The Last Western (33 page)

“Alleluia!” the group shouted.

“Orithi mega lui migosa!” a frail young man cried.

Then a young woman, very beautiful, with blonde hair cascading down her shoulders, rose in a corner of the room. Very quietly she began to speak in tongues, then to sing in a sweet, clear voice.

The group fell silent to listen to her song.

Willie thought that the girl looked like a maiden princess out of a childhood storybook. Her eyes, very blue with the blueness of Sweet William, seemed to see a lovely vision somewhere in the distance.

When she had finished, the frail young man who had cried out just before she started to sing, came before the group to explain her song.

“Helen has given us a special message from the Spirit. The Spirit says that more riots and violence and troubles will come to America if people do not come back to God and to the ways of virtue. The riot in Baltimore, the Spirit says, is a punishment for sin such as is predicted in Revelations. Many more bad things will happen if America does not pray. Helen says that the Spirit is mostly discouraged by the lack of faith people have shown in the old principles. The Spirit says people now think whatever they want, seldom praying or even thinking about God. The Spirit mourns that many men and women today think they are gods themselves. The Spirit says that if we wish to have an end to our troubles we must all be reborn—rebaptized in Him. The Spirit says that unless we are baptized in Him, then nothing will go right—no matter how much money we spend on welfare, no matter how hard we fight to make things better. It is the heart that needs to be purified, not just cities. This is what the Spirit has told us tonight in Helen’s song.”

“Alleluia! Alleluia!”

“Praise to Jesus!”

“Praise to the Spirit!”

Thatcher Grayson turned to Willie. “Spiritual truth such as this is seldom heard, eh? It is worth all the sayings wise men ever uttered and much more than that. I rejoice you and I are here together to listen to it.”

Willie closed his eyes and tried to think of something to say.

He had seen the Spirit phenomenon before and he was seeing more of it all the time—people going back to a religion that had no truck with the world.

Some of them had turned to it out of boredom.

Some of them had turned to it because they needed some hookup with the sacred and could not find the hookup in their churches.

But many of them, he thought, maybe even most of them, had been shocked and wounded and numbed by the happenings of life.

Their nervous systems could not hold under the storm of so many new and dangerous signals; so they chose to leave the world, closing their eyes to all but the invisible.

The world to these people was a hideous dream, getting more hideous all the time, and it was getting more hideous because of something called Sin.

The wars, the riots, the suffering and the hunger and the tiredness of those millions of faces they had seen at night before the news blackouts and saw even now from time to time in documentary films—the few that circulated in what were called the revolutionary cinema houses—or in the occasional news clips broadcast by guerilla TV, all these were but signs of justice at work. God was laying it on man for the mischief of Sin.

If you wanted to end the punishment, the people said, then get rid of Sin. But no one could define what Sin was.

So when Willie looked at the faces of the people gathered about the living room of Howard Arthur Amboy, he could not laugh, he could not cry, he could only feel the welling up of that emotion that had become the permanent and dominating feeling of this past month—a pervasive pity, for all of them, a pity even for God.

Then he realized they wanted him to talk, to say something about “the workings of the Spirit in your own life,” as Howard Arthur Amboy put it.

As he got to his feet a single thought burned itself into his brain,
He buried himself in all this
.

He wanted to speak of whatever this last was—for all he knew, it was an idea. But at the precise moment he opened his mouth, there was a crashing sound at the end of the living room, the French doors flew open, and there stood the forlorn figure of Herman Felder, more ghostlike than ever and obviously in trouble.

“Peace,” said Felder thickly. “Joy—benediction—happiness.”

He extended his arms with a sort of amazed grin. The world’s most expensive camera dangled from his shoulders.

“Brother Herman!” cried Willie.

“Lord God,” said Thatcher Grayson, going to Felder immediately.

Felder glided unsteadily into the room, the Spirit folk falling back at his approach. There was something frightening about his every movement.

“It’s all right, Herman,” said Thatcher Grayson.

Felder raised his voice. “Thatcher, by Jesus Lord, how are you? How’s the Spirit treating you these days?”

There was an embarrassed silence for a minute, then an elderly black man rose and began to pray for sinners, in tongues.

“The music!” Felder said. Then he spied Willie. “The bishop, ah, the tragic bishop! Does the bishop fly out of the world or does the bishop swim with the rest of us?”

“Help me get him to the kitchen,” Thatcher Grayson whispered to Willie. The black man prayed in a louder voice.

As they half carried him into the kitchen, the scent of roses nearly gagged Willie.

“What—”

“Tell you in a minute,” said Grayson.

“Tell many things,” Felder muttered. “Inner mystery
lex eterna
.”

They found some coffee in the kitchen. Felder sipped from a cup, staring at Willie. He leaned back against a refrigerator, closing his eyes. Slowly he began to slide down the refrigerator. Willie tried to prop him up.

Grayson grabbed his arm. “Let him be. Maybe he’ll sleep.”

“He is very ill,” said Willie. “We should take him to the hospital.”

“Ah, my boy, no hospital in Baltimore or anywhere in the world can cure Herman when he is this way. His soul is diseased.”

“I saw him only this afternoon, Mr. Grayson. He seemed tired but—”

Grayson reached inside the trench coat, dirty now—it was obvious Felder had fallen repeatedly—and found the flask that he knew would be there. He uncapped it. The rose smell filled the kitchen. Grayson poured a bluish liquid out of the flask into the sink.

“What is it he has been drinking?”

“The curse of his life—or one of them,” said Thatcher Grayson. “The morphini.”

“Morphini?”

“One part liquefied cocaine, one part liquefied morphine—and the rest gin and flavoring agents.”

“That rose smell—”

“Extract of tuberose,” said Mr. Grayson sadly, “the perfume they use in funeral homes. He thinks it takes away the smell of liquor. Lord! Think of his
soul
.”

Willie looked down at the prone figure of Herman Felder. He felt the pity very strongly. He felt something else, a twinge of fear he would remember later and try to explain to himself, without success.

“He is so much older than this afternoon, Mr. Grayson. Are you sure we shouldn’t call a doctor?”

“We have tried all those things before,” said Mr. Grayson. “The doctors give him different shots which do not help.”

“Is he this way often?”

“He had been sober three years until quite recently, until he went to Chicago a few weeks ago. He showed up at the ball park and the demon was upon him.”

“What is the cause?”

“Who knows, dear son? The riots, the sadness of his family life, the troubles with his movies.”

“He has a family?”

“A wife—Maybella. I met her once, a lovely woman indeed.”

“And they are having trouble?”

“She went into a monastery in India. Then entered the space program.”

“He has work? Friends?”

“He has many millions of dollars, inherited mostly, but he made many more millions with his movies. Friends? In the Society only.”

“Poor Scott,” Felder moaned.

“What did he say?” Willie asked.

“That is one of his movies—unfinished, I believe,” said Grayson. He bent down. “Herman, can you walk?”

Felder groaned. Slowly he got to his feet. His eyes narrowed, then fixed themselves on Willie. He spoke in a rapid, confidential whisper.

“Maybe give writers only five, six minutes. Show the great bullfighter mouthing that line about armed men—joy of armed men hunting armed men. Then cut to the Nobel Prize ceremony. They’re giving him a trophy with a guy’s head on it.”

Willie turned to Mr. Grayson, but Felder grabbed him by the shirt, laughing.

“Then, for the oracle of the South, we have a guy walking in an’ out of scenes talking backwards. At Nobel ceremony, says, Prevail but survive only not will man—however—see?”

Still laughing, Felder slid to the floor a second time.

“What—he said—” Willie stammered.

“Lord God—a film—who knows?” said Thatcher Grayson.

At that moment Howard Arthur Amboy came into the kitchen, his face a boiling sun.

“The camera—for God’s sake, the camera!” Amboy said.

The straps had slipped from Felder’s shoulders and the world’s most expensive camera had fallen by his side.

Howard Arthur Amboy reached out with trembling hands and touched the iridescent photo-gun.

“World’s greatest—read about it in Now—takes and develops simultaneous.” Amboy’s words were like a litany. “No light—10,000 to 1 scope—freeze action—a mill, a mill and more.”

Willie, moving to put his hand on Felder’s brow, kicked the camera.

“My God, you’ll crack it!” Amboy shouted. “World’s most—”

Felder squinted. “The manner remains after the morale has cracked.”

“It cost a mill, didn’t it?” Amboy said, bending down. “More than a mill—”

“Brother Herman,” said Willie, “let’s go on.”

“Can’t—impossible. People already made it—in their heads—” Felder gasped.

“What is he talking about?” said Willie.

“A movie,” said Thatcher Grayson. “Lord—”

“No more explainers—no more, ever!” said Felder solemnly.

Suddenly he grabbed his hat and sat up a little. He jammed the hat on his head, snapping the brim rakishly. He gathered up his camera and got to his feet.

“Herman, you’re not—”

“Loo goo woo moo,” said Felder.

Grayson’s eyes opened wide. “Why, he’s praying.”

“Surely it’s the morph—whatever—,” Willie stammered. “Let’s call the doctor.”

So quickly that neither of them could stop him, Felder barged into the living room where the black man was now singing in bluesy tongue. Amboy followed.

“Moo soo too roo,” Felder crooned. “Xanadu too la roo, fu manchu.”

“Alleluia!” the frail man shouted.

“Alleluia!” said the group.

“Praise to the Lord!” the blonde girl sang.

A man wearing fuschia-tinted glasses put his hands on Herman Felder’s shoulders.

“You have received the baptism of the Spirit?”

“Kootchie-coo,” said Felder.

“That is tongue?”

“A tongue’s a tongue,” said Felder.

“It is tongue slang,” said the frail young man. “That expression means sinners cause riots.”

Felder reached into his trench coat and failed to find what he was looking for.

“Who took the morph?”

The fuschia-tinted man turned to the frail man.

“What is the morph he speaks of, Brother Cal?”

“The morph is sleep, death,” Brother Cal replied. “He is quizzing us to see if we really believe. Let us answer his question, brothers and sisters. Who took death away?”

“JESUS,” the crowd answered.

“Jee-sus,” said Felder, rummaging through his pockets.

Grayson and Willie were trying to get him to the door now.

“Who blew doo boo, my boo?” Felder asked the fuschia-tints, who turned immediately to the interpreter.

This time the crowd did not wait for a paraphrase of the question.

“THE SPIRIT!” they cried.

Coming through the door very quietly was a majestic figure, an Oriental with gleaming head and enormous biceps. He looked, Willie thought, like a world champion wrestler.

“Joto,” said Grayson with relief.

Without a word, as if he had practiced it a hundred times before, the Oriental calmly pressed three fingers at the neck and then the temple of Herman Felder, who seemed to faint. The Oriental caught him as he fell, buckled him over his shoulder and carried him out into the night.

“His close friend and helper,” Grayson said to Willie as they followed along. “Joto is also a Servant.”

“Joto Toshima?”

“The artist.”

“This way to the car, brothers,” said Joto over his shoulder. “I am happy to see you again, Brother Thatcher. I am happy to meet you in the flesh, Brother Willie.”

“Brother Joto, it is good to see
you
,” said Willie. “We didn’t know what to do back there. He is very sick.”

“Common occurrence,” said Joto. “Go now to hotel where we stay. We all stay with him this night. Possible?”

“Yes,” they both said.

“Please?” said Joto, holding out the camera. Willie took it from him.

Then they were moving through the old streets of Baltimore, and the police were walking the streets with dogs, and there were fires, like campfires of old, burning in trash cans, and they could see the faces around the fires, and silhouetted against the dark sky, the crude terrible lessons that had been made out of buildings.

At the corner the pale green light of a sign brought Willie to the point of that question he had been wanting to ask Thatcher Grayson all day.

He looked at the face of the sleeping Herman Felder and then at the tired, drawn face of Thatcher Grayson, who also looked at the blasted buildings but did not see what Willie saw.

Another sign, and Willie could not help himself.

“Did you give him my message, Mr. Grayson?”

Without looking at him, Grayson said, “Why do you have to know that, my son?”

“You saw him, then.”

“In Florida, during spring training, Regent Industries had a convention.”

“Tell me, Mr. Grayson, the exact words.”

“He waved it off, son, he dismissed it.”

“Please, Mr. Grayson.”

Thatcher Grayson leaned forward. “Is it far, Joto?”