Between the Bridge and the River Read online

  He was still tainted with the desire for victory.

  As time passed and he did not falter from his marriage to Lady Poverty, he began to be seen by those who are looking for such things as a holyman. After all, he had given up everything to do the work of God, and surely that was better than someone who just did the work of God without having to give up a nice house and flashy velvet pantaloons.

  People were no smarter in those days than they are today.

  Francis became a celebrity.

  He founded his own gang of holymen who had to dress in rags like him and help the poor; there was a separate order of women who did the same.

  Things were fine for a while, then the old misery came back to him. Francis needed more pain. He whipped and starved his body but that didn’t do much good, so he gave it some thought and eventually he hit upon a scheme.

  He elected to take only twelve of his followers, choosing the number to be just like Jesus (just because he had embraced poverty did not mean he had lost all ambition), and go to North Africa to convert the people of Islam to Christianity. This was at a time when the Muslims and Christians were locked in bloody and brutal war.

  To embark on this mission was almost certain suicide.

  Francis and his disciples boarded a ship and headed into the heart of the fray. They crossed stormy seas and were tossed onto a faraway shore. They walked south. In time, they reached a castle in the desert where Christian forces were being held siege by a vast Muslim army.

  Francis fearlessly walked into the enemy camp carrying a wooden cross before him, his fanatic followers trudging behind, heads bowed, awaiting decapitation.

  The Saracen soldiers could not believe what they were seeing; most thought it some kind of a joke, until a superior officer ordered his men to throw the monks in irons.

  Word of the incursion by Christian fanatics reached the commander of the Islamic forces, the great Saladin. He ordered that Francis be brought before him.

  Francis stood before the throne of the sultan.

  “What do you want here, Holyman?” asked Saladin.

  “I want you and your people to convert to the one true God,” said Francis.

  Saladin laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his teeth bright though his dark beard.

  “We are converts to the one true God. There is but one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

  “No,” said Francis. “God is God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  Saladin smiled. “Well, we can’t both be right.”

  Francis was strident. “I know. I am right and you are an infidel. Turn to Christ or spend an eternity in hell.”

  “Oh, come, come, priest. Enough fire and brimstone.” The sultan gestured to the silver pot and glasses in front of him. “Have some mint tea.”

  Saladin’s guards glanced at one another, confused as to their leader’s hospitality to the prisoner.

  Francis refused to sit and have tea. He began to mutter the Lord’s Prayer over and over again quietly to himself, in preparation for his execution.

  Saladin walked up to him and clasped him on the shoulder.

  “Priest,” he said, “you are brave and you are committed to your faith and both of these are admirable traits but you do me a disservice if you presume me stupid. You think I cannot see through your plan?”

  Francis opened his eyes and faced the sultan.

  The sultan stared at him intently. “You seek martyrdom, I understand. Sure passage to paradise and the praise of those who will follow.”

  Francis said nothing.

  Saladin continued, “But those who make martyrs are tyrants or fools or both, and I am neither. I am a soldier defending my homeland.”

  “You are a heathen. An unbeliever,” stated Francis defiantly and without humor.

  The sultan sighed deeply. “Yes, well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that but here is what I am going to do with you, brave Christian. I am sending you home, under guard to protect your safety. My best soldiers will ensure that you reach your own armies unharmed, even if it puts their own lives in danger. It would be well if they were not martyred protecting you, history may frown on that no matter who wins.”

  Francis was confused.

  “I have enjoyed this, priest,” said Saladin, “but if you will excuse me I am very busy. May you die an old man in the company of your great-grandchildren. Inshallah.”

  He snapped his fingers and Francis was led away.

  Francis did not live to be an old man. He died at forty-five. It is said he suffered the stigmata, the wounds on his body imitating those inflicted on Christ.

  This may be true, the wounds on Francis may have appeared due to the influence of a supernatural power.

  Perhaps God’s finger touched him and he slept.

  But there is one thing that all agree on.

  He was not killed by a Muslim.

  THE ROAD TO GOD: TEN

  “IN A PERFECT WORLD,” said Roscoe, “you would have Chaplin as Francis and Valentino as Saladin, but who could ever afford that sort of casting, huh?”

  Saul had been transported by Roscoe’s story. He had seen it as though it were a movie, a huge, magnificent epic where he could hear the thoughts of the actors and where the music on the sound track filled him with wonder. Another strange thing was that, in Saul’s head, the part of Francis was played by Chaplin and Saladin was played by Valentino.

  He cast himself as the beggar at the tomb who stole the money and made off with the fine clothes, which of course was ridiculous because nothing that Chaplin wore would have fit him. Except perhaps the pants.

  When he arrived at Sennett Studios in 1910, Chaplin had borrowed Fatty Arbuckle’s pants from wardrobe. He felt that the Little Tramp would look more comical in a pair of giant trousers that were obviously too big for him.

  “Okay,” said Roscoe. “I gotta go, people to do, things to see, ha-ha.” He seemed to have cheered up considerably at the telling of a story.

  “You look after yourself,” he said, putting his cap back on. “And here’s a tip. If you ever get out of that bed”—he leaned very close and whispered in Saul’s ear—”get the fuck out of Hollywoodland.”

  And off he fucked.

  Saul lay there for a while, trying to conjure up the story again, but it had left him. He became aware of an itch on his nose. He tried ignoring it but it got worse. He wished the nurse would come in and wipe his face, that would do it. The itch grew, it was torture, he couldn’t bear it, tears of despair rolled down his cheeks and from deep within his body a cry welled up and to his amazement he yelled, “Help!”

  Then fainted at the sound of his own voice.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  CRAWFORD’S CREEK HAD CHANGED OVER THE YEARS. Where once there had been three churches, now there was only one.

  The one true Church.

  The Christian Reformed Fellowship of Born Again Snake Handling Pentecostal Baptists (Reformed).

  The other churches had been boarded up, and slowly the vegetation of the forest began to creep over them, returning them to the dark mire from which they came.

  The town itself had, in essence, died. When the interstate was built six miles to the west and the anthrax was found in the swamp, it seemed that no one wanted to live there anymore. When the young grew to maturity they moved away as quickly as they could, if they were lucky to a college, or if less fortunate they headed north to the plastics factories in St. Augustine. In time, the ones who didn’t run died off and were interred in the little churchyard in the woods.

  All that remained were a few houses and the gas station that used to be the old truck stop where Saul and Leon had hitched their star to a wagon. Like many struggling businesses, the gas station had to diversify in order to survive. It got practically no passing trade because practically nobody passed, so they branched out to selling fireworks, liquor, guns, hunting knives and clothing, ammunition, greeting cards, and baby clothes—and they stayed
open twenty-four hours.

  People came from miles around.

  Not so for the one true Church. It did not have the savvy to diversify. It was tucked away in the clearing of the old battle site about a half-mile away from Main Street and it got no business from the town. The only people who lived there were the new owners of the gas station, the Gupta family, who had moved from Bangladesh to Florida in the mid-nineties, and they were Hindus. Snake handling was a bit too “out there” for them.

  The lights were on in the Gupta gas station as the big RV rolled into town. Rasheed Gupta, the fifty-five-year-old patriarch of the Gupta clan, who always took the deadly quiet night shift, watched as the big camper rattled to a stop at the gas pump.

  He watched the young black man get out, then felt under the counter and undid the safety clip that held his shotgun in place. He had never seen a young black man in a vehicle like this. It didn’t gel, it sent little warning pulses of fear through his system. He watched as another young black man got out and stretched, then a strange-looking white man in an orange dress, and a skeleton in a miniskirt.

  He pulled the gun from its mooring and sat it on his lap.

  T-Bo walked up to the bulletproof window and passed a twenty-dollar bill under the slot.

  “Evening. Pump four.”

  Rasheed nodded and took the money, glancing over at the freaks on the forecourt.

  T-Bo turned and saw the others. “I told you guys to stay inside,” he growled in a stage whisper.

  The others ignored him except Fraser, who called happily, “Remember to get chocolate biscuits.”

  T-Bo turned back to Mr. Gupta and smiled. “We’re a band. Comedy troupe—musical comedy.”

  Rasheed nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said.

  “We’re looking to get to Birmingham, Alabama. We on the right road?” asked T-Bo.

  “Oh no, sir,” said Rasheed, relieved the young man had asked him a question. It somehow made him seem less menacing. “You should be on the interstate, about six miles west. There is no traffic comes through this way.”

  T-Bo nodded.

  “This is Crawford’s Creek,” said Rasheed, like that should mean something.

  T-Bo thanked him and bought the chocolate cookies that Fraser had insisted on. He gassed up the truck and rounded the others back inside. He admonished them for showing themselves. If there had been a cop around, he would have been bound to ask a weird-looking group like this some tough questions.

  “They can’t put you in jail for the way you look,” said Fraser, munching his first Oreo.

  “You haven’t been in the States long, have you, Padre?” said Cherry.

  T-Bo had got the information he needed. There was nothing here to worry about and he could rest. He was exhausted and not one of the others was capable of driving. He pulled out of the gas station and headed down the road a few hundred yards past the boarded-up and ruined town. He turned down a lane and parked the camper in a little clearing in the forest. He turned out the lights and told everyone to get some sleep.

  Potter Templeton woke them up.

  He tapped the barrel of the big shotgun against the glass of the windshield. T-Bo opened his eyes, saw the gun, saw the face of the toothless hillbilly behind it, and knew they were in deep, deep shit. Potter marched them at gunpoint through the clearing. The croaking bullfrogs sounded like an angry and hostile crowd hidden just out of sight. He made T-Bo and Vermont carry the still-comatose Mickey Day, and he had Cherry and Fraser put their hands behind their heads like he had seen in a TV show years ago.

  T-Bo, Cherry, and Vermont were terrified but Fraser seemed delighted with this turn of events, saying that Potter looked like his uncle Jack on his mother’s side. Potter told him to shut the hell up and Fraser pouted at the brusque tone.

  Potter had them climb the creaking and broken stairs into the dilapidated church. The windows were smashed and the light, swampy rain drifted through the holes in the roof. The pews were smashed and broken into one another, and a battered and rusty drum kit lay in ruins near the door.

  Standing at the far end of the church in the pulpit, aged and badly damaged but still upright, was the Reverend Alexander Pinker-ton. He was a dark and sinister shadow framed by the ridiculously theatrical rays of moonlight that shone into the church through the broken stained glass behind him.

  T-Bo thought the whole thing was like a bad dream. A very fucking bad dream.

  “Who are you?” demanded Pinkerton.

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. T-Bo grasped for a story but Fraser spoke.

  “We are beautiful and flawed children of God, as you are. We are headed to the meeting of souls in Birmingham, Alabama, where we will spread the good news among those gathered there. You may join us if you like. We have chocolate biscuits.”

  Pinkerton seemed confused; he peered into the darkness at Fraser.

  Then he climbed down from the pulpit and walked up to him, stopping only when their faces were inches apart.

  “You have seen the Holy Postman?” said Pinkerton.

  “The French guy?” said Fraser.

  “Yes! Yes! The Frenchman, the Frenchman!” Pinkerton started jumping up and down happily, and the others looked at one another with discomfort. T-Bo snuck a glance at Potter, who seemed as baffled as he was.

  “He’s not a postman, he’s a policeman. They have blue uniforms,” Fraser said.

  But Pinkerton wasn’t listening. He ran to the back of the church and dug under some old blankets and brought out two gallon jugs of moonshine and held them aloft.

  “Praise Jesus! Praise Almighty God! Free at last! Free at last! This calls for a celebration,” he cried.

  Everyone sat in a circle, except, of course, the unfortunate Mr. Day, who was laid down on a pew, and the jugs were passed around. Everyone was expected to drink in this ramshackle communion, and Potter followed the whisky around the circle with his rifle to make sure there were no heretics. As the Oreos were broken and taken and the whisky jugs were passed and the powerful brew took everyone in its grip, the Reverend Pinkerton told his tale.

  He said that many years ago he had mistakenly invited two demons into the Church. They had taken the form of young boys and one of them could sing like he was a member of God’s angelic choir. The demons were clever and tricked the Reverend into trusting them, then they raped his wife when he was out doing God’s work.

  One of the demons had hit his wife with a household appliance and knocked her out. When she awoke her soul had been snatched away and she was rendered a heathen, she spoke in garbled tongues for three days about needing to have her physical needs met, then she fled to the north.

  The last the Reverend had heard of her, she was working as a cocktail waitress in Atlantic City and was an active member of a devil-worshipping group.

  The Reverend told that he himself had been struck with the same household appliance that had been turned against his wife, and he had fallen into a deep coma as if he were dead. In his coma he had a vision of a man he called the Holy Postman, who told him— in a French accent, no less—that he should stop annoying innocent snakes and look for something else to handle, maybe something in a dress.

  When he awoke the Reverend was confused as to the meaning of the vision, and all these years, as his parishioners had died off or left, he had pondered over it. Everyone said he had lost his mind and all had deserted him except the ever-faithful Potter, who never would leave the graves of his wife and child. The two men had lived in the forest in the church and worshipped together every day.

  Every day the Reverend would preach even though there was only Potter to listen. Every day Potter would pray over the graves of his loved ones. They made holy moonshine to ease their pain and to barter with locals for food and toilet paper. He no longer felt the lure of the deadly things and had changed the name of his church from the Christian Reformed Fellowship of Born Again Snake Handling Pentecostal Baptists to the Christian Reformed Fellowship of Born Again Snake Han
dling Pentecostal Baptists (Reformed)—as in they didn’t handle snakes anymore.

  The Reverend told the gathered drunken congregation, whom he preached to at gunpoint, that tonight he understood his vision. Fraser was the “something in a dress” and he had come to lead all of them out of the darkness.

  Potter asked Fraser if this was true, and Fraser smiled his big bloody grin at him and said, with a little difficulty because of the illegal-booze intake, that yes, it was.

  Potter, tanked to the gills, put the gun down, fell to his knees, and cried, “Thank you, Jesus.”

  T-Bo, Vermont, and Cherry, who were also shitfaced by that time, cheered and cried. Then everyone, excepting Mickey Day of course, stood and held hands and said the Lord’s Prayer, led by the Reverend himself.

  Soon after, the cheap booze forced them all into unconsciousness.

  Fraser was caught up in a hurricane—he dreamed of disillusioned crusaders and ugly witches, he dreamed of revolutions and murders and clockmakers and lies, he dreamed of dead movie stars and religious fanatics and Moorish generals, he dreamed of the death of his old friend George and he wept and shook and sweated. Then he got up. He left the others asleep on the floor and broken pews and he walked outside the ruined church and into the Florida night.

  He walked by the bank of a still pond in the moonlight. He could still hear the bullfrogs croaking. He looked like his old self. His bruises were gone, his mouth uninjured, and he noticed he was wearing the suit he wore to funerals or business meetings. His shoes were shined and his hair was combed and he smelled of deodorant and toothpaste.

  He looked at the dark water, where he could just make out the shapes of creatures that stirred, surfaced, and submerged, sending ripples out toward him. To his right he saw a broken antler lying by the path. It seemed to be a signpost and pointed him in a direction away from the dark mire. He headed in the direction indicated and after a few hundred feet he happened on his old friend.