Between the Bridge and the River (25 page)

The two aggressors ran off promising dire reprisals.

Jean got up and went over to his Samaritan. “Thank you,” he said.

Max said nothing, just gave a little joyless smile. Embarrassed and shy.

“I hate those two, they’re the worst. They hit me even after I give them things.”

“Perhaps they learned a lesson today,” said Max.

Little Jean nodded, in awe of his new best friend.

From that day on Jean stuck to his protector like glue. As promised, the two bullies, who were called Stefan and Charles, attempted a higher authority for justice. They told their teacher that Max had hit Stefan with a rock for no reason whatsoever. The teacher, who had been around naughty children all his adult life, as well as all of his childhood of course, saw through the tales.

He gave Max a verbal reprimand for being a little too rough, saying that the one who resorts to violence first is the moral loser. Max agreed, saying the bullies had been using violence way before he had arrived on the scene. The teacher said not to talk back but he almost winked at the boy, impressed as he was with the intense youngster’s gumption.

The teacher had another reason for going lightly on Max. Max was the star pupil in school and the teacher had him in mind for a big job.

A new king had recently been crowned, Louis XVI, and he was set to visit the town. As the brightest and best in the school, little
Maximilien was chosen to read an address in Latin to the monarch, some fawning piece of rubbish about kings being God’s ambassadors on Earth. Something that underlined the ancien régime—basically the birthright of the nobility to use others in any way they saw fit.

The king listened intently as the beautiful, serious little boy read with passion and he thought to himself how magnificent that one so young could have such a grasp of loyalty to the throne. He was moved.

“The little lad had quite an effect on me,” he would say later to his favorite prostitute.

Max was proud and honored to be in the presence of the divine Louis, and his friend Jean almost burst with pride.

Bliss was it that dawn to be alive, and very heaven to be young— that beautiful day when Louis was still a tin-pot god and Maximilien Robespierre was still a hoodwinked child.

Years passed and the boys grew into themselves, Jean going into his father’s profession, much to the old boy’s delight. Jean was well suited for long periods of time sitting at a desk studying and creating intricate and delicate machinery.

Maximilien, the joyless protector of the less fortunate, studied the law and became a famous barrister, winning a celebrated case of the time allowing some local people in St. Omer to install newfangled lightning rods as developed by the wonderful American Benjamin Franklin. Maximilien was so successful he was made a judge at an early age.

Now there would be justice.

Maximilien admired Ben Franklin, he was very interested in Franklin’s scientific work, which seemed to suggest that there was no such thing as divine rule. That the ancien régime was perhaps erroneous. Perhaps there was more to the Universe than the order dictated by the clergy and the nobility.

The people in power, the nobility, using the theatricality and superstition of the Church to spoon-feed the masses any old cabbage they required them to swallow.

Maximilien also read and reread the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The man who had written: “Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.”

And, “You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the Earth belong to no one, and the Earth itself belongs to everyone.”

Which actually native American people had been saying to each other for thousands of years, but they didn’t write it down, so it didn’t count. Also, at this time most of them were still tucked away quietly in their own private paradise awaiting the arrival of enlightenment, Christianity, and genocide. Maximilien’s radical views alarmed his old friend Jean when the two met for dinner, as they did every month. Jean agreed that there certainly seemed to be change in the air but that it must be steered by King Louis himself, who had a divine mission from the Lord to shepherd His flock.

Jean would not ever make a stance against the king. It would be wrong, it would be treason, it would be heresy, it would be satanic.

Surrounded as he was by clocks, Jean could not see what time it was.

The clocks understood, they kept moving, motion, following the truth that change is the nature of God’s mind, and resistance to it is the source of great pain.

Maximilien and Jean finally faced each other on opposite sides of a bloody revolution. By this time Max was known as “the Incorruptible”— he wouldn’t let anything get in the way of his principles.

He found himself sitting in judgment of his old friend, whom he had saved so long ago.

Jean was brought before the Revolution for helping to smuggle aristocrats to safety. They had been his best customers, he knew many of them personally. He could not just let them die. They had families.

Jean said it was the will of God that the king rule.

Maximilien said that God had changed His mind. He was correct in this respect.

Maximilien sent his friend to the guillotine because principle came first. A scientific fact that surely Jean, as an artisan, understood.

Certain laws cannot be broken.

But Maximilien was incorrect in this respect.

Allowances can always be made for your friends to disagree with you. Disagreement, vehement disagreement, is healthy. Debate is impossible without it. Evil does not question itself, only hope questions itself. Even the incorruptible are corruptible if they cannot accept the possibility of being mistaken.

Infallibility is a sin in any man.

All laws can be broken and are.

Often.

Like when a bumblebee flies or an ancient regime is toppled.

“
IT’S A TERRIBLY SAD STORY
,” said Claudette.

“Yes.”

“Is it true?”

“Oh yes, all of it. Well, I put in the part about the bumblebee. I thought it was a nice touch,” said the old man.

Claudette smiled at him.

“I knew Robespierre, you know,” he said. “I didn’t like him much. Always fussing with his hair. He was a cold fish. He told me that story himself.”

Claudette looked again at the old man. She had at first thought him a charming old eccentric but now suspected that he was deranged.

She wanted to get away but felt guilty.

“I really must go now, I have someone waiting,” she said.

“A lover?”

Claudette blushed slightly.

The old man grinned. “I know about lovers, I know about love. I wasn’t always like this, I was young and pretty and I had my Simone. History turned me to this. Fearful slander about me written by frightened sheep—that’s what did this to me. I wasn’t old, I was young, I still had work to do. A woman—a Girondin woman!—killed me and still
I got old. My comrades and I, we changed the entire world and were never forgiven for that. The liars made me old and they made me ugly and they made me mad but I was never those things.”

He was getting animated now and Claudette felt a little alarmed. She looked around for a jogger but there didn’t seem to be any.

“You know why they do that to me, daughter? You know why they attack me?”

Claudette shook her head.

“Because I dared to dream that things could be different. That there was a point in trying to make a change. Nothing is written, daughter, the world is magical and mystical but not in the way they told us. The magic and glory and wonder of the world is for everyone, not just for kings and princes and all those unworthy braggarts. For you and me, Les Sans Culottes. Never accept the status quo! Ask yourself this: If the Duke of Brunswick ever gets here, what have you done that will get you hung? Eh? Eh?”

He cackled, spittle forming at the side of his mouth.

Claudette edged away.

She found his ranting disturbing but didn’t feel particularly threatened, the old man was too frail for that, but she didn’t want a scene or any unpleasantness.

She had felt so good only a few moments before. She wanted to be back in the warm bed with her Georges.

The old man rattled on. “I’m not French—by birth, I mean. I’m Swiss. But I was never neutral. A pox on neutrality—cowardice and opportunism. I am French”—he pointed to his sunken chest as if it contained great treasure—”here.”

She got up to leave.

The old man put his hand on her arm. His look softened.

“You have no children?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You are too full and fresh not to have children. You must have them.”

She nodded, pulling away.

“Name one for me,” he croaked.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

“Jean-Paul,” he said, then closed his eyes.

Claudette trod briskly to the park entrance. The old revolutionary watched her leave, then walked over the water on the boating pond and back into the lies of imperialist history.

IT WAS STILL DARK BUT THE TOP WAS DOWN
. He felt the warm wind blowing his hair, his tongue found the dried blood on the side of his mouth. His ribs and legs ached and his head felt like there was a tight band wrapped around it. He felt his heart palpitating as his body shook off the alcohol and he felt the cold stickiness of his urine-soaked trousers. He turned his head and looked at T-Bo, who was driving.

“Where are we?” he said.

“A1A. I didn’t wanna take I-95, ’cause you never know who you gonna meet there. Also you look pretty beat up. Cops see me driving down the freeway at night in this ride with a white guy in your condition, they gonna wanna talk to me, ask me some questions.”

Fraser nodded, felt a stab of pain in his neck, and decided to stay still for a while.

“Where are we going?”

“I got a buddy in rehab in one of them treatment centers in Delray Beach, ’bout ten miles up the road here. We gonna see him. I called him on his cell but no joy.”

“Why are we going there?”

“I said I would bring him something and, well, I had to split town, some guys are lookin for me. This is kind of their car too.”

“This is a stolen car?” asked Fraser.

“Not exactly, I share it with my homies, Silky and Wilson, but they a little mad at me right now. I took the money we got from you and the car and took off. When they get some metal they gonna come after me. I dissed them bad.”

“I see. I can imagine they are a little irate at being ‘dissed.’

“T-Bo glanced at Fraser. “You fuckin with me?”

Fraser smiled without opening his eyes. T-Bo laughed.

“I can’t believe you, man. You get beat up bad and go through what you went through and you fuckin with me. You got balls, Homes.”

“Thank you,” said Fraser.

“I can give you your money back,” said T-Bo.

“Keep it,” said Fraser. “I don’t need it anymore.”

“What you talking about? Everybody needs a little money.”

“Not me. Not anymore. I’m done with it.”

“You prob’ly still a little groggy. I’ll get back to you on that.”

Fraser drifted off again for a few moments. When he opened his eyes again he looked at the condo buildings and the palm trees and caught glimpses of the sacred Atlantic through the gaps between the brassy neon of the motels and hotels.

“It’s beautiful here.”

T-Bo nodded. “Better in the daytime. You a preacher?” he said. Fraser thought for a moment, went over his recent history in his head.

“Yes,” he replied. “I am a flawed and beautiful child of God. I walk in His image and His Amazing Grace. I was lost but now I’m found.”

T-Bo looked at the bloody, beaten drunk next to him. “What was you doin in that gay club? If you a preacher.”

“I walk among the children of the Universe. I am no longer impeded by the constraints of fear, cowardice, and opportunism. I go where I please.”

“Yeah, but bein a faggot is wrong. It’s against the Bible.”

“I don’t read the Bible, I am only interested in the word of God.”

“Well, the word of God is in the Bible.”

“Yes, it is but it’s a lot of other places too. The Bible has been through at least half a dozen translations by the time you read it. Plus, when the word of God is infected by the hand of man, that is, written down, it is tainted.”

“You saying the Bible is infected?”

“Yes, Praise Jesus. Amen.”

T-Bo shook his head and drove on in silence for a while. Then he asked, “You a faggot?”

Fraser painfully turned and looked at him. “If I say yes will you beat me up again?”

T-Bo looked away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, man. I did wrong. I’m changing my ways. You’re a Christian. Forgive me.”

Fraser smiled and closed his eyes. “I forgive you,” he said.

They drove on in silence for a few moments.

“What is the true word of God, then?” asked T-Bo softly.

Fraser didn’t move. T-Bo thought perhaps he had passed out again but after a moment he spoke. “Help ither sodjirs,” he said.

“Say what?”

“Help others,” Fraser repeated.

“That’s it?” said T-Bo.

“That’s it,” said Fraser.

Delray Beach is like a little time capsule on the east coast of Florida, wedged between the retirement communities of Boca Raton and beige celebrity hideaways of Palm Beach.

The beach itself is long and sandy and unspoiled. The coast road is peppered with beautiful homes and surprisingly cheap hotels. The main drag, Atlantic Avenue, is a throwback to the 1950s. Little momand-pop stores and burger joints that don’t have twenty-five hundred branches elsewhere. A railway track runs through the center of town and every half hour or so the crossing bells ring, the barricades come down, and a giant freighter will rumble through.

Further up the street, toward the ocean, there is a drawbridge over the inland waterway, a pleasure boat canal that runs from Maine all the way down to Miami. When the drawbridge is up and a train is
coming through it can take half an hour to travel three hundred yards down this street no matter how pimped out your Chevy Caprice is.