Skinny Legs and All (49 page)

Ellen Cherry wanted to ask Buddy what he was doing mouthing the aphorism of a pagan in the house of Jehovah, but she didn’t dare get close to him. At the Charles house following the burial, he spent most of his time with his arm around Patsy, occasionally pulling her distraught face to his Armani lapel. Whenever he looked in Ellen Cherry’s direction, his teeth would grind like a slow divorce. Fortunately, he returned to New York the next morning.

The day after that, in the late afternoon, Ellen Cherry went back. Patsy had insisted. “You got your job, honey. Your daddy wouldn’t want you to miss any more work. You know how he felt about shirkers and loafers.”

Even so, Ellen Cherry was reluctant to leave until Patsy revealed her own plans to come to Manhattan. “I’m in shock right now. Oh, mercy, I’m in a pile of shock. But I’ll get over it in time, and when I do, well, there’s not diddly-squat for me in Colonial Pines. Maybe I’ll come up there and live around you for a while. Would that be okay? Your daddy’s insurance’ll provide a dollar or two and, who knows, maybe I’ll turn a right smart profit on this ol’ barn.”

On the flight from Byrd Field, Ellen Cherry tried unsuccessfully to imagine Patsy without Verlin. For that matter, she couldn’t picture the world without him, as insignificant a player upon the world stage as he may have been. The permanent absence of someone who (from her perspective) had always been there, shaping her fundamental experience, her tissue and blood, was overwhelming and unreal. She felt older, more vulnerable, as if a buffer had suddenly crumbled between her and the mortal brink.

The day after the funeral, while she and her mother had sat in front of the floor fan sipping iced tea, Patsy alluded to two miscarriages she had suffered when Ellen Cherry was a tot, one of the lost fetuses, apparently, having been fathered by someone other than Verlin. It was information that Ellen Cherry neither solicited nor desired, but when she tried to change the subject, Patsy had announced, “Now’s the time for
you
to have babies, honey. Directly. And you know why? Having babies messes up your life, but when you’re young your life’s already messed up, so it’s easy to fit in a baby or two.”

She supposed Patsy was right about the messed-up part. Her life so far certainly hadn’t been any clockwork artichoke, although all around her she saw lives far more scattered and confused. Anyway, unless it was another false alarm, the drawstring on her emotional pajamas seemed to be cinching up.

The skyline of Manhattan came into view. Its towers pierced her grief, her introspection, giving her an unexpected thrill. Richmond was so flat in comparison, Colonial Pines such an innocuous splinter on the maypole of the world. She felt rather like a bee returning to a great busy hive, but a hive where the drones pilfered the royal jelly, the workers moonlighted as litterbugs, and the queen reigned only so long as she got good reviews in the
Times
. Jerusalem might be on everybody’s mind, but New York was thrill enough for her. “Anything could be happening down there,” she marveled, but from her present altitude, of course, she could discern nothing specific. Not one jay feather of smoke, one tabby wail of siren reached her aircraft from the fire that was burning in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

"EITHER ONE OF YOU
ever have social interaction with a bullet?"

Can o’ Beans’s inquiry had gone unanswered. Dirty Sock and Spoon had been preoccupied with the crowd that was gathering by the cathedral steps to heed or observe the Reverend Buddy Winkler. A Village
Voice
reporter, the same enterprising newshound who had written about Salome, had published a feature on the preacher, and several TV stations had picked it up (as eventually they would also do with the Salome story). As a result, regular passersby were paying Buddy more attention, and some people were visiting that block of Fifth Avenue deliberately to see the notorious radio evangelist who, in the sandal steps of his Lord Jesus, was now making his pitch in the streets. The resulting increase in pedestrian congestion concerned municipal officials, but due to the prevalence of millennial hysteria and the political power of the Christian right, they had been reluctant to interfere. Secretly, City Hall was hoping that some group such as Freedom From Religion would file a complaint.

“I daresay Miss Spoon would not have crossed paths with a bullet of any caliber, but you, Mr. Sock, did relate that you’d once gone along on an expedition to bag bullfrogs. . . .”

“Jigging,” growled Dirty Sock. “They didn’t blow ’em out of the goddamned water for Christ’s sake.” He returned his attention to the sidewalk. “That ol’ boy Norman could flat out turn around, but this here fellow knows how to butter his bread.”

“Personally, I’d enjoy the opportunity to speak with some bullets, find out what goes on inside those little pointed heads.”

The bean can’s interest in bullets had been sparked by a news broadcast that had drifted in through the grate. In a widely publicized effort to reduce fatalities among unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, the Israeli military had begun to fire wooden or plastic bullets in its rifles. To the contrary, however, fatal shootings had increased. American and European nurses and doctors doing volunteer service in West Bank hospitals reported that Israeli soldiers, deprived of the power of lead, were now shooting the young Arabs in the head at such close range that even a plastic bullet could cause death or brain damage. “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” said Can o’ Beans disparagingly. He/she decided that if he/she succeeded in reaching Jerusalem, he/she would endeavor to interview a bullet or two. Beneath the facade of absolute stoicism that they, like all objects, presented to the animate-dominated world, did bullets have hopes, dreams, and fears? Did the inner life of a wooden bullet differ greatly from that of the one that wore a full metal jacket?

If I ever make it to Jerusalem
. That thought (tinged with fatalism, perhaps) scarcely had passed through what, in a bean can, amounted to a brain, when Painted Stick and Conch Shell called him/her, and the sock and spoon, away from their corroded little window on the world to announce that upon that very day they were going to make their move.

“Our timing must be exact,” said Conch Shell. “Even so, danger will be upmost. None of you should feel obligated to participate.”

So eager were Can o’ Beans and Dirty Sock to hit the road (they were mutants now, no longer able to be satisfied with the sedentariness of their kind) that they committed themselves even before they heard the plan. Spoon gave a tinkly little shiver and weakly cast her lot with the rest.

Painted Stick was going to set a fire in the basement. It would have to be set while there was still enough light for smoke to be seen pouring out of the grate, yet close enough to nightfall so that the objects might take advantage of darkness once they were outside the cathedral. Calling upon his knowledge of matters celestial, Painted Stick would calculate the precise moment of truth. Ideally, the smoke should be observed by passersby no more than two minutes before the final colors of twilight faded. An alarm would have to be sounded at once, of course: if the blaze got out of control, the objects might perish, one and all. Spoon alone had a chance to survive an inferno, yet even she might melt into a metallic lump more unaesthetic and more undistinguished than the present configuration of Can o’ Beans. Spoon shuddered again. They each heard the tinkle.

“Well now, how in tarnation do you expect to start this here fire?” asked the sock.

“Friction,” replied the stick.

“And how . . .” began Can o’ Beans. He/she fell silent. Because, as usual, he/she was curious about such things, he/she was about to ask Painted Stick how he would feel if this famous cathedral burned to the ground just to facilitate their escape. But the can decided not to burden Painted Stick, who had whipped one man and tripped a second, with another “moral” issue. Besides, Can o’ Beans was well aware that more than one destructive fire of “unknown origin” secretly had been started by inanimate objects. Even humans referred to “spontaneous combustion.” They just didn’t realize that it could be an act of will.

In a far corner of the cellar, Painted Stick had overturned an old packing crate. The wood shavings that had spilled out were then spooned by the spoon and tamped by the stick into the shell and the stocking, who transported the stuff in their respective cavities to a spot on the floor beneath the grate. “Mr. Sock looks as if he’s been taking steroids,” said Can o’ Beans of his bulging comrade. “Or else he’s been fattened for pâté de sock gras.” Spoon giggled. Dirty Sock growled.

Atop the heap of curly shavings, which Dirty Sock said reminded him of Miss Charles’s hairdo, they had nudged, pushed, and shoved, each according to his or her or his/her own abilities, several dry, dusty hymnals. In the same manner, they added several lengths of wood from a broken pew. Then they stepped back to survey their pyre. “I daresay no scout troop could do better,” remarked Can o’ Beans.

“You dare said it,” said Dirty Sock.

Spoon had giggled again, more from nervousness than amusement.

At twilight, they had assumed their stations. Spoon and Dirty Sock, she all ashiver, he irritated by a piece of wood shaving that had caught in his threads, perched on the ledge before the grate. Conch Shell and Can o’ Beans were by the door, positioned so that when it swung open, they would be hidden behind it. Painted Stick was at the edge of the pyre itself, balancing upright on his tapered tip.

They waited.

And waited.

And when the angle and composition of the dying light was to his satisfaction, the stick commenced to twirl. For some reason, each of the others, watching him, thought briefly of Turn Around Norman, although Norman obviously was a slow train to Leadville compared to the rapidly spinning stick. Around and around the ancient talisman twirled, twirling in a frenzy, like a blind man’s cane in a whirlpool, like the bit of a diamond cutter’s drill.

They watched.

And watched.

And grew anxious.

But at last a shaving began to smolder. Then another. And another. The first spark popped like a baby’s bloody head emerging from an oxygen womb. Twins. Quintuplets. Then, an entire population flared, and the shadow of the scorched stick was thrown, tall and mysterious, against a fire-lit wall.

By the time that Ellen Cherry Charles—husbandless, loverless, and now fatherless—returned her seat back to an upright position in preparation for landing at La Guardia, an advance wave of firefighters was cautiously opening St. Patrick’s sub-basement door. Precisely at that moment, Spoon, Dirty Sock, and Painted Stick squirmed through the bars and out onto the sidewalk. There they were concealed in a hedgerow of smoke. Policemen already had cordoned off the block. So far, so good.

“If only it will go half this smoothly for the others,” said Spoon.

“Yep,” said Dirty Sock. “We got it made compared to them two.”

Hardly had the objects spoken when a man appeared out of the smoke, a tall, gaunt man who, though attired in a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit, managed to look as cheap as chewing gum. A shock of recognition was followed by the greater shock of capture. Before she could say “Mother Mary” or “white chocolate mousse,” Spoon was yanked from the pavement by the man’s right hand. Just as suddenly, his left hand snatched up Painted Stick. He squatted for a moment to consider Dirty Sock, but drew back with a show of disgust. Leaving the begrimed garment where it lay, he walked away, clutching and studying the utensil and the wand.

Buddy Winkler had lingered near St. Patrick’s that dusk somewhat beyond his usual hour of departure. He had been conversing with a professed supporter, a well-dressed stranger who’d intimated interest in financially supporting any cause that might expedite Armageddon. “Let’s you and me talk us some turkey,” said Buddy, and, indeed, they had been all agobble when they noticed smoke streaming from a grate at the base of the cathedral. The preacher had been rather surprised by the speed and efficiency with which the stranger used a police call box to summon the fire department.

When the first squad car had arrived, its driver had wanted to question Bud about the fire.

“No, no. This is the Reverend Buddy Winkler,” the stranger intervened.

“And who da fuck are you?”

In response, the stranger had removed his wallet and flashed some token of identification that looked suspiciously less like a Visa Gold Card than a badge. The cop nodded and turned his attention to clearing the area. “Reckon I should mosey on out of the way,” said Buddy. “Maybe you and me can chew the fat on some more collected occasion.” He nodded at the smoking cathedral. “Sure hope the cod-chompers don’t lose no prime real estate.”

With that, Buddy turned and headed for the barricades. Cursing him, firemen brushed past him on their way up the steps. He disappeared momentarily in belches of smoke. “Bet the archbishop’s faggots forgot to turn off the heat under the chowder,” he joked. “’Course, too, they might’ve been warming up some of that KY Jelly.” He’d closed his eyes against the sting of the smoke, and it was at the instant of their cautious reopening that he spotted the things on the sidewalk.

His retrieval of them, two of them, had been purely instinctive, although it quickly occurred to him that the spoon was identical to the one that his wanton niece had painted pictures of, and that the satanic-looking stick was the one that had been used to trip him up a few weeks prior. He’d had a funny feeling about the grate in that cathedral for a while now, a feeling as if something unnatural and unrighteous was being carried on behind it. Something that might have been intended to personally bug him. It wasn’t anything he could speak about. He was reluctant to think about it in any but the most superficial way. Oddly enough, he didn’t blame the Catholics. Intuition led him to suspect that whatever it was was somehow connected to that lunkhead who used to stand stock-still down the street there, fooling gullible pseudointellectuals such as Ellen Cherry Charles into believing he was turning around. Whatever it was, it was also connected to these things he’d found on the sidewalk. Well, he would paint
their
little red wagon blue! He’d just take their playthings with him! Except for the sock, of course. Let the Devil dress his hoof in that noxious stocking!