The Last Western (34 page)

“Very close, Brother Thatcher.”

“Please, Mr. Grayson.”

Grayson turned away and spoke to a ruined tenement.

“He said, News of niggers doesn’t interest me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grayson,” said Willie. “I know that was hard to say.”

“That man must not concern you ever again!” said Thatcher Grayson angrily. “With your power of the Spirit why should you bother about such a man!”

Willie could see the policemen with their dogs.

Grayson said, “The meeting was pure truth wasn’t it, son?”

Willie could think of nothing to say. His hands were sweating on the world’s most expensive camera.

“We are coming to the point at last where men know they are worthless to tackle it by themselves. You agree with that surely.”

Felder moaned, twitched, then fell asleep again.

“The testimonies—didn’t you hear the Spirit in them?” Grayson said.

“It takes me so long to understand things,” said Willie. “Many people are unhappy.” “The Spirit will care for them.”

The dogs were barking, straining at their leashes, pulling their trainers after them.

BOOK FOUR

We are entering a time of great bloodiness.

In such a period passion speeds up. It is

not a time for faint signals. Our new

lipsticks will be the gaudiest ever—such

reds as you have never seen.

Frost R. Felder, President

To the board of directors

Agape, Inc.

September 10, 1939

Miami, Florida

In Herman Felder’s suite
at the Edgar Allan Poe Motor Lodge, Condominium and Adventure in Living, Willie tried to pray. It was 3 a.m. and he was very tired. He sat under a huge depiction of the famous poem, “The Raven.” In gilt letters under the painting were the words: ED POE WAS A GOOD AMERICAN. HE FOUGHT MONISM WITH SOMETHING MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.
Clement “Clem” Thrigg, 44th President of the United States.

Willie could hear the low voice of Joto ministering to Herman Felder in the next room. Thatcher Grayson had returned to his own hotel—one of the players had got stuck in an elevator. (“Sin has caused them to make errors off the field as well as on.”)

As he sat there, eyes closed, trying to compose himself for prayer, a door opened noiselessly and a human tree took shape before him.

A full minute passed before he felt its presence. Then he opened his eyes.

With a little cry he flew to the branches of the human tree.

“Truman! Oh Truman!”

Truman kissed his hair, bending down a little.

“My dear brother, my brother.”

Truman hugged him close, closer.

“Where—do you come from? Oh Truman—how are you? Father Benjamin? The brothers? Where?”

Truman, smiling, waved his great airplane arms:
so many, many questions
.

Willie laughed. “I’m sorry, dear friend. Here.” He led Truman to the chair he had been sitting in. “Come now. Sit down. Rest. You must be hungry. Let’s get some food for you.”

As he sat down, Truman made a vaguely comic sign about his size.

“Some tea? No. Wine? Let me find some good wine for you.”

Truman shook his shaggy head. Then he made a sign as if to say he could eat downstairs—he lived here, in this suite.

“You’re staying with Brother Joto and Brother Herman?”

Yes, nodding.

“But you were in prison.”

Yes.

Truman then told his story in sign, making the beautiful gestures that Willie loved to see.

Truman, after leaving the Servant camp in Texas, had gone to substitute for a convicted rapist in Trenton, New Jersey. The rapist himself had been a Servant substitute.

Truman had transferred from this jail to three other jails, eventually landing in a prison in Maryland, where Joto Toshima and Herman Felder were serving short sentences.

(Truman made a little sign here to indicate parentheses. In the parentheses he showed an old law being changed—a new system coming in. Under the new law, prison substitution was much easier than before: anyone could serve anyone else’s sentence as long as the number of prisoners in the country was proportionate to the number of crimes committed in any given year [
referring to the Freedom of Punishment Amendment to the U.S. Constution]
.)

Several weeks ago Father Benjamin had asked a sister Servant to substitute for Herman Felder. On his release Felder went to Atlanta, where he spent several days visiting Benjamin. A week later two brothers came to the Maryland prison to release Truman and Joto. Since that time, Truman’s signs indicated, the trio—Felder, Joto and Truman—had been moving about.

“To the riots?”

Truman nodded.

Then a sign that said
illness
-. Herman Felder.

Willie nodded sadly.

But now, this minute, Truman signified, things would get better. His craggy face brightened. He and Willie and Joto were going on a mission of great love that would manifest God’s tenderness—Truman’s sign for the tenderness of God was that of a father cradling some infant creature he loved more than himself. Then he added:
if there were a God.

An airplane sign. Truman’s eyes shone like the eyes of a boy with a shiny model monorail. Herman Felder had a beautiful jet and he, Truman, would fly it.

“Where do we go?” Willie asked.

Truman made a wonderful baseball of the world out of his great fist.

“Tell me about Father Benjamin. Has his health been all right through these years?”

Truman gave the thrive sign for the White Beard and the same for the other brothers.

“Oh Truman,” said Willie. “Such happy news you bring! And do you know—I’ve never seen you smile before.”

It was true. Under the depiction of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem, the Man of Sorrows was for the moment the Man of Laughter, except that he did not have the equipment to laugh.

Joto came from the other room, shirtless, exhausted.

Truman and he exchanged the friendship sign.

“Brother Herman is all right now, Joto?” Willie asked.

“All right now because sleep. All right in morning when first drinks make young. All right until early afternoon. Then start to get old. From four o’clock to midnight, go from forty to eighty. Regular procedure.”

“But why?”

Joto and Truman looked at each other unhappily.

“Is most complicated, Willie brother,” said Joto. “Too complicated for me, too complicated for maybe anyone.”

“Mr. Grayson said he had stopped drinking for three years. Why does he drink now? There must be some reason.”

Joto sighed. “Movies play on in head that cannot be made. Try to stop movies but hard to stop. Now worry too about mission. Brother Herman tell you of mission?”

“Only a little.”

Joto groaned. “He was to brief you on all that. Main men of church coming tomorrow. You were to be ready.”

“But what will we do with Brother Herman?”

Truman signified that Herman Felder was going on the mission with them.

“He is in no condition to travel,” said Willie.

“Only on mission will movies stop,” said Joto. “Stop movie, stop drinking. Mission save Brother Herman from art death.”

Willie tried to follow this thought.

“Besides,” said Joto, holding up his strong hands, “even when drinking, Brother Herman very great organizer. Number one director.”

“He can organize nothing now,” said Willie.

“Mission is salvation,” Joto replied. “Plunge in real. Then all benefit.”

“Maybe we could call his wife—Maybella?”

Joto shook his head. “She in space.”

Confusedly the memory of the Pentecostal meeting came back to Willie. He saw the yellow-haired girl, singing.

“Maybe, brothers, if we listen for a while,” he said then, “maybe we could get some helpful pictures.”

Taking his Guidebook, he opened it at random and his eyes fell on the entry of Servant Sally Tea, of the twentieth century.

“Let’s consider these words,” Willie said, and he read the words of Sister Sally:
The cross is the perfect sign of J. The crossbar shows the earth part of life; the vertical beam, the divine. All truly human life is cross-shaped. But in today’s world, life has become either-or: people are either crossbars or up-beams. “Let’s listen to these words a little while and ask the Loving One for good pictures so that we can help Brother Herman.”

So they listened for a half hour, standing under the watchful eye of “The Raven.” They then exchanged their
dona
in sign:

Truman:

Man fall into ground so far, have to dig to find him, but nobody digging: everybody looking up.

Willie:

Man trying to fly on wooden wings. People say can’t be done, but man flies off anyway. Then he reaches the sun, and wings catch fire. People say, We told you.

Joto:

Without art, violence. But when art only ego-shine, then—Joto showed an arrow traveling in a circle and coming back to strike his heart.

Willie said wearily, “We speak out of our own needs and with great sadness. The air we breathe is the life breath of a sad brother.”

They went to bed.

*  *  *

All that night Willie dreamt his flight dream. He was soaring over very beautiful country with hills like the soft breasts of women, and the sky above was tinctured with rose and gold and the air was wonderfully sweet and fresh, as after a rain, and he did not want to stop flying and when he felt the pull of the weights on his wings, he shook himself in the air, struggling to fly free, and then there came the voice of Joto and it was time to get up.

“You were far under,” said Joto. “Men are here. Herman in next room want to see you.”

“Good morning, Joto,” said Willie. “What men?”

“Of church.”

Felder appeared at the doorway, carrying a carafe of coffee. To Willie’s astonishment, he looked fresh and young. His voice, as he spoke, was lively and cheerful.

“The chiefs have gathered,” he said. “Better have some coffee.”

As he came nearer, Willie smelled the roses.

“Brother Herman, what’s it all about? Who are the men?”

“Some of the men you know—Cardinal Goldenblade; his brother, the gunmaker and publisher; a young bishop named McCool; Cardinal Tricci, who is the apostolic delegate, and Archbishop Looshagger who seems to be archbishop of this city.”

Willie could not believe how young Felder looked.

“But what brings them here?” he asked.

“The mission of course. I told you all about it yesterday, but you were too busy listening to Thatcher’s Pentecostals. Incidentally, the flight plans are final now.”

He looked like a youthful businessman, happy, relaxed, a man of thirty preparing for a holiday.

Joto eyed Willie over Felder’s shoulders, watching his reaction.

“I am flying,” Willie said carefully. “I know we are to fly. But where?”

“Oh well, the details they’ll tell you about. Let’s go face them. Remember, it’s a show for them. It means something altogether different for us. Don’t mention Benjamin by the way. He set this up, most of it, using the name of Archbishop Tooler.”

Willie searched Joto’s face for an explanation, but Joto’s face told him he had none.

Into the room, behind the cloud of rose perfume, went Willie.

And there, around a gilt-edged table in the splendid parlor of the Lord Calvert Suite, with maps and charts and lists and strange documents spread before them, were the churchly and worldly powers, ruddy faces, excellent clothing, manicured hands.

Smiles, the manicured hands stretching out.

“Your Excellency—”

“Dear Bishop—”

All rose.

Goldenblade handled the introductions, immediately confusing Delegate Tricci by calling Willie, Bishop Brother. Since Tricci knew Cardinal Goldenblade was in fact the brother of G. D. Goldenblade, he concluded that G. D. Goldenblade had completely missed the point of the negotiations of the past week and believed the Vatican wished to send his own brother on the mission.

“Who then were this man?” said Tricci pointing to Willie.

“Bishop Brother,” said Goldenblade.

“
I’m
your brother, George,” said Earl.

Bishop McCool intervened. “This is the man, Cardinal Tricci, Bishop Willie.” McCool put both hands on Willie’s shoulders.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Goldenblade demanded.

“You said Brother, brother,” said Earl Goldenblade.

“But they
call
him Brother, Father,” said George Goldenblade.

“Unless a man leave father and mother, he cannot be his brother’s keeper,” said Archbishop Looshagger, who had just been put on probation for car theft.

“My English were not fine,” said Cardinal Tricci.

“It’s certainly wonderful now,” said George Doveland Goldenblade.

“Good Christ,” murmured Felder.

Earl Cardinal Goldenblade, a man of great piety, took this to be an invitation to prayer.

“You are right, Mr. Felder. And since this is the age of the layman, I ask my brother George to lead us in prayer.”

“Dear Mother Mary,” said Goldenblade lowering his head, “while we stand here with heavy hearts in a city that has goldarned near burned itself to ash, keep our hearts chaste until just tomorrow. May the vision of Fatima keep our goshdarn minds clear of the heady fumes of monism and other rot. We ask the Holy Spirit to prevail upon your gracious heart to ask your son to look after His Father’s business which today in a unique way becomes the business of Father Brother. Amen.”

“Amen.”

They took chairs around the gilt-edged table. Solemnly Cardinal Tricci put on his spectacles, broke the seal of a large envelope and extracted an official-looking document.

“I realized we does not speak American splendid. Nevertheless Holy Father moved me here to say this letter. I would endeavor to accomplish.” Now he began to read the letter, translating from the Latin as he went. The letter was addressed to Willie.

“In view of your recent quellings of civil perturbations and in face of many unfortunate forms of civil alarm and catastrophe in many nationalities of universe, all over, our wisdom charity humility faith and goodness inspired us to accomplish through you new missions of peace mercy and quietness to some strife-torn territories where many evil things are going on which surpasses man’s knowledge and power.