House of Gold (18 page)

"You meant to say
crazy,
didn't you," Buzz said with a firm certainty, sipping his coffee.

The Man didn't reply.

"I'm just not ready to get married again," Buzz continued. There was a long pause.

"His ability to delude himself is amazing," the Man observed
to his newspaper, shaking his head.

But later, during the wedding and reception, the Man grinned endlessly, like a proud father, and bragged to one and all (after several glasses of wine) that he had played the matchmaker.

And that is how Buzz helped save the Man's soul, and, later on, how the Man came to save Buzz's life.

+  +  +

In the months before Buzz and Mel moved up to Bagpipe, Buzz frequently
tried to convince the Man to move up with them. Their last conversation was the most frustrating of all.

"You mean you
believe
that the bug will turn the lights off but you
still
want to stay in Cleveland?" Buzz asked.

There was a serenity–a down-home holiness in the Man's voice when he explained. "Buzz, you can run, but you can't hide. God is everywhere. He is here in Cleveland, and He'll take
care of me. This is my home. I understand that you're doing what you think is best for your boys. But God has made it clear to me that He wants me to stay here."

Buzz didn't exactly hate it, but it was annoying how the people he converted became holier than he was by a factor of ten. These few years later after his conversion, the Man was fasting three days a week, attending daily Mass, teaching
a night course in contemplative prayer at Saint Phil's, and spending two hours a day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. It was known that he was considering entering the Trappist monastery in Utah where he spent his vacations every-winter.

"So God told you, huh?" Buzz almost taunted. "Maybe my kids need you up in Bagpipe. Did you mention that to God?"

The Man closed his eyes.

"You're praying
right now, aren't you?" Buzz was surprised by the bitterness in his voice.

They were sitting on the Man's porch. The Man did a funny thing–something that would have amazed Buzz and the Man himself in the old days.

He reached over and took Buzz's hand.

They watched a beat-up Caddy filled with Puerto Ricans cruise slowly up the street.

"It's understandable that you're all nervous about leaving your
friends behind, Buzz. You've been keyed up lately. Moving is stressful. Have you been losing your temper with Mel again?"

Buzz nodded.

The Man had become a spiritual director of sorts for Buzz over the past five years. How the tables had turned.

"The devil works through our weaknesses," the Man explained. "You've been under spiritual attack."

"From every direction," Buzz conceded. "All our plans
in Bagpipe have been disastrous. The water system is screwed up. The electric generator is always breaking down. I'm not a potato farmer. Mel is dreading the move.

"It's sinking in now that we're really, truly leaving. This computer thing really sucks. I thought you, or maybe some of our friends would follow us up. Instead, the Dow breaks ten thousand and the gravy train just keeps-a-rolling.
People think we're nuts. Sometimes I wonder myself."

The Man gave an understanding nod to the street.

"What about Sam?" the Man asked. He took his hand away.

"He's like you. The perfect saint. He expects to die up there. I thought the whole point was to try to survive."

"What about you?" the Man asked.

"I'm not ready to die."

"We don't always get a choice about things like that," the Man observed.

"What are you, friggin Gandhi? You ready to die for your people? Like the people in this neighborhood give a rip about an old black guy like you?"

The Man laughed. He laughed every once in a while now.

"You'd be surprised. There's plenty of saints in this neighborhood. You're a racist, Buzz Woodward," the Man chided.

Buzz let that drop.

They sat together for a while, then made their good-byes.
The Woodwards were leaving the next day. The moving van had already taken their furniture, and they were staying with the Fisks.

"I love you, Hal," Buzz said as they hugged on the porch, wondering. Because he believed that he might never see his friends again, he was finding it easier to tell them he loved them.

The man was like a black stick of muscle. Skin, bones, and muscle.

"I love you too,
Buzz. Thanks."

+  +  +

A week later, the boxes were everywhere in the Fisk house–big ones, wardrobe boxes, little book boxes. The new owners were coming the day after tomorrow. Christopher was asleep. It was past three in the morning, and Ellie was startled when Sam found her looking in the full-length mirror in the bathroom.

"Whatcha doin'?" he yawned.

She turned and he saw the tears in her eyes,
and he fully awakened into concern.

"Crying," she told him.
About the children I'll never have.

"Jittery about the move? Second thoughts?" he put a hand of long fingers on her cheek and gently rubbed a tear with his thumb.

"That's right," she lied.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked, innocent sincerity in his voice, searching her eyes.

How this made her love him all the more.

"Make love to me."

He pulled her to himself, then took her back to the marriage bed.

Chapter Eight

The Disaster

The Fisks and Woodwards spent the rest of the summer and fall trying to fix up the "disaster," as Buzz referred to their homestead in Bagpipe. They eventually got the generator/solar/battery system working, but were unable to set up a wind turbine as planned because they ran out of money.

By the time Sam's company was sold to a gigantic British firm in late October–with
the money due in December after the lawyers got through–it was too late to apply his millions to the farm and the town. The proceeds from the sale of the Fisks' home and what was left over after Sam cashed in Christopher's college fund had just about covered their costs. Sam took to telecommuting–providing consulting advice to his old company for a relatively modest salary.

Buzz's efforts to plant
a garden proved frustrating. His tomatoes and other vegetables died–something to do with the soil acidity, or so the locals told him down at the diner. They had managed to install decent wood cookstoves, and with a little hunting around, Buzz found a hand-pump for the extra well that got drilled in September. They had managed to order enough bulk food to feed fifty adults for a year–wheat, rice,
beans, and lentils packed in plastic buckets stored in the Fisks' basement.

The bright spot of the whole endeavor for Buzz was Markie. Never had Buzz spent so much time with him. Buzz realized that his long hours studying and going to classes at night in recent years, with large amounts of quality time for Markie only coming on weekends, had cheated the boy out of a proper relationship with his
father.

Now, for the past six months, Markie had a chance to hang out with his dad and Sam and Christopher during their many outdoor and indoor projects, chatting away, fetching tools and hugs all the while. In stature, the tyke had taken after his mother–a slight build with sandy brown hair, and freckles in abundance. He had nothing like the rounded shoulders and thick thighs of his father. His
knees were wider than his thighs. Big daddy had taken to calling him "my peanut."

Packy was still breastfeeding–and monopolizing Mel–so Markie ate up the attention from his father. Every weekday, Buzz woke him early, dressed him, then took him to Mass and breakfast in town. As he loaded him into the Festiva, Buzz never failed to be amazed by his tininess. Markie barely weighed more than Packy,
though he was longer and much more coordinated, of course, than his impish younger brother.

Markie was earnest, not impish, and filled with spiritual insight.
Even my son is holier than me,
Buzz often mused.

"Daddy, can I ask you sumthin'?" little Markie would always politely begin after Mass, holding his father's hand as they walked down the breathtakingly sparse main street of Bagpipe toward
the diner.

After so many years in Cleveland, with its big Midwestern sky, Buzz was still not visually adjusted to having a pine-covered mountain dominate every angle and view. Bagpipe resembled a pioneer town in Alaska more than a quaint New England hamlet. There were no carved wooden signs and antique shops here, or bustling tourists from New York and Connecticut running around looking for genuine
maple syrup and lobster doodads for the mantelpieces (though Norbert's did sell plastic, moose-shaped key-chains, which hung on a faded cardboard display next to the register).

"Sure, Peanut," he would complete the doxology. "Fire away."

Markie would always wait for the Fire Away, then, making believe that he had a gun in his free hand, he would make shooting motions and noises. Exhibiting a genetic
gift shared by four-year-old boys worldwide, his gun-sounds were precise and lifelike. This never failed to crack Buzz up. Then, after the laughter, the question would come.

"Daddy, do bad guys always go to hell, like that bad guy in that movie?"

"Which movie?"

"High Moon." Markie meant
High Noon.

"You mean Frank Miller."

"Yeah, did that bad guy Miller go to hell?"

"I don't rightly know. God told
us not to judge."

"But he took the wide road, so he has to go to hell," Markie observed.

Buzz paused. The Gospel today had been the one about the road to hell being wide and well-travelled.

Markie continued, "And the road in the town was wide. There were four guys on it. The policeman–" he was referring to the character portrayed by Gary Cooper, the marshall, "–he took the narrow road to the barn.
He was holy."

"That sure makes sense. But maybe the bad guy didn't go to hell."

"You mean he got grace?" The kid was quick.

"Yeah, maybe the bad man asked God for mercy right before his heart stopped beating."

"Good. I prayed for him."

"You did?" Buzz said, touched. It was a teaching moment. "Markie, you realize that movies are make-believe, don't you? Frank Miller never really existed. He was
just an actor."

"Of course I know
that,"
Markie replied. "But it's never a bad thing to pray. That's what Mommy says."

Buzz rubbed his mini-crewcut affectionately.

That's right, kiddo.

They came to the door of the diner. It was eight-thirty, and warming up. Father LeClaire would be along shortly. He had breakfast here every day, too, right after Mass, and sometimes sat and enjoyed Buzz and Markie's
company, repeating the same stories about his youth over and over. Buzz didn't know many locals yet, except for the plumber-farmer, Tommy Sample, who had worked on their homes, but he was getting to know the good Father.

"Yeah, maybe he got grace," Markie said, screwing his eyebrows, speaking with the gravity only a four-year-old can muster. That
Me-and-My-Dad-Agree-So-It's-True
tone.

"Daddy?"
He asked again.

Buzz grunted, and reached down to lift his peanut up over the big curb and carry him into the restaurant.

"Daddy, were you ever a bad guy?" Markie asked.

He was so small in Buzz's arms. Buzz thought of what was coming and was frightened for him.

"A long time ago. Before I met your mommy. But never as bad as the guy in the movie, Peanut."

"So you got grace."

"Sure did," Buzz reassured
him with a big smile, then a kiss on the neck as he pulled the door open, bell ringing. "God gave me a whole boatload of grace. Then He gave me you."

Markie looked his father dead in the eye, uncorked a joyful smile, then buried his head into Buzz's neck and hugged hard.

+  +  +

In November the telephone rang and everything changed. Mel was in the kitchen, trying once again to bake bread in the
woodstove now that it was cold enough outside to run the temperature up inside. She wasn't doing very well. It was taking forever to form a lump of dough and flour into a recognizable loaf.

Buzz was outside splitting wood with a hand-axe, while Markie watched, when the phone rang.

"Woodward Bakery, how may I help you?" Mel mugged into the handset.

"Er, this is Sister Regina," the nun on the other
end of the line said uncertainly. "Perhaps I have the wrong number? I called information for this number. I would like to speak with Buzz Woodward..."

Mel laughed.

"You must be Donna! Oh, I'm sorry, I mean Sister Regina. This is Mel, and yes, Sister, you've got the right number. Buzz is outside splitting wood."

There was a relieved pause. "Have I called at a bad time?"

"Not at all."

Another pause.

"Sister?" Mel asked.

"Yes?"

"I thought you weren't allowed to make phone calls? I mean, I've been hearing about you for years from my husband, but you've never called us before."

"This is...an unusual exception. I feel like I know you, Mrs. Woodward–I've been praying for you every day for five years. Buzz sent me a photograph from your wedding, and although I do not have it anymore, your face is
etched in my mind."

The sister's voice was husky–like her stocky build. Mel's impression of Sister had been gleaned from photos Buzz kept of her from her pre-convent days.

"Please call me Mel."

Mel felt awkward. From the way Buzz, Sam, and Ellie talked about her, even though they had only seen Donna twice in person since she entered the Poor Clare Convent–and both those times separated by a screen–Sister
Regina never seemed more than a doorway away, as if she were in the other room, waiting to come in and join the conversation. For Mel, who hadn't really known the former Donna Beck, she was a ghost. A person who had passed on to another world.

Plus, there was always the shock of hearing the voice of a contemplative. They had an alarming way of sounding, well, normal, as Donna–er, Sister Regina–did
now.

"And thank you," Melanie continued. "We really need the prayers. And we pray for you every night during our Rosary. Things have been so crazy around here. Buzz calls this the Bagpipe Disaster Area–" she heard Sister Regina laugh, "what with the stock market crashing last week, and stories in the papers about people clearing the shelves at Sam's Clubs, the new banking laws–the whole country
is jittery, even up here."

"The computer bug," Sister explained matter-of-factly.

"Yes, the computer bug."

There was a pause.

"Maybe I should be talking to you instead of Buzz," Sister suggested cryptically.

"I'm all ears," Mel stated quickly.

"Do you know what an extern is?"

"Yes, that's the nun in your convent assigned to do tasks that require interacting with the outside world."

"Then I don't
need to explain. I have been assigned as a temporary extern for my monastery by the Mother Abbess. For a special assignment. That's why I need to talk to Buzz. I need to ask him–to ask both of you–for a big favor. I might as well ask you first, and let you explain to Buzz, then you can pray and decide. I need for you to present my request to Sam and Ellie, too."

"Are you coming to visit?"

"No,
that is not possible. The phone will have to suffice."

"Then shoot," Mel blurted.

Her curiosity was growing and she wondered if using the word
shoot
was somehow impolite. She left the dough on the counter and sat down at the kitchen table. "I'm ready."

"Well..." Sister Regina paused again. "Where to start? Okay, well, a few months back, Sam took the liberty of ordering an elaborate solar-electric
system for the convent. You understand–for just in case. They've arrived. And by the way, thank you for the wheat. We bake our own bread, so if we need to set something up for the poor during the...troubles, we'll be able to do our part.

"But we have no idea how to set up these solar panels. There are boxes and boxes here of wires, batteries, special light fixtures–something called an inverter–plus
these large aluminum frames, and the panels. We have no idea if the frames go on the ground, or the roof, or what.

"We've tried calling local electricians, but with all the craziness going on, they're all booked up, and the fellow who helps us with our maintenance is afraid of, uh, messing up the system...and..."

"And you need some advice?" Mel asked.

This was becoming interesting. Neither Sam
nor Buzz had mentioned donating solar panels to the Poor Clares. One of a thousand details that had fallen through the cracks.

"We need more than advice." Sister paused again. "This is not easy for me to ask, but I might as well come right out with it."

Is she requesting this under obedience?
Mel asked herself during Sister Regina's ensuing pause.

"Do you think that Sam or Buzz would be willing
to come back to Cleveland to help us set up the system?" the nun continued. "Mother believes that if the computer problem proves to be serious–"
serious,
a euphemism for so many possible outcomes "–then we'll need the lights for the public Adoration Chapel. For the people who will be coming to us at all hours. For the...bread lines and the kitchen. This is so weird even talking about these kinds
of things."

Mel took a deep breath. "I'll ask Buzz."

"Don't feel obligated to do anything. You and the Fisks have been so generous to us over the years..."

"Sister, I don't feel obligated. It's just with the airlines announcing special schedules starting next month, the mandated slowdown of the factories–"

"Look, maybe you shouldn't ask them at all...we can forget this phone call..." Sister backtracked.

Mel felt like a selfish heel. But in the pit of her stomach, she felt the same call of destiny she had felt when she first saw the license plate with the words
Live Free or Die
during the traffic jam near the NASA complex in a time that now seemed like another world in another lifetime.

"Please don't worry about it, Sister. I'll talk to them. Oh! My bread is burning! Could you hold on?"

Mel put
the phone down on the table, then rushed to the oven and pulled open the door. Smoke poured out.
Arrrghh!
The bread inside was a blackened brick. She went back to the phone.

"Sister? You still there?"

"Yes, I'm still here."

"Let me call you back after I talk to Buzz and Sam. And could I ask you for a favor?"

"Shoot," Donna said.

"Could you pray for my parents? They haven't spoken to us in months.
And for Ellie's father–"

"–Bucky."

"Yes, Bucky. He's been very cold to Ellie since she moved away. He thinks the computer problem will amount to nothing."

"I understand completely. To be honest, I also have some questions about it. But praying is my job. Maybe if nothing serious happens–" there was that word again "–Ellie'll be able to patch things up with her father next year."

"I hope so, Sister.
I hope so."

On the monitor, Mel heard Packy begin to stir from his nap. "I've got to pick up the baby. God bless."

"God bless."

+  +  +

Sam was thrilled to hear the news about the solar-electric equipment. During a meeting at his kitchen table that evening, he explained how he had ordered it in June, offering to pay triple the retail price if it could be delivered before the end of October. A
savvy supplier in Nevada had set aside a few systems in order to gouge well-heeled customers. Sam was happy to be gouged. Such preparation-oriented products had long since become back-ordered beyond the millennium. Buzz was seeing used woodstoves owned by denialists (the majority who believed that the bug would not cause long-term problems) offered on Internet auction sites for up to five times the
price of new stoves (which were also extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find). Millions of people were now-vying to purchase tens of thousands of items.