The Eden Express (31 page)

“Every time I say something like that you get this unbelievable look of horror. How could I possibly be digging this? Like you’re afraid I’m going to drag you into it. What would it take for me not to dig something? Well, I’ll admit this is hell. I mean, if I was going to try to really do the worst possible thing I could do to someone, this would be it. Whoever set this up is some sort of a genius. But maybe that’s what I dig about it. This is awful, the worst thing I could imagine and it’s happened. I’ve taken whoever the fuck is against us’s worst punch and I still chuckle a bit about this and that. Isn’t that good news?”

 

MIRACLE. In the morning the trees were green again. Somehow the destruction had been reversed, the earth reprieved. There was still time.

“Joe and Mary, quick! Pack your stuff, grab your kid. Get in your bus and split. Get to wherever you want to get to quick.” I was so
happy. Maybe everyone could make it to wherever home was for them. Or maybe just enough time to say “Good-by, I loved you” to a few more people.

“I’m going to step outside, check the weather, get a little fresh air.” They looked at me as if opening the door would let death inside. Mary had been so adamant about my not opening the door the night before.

“Are you sure you want to do that, Mark?”

“Yes, my God, yes. Do you think that if there’s a prayer of getting out of here I’m going to pass it up? How long will this break last?”

No one had the energy to stop me. I opened the door. It was still raining pretty hard but the wind had calmed. I breathed shallowly, just tasting it to make sure it wasn’t death. The world smelled like it was still alive. “See, I can breathe, nothing bad happening.” They looked at me worriedly.

“We can make it, don’t be so afraid. Come on, get with it. Wake up! This is our chance.”

They just kept looking at me. “What about your physical, Mark?”

“My physical?” How could anybody think that was relevant to anything? I had a hard enough time taking that shit seriously before the apocalypse, shit storms, and eternal truths. “My physical?”

“We very much want you to pass.” Why was it so important to them that I pass? It didn’t mean diddly to me. Their tone of voice seemed to say that if I took my physical I’d flunk.

“Are you going to tell them about your crackup or not?”

Questions, questions, questions. “I really haven’t figured it out.”

“Well, Mark, you know it’s only physical,” Kathy said very meaningfully. The whole sex thing came tumbling down about my head. Why did it have to be Kathy who said that? Like she knew that I knew that she knew that everyone knew the whole thing was sex? Why did she have to look so beautiful? Why hadn’t we made love the night before?

Joe and Mary talked about some nice doctor who had taken care of
something for them. Said he was an awfully nice guy and that he’d probably be willing to help out. I guess they made a phone call. Anyway, they had it all arranged for me to see him later that same morning.

“You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks, why don’t we set out now? I mean, just in case the car breaks down or something. We can have coffee at the marina with Bea. That would be nice. I really want to make sure I don’t fuck up this appointment. Let’s get moving.”

Joe drove. I sat in the front passenger seat. Kathy and Mary were in the back. The bus started. Thank God, thank German mechanics, we’re going to make it. Hot shit, I’m not going to die in this shit hole. Gush bump gurgle slop, the bus worked its way up the dirt driveway and climbed up onto the good old solid pavement of Highway 101. Just outside the driveway there was a road crew at work. Thank God for the salt-of-the-earth workers keeping this road in shape. The storm had destroyed it but they had gotten up bright and early to repair our link with the rest of the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Everyone’s so wonderful. I waved at them with tears of gratitude streaming down my face. They waved back.

“Mark, are you all right?” Joe asked.

“Ya, Joe, I’m fine. It’s just that everyone’s so wonderful. I never really appreciated it before. I’ve been terribly blind, I think.”

“It’s all right, Mark. Just relax. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Things looked none the worse for that dreadful storm. A few branches had come down but that was about it. Then the sun came out and everything got bright, too bright. The whole bus was shaking. The road was shaking and everything on it started to fall apart. Oh, shit, oh, shit. Just hold on. Make like it’s not happening. By force of will I kept the road from breaking up, the sun from exploding, the bus from falling apart, and Joe alive and seeing and keeping the bus on the road.

Trying to induce a leisureliness, a lack of urgency, I reminded them about the marina. “Well, let’s go have our coffee with Bea.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, Mark?”

“Yes yes yes. I’m in no hurry to see the doctor. It’s not like this is an emergency or anything. I’d like to have a cup of Bea’s coffee.” So we stopped.

One foot in front of the other into the little snack bar. “Hi, Bea.” She looked worried. Paul, her youngest son, was crying. “Don’t worry, Paul, please don’t worry. Everything’s going to come out fine. Just you wait and see.”

There was no one else there. That was usual. Except for us, they didn’t really have much business. All for us. Sam and Bea must be losing their shirts in this business and these self-indulgent punks come down from the lake once a month or so, buy a tank of gas, and give them shit about eating meat.

Joe all of a sudden said to me very meaningfully, “You’re in. You’ve made it. Relax, you’re in.” It seemed like a strange thing to say. I was in where? Mary had spent the past day or so telling me I was out. I looked at Bea. She looked perplexed. Maybe she thought Joe was nuts and dangerous or something.

“Well, OK, if you say so, Joe,” I said, sort of winking to Bea. I rolled a cigarette, sipped at my coffee, and talked about the weather some. Yes, it was a strange spring. No, Bea could never remember another that had been like this. Just what I thought, just what I was afraid of. Something had fucked up. What good did being “in” or “out” do me if the earth was dying?

“Well, we’ll be seeing you soon, Bea. Give everyone my love,” and off we went.

As soon as we got in the car, Joe turned to me and said pleadingly, “Mark, I sure as hell hope you believe in faith healing. I don’t think you realize half how many people are behind you.” It sounded more
like a threat than anything else. If I didn’t pull through I would be taking a lot of good people down with me. Bea, all her children, Joe and Mary and Sarah and millions more were all counting on me. The pressure was on. Everyone I cared about had bet their lives on my recovering, whatever that meant.

What kind of quackery show was this going to be? Was some joker going to put his hands on my head and say “In the name of Jesus Christ, be well”?

“I swear to you, Joe, I’ll do my best. I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying. I’ll see the doctor. I’ll do anything he asks. Shit, Joe, I’ll try to walk on water if you think it will help.”

Keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope everything comes out all right. Ride on tough. I didn’t see any alternative except maybe…maybe the going backward in time thing would work.

“Joe, there’s a way for you to get out of this mess. Take from me anything that’s yours and run. Take me and leave me by the water where you met me. Do it all backward. Pretend you never met me. There’s got to be a way around this. I don’t want my not getting well to fuck you up. Just leave me by the water. Faith will meet me by the water.”

Joe pulled into the hospital. The big red sign, EMERGENCY ENTRANCE. The dam was right alongside of me now. Oh, shit, the bomb is going to blow. “Keep driving, Mac. I said we had to meet faith by the water. This isn’t where you met me.”

“Come on, Mark,” Joe said apologetically, “we have an appointment.”

“OK,” I said, scared to death, trying to steady myself for whatever was ahead. I couldn’t move. It was awful. It was over.

Joe came around to my side of the bus and opened the door and took my arm. “Come on, Mark. I’ll go with you. This won’t be so bad.”

I was clutching my “important papers.” My birth certificate, immigration forms, passport, etc.

“OK,” I said weakly, and let Joe lead me out of the car into the hospital. “Did we have to come to the emergency entrance?”

“Relax, Mark, relax.”

Joe left me in a chair. I didn’t look around. I was too scared. He went and talked to a nurse in a low voice I couldn’t quite catch. It was all arranged. It’s not up to me any more. If it ever was, it’s not now. Joe and the nurse came over and they led me to a little curtained-off place with a bed on rollers. The nurse left Joe and me there for a bit.

“Now, Mark, this isn’t going to hurt. Whatever happens, everything is going to be all right.” I just kept looking at him pleadingly. Why hadn’t he taken me to the camp site, to the beach, like I had asked? He had betrayed me.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Mark, but I’m sure it’s bigger than mine,” he said, gesturing vulgarly at his crotch. It seemed like a joke in questionable taste.

“Here, Joe, take this,” I said, giving him all my identification. “I want you to have it.” He looked puzzled.

“Are you sure, Mark?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Take it.”

“The doctor will be here in just a little bit,” Joe said, and he left.

I sat there for what seemed like years, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Were they going to operate on me? Cancer? Sterilization? Lobotomy? I couldn’t get anywhere with it. So I just sat there and waited.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Miller.” There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about him. Was he a faith healer? Did he know what my problem was? Was he going to do something about it? What had Joe and Mary told him?

“What seems to be the problem?” Good question. Here I was in the emergency ward, just what was the problem? Why hadn’t someone
asked me that before? It seemed so straightforward. What was the problem?

“Well, I think my friends are worried about me.” It sounded stupid as soon as I said it. I had to be able to do better than that. He just sort of nodded knowlingly. “They’re worried about me not passing my immigration physical.” That seemed even sillier. Why should they be worried or not worried about my passing my immigration physical? What was the problem?

Stainless steel, gleaming lights, plastic curtains, iridescent floor tiles. One foot in front of the other, counting out nothing, doing my best to answer the questions. Doing my best to make sense to the doctor. One foot in front of the other, on my own power, avoiding looking at anyone. Following my imaginary trail of crumbs. Past all the sick and dying, the coughing, the pale, crippled, confused faces. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

One way or the other I found myself back in the front seat of the Microbus. Relieved, breathing a little easier. But all was still not well in Mark land. The sky still threatened destruction. There was still a tenseness in me and the people around me. I guess more was required than just seeing Dr. Miller. There was a little piece of paper. It was a prescription for pills I was supposed to take “if the going gets rough.” I think I put Kathy in charge of that. How was I supposed to tell when the going got rough? Cyanide to take before I got into the wrong hands? What were right hands, what were wrong hands? Where did the Royal Canadian Mounties stand on all this? The faith healing thing Joe had said on the way still bothered me. Were they going to turn me over to Oral Roberts? Fly me to Israel for a special part in an Easter pageant? The fact that Joe and this Dr. Miller were somehow in cahoots was both comforting and disturbing.

While we were in the drugstore parking lot the wind and rain picked up some. Everything looked dead. Kathy got the pills.

We were just a few blocks from where I was supposed to take my physical. There was maybe about forty-five minutes before my appointment. All the lonely, sick, unhappy people. The sky was crying. Everyone was dragging, stumbling through life. A fat girl went into the drugstore, a limping woman came out. Cars were choking along. The wind and rain slashed through everything, biting and cold, and here I was, safe inside the bus.

I started crying. It was just too awful what life had done to these people. Limping along in their death-spewing automobiles, trying to do chores of one sort or another, and they were all going to die. “It’s all right, Mark. You’re on the outside.” Mary’s words. On the outside? The suffering I was seeing wasn’t really going on? It was just being projected on the windshield?

“You’ve got to worry about yourself. Just worry about what you have to do. Your tears won’t do them any good now.”

So just worry about myself, be tough, keep truckin’. It seems so cruel to not cry, seeing all that terrible stuff. But it wasn’t real or didn’t matter. Was Virginia inside or out? Ma and Pa and Zeke and all the others? But get tough; worrying about myself is the best way to help! Remember Lot’s wife.

The physical? Had Dr. Miller diagnosed something? Was it imperative that I not see some doctor who hadn’t been clued in? I left the decision up to the others. They decided the physical wasn’t such a hot idea.

Errands done. Pills in hand in case things got rough. Still blacking out from time to time, body not in much control, voices talking up a storm. Back to Joe and Mary’s cabin. Back to Fan David and Becky and Sarah and David’s dog. Everybody seemed to be all right.

See, what did I tell you? Nothing bad happened. How lucky I am to have friends who are fearless and loving enough to let me stay on the loose, instead of being petty about the whole thing and having someone locked away the minute they get a little out of line.