microphone and asked that we close our eyes and pray until the Reverend Fritch was among us. I pretended to close my eyes but looked from side to side as robed people moved nearby. These were the true believers who, I’d heard, had followed the Reverend Fritch to Leetsville to meet their fate. One by one they took up places amid family groups, behind chairs, or directly next to people standing alone. Slowly they insinuated themselves, like mud oozing into cracks, until I could see more robes than flannel shirts and jean jackets. I felt something brush my arm. One of the robed women, head covered, only her eyes glistening in the light from the bare bulbs, wormed her way between me and Dolly. Another waited at Dolly’s other side. I felt someone take my hand. It wasn’t Dolly. And it wasn’t Crystalline. Both women had been walled away from me now by a third robed person who held on to me even as I pulled hard against her. Crystalline was forced farther along the row where we stood. Increment by increment, Dolly and Crystalline were moved off in different directions.

I didn’t like the feeling I was getting, as if I were being pushed out of a circle of friends. It felt creepy to look around a hooded body toward where Dolly stood, eyes closed, oblivious to how she’d been surrounded. And Crystalline, who I would have thought more aware, pushed even farther on, head back, eyes closed, feeling the spirit, or whatever it was moving among us.

There was no place for me to go. I couldn’t push the intruders out of the way without causing a commotion. I couldn’t step back without running into people pushing from behind. I was boxed in by robes and arms and feet and bodies—row after row of bodies. My breath caught in my throat.

A baby cried far off. There was a long collective sigh when a lightbulb at the back of the stage popped like a gunshot—but no gasps of surprise. No one moved or laughed nervously. We waited. My hand was sweating against the hand that held it. I pulled again but the hand holding mine tightened.

Only the sound of rustling trees disturbed the breathless silence. A single nesting bird gave a gurgle of sleep and fell quiet. We’d become one large body of life—pushed so tightly together I couldn’t tell when I breathed or when it was the cloaked figure next to me. With the strange, overly bright light making masks of faces, I had an almost frantic need to be of the mass of people. Not to be near the outskirts where I sensed something waiting, but at the very center, part of that safe heart beating along with mine.

Minutes went by. Anticipation grew. It was hard to breathe. I might have been completely caught up in the silent furor but for that ever-present hand holding on to me. I was caged by warm, long fingers.

Finally, a large man, a seemingly burdened man with head bowed, walked up from the back of the stage. The only thing visible of him at first was that bowed head—a full shaggy head of dark hair—not bald like the others. And then there was the rest of him, a wide torso in voluminous robe, cloth spreading out over a big body, arms lost in folds of coarse linen, hood hanging down his back, sandals on his bare, spreading feet.

The Reverend Fritch stood before us, looking from staring face to staring face beneath. With slow movements he pulled his sleeves back, one after the other, and threw his arms into the air, greeting the roar that came up from the crowd. The roar swelled and moved around the clearing. The man stood at the very front edge of the stage and slowly lowered his arms; then lowered his head, shook it a few times, and held still under the harsh lights. The roar died in a receding wave. A hush fell over the people.

“How many days now?” the Reverend Fritch cried out, first to his left, then to his right, and then to the center of the crowd, where I stood. With a lavaliere microphone on him, free to walk the stage, he paced quickly back and forth as the crowd called out a resounding, “Thirteen days!”

“How many?” One hand went behind his ear as he feigned not being able to hear.

Again the crowd chanted, “Thirteen days!”

“Are we sad?” he yelled at all of us, a huge smile spreading over his wide face, softening the words.

The crowd screamed, “No.”

The preacher stood where he was, bent over, and laughed, the full body under the robe bouncing.

“And you know why, people? You know why there’s no sadness in us?” He stopped and straightened. It was a sudden stop. The crowd waited. “Because we’re going home!”

The crowd went wild.

When they quieted, he began again, always with a conspiratorial smile splitting his wide, round face. It was as if there was a big secret being shared and I was one of those left out. I felt sad. My eyes welled with tears until I shook myself, and asked,
What the hell, Emily?

“Like David, I had a dream.” He lowered his voice and ran a hand over his cheeks. The portent of the word “dream” drew all of us to lean in closer, waiting for what would come.

“I dreamed … oh, yes I did … I dreamed and the Lord showed me Armageddon. Like David standing there by the river, I saw what I had to see.” He paced again, his sandals slapping the floorboards of the stage, the sound making a drumbeat beneath his words. From time to time he stopped, looked into the crowd, bent forward, gave a laugh and called out a person’s name to the delight of everyone. I found myself wanting him to look at me, call out my name—though I didn’t worry how he would know it. I couldn’t have said why I needed to be included, I just did.

“Have I told you this before?” he roared, demanding an answer.

“Yes!” the roar came back.

“Will I be tellin’ you this again? Will I be tellin’ you about my dreams until the last day, until October 27, when the End will be upon us?”

The “Yes” roar spread around me. People swayed back and forth, bodies synchronized, hands clasped together. When they got to me I had no choice, I was caught up in my small space that wasn’t my space at all, but part of this larger group. I swayed, with that holding hand moving as I moved.

Reverend Fritch went on. “There was a terrible angel pointing toward what was coming down the river bank at me and I knew, oh yes, I knew right then the END TIME was upon us.” He stopped again. “Have I told ya this before? Do we need to hear it again?”

It was point and counterpoint. He had us in a mesmerizing web of words and emotion.

“The Antichrist. That terrible prince. It was Satan, himself, coming straight for me holding up the number: TWENTY-SEVEN. TWENTY-SEVEN. And I knew—oh yes, I knew right then what that number meant.”