Magnificent Vibration (5 page)

“What about the ‘Moses’ white-hair thingee?”

“Okay, okay. I can’t even begin to process
that
yet.”

“Have you had anything to drink?”

“Wouldn’t you know that?”

“Of course. I wanted to see if you’d try to sneak that one by me. There’s no point in talking to you people when you’ve had too much to drink.”

“ ‘You people?’ That sounds so . . . I don’t know . . . callous. Like something I would say.”

“You think?”

“Where’s the burning bush? And how come you don’t sound all Godlike and imperious and infallible so that when we hear you speak we all just want to drop to our knees and honor and adore you? Really. What the hell?”

“Adore me? Okay, how’s this . . .”

The voice in my ear suddenly takes on a rich, sonorous quality. With a crapload of really cheesy echo. I think I detect an angelic choir humming angelically in the background. The whole thing sounds like some half-assed Oral Roberts program.

“My son!! I am the Lord thy God. Prostrate thyself before me and pay homage to my magnificence, for I am the maker of all things in Heaven and upon the Earth. I demand thy obedience, thy supplication, and thy occasional contributions of hard-earned cash via televangelists with too much hair spray. Fear me!”

One of the porcelain sinks in the now completely empty restroom explodes into flames, scaring the crap out of me. It burns with a ghostly purple/green fire like nothing I have ever seen before.

“Holy shit!!!”

“How’s that? Better for ya? More Godlike?”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

“I’m going back to the bar.”

“I think you need a cup of coffee!”

The line goes dead. And this time it’s not me ending the call. No wonder we’re all insane. God is, too.

I pocket my cell phone and exit the bathroom and its blazing sink, at the approximate speed a gazelle leaves the Serengeti at the first whiff of a lioness. And I feel very much like that gazelle right now. I’m beginning to think it was a bad idea to call God in the first place. An exceptionally bad idea. God is apparently quite real, quite crazy, and clearly tracking me now, which prior to this encounter I would have thought either highly unlikely or extremely helpful. Not anymore. The
only change to come out of these conversations is that I am, at the moment, no longer thinking about self-termination. It seems kind of lame to even consider it . . . considering.

I feel instantly better once I’m amongst mere fellow mortals again. Safety in numbers. Or at least a temporary diversion. I elbow my way to the bar a second time, keeping a wary eye on the ceiling as though I’ll be able to spot a thunderbolt or something equally dubious before it hits me. I don’t even know what I’m running from, or if I can run. It’s time for another drink. God said there’s no point talking to the alcoholically impaired, so maybe if I stay high from now until Christmas God will leave me alone. I probably should say “he” or even “she,” but what’s really strange is that there is no definite sex attached to the voice I’ve heard. That in itself is exceedingly bizarre and so politically correct it makes me want to hurl . . . but it’s true. It’s a kind of androgynous voice, neither wholly male nor wholly female.

Mr. ’Tude, the bartender from hell, ignores me again even though I have severe desperation and need written all over my face, or maybe he ignores me
because
of it. I should get out more so I can learn the societal signals. He is actually just watching a basketball game on one of the thousand TVs artfully positioned for mandatory viewing whether you’re into the sports thing or not. While the other bartenders swirl and dart around him, pouring, mixing, and delivering their potent concoctions in a fairly impressive ballet, I am struck by the irony that although I just spoke with God for the second time, I can still resent the fact that this weasel is ignoring me on purpose and I’m not getting a beer when I want it. Evidence, I think, that if the Martians invaded, vaporized our president with a ray gun, and took over the world, we would all accept it in stride and continue to try to win this week’s $25 million Powerball. We are shortsighted pea-brains, all.

“This guy is one of the reasons people shouldn’t breed,” I say to no one in particular.

“Spay and neuter them all,” I hear to my left. I turn to face the voice, half expecting to see my sister Josephine. It’s so much something she would say in one of her lighter moments, when her system was relatively free of the psychosis-numbing drugs.

It’s actually Angela, the twelve-year-old beauty queen from the Church of my Holy Twisted Childhood, all grown-up and ready to have a crack at producing some healthy babies with yours dementedly. Okay, it’s not really Angela, but this girl certainly has a similar look, although her dark hair is cut short and slightly spiked. Her eyes have that same almost violet color and they seem to be smiling without the rest of her face joining in. If we all have a “type” that we settle on early in life, I would say that this girl is hitting about 90 percent on my checklist. What the heck is she doing talking to me, let alone initiating the conversation?

“Can I buy you a drink?” I’m stunned that I can’t come up with a better line. I’ve just spoken with God, for godsake, and I’m still working from the same sorry script.

She answers appropriately. “Well . . . I’m either looking for a dog or a boyfriend. I haven’t decided if I want to ruin my carpet or ruin my life.”

“Okay. Sorry. You just reminded me of someone. Two people, actually,” I say as I sign off and turn back to trying to distract the lazy bastard bartender from his basketball game.

“I’d like another beer here, please!” I yell, but of course it falls on deaf ears.

“I think you need a cup of coffee,” I hear her say.

The fact that I’ve just heard this exact phrase from another quarter
(specifically, the bathroom—more specifically, my cell phone) a few moments ago sends a fleeting shiver down the back of my Cleveland Spiders (world’s worst-ever baseball team) T-shirt. But things have been a little off-kilter lately, so why would it stop now? I get a sudden, paranoid, frantic thought and spin to face her.

“God?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. My hands literally reach out to try and grab the word back before it reaches her ears, as though it were an errant loogie I had accidentally hocked up at some passerby and was hoping to arrest in its flight before it embarrassed both of us by landing on her lapel. But land it does. With a mucusy plop.

“What did you say?” She is smiling with her lips now as well and even adds a small giggle at the end of her question.

“Sorry. That was . . . sorry.” I’m embarrassed that she didn’t just ignore it as you would some old lady who’d farted in church.

“Did you just call me God? With a question mark at the end of it?” she persists, seeming pretty amused by my discomfort. There is interest in her eyes, though I am lost as to the reason.

And of course jerky-boy picks this moment to leave the ball game and bug me.

“Somethin’ else I can get ya?” he condescends.

I turn to him. “Hang on.”

I turn to her. “Just a second. Don’t go anywhere.” I turn to him, “Can I order a . . .”

But he’s gone, and with him all hope of that pizza.

“This guy must get paid really well, because he isn’t surviving on his tips,” she says, and I don’t even know who
she
is.

“I’m Bobby,” I say, extending my hand in the prescribed, time-honored, and incredibly asexual I-don’t-need-to-get-laid manner.

“Alice,” she replies. She doesn’t take my hand but raises her drink in acknowledgment.

That was dumb of me, I think to myself, not to notice she already had a drink. In my head I am already blowing my end of the conversation. Never had the gift of the gab.

“So, were you asking me if I was God just now? Because it sure sounded like it.” Obviously she’s not going to let it drop.

“Ah . . . yeah, I think I may have,” I answer. She’s still hanging in there, and for some reason it seems to make more sense right now to go with a version of the truth rather than dance around and deny it. She is sharp. And she’s waaaaaay too pretty to be talking to
me.
Again suspicion clouds my clouded mind.

“Are you going to tell me why?” asks Alice of the violet eyes.

“Your name’s really Alice, right? This isn’t God messing with me again?” I sound like a nut. No, I sound like a total loon bag.

She frowns, but with a slight smile, still. If the roles were reversed I’d probably be putting as much distance as I could between the two of us right now. But she’s still here.

“Okay, that sounds really creepy and weird. Sorry. I’m a pretty normal guy. I mean, not
that
normal, but then I guess no one is really
normal
normal. And not ‘boring’ normal either. I’m kind of a ‘fun’ normal—with a little ‘depressed’ normal occasionally on the side, if we’re being honest, which I assume we are, but I’m probably the most normal, in a ‘harmless’ way, guy in this whole room right now . . .” I stop. I’m babbling like a fool, again. And she is still sitting at the bar with me, looking quizzical. No real hint of fear that I can discern. No fight-or-flight urges battling inside her.

“I don’t get out much,” I offer as explanation.

She thinks for a second or two and then opens her mouth to
speak. “You seem really genuine. And the reason I’m not running from this bar at top speed is because there’s something in your eyes that’s kind of hard to deny. Not to mention the white lightning bolt in your hair is very Charlton Heston. You know, from
The
—”

“—
Ten Commandments
, yep,” I finish her sentence.

“I’m not saying that you’re
not
a wingnut, but I sense you’re not a
dangerous
wingnut,” she finishes.

I’ve been staring at her lips. They’re curved up at the ends, which makes a really hot, dimple/crease thing happen in the corners of her mouth when she says certain words and . . . Whoa! Did she just say I might be a wingnut?

“No, no, I promise you I’m not a wingnut,” I blurt out. I’m totally shooting from the hip here, fairly certain that I’ve blown this already by focusing on the wrong damn thing at the wrong damn time
again.
Screw you, ADD. “It’s just that I’m pretty sure God called me on my cell phone just now and I’m still shaken up by it because it was so bizarre and he/she sounds like he/she’s a bit of a freak, and if that’s who’s watching over us then we are all hosed.” The words just hang there as charged as a racial slur yelled in Harlem at midnight. Or so I imagine. I have no idea how she will react.

Alice is now frowning without the smile. “God called you . . . on your cell phone.”

“Sorry, I know it sounds completely freaky.” I can’t back out now, although they say you can, but you really can’t most of the time, and this is definitely one of those times.

“Yes. God called me. On my cell phone. It sounds stupid, I know, but he did. Or I think he did.” There. I said it.

I wait for minute or two, or what feels like a minute or two but in situations like this is probably more like six or seven seconds. She
hasn’t moved. I’m actually amazed. And then she speaks. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m kind of caught up in this, and I’m leaning more toward thinking there might be a truth in it rather than arguing that you’re spinning me a line so you can abduct, kill, and eat me.”

“What??”

“Maybe it’s my line of work, or maybe God is trying to reach me, but I think I’m supposed to hook up with you in some way.”

Her line of work? Hook up with me? What is she saying?

“Are you . . . you’re not a hooker, are you??” I am clearly and seriously out of my depth now and have no idea what part of the outfield she’s batting to.

Alice gives me a look.

“No, I’m not a hooker. I’m a sister.”

Not what I expected, so I answer, “Well, I think most of us are brothers or sisters of someone. That’s not so unusual. I myself . . .”

“I mean a
religious
Sister. A nun.”

Woody and I are all ears.

H
e is an old man now. His wife is gone these past six years and Ronan Young, who jokes at the local pub that he is now Ronan Old, still takes the
Bonnie Bradana
out on the great Loch every now and again to wet her keel. He no longer plies his fishing trade and has been relegated to the ignominy of dependence on the local volunteer “Meals on Wheels” for his own personal sustenance: those helpers who are so effusive and well-meaning in their ministrations yet will never wish to comprehend the depth and breadth of his life. Nor, he understands, should they.
Each generation centers on itself. We learn very little from the generation before us and absolutely nothing from the generation before that. Ronan worries that there will be no one to care for his “girl” once he is gone. The
Bonnie Bradana
is a local legend, but people have their own lives and responsibilities. He has no children or extended family that would take on the care and upkeep of his beloved craft. The
Bonnie
has been a part of the community since Ronan’s father built her and christened her into Loch Ness many a long year ago. Evelyn had called her Ronan’s “second wife,” so much a part of their lives was this vessel. And he has told no one of his encounter that lonely winter evening on the Loch, almost twenty years before. Not even his Evelyn. But the
Bonnie Bradana
knows. She was there and brushed against the dark, sleek skin and broad, powerful back of a myth as it passed by. A once-in-a-lifetime moment shared with the protectors of this powerful place. Ronan understands that he is one of them. Chosen. He would protect this land with his last breath and final splash of blood. The great creature knows this too and shows herself only to the faithful. An honor that is unspoken and buried with the few who are blessed enough to truly bear witness. When he is able, Ronan slowly walks the shores of this ancient lake and dreams of the encounter that has begun to define his remaining years. He sees her shadow in the dark, cold waters; he sees her spirit in the chipped and whittled mountains that ring this Loch. He feels her power brimming at the very surface of the tarn. It is palpable. How could he have missed it for so much of his life, and why did she wait so long to reveal herself? But he understands somewhere in his soul that perhaps he was not ready before this. Her pneuma, her vital spirit, the one thing that has
enabled her to exist these many eons, has gathered wisdom and knows where and when to show and not to show herself. And to whom. She is beyond age and beyond reasoning. Ronan now understands that there is much he cannot fathom. So much he will never comprehend. The great cities of the earth and their people are even more removed than he from the truth of this spirit world. They exist so confident in their bright, clear knowledge and the crystal-cut understanding of how their universe works that many will not reach his level of comprehension in their lifetimes. They are in the grip of the tyranny of logic—the false diamond that seduces their beautiful and brilliant minds. They still believe that the more they read, the more knowledge they possess, the more information they amass: the closer they are to the truth. But they are not closer. Their astute minds accept only what is written, accepted, perceived, deduced. They miss entirely the path of the earth’s soul. Ronan has always known this, though he never “understood” it. He understands it now. It has taken years. And a committed path. The ones who seek their way through knowledge and who chose spiritual doubt as a way of life are akin to those who use vacillation as a path to commitment. But such language drowns in deep lakes like this. It washes away like a child’s chalk drawings on the sidewalk when the hard rains come. A sand painting that has taken weeks to create and seconds to blow away in the wind. The great creature has neither knowledge nor understanding nor time for such things. She is waiting. For one who was born here eons ago and has, through the cycle of birth and death, forgotten that they belong here, that they can communicate with spirits in this ancient place. She is waiting. For the one.