Between the Bridge and the River Page 27

  “Carl!” he cried delightedly.

  “Hello, Fraser.” Jung smiled, and the two men embraced warmly.

  Jung led Fraser to a couple of striped deck chairs he had set up in the woods.

  They sat looking out into the dark forest and Jung lit his pipe.

  “I’ve come to say good-bye,” said Jung.

  “Why?” said Fraser.

  The old man puffed a big blue smoke ring out into the night. “I can’t treat you anymore,” he said. “It’s not you. It’s me.”

  “What are you talking about?” squeaked Fraser. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “Look, Fraser, we both know this can’t go on. It doesn’t make sense. I’m dead. I’ve been dead for years.”

  “I’ve gone completely insane, haven’t I?” groaned Fraser. “It’s brain damage from the beating I took or the moonshine whisky or both.”

  Jung thought for a moment. “No,” he said at last. “You are certainly not the man you were but you were never particularly enamored of him anyway.”

  “True,” said Fraser.

  “You have deserted the realm of cynical reason, and there will always be a part of you that is suspicious of that. Debate is healthy, only evil does not question itself.”

  “I had such dreams, such vivid, nonsensical dreams, they felt real. I thought I was dead, I thought my old school friend George had needed my help. It’s all crazy shite, isn’t it?”

  “Crazy shite is not a clinical term that I am familiar with,” said the doctor, smiling, “but I will tell you something. I admire you.”

  Fraser was thunderstruck.

  “Me?” he said. “I’m a disgraced, runaway, alcoholic minor television celebrity with brain damage. You are one of the most revered and respected healers and teachers in history. What could you possibly admire in me?”

  “Your tenacity,” said Jung. “It took me until I was an old man and could smell death before I finally shook off the mental and spiritual chains of the frightened engineers and referees who attempt to control the thoughts of us and our fellow pilgrims. You have been thrown to the ravages of the collective unconscious and you survive with questions and innocence and self-doubt. You have been mauled by fear and poisonous self-judgment but have not succumbed to it. You live your life as it arrives.”

  Suddenly Jung and Fraser both were dressed as dashing Cossacks and had glasses of chilled vodka in their hands. Jung raised his in a toast.

  “To my friend Fraser Darby,” he said. “You, sir, are interesting!”

  Fraser laughed and they clinked glasses, but before Fraser could drink he was back in the church sitting on the floor screaming.

  He was awake and he was blind.

  THE ROAD TO GOD: ELEVEN

  SAUL WAS AWAKE and could see the concern on his brother’s face. He could also see the doctor, the one with the wart on his cheek who smelled of mouthwash and nicotine. He saw the cute nurse and the ugly nurse and he saw that the window in his room was open. He looked at them blankly for a moment, then said, “Where’s Roscoe?”

  They reacted with surprise and the cute nurse said, “I told you.”

  Leon came forward and leaned in. “Can you hear me, buddy?”

  “Of course I can hear you,” said Saul, his voice quiet and raspy from lack of use. “You’ve got your big ugly mug right in my face.”

  Leon smiled, tears rolling down his cheeks. He hugged Saul. “Oh fuck, Solly. I thought you were gone, buddy. I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Cut it out,” growled Saul. But he was delighted. His brother had not hugged him like this in years. He tried to hug him back but only his left arm would move, and even then just an inch or two from the bed.

  But it did move.

  The doctor asked Leon to stand back so that he could examine Saul. He peered and he prodded and he took out his little stick and pressed it on Saul’s tongue; he didn’t really know what he was looking for but he wanted to impress the cute nurse. When he was finished he leaned back and said, “Hmmmm, inconclusive,” in the way he had seen on TV and in the movies. “We’ll need to perform more tests.”

  The cute nurse got a little damp. This was a real man.

  “How do you feel, Solly?” Leon asked.

  “I’m changed, Leon,” said Saul. “I feel like I’m born again.”

  Saul had thought he had been in his state of stasis for a month or two; he was horrified and shocked to find he had been down for almost a year. A year of his fucking life spent in a bed with nothing to do but blink and poop. He felt cheated. Why him?

  In the time that Saul had been incapacitated a lot had happened in his life and the life of his brother. Oh Leon! had been canceled and Candy Chambers had sued Saul for fifteen million dollars for emotional and physical abuse.

  Saul was horrified at this. Candy Chambers was a hooker whom he had paid. Leon agreed but said that their lawyers had told him that she had a good case and the action would certainly generate a lot of hostile publicity. Plus a long, drawn-out legal battle could cost that much anyway, so they advised Leon to settle out of court, which he had done for ten million.

  Saul nearly had another stroke but that was not the worst of it.

  Leon admitted to Saul his involvement with the Church of Brainyism and said that he had invested in the Church’s new head quarters on Hollywood Boulevard. It should have been a safe investment, the property alone was worth so much, and then when the renovations were finished they were going to rent out rooms to Boondtist pilgrims who were visiting town. It should have been a gold mine but the developer, Harry Crenshaw, a longtime elder of the Church, had absconded with the money. The Church itself was blameless, said Leon, a lot of people had been burned, including the Grand High Boondtrah himself.

  Saul asked him how much.

  Twelve million.

  In the time that Saul had been out of commission Leon had lost twenty-two million dollars; Saul’s medical expenses and the bills for fresh fruit and flowers every day drove the number up to twenty-four million.

  Leon sat on the edge of Saul’s bed and wept with shame.

  If Saul could have gotten out of the bed and killed Leon, he would have done it, but instead, realizing the limitations of his condition, he said, “It’s okay, I’m back now. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Leon nodded.

  “No more Brainyism, okay?”

  Leon nodded again.

  Saul thought that to be involved in something called Brainyism, it might help if you had a fucking brain instead of being a fucking singing cock. But he didn’t want to hurt his brother’s feelings and he knew he still needed the skinny prick, probably now more than ever, so he didn’t say anything. Instead, he yelled at the nurse to bring him a phone.

  Saul had all the accountants and managers and lawyers who took care of and mishandled his and Leon’s fortune when he was incapacitated fired. He toyed with the idea of suing the bastards who had allowed Leon to make such a fucking mess of things but he kept thinking about Roscoe.

  There was something urgent and dire about the fat man’s warning to leave Hollywoodland.

  Saul was haunted by the thought that if he stayed in this town, things would not only get as bad as they were before but somehow worse, although he had a little difficulty imagining what that would look like.

  Leon hung around the hospital all the time, sheepishly trying to take care of his brother even though he couldn’t think of what to do, so he just sat in Saul’s room next to the bed and flipped through the channels on the TV while Saul mulled over his next move. Saul’s speech had returned and he had partial use of his left arm and that was about it. Occasionally, he thought he felt some tingling in his penis but he surmised this was just wishful thinking, like the phantom itches an amputee feels in the missing limb. The doctors said he might or might not improve, that the test results had proved inconclusive. Saul took from this that they didn’t have a fucking clue.

  We don’t have a fucking clue is the lay term fo
r the medical expression inconclusive.

  Saul and Leon weren’t broke but Saul was aware that if he wanted to continue to have the best medical attention and live in luxury and as much comfort as his condition would allow, then they had to earn some money. The only way he knew how to do it was to pimp out his brother, but Leon’s stock had fallen considerably in Hollywoodland, and he himself was afraid to stay there anyway.

  Roscoe had told him to get out.

  He asked about Roscoe a few times but no one seemed to know who he was talking about, so he let it slide.

  One long, hot afternoon, Saul was deeply depressed and was just about to ask Leon to turn off the television when he noticed a channel his brother had skipped past.

  “Go back!” he said.

  Leon flipped the channel back to what Saul wanted.

  A religious channel.

  A man with a preposterous hairdo in a garish yellow suit and bootlace tie was preaching fire and brimstone to a massive audience in a huge auditorium in Texas. A number was flashing across the bottom of the screen telling callers where to call to pledge their donations. Saul knew his prayers had been answered.

  This was the way out of this sick and twisted fucking town.

  Saul had Leon bring in some high-ranking Boondtists to his bed-side on the premise that he was interested in joining the Church. Saul had no intention of doing this, of course, but he pumped the Brainyists about the birth of their faith, about Boondt himself, and about their tax-exempt status as a religion. He asked about their recruitment techniques and their structure of management.

  During this time Saul also asked for, and got, visits from Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, Mormons, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, rabbis, gurus, shamans, and snake oil salesmen of every description who peddle their services to the sick, the scared, and the dying in the hospitals of Southern California.

  Saul thought back to the sermons he had witnessed in the snake-handling church of Crawford’s Creek, how these dirt-poor farmers had been only too happy to hand over what little cash they had if they were convinced that they had been in the presence of a little miracle or two.

  Saul devoured historical and religious texts. Leon hired an out-of-work actor to sit by Saul’s bed and turn pages for him. He had to fire three before they finally got one who would shut up. He studied the rise and fall of ancient religions, he studied the spread of empires and the careers of dictators. He read and reread, from the indecipherable Kierkegaard to the sound-bite-friendly Nietzsche. He read Kahlil Gibran and Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell and Jung. He read Saint Thomas Aquinas.

  He read Men Are Asteroids, Women Are Meteorites, he read Peephole magazine, he watched daytime talk shows and hours and hours of religious television. He was in awe of the thirst that people had for someone to tell them that everything was going to be all right. He marveled at the gullibility and vulnerability of his fellow humans. No wonder the churches called them sheep. They were woolly-headed pack animals being herded around for the benefit of whoever knew how to control the dogs.

  He read about branding and tipping points and all other aspects of advertising.

  He thought about what Wiesner had done to Killing by Starlight. He remembered that the executive had renamed the movie using words that appealed to Americans regardless of their relevance to the plot. Saul tried to remember the words—wedding, celebrity, united, America or American.

  Finally, when he had gathered enough information and his plan was completely formed, he was ready to make his announcement to his brother. It was the middle of the night. Saul screamed for the nurse. He demanded that she phone Leon and tell him to get here right away.

  Something big had happened.

  Leon rushed right over. Saul was sitting up in bed, a beatific smile on his fat mug, not unlike the look that Fraser had used to such great effect when working on Scottish television.

  “Leon, oh Praise the Lord, Leon. Thank God you are all right.”

  “What is it, Solly? What’s going on?”

  “Leon, it’s going to sound weird but something has happened. I was lying here in the dark and I felt myself dying, I felt my body give up the ghost, and I cried out, ‘Oh Lord God, take me if You must but please look after my brother.’ “

  Leon was hooked. Saul knew the way to get Leon really interested was to give him a starring role.

  He continued, “Then the room lit up and a great wind blew through and I felt I was on a mountaintop and a tall handsome man in a long white robe and a beard appeared to me.”

  “Jesus?” whispered Leon.

  “He didn’t say. He only said this: ‘Saul, you have been a wicked and evil sinner. Leon thy brother has also followed the path unto darkness. The time is at hand to repent. I healed you for a reason. You two brothers are to turn from your wickedness and do my work. If you do not, then you will be cast into the fiery pit.’ “

  Leon was transfixed. “What do we do?” he asked.

  Saul raised his left hand and placed it in the hand of his brother. He looked up at him and smiled sadly, tears in his eyes. “We must do Our Lord’s bidding,” he said.

  Leon fell to his knees.

  Saul placed his hand on his brother’s head. “It’s going to be all right, Leon,” he said.

  Leon wept.

  CHEZ NOUS

  GEORGE WAS AWAKE BEFORE CLAUDETTE. The pain in his back drilled away at him but it was lower grade than before. He thought he must have a bit of the old morphine coursing around, thank God. He watched her for a little, then got up and padded through to the little kitchen.

  He had a raging thirst like he’d been drunk for a week. He pulled a little bottle of Orangina from the fridge, twisted off the top, and drank it down.

  “Holy crap,” he gasped aloud with delight.

  He threw the Orangina bottle in the trash and went through to the sitting room. His other bottle, the little morphine bottle, was sitting on the table but he didn’t want to take it just yet, it made him feel dopey and strange, plus he wanted to feel the pain intensify because it would help him go through with his plan for the day.

  It was still early morning and the street outside was quiet. He heard the occasional putt-putt of a moped, that shameful combination of hair dryer and bicycle that the French seem unembarrassed about being seen on.

  He thought over the last few days of his good-byes in Scotland and he was happy about that. He had been deeply touched by the reaction of his daughter. He thought about how much he’d miss her. He thought about his wife; that made him sad. She was such an unhappy, angry woman, and he suspected he had helped her get that way by staying with her and not loving her. He hoped she’d get a little more fun out of life, maybe with Barry Symington, the swimming instructor from the leisure center, although George really had a hard time believing that Barry wasn’t gay.

  Then he thought about Claudette and wondered about all of that.

  Everything had happened so fast yet he felt that he had known her for his entire life. He thought about what had happened to him by knowing her. He had become wild and sexy and interesting in the space of a few days.

  A phrase he had heard somewhere popped into his head: “Nothing became him in his life like the leaving of it.”

  He thought about the sex he had had with Claudette, not only on their first night but on the return from Scotland. They had gotten a little drunk on the best wine he had ever tasted, a fruity bouquet that seemed to go very well with morphine. They had eaten bread and cheese and fruit and chocolate and then made love on the wooden floor he was now looking at.

  He thought about the phrase made love. He speculated that if you “made love” without having the correct ingredients, then it probably wouldn’t taste as good.

  He thought about the sex again, he thought about how she looked at him as she took him in her mouth, and that it had excited him beyond belief. She had touched the tip of his penis with her tongue and gently stroked his bottom. She had left little lipstick m
arks on the top of his thighs.

  He felt himself get hard again and thought that he’d better go through to the bedroom and wake her up but the pain was really beginning to bite now and anyway, he knew he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be going there to make love, he’d be going there to take it, and although Claudette would be happy to give it, he knew it was time.

  It was time.

  He put on his clothes as quietly as he could, then he kissed the sleeping beauty on the head and left her a little note that read:

  Chere Claudette,

  Quand tu reveille s.t.p. ne me pensez pas

  grossier ou irrespectueux mais j’ai du le laisser.

  C’est temps.

  Si je ne t’ai pas convaincu pourtant je le dirai

  encore.

  Tu a l’amour de ma vie.

  Merci de tout.

  Ton Amour Georges.

  X

  He felt a little of ripple of gratitude for his high-school French teacher, Miss Major (a.k.a. Beanpole and Le Stick). Claudette kept the note until the day she died. It was far from perfect but it was the most beautiful and poetic French she had ever read. It was folded and tucked away in her jacket pocket when she was burned.

  George took a last look at her. His face was calm, giving no indication of the pain that was roaring and bucking wildly inside of him.

  He walked out of the apartment to his suicide.

  LAMB OF GOD

  ONCE FRASER REALIZED that he was only blind and that it wasn’t anything serious, he calmed down considerably. He had been terrified for a moment or two that he was about to be thrown back to the trenches or into the hands of the grumpy boatman. His screaming had woken everyone else up, including the confused Mickey Day.