American Savior (12 page)

My mother and Stab were supposed to arrive via Amtrak on Tuesday
afternoon, but at the last minute Ma called and said there had been a delay—she’d explain when she saw me—and that they’d be arriving on Wednesday morning, on the 8:30 train. She hoped that wouldn’t be a problem.

By Wednesday morning, Zelda and I were already exhausted and the campaign hadn’t even officially begun. We’d been at Wales and Ezzie’s until three a.m. for four straight nights, answering calls from everywhere: How did people get press credentials? Would there be face time with the candidate? Did we have empirical proof that this man was actually
the
Jesus? Were there any more details on the miracles? How could one obtain a press release? Position papers?

And we’d been driving all over the city, from Banfield Plaza to police headquarters, to the printer, the balloon supplier, the outfit that handled the PA system, the company (called Poop Safe) that provided portable toilets. Some local clergyman had organized a protest and arranged for members of his church to stand on street corners with signs that said,
THOU SHALT NOT HAVE FALSE GODS BEFORE YOU
! And we’d had word that hotels, motels, and campgrounds within a fifty-mile radius were filled up. The streets of downtown West Zenith, usually half deserted, were crowded with the curious, the faithful, the skeptical, the legitimate and illegitimate press. Restaurants were doing the kind of business they usually did only in the week before Christmas, when a few hundred brave souls came for the traditional lighting of the lanterns at the West Zenith Public Library—a happy event at which two people had been stabbed a few years earlier.

Zel and I had not eaten a decent meal, not made love, and not had a conversation of any substance in almost a week. A volcano of doubt was shaking and bubbling inside me, and, though I knew she could sense it, I did not say one doubting word to her until we were on the way to the train station, in atypically heavy traffic, to meet my mom and brother. “What if he doesn’t show?” I asked, innocently, through the haze of exhaustion that hung in the front seat of my car.

“He’ll show.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

I could feel her turn to look at me. “If he doesn’t, that would mean he was lying to us. He doesn’t lie.”

“You say that like you know him,” I said. “Intimately.”

There was no response.

“What if he’s been assassinated? Or kidnapped by some evangelical mental patient who doesn’t want him moving in on lucrative preaching territory?”

No response to that either.

“You’re going to say I don’t have much faith.”

“Exactly.”

“I have plenty of faith. I just need the tiniest bit of evidence now and then to support it. It’s like you know a woman loves you, you believe it, you have faith in it, but a kiss on the cheek every couple of days sort of helps fortify your confidence. The occasional ‘I love you,’ or ‘honey,’ or ‘sweetheart,’ the occasional card with ‘To the Sexiest Man Alive’ on the front. Something along those lines.”

Nothing. She seemed to be off in another dimension, which was not like her. To use a term I dislike, Zelda was one of the most
present
people I know. She looked at you when she talked. She really listened, despite the fact that her entire workday was composed of listening. “Where are you?” I asked, after another few bad quiet seconds.

“I’m worried.”

“Yeah, me, too. I was saying—”

“Not about that. I’m worried we aren’t prepared. I don’t mean for the campaign, I mean for today.”

“We ordered ten potties from Poop Safe.”

“I’m starting to think we should have ordered a hundred.”

“Nah. A hundred. That’s crazy.”

“I just have a feeling. The traffic is so heavy. I’ve never seen traffic like this in West Zenith.”

We were at the train station by that point. I found a parking spot without too much broken glass in it, and we locked the car and climbed the old stone steps that led to the platform. We were talking at least, Zel and I.

“Do you think your father will come?”

“Not at first.”

“I really liked him.”

“Well, if you could like him after that display, after he showed you his worst side, then we’re all set.”

“He reminds me of you. A lot.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that remark, so I just held the swinging door open for her, and we went and stood on the platform and watched for the westbound 8:37.

The westbound arrived on time—the first of what I hoped would be several small miracles. It chugged into the station, brakes squealing, porters hopping out and setting the safety steps in place below the doorways. And then all hell broke loose. As always, there were six passenger cars, and on an average day you might see ten or twelve people getting off. On that morning, a stream of passengers poured out of each door. Some of them were actually normal. But a lot of them were in what might charitably be considered Halloween costumes: men with plastic crowns on their heads, or circular crowns handmade of twigs; women wearing sheets that were supposed to be robes. One couple—they were kids, really, late teens—was carrying a huge wooden cross that they’d gotten onto the train in two pieces and were assembling there on the edge of the platform. More silver, gold, and plastic crucifixes than you could count. Picnic baskets with fish heads and baguettes sticking out of them. Cameras around necks. Bibles, pictures of the pope. J
ESUS FOR PRESIDENT
placards, most of them handmade, in every imaginable shape and color. I’
D DIE FOR YOU
! one of them said. S
AVE US
! T
URN AMERICA INTO HEAVEN
! B
ANISH THE HEATHENS
!

You name it, we saw it.

What we didn’t see was my mother or Stab. We backed up against the wall, watching in a kind of horrified excitement as the mob hurried past. “My God, you were right,” I said to Zel at one point. “And this is just people coming on the train. What about—”

And then my mother and Stab appeared, at the tail end of the crowd. We hugged and kissed. I noticed that my mother was carrying a picture
of the pope, who was Pope Benjamin IV at that time. Stab had a picture, too, but in his nervousness he had rolled it up and was busy trying to flatten it out again. In my nervousness, instead of keeping my mouth shut, I greeted them with, “I’m not really sure about the pope pictures, Ma.”

“What do you mean?”

Zelda was shooting me a look. We were going down the stairs to the street and the moment had the feeling of a baseball or football game about it, all those happy, excited people headed toward a great communal rite. You expected to see some kid walk by, yelling, “Hey, popcorn here!”

“I mean, it’s Jesus, but I’m not necessarily sure he’s Catholic. You know.… There are going to be Protestants here, too, and the pope doesn’t do that much for them.”

“Why not?” Stab asked. By then Zelda had let go of my hand.

“The pope’s Catholic, Stab.”

“So is Jesus.”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean, Russ? What does he mean, Ma?”

“Nothing, honey. Your brother says stupid things sometimes, that’s all. It’s in the genes on your father’s side. You were lucky not to have gotten any of it.”

“It’s crowded, huh, Russ?”

“Sure, pal. Wait till we get there if you think this is bad.”

“Do we have front seats because you and Zelda are God’s friends?”

“We’ll be right up on the stage, pal. You’ll see.”

“Russell has been asked to introduce him,” Zelda said when we were all in the car and clicking our seatbelts.

I looked at her.

“You’re introducing Jesus,” she repeated.

“Says who?”

“Jesus.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. Late last night, actually. He called and told me, but he made me promise not to tell you until,” she looked at her watch, “after
nine o’clock this morning. I decided to have mercy on you and tell you five minutes early.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Nope. Let’s go. We need to get to Padsen’s for the car. You might want to call Chief Bastatutta and tell him to keep Wilson Street open so we can get through.”

I had the key in the ignition but I did not turn it. Zelda could not quite meet my eyes. “Anything else I should know?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you and your wife fighting already, Russ?”

“A little bit, pal.”

I still hadn’t started the car. “Has he been in touch with you?”

“I just told you.”

“Have you seen him?”

She shook her head.

“This was the only phone call?”

“Last night at one a.m. I couldn’t call and tell you then, could I?”

“You could have told me this morning.”

“He said he wanted you to be spontaneous. He said you were great at thinking on your feet in front of a microphone and he didn’t want to spoil that by having you stay up all night worrying over the right thing to say. He said you should just get up there and say it the way it comes to you, no notes, no thinking ahead.”

“As the Holy Spirit moves you,” my mother chirped from the backseat.

“Yeah, Russ.”

I started the car and pulled out into traffic. The train station was a little over two miles from Banfield Plaza, Padsen’s Livery Service about halfway between, and with each block more people were crowding the sidewalks. We drove slower and slower, and soon we came to a complete stop. I got on the phone to Bastatutta’s cell.

“Where are you?” the chief yelled. I could tell from the sounds—sirens, truck engines—that he was outdoors.

“Coming from the Amtrak station. I just picked up my mother and—”

“Have you seen the plaza?”

“No, how could I? I just—”

“I’ll tell you what, you better make some calls. More toilets, for one thing. More buses to get people out of here when this is over. I’ll tell you what, Thomas, you got something on your hands here that you didn’t expect, that you didn’t warn me about. I’ve been talking to the mayor. He’s not happy.”

“Not happy? First of all, whaddaya mean
I’ve
got something on my hands here that
I
didn’t expect. You’re the damn chief of police.”

“Be polite, honey,” Mom said from the backseat. “He’s an important man.”

“And second of all, the mayor should be happy as a clam in salty mud. His city is on the map for something other than a high unemployment rate. We’ll be famous.”

“Famous for what, is the question,” Bastatutta said. “What if the guy don’t show?”

“He’ll show.”

“You sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. I’m going to pick him up right now.”

“Yeah? Where?”

“Where? I don’t know. First I have to go to Padsen’s.”

“Padsen’s!” Bastatutta yelled into the phone. “Jesus is renting a car from Padsen!”

“He picked Padsen’s, not me. He wants us to show up in a limo, so things seem professional. We need you to keep Wilson Street open so we can get him to the stage.”

“A little late for that,” Bastatutta said. “Wilson Street looks like Times Square on New Year’s. You’ll have to find another way to get him here. To hell with Padsen. Rent a damn helicopter or something. I’ve got three-quarters of the force down here already, and it’s all we can do to keep people off the stage. Your moron friend Dukey—a convicted felon, I might add—is actually helping.”

“Just give me a lane down the middle of Wilson Street, and I’ll take
care of the rest,” I said, and then I hung up, and the car moved forward at walking pace.

“If you know where he is you should tell me,” I said to Zelda, and I said it quietly and calmly.

“I do not know where he is.”

“Excellent. I’m going to introduce an invisible man.”

“He said he’d show up. I trust him.”

“I do, too,” said my mother.

I felt the doubt twisting and scampering inside me like a lizard in a box. “You okay back there, Stab? Enough leg room?”

“Sure, Russ. Will we be on TV?”

“Definitely. We might be on TV all over the world.” And then I turned to Zelda. “Who can you call to get another two dozen portable toilets? More buses, too. What else?” and she was on her cell, and we were, finally, pulling into the gated lot of Padsen’s … where a black Hummer limo was waiting for us.

The fenced-in lot was an oasis of relative peace. Outside the fence the crowds flowed toward Banfield Plaza as if walking toward a parade or an amusement park or an Olympic event. More signs (I
HAVE COME TO DESTROY THE TEMPLE
. A
N EYE FOR AN EYE
. H
E WHOM LISTENETH TO ME SHALL LIVE
!), people singing hymns. Four guys holding up a banner that read
JEWS FOR JESUS
.

“Pa should see this,” I said.

“That’s why we took the later train,” my mother said, but she did not seem inclined to explain the remark in front of Zelda.

Jocko Padsen, the owner of the car rental operation, emerged from the little white shed with a stogie in his mouth. He was, as we said around West Zenith, “connected,” which meant that he had friends who, for a price, would do you bodily harm, so he was not someone to be trifled with despite his bottom-of-the-class IQ.

“Jocko,” I said. He squeezed my hand as if it were a walnut and his fingers were nutcrackers. “Who asked for a Hummer?”

“Your people aksed. Whattaya mean, who aksed?”

“It’s a little, you know, inappropriate.”

“Huh?”

“Environmentally, and so on.”

He shrugged. “Hey. We got a call for it, you gut it, and it ain’t free, let me put it that way, even though your buddy’s inside and he’s, ya know, a piece a work. Nice suit, too.”

“Who? Wales?”

“Wales is a jerk. God’s inside. Ya know. Jeesum.”

“Jeesum?”

“I don’t say it in vain no more.”

“Really. Since when is this?”

“Since when? Since now. Go see him. Guy’s readin’ a book. I made him coffee. I din’t have no notice to do nothin’ about the calendars. So it goes.”

With some trepidation, Zelda and I, along with my mother and Stab, walked around the black Hummer and headed toward the twelve-foot-square shed where Jocko accepted bets on football games and sold pornographic magazines, wholesale. I opened the door. There, inside, seated on a cheap gray metal chair that probably had been stolen from some government office, surrounded by walls on which hung calendars featuring naked women in provocative poses, and perusing, with a frown on his face, a well-thumbed copy of
The Da Vinci Code,
was Hay-Zeus himself. He was wearing a magnificent suit, somewhere between gray and silver in color, with thin lines of scarlet running through it, a white shirt, and a gold and red tie. Clean-shaven, his black hair brushed straight back, his nails perfectly manicured, and his black loafers brilliantly shined, he looked like he’d bathed an hour earlier in preparation for his wedding. When we came through the door he raised his eyes to us and said, “At last. My flock.”