Long After Midnight (35 page)

 
          
At
last,
Adolf
raised his head to finish his speech.

 
          
"Now
I must speak of them."

 
          
He
nodded up to the top of the stadium where the three men stood against the sky.

 
          
"They
are nuts. I am nuts, too. But at least I know I am nuts. I told them: crazy,
you are crazy. Mad, you are mad. And now, my own craziness, my own madness,
well, it has run itself down. I am tired.

 
          
"So
now, what? I give the world back to you. I had it for a small while here today.
But now you must keep it and keep it better than I would. To each of you I give
the world, but you must promise, each of you to keep your own part and work
with it. So there. Take it."

 
          
He
made a motion with his free hand to the empty seats, as if all the world were
in his fingers and at last he were letting it go.

 
          
The
crowd murmured, stirred, but said nothing loud.

 
          
The
flags softly tongued the air. The flames squatted on themselves and smoked.

 
          
Adolf
pressed his fingers onto his eyeballs as if suddenly
seized with a blinding headache. Without looking over at the director or the
producer, he said, quietly:

 
          
"Time
to go?"

 
          
The
director nodded.

 
          
Adolf
limped off the podium and came to stand below where
the old man and the younger director sat.

 
          
"Go
ahead, if you want, again, hit me."

 
          
The
director sat and looked at him. At last he shook his head.

 
          
"Do
we finish the film?" asked
Adolf
.

 
          
The
director looked at the producer. The old man shrugged and could find nothing to
say.

 
          
"Ah,
well," said the actor. "Anyway, the madness is over, the fever has
dropped. I have
made
my speech at
Nuremberg. God, look at those idiots up there. Idiots!" he called suddenly
at the stands. Then back to the director, "Can you think? They wanted to
hold me for ransom. I told them what fools they were. Now I'll go tell them
again. I had to get away from them. I couldn't stand their stupid talk. I had
to come here and be my own fool in my own way for the last time. Well ..."

 
          
He
limped off across the empty field, calling back quietly:

 
          
"I'll
be in your car outside, waiting. If you want, I am yours for the final scenes.
If not, no, and that ends it."

 
          
The
director and the producer waited until
Adolf
had
climbed to the top of the stadium. They could hear his voice drift down,
cursing those other three, the man with the bushy eyebrows, the fat man, and
the ugly chimpanzee, calling them many things, waving his hands. The three
backed off and went away, gone.

 
          
Adolf
stood alone high in the cold October air.

 
          
The
director gave him a final lift of the sound volume. The crowd, obedient, banged
out a last
"
Sieg
Heil
"

 
          
Adolf
lifted his free hand, not into a salute, but some
sort of old, easy, half-collapsed mid-Atlantic wave. Then he was gone, too.

 
          
The
sunlight went with him. The sky was no longer blood-colored. The wind blew dust
and want-ads from a German paper across the stadium floor.

 
          
"Son
of a bitch," muttered the old man. "Let's get out of here."

 
          
They
left the torches to burn and the flags to blow, but shut off the sound
equipment.

 
          
"Wish
I'd brought a record of
Yankee Doodle
to
march us out of here," said the director.

 
          
"Who
needs records. We'll whistle. Why not?"

 
          
"Why
not!"

 
          
He
held the old man's elbow going up the stairs in the dusk, but it was only
halfway up, they had the guts to try to whistle.

 
          
And
then it was suddenly so funny they couldn't finish the tune.

 
          
Jamie
Winters worked his first miracle in the morning. The second, third, and various
other miracles came later in the day. But the first miracle was always the most
important.

 
          
It
was always the same: "Make Mother well. Put color in her cheeks. Don't let
Mom be sick too much longer."

 
          
It
was Mom's illness that had first made him think about himself and miracles. And
because of her he kept on, learning how to be good at them so that he could
keep her well and could make life jump through a hoop.

 
          
It
was not the first day that he had worked miracles. He had done them in the
past, but always hesitantly, since sometimes he did not say them right, or Ma
and Pa interrupted, or the other kids in the seventh grade at school made
noise. They spoiled things.

 
          
But
in the past month he had felt his power flow over him like cool, certain water;
he bathed in it, basked in it, had come from the shower of it beaded with glory
water and with a halo of wonder about his dark-haired head.

 
          
Five
days ago he'd taken down the family Bible, with real color pictures of Jesus as
a boy in it, and had compared them with his own face in the bathroom mirror,
gasping. He shook all over. There it
was.

 
          
And
wasn't Ma getting better every day now? Well—
there!

 
          
Now,
on Monday morning, following the first miracle at home, he worked a second one
at school. He wanted to lead the Arizona State Day parade as head of his class
battalion. And the principal, naturally, selected Jamie to lead. Jamie felt
fine. The girls looked up to him, bumping him with their soft, thin little
elbows, especially one named Ingrid, whose golden hair rustled in Jamie's face
as they all hurried out of the cloakroom.

 
          
Jamie
Winters held his head so high, and when he drank from the chromium fountain he
bent so carefully and twisted the shining handle so exactly, so precisely—so
godlike and indomitable.

 
          
Jamie
knew it would be useless to tell his friends. They'd laugh. After all, Jesus
was pounded nail through palm and ankle to a Calvary Hill cross because he told
on himself. This time, it would be wise to wait. At least until he was sixteen
and grew a beard, thus establishing once and for all the incredible proof of
his identity!

 
          
Sixteen
was somewhat young for a beard, but Jamie felt that he could exert the effort
to force one if the time came and necessity demanded.

 
          
The
children poured from the schoolhouse into the hot spring light. In the distance
were the mountains, the foothills spread green with cactus, and overhead was a
vast Arizona sky of very fine blue. The children donned paper hats and
crepe-paper Sam Browne belts in blue and red. Flags burst open upon the wind;
everybody yelled and formed into groups, glad to escape the schoolrooms for one
day.

 
          
Jamie
stood at the head of the line, very calm and quiet. Someone said something, and
Jamie realized that it was young Huff who was talking.

 
          
"I
hope we win the parade prize," said Huff worriedly.

 
          
Jamie
looked at him. "Oh, we'll win all right. I know we'll win. I'll guarantee
it! Heck, yes!"

 
          
Huff
was brightened by such steadfast faith. "You think so?"

 
          
"I
know
so! Leave it to me!"

 
          
"What
do you mean, Jamie?"

 
          
"Nothing.
Just watch and see, that's all. Just watch!"

 
          
"Now,
children!" Mr.
Palmborg
, the principal, clapped
hands; the sun shone on his glasses. Silence came quickly. "Now,
children," he said, nodding, "remember what we taught you yesterday
about marching. Remember how you pivot to turn a corner, and remember those
special routines we practiced, will you?"

 
          
"Sure!"
everybody said at once.

 
          
The
principal concluded his brief address and the parade began, Jamie heading it
with his hundreds of following disciples.

 
          
The
feet bent up and straightened down, and the street went under them. The yellow
sun warmed Jamie and he, in turn, bade it shine the whole day to make things
perfect.

 
          
When
the parade edged onto Main Street, and the high-school band began pulsing its
brass heart and rattling its wooden bones on the drums, Jamie wished they would
play "Stars and Stripes Forever."

 
          
Later,
when they played "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean," Jamie thought quickly,
oh, yeah, that’s what he'd meant—"Columbia," not "Stars and
Stripes Forever"—and was satisfied that his wish had been obeyed.

 
          
The
street was lined with people, as it was on the Arizona rodeo days in February.
People sweated in intent layers, five deep for over a mile; the rhythm of feet
came back in reflected cadence from two-story frame fronts. There were
occasional glimpses of mirrored armies marching in the tall windows of the J.
C. Penney Store or of the
Morble
Company. Each
cadence was like a whip thud on the dusty asphalt, sharp and true, and the band
music shot blood through Jamie's miraculous veins.

 
          
He
concentrated, scowling fiercely. Let us win, he thought. Let everyone march
perfectly: chins up, shoulders back, knees high, down, high again, sun upon
denimed
knees rising in a blue tide, sun upon tanned
girl-knees like small, round faces upping and falling. Perfect, perfect,
perfect. Perfection surged confidently through Jamie, extending into an
encompassing aura that held his own group intact. As he moved, so moved the
nation. As his fingers snapped in a brisk pendulum at his sides, so did their
fingers, their arms cutting an orbit. And as his shoes trod asphalt, so theirs
followed in obedient imitation.

 
          
As
they reached the reviewing stand, Jamie cued them; they coiled back upon their
own lines like bright garlands twining to return again, marching in the original
direction, without chaos.

 
          
Oh,
so darn perfect! cried Jamie to himself.

 
          
It
was hot. Holy sweat poured out of Jamie, and the world sagged from side to
side. Presently the drums were exhausted and the children melted away. Lapping
an ice-cream cone, Jamie was relieved that it was all over.

 
          
Mr.
Palmborg
came rushing up, all heated and sweating.

 
          
"Children,
children, I have an announcement to make!" he cried.

 
          
Jamie
looked at young Huff, who stood beside him, also with an ice-cream cone. The
children shrilled, and Mr.
Palmborg
patted the noise
into a ball which he made vanish like a magician.

 
          
"We've
won the competition! Our school marched finest of all the schools!"

 
          
In
the clamor and noise and jumping up and down and hitting one another on the arm
muscles in celebration, Jamie nodded quietly over his ice-cream cone, looked at
young Huff, and said, "See? I told you so. Now, will you believe in
me!"

 
          
Jamie
continued licking his cold cone with a great, golden peace in him.

 
          
Jamie
did not immediately tell his friends why they had won the marching competition.
He had observed a tendency in them to be suspicious and to ridicule anyone who
told them that they were not as good as they thought they were, that their
talent had been derived from an outside source.

 
          
No,
it was enough for Jamie to savor his minor and major victories; he enjoyed his
little secret, he enjoyed the things that happened. Such things as getting high
marks in arithmetic or winning a basketball game were ample reward. There was
always some byproduct of his miracles to satisfy his as-yet-small hunger.

 
          
He
paid attention to blonde young Ingrid with the placid gray-blue eyes. She, in
turn, favored him with her attentions, and he knew then that his ability was
well rooted, established.

 
          
Aside
from Ingrid, there were other good things. Friendships with several boys came
about in wondrous fashion. One case, though, required some little thought and
care. The boy's name was Cunningham. He was big and fat and bald because some
fever had necessitated shaving his skull. The kids called him Billiard; he
thanked them by kicking them in the shins, knocking them down, and sitting on
them while he performed quick dentistry with his knuckles.

 
          
It
was upon this Billiard Cunningham that Jamie hoped to apply his greatest
ecclesiastical power. Walking through the rough paths of the desert toward his
home, Jamie often conjured up visions of himself picking up Billiard by his
left foot and cracking him like a whip so as to shock him senseless. Dad had once
done that to a rattlesnake. Of course, Billiard was too heavy for this neat
trick. Besides, it might hurt him, and Jamie didn't really want him killed or
anything, just dusted off a little to show him where he belonged in the world.

 
          
But
when he chinned up to Billiard, Jamie got cold feet and decided to wait a day
or two longer for meditation. There was no use rushing things, so he let
Billiard go free. Boy, Billiard didn't know how lucky he was at such times,
Jamie clucked to himself.

 
          
One
Tuesday, Jamie carried Ingrid's books home. She lived in a small cottage not
far from the Santa Catalina foothills. Together they walked in peaceful
content, needing no words. They even held hands for a while.

 
          
Turning
about a clump of prickly pears, they came face to face with Billiard
Cunningham.

 
          
He
stood with his big feet planted across the path, plump fists on his hips,
staring at Ingrid with appreciative eyes. Everybody stood still, and Billiard
said:

 
          
"I'll
carry your books, Ingrid. Here."

 
          
He
reached to take them from Jamie.

 
          
Jamie
fell back a step. "Oh, no, you don't," he said.

 
          
"Oh,
yes, I do," retorted Billiard.

 
          
"Like
heck you do," said Jamie.

 
          
"Like
heck I don't," exclaimed Billiard, and snatched again, knocking the books
into the dust.

 
          
Ingrid
yelled, then said, "Look here, you can both carry my books. Half and half.
That'll settle it."

 
          
Billiard
shook his head.

 
          
"All
or nothing," he leered.

 
          
Jamie
looked back at him.

 
          
"Nothing,
then!" he shouted.

 
          
He
summoned up his powers like wrathful storm clouds; lightning crackled hot in
each fist. What matter if Billiard loomed four inches taller and some several
broader? The fury-wrath lived in Jamie; he would knock Billiard senseless with
one clean bolt—maybe two.

 
          
There
was no room for stuttering fear now; Jamie was cauterized clean of it by a
great rage. He pulled away back and let Billiard have it on the chin.

 
          
"Jamie!"
screamed Ingrid.