Cion (39 page)

“It looks like an angel’s,” I said.

And that, of course, gave rise to more numinous sounds.

It was these sounds that we tried to reproduce as we went through our routine at the first Quigley’s grave. Here at the hands of Orpah I was developing from mere professional mourner to performer. After all, the roots of tragedy lie in mourning. I am talking here of tragedy on the stage. For the ancient Greeks dramatic tragedy was a ritual that took the songs of professional mourners at funerals to the levels of performance. It gave the dead a voice since the corpses could not utter a sound anymore. Like actors who steal the voices of those who cannot speak for themselves, professional mourners are hypocrites who weep for those who never belonged to them in the first place. Through Orpah’s direction the hypocrisy of the actor and of the professional mourner converged. And the movements that resulted from that union were intense and stirring.

All this mourning heightened our appreciation for each other. Sometimes in the middle of a movement we were so possessed by the demons of the flesh that we had to repair to the RV to relieve the tensions. We could only hope that the visitors to the Center did not wonder about the strange movements of the vehicle.

Throughout this period of our perfecting our act and of reveling in each other’s bodies we did not see Obed. I think we forgot about him altogether.

One day a man came to the Center while I was putting together one of Orpah’s collages. The women knew him at once, and one told me he was one of the greatest dulcimer players in southeast Ohio. After having a good laugh at what he considered pieces of ugly rags that I was sewing together he said that he had come to invite Orpah to play with his bluegrass band at a fund-raising event for the victims of Katrina—the hurricane that had destroyed New Orleans at the end of August.

“I don’t wanna play no gig,” said Orpah even before the man finished his story.

“Where’s this going to be held?” I asked.

“At the Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville,” said the man.

“We got our own gig on the road, baby,” said Orpah.

“It’s for a good cause, Orpah,” said the man looking at me for support. But I have no intention of involving myself in this. I saw what happened to Nathan when he tried to be Orpah’s “manager.” The women thought it would be a good idea if Orpah took part in the concert—it would be the American thing to do. She said she would think about it and contact the man later.

That evening Orpah decided she would participate at the fund-raiser provided the bluegrass guys picked her up from Kilvert and returned her after the show. This would only be her second time playing for the public and she would be more comfortable if Obed was there as well. She needed his moral support, especially after I told her I would not attend the event myself since I had to catch up with a lot of sewing before we hit the road. Many of Orpah’s drawings demanded to be translated into quilts. There were those I felt were so essential in our lamentations that I just had to re-create them before we left.

The next morning after our mourning rehearsal we went to Ruth’s. The first thing that struck me was Mahlon’s garden. There was something different about it. For a while I couldn’t put my finger on it until Orpah pointed out that her daddy had gone back to having living things in his garden. And there I could see rose bushes among the gnomes. Some of the mini flags were still there, planted on the grass, but most were now decorating the bushes. The Bush gnome stood on its pedestal. But this time it held neither gun nor flag.

Orpah went to her mother-in-law room while I knocked at the living room door. I knew that her Marilyn Monroes missed her. That was how she usually put it, rather than the other way round. I worried a lot about those Marilyn Monroes. I dreaded her taking them with us on the road.

Ruth sat at her station cutting some glittering fabric. Not with the scissors, but with the rotary cutter I gave her as a present months before. She tried to hide it under the fabric when she saw it was me, but it was too late.

“It does a nice job, doesn’t it,” I said.

“You shacking with Orpah full time now and you ain’t even ashamed of it,” she said. “You living in sin and the Bible don’t like it no ways. Mr. Quigley too.”

“Orpah has all her stuff here, Ruth,” I said, hoping it would be some comfort. “She only goes to the RV to visit. We’re on to big things with Orpah. We’re going to conquer the world.”

“That’s what you think, mister,” she said. “Mr. Quigley won’t let you mess our girl’s life no ways.”

“I haven’t seen Mahlon for a while,” I said. “How is he? And Obed? Actually I’ve come to find out about Obed. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?”

“She’s gonna be sorry, you know? Orpah is gonna be very sorry. She ain’t like Obed. Obed has turned out so good. He’s now a man of God.”

Obed a man of God?

Ruth gushes on about her Obed: he came here with Beth Eddy the other day. Beth Eddy was a nice girl and no one could hold it against her that she was Caucasian. In any event she was going to lighten her long-awaited grandchildren. But that was not the most important thing. The most important thing was that Obed was going to Bible School to be a pastor. He was going to take over Brother Michael’s church. It was high time the church was in the hands of a son of Kilvert, a son who had not been soiled by adultery, a son who would respect the culture of his people and would not dismiss the heritage they held dear as false and meaningless.

“So the hoofing he used to do as a kid has paid off,” I said laughing. I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.

“It ain’t no laughing matter ’cause if you laugh you laughing at God.”

That, of course, stopped my foolish chuckles immediately. I don’t want to laugh at God.

Obed’s conversion did not end there. In August he went gleaning with a Bible study group to which he and Beth Eddy belonged. They joined the Appalachia Harvest gleaning group for a successful harvest of corn. They handpicked thousands of ears of sweet corn that were left on the field after harvest and would have otherwise gone to waste. The corn was then transported to local food pantries, including the Kilvert Community Center, for distribution to the poor and for community dinners. Late in August they gleaned tomatoes which the group processed into pasta sauce and salsa, also for distribution to food pantries. When he came here with Beth Eddy they brought some of the sauce and salsa with them.

To prove her point Ruth stood up and waddled to the kitchen. She brought back a bottle of pasta sauce which she said I could take to my sinful RV and taste what the hand of the Lord had brought. I was just happy to hear that my favorite scoundrel had changed so much. But how come I didn’t know anything about it?

“What about his casino? What about the Shawnee claim? Has he given up on his casino?” I asked.

“What part of he’s-a-man-of-God don’t you understand?”

“Do you have his number, Ruth?” I asked.

“What you want it for? So that you can take him away from the Lord?”

I told her about the Katrina concert. She became very agitated. Not about the concert. About Hurricane Katrina.

“We are Americans,” she said. “How can this happen to us?”

It was because of homosexuals, she declared. Pat Robertson said as much. According to this ayatollah—the same one who issued a fatwa for the death of the Venezuelan—the country had brought the catastrophe upon itself by being tolerant of homosexuals and lesbians to the extent that in some states they can even marry, which was against all the laws of nature and of God.

On returning to the RV I found Orpah lying naked on the Irish Wheel. We spent all our lives in the RV naked even when we had no intention of doing any naughty things. When I told her about Obed’s conversion she was not surprised at all. Obviously she knew all about it. She even knew that he had been in Kilvert with Beth Eddy. They came to the Center to see us, but we were not there. Nor was our RV. It was the day Orpah drove in our unwieldy vehicle to a parlor on Stimson Avenue to tattoo the tears on our cheeks.

“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

“It’s all crazy stuff, baby, and it got nothing to do with us.”

I didn’t go to the Katrina concert. But I was told that Orpah was a resounding success. I cursed that concert. Not for the assistance it gave the victims of Katrina. Not for her success. But for the fact that after the bluegrass people dropped her at Ruth’s, she did not come to the RV that night. She did not come the following day either. On the third day I braved Ruth and went looking for her. I could hear the sitar. No, not the deadly one that left me confused and horny. Not the one we played at Niall Quigley’s grave either. But some fast-paced and dancey bluegrass number.

I knocked softly but she could not hear me. I banged at the door and it flung open.

“What’s up with you?” she asked. She seemed quite irritated.

“The question is, what’s up with
you
?”

“I won’t go with you no more,” she said. “I don’t wanna be no mourner. Not when Daddy and me are talking again. I can’t leave my daddy. He needs me for the memories.”

My eyes are searching for a monk in a brown robe. A wannabe saint with a hanging belly. But I can’t see the sciolist in the milling crowds. Perhaps this year he does not think the parade is worth his while. I would not be here either if Orpah had not insisted we attend the Halloween block party, as she calls it, before crossing the Ohio River.

“I think we have seen enough,” I say, as I follow her pushing her way through a bunch of Christian fundamentalists in civvies who are trying very hard to disrupt the very pagan circus of which they have become part, their leader hollering the Lord’s name above the din. “We have a long way to go.”

“Come on, baby,” she says. “Still early. You don’t have to worry about driving anyways.”

I want to go to the bathroom very badly. Orpah stops to talk to two women—one a fat witch in black and the other an overgrown fairy in pink and white. They went to the same high school at Amesville, she tells me. They giggle about our tattooed tears, which they think are part of the occasion. They ask me how I like Kilvert and what I think of the block party. Small talk is what makes the world go round. But for now I can’t contribute my share to either its rotation or revolution. I excuse myself and walk into a nearby restaurant to use the men’s room. It is filthy with feces and puddles of piss on the floor. I am not surprised. I have gotten used to dirty toilets in the fast food restaurants of this city. Of the state even. It is not just the result of the crowds. On a normal day I have been greeted by the filthiest of toilets ever at McDonalds, Burger King and even at the original Wendy’s in Columbus.

When I return to the sidewalk Orpah and the women are no longer there. I wait a bit hoping she will show up, but have to move when the area is overrun by the Christian zealots. They are proclaiming The Word and condemning everyone present to the eternal fires of hell. The ghosts and the nurses and the bleeding souls with broken limbs ignore The Word and go about their business of strolling, gamboling or prancing up and down.

“Hey, homey, I thought you was in Virginia by now.” The voice of Obed comes from a tall Darth Vader made of glowing orange plastic. He is with another action figure—a fluorescent yellow Young Anakin who asks me in the voice of Beth Eddy what I did with Orpah. I am happy to hear these familiar voices.

“According to Ruth’s wishes you should be thumping the Bible with those people,” I say to Darth Vader, pointing at the zealots.

“Those folks are loonies, my man,” says Darth Vader.

I tell them I was beginning to panic because Orpah got lost in the crowd.

“Uh-ah! You don’t think she changed her mind again?” asks Darth Vader.

I hope not. When she changed her mind about going with me I was crushed. I was prepared to abandon the RV at the Center and hit the road on my own. After she told me she couldn’t leave her daddy I didn’t see her for days. I supposed that time she was doing the memories with him. And she was painting the pictures. She didn’t bring them to me to translate into quilts or just to keep. I took it that our mourning relationship had come to a sad end. It was another loss in a life of losses.

“Somehow I don’t think so,” I tell Darth Vader. “I think she just got carried away meeting old friends. She’s somewhere in the crowds.”

Young Anakin says she hopes we find Orpah since this is her last opportunity to meet her.

“It can’t be the last,” I say. “Orpah is not leaving forever. She’ll be back one day.”

“Only she?” asks Young Anakin. “What about you? Surely you’re not deserting us forever.”

She has always been such a sweet person.

“I’ll come back too,” I tell her. “Kilvert was my home for one year. I’ll come back to see Ruth. And of course her Mr. Quigley. And you, Beth. And my favorite scoundrel here. I am glad to see that today he has adopted a much safer identity than that of a ghost partial to girls’ breasts.”

She laughs. And then says that she is always grateful to the ghost of Nicodemus. And to the mediation that I suggested. Darth Vader says that he hopes the ghost of Nicodemus is resting in peace tonight.