Our Lady of the Forest (29 page)

         

Tom knew he needed his pick-up canopy and so drove straight to his old lost house, where he'd left it rotting in the backyard. There was of course the issue of the restraining order enjoining him against just such a retrieval—technically Tom couldn't be on his own premises—but more tangible was Heidi Johnston's Corolla, parked by the force of sheer bad luck so as to block his access route. Tom had hoped to snake under trees, repossess his canopy unmolested, start the hold-down nuts with his fingers, and be history in less than two minutes. He could tighten the bolts a mile up the road with a hijacker's grin on his face. Only now this impediment: a Corolla. Plenty of times driving by for a glance he'd seen strange cars parked in front of his house and had fantasized mostly for the wounding pleasure of it but also as a disenfranchised husband that Eleanor had taken a variety of lovers, that everyone in town knew about her antics but kept a straight face when he was around, though on the other hand he knew full well that these cars belonged to the volunteers who called themselves the Cross Family Committee. To the women from church who came to help Junior, wipe his ass, change his clothes, shampoo and shave him, range his limbs, splint his arms and legs in place, count his pills, prepare his meals, feed him and then wash the dishes, comb his hair, clip his nails, change the bandages at his breathing tube and swab clean his piss tube. Massage and knead his gut each morning to make him pass a stool on a plastic sheet and empty his piss bag in the toilet. These women Father Collins applauded weekly, an institutionalized part of his mass—Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Or: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Or: And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Or: Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Father Collins listed the CFC members by name during this weekly, dutiful interregnum: Constance Pedersen, Julia Corn, Julia Neiderhoff, Tina Van Kamp, Heidi Johnston, Carolyn Meyers, Carol Boyle, Marilyn Davis, Grace Weaver, Beatrice MacMillan, Leah Long, and Annabelle Fletcher, whose grandfather was a North Fork pioneer—Annabelle had written a book about him—and who herself had Parkinson's disease.
Cedar Shakes and Prairie Potatoes
: Tom had read it with froward interest. A book of myths: old Fletcher had been a royal jerk, according to those who knew him. Owned a lot of river bottom. On Sundays dressed like an East Coast dandy. His granddaughter idolized him, obviously. The other women were unremarkable and uniformly dull and dowdy except for Julia Neiderhoff, who had the throat and calves of a mare, dark hair, and a classical chin.

Almost from the day that Junior came home they'd taken over running Tom's household and had ruined his privacy. A coven of sounding boards for Eleanor, too—Tina Van Kamp was twice divorced and goaded Eleanor onward. They all commiserated, certainly. Some were married to loggers themselves and so brought familiar complaints to the table. Tom's house became a women's club, a coffee klatch, a radio talk show, a touchy-feely caucus. The smell changed—antiseptic deodorizer alchemized by high furnace heat into a damp effervescence. Lipstick stains on coffee cups, a thing he'd always found loathsome. And clutches of dried flowers in his bathroom. Eleanor's vocabulary suddenly changed—I'm not sure you value what I'm saying, Tom, I don't hear you honoring my feelings, Tom, Well fuck you then, he eventually came to answer, and get these witches out of my house! Except, it was true, they took care of Junior. Without them, forget it—Tom knew that. But why couldn't they just be good Samaritans and leave off doubling as marriage counselors? Why did they have to meddle in his marriage and get inside his wife's troubled head, talk her into despising him? When he came home he'd find say Marilyn Davis seated at the table next to Eleanor, Diet Pepsis, carrot sticks, open Bibles, heavy talk, Hey, he'd say, how's Junior doing?, but it was like he'd brought cold weather with him, they suddenly fell conspiratorially silent, when he went upstairs they started again, or sometimes he found three or four together praying like nuns and holding hands, their heads bowed, their eyes shut: Heal the sick, Give us the strength, Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, other times someone read Bible verses: And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes… Tom would slip past them with a beer in his fist, take a shower, and lie on the bed with the door shut and the television on, when Eleanor came in he'd steel himself, it was time for combat again.

So what to do? He could open the door to Heidi Johnston's Corolla, slip her transmission into neutral, and gently prod her car out of his way with the front bumper of his pick-up. Or he could bluster afoot into his forbidden backyard and drag his canopy around the side of his house like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Neanderthal Man, a savage making off with shelter. Or he could knock on the door with polite humility and explain to Eleanor obsequiously that if possible he would like to collect the canopy and that he hoped for her dispensation. In other words, there were no good options. His life had come to this absurd pass: merely mounting a canopy on his truck was now freighted with tumultuous questions. Hog-tied, hamstrung, pinned, pincered. Wherever he turned, complexity. Tom tapped his steering wheel with his thumbs and quelled the urge to bash the Corolla. Then he parked and groomed his hair in the rearview mirror because looking good was a kind of revenge and he wanted Eleanor to feel pain.

At the door she said Restraining order, Tom. Don't make me have to make a phone call.

She didn't look good. Washed out, severe. He didn't even like her anymore. Here was a woman he'd come inside of probably at least three thousand times and he didn't want to touch her any longer. That was the strangest part for Tom—the cavernous depth of his revulsion. But she was drying up: crow's feet, frown lines, sexless religiosity. And always adding new inner strictures. Knobby fingers with knitting needles in them, he couldn't face that kind of future. But it was already here. Ellie wore sweaters and had a loose ass, a paunch. Sorry, he said. I know this is wrong. But all I want is the canopy for the pick-up. I don't even have to come inside or bother anybody, Ellie. I just need to get around back, grab the canopy.

He was standing in the rain but she wasn't. It was clear to him that she was afraid, outweighed by eighty-five pounds. In the presence of an irrational opponent who in prior meetings had demonstrated, to her mind, how fully he was prone to rage. Nine-one-one, she said to him. I was told that if you ever came around to call nine-one-one.

I'm not coming around. I'm just picking up my canopy, that's all. I'll pick it up and then I'll be gone. Just let me in the backyard.

No Tom.

Yes Ellie.

Eleanor set her chin a little harder. I've also been advised not to argue with you should you happen to show your face illegally which is what you're doing right now. I'm not even supposed to speak with you, period. So this is it: good-bye.

Wait.

She tried to shut the door but he put his foot in its path and the door stayed open halfway. Wait, he said. Eleanor. Just wait a minute. Come on, wait. Just let me get my canopy.

Heidi Johnston appeared behind Eleanor, or part of Heidi Johnston. He probably outweighed her by fifteen pounds, but Heidi was only five two or three, a woman with a grotesquely mammoth chest, pruny all around the mouth and clearly short on estrogen. One of those manlike adipose women North Fork harbored in very large numbers, the town's most prominent genetic marker: fat and masculine androgynous females buying cake mix at MarketTime or selling raffle tickets at Burger Barn. Heidi, he said. Hi-dee-hay.

Be careful, Heidi, said Eleanor. He's very violent.

I'm not violent.

Yes you are.

Come on, said Tom. I just want my canopy. How complicated is that? A truck canopy? Why is it such a big deal?

But it's a very big deal to Eleanor, said Heidi. It's very important to her.

She's not here? said Tom. Eleanor? She can't maybe speak for herself?

She's very capable. If you'd only listen.

I'm right here listening.

No you're not.

Then what am I doing?

I don't know.

Well get out of the way then. This isn't your business.

I'd go for the phone, put in Eleanor, but I don't want to even risk it right now. Unless—wait—I'm going for the phone.

You go ahead, Heidi urged her. She faced off with Tom, stared him down, beady little angry animal eyes. Eleanor, said Tom. Be reasonable. I'm not here to do something criminal. I'm only here for my canopy.

That canopy, said Heidi, is community property. This is a community property state. So one you don't own that canopy anymore and two you
are
doing something criminal by breaking the terms of your restraining order and showing up here at all.

Wasn't it usually a guy in this role? The slick new boyfriend standing up to the hapless discarded ex-husband? Tom moved more boldly into the doorway. Look, he said. Eleanor. All I want is the god damn canopy. I'll tell you what you can have the house, even your lawyer would agree to that. I'll trade you the house for the canopy, Ellie. Take advantage of me.

Nine-one-one, said Eleanor.

This is a waste, said Tom.

He went out again, yanked opened the Corolla's door, and moved the stick into neutral. Don't you touch my car! yelled Heidi, but he made himself deaf to her shrill entreaties even while she advanced on him like an overweight pit bull. I don't have a beef with you, warned Tom. It's just that your car here's in the way and right now—I have to move it.

Heidi briefly quickened her pace, but at ten feet suddenly halted. Her eyes were wet. Too much adrenaline. That's my car, she said.

I'm going to move it, answered Tom. It's in my way—I'm moving it.

No you're not.

Yes I am.

You touch my car I'll get you arrested.

I thought you were a religious person.

I'll press charges, get you arrested.

Didn't Jesus say to turn the other cheek? Have mercy on the desperate?

Stay away from my car. Last warning, Tom.

You aren't threatening to shoot me, are you?

Stay away from my car like I said already.

Your car's on my property, though, said Tom. I have a right to move it.

He laid his shoulder into her bumper and rolled the car ten feet. She called him names and yelled while he did so: Everybody knows all about you you sinner this whole town knows how abusive you are, everyone knows what happened you know, you paralyzed your own son for the rest of his life, how can you even live with yourself? how can you even stand to be you? everybody knows what a lowlife you are, what scum you are, what a jerk you are, you're screwing Tammy Buckwalter, you're down to living in a motel cabin, now get your hands off my car I mean it get your hands off my car!

Tom maneuvered his pick-up through the trees and was hauling the canopy into place when Eleanor slid open a window behind him and said The cops are on their way Tom they're on their way right now.

I just want the canopy, Tom answered.

That's not the point.

It's the only point.

You always think you know so much.

I only know one thing—I need this canopy.

Tom—you're pathetic.

I love you, honey.

You're out of control, said Eleanor.

There was no time for the hold-down bolts. Tom tipped the canopy into the bed, weighted it down with a few sticks of firewood, and drove toward the street again. Heidi had blocked his path with her Corolla and was standing beside it, daring him, and looking self-righteously arrogant. Fat-ass hog. Piece of shit. How tempting it was to slam her broadside with an unexpected acceleration but instead he smashed through a tangle of blackberries that for a moment concealed his view through the windshield and when he hit the street again he rolled down his window and called to Heidi Have a nice day, ugly bitch.

Child of Satan, Heidi replied. Go join your father in hell.

         

IV

Mediatrix

NOVEMBER 15, 1999

O
ne of Ann's followers knocked on the van door and handed Carolyn a stack of Monday newspapers, a thermos of tea, a bag of oranges, a box of extra-strength Tylenol, and four small containers of yogurt. Pray for me, she entreated Ann, struggling for a glimpse over Carolyn's shoulder. I'm Elizabeth Hoynes, your servant. She'll try, said Carolyn. Now please go in peace. Please give Ann some privacy. But the servant hesitated, lingering hopefully, and Carolyn saw behind her a throng of followers pressing toward the van like rock and roll fans, devotees who, with the door open, were calling out their assorted petitions and exclaiming their adoration. I could always douse them with pepper spray, she thought, if it turns into genuine chaos.

Fortunately, though, there were nearby sentinels arrayed in a defensive perimeter. New unbidden male presences who had appeared the night before. Carolyn noted that the campground, this morning, looked suddenly like a refugee center, full of refuse and unwashed people milling with desperate zeal. Her van was like the United Nations truck with its load of soy powder for the starving. Already it was past ten o'clock and there was a rain hiatus that wouldn't last, the trees were dripping, drab clouds blew past, North Fork's eternal, oppressive pall darkened everything preternaturally and dimmed the faces of the hopeful acolytes, beneath it all of them, Carolyn included, were dank damp prisoners, citizens of a gulag, a colony of rotting mushrooms. Earthbound strangers locked in gray straits. Hollow refugees yearning toward whatever God they could construe. Or toward nothing, as in Carolyn's case, except, perhaps, the god of the sun, that pagan equatorial potentate. The ramshackle campground made Carolyn yearn impatiently for Cabo San Lucas. She would sleep naked there and eat fruit and rice, drink margaritas, get high at 9 a.m., take pick-me-up tokes as needed. Shop for limes and tonic water; read travel books beneath palm trees. South of the border the past four winters her slogan and mantra had been
mañana
—everything could wait for another time—but for now, hey, breakfast and the papers, delivered by an earnest servant. Pray for me, please, the servant repeated. And I hope you enjoy your breakfast this morning. Carolyn, nodding in the manner of a dowager who expected just such offerings, pointed at an errant photographer and pronounced, Make him follow the same rules as the others, he has to stay behind the lines. But already a sentinel was at the business of thwarting the wayward cameraman with a hand thrown across his lens. Carolyn considered the herd of petitioners urgently waiting for an audience and said, She's engaged in fervent prayer just now, tell them so, do that for me, then raised an arm in benediction until the servant turned to the crowd and announced: She's at prayer everybody, be patient and calm, and God bless you all! Thank you, said Carolyn, that's it for the moment, and a sentinel drew the van's door shut: with the shades drawn too, for privacy, Carolyn had a chance to laugh. She'd redecorated her inner sanctum with votive candles, hung a crucifix from her rearview mirror, and left the Gospels, a prop, on her dashboard. All to the good, presto, a miracle—tea and morning news. Instead of grazing for mushrooms in the rain. Instead of wandering, damp, in penury. Didn't all of that call for a heartfelt wicked cackle? Carolyn ate yogurt and perused the headlines.
TEEN SEER SWAMPS LOGGING TOWN. RUNAWAY AT EPICENTER OF VISIONS. HUGE CROWDS DRAWN TO MARY SIGHTINGS. THOUSANDS GATHER FOR FOREST VIGIL. BISHOP TO STUDY APPARITIONS. MUSHROOM PICKER CLAIMS TO SEE VIRGIN. PILGRIMS TEST TOWN INFRASTRUCTURE. LOCAL SHERIFF
“
OVERWHELMED.
”
WOMAN CLAIMS SEER HAS CURATIVE POWERS. LOCALS RESPOND TO VISION FRENZY
. Carolyn browsed, in search of her own name, acknowledging as she did so that yes, all is vanity, her ego was a pack of drunken monkeys, it wanted what it wanted, period, and now it wanted her name in the news, however tawdry and puerile that was, however empty and ridiculous. So be it, thought Carolyn, I've sold my soul to the material world with its infinite array of fascinations, to be alive is better than not, than ashes or the afterlife, than worm fodder, Saint Peter's Gate, nirvana, or the Elysian Fields. A willing slave to the corporeal quotidian, which included press notes such as this:
Ms. Carlton claimed her warts disappeared about three and a half hours afterward.
Carolyn read on, increasingly astounded.
MarketTime checker Sue Philips, 27, described Ms. Holmes as “quiet, meek, somebody you wouldn't even notice.” Phil Peck, Media Affairs Officer at Stinson Timber, said the company would issue a statement Monday morning. A spokesperson for the diocese expressed the bishop's concern over reports of hysteria and said a full Church inquiry would soon be under way. Sheriff Nelson cited safety and health considerations. Mushroomer Steven Mossberger, 29, said the visionary “mostly kept to herself—the rest of us just couldn't see this coming.” Ms. Holmes, born in Medford, Oregon, was reported missing September tenth after dropping out of East Valley High School. Mayor Cantrell, speaking outside his office, was “guardedly optimistic” that North Fork could handle the growing flood of religious pilgrims. Lyman Sylvester, president of the North Fork Chamber of Commerce, described events as “a shot in the arm for a patient in serious cardiac arrest.” Father Collins refused comment and referred questions to the bishop's office. At the Vagabond Tavern local out-of-work loggers expressed dismay at the sudden influx. “It's not that we're against outsiders,” said Dale Raymond, 41, born and raised in North Fork. “But when people come here they better pay attention. They need to understand who we are in this town. Don't just roll right over us.”

Ann sat with a pillow behind her head, opening the thermos slowly. She'd passed the night in the priest's sofa bed and been whisked away by sentinels at eight, her clothes clean, her allergies suppressed by a double dose of Phenathol, her fever as yet unmitigated. Perturbed, too, by Father Collins' recalcitrance. How could she make him see the Blessed Mother? That Our Lady had reached to embrace him too? Arriving that morning at the North Fork Campground she'd lowered her head to the reporters and cameras—a television news team producer beckoned—but had clasped her hands at her chin for petitioners, who'd shouted her name and called their praises, Glory, Hallelujah, Our Ann! Carolyn, quickly emerging from her van, had embraced Ann publicly with dramatic flair, Spent the night with your priest, aye? she'd whispered, I'll have the cameras cleared right away, these media people are like vicious scavengers, they'll bite your fingers if you feed them. She'd trundled Ann inside, slammed the door, then turned like a press agent and said, emphatically, Not giving any interviews this morning, I'm sorry there won't be comments. And we're going to establish a media-free perimeter. You'll all have to stay outside the flagging our friends are about to put up for us so the business of Mother Mary can be conducted unencumbered by media.

Now, in the van, she peeled an orange with flippant grace and leaned closer to her newspaper. Hey, she said. Check this out. This quote—right here—this quote's from me.
Greer, describing herself as the visionary's disciple, estimated Sunday's crowd at two thousand and projected even larger crowds today, with “accompanying stress on local infrastructure.”
Unquote. I mean, check it out, said Carolyn. I'm like your spokesperson or something now. I'm totally in the newspaper.

Do you know what it means to be a disciple?

Does it mean I have to buy your dope?

Ann didn't answer. She poured a cup of tea. Your helper, said Carolyn, in spreading the teachings. A devoted follower of Saint Ann of North Fork. That's me—want a part of this orange?

No thanks.

You should, though. For the vitamin C.

Saint Ann?

Bad joke. Sorry. Now take this Tylenol—three or so. Unless your priest gave you some this morning after you slept with him.

I slept on his sofa.

That's what they all say.

What do you mean?

His other girlfriends.

He's a priest, remember? He doesn't have girlfriends.

Did you see
The Thorn Birds
? Richard Chamberlain? Hitting on Rachel Ward?

No.

So is he into handcuffs?

Carolyn.

So what did you do if you didn't sleep with him?

We talked about things.

What kinds of things?

About the church.

Which church is that?

The church we have to start building right away. Our Blessed Mother's church.

I see, said Carolyn. That church, yes. I've been thinking about that church also.

She pointed at her five-gallon picking bucket, half full with small bills and change. See that? she said. There's your church right there. Money translates into a church. You get aggressive about asking for money, your church will, I don't know. Materialize.

How much is there?

I don't really know.

Maybe we should count it.

We'll count it later. In the meantime make an announcement today. More than once. Repeat it, Ann. That you can't fulfill Mother Mary's wishes without more alms, contributions, tithes, offerings, greenbacks, tax deductions.

Carolyn put the bucket on the table. Look what I wrote right here, she said. Our Lady of the Forest Church Fund.

Our Lady of the Forest?

Nice ring, don't you think? And I've got three more buckets just like it.

There was a tentative knock on the van's sliding door, courteous and deferential. Carolyn tucked the bucket away. Not a moment's privacy, she complained.

A new devoted follower this time, this one a woman in a parka patched with duct tape, a clear plastic rain scarf over a hairdo swirled stiff like gray cotton candy. There's a priest here who says he's from the bishop, she said. And another priest from the church in North Fork. They both want to speak to you.

Oh they do, said Carolyn. How interesting.

Should I let them in?

We'll talk about it.

What should I say?

Tell them to wait.

For how long?

Until I say.

No, said Ann. They're welcome.

The woman moved aside and the clergymen peered in. They stood in the open door of the van, Father Collins in his overcoat and leather gloves and the bishop's representative in ecumenical black garb and a high white priestly tab. With his gray bristle cut and wire-rimmed glasses he looked like a high school gym teacher dressed as a priest for a faculty Halloween party or a six-foot-two Harry Truman. Hello, said Father Collins, good morning, salutations. The crowd is exceptionally huge today. I'm just astonished at the size of this crowd. This is my… colleague. Father Butler.

Good morning, said Father Butler. Sorry to intrude on your breakfast this way. We're barging in, apologies. And yes, this crowd is exceptional.

You're from the bishop, said Carolyn. Or so my associates report.

Yes, from the bishop. That's right. Yes. Getting right to the point with it, yes. I'm sent by the bishop. To look at things. To have a look out here.

To have a look?

Exactly.

The visionary sat against her pillow with the thermos cup of tea in one hand, the other settled in her lap. She was under blankets like a convalescent in a turn-of-the-century sanatorium, minus a thermometer stuck in her mouth and a hot water bottle by her head. Her pallor, now, was almost ghostly, her complexion so flawless as to seem surreal, a Kabuki character with anorexia, girl from the West doused with rice powder. Father Butler, she said dreamily. Welcome and peace be with you.

And you must be the girl we've heard about and read about in the newspapers.

Father Butler, repeated Ann. I'm glad you're here. My name is Ann Holmes. Please come in and sit with us. You too, Father Collins.

Father Butler hesitated. Such extreme politesse, he said. I don't know when I was last invited into one of these clever Volkswagen vans. It's really… efficient, isn't it? Would efficient be the right word?

Germans, said Carolyn. Lebensraum.

The priests sat at the fold-down table so that the four of them now were like teenagers in a booth at a small-town soda shop. Father Butler smelled like brittle leaves or a very earthy pipe tobacco, Carolyn could not quite tell, or possibly Bay Rum aftershave. Bugs in a rug, he said.

It's cozy, she answered. Cozy or claustrophobic, depending on your point of view. Cup half empty or cup half full. I hope neither of you gets Ann's flu, by the way. Maybe I should open a window.

No need, Father Butler replied. In New Guinea I worked among the sick every day, but the Lord kept me well—indeed wherever I went in the Third World the Lord always kept and blessed me. But 'sixty-two to 'sixty-five in Popondetta, not far from Port Moresby, why those were some of my heartiest days, despite the presence of malaria, typhoid, and assorted, shall we say, jungle fevers. I lived on simple food there, slept when it fell dark, got up with the light, played a bit of soccer, badminton, and never once a speck of illness.

You're lucky, said Carolyn. That's not me. Just tell me you're sick I get sick, too. Or tell me you were sick last week. I can talk myself into serious disease without even really trying.

Ho, said Father Butler. Hypochondria. But you're looking hale now, Ms. Greer. You're looking relaxed, I must point out, for someone so close to the center of things. Someone so close to—excuse me—purported visions. And with this clearly feverish girl at your side, convalescing in, shall we say, close quarters. It reminds me a little of my navy days. Bunking shipboard in shifts.

Purported or not, said Carolyn, there's no point in stressing out.

Father Butler didn't blink or waver. Composure, he said, is certainly admirable. A trait of martyrs, oftentimes, who know they go to the Lord.