People in and about Bernadotte had started to become suspicious about all these meetings, but Alan, a couple of weeks earlier, had stepped up.

Many of the leading citizens of Bernadotte are holding meetings at the First State Bank of Bernadotte, with the purpose of forming a “Civic and Community Committee.” These types of committees are commonplace in many cities. Their purpose is to install a sense of pride among citizens and to promote cooperation amongst the merchants in these towns, to the benefit of all. Surely, this committee will be successful.

At that time a thought occurred to me: It was good that nobody came in to buy the newspaper as quickly as Maggie had come to buy my restaurant. The new man might have had a little more journalistic integrity.

Roosevelt won the election, as you know. It was all in Time Magazine; he won forty-six states.

. . . Now I’m going back to Washington—to do what they call balance the budget and fulfill the first promise of the campaign, and after a week or so with the budget, I’m going to get some sleep, and, because I can really sleep on a boat, I’m going on a boat to the Caribbean, and I’m going to lie in the sun and sleep, and perhaps catch a fish on the side. I’ll get back to Washington toward Christmastime. While Congress is getting ready to convene, I’ll be using the joyous Christmas season to prepare gifts for the new Congress.”

I didn’t go to the final meeting with Al and Harland and the Bernadotte investors. I had nothing to contribute. I could see people gathered around the bank. I saw the Hudson. An hour and a half later, people emerged, most laughing. They headed for Denny’s Tavern. Al came over later, took out his flask, and gave me a drink. The whiskey was of a better quality. This showed confidence, I thought, just like the Lucky Strikes. It was his confidence, not mine.

“Sorry,” he said. “I heard the sale didn’t go through. Another couple of years and this restaurant will be one of the top ones in the state. You’re on Highway Two, for heaven’s sake. When times get better, people will be driving through here by the hundreds. People like to eat. People like to drink. People will drive and travel more, because the price of fuel will start to go down.

“Bernie’s going to be president of this new corporation, but you know that. Bernie’s a bastard, I admit, but he knows dollars and cents and chemistry. That minister, Holmquist, was confirmed as our corporate chaplain. You have to have a corporate meeting every year. It’s required by law. Before the meeting starts, it’s traditional to have a blessing of some sort. You have to pay the chaplain for the blessing. Likely, he won’t need the money. He’ll probably donate it some charitable cause.

“Still, I’m the major stockholder, and the CEO.  If Bernie gets out of line, he’ll be gone. I put $30 into the pool in your name. It’s the least I could do. You’ll be fine, Johnny. You got thirty shares. They’re being printed up right now in Grand Forks. You’ll get them in three weeks. You got a safe?”

“No.”

“Well, put those shares somewhere a person can’t steal them. They’ll be worth more than gold a year from now. I’ll be back in maybe six weeks. I’ll bring some really good whiskey. Then, I’m off to France, with my family, right after the operation at the Mayo Clinic. The Mormons can’t find us in France.

And Johnny, if you see anyone come into this town dressed in all black, let everyone know. That person would be a Mormon spy.

“Now, I don’t mean Catholic priests. They have a white collar. White is the symbol of purity, though I don’t much care for Catholics.”

You hook your hopes and dreams on one of those North Dakota stars and then the rope breaks. What do you do? You make bacon and eggs and you flip hamburgers. You dream at night about what might have been. You try to put your creditors off. Toward the end of November, the weather got cooler, much cooler. I slept inside, with heavier blankets. My promising dreams turned to nightmares.

“We should put our trust in God,” Melvin Neyers said, drinking coffee. Maybe he was right. Trust in God is really a lot better than trust in bankers.

“Roosevelt really did whip the shit out of Landon.”

“I got my political opinions, Johnny, but I don’t let them get in the way of my Christian obligation, which is to love your neighbor as yourself, doesn’t matter if he’s Democrat or Republican, doesn’t matter if he’s Zachary Klukas or some other asshole.

“You have to put your trust in God.”

I wanted to cry, cry about places and people where I’d placed my trust, trust they didn’t deserve. I wanted to cry about people who deserved my trust, but didn’t get it.

“Melvin, with all you’ve gone through, how can you be such an optimist?”

“I don’t know. I try hard, Johnny.”

Melvin didn’t stay long, since nobody came in to play dice.

Do you put you trust in God? I guess you do. You got no other choice. It’s obvious that you can’t put your trust in your fellow man. There’s a Judas on every street corner.

What do we know about anything? We know wheat doesn’t grow if there’s no rain. We know that people will lie and cheat and do anything to make a few bucks. We know that cold weather can freeze you and hot weather can bake you to death. People tell you things while you’re cooking steaks or hamburgers for them.

Someone would bitch about such-and-such who just sold them something-or-other and charged them at least a dollar more than they should have been charged.

“I’m sure he never greased the bearings.”

Such-and-such would be in two days later.

“I can’t believe that son-of-a-bitch is disparaging me all around this community. That motor was in excellent condition. I could have gotten twice what he paid me for it. I just took pity on him because of his family situation and all.”

“Well, she said she hardly knew him. She expected me to believe that. Oh, she knew him, entirely too well.”

“I spend all day cooking and washing clothes and changing diapers. He gets home at midnight, says he had to work late. It doesn’t show up on his paycheck.”

“She wants to have a chain around my neck. I spend a nickel for a beer and she’ll yell at me for three days.”

You nod politely. I could have been a Dear Abby back then, with all of the things I heard. Dear Abby hadn’t been invented yet, in 1936. Abby probably hadn’t been born then. Bartenders went through the same thing, probably had it worse, since people bitch more after a few drinks.

Respectable magazines didn’t broach all of these subjects, especially women’s magazines. They’d talk about etiquette, where the napkin is placed next to the plate, in which order you lay out the silverware. What sort of wine should you serve with what sort of meal. These magazines obviously weren’t owned by the Mormons.

“You believe a third of what you hear and half of what you see.” I can still picture Doc Gilles when he said that. He had white hair and a white moustache, a low voice.

Doc was an optimist, about believing what you hear or see. The percentages should be much less.

I heard from Pastor Holmquist the next day about the meeting.

“It was something, Johnny. Al opened up a briefcase. It was full of $100 bills. He shut it and then took out another case. He opened it and took out a Tommy gun. My God, I thought, he’s going to shoot us. He handed the thing to Bernie. ‘I’m taking this thing with me,’ he said. Bernie was a little nervous when he held it. Al said he was going to Salt Lake City first. He’d pick up Ezekiel’s wife and his two kids and head north.

“Harland said, ‘It’s a hard and winding road that we have to follow.’

“Ezekiel would be waiting. They’d torch his building. They’d pour his formula all around the building and light a match.  Pretty clever, Johnny. All the records about this high-octane stuff would be gone, and it would take days for the Mormons to determine whether Ezekiel had died. From there it would be on to Vermont.

“He would pick up a friend in Iowa. That way, there’d be two of them. They would get a different vehicle, so the Mormons couldn’t track them. Al trusts Ezekiel, he says, but a lot of people trust a lot of people, and they could be wrong. Al’s friend will have a gun and cover his back. You can’t be too careful. They’ll get to Ezekiel’s house and make the exchange. ‘Here’s your money.’ ‘Here’s the formula.’ Ezekiel couldn’t trick anyone, since Al had a Tommy gun and his friend had a 44 Magnum.

“Al will bring the formula here, since Bernie is the president of our corporation. Al will bring his trailer, leave it here. Harland will come, and one of his associates. Al will take off, head east, because he fears for his life. He’ll go to France after his son’s operation, of course.”

“I know that. Al talked to me after the meeting, when Harland was still in the bank signing papers and that sort of thing.”

“If, for some reason, the formula doesn’t work, well, we know where Ezekiel lives. We wouldn’t do anything to him ourselves, you understand. Real Christians don’t do these things. Just a hint to Joshua, however, and Ezekiel will be history. We could make an anonymous phone call. Ezekiel has to know these things. He’s smart, and he won’t double-cross us. I’m certain of that. Plus he has a thousand shares. I don’t think it can fail, Johnny.

“We take the trailer first to the regional manager of Standard Oil, based out of St. Paul, Minnesota. If they’re not interested, they can go to hell. We got four other oil companies we can go to. Worse comes to worse, we can start making this stuff and selling it ourselves. We’d make more money that way, but it would be a lot of work.

“’I don’t know if I feel comfortable taking all of your money to Ezekiel,’ says Al. ‘Would some of you want to go with me? You’d just have to agree to take cyanide with you. There’s just a very small chance that we could get caught by the Mormons.

“’It could only happen if someone in this meeting is a Mormon or if they’re married to a Mormon, or if they have friends who are Mormons, and if they can’t keep a secret.’

“’Nobody in this county is a Mormon,’ Bernie said.

“’Well, you can’t be too careful. People are not always what they seem to be.

‘’’The Mormons know how to make people talk. They pull out fingernails. They chop off fingers, all in God’s name. They will castrate a man, and laugh while he’s screaming. That’s what this cyanide is for. They’ll ask for names and places. Under torture, people give up information. Cyanide is the only solution, or this entire town, and my family will be in danger.
“’I’ve got one more stop to make,’ he says. ‘There’s a druggist in Red Lodge, Wyoming. I promised him about this delivery. He’s a Mormon. If I don’t make my delivery, he’ll be on the phone to Joshua. Plus, I don’t break my promises, but I really don’t want to go to Red Lodge.’

“I didn’t want to go with Al, Johnny. Neither did Bernie. We didn’t trust Sweeney to go.

“Al says, ‘If you don’t hear from me in six weeks, it means I’m dead. Hide your stock certificates. You likely won’t have to do that. Our plan is perfect,’ he said. ‘I could get struck by lightning, I suppose, but that’s unlikely. I’ll come right here from Vermont. Of course, I’ll stop and see my wife and kids on the way. ‘

“You got to respect a man like that, Johnny, a man who puts his family first.”

“Al told the group at the bank more than that, quite a bit more. He had given his wife strict instructions. If he wasn’t back in six weeks, she was to send all the details to Bernie, as in details about where to find the trailer with secret additive in it, about where the key was hidden, about all those contacts with the oil company executives.

“There wouldn’t be nearly as much money in the venture if he was killed, but with a real sample of the additive, chemists could put two and two together. Al also left the name of our state representative and our two senators. There’d be a congressional investigation. The whole country would know, and the country would put those Mormons in their place, as they deserved to be. ‘Would you make sure my family is taken care of?’ Al asked.

“’As God is my witness,’ I said.

“Al’s a man of his word.

“If Al is killed, we can still survive. I hope they let me do a funeral homily for him, if it comes to that. I’m 99 percent sure that won’t be necessary. Al is a very able man, and he has this all planned out to the last detail.”

The pastor then described how they’d go about contacting the oil companies, what they’d say. They’d demonstrate the additive, and say, “Look at this with your own eyes.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have the formula there, but you’d have a sample of the catalyst. They’d get a sample, the oil people; it would probably take them five years to analyze it.

“’You got a week,’ we’d say, ‘or we’ll bring it to your competitors.’ They’d take notice. If none of the oil companies took us up on our offer, and simply scratched their heads, we still would have recourse.

“We’d go right to the United States government, through our local officials. You wouldn’t get a on hundred-to-one return on your investment, if we did that. Maybe thirty-to-one.”

Still that was a pretty good investment, by anyone’s standard.

“I’ll pray,” Pastor Holmquist said, “that Al comes out of this all right. It’s not only the money. He’s a gentleman, Al.

“Do you know what he asked me before he left?”

“No.”
“He said, ‘I know, whatever happens, my wife will be taken care of. You promised me, Pastor. I got your promise and I got a good attorney. I still fear about my son. If I don’t come back, and my wife sends the letter, would you take my son to the Mayo Clinic? I ask you this because you’re a man of God.’

“I promised. So help me, God, I’ll keep that promise.” Then he went into the details, the details about the meeting, which I, unfortunately, was not a part of.

Pastor Holmquist said, “I’m putting in $1150, on behalf of our church. Sweeney $30, who would have thought?  We didn’t think Sweeney could afford a pack of cigarettes. Carl Lundgren put in $4,600. Alan Herschman put in $100 total, Gabe Murphy, $420. Bernie put in $5800. Zach Klukas, $125. You add that to Al’s $9,200 investment. It’s enough for the payment and associated fees.

“Al showed us all the papers, and stock certificates. ‘Keep these secret,’ he said. ‘You know how these Mormons are.’

“That Al is quite a gentleman. He said $30 of his contribution is in your name. We signed some documents. Al said we should be prepared. This will hit the newspapers sooner or later.

“But he looked scared, Johnny, Al did. You know those Mormons. I would be scared, too.”

I was scared, and I never gambled any money—not for lack of trying, though.

We never saw Al again. Sweeney was upset after two weeks. “When’s he coming?”

“Sweeney,” I said, “Al told the investors it would be at least six weeks before he came back, maybe longer. It’s not a short jaunt to Salt Lake City and to Vermont and then back to North Dakota. And then you could have car trouble.”

“That’s true. I have car trouble every other day.” Some speculated, after three weeks, about how the Mormons might have murdered Al, dumped his body in some remote location in Utah, a location that could never be found.

Bernie called the city clerk in Red Lodge, to find out who the pharmacist was there. He didn’t get an answer. The phone rang and rang.

On December 28th a man in a suit asked for me around town. He was an FBI agent, looking into fraud. He described the whole process, pouring pails of water into the gas tank, a scoop of something from a trailer, the shaking of the car.

“Yes, yes,” I said, “there was a man who came through here doing exactly that.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I did.”

“What story did he tell you?”

“He said he was delivering fuel to various Mormon missionaries. He said that the Mormons had figured out how to make gasoline out of water. They’d force us to convert, or they wouldn’t sell us fuel. He said the Mormons were out to take over the world. He said we had to stop them. His name was Al. He’s Lutheran.”

“Did you give him any money?”

“No.”

“Did anybody else give him money in this town?”

“Don’t know, really. I didn’t actually see anybody else give him money.”

“You might be a lucky town.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a swindle. They’re doing it all over the west. North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico.”

“Al was from Bismarck,” I said.

“Did he have a sick mother?”

“No, he had a son with a congenital hip defect, and he had a daughter just entering first grade.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said the FBI agent.

“How could Al get to all these states? He’d come by here twice a month at least.”

“There were a lot of people involved in this, maybe sixty or seventy.”

“So, you’re saying that the Mormons aren’t going to take over the gasoline supply in the United States?”

“No, they’re not.”

“Well then, who is?”

“Well, Rockefeller is pretty much in charge now, and probably will be for a long time.”

“But, you can make gasoline from water. I saw it. The Mormons have the formula.”

“This con is going on in Utah, too, maybe a different group. There, they blame it on the Jews. This type of fraud started in Kentucky a few years back. They blamed it on the Pope.”

“You can’t make gasoline from water? I saw it done.”

“You just thought you did.”

“Well, there’s a professor in Kansas you could call.”

“Beranek? He’s long gone, had an office in back of a clothing store, up two flights. He designed this swindle. That wasn’t his real name. His real name was Bernatelli.

“What was Al’s last name?”

I realized I had never bothered to ask. “You know,” I said, “You might want to talk to our banker. He pretty much knows about everything that happens in this town, knows where all the bodies are buried.”

“Bodies?”

“That’s just a figure of speech. Nobody in this town kills anybody else. We let the cold and the heat kill us.”

The agent walked to the door. He hesitated and turned around. “Let me guess,” the FBI agent added. “I’ll bet this Al liked Tabasco sauce and had a flask of whiskey that he carried with him. I’ll bet Joshua stopped in town, one time, dressed in black, all black. Did you see anyone who would fit that description?”

I didn’t answer.

“Your banker know anything about counterfeit bills?”

About four hours later, I looked up from the stove, and Bernie was standing in front of me. “Say, Johnny, I’ve been doing some re-figuring. I miscalculated George and Maggie’s net worth, by quite a bit, actually. I just rode out to their farm and told them they could have the mortgage, and I gave them a damn good interest rate.”

“That’s great. I really want to sell this place.”

“That means you can still invest if you want to. I’ll sell you some of my shares. You’re the guy who first met Al, after all. You got the ball rolling.”

“Well, I’ve been doing some re-figuring myself. I don’t think I really want to buy any shares.”

I know vengeance is the Lord’s domain, but those were some of the most satisfying words I’ve ever said. They rank right up there with “I do,” which I uttered many years later, in front of a minister, as I looked into the eyes of Helen.

An abandoned car was found in Montana a month later. It was a Hudson, had the serial number filed off, and there were no license plates. The gas tank had been modified. You could fill it from the back seat. There was a separate tank mounted underneath the car, and a spigot that allowed a person to empty that tank.
A similar vehicle, a Studebaker, was found abandoned in west Nebraska the following spring.

Pastor Holmquist resigned from the church in late January, 1937, and left town quickly. I heard he ended up somewhere in Wyoming. A month later, I sold my restaurant to Maggie for $1950. She’s shrewd. She negotiated.

I got a part-time job at the post office and later, at our feed mill, when it began to rain again, in ’37. The Liberty Trio became a quartet when they found a piano player. I rented rooms above the café that Millie owned, but I didn’t need to sleep out on the porch all that often in the summer, and I didn’t need to sleep by the oven in the winter. Duane moved east in 1938.

Then, of course, there was the war. After the war I moved, first to Bismarck. I couldn’t find a wife on my own; that was apparent. Duane found a wife in short order. His wife had an older sister. The older sister had a friend. I married Helen and swore I’d take her to Yellowstone Park someday, but babies and finances got in the way. We moved to Minneapolis. We bought a restaurant eventually, but Hollywood stars don’t come. Mostly, it’s working men and women.

I can’t help it. I still visit Bernadotte every other year. I go to the cemetery. I stop at the café. Millie gives me and my wife a free meal. I give her a $5 tip. She’s doing all right. She’s on Highway Two, for heaven’s sake.

Zach had a stroke in ’37, blamed it on the Jews. He had another one in ’38, blamed it on the Negroes.

He died after his heart attack in 1940. If he could’ve said a word from his coffin, he would have probably said, “Those goddam Italians killed me, and I know it.”

How is it we never learn about life, about what people will do to other people? We never learn these things, even though we read Time Magazine and the Bible. I sometimes think that the only ones who know anything about human nature are those who want to part us from our money.

Still, most of us were poor and desperate back then, and we’d reach for hope in any form. Bernie, the bastard, didn’t have that excuse. I don’t say anything bad to my kids about the Mormons or the Jews or the Catholics. I never say a bad word about colored people or Italians. They can’t be any worse than we were in 1936, that God-forsaken year.

They don’t have depressions anymore. We get recessions now. You never hear Cole Porter songs these days. I still dream, but I don’t dream about Mary Ellen. I haven’t in years.

People bitch about this and that in my restaurant. Coffee costs more now, but I still don’t make any money off it.

Bernie survived the loss of his money in 1936, but people throughout town knew what he had done and laughed at him behind his back, and later, after the bad times ended, to his face, worse than they had ever laughed at Sweeney.

The WPA rest stop is still there, in pretty good condition. The creek is filled and flows with promise, looks beautiful. The area isn’t called “The Royal Valley” anymore. For a while it was “Fool’s Valley,” but that never caught on with people around North Dakota. They all knew, desperate as times were back in 1936, that they would have jumped just as eagerly into those same dark waters.

THE END

It has come to our attention that A.J. Mendelson, Postmaster of Bernadotte for these past seventeen years, has been hospitalized in Dickenson with an unspecified illness. We offer our best wishes for a speedy recovery. In the interim, Gustav Martin, postal clerk, will assume Mr. Mendelson’s duties.

Alan wrote that the same day he told me that he was going to sell his newspaper.

“Alan, don’t you think you should wait until some of these dividends start coming in? What’s the rush?”

“Look at you. You put up your restaurant for sale, and, from what I understand, you practically have it sold already.”

“That’s different. If I didn’t sell the restaurant, I’d have no money to invest.”

“You don’t understand, Johnny. It will probably take me years to sell the newspaper. It’s not like selling a restaurant. Everyone who can cook wants to own a restaurant. Very few people want to own a newspaper.”

“What are you going to do after you sell it?”

“Well, don’t you tell anyone, but I got my eyes on the Devil’s Lake Journal. It’s a daily, and I heard it’s for sale.”

“It’s got to be enough work just writing all this stuff for a weekly newspaper. How are you possibly going to be able to keep up all this writing for a daily?”

“They got four reporters, Johnny. You get all this wire-service stuff for national news. You got people who sell advertising, and people who do the printing. I’d get to write whenever I felt like it. I’d just have to manage the rest of the time.”

“You do have management skills.”

A new doctor moved to town in mid-October, and thank God he did. Saturday night, ten days before the election, Sweeney came by my house at midnight and pushed Duane toward my front door.

“God, what happened?”

“I couldn’t get him to leave the tavern, Johnny. I gave you my word. I hit him and broke his nose. When I give a person my word, it means something. I’ll have to cancel some future engagements. His face is going to look like hell for a while and no respectable couple would want to see something like that.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have hit him so hard. My shoulder hurts.”

I suppressed an urge to hit Duane in the mouth and break his jaw, because he looked like he was in so much pain.

The next Monday night we had another meeting at the bank. “I have some news,” said Bernie. “I was in contact with Harland Olson today. His law firm must be pretty sophisticated. They have a switchboard. ‘I will accept the collect call,’ says the operator. ‘What extension would you like?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’d like to talk to Harland Olson.’ ‘Is this a personal or a business matter?’‘Business.’ ‘What is the name of your business?’ ‘The Canadian Import Association, Incorporated.’ ‘Let me check with Mr. Olson.’

“Well, Harland was on the phone in short order. I told him that Bernadotte was committed to this project. He said good, but we got to put this meeting off a little bit. The election is coming up, and Al says that he’s got to be around to vote. He says that anyone who doesn’t vote isn’t doing his duty for his country. And Al’s daughter has strep throat. His son’s surgery at the Mayo Clinic has been rescheduled for early January.”

Bernie took out a gavel. “Alice is taking notes. I’m calling this meeting to order. The members of the Board of Directors are Pastor Holmquist, Carl Lundgren, Zach Klukas, and Gabe Murphy. Al gave me the authority to name the members of the board. As president of this corporation, I have the right to cast a vote to break a tie. If a member is missing, I also have the right to cast a vote to create a tie. If a motion is made, seconded, voted on, and ends in a tie, it does not pass.

“We will follow the Robert’s Rules of Order. I don’t have a copy of those rules handy, but I remember most of them from my college days. We don’t have any of the minutes of the last meeting to discuss, because we didn’t have a last meeting. Likewise, we don’t have any old business.

“We got only one item for New Business. We have to approve a resolution to incorporate.”

Pastor Holmquist stood up. “So moved,” he said.

“I need someone to second the motion.”

“What does that mean?” Zach asked.

“It means that you agree with the pastor that the motion should be adopted.”

Zach stood up. “I agree with the pastor that the motion should be adopted.”

“You can’t phrase it that way, according to Robert’s Rules of Order. You have to say, ‘I second the motion.’”

“I second the motion.”

“Good. Will all of the members of the Board of Directors stand?” They did. “All of you who are in favor of adopting this regulation raise your right hand.” They all did. “This resolution is adopted. Is there anything else?”

Zach stood up once again. “I think we should have a resolution that no Jews or Negroes or Italians or known homosexuals can own any shares of The Canadian Import Association, Incorporated.”

“Look around at the shareholders. Do you see anyone who fits that description?”

“No, but a couple of years from now, when we’re on the New York Stock Exchange, they might want to buy shares.”

“Well, that’s true. You’re absolutely right, Zach. But say three years from now our shares are trading for $230 a share.”

“I thought it would be up to $300 by that time.”

“Zach, I’m speaking hypothetically. They might be, but that’s not the point. Say you decide you don’t want to get dividends every quarter but you want to get all your money right away, and move to the French Riviera or Beverly Hills. Say some Italian offers you $290 a share instead of $230. Would you turn him down?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

God, I thought, I hope he doesn’t move to Beverly Hills. That would be too close to my new restaurant.

“I suggest we table this resolution.”

“What does that mean?” Zach asked.

“It means we’ll think about it some other time.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“One more item. The Board of Directors will hold a meeting Thursday evening at seven o’clock. This is a meeting only for the Board of Directors, not common shareholders. As you may know, we have pledges for shares far in excess of the money we need. We need a total of $20,030 in pledges. Wait, there will be incorporation costs, and miscellaneous expenses. Still, we’ve got too much money pledged, and some people, myself included, might have to reduce their investment amounts. If you have too much money invested in a venture like this, you dilute the value of your shares. We don’t want that to happen.

“We will make these adjustments in an equitable manner. After all, we have a man of the cloth on our board.

“Will someone make a motion to adjourn?”

“So moved,” said Carl Lundgren.

“I second the motion,” said Zach.

The Board of Directors voted. The meeting was adjourned. Bernie pounded his gavel. “One more thing,” he said. “I’ll let everyone know when our final meeting is, after I get the message from Harland and Al. Then we’ll get the show on the road.”

I walked out of that meeting wondering if I could vote in the general election. I’d voted twice before. I wondered if I should have registered to vote again.
“Those were good, orderly rules,” Sweeney said. “That Robert must have been a smart guy.”

I went back to the café, where Duane was working with his ugly nose. I had a piece of pie, and I thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad that Bernie hadn’t put me on the Board of Directors. I wouldn’t have to come back for all of these meetings. You go back from Los Angeles to North Dakota, it takes a lot of time and money.

Then Maggie told me, Friday afternoon, that she couldn’t get a loan. Bernie wouldn’t give it to her. That woman and her husband had 160 acres free and clear, and a house. Sure, times were tough in ’36, but any legitimate banker should know that their loan was more than covered.

Bernie was a bastard. We were right.

We were blessed, this past week, to have the diminutive actor and actress, Jonathon Littleton, and his wife, Lorraine, perform in the persona of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, at our town hall. They did a rendition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Almost two hundred people turned out for the event, most likely a record for any performance in our community. They have performed in Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York City.

Not a person departed who was not thoroughly pleased with the performance, even though the temperature was extraordinarily high for this time of the year. Many autographs were signed. We’ll not likely see an event of this nature for quite some time.

Of course, Zach Klukas had something to say about Jesse Owens making such a splash at the Olympics. Owens won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes, and the running broad jump. He was a member of the 400-meter relay team, which took a gold medal too.

“It was only because this Owens guy was taking heroin. Those Negroes can’t do anything fast. They pick cotton slow. They read slow, if they can read at all. I don’t blame Hitler for walking out of the Olympics. The only thing a Negro can do quickly is to get out of work. This whole Olympic thing is a sham. The only Negro athlete who forgot to take heroin this year was Joe Louis, and look what Max Schmeling did to him. Maybe Joe Louis took some heroin, but he didn’t take enough.”

“Maybe Jesse Owens prayed to God,” Melvin Neyers said. “With God, all things are possible.”

“Those Negroes don’t know how to pray.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, everyone knows that.”

“Maybe those Germans at the Olympics should have taken some heroin too,” David Black said.

“How many Negroes have you met?” Doc Gilles asked that in a subdued, matter-of-fact manner.

“Well I haven’t met any. But I read things.” Zach nodded his head, as if he had some secret knowledge, too secret to divulge.

“Did you ever read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? I think those dwarfs took something, too.” David was in top form. There was laughter, but Zach’s face just got red.

“What do you guys think about Alf Landon?” I asked, just to change the subject. There was more arguing about this and that, but Zach didn’t blow up. We were coming near an election. The Civilian Conservation Corps was going to plant trees west of town.

Why would they want to do that? people asked. A tree would look nice right in front of my house. But the west side of town?

It was called a wind break. These kids dug holes and put in trees. They’d come to the water tower and fill up five-gallon pails and pour water on the trees. A week later they were back and got more water, and prayed that some day, some time, it might rain again, and they wouldn’t have to come back to our God-forsaken town. Nobody was really sure that it would ever rain again.

“What the hell is a wind break?” Zach asked.

“If we plant enough trees, maybe all of our topsoil won’t blow east, into Minnesota, where they have at least three feet of it,” Doc Gilles said.

“That’s reasonable,” Zach said. That was the first intelligent thing he’d said since I met him. Maybe the second. I think one day in July he walked in and said, “It’s going to be a hot one today.” Didn’t take any Marconi to figure that out. It was something even Sweeney would know.

“Where’s the dice-box?” Melvin asked. He was up almost a nickel before the game split up, and Zach cursed under his breath. Alan Herschman took notes.

On the fifteenth of October, late one night, one of the hoboes tried stealing some chickens from Mrs. Hanson, and she stuck her shotgun out the window and fired. She killed a man and a chicken. Mrs. Hanson sold me the chicken the next morning at a discount right before one of the Sheriff’s deputy’s came to take her in for questioning, a dead man lying out back of her house. I had to take the buckshot out of the chicken before I served it.

When the deputy and Mrs. Hanson came back to the police car, a large man was standing in front of that car. He pounded his fist on the hood. “I’m Ivan, king of the hoboes. I want this woman prosecuted. She killed one of us. We want justice.”

“She said he was stealing chickens.”

“So? You got chickens and you got human beings. Who’s more important? She should get 99 years.”

Mrs. Hanson got into the passenger side of the car, and the sheriff’s deputy got into the driver’s side. He started the engine. “Get out of the way, you idiot, or I’ll run you over.”

The county attorney concluded that there was no basis to charge Mrs. Hanson with a crime.

The next night, Mrs. Hanson’s house was torched. She made it out, and the fire didn’t spread, but nobody had any doubts about who the perpetrators were. The next night, a fire started in the grove of trees west of the Hooverville. The wind was strong, and the fire spread. All those vagrants ran east as their tents went up in flames. Sparks would jump 20 feet. It was that windy and that dry. The vagrants ran through the WPA camp, and fistfights broke out. Two men were killed. One was a WPA worker. He was promptly identified. The other was a hobo, no name, no address.

It was just dumb luck that the fire didn’t cause more damage. There had been a wheat field, maybe 500 feet across, between the Hooverville and the WPA camp. There was really no wheat that year. What little had grown that year had been wiped out by an earlier grass fire. Any scraps were later taken by the locusts. A raging fire just stops dead when it’s met by 500 feet of plain, cold dirt.

Doc Gilles treated everyone. Most had cuts and bruises, some broken fingers and torn earlobes and bloody mouths, that sort of thing. The hoboes left for greener pastures next day, likely west, only if there were greener pastures in 1936. They left before any charges could be filed against anyone. Ivan, king of the hoboes, was tossed off a freight car near Cheyenne, we heard later. Ivan died. Nobody knew if another king of the hoboes would be appointed. The WPA workers got some respect from the people of Bernadotte after that night, but not all that much respect.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all, Johnny.” Al started to light up a Lucky Strike. My God, he’s no longer rolling his own, I thought. That shows confidence. “Those vagrant camps are a breeding ground,” Al said. “The Mormons know it. They send in their missionaries. They’re sly. How many people were in that camp, Johnny?”

“Maybe a hundred.”

“Well, you can’t drink whisky if you’re going to be a Mormon. I’d bet eighty percent of them drink whisky.”

“I would think so.”

“So, twenty percent don’t. The Mormons would go after them. Maybe half could be persuaded. That would be ten people.”

“What can ten people do?”

“Don’t you understand, Johnny? There are five thousand Hoovervilles in these United States. That would make fifty thousand new Mormons, maybe not devout. But, if you give them thirty counterfeit $10 bills apiece, they’ll become devout. They could buy something for fifty cents. They’d give the clerk a $10 bill and get change. They’d probably have to send $7 out of every $10 counterfeit bill back to the Mormons. The Mormons would get legitimate money. The hoboes would feel rich. You send the $7 back; the Mormons send you more counterfeit $10 bills.

“God, those Mormons are smart. You know, they couldn’t simply buy a service station with counterfeit bills. Some bank would notice if you did that, and then the Feds would come. Hoboes spread that fake money out, all over the country, from New York to California, Canada to Mexico. And the hoboes will send back the $7 they’re supposed to send…except the real drunks, that is.

“It’s a pyramid scheme in the first degree. The Mormons will play it out. The hoboes won’t have to steal chickens any longer. Pyramid schemes always collapse in the end, but the end can take a while. Before it collapses, the Mormons might have taken over the world. When they do, they’ll get rid of the hoboes. They don’t like freeloaders, and they certainly don’t like witnesses.

“There’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Most of these hoboes will convince themselves that they’re doing God’s bidding, by pawning off these worthless bills, of course, only if they’re sober. Think about it.”

I did think about it. Most men, and most women, too, want to think they’re doing the right thing in life. If you are making a little money in the process, it just makes that right thing a little easier to swallow, like whiskey. Swallow ill-gotten gains the first time, and your throat burns, and you think, Why would anyone drink this shit, it’s like drinking sin itself. After a hundred times, you just lean back and savor the taste, thank God for the grain that he invented that could be made into whiskey. You don’t feel any guilt.

I didn’t know if Al was right or if he was simply blowing smoke with all this hobo stuff. To me, those hoboes were mostly idiots, not just people down on their luck. Still, it all sounded so logical, when Al spit it out. This whole plan we were fermenting was driving me crazy.

I don’t think I slept for a week, and it wasn’t because of the weather any longer. I started imagining what I’d do with the money. I’d buy a car first, then some new clothes. Women go for a man who has new clothes and a new car. I’d buy a nice, new, black car, not a Hudson, probably a Cadillac. I’d get a fancy black suit with white stripes to go with my black car and patent leather shoes. A black fedora and a red tie would be the finishing touches.

I could kind of circle around the Post Office until I saw Mary Ellen go in to pick up her mail. Then I’d drive up to the Post Office and casually saunter in. “Well, hello, Mary Ellen. How are you?” She’d likely faint and fall down. I’d kneel down to assist her. I’d hold up her head and say something comforting. “I hope you’re all right. Would you like me to take you to the hospital in Dickenson in my new Cadillac?”

No, that wouldn’t sound right.

“I’ll take you to Doc Gilles. You might have a concussion.” I’d help her up, guide her to the door. She might spit on my shoes again, but who would notice? Moisture of any sort rolls off patent leather shoes.

Likely she would just look up, say, “Thank you, Johnny, I’m fine. I can walk home.” I’d pull her up and guide her to the door.

“Should you need any assistance,” I’d say, “just give me a call. I’ll pick you up in my Cadillac and give you a ride to the hospital.” No, that wouldn’t be right. “I’ll pick you up in my automobile.”

She’d likely go home and say, “What did I do? He let me keep all of my tips, when I worked for him.”

A person has to try not to show off too much in a black fedora or a Cadillac, or people resent it.

With the money that I’d made, I’d drive to Yellowstone Park, hopefully with Mary Ellen, should she be willing. I’d always wanted to see Old Faithful. I’d give money to my nephew, a smart kid, put him through college, not the college at Topeka, but some respectable college like Princeton or the University of Minnesota.

If Mary Ellen were to spit on my shoes again, while we were looking at Old Faithful, I’d send her back home on a train. I’d send her first class, which would gall her immensely. I know Mary Ellen, had known her since I was in high school, and I knew what would really upset her.

I could probably find a woman at Yellowstone Park, one just as good-looking.

“I’ll get a new stole, after this is all done,” said Pastor Holmquist. “The one I have is probably thirty years old. I’m ashamed to baptize anyone in that stole. The colors are faded, and the ends are all frayed. I never know if the automobile I have will start. It won’t start when it’s cold. I’ve got parishioners to take care of, many in outlying areas. We got broken panes on our stained-glass windows. We could get them repaired and fix our front steps, if we had funds. The roof leaks near the back door, has for the last five years.

“We could send money to our Lutheran missionaries in Africa if we had some money.  Maybe, I could buy my wife a new dress or a new pair of shoes, and I could get a respectable suit, not a black suit with stripes, like all those atheists wear, but a navy blue suit. Blue is God’s color. St. Andrew was a fisherman, and he fished in God’s blue sea.

“I’ll wear a gold chain around my neck with a plain gold cross. That signifies a man of God. Gold goes well with navy blue.  I need a new pair of shoes, too, and a better radio. We need a new stove. I thought I’d have a housekeeper by this time in my career, and a gardener. Writing a good sermon takes hours, Johnny. You can’t write sermons when you’re pulling weeds. Well, you can write sermons in your head when you’re pulling weeds, but they won’t be inspiring sermons.

“I should have a driver, too, for my automobile. The Bishop has one.”

“I’d buy some banks,” Bernie said. “You know I get the Banking Today magazine. They say, in the future there will be chains of banks, that’s what they call them. It would be good for the banks and for the customers of the banks.

“Say there’s a millionaire out here. He’s a customer. One day he comes in and says, ‘I need 30 thousand dollars, in cash. I’m going to take my entire family for a cruise around the world for a year.’ Shit, we’d have only 20 thousand on hand. He’d say, ‘I’ll take my business elsewhere.’ If you got a chain of banks, you’d call, and one of them would wire-transfer the money you needed. You’d keep your customer. It’s the wave of the future, Johnny. Of course, there’d be a lot of traveling involved. You got to meet with the managers of your banks on a regular basis, keep them on the up-and-up.”

Those Fascists in Europe were taking over everything back then, but nobody gave a damn. Those Europeans should take care of their own problems, we thought. If they want to kill each other, let them do it. We solved their problems once, during the Great War, and then they started into all their squabbling again, just like they’ve always done. Squabble, kill each other. That’s all they did in Europe.

Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler were all idiots, didn’t matter what Zach said. Still, if you fight all the idiots in the world, you’d be out numbered by a hundred to one. There were idiots in Bernadotte, too, in 1936. Doc Gilles had their names and their birthdates on his calendar.

We got canned beer into town in September. People who couldn’t afford to pay their mortgages or taxes or any of their other bills could afford canned beer. The new game, Monopoly, was a big hit. Two or three people in town bought a game. Everyone who owned that game would invite their neighbors over on a Saturday night and play it until midnight and they’d drink canned beer. I played Monopoly once.

But the biggest thing was the new game, bingo. Even old ladies would show up, a penny a card. This whole thing all started at Denny’s Tavern. Then some of the churches got wind of it. Denny’s bingo business dried up. At a church, the old ladies could say to themselves, We’re not really gambling. We’re fundraising, donating money to the Lord.

“I don’t understand this stuff,” Zach said. “They piss away their money on bingo, then they can’t afford groceries the next day, and they don’t come to my store. That don’t make any sense.”

“People got a right to some amusement,” Doc Gilles said. “There isn’t much amusement in the world these days.”

“Well, they should find some other form of amusement, something that wouldn’t cost them their grocery money. I got Campbell’s soup on sale. Nobody buys the soup. They say they can’t afford it. They can’t afford soup and they can’t afford bread, and they can’t afford milk. They all got radios, though. They can afford them radios.”

You’d work hard during the day and try to sleep at night. It didn’t always work that way, labor during the day, relax for an hour, and sleep soundly at night, the way life was supposed to work. Duane wouldn’t come home sometimes at the time he was supposed to come home, and I’d worry and get mad, but he was a good kid, I thought.

Still, I’d lie awake at night and listen to the grasshoppers chirp. At times the temperature would be pleasant. Every night, I’d see all of those same stars in the night sky. I’m convinced that God put all those stars in the night sky so we would have something to look at after the sun went down. When there’s a full moon in North Dakota on a calm night, you can’t help but think that maybe life could be beautiful.

I’d fall asleep and dream again, dream about the old days, when I had money, had a car, had customers, when the temperature was perfect. I’d dream about Mormons and plots to do this and that. I’d dream about moving to Park Place that was on the Monopoly board and wearing a top hat. I’d dream about finding a girl, maybe one like Mary Ellen, but one who wouldn’t curse and spit. I’d dream about cooler weather.

There were nightmares, too, mostly about customers. A man might order a steak. I’d put it on the skillet. We’d talk a little. How’s the steak coming? Well, it wasn’t, and I would turn the heat up, but I couldn’t get it cooked. The man would get up and leave. Well, at least I can eat that steak, I thought, but the steak wouldn’t cook. I lay down on my cot and thought, I’ll take a short nap, and the steak will be done.

Then, Joshua would sometimes appear, with Al. “This man can’t cook a steak. You know what the Bible has to say about that?”

“I do,” Al would say.

“Well, do you have your knife handy? You have to deal with this cook, who is an abomination to the Lord.”

I knew that soon I’d move my bed back inside. I kept my cot folded up under my bed. I might need it again for the coming winter. Eggs, bacon, soup, stew, desserts, delusions, and dreams. That’s all I had back then, and a nephew to take care of. I’d dream that all of my money was in a bank in Bismarck. I was trying to get there but I kept getting lost, and I needed to get to that bank. I’d dream about those drunks that came through in 1928. I was running around with my nephew, trying to catch chickens, but I couldn’t catch them. Then, fortunately, I’d wake up, go downstairs, and turn the ovens on.

My morning crew got into more arguments. Damn near all of them thought they had the answer for our misery.

“You know,” Zach Klukas said, “I think we should take a closer look at this man, Adolph Hitler. I think he’s on to something. Those Germans don’t go hungry. They eat three square meals a day. They all have those little automobiles. Everyone has an automobile in Germany, even women. German tool and die makers are the top ones in the world. They know precision. They don’t let their kids lollygag around after school to play basketball. They got discipline in Germany, something this country could use a good dose of. Those Germans got the Hindenburg. What do we have in this country? We got people piling up stones and making rest stops.”

“We got the Boulder Dam,” answered Doc Gilles. “It’s an engineering marvel.”

“Well, it’s the only marvel we’ve got. Now, this Hitler don’t take crap from anyone. He’s got the Jews pegged. The Jews don’t run Germany like they run the United States of America. Now, I’m not saying we should go out and kill those Jews or the Negroes, either. I’m just saying we should try to control their population, for the good of the country.”

“And how would we do that?”

“Well, I don’t think you should castrate the men. That would be inhumane. I just think, you know, Doc, a little snip, snip in the right place and they wouldn’t have any more kids. You know the kids likely take after their old man, and these people breed like flies. Soon, all of us decent, hard-working people will be outnumbered.”

“So, you believe in this eugenics nonsense?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Doc. But I believe we have to protect the purity of our race. If we don’t, our country will be just like the Titanic. All of us good people in this country will be at the bottom of the ocean. The freeloaders will just look down at us and laugh. What do you think about that, Johnny?”

“I don’t know—times are tough.”

“They sure are. That’s why we got no time to waste. Another twenty or thirty years and all we’ll have are Jews and Negroes in this country. We think we’re safe, because we live in a small town in North Dakota, but we’re not. They’ll come here, too.”

“Well, we don’t want crazy people to take over this town either. Maybe the good doctor could do a little snip, snip on you, so you won’t have any more kids,” David Black said.

Melvin laughed.

“I’m not snipping anybody,” the doc said. “If I snipped all of the crazy people in town, our population would decline by sixty percent in ten years.”

Then Alice, Bernie’s secretary came in. “I forgot to tell you, Johnny. I was supposed to tell you yesterday. Bernie would like to see you at ten o’clock this morning. Pastor Holmquist will be there.”

Everyone’s jaw dropped. I could tell what they were thinking; Bernie’s going to foreclose on the café. The pastor will be there to comfort him in his afflictions.

“Don’t worry, guys. I owe lots of money to lots of people, but not to Bernie. I paid off the mortgage two years ago.” Everyone left except for the good doctor. He walked up to me.
“There’s an idiot born every day,” he said. “I keep track of these things. Zach’s birthday is on the 27th of December, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s another day I can check off my calendar.” That only left two-and-a-half hours to wonder about the talk with Bernie. The doctor walked to the door, turned around, and said,” Most days, there’s more than one idiot born.”

“We certainly don’t want the Mormons to take over our country. The Mormons are an abomination. They’ll form an alliance with the Jews, then the Communists, and pretty soon they’ll close down all the churches. They’ll let the Japanese take over most of the world,” Pastor Holmquist said. “They’re not Christians. I don’t think they’re Christians.”

Bernie leaned back in his chair. He looked up, as if he were contemplating the Second Coming of Christ. “I’m willing to finance this venture, if it’s that important to the future of the United Stares.” Bernie said that. Oh, he was such a patriotic soul when there was money to be made.

“Well,” Pastor Holmquist said, “I think our church would like to be involved, to the tune of $1100. Our parishioners are all patriotic. But you’d have to agree, Bernie. You’re a trustee of the parish. Zach Klukas is too. We’d have to get him to agree with this.”

“I’m religious, but you know that, Pastor. I think the church should make some money off this. Don’t you worry about Zach Klukas. I’ll talk to him. He’ll come around.”

“I’d like to be involved also,” I said. “$1500.  I’m going to sell my restaurant.”

“Well. I don’t know, Johnny. A financial institution and a church is one thing. I don’t know if private investors, such as yourself, should be allowed to invest.”

“I discovered this opportunity.”

Pastor Holmquist pounded his fist on Bernie’s desk. “This is the United States of America. We got freedom here. Anyone decent man who wants to invest should be allowed to invest. If you won’t let Johnny invest, well, people will say you’re a socialist.”

“You’re right, Pastor. Johnny can invest. Anyone can invest. I don’t believe in docialism.”

When my old man died, the restaurant was worth $4400, a popular restaurant on Highway Two, the main road crossing North Dakota. I was the baby of the family. My oldest brother, Merlyn, got married when I was six years old. He and his wife had a baby, as often happens. When the baby was three years old, Merlyn’s wife ran off with Jake Klukas, a clerk at the hardware store and a second cousin of Zach’s. Neither has been heard from since.

James, my little brother, left the state for California when he turned fifteen, decided he wanted to become an electrician—the wave of the future, he said. I’ve never heard from him since then, either.

I wanted my old man’s restaurant after he died. Merlyn did not, never much cared for cooking bacon and eggs, or washing dishes. I paid my brother Merlyn, over the years, $2200. I owned the café, free and clear. Then Merlyn fell off his tractor, while cultivating, and those blades ran over his head. Duane, his son, came to live with me.

I really couldn’t afford him, but Duane was kin. He didn’t like any of this ten-minutes-to-six stuff. I let him sleep until twenty minutes before school started. He would wash dishes at night. After a while, he learned to cook.

I figured, times being what they were in 1936, that I could probably sell the restaurant for $2500. I put it up for sale, and Maggie McCabe was there the next day to buy it, with her husband George.

“I could make this go,” she said, “But I can only pay you $2100. I got to fix that window and paint the walls. This place needs tablecloths.” She knew she had me. Maggie had never owned a restaurant but had done all the wedding cakes and funeral meals in town for years, a shrewd Irishwoman if there ever was one.

Maybe it could work, I thought. You’ve got to have a funeral meal when you die. People were kicking off right and left, some from pneumonia, some from consumption, many from the heat, some from pure despair. She could bake and make doughnuts and sweet rolls. Our bakery in town closed in ’33. We settled on $2150.

“I don’t know why anyone would want to cook for a living,” George said, and shrugged his shoulders. “Maggie knows what she’s doing, though.”

“We have to get a mortgage on this,” Maggie said. “I’ll be back in a week or so.”

Sweeney wanted in on the water for gasoline deal, said it was he who had first discovered this opportunity, wanted to invest twenty dollars. Opportunity? I didn’t know Sweeney could utter a word with that many syllables. But that’s what it was, an opportunity.

“This whole thing is an opportunity. St. Paul talked about opportunities, in one of his letters. I forget which one it was. An opportunity to do God’s will should not be neglected. That would be a sin, a sin of omission.” Pastor Holmquist looked energized, didn’t look any longer like he might have a heart attack.

I was with Sweeney in the eighth grade. He had flunked sixth grade twice, but by eighth grade he was the most popular guy in the class. He was the only one old enough to have a driver’s license. His old man would let him take out his Model T every once in a while, an ancient wreck that you had to start with a hand crank. It had no headlights. We’d cruise the town before dusk and whistle at girls our age, even those a little older, and they would blush and pretend that they were offended.

In 1948, well after the war, Sweeney moved, went to work for a service station in Mandan. A woman came in for a new muffler one day in her Nash. She also had a burned-out headlight. Sweeney noticed that her name was Gertrude. She was ten years younger than he was, with auburn hair and a beguiling smile, and a no-nonsense attitude. Sweeney’s heart came alive, and he was persistent, and sometimes that’s a better skill than being able to change spark plugs. This Gertrude put him off but, some weeks later, heard him sing at a VFW hall, and she was entranced.

“I knew, from the first minute I met you, that we were destined to be together,” he said.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. He pulled up his shirt.

They married and eventually had eight or nine kids. I lost track. You know those Irish. Still, in ’36, he put twenty dollars down to buy shares that would revolutionize life as we knew it, and nobody thought he could scrape together a nickel.

“Well,” Bernie said, “I don’t think Catholics should be allowed to invest. If they are allowed to invest, the Pope will take over the world. Catholics are almost as bad as the Mormons.”

“We got a long ways to go to get to $19,000. Twenty bucks wouldn’t hurt.” I said that.

Pastor Holmquist said, ‘Well, I don’t like Catholics any better than you do, but Sweeney did discover this opportunity. Fair is fair.”

Bernie just leaned back in his chair, as he always did. “We got to have regular meetings on this, just to keep up on these financial proceedings. Tell Al that. Thursday night is out for me. I got a Rotary Club meeting every Thursday night.”

I never did find out what the Rotary Club actually did.

“They just actually keep turning around and around. Everyone I know who is in the Rotary Club is a dizzy bastard,” David Black said.

Al kept coming through Bernadotte, the “Royal Valley” of North Dakota. The town was named after the royal family of Sweden. I kept entertaining him, and we kept plotting.

“Did you know I’m a Mormon, Johnny?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I had to sign some documents. I had to take an oath. I had to go through some baptismal ceremony or they’d fire me. I only did it because of my son, but I’m not a Mormon in my heart. I tell Joshua that I’ve got three wives, and eight kids. He doesn’t think eight is enough. He doesn’t think three wives are enough. He says Protestants only have three or four kids, by and large. Catholics have five or six. He says the Jews, in spite of what most people think, only have two, so they should be no problem.

“He says all conscientious Mormons must have at least twelve kids. That’s the way they’ll take over the world. They would have taken it over eventually, but with this new formula, it will speed up the process by two hundred years.”

It hit 114 degrees August 16th, 1936, an all-time record. Old man Swenson died that day. On his death bed, breathing heavily, he said to Doc Gilles, “I know I’m going to hell, but it won’t be any hotter in hell than it is in North Dakota.” In Henderson, where the fires had been, seven miles west, three people died that day. Wimps, people said, under their breath. Those Bohemians are all wimps. Their artists paint abstract pictures. The women have sexual relations with any man who walks by, and sometimes with other women, too. They don’t like to work, and they wear funny clothing, and they all have cigarette holders.

I lost ten pounds in 1936. We broke the August 16th record three days later, when it got to 121 degrees. We lived in the Death Valley of the north. Old people were dying mostly, and young children. Maggie was busy with her funeral meals…only if the family had life insurance, or they wouldn’t have been able to afford a funeral meal.

I had a fan. At night I’d take a dish rag, wipe my body, and sit in front of the fan. I’d take the fan to my porch, lie out there, try to pretend that the world was a hospitable place. I would look up into that North Dakota sky, see those North Dakota stars, and wait for some breeze. I didn’t care where the breeze came from, but it never came. I would have taken a Bohemian breeze, even a Mormon one. I was so lonely most of the time during those days that my soul fell through my shoes.

Duane snored at night.

The world was not a hospitable place.

August 20th they had a downpour 20 miles to the north and 30 miles to the south, too late to do the crops any good. The rain missed us completely. Still, we thought, God’s preparing us. Twelve million gallons of gas a day times one cent or more. That was a lot of money. Of course, there would be legal fees and all sorts of fees. There’d be taxes, and I’d have to split this money with all of the other investors in town, but it was still a ton of money. Al might end up the richest person in the United States.

My $1500 investment would just make me filthy rich. I’d probably move to New York City or Chicago or Newport, Rhode Island, where women didn’t spit on your shoes. I’d come back to my hometown by train, first class, every once in a while. I’d eat at Maggie’s Café, which I had once owned, have eggs and bacon, and leave her a $5 tip. I know the restaurant business, only too well. Likely, Maggie would need the tip.

Marie went to Times Square, her first day in New York. She wanted the experience of standing in a swirling sea of strange faces and being just as unfamiliar to them as they were to her. She wanted the experience of walking down the street and being a total unknown. She wanted to experience as meaningfully as possible the anonymity that New York could offer a person.

The rude rush of mindless pedestrians was soothing to her shattered soul. The honk and roar and growl of traffic was so different from birdcall and surfsplash that it thrilled her. The thoughtless strangers who jostled her and treated her with no respect were a lullabye for her frayed nerve ends. Marie spent her first day as a New Yorker riding buses up and down the island of Manhattan, surveying the changing scenery from one neighborhood to another and being grateful that nobody treated her with any particular accord.

Several times, people approached her, bent on admiring the baby. The first time, Marie froze stiff as stone. Why was that woman coming over to him?? But all the woman wanted was to tickle his smooth, soft cheek and coo, “What a sweet, beautiful baby!”

In the light of that experience, the approach of the next stranger inspired dread but not terror . . . and in fact, this woman, too, had the most innocent of intentions, stroking Josh’s silky-downed head and marvelling at his rosy cheeks, while not marvelling at any imagined otherworldly attributes. He was just a baby.

But babies are a people-magnet, even in New York. Next to admire him was an older gent. Marie’s heart still pounded wildly at the man’s approach, but this man, like the two women before him, saw only a sweet little baby, nothing more, and his intentions were as benign as the others’.

At day’s end, she headed home by taxi to the hotel room she had temporarily rented. At the corner newsstand, she was a bit shaken up to see her picture and Josh’s peering off the front page of U.S.A. Today. MISSING MIRACLE CHILD, the headline read. She looked in the picture as she had used to look, before she’d cut her hair super-short and dyed it brown-black, plucked her eyebrows to thin lines, and bought a new wardrobe designed to make her look heavier. There was less she could do to Josh’s appearance; but she hoped he had enough of a “generic baby” look not to be too distinctive.

Her new temporary quarters were in a residence hotel, complete with kitchenette, and as she nursed Josh, she debated what to do about her own dinner—eat in or out. She’d bought a few things she could cook in the rudimentary kitchen, but there was no reason not to go out to dinner now.

She relaxed into the chair—less comfortable than her easy chair at home, yet far more comfortable when you factored in the knowledge that here, at last, she had privacy and serenity. Here, no reporters would roust her from the chair demanding the latest tidbits of her life, the last news about Josh. She melted into the chair and into the anonymity that the city afforded her. Here, at last, she could just be “Danielle Walker,” the name on her new driver’s license. Here, at last, she could be free.

When Josh had finished his dinner, she decided it was time for hers. She would eat out. In this city of a million cuisines, she would find a restaurant offering food she had never eaten. If she was going to go into hiding, she would make the best of it. If she’d had to leave Flamingo Cove, at least she would get something good out of it—starting with adventurous dining.

She inquired at the front desk and was told Third Avenue and Columbus Avenue were each a sort of Restaurant Row. “How do I get to them?” she asked, and was rewarded with a look of utter disrespect. How could anyone be so ignorant? the look said. She gloried in it. She revelled in being disrespected—it was so much better than being worshipped.

She made her way to Columbus Avenue and found an Indian restaurant. Marie had never eaten Indian food. The presence of a table full of people who appeared to come from India gave her reason to hope the cuisine might be authentic, too.

Authentic or not, it was delicious. She ate more than she should have, reflecting that if she kept this up, soon the “fat clothes” would be no pose. As she ate, she thought that maybe Elinor and Sheila, at least, would each be able to come up and visit her some time, when all the furor had died down. It might mean waiting a year or more, but surely there would come a time when they could each come to New York and see her without being followed.

She pictured eating out in this very restaurant—Sheila loved spicy foods, and Elinor was an adventurous eater who loved new foods, new restaurants. As Marie pictured joyful reunions with her mother and best friend, she relaxed even more. Yes, she would miss Flamingo Cove. Yes, she knew she would get terribly homesick. But lots of people started over. Lots of people moved to New York or some other big city. Lots of people who knew no one in their new homes still started over and got on fine.

Like all these other people, she would make new friends. She would get a job, or even buy a business—she had the money from the sale of Office Central. She would find a daycare center if she needed to . . . or maybe she’d be a stay-at-home mom, like she’d always wanted, at least for a couple of years. Maybe she’d start a business she could run from home . . . . Her mind took off, soaring with the possibilities. The calm that had begun to edge the fear out of her mind was now replaced, in turn, with excitement.

She was starting a great adventure. Yes, and it was going to be all right. She had done the right thing. She smiled at Josh, then dared to look all around the restaurant instead of shrinking into herself and trying to be invisible. She could start unlearning that reflex now. They were only two of the swarm of faces that populated a great city to get lost in. She was beginning to lose the awful feeling she’d had on arriving—that any minute now, someone was going to recognize her.

Nobody would. Nobody had all day. She was safe.

Finally finishing her dinner, Marie paid the bill and gathered Josh up, walking at an almost exaggeratedly slow pace for the sheer pleasure of knowing she could do it. She even debated walking a little part of the way back to her hotel, as far as she comfortably could while carrying Josh. It would do her good to walk off the hearty meal.

Still indecisive, she stepped outside the restaurant and looked appraisingly at the sky. It was 7:30, which in summertime is still well within daylight hours, but the sky had darkened and lowered. Rain seemed imminent. Marie opted for prudence and hopped on a bus. Fumbling with one hand in her purse while holding Josh, she drew out the fare and dropped it in the farebox. Then she started to make her way down the aisle of riders, many of whom were absorbed in their newspapers.

As she worked her way down the aisle, a fortysomething woman looked up at Marie intently. She peered as if studying her face. For a minute, the old fear returned. But the woman turned her head without showing any recognition and began to peer just as intently at someone else.

Marie rushed toward one of the last seats on the bus, settling Josh in her lap. In a minute, a woman and child were standing alongside Marie. When Marie realized the girl was blind, she almost got up and offered her own seat, but now the exciting day filled with alternating fear and hope and promise was beginning to exact its toll on Marie; she decided that standing and holding Josh was more than she was up for. She stayed seated. The woman standing there—apparently the little blind girl’s mother—noticed Josh and began to fuss over him. “There’s a baby, Jenny,” she explained to her daughter.

Jenny edged carefully closer to Josh, who was placidly waving his arms in Marie’s lap. Standing in front of the baby, the little girl was almost eye-to-eye with him. Suddenly the bus lurched, and Jenny’s face was an inch from Josh’s. The baby’s idly swatting hand made soft contact with the little girl, brushing her cheek like a stroke of silk.

She suddenly lurched in a way that had nothing to do with the bus’s motion. She turned to her mother, an expression of something even beyond amazement twisting her face, her mouth gaping, her eyes alternately scrunching up and going wildly wide, as Jenny tried to make sense of this whole new dimension that had suddenly been added to her world.

“Mama?” she asked, reaching hesitantly toward her mother, touching the face she had never seen before.

Marie just wept.

THE END

The reporters cursed themselves for not being there. Though they were still returning regularly in search of crumbs of information, no one was keeping all-night vigil.  So of course, they all missed being there when the intruder struck. Still, they had a field day with the story. The would-be killer was a member of The Church of Repentance—Connor’s church. Though not acting under Connor’s direct orders, he’d certainly been inspired by Connor’s fiery rhetoric. And Connor said nothing to repudiate Todd’s actions when the press sought him out for comments.

It was clear to Marie that she couldn’t live a normal life in Flamingo Cove. She would have to move. Even if Todd was kept permanently locked up, and even if Connor himself made no move to finish what Todd had started, that wouldn’t be the end of it. Some other religious fanatic would come along, be it a member of The Church of Repentance or a freelance loony, and try to succeed at what Todd had attempted.

Too, the others weren’t leaving her alone, either—the ones who wished only good for her and Josh, but who insisted on venerating him as the Second Coming. The prayer groups still gathered near her house, exercising their right to free speech by praying loudly for the health and well-being of Josh, or praying to him to help them from their troubles and travails.

Even trips to the supermarket were problematic. Just the day before, while Marie was standing in the checkout line, a woman had pushed through, not to cut in with her groceries but to drop to her knees and make the sign of the cross before Josh while she kissed her rosary, then held it out to touch Josh with it as if that would make it truly holy. And it wasn’t just an isolated case. No amount of entreaties for privacy, no amount of pleas that Josh was an ordinary baby seemed to carry any weight.

Just the day before, when Marie was at the library, Josh had sneezed a tiny sneeze; one of the librarians had said, “Bless yourself.” It didn’t bode well for his chances of growing up like a normal child. And that was what Marie desperately wanted—a normal childhood for her son and a normal motherhood for herself.

In Flamingo Cove, clearly, they couldn’t have that. In fact, she doubted they could have it anywhere, as well known as they were. But she began to craft a plan, a plan that related to her earlier comment about the witness protection program. Although she couldn’t really get into the program, maybe she could still change her name, alter her appearance, take the money from the sale of the business, and move to another town. Maybe even a big city, where it would be easier to get lost in the dense humanity. Move, change her name, and start over.

Gary was paying her well for the business—far beyond what it was worth. He’d always wanted it passionately, beyond what was reasonable for a marginal business. She was sure it was a grudge matter because she’d won the business in the divorce settlement, after he’d poured so much of himself into establishing it. It had been a point of sore contention in court. Well, if he wanted it that badly, fine! Let him pay for it—through the nose.

They shook hands on the deal and signed the papers in her office. She was still shaky as she gripped the pen. A week had passed since the attack, but her nerves were nearly as raw as the night it happened. Every footstep behind her made her whirl around in fear. Every knock at the door made her cringe. Every unfamiliar voice made her quake.

She didn’t feel safe at home, and she didn’t feel safe at work. Not for the first time, she seriously considered hiring an armed guard, but she couldn’t live that way for the rest of her life. Elinor offered for Marie and Josh to move in with her “till things die down.” Marie didn’t fancy moving back in with her mother at age thirty-four; though, and besides, they couldn’t be together every minute; an assassin would just wait till some time when Elinor was off doing her own thing. Last, though it was far from the least consideration, Elinor’s invitation was “till things die down,” but Marie wasn’t sure things ever would.

Clearly, her only choice was to move—move and change her identity.

She felt guilty over spiriting Cole’s son away from him, but she didn’t see any alternative.

It was Pastor Hemmings who helped her put her plan into action. He had a friend who was ex-F.B.I., who was knowledgeable about false identities. He couldn’t issue her fake documents or give her any official help—he wasn’t even with the Bureau any longer—but he had a lot of good information about the nuts and bolts of starting a new life. He laid out a plan for her and helped her put it into action. Now that the sale of the business was going through, she would have the money to effect the plan.

Marie had a momentary pang of guilt as she accepted the check from Gary, knowing what she was going to do with the money. Leaving her mother and her best friend behind—would she ever see either of them again, or would her future relationship with each of the women be reduced to a series of furtive phone calls? She envisioned herself talking to Elinor and Sheila weekly from a different payphone, always worrying that, even so, someone would trace the source of the calls and find out at least the city in which she’d relocated.

And all because an assortment of zanies, publicity-hounds, religious nuts, zealots, and others with their own agendas were bent on proving that her sweet little son was something special. Well, he was something special, all right—to her, as his mother. Period. End of sentence.

Why couldn’t everyone else accept that?

As she trudged toward the car with Josh on her left shoulder, the diaper bag slung over her right shoulder, and the check securely in her pocket, she wondered how she was going to convert that much money to traveller’s checks without arousing suspicion. Well, tomorrow she’d be gone anyhow.

But wasn’t there still some hope she could stay in this town she was so comfortable in, near her mom and not far from her dad, close by her best friend and able to avail herself of the rest of her support network? A part of Marie hesitated. She really didn’t want to leave. Wasn’t there any other solution? Was she being a coward by fleeing?

She paused uncertainly at the mailbox. In her hand were the letters she was sending out, letters telling her mom, Sheila, Cole, Joanna, and a few other people that she was dropping out of sight. It wasn’t too late to abort the plan. Marie froze, uncertain and afraid.

Then a dumpling-shaped woman in her fifties approached at a quick trot from the north, headed for the mailbox. But she had no letters in her hand. “Oh, the Savior,” she cooed, sinking to her knees on the rough sidewalk and crossing herself. “Bless me, son of God, and help me.”

Just then Reverend Argyle rounded the corner. “Marie!” he effused, beaming at her. “Have you given more thought to joining our church yet? You want to get your son into the church as early as possible. We’d be pleased to have you as a member. A committee is going to call on you tomorrow. Please hear them out and listen to what they have to say.”

“If I could have just a shred of his blanket . . . anything,” the dumpling-shaped woman interrupted. “A relic to take home.” Then she unexpectedly slipped one of Josh’s socks off—of course, he had no shoes on—and clutched it to her like a treasure. Quickly rising to her feet, she scurryied off down the sidewalk.

“Forgive me, Reverend Argyle, but I have a lot to do,” Marie said, rapidly thrusting the letters into the mailbox and turning quickly away.

I’m a has-been hero, and I’ve got the clippings to prove it. What I wish more than anything else is that I could just be a simple fisherman down here on the bayous and purge myself of memory. Memory’s a son of a bitch.

My earliest memories are all about war, a house-of-mirrors collage of war stories that span years and are confused with movies and comic books. GI Joe and John Wayne. We fought the Japs and fought the Krauts and fought the Koreans, and we raised Old Glory on Iwo Jima and stormed the beaches at Omaha (Nebraska?) and remembered the Alamo and the Maine; and Babe Ruth and the Manassas Mauler could beat the daylights out of any old slanty-eyed Jap any day of the week, and God was on our side.

From the earliest time I knew, as well as I know that fish swim, that the duty of a man is to fight the enemy, to carry the ball across the goal, to love and protect women and children, and to never ever cry. I also knew that thou shalt not kill any but the avowed enemy and that no matter what, a man’s gotta worship Sweet Baby Jesus and never for a moment be weak like a woman.

A few lines scratched out, then:

God. God lived at the Calvary Baptist Church. CAL-VAR-EEE! Marching to Cal-var-eee! The shrine of the holy of holies. It was a fort, a monument, a place of silence and reverence and fear and awe, where they sang, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” But there were no black children at Calvary Baptist. To find black children you had to cross Magazine Street and dart down the little path that led between Casey’s and Doc Littlejohn’s, and cross the railroad tracks, where you could walk the rails, pretending to be a tightrope walker in the circus (and if you fell off with bare feet, the cinders hurt like the Dickens). Across the tracks was the Alley. Man lived there. Man was my best friend for a little while.

I can remember old Brother Barnes scaring the shit out of me, preaching about the wrath of God. I didn’t even know what a wrath was, but whatever it was, I damned sure didn’t want any truck with it. I thought I saw it for sure when I was five years old. There was a terrible electric storm. Lightning flashed the sky an icy blue that was immediately crushed by blackness. Thunder rolled and crashed and cracked, and windows and doors rattled in their frames like castanets. I stood inside the screen door and taunted the storm, pretending to be a big, brave man. “Go on, you dumb old lightning,” I shouted. “Hit something. See if I care. You can’t hurt me. Why don’t you hit the church? Burn the church to the ground.” I dreaded Sunday school and got sick headaches every Sunday morning. Me and Mama Janet.

A few more lines scratched out, then:

Who cares what church or when? I’m not about to let anything as paltry as the facts fuck with my memories.

And he continued:

When the church did burn down, it wasn’t our church. It was First Baptist, about four blocks farther up Church Street. It wasn’t right after that, either. It couldn’t have been, because it was summer then, and it was snowing the night First Baptist burned to the ground.

We heard the fire trucks, and Papa Chuck shouted, “It’s a big one! Grab the kids! Let’s go!” When there was a fire in town, everybody went.

Black silhouettes scurried frantically against a backdrop of flame. There were cars and trucks, and two big fire engines with flashing lights. Heavily corded hoses stretched across the street in a jumble of black-booted feet in sheets of icy water. Flames stretched to a sky laden with heavy clouds of smoke that tumbled glowing embers of black wood and ash. On the fortress-like face of the church, a jagged wall dropped as if someone had pulled the bottom from under it, and a shower of sparks shot right at us.

I couldn’t stop shaking. My hands and feet were freezing. I started bawling, and Cassie squeezed my hand.

Mama Janet put her arm around me and said, “It can’t hurt us here. We’re safe.”

And Cassie said, “It’s okay, Travis. Jesus won’t let it hurt us.”

But it wasn’t the fire that scared me. It was the wrath of God. They didn’t know that I had caused that fire. They didn’t know it, but He knew.

***

When you’re a kid, you assign magical powers to certain moments that loom off in the future: moments like the first time you get to go to the swimming pool without your parents, or when you get to order real coffee in a restaurant instead of hot chocolate. Fifth grade was one of those magical times, because in fifth grade, you got to take art. There was a teacher, Mrs. Fields, who taught art one day a week. She was a large woman who wore a dark blue smock over her dress and pinned her hair on top of her head with a big rooster-tail comb that was all covered with rhinestones. She wore gold-rimmed glasses that hung like a necklace on a gold chain. She never peered through those glasses, but sometimes she perched them on the end of her nose and looked over them. Mostly they just dangled over bulbous breasts encased in yards of cotton and lace.

I waited forever for that first art class. When it finally arrived, I was so excited I ate my shirtsleeve. Mrs. Fields came in without saying a word. She marched from table to table and placed in front of each child a large sheet of paper, a mimeographed illustration of a wasp out of Colliers Encyclopedia, a sharpened H-B Eberhardt-Faber drawing pencil, and an art gum eraser. Even those names were magical. No plain old writing pencil, but an ART pencil and ART gum eraser!

“You shall each draw the wasp,” she declared. “Take your time and be very careful. If you make a mistake, that is what the eraser is for. Now let’s all get to work and we’ll see what good little artists we can be.”

It wasn’t exactly how I had pictured it. Well, what the heck. I went to it. Grabbed my pencil and sketched in the outline of the wasp’s body in one bold stroke. For the stripes I made an energetic, zigzag mark. Wispy lines formed the feelers, and staccato shading with the side of my own Eberhardt-Faber drawing pencil gave to the wings an illusion of flight. I finished in a few minutes, and to kill time until she gave us something else to do, I started flying my wasp, buzzing it and swooping it over my head and dive-bombing the kid in the next seat.

Mrs. Fields jerked my wasp away from me, glanced at it, and crumpled it in her hands and slammed another sheet of paper onto my desk. “Now start over,” she demanded, “And this time do it right.”

I couldn’t do it the way she wanted. My hands were shaking, and I was trying to hold back the tears. Suddenly I bolted. It was as if some powerful force were pushing me out of there. I dashed out the door, across the playground, under the bushes by the fence, over the fence to the football field, under the bleachers, out to the street. Surely someone was after me. They wouldn’t just let me go. I ran like crazy, darting between houses, jumping hedges, cutting through backyards, imagining I was a soldier on a secret mission far behind enemy lines.

There was the church! The perfect place to hide. Those strange basement windows that opened into a bricked-in recess below ground level. We always thought of them as dungeon windows. I dropped down to where the windows were and found one that was open enough to push it up and crawl into the basement room that was used as a childcare center during Sunday services.

Hiding in the church, I imagined I was hiding from a German patrol in an underground labyrinth, my freedom dependent upon my skill and daring. I’d never done anything so brave. Even Josh Culpepper wouldn’t break out of school and hide in the dungeon at Calvary Baptist Church.

I explored the church, all the secret places behind the pulpit, the choir room and the stairway that led up—to heaven, I imagined. Up there was where Brother Barnes baptized sinners. It was like a little swimming pool on a balcony perched majestically over the altar, glass fronted to waist height like saloon doors, and draped with heavy velvet curtains.

I couldn’t resist. I stripped buck-naked and went for a swim all alone in that heavenly pool. I was happily splashing in the pool when Brother Barnes stormed up the stairs and screamed at me that I would go straight to hell because I had profaned the house of God.

If Cole was, for once, restrained, the attitude wasn’t universal. In the days to come, it seemed everyone had something to say and was determined to find someone to say it to. Finding an interested reporter was easy; it seemed the population of Flamingo Cove had suddenly doubled with the influx of TV crews, radio newspeople, newspaper and magazine reporters, and freelance writers.

Marie remained in seclusion in the house for five days—recovered from the birth but avoiding the media circus—but there was a steady parade of people in and out, and nobody went up or down those steps without a phalanx of writers and reporters charging at them. They pounced on Elinor and Sheila, on Cole, on Claudia, who had come to see her new nephew, on Ben, who had come to see his new grandson, and on the steady parade of friends, neighbors, deliverypeople, and curiosity-seekers. They arrived in such numbers that Marie was all but ready to install a bakery-style number machine to keep things orderly. At one point she seriously considered hiring a security guard!

The clergy all came to call. Pastor Hemmings was the first, and he was welcome. “It’s not going to be an easy time,” he warned Marie, “but if there’s anything at all I can do—I or my congregation—you let me know. Whether it’s praying with you or for you, or whether it’s help of a more concrete nature. I know your mom and best friend both live nearby, but sometimes it’s nice to know you have a larger support system. Feel free to call on us. Call me at any hour. Here’s my home number, too.”

Reverend Argyle was next, and Marie did her best to welcome him graciously, though her feelings about him weren’t the same as for Pastor Hemmings. Later, as he strutted out of the house to the waiting reporters, he had a statement. “Our congregation is pleased to welcome this baby to the world,” he declaimed in his most oratorical tones.

“Is Marie a member of your church?” Sally asked.

“Not yet,” Reverend Argyle hedged.

Adam and Aaron called on her too. Once again they invited her to join their congregation, and once again she declined. “Then will you allow us to baptize the baby?” Aaron asked hopefully.

“Technically, he’s Jewish,” Marie pointed out. “Granted I don’t observe my religion, but I haven’t renounced it, either. And the child of a Jewish mother is Jewish.”

“But it’s so important—”Adam started.

Aaron laid a restraining hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Think about it,” Aaron offered. “No pressure. But if you ever want us, you know where to find us. We’ll be back to pray for your baby. Meanwhile the congregation is saying daily prayers for him.”

Marie finally went out of the house on the fifth day. Tired of being a prisoner in her own home, she decided the best thing to do was confront the press. Maybe if she gave them a statement, they’d go away. After all, the baby had been born. What more were they waiting for? What more did they think was going to happen? Maybe if she faced them and gave them their story, they’d all go away and her life could get back to normal.

Now that she had she had gotten Cole out, resolving one set of problems, the thing she wanted most was the peace and quiet she could have only when the media left her alone. The clergy were still posturing. Connor was ranting about devil spawn and the need to repent now, Adam about the need to serve God, and Reverend Argyle about the mysterious ways in which God moved. Other local clergy were having their say too, if less loudly.

But how long could they feed off nothing? Surely once there was nothing more happening, the media would drift away. And surely once the media stopped feeding the clergy’s frenzy, they’d quit their posturing and find other matters to occupy their time.

Marie couldn’t wait.

So she tried to kick off the separation process by facing the media and talking to them. One fine morning, when Josh was five days old, Marie put on a nice-looking, loose-fitting dress and stepped out on her front stoop. The sharks began circling. “I’ll make a deal with you,” Marie said. “I’ll give you a statement, and then I’ll answer your questions. I’ll stay and answer them all. But then that’s the end of it. I don’t want you here anymore. There’s no story.

“Look, this is my son, Joshua.” She held the baby up for the press to see. He was wearing a diaper, a pair of shorts, and a light shirt—ample clothing in the eighty-two-degree weather. “See how ordinary he looks? He’s a special baby to me, yes, because he’s my son, my firstborn, and because I had reached the age of thirty-four—yes, that’s my age, and you may quote me—without having had a child. Most of you know I had a miscarriage during my first marriage. Most of you also know that my second marriage is now over. We haven’t drawn up the papers yet, but Colton Erlig no longer lives here. There will be no further statement or comment on that, so please don’t ask.

“Josh is a normal baby, as you can see. He has no horns and no halo. He also didn’t come from outer space, and he isn’t Elvis reincarnate either. At least, I haven’t heard him singing ‘Hound Dog’ yet.”

There were appreciative chuckles in the assembled group.

“He weighed eight pounds, three ounces when he was born five days ago, during a normal, uncomplicated, although somewhat lengthy birth. He was born here, in my house, with a local midwife, Anna Shelton, in attendance. He does all the normal things a baby does—cry, eat, sleep, pee, poop, and coo. He does nothing unusual. He gives no indication of being any different from any other five-day-old infant, and he’s only special because he’s mine.

“That’s my statement. I’ll now take questions—not about the breakup of my marriage—and then that’s it. No more. And I mean it. No more! I want to get back to leading my life. So ask anything you want now, but then that’s it. No more. Please!”

But of course, there were reporters who’d missed the press conference, reporters from out of town or from neighboring communities, or those who merely had the misfortune to be following other stories, or who, for whatever other reason, weren’t there when Marie made her statement.

The question-and-answer period took another forty minutes after her speech, and when she’d done with it, she devoutly hoped she had seen the last of the reporters. But with the stragglers who’d missed out wanting to get their turns. Marie found, in the days ahead, that although there were fewer reporters around than before, she was certainly not free of them. Even some of the ones who’d been present for her informal press conference came back to interview her again, thinking something newsworthy might happen.

And it did.

Josh was ten days old now, and Marie was happily settled into living alone . . . alone but for Josh, that is. With her son in the next room, Marie didn’t feel alone at all, despite Cole’s absence from her home and her bed. It was only his absence from her heart that she might have felt, and she realized with some pain that he’d been missing from her heart long before she asked him to leave.

At 8:00, with Josh tucked in his crib, which was now back in his room, Marie herself got into bed. Her nights were interrupted by feedings—the baby woke up around 9:30 and again around 1:30 or 2:00 to nurse—and Marie was understandably deficient in sleep. She didn’t see much sense in going to sleep at 8:00—not when the phone was likely to ring and the baby was sure to awaken around 9:30—but there was no reason not to get in bed with a good book and relax.

Marie alternately read and dozed till 9:20 when, sure enough, Josh started stirring. Marie heard a tentative noise or two as he came awake and rustled in his crib, then a full-throated wail as he loudly proclaimed his hunger. Dragging herself out of bed, she went to his crib. After changing his diaper, she took him back to her bed to nurse him. He fell asleep at her breast, and she kissed his dewy head, sweaty and sweet-smelling, before lovingly replacing him in his crib. Then she scrambled back to bed to try to sleep quickly before he awakened again. As worn out as she was, it was no effort to fall instantly into a sound sleep.

She awoke some time later. Feeling drugged with tiredness, she listened for Josh’s cry but heard nothing. Then what had awakened her? It wasn’t light out—she hadn’t slept through the night and awakened to morning. She wasn’t thirsty, didn’t need to go to the bathroom. At length she decided there was no reason, and she rolled over to seek sleep again.

Then she heard it—the faintest of noises, but not one she recognized. She didn’t have a cat or dog. Tropical fish don’t make noises, and this surely wasn’t the sound of the tank filter motor. Staying perfectly still, she listened keenly. There it was again.

Marie rolled toward the edge of the bed and sat up, intending to investigate. Then she thought better of it and stayed perched where she was, her muscles straining with tension. What if it were a burglar? Indecisive now, she hesitated at the edge of the bed, her ears thirstily drinking in the occasional sounds, which seemed to emanate from the living room.

Her brain, her nerves, her muscles were all at war with themselves. Part of her naturally wanted to get up and investigate the noise. Part of her held back. The fight-or-flight dilemma kicked in—should she seek a suitable weapon and meet the intruder head on? Or should she dash down the hall, grab up Josh, and flee out the back door?

Now the noise was nearer. A cautious footfall outside her doorway made her shudder in horrified apprehension. Instinct kicked in, telling her the best course was to play possum. She quickly lay down again. A figure lurked in the doorway. Marie closed her eyes, lest the intruder see their glint and know she was awake. Let him steal my rings, my money, everything—just don’t let him hurt me, rape me, kill me. Don’t let him tie me up—I need to get to my baby when he cries for me.

The baby! The intruder had stepped back from Marie’s doorway and was heading down the hall toward the baby’s room! Marie heard more soft footsteps, confirming that the person, whoever it was, was stealthily inching nearer Josh’s room. Then he didn’t want to rob her. But then . . .what?

She cast about in her mind for a weapon. She didn’t own a gun or even pepper spray. If she went to the kitchen for a knife, or a frying pan to conk him with, he might hear her. Or he might hurt the baby before she could get back to crash the pan down on his head. But what did she have at hand in the bedroom that could possibly double as a weapon? In the darkness, her mind’s eye scanned the room swiftly, opening drawers and searching the closet. What did she have that would be useful against the intruder?

At last she thought of her nighttable lamp. Though small—which at least made it easier to wield—it was relatively heavy. What’s more, it had a square base with sharp corners, which made it a good weapon. Groping in the dark, she quietly unplugged it, lifted it, then realized she had no clothes on! Putting the lamp down, she hastily fumbled her way into the robe she had left at the foot of the bed. Once decent, she grabbed the lamp again and tiptoed down the hall to Josh’s room.

The man was standing partway into the room, trying to see through the darkness. Just enough light from outside filtered in through the blinds to let Marie make out the intruder’s form, though she couldn’t see his face or what he was doing. He didn’t actually seem to be doing anything at the moment. She presumed he was trying to get his bearings without turning on the light. But what was he up to? What was his purpose? Well, she wasn’t going to wait around to find out, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask him!

He was appreciably taller than she, but she figured she’d aim for the back of his skull. As she raised the lamp to smash him with it, he heard or sensed her and turned sharply around. Forced to act faster than she’d wanted to, she rapidly arced her arm toward his head. The sharp corner of the lamp’s base hit him in his left temple, causing him to reel backward and then fall to the floor. As he did, something dropped with a muffled thud onto the carpet. Something that glinted ever so slightly in the hint of light that found its way through the blinds.

The man was on the floor, groaning. Marie bent low and managed to recognize the barely glinting object as the sharp blade of a wickedly large knife. Did he mean to use that huge knife on her little baby? But why? Why was he after Josh? Still, this was not the time to ask questions. Raising her hand, Marie swiftly struck the intruder with the lamp twice more, till he was no further threat for the moment, lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor of Josh’s room.

Only then did Marie start to tremble in delayed response fear. Groping wildly for the light switch, she finally made contact and clicked the light on. At the now-fully visible sight of the nastily sharpened knife on the carpet, a sudden wave of nausea overtook her. She raced to the phone to call the cops but had to detour to the bathroom, retching violently. Finally she was able to dial 911.

The cops arrived before the man came to. Somehow Marie had had the presence of mind to remove the knife just in case he came around before help arrived. Somehow she’d also had the presence of mind to use a tissue to pick it up. She’d seen enough cop shows on TV to know not to disturb his fingerprints.

Later, in custody, the suspect admitted he was a member of Connor’s church. Todd—that was his name—had been bent on stabbing “the devil’s seed, the Antichrist” to death. His only remorse was for failing in his mission.

Josh woke up for his feeding, and Marie moved the crib back into her room. When she had finished nursing Josh and had put him back down in her room, she turned out the light but left the bathroom light on.  She felt safer with some light illuminating the place. She padded out to the living room to turn a lamp on out there, too. Then she detoured into the kitchen on her way back, in search of a weapon.

Her hand started shaking all over again as she selected her longest, biggest, sharpest kitchen knife to take back to bed with her. Carefully she positioned it within easy reach on the nighttable. Just to be safe, she had brought in her heaviest frying pan as well, and she left it on the floor, where she could readily grab it.

But even with the light on and the arsenal at hand, sleep eluded Marie for the rest of that night.

In the morning, she went back to look at Josh’s room. The bloodstain had dried on the carpet, a sordid image of hate painted in rust brown. She got club soda and worked at it, but every time she looked at it, she was overcome with a fresh wave of nausea, and finally she had to give up. She called her carpet cleaner and told him it was an emergency. He kindly pushed aside another client to come and take care of the stain. Till he got there, she diapered Josh in a towel. She couldn’t bear to go back in his room for a fresh diaper. She couldn’t bear to look at that terrible mark.

She didn’t dare go to the hospital. She could just imagine! So she called her doctor’s office, then called the nurse-midwife with whom she had also consulted. “I’ll be right over,” Anna said. It was 10 PM by now. Why do babies love to get themselves born at night? Marie mused between contractions.

But in fact, Josh had no intention of getting himself born that night. He took his sweet time, while Marie gripped the mattress every time a contraction seized her. She broke a nail in the process. Her sweat soaked the sheet.  She forgot all the breathing techniques she’d learned in Lamaze, and for a time she even forgot about the plague of clergy, writers, and faithful-at-large that had been visited on her.

The doctor checked by phone several times, consulting with Anna on the progress of Marie’s dilation . But Anna assured the doctor that it seemed like it was going to be a routine, uncomplicated birth, albeit a slow one. It seemed as if Josh was in no hurry to face the throngs. He had it cozy in his built-in seclusion. Why rush to leave? It might be the last privacy he’d have for a long time.

By sunrise, the pains were coming one on top of another. “Are you sure you don’t want to call your mother? A friend?” Anna suggested for the tenth time, but Marie resisted. She did not want Elinor there—that would offer her no comfort. And while Sheila might be a comfort, Marie didn’t want to drag her away from her own family. Marie would get through this on her own; she’d better get used to doing just that as she marched through life, and here was as good a place as any to start. If she could get through this by herself, she could manage anything.

By nine AM, Josh had gotten himself born. “Starting your first day at nine like you’re on a time clock,” Marie cooed to the baby as she cradled him in her arms. He wasn’t much to look at, all mottled red and scrunchfaced, though he did have plenty of hair on him.

No halo, no horns, Marie thought wryly. He certainly gave every appearance of being a normal baby boy. Maybe now they’d believe her? Maybe once they had reported the birth, they’d leave her alone?

An enterprising writer from the Courier, stopping by to see if there was any news, recognized the midwife’s car and knew this might be Big News brewing. She staked out the front stoop, waiting for a scoop. When the sound of a newborn’s cry filtered out the open windows, the Courier had its lead story for the next day’s edition.

Sally from Channel 11 got word of the event and came rushing over, brazenly ringing the doorbell. Anna answered. “No comment,” she said. She knew why she was here delivering the baby instead of Marie having gone to the hospital. It was to avoid a media circus. Well, all three rings were about to fill up, but at least she had been able to deliver the baby in relative calm.

That calm was broken by the advent of a thunderstorm. Typical of south Florida weather, it blew up without warning and passed just as quickly. Twenty minutes later, the sun was again shining. But Connor, who had arrived at the house on getting word that the baby was coming, proclaimed it a sign: The Devil has arrived on Earth. The Antichrist has been born.

Marie called everyone after the fact. Even Cole. He had the right to know his son had been born. “Are you sure it’s my son? Not God’s or the Devil’s?” he asked. He’d been awfully snide the last couple of days.

“Would you like to come over and see him?” Marie offered.

“Yeh—sure,” Cole answered.

Elinor chided Marie, “Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve come over and held your hand or mopped your forehead or coached your breathing . . . whatever.” But inwardly she was glad to have escaped that ordeal.

Sheila was congratulatory and wanted to know when she could come over and see the baby.

“Anytime!” Marie answered. What a silly question—since when did her best friend need an invitation?!

Cole got there first. He’d had a client sitting with him when Marie called, but as soon as the client left, he rushed right over. Josh looked at him and started crying. “You’ve been talking to him. You’ve prejudiced him against me,” Cole teased. Then Josh grabbed hold of Cole’s finger, and Cole was entranced. “May I hold him?”

“You’re still his father.”

Father picked up son and held him. This tiny thing was a little person—incredible! A special little person—not by reason of any association with extra-worldly beings, but by virtue of being the fruit of his seed, a new life formed from his own life offering, the next generation of Erligs to carry on the family name . . . even if Cole himself was no longer a part of Marie’s family.

Josh fell asleep in Cole’s arms, and Cole was reluctant to put him down. “I guess I’d better let you rest—both of you,” he sighed, softly putting the baby down in his crib, which had been temporarily moved to Marie’s bedroom. “Well, if there’s anything I can do for you . . . ?” he asked hopefully.

“I’ll let you know,” Marie said.

Anna showed Cole to the door. There were seven reporters and three camerapeople out there now. They clamored for news, pressed forward, thrust microphones at him. Cole looked at the assembled throng of newsgatherers and knew that he, Cole Erlig, had the information they all were waiting for. Then Cole flashed on a picture of the baby boy—his newborn son—sweet-smelling and tender, pink and fragile, gentle and trusting, lying in the crib inside. “No comment,” he said.

They noticed Marie was missing. Her car wasn’t there. She hadn’t been seen at home, or at Office Central, or anywhere else around. “Where’s your wife?” one of the vigil-keepers asked. The two reporters who were looking for an interview perked up and paid attention.

“Out of town for a little while,” Cole answered.

“Where’d she go?”

“When will she be back?”

“Why did she leave?”

“Is she okay?”

“Is she in the hospital?”

“Why aren’t you with her if she’s having the baby?”

The questions came as fast and hard as water from a pressure cleaner. Cole was in his element. He answered them one at a time, relishing the fact that he had all the answers they wanted.

“She went out of town—I’m not at liberty to say where. She’ll be back in a day or two or three. She’s fine, but this has all been difficult for her. She needed a little peace and quiet and privacy. She’s perfectly fine. She’s not in the hospital. She hasn’t had the baby. She’s not having the baby yet.”

“We want to talk to her.”

“We want to see her.”

“Tell us where she is.”

“Now, just let it be. It was all your questions and your everlasting following her around that drove her away in the first place. It seems there’s always at least one of you people on her tail. If it’s not a local reporter, it’s from somewhere up the coast or down, or across the state, or goddam California. It’s the nightly news or the tabloids, the TV newsmagazines or a personality magazine, or it’s some freelance writer wanting to make a name for himself by interviewing Marie, or it’s a religion writer who sees something spiritual here, or it’s a whole bunch of you all at once, worshipping not God but publicity. Good Lord Almighty, you haven’t given us a rest in eight months. I could count on my hands the number of days there hasn’t been at least one writer or one TV reporter around. I wouldn’t need my toes. I’d even have leftover fingers.”

He stopped, then, and turned to go about his business. Suzanne Stock called out, “Do you plan to join your wife in hiding?” Cole waved her away and ignored her, giving no verbal answer.

Feeling that there was no story here, the reporters began easing away. Seeing them go, Cole felt a sharp pang. “Wait!” he called out. But when they turned around as a pack, ready to pounce on his next pronouncement, he found he had nothing else to give them. Short of giving away Marie’s hiding place, he had nothing more to tell. “Anyone want some iced tea?” he offered lamely.

They all left without tea, all except Van Jordan. He didn’t want tea either, but he wanted the location of Marie’s hiding place. “Have we really made it that difficult for you?” he asked sympathetically, putting a comradely arm around Cole’s shoulder.

“Well, it’s not for myself that I mind,” Cole admitted. “But it’s really been tough on my wife.”

“I imagine a leading businessman in the community, like yourself, can handle publicity without it being a problem,” Van wheedled.

“Yes. I don’t have a problem with it personally.” Cole puffed out his chest, not just figuratively but literally.

“It’s too bad that Marie isn’t as strong and brave as you are.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And it’s too bad she won’t be home with you tonight. Sleeping alone is tough when you’re used to sharing your bed. Of course you could always sneak away and join her.” It would be easy enough for Van to follow Cole and find Marie, if he could just persuade Cole to follow after his wife. That was Plan B—just in case Plan A didn’t work. He continued with Plan A in the meanwhile. “If she’s going to be in the spotlight for quite some time to come, she’d really better get used to it. Running away never solved anything.”

“Oh, I agree with you,” Cole said, solemn and earnest, nodding his head in agreement.

“You going up to join her, then?” He listened for agreement with or contradiction to “up”—had Marie gone north, south, or west?

But Cole sidestepped the question. “No, I’ll stay put.”

“Might as well enjoy the peace and quiet. We reporters might just leave you alone as long as Marie isn’t here.”

Cole looked something less than pleased with that prospect.

“It might be nice and peaceful around here till she comes back.”

The frown lengthened. But he didn’t crack.

“Of course, wherever she is, we’re bound to find out eventually. Whether she’s staying in a hotel, with a friend, with a relative,” he watched Cole’s face closely for some reaction, but there was none, “someone’s going to see her. Someone’s going to call and let us know where she is. Whether it’s a desk clerk or maid at a motel, a neighbor of a friend or relative she’s staying with—she’s too well known to hide out. Eventually she’ll be spotted. And someone will call a reporter.

“Sources. Nothing is more important to a writer than his sources. Someone will decide to do us that favor, someone important, someone who understands the importance of the press, as well as the importance of himself in telling us. Someone will tell one of us where Marie is. And they’ll be doing her a favor, too. She certainly knows she’s going to be found. She certainly knows the other shoe is going to drop. She’s probably waiting right now, waiting for that knock at the door, wondering how long it will take them to find her, wishing they’d hurry up and get there, so the suspense is over already. And someone, someone knowledgeable and intelligent, someone we’re all going to be awfully grateful to, is going to tell us where she is.

“Of course, I’m not saying it has to be you. I’m not trying to put any pressure on you. Someone else will tell us. Your conscience can be clear. It’s time someone else got a little of the credit anyhow.”

“She’s at the SurfSide Sea Lodge in Vero Beach. I supposed you’d have found her soon enough anyhow.”

When the knock at the door roused Marie from her reverie, she’d been dreaming of a place where she and Josh were insulated from the world. A hiding place for the rest of her life. A vague and nebulous place to be sure—it might have been a ranch in Montana, a busy block in the heart of L.A., a cabin in the Maine woods . . . but wherever it was, they had privacy there, and anonymity. No prayer vigils. No press. She was free to raise her son in peace.

But it was obviously nothing more than a daydream. The knock at the door told her that. It wasn’t the maid coming to clean the room. She’d been found.

She contemplated ignoring the knock. Maybe they would go away. But she knew better. And, on the off chance it wasn’t a reporter, maybe she should see who it was. Suppose it was just a visitor looking for another guest and knocking at the wrong door. Why cower behind the door all night, thinking the press was lurking out there, if whoever was knocking was someone innocent?

Fat chance! she thought as she heaved herself up from the bed with difficulty and padded barefoot to the door.

“Good afternoon,” Van said when she opened.

She knew it was Cole who’d cracked, Cole who’d given away her hiding place. She knew that without even asking Van. Sheila and Elinor would never have given up her location. Not to Van and not to anyone else. Sheila wouldn’t even have told her own husband. It was Cole, and no question about it. She marched over to the phone, in full earshot of Van, and called her home.

Van would have a field day with this, but she had no privacy anyhow. Whatever she did, it made the papers and the TV newscasts. She couldn’t sneeze without it being reported on the six o’clock news. The press would get this story like it had gotten everything else. What was the difference if it was sooner or later? So when Cole answered, she spoke to him just as if Van weren’t in the room: “Get out. I’ll be home as quickly as I can get there. I don’t want to find you when I get home.”

“But—what did I do?”

“I think you know the answer to that one. I have a visitor. Somebody told him where to find me.”

“But . . . .”

“No buts. No wiggling. No begging. It’s the last in a long series. And I do mean the last. You’re outta there. Now. I’ll be home soon. Get your stuff out. Take what you need now. You can come back for the rest some other time when I’m not there. I mean it!”

Facing the prospect of losing Marie—and his access to all the reporters—Cole immediately called a press conference. If he was going out, he was going out in a blaze of glory. Van missed the conference, being up in Vero with Marie, but quite a few others attended.

The headlines the next day read, MIRACLE COUPLE TO DIVORCE.

It was awkward at work, that next day. She kept crossing paths with Cole. But the deal with Gary was due to close in a week. I can put up with it for one more week, Marie told herself. If it gets too bad, I’ll just absent myself for this final week. But Marie was not usually the sort to run away from problems—despite her abortive flight from the reporters that had led her to Vero Beach. So she stuck it out, unpleasantness and all.

She compromised. She went home early. Home to the house that Cole no longer inhabited. Home to the usual throng of vigil-keepers and reporters—but no Cole. She found that, oddly, without him there the others didn’t bother her quite so much. Not that there weren’t enough of them—as her due date grew ever nearer, what had once been a mini-throng was growing. The Flamingo Cove police department now kept an officer permanently posted at her house, with another at her office by day.

Cole went back to the motel he’d checked into the night before. The reporters, who had interviewed him at work about the split, didn’t follow him home. He had the peace and quiet that Marie so desperately wanted, but he found he didn’t enjoy it.

As for Marie, she wanted it but didn’t have it. “Can’t you guys find a nice earthquake somewhere to report on?” she pleaded as she went up her front steps, shutting the door firmly in their faces. Two left. Three remained. So did the ever-present vigil-keepers.

Sally, a new reporter, was particularly aggressive. She was the new face at Channel 11—Van had gotten his wish and taken a step up the ladder. As of today, he was reporting the news in Chicago. But Sally, new and eager, was dogging Marie worse than Van ever had. “Can I have an exclusive when you go into labor?” she asked Marie. Marie slammed the door in her face. Literally. The outraged howl from the other side of the door told her she had scored a slam on Sally’s nose, a move she hadn’t intended yet found she felt no remorse about whatsoever.

As she turned toward the kitchen to see about making dinner, she felt a dull twinge. It was something like a period cramp. She paused, but it didn’t repeat itself. Suddenly, though, she didn’t feel very hungry. Nerves, she supposed. But she’d wait to eat . . . just in case.

She lay down. If by chance this was the onset of labor, she was likely not to get much sleep for the next . . . well, realistically for the next few years, but more immediately, for the next night or two. Better nap while she could. In her sleep, she was aware of another cramp, but she didn’t wake up till an hour and a half had passed, when another, stronger pain pierced her sleepiness.

Josh was about to greet the world that so clamorously waited for him.