The Last Western (32 page)

Raving, the cabbie lost control of the car, which went careening into a post anchoring the main gate of the park.

A policeman approached.

“Think you can move this park with that thing?” he asked.

“Filthy monist pigs!” the cabbie shouted, and then burst into song.
From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli… .

Willie tried to mollify the man but the policeman said, “You better go, Father. He’s disarranged, maybe even disqualified.”

The cabbie got out of the car, and Willie went up to him, and then the cabbie clipped Willie on the side of the face.

The policeman staggered the cabbie with a swing of his peace club. “He’ll be all right now, Father. Enjoy the game!” As the man was led away to the squad car, Willie, dazed, could still hear him singing.
We will fight our country’s battles, in the air, on land and sea.

Shaken, Willie went down to the dark cellar passageway that led to the Hawks dressing room. A rivulet of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He found a men’s room and tried to wash the bleeding away. His jaw was starting to swell. He could taste the salty blood taste in his mouth.

He went back to the passageway. It was a dark tunnel that he only faintly remembered from his playing days. As he headed uncertainly for the dressing room, he began to get the feeling someone was following him. He stopped, looked back—no one.

As he turned to go on, he heard someone cough.

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

He went on until he found an usher.

“You don’t look good, sir,” the usher said. “You want first aid?”

“No, I just want to see Mr. Grayson. He sent for me.”

The usher led him back along the same stretch of passageway to the dressing room.

When Mr. Grayson saw Willie, he cried out in the Spirit tongue.

Willie embraced him.

“Orithi turi enotho miga gula so e mizu dozon!”

“Mr. Grayson, dear friend.”

“Mer moli inga sororie orz tu pey loa laanga,” replied Mr. Grayson.

“Mr. Grayson, let’s talk in regular talk.”

“Ah, but the Spirit tongue!” said Mr. Grayson, “Surely you understand the Spirit tongue.”

Willie shook his head. “I have a hard enough time with English.”

“You’re doing the Spirit work. The Spirit is in you crying to be let out.”

The players, dressing slowly, were all looking at Willie. No one remained now from his old team.

“You have brought the Spirit to Baltimore,” said Mr. Grayson. “How the Spirit has been hungering to take up abode in this sinful town!”

“The riot is ended,” said Willie, “but the trouble underneath is still there.”

“The Spirit can give rout to the trouble,” said Mr. Grayson. His hair, completely white now, gave him the appearance of an old cherub.

“I hope I can sit in the dugout with you, Mr. Grayson.”

“There would be no other place in this stadium, dear son. And afterward, we’ll go to the prayer meeting. There are active Spirit folk here in the city.”

So Willie sat on the dugout bench and watched his old team lose to the Orioles.

Mr. Grayson paid little attention to the game, preferring to hear of Willie’s doings.

“Clio, I see, has gone in for revolution,” said Mr. Grayson.

“He is seeking justice the best way he knows,” said Willie.

“If only we had reached him in time.”

“He is doing what he thinks is right, and maybe—”

Mr. Grayson began to speak in tongues again. He had not noticed Willie had been hurt and did not notice it when Willie left the bench to find an ice pack for his jaw.

The dressing room was dark, full of green shadows, with only a small sunlamp burning at the end of a training table.

Willie found a medicine cabinet. As he pulled open the door, he became aware of a figure, enveloped, it seemed, in a shroud, sitting on a rubdown table in the darkest corner of the locker room.

The sight of the figure startled him. He stepped forward, straining to see. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the outline of a tall man, gaunt and disheveled, dressed in a white raincoat.

“Sir?” said Willie.

The man turned his face into the glow of the sunlamp, and Willie saw a mask of such sadness, with its dead white pallor and downturned mouth, that it looked like one of those faces of tragedy that were painted on the stage curtains of theaters.

“Can I help you?” Willie said, drawing nearer.

“No,” came the hollow reply.

“Who are you? You—seem in distress.”

“I am a friend,” the voice said. “I have been following you about, observing the progression of events.”

Then it came to Willie that he had seen the man before—on the steps of the chancery in Philadelphia. This was the man who had delivered the note from Benjamin.

“You are a member of the Society?”

“I am,” the man said mournfully. “I am Brother Herman, known to the world as Herman Felder.”

“Herman Felder!” cried Willie. “Why—that’s wonderful. I thought—well, I supposed—forgive me, Brother Herman, but I thought you were dead.”

“Many have supposed that same thing.”

“I heard from a friend or read someplace—”

“It is a common mistake,” the man said. “You are mixing me up with my father, Gunner Felder, who passed into another arrangement some time ago.”

Felder struck a match—the mask flared briefly in the dark green shadows.

“What brings you to Baltimore, Brother Herman?”

“I follow the trouble about.”

“You are practicing Recommendation 33?”

Felder sighed. “Ah no, I am not to that stage as yet. It is a different matter.” He got off the table now and Willie caught the scent of roses—that scent that he would come to know so well and that was sweeter than any of the flowers that men grew or had ever grown anywhere.

“You are the reason I am here,” said Felder slowly, as if it pained him to talk.

“You are all right, Mr. Felder? You are weaving a little.”

With a wave of his hand, Felder moved into the light of the lamp and Willie saw the face clearly for the first time. It was a face he had seen before. Not just in Philadelphia—where?

There was a touch of strength in the lines about the mouth, of brutality even. There were traces of humor and irony, and something else Willie could not name.

This strength of the face was not real but was more like the afterimage of a vanished power, and as he studied him, the more it occurred to Willie that everything about Herman Felder was like that. It was like seeing a character out of an old-time movie, but the print was in bad shape or else the projection lamp had dimmed. The delicate lines that made the character definite and fixed in place seemed on the point of disappearing.

Struck by his sheer immateriality, Willie peered at him a moment more. Then he saw that gleaming blue device—the great camera-gun that seemed an extension of the man’s arm. He squinted uncertainly.

“You are a photographer, Brother Herman?”

“In the old days, I used to—used to fool with those things,” came the voice.

Now Felder moved, or rather the camera moved.

Willie again had the feeling of watching a movie. Cigarette twitching in the hand, trench coat whitening, then dissolving in shadows as he swayed in the lamplight, the man was less a person than a filmic ghost with all the life played out and only the flickering images of some earlier life shining through, giving him such a thin reality that if the sunlamp were snapped off, he would cease to exist.

“You are why I am here,” said Felder. “I have a message to give you.” (Was not even the voice something spoken on a sound track?)

“From the Servants?”

Felder nodded.

“Benjamin and the others will be released soon from the jail in Atlanta. Another group—is taking their place.” Felder seemed to grope for words. “You are to get ready—prepare yourself in the spirit of the Servants for a larger mission that—” and the voice trailed off.

“I do not understand, Mr. Felder, but I am ready to do what the Servants think best.”

“It will be something—it will be similar to what you are doing now but in other—territories.”

“I see.”

“Most important to prepare.” These last words were barely audible. Now the odor of roses became stronger. Felder groped in his coat. He seemed to take something into his mouth from a flask in his coat pocket. He coughed, cleared his throat and straightened up a little. In a stronger voice he said, “You will have to prepare.”

“I will listen most carefully.”

“Absolutely essential,” said Felder in an even brisker tone. “Especially now with so many arrangements breaking up and the temptation being so strong to clear out as Thatcher has done and so many others.”

“Mr. Grayson is still a very good Christian.”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand. I love Thatcher like a brother,” said Felder in a voice that seemed the voice of a new man. “I truly do. But let’s face facts, Brother William. Thatcher has checked out and there is no way to reach him.”

Felder began to pace back and forth in an animated way. It was as if he had been stricken by some awful disease, then having taken the medicine, had come back to perfect health. Willie saw black hair, a smiling, almost handsome face.

“I’m going to a prayer meeting tonight with Mr. Grayson,” said Willie. “Maybe you would like to come with us?”

“Oh no,” said Felder decisively. “Many things to do. Many, many errands and—things to mind. Besides, I don’t go in for that sort of thing. Too much the earthly, worldly Servant.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t let temptation drag you under.”

“Under what?” said Willie.

Then the players came in, cursing over their lost game even while Thatcher Grayson praised the Lord, and when Willie turned to speak to Herman Felder again, he was gone. On the training table was a book, which Willie recognized as the Guidebook of the Society. He picked it up. There was Felder’s name on the inside cover.

But as he glanced at the title page, he saw that it was not the Guidebook after all but a tract called
The Decline of the Hero
by J. Armstrong Manbult.

*  *  *

The prayer meeting that night was held at the home of Howard Arthur Amboy, a seller of Martha Washington dolls.

About fifty people gathered, most of them long-time charismatics or Pentecostals, or, as they preferred to be called, Spirit people.

“I want you to meet one of my dearest friends,” Mr. Grayson told the group, “Bishop Willie, whose great works in the Spirit are known throughout the country.”

Willie smiled uncomfortably as the people applauded.

The meeting began with the testimonial of Howard Arthur Amboy, the host, who said that since he had received the Spirit four years ago, he had sold more than 150,000 of “what we in the trade call the top doll, the one that says more than a thousand different things, some funny, some sad, some stupid, just as in real life.”

Mr. Amboy, a balding man of about fifty, with thick black brows, produced one of the dolls, a perfect miniature of the wife of the first president of the United States. He squeezed it gently.

My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty
, the doll piped.

“The patriotic first lady,” Mr. Amboy explained. He squeezed again.

George, you know that girl Patrick Henry’s chasing? Her name is Liberty.

“The comedic, human Martha.” Another squeeze.

Before you came along, George, what was I? Just another girl trying to find some meaning in life out there on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“The loving, dependent Martha,” Mr. Amboy said, wiping his black brows. He held the doll up for all to see.

“And people, do you know that when this doll first came on the market, I’d go up and ring a doorbell and think, They’re going to laugh, they’re going to throw up, they’re going to slam the door on my face. The doll is too tricky, it costs too much, it’s not relevant. I talked myself into failure, my brothers and sisters in the Spirit. I was a hopeless man, a figure of despair. Then one day, over on R Street, I heard a voice saying, I believe in you Howard Arthur Amboy—the doll believes in you. Why don’t you believe in us?

“Right then, right there,” Mr. Amboy said, “I got on my knees for the first time since my childhood. I felt the Spirit coming into me, I began to pray. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember crying. Really blabbering. My partner, Fred Groove, who since unfortunately blew his brains out, came across the street and said, Howard Arthur Amboy, what are you doing? I said, I’m praising the Lord, Fred Groove. I’m going to turn Martha Washington over to the Holy Spirit. Then, though I don’t remember this, I guess I started squeezing all the dolls I had with me, maybe fifteen or twenty of them with the amps turned up on each one, so that all these sayings came out in a jumble and a crowd started to gather. That day I sold 300 dolls alone.”

“Alleluia!” someone shouted.

“Praise to Jesus!” came another voice.

Amboy raised up the doll once more. “Since that day, brothers and sisters in the Spirit, I sold enough dolls to bring me in more than $400,000 net, and that is just the beginning. Our district manager, Mr. C. A. Chrisser, is putting me in charge of our new Nathan Hale Firing Squad Program next month. That job, which I owe to the Holy Spirit of God, is sixty big ones per annum and a percent of the flow besides.”

“Alleluia!”

“Amen, and praise to the Lord!”

“Maybe,” said Mr. Amboy, looking angry all of a sudden, “maybe it is crazy, a grown man selling dolls. But I would rather sell dolls than guns! And there are people making their livings today in less honorable ways than I am, and all I can say is, God forgive them and show them the light of the world before it’s too late!” He looked at the doll, fondling it for a moment before he went on. “So I’m a slob. Does that matter so much? Doesn’t God love slobs? Is there anyone in this whole world who is not a slob?”

A few halfhearted alleluias answered this question. Then Mr. Amboy sat down, and an old man with turkey lines running down from his quivering chin stood up.

“I am Horace, age eighty-one. I did not know the Spirit until four months ago. I am Greek and always have been. It is better to be a Greek than many things. One could be Italian, for instance. Or Irish. One could have syphilis. My wife is dead. My children are gone from me. I voted all my life after I become citizen. My life was given over to sin and wrongdoing. Much drinking. Many messings with women, even though my own woman was good and worked like a crazy person. My wife died, perhaps I forgot to tell you. I fell into riotous living. Then one night in the bad district, I was hit by a flying bottle. My head became unfastened almost. I walked around for five days trying to find home. There was buzzing in my head. Then the buzzing stop and this voice say to me, Horace you are unholy, impure man who is going to burn forever for fooling around all your life. I think first maybe I am losing my reasoning. But the voice say, This God talking and you better hark to what I say. The voice says, Since nothing you ever done is good, do everything different—do exact opposite of everything you did. I go see man of the church who is believing in Spirit. He lays his hands on my head. Like a lightning flash I get Spirit. Since then, I pray in tongue and do not mess. Many women try to drag Horace into sin but Horace say, Foolish virgin, turn your ass around or Spirit will condemn you to hell. Women laugh at Horace, men too, but time will tell. Praise to Jesus and the Spirit!”