Decatur (4 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN
Riding Around After Dark

Gar loved Father Troy’s bicycle and knew the priest wouldn’t mind if he took it out for a spin. Tomorrow was going to be a big clean up day around the parish as everything had to be done by Monday’s classes and he had special dispensation to work right through the morning Masses to get everything put back. Even with the help he’d get from the folks after church, Gar knew it was an all day job. So getting out tonight and taking a break was only natural.

He didn’t say a word to anyone, just eased the bike down the drive and took off with the light fading. The bicycle had a big battery head lamp on the front and he clicked it on against the oncoming darkness. His mind roamed over the images from the carnival. His memory lingered on the faces of the young mothers who had watched him eat their food. It was so easy sometimes to make people feel things. All sorts of things. He liked that about himself, the way he penetrated people’s outer masks and how they took him in. He tried to keep his mind off the conversation he had overheard in the parish office. It was provoking and he didn’t want to think about that now. No, something else had his full attention, made his heart leap up into his throat in a thrilling way. He had sniffed something on the wind in the thick twilight just when the carnies pulled away, petty mean bastards. He clamped down his thoughts on how they had run off like the weak cowards they were. Still it was nothing. Gar knew. Maybe he could help the poor Clearys somehow but not now. Now he was following his nose for the source, it was out there and had come close to him that very night, he could sense it and every nerve was tingling at the thought. It had been so long. He didn’t dare think about how long it had been because he would just become one big aching hole immobile from sheer desire if he thought about that. He pumped the pedals harder, speeding up coming close and beginning to pass a big Ford pick up burning gas at the light. Just then some fool teenager in the truck rolled down his window and spat, “Hey, you moron, get that tricycle off the road.”

Gar just shook his head at the kid, his big head like a bear’s. Let it go, he thought. Until the kid said again, “I said get that thing off the road you muther-fucker.”

The kid just shouldn’t have done that because Gar hadn’t realized he was still angry in a way at the carnies, not until he had yanked the kid’s door open with an easy lunge. Even as the car tried to speed up Gar just held on, hearing Father Troy’s bicycle clatter to the ground. He wasn’t worried, this wouldn’t take a minute. Using his upper body strength he jack-knifed himself into the truck’s bench front seat even as the smart-ass kid squealed and tried to roll the window up. The driver couldn’t have been over sixteen, with a bushy head of hair and pimples and looking across at Gar now in horror he slammed on the brakes sputtering, “Mister, we’re sorry, just leave us alone.” The big Ford screeched to a stop in the middle of the block and cars started honking as both Gar and the kid heaved forward into the windshield. Not more than thirty seconds had passed since the kid had run off his mouth but now the glass on the Ford pickup’s window windshield was cracked in a long lightning-streak line.

“Watch your mouth around strangers, son, you never know who they might be.” was all Gar said as he hopped out, leaving the driver in the middle of a Saturday night mess with the smart-ass dazed and a big egg shaped lump beginning to form over his right eye. Gar was back up on Father Troy’s bicycle and speeding down East 22
^nd
Street away into the night more annoyed with himself now than with the kid. He had been in the groove there for a moment following the source but now the air was all broken up and the scent disappeared into the car fumes and he knew suddenly he wasn’t going to find it tonight. His legs pedaled faster, as he fought the rising panic. There’s still time he told himself. It was just a temporary set-back.

He pressed on, past the town central, cycling past the K-Mart, the Mobil and the Standard Oil stations on twin corners, and the bright neon of the Wrangler Steakhouse. He sped right past a dumpy little brown building with a crowded parking lot and an old fashioned bulb-lit sign in the shape of a jug, intent now on just moving. He wanted to ride out his anxiety about how the grains of sand were trickling faster through the hourglass of his unnaturally long life and how he had to have the source if he was to go on and going on was imperative because he knew the horror waiting if the sands ran out. At the intersection of County 48 and Pershing there was a restaurant with a giant fat kid made out of poly-something holding up a huge burger. “Big-Boy Burgers” is what the sign said, and in the spot closest to the road clearly lit by the overhead lot lights Gar saw a panel truck with an aqua bear in the front seat. That was the good thing about a bicycle, you saw so much more, he thought. A burger might go down real good right now and serve to take his mind off the disappointment of losing his way.

The Lincoln Log Motel was on Highway 48 just outside of town, and the night clerk was the owner’s stepson, Justin, an overweight high school dropout with bad hearing and a penchant for ice cream and late-night television. When the two carnies -- one skinny with a pony tail and the other bigger with light brown eyes and a beard -- checked in asking for one room with twin beds, it was just a little past eight and
M.A.S.H.
was blaring on the small set in the lobby/office area and Justin was digging into a carton of Blue Bonnet Spumoni ice-cream. The Lincoln Log Motel offered clean rooms, privacy, and very little else, and that seemed fine with two carnies who signed their names Jack Johnson and Don Smith on the dotted line and put in their truck’s license plate. They were carrying a brown paper sack with what looked like a twelve pack of Bud inside and a
Hustler
and
Playboy
magazine peeked out over the top. They only asked if they could be in the rear of the motel away from the road. Justin sighed as he gave them their room key, thinking about how his favorite re-runs wouldn’t be on for another three hours. The carnies got back in their truck and pulled it up to the space in front of their room, nicely out of sight from prying eyes on the road.

The ponytailed carnie who had called himself Don Smith, at least the Don was true, was lying on his stomach on the bed closest to the door jiggling his leg. On the quilted teal polyester bedspread lay two plastic baggies, one had some primo Thai buds in it and the other twenty-five Black Beauties. An old friend of the bearded carnie who tonight went by the name Jack Johnson was supposed to drop by sometime before ten to make a buy. Jack was in the bathroom with the
Hustler
magazine and there was nothing to do but wait. Beer cans were tossed around the room, but they still had a couple of cold ones left. It had been a lousy day as far as the pony-tailed carnie was concerned and this dump was making Gary, Indiana look good. So when there was a soft knock at the door, Don exclaimed under his breath, “About time!” and sprang up to answer, the speed giving him a little extra zing.

The big man called Gar from the parish carnival stood leaning into the doorframe, smiling, with a great sort of easy friendliness that Don missed on the road. “Hey, they weren’t bad burgers, I got cheese and bacon on mine.” It took Don a minute to realize that Gar was talking about Big-Boy’s where he and Jack had eaten that night but this guy hadn’t eaten with them so how did he know? By the time those thoughts cranked through his feverish brain, the big man was in the room and, still smiling, he pushed Don onto the teal bedspread. The pony-tailed carnie was about to holler when a fist like a boulder plowed into his face and the next thing he knew piss was leaking down his jeans and something warm was gushing out of his mouth. He must have made some sound because Jack, who thank God was as almost as big as the guy in their room, came through the bathroom door then with the Hustler magazine still open in one hand and his shirttail all out, spitting, “What the hell?” but when he saw the teeth and the blood on the bedspread he backed right up and shut the flimsy bathroom door with a slam. Then the big man said, “You shouldn’t have done that to that little girl and then just go and eat burgers like it didn’t matter. Where’s your soul, man?”

Don shook his head, “Go to hell. Never mind about my fuckin’ soul.”

“Oh, but I do mind and so will you.” Then Gar slapped him and Don heard something snap in his neck and a pain like nothing else exploded in the back of his head and the big guy was on top of him on the bed and his face was right over Don’s mouth and as he was strangling him the bastard’s tongue rolled out of his mouth like a serpent’s and then with a slurp, he had it. Gar had part of Don, his inner most part but now as his windpipe collapsed and he couldn’t breathe the terror of the chasm yawned and though Don kicked and clutched the bedspread he was dragged through to the endless black.

Gar felt the carnie’s essence come into him and melt like the spumoni ice cream the kid clerk in the motel lobby was eating. It momentarily satisfied him but at the same time just made him want more. Well, lucky there was Don’s buddy now trying to get his fat ass out the bathroom window. Time for seconds.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Things Forgotten

Father Weston sat at the Brown Jug bar without his Roman collar on, instead wearing a blue sport shirt with two big woven panels running down each side. He didn’t look like a priest he thought, eyeing himself in the mirror behind the bar, no he could have been a civilian, a salesman maybe or even a travel agent. Sometimes he wondered why he had made the choice he had.
No kids, no wife, no real home, no sex -- okay, very little -- but hey, free laundry, right
? He fished the cherry out of his second old fashioned and sucked on it thoughtfully. Dinner, before he had drnk three he should order dinner. The bar was busy with factory managers, car dealers, construction types but pretty much blue collar and proud of it, husbands and their wives out for a Saturday night and what looked to be a group of tournament bowlers occupying the corner end. The Brown Jug wasn’t on the same level as the Blue Mill, families were rare here, it was more of a road house so while that meant that someone picking up the tab for a hard working priest’s meal was not very likely, it also meant running into parishioners was also not very likely.
Which was a relief after the conversation with the Clearys.

The brown wooden door with a diamond shaped window that looked out onto the lit jug sign opened and a wallop of fresh air swept away some of the blue cigarette smoke that hung in the air over the bar. Max Rosenbaum ushered in a wide-eyed Marilyn with a silk scarf wrapped around her hair. Father Weston noted that Marilyn was still wearing her black waitress uniform and the black ballet flats she favored working in. Max gave a two fingered wave, but he looked both tense and excited and he had Marilyn by the elbow as if he was afraid she’d wander off. Father Weston got out his smooth calfskin wallet, a present from his mother, and quickly laid down a five, indicating to the bartender that he was going to pay up. “I’m gonna need a table, Tom, for three.” the priest said quietly in a no-nonsense way.

“You got it, Father. You want to take your drink?” said the bartender as he motioned for the host, pointing at Father Weston and putting up three fingers even as pulled two Miller beers out from the cooler.

They sat in the corner in a banquette, Marilyn in the middle with the two men on either side. She looked at each of them for a moment. “This could be the beginning of a joke. A priest, a professor and a waitress all walk into a bar.”

“What happens, then?” asked Father Weston, running his hand over the button-tufted banquette and venturing a quick squeeze of Marilyn’s shoulder.

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. I just don’t know what happens.” Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly and Max felt uneasy as the priest looked at him intently even as he rattled his ice in the cocktail glass.

Father Weston turned then to Max across the table. “What about you, professor?

“How about a drink first?” asked Max and the priest nodded, easing off. The waitress came over then, an older gal with white hair teased and sprayed into a hive but she had a kind face, and she took drink orders while laying out the battered leather-covered menus. Max ordered a beer and Marilyn had a rum-and-coke with a lime. Marilyn spoke extra nice to the waitress, asking her how she was like she meant it before she ordered and the old gal seemed to appreciate it because the beer when it came had a frosty glass and Marilyn’s drink looked king-sized in a big fat pebbled glass. Father Weston’s eyebrows rose when he saw that, exclaiming, “You’re ordering for all of us, kiddo.”

They studied their menus for a minute in silence but there was a bubble around their table, a bubble of anticipation and fear mixed in with some sexual tension. Hell, it was a rare night for Decatur, Illinois, thought Max.

When the salads came in their little wooden bowls with blue cheese dressing and the basket of garlic bread that was both salty and crispy, Father Weston looked up, his eyes only slightly owlish. He had gone ahead and ordered a third drink and asked for it in the same kind of glass Marilyn had hers, and sure enough the waitress had complied. “So what did you two do tonight?” he asked, digging a big forkful of ice berg lettuce, dressing, and shredded carrot out of the bowl as blue cheese dressing dripped down the fork and onto the white tablecloth.

“I went to college,” Marilyn said. She had brightened some with her rum-and-coke and was nibbling on the garlic bread.

“I took her to the Map Room in the Arts and Science Building,” said Max, sipping his beer and, not able to help himself, he dabbed at Father W’s spilt dressing with his napkin.

“Hon, could we get another napkin?” asked Marilyn when she saw the waitress pass their table and she smiled at the old gal like they were best friends. Sure enough three more folded cloth napkins appeared just like that. Max wondered if there was a kind of sisterhood of waitresses. Marilyn handed Max a fresh napkin and lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “He hypnotized me, Father W.”

Father W nodded although he felt a rush of guilt wash over him for introducing Marilyn to the professor. Things that she had told him in confession that of course he couldn’t outright tell the intellectual professor, who had struck up the only real thinking conversations that the priest had had in some years about God, the soul, and the eternal journey, had prompted him to make the introduction. Marilyn’s soul ran so close to the surface that it pushed the boundaries of normalcy for the physical woman and as a priest he was seeking some kind of peace for her. It had also attracted him to her, the way she prayed without guilt for all the times she didn’t pray, the halting confessions of how objects in her presence seemed to have wills of their own, and how she could feel a storm coming from miles away, or knew when a bird would lift from a wire and fly as if they were of one mind. Still, hypnotism wasn’t too far from the dark arts and a conversation Father W had once about Marilyn with the Monsignor in the rectory came floating back to him through the bourbon and bitters. The Monsignor hadn’t admitted to much but it seemed to Father Weston at the time that the powerful and rarely used prayer of exorcism had been said over Marilyn when she was but a girl, long before he had ever come to St. Pat’s. He pressed down a memory of the Monsignor, still old but less frail, murmuring sorrowfully, “
We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions …”
and tried to shake off some of the booze. “What happened, Max?”

Max let out a long breath and pulled his leather volume from the inside of his sport jacket. “She’s a good subject. I think I’m going to have a lot to work with.”

“I don’t remember much about it, truthfully, Father W -- the map room, some countries, and something else that I can’t quite get at.”

“Have you travelled very much, Marilyn?” asked Max then in the rain coming down voice, looking at his notes.

She shrugged her shoulders but her eyes slid off to the side as if not wanting to really answer. “I’ve been to St. Louis.”

“You know I want to help you. I hypnotized you so you could remember,” Max’s voice was drawing something closer, it seemed to Marilyn. “It’s possible that as long as you keep trying to disguise things from yourself, you’re going to have incidents.”

The waitress bearing a tray with three sizzling platters of thick cut pork chops and rounds of griddled hash browns swept down on them. “Sup, sup, sup, suppertime.” She chirped and put three steak knives and a bottle of ketchup on the table. “You enjoy now.” Marilyn smiled up at her so gratefully that it almost hurt to see, her beautiful black eyes in the white heart-shaped face with the glamorous silk scarf still wrapped around her head, just a bit of her smooth brunette hair visible. Max felt almost ashamed but he reminded himself that in some unspoken, unwritten way, they had all three agreed that Max held out some kind of hope for Marilyn, some kind of rescue almost.

“But no hurry, Marilyn, we’ll take this at your own pace. How about you Father, how was carnival?” The priest groaned then and tossed back the rest of his drink.

“You don’t want to know. This guy was okay to you then, Marilyn?” asked Father Weston even as he was overcome by a boozy ravenousness.

“I’ll do it again,” she said softly, picking up her knife and looking intently at it. She arched her calf and brushed Father’s W leg underneath the table as if to say it was okay after all. He felt her electrifying touch and the familiar push-pull started in his chest but the smoky grilled pork was its own siren.

Then Father W began wolfing down his food as if he hadn’t eaten in some time, lavishing ketchup on the hash browns and using the salt shaker with vigor. They all dug in then, the food giving them a little respite from what seemed like a small test of their frail but important bond.

The waitress brought them coffee and foil-wrapped chocolate mints without being asked as she cleared the platters. Marilyn got a doggy bag and began reapplying her peach frosted lipstick right at the table. Max thought his ex-wife would have been horrified at the scene,
a woman in a waitress uniform putting on makeup and a priest without a collar, these are your companions
?” he could almost hear her ask sarcastically. The check sat in the middle of table untouched so Max pulled it towards him but Marilyn shook her head and carefully pulled out a ten and some singles from her uniform pocket and put them on top.

“This isn’t a date. Still, can you give me a lift? I have to get back to my dog.”

“I could give you a lift, Marilyn,” said Father Weston, gulping black coffee now.

“I don’t think so, Father. Too many people have spotted you,” was all she said. He looked around and nodded judiciously. She was right. After ten and the Brown Jug was still pretty well packed and he could see in and among the tables some of St. Pat’s people, maybe not the most devout, but Easter and Christmas types, still not the time to go tripping out into the parking lot with a woman like Marilyn.

“Okay then, three Hail Mary’s before bed,” he said in a wry way, with a touch of regret but not too much, he was truly a priest, he had wanted to be one since he was six, and while there were real downsides, he knew he could no more function as a civilian than a long-time prisoner could adjust to freedom.

Back in the car, Max kept the radio off, hoping that maybe Marilyn might open up again. The night had cooled down and they rolled the windows up against the chill. They drove out of the parking lot in silence but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

“You know I called you tonight because I had a dream of an elephant charging and crushing a small glass bottle. Then when I woke a little circus elephant painting I have in my living room just flew apart on us, me and Rowley, and he hates it when that stuff happens. But something’s going on because I saw smoky glass vials in a vision at the fortune teller too.” Marilyn spoke in a breathy tone like the words were escaping her frosted painted lips.

“Third eye,” Max said cautiously, “You’re seeing them through your third eye.”

“Yeah, well maybe it’s all mixed up because when I was a kid the man my mother cleaned house for had a glass case and…” Marilyn broke off rubbing her forehead as a hot flush creeped up her bosom.

“What? You could tell me anything and I wouldn’t think the less of you. ” His mind flashed back onto her standing in front of the Map of Thailand which was labeled the old name of Siam with her fingers in the Buddhist mudra to drive out demons.

“It happened a long time ago and I was such a kid I’m not even sure what happened, you know how reality sometimes just gets away from you? Do you really think you can help me?”

“I’m gonna try. It’s not so much that maybe you need help, but that you need tools for understanding everything you are.”

“That sounds nice, tools for understanding, Max. Do you think our work might get you accepted into your research center?” Her hand brushed his arm then.

“We’ll see.” The car seemed like a little spaceship to Max, and he and Marilyn could be the only humans left in the universe. She was close to him, almost touching his leg with her thigh, and Max was glad the Impala had automatic transmission so no stick shift was between them.

“Professor, you’re going the wrong way,” Marilyn said softly as they passed a sign for the new chain steakhouse, The Wrangler, in bright orange neon. “I can’t go for a ride tonight. I was hardly home any time at all from work. I’ve got to get back to Rowley, he’ll be upset.”

“Sorry, an accident,” Max apologized and pulled into a Mobil station to turn around.

“Wait, I need cigs.” She popped out the car quickly and ran into the service station where, when the door swung open, Max could see the vending cigarette machine with its silver knobs glittering among the cans of oil and stacks of tires. The door of the service station shut and he could only see the back of her head through the window. Automatically he looked in his rear view mirror as he waited for her. Maybe the FBI had forgotten about him, or had moved onto someone else as a person of interest. Max sighed. The night was lazy, with just a few cars going up and down Pershing Avenue and the lone headlight of some guy on a bicycle peddling past, going the direction they should have taken.