The Bones of Old Carlisle (4 page)

Not necessarily. I’m going to head on down and do some
detectivating.
Nice afternoon to spend at home. Sip a little gin on
the front porch, maybe watch a movie.
You know I won’t sip it.
There’s not that much left. Eighth of a bottle tops.
After the gin is gone, I’ll drink the vodka. That’s
how it always is.
So what?
Ain’t gonna happen. I’m not going to abandon the only
person left in the world who cares about me. So just shut
up, you jackass.

And with that, the argument was over. Arrowroot knew all along
his non-drinking self would win, but he was surprised how quickly
victory had come.

As he stepped back down from the Town Hall portico, he mapped out
his simple plan: approach anyone who seemed to have any awareness
about anything and ask if they’d seen a bride.

His first target was a group of a dozen women, ages ranging from
mid 20’s to 85 or so, standing about 50 feet from City Hall and
looking up at it while one of them pointed: the Heligaux Free
Association Literary Creation Society. There was a good chance they
saw the bride, Arrowroot knew, but the information was going to have
to be extracted in accordance with a strict protocol.

Beatrice Nobles was addressing the group as the rest scribbled in
notebooks and legal pads. She glanced briefly at Arrowroot as he
neared, and began a new sentence. “Ask any dog or orphan in Heligaux
to name the most haunted building in town, and they’ll all tell you:
City Hall,” Mrs. Nobles said, waving her arm as if introducing the
building. “Indeed, at this very moment, as our heroine approaches that
storied edifice to learn who had taken her father’s home before he was
murdered – who should appear but the ghost of the deceased Mayor
Arrowroot! Your turn, Gertrude.”

Gertie Tremain, the oldest of the Society’s members, irredeemably
hunched and walking with a cane, tottered to the front of the group
and regarded Arrowroot with one baleful eye. Arrowroot stared back,
doing his best to look ghostly.

“The Mayor’s ethereal form –“ Mrs. Tremain began.
“Speak up, Gertie.”
“The Mayor’s ethereal form,” Tremain said more forcefully, “faded

in and out with the morning mist. He looked as if he had just come
from, uh, from, from the jungle, and appropriately so. Miss
Peachwright recalled that he had died on an African safari, hunting
the rare— hunting the rare, ehhh, vampire hippopotamus!”

The women twittered approvingly as they took down this latest
detail. Another woman, one of the group’s youngest members, stepped in
front. Arrowroot sensed she was from Traxie – something about her
frilly dress, her round nose or the way she looked at him tentatively.
What was a girl from Traxie doing with these bluebloods and college
graduates? Had she married up? There was no ring on her finger.
Someone’s adopted daughter? No, Traxie was in everything about her:
her stoutness, the way she moved her eyes, the slope of her shoulders,
the way she held her pen, as if it were a knife and she was carving
letters into the paper. The Heligaux Free Association Literary
Creation Society would accept anyone, of course, but most folks from
Traxie wouldn’t bother.

Arrowroot saw himself briefly, fishing newspapers out of the
trash behind the tavern, and he admired her courage.
“Mayor Arrowroot,” the woman began in a low Southern drawl, and
she coughed, drew in her breath and began again. “Mayor Arrowroot, I
need to know who took my Papa’s house.”
“I don’t know, but I know who might know,” he replied in a slow,
monotonous tone, and he tried not to smile as an impromptu plan came
together in his mind.
Suddenly, from just over his shoulder, a voice boomed, “Clear a
path for the Lord, sinners! The Kingdom of God is at hand! Clear a
path.”
Arrowroot glanced over at Prophet Banjo, frowned and continued
speaking. “God sent a warrior angel to the Chief of Police today, to
make him change his evil ways. A naked warrior angel. Go find Chief
Hatfield, he’s in the police station, and ask him about the angel and
see if he’ll reveal anything to you.” Arrowroot paused. “Oh, and make
sure to mention she was naked.”
“Deliverers of the wrath of God! That’s what angels are,” Banjo
shouted, to no one in particular, and he shook a sign that read “Jesus
or Hell” in black capital letters at the top. At the bottom of the
sign, “free hugz” had been scrawled in small red letters.
The Traxie woman’s turn was up, but she wasn’t ready to yield.
She looked at Prophet Banjo and asked in a voice meant to be heard,
“Ghost of Mayor Arrowroot, could you please get that hollerin’ Jesus
man to crank shut his taco trap?”
The young lady stepped back into the midst of the group, still
scowling at Banjo, but Arrowroot saw pride in her eyes when Beatrice
Nobles squeezed her shoulder.
“She just got herself a happiness,” Arrowroot thought to himself,
noticing that he hadn’t even met that the drug-crazed wedding girl and
she had already infected his mind.
“Repent, sinners, repent!” screamed Banjo, not seeming to take
any offense. He’d heard far worse, Arrowroot knew.
Arrowroot drew himself up to his full height and spoke in ghostly
tones. “I will silence the Jesus man, but I need something first,” he
said. “I’m looking for a woman who is getting married today. She is
believed to have crossed the Promenade this morning.”
“I’ve seen her, Spirit of Arrowroot,” said Ethel Cowben, a sturdy
70-year-old. “She was having lunch at Philmont’s and asking people for
help. Looking for a minister, I believe.”
Arrowroot bowed in gratitude. Under Mrs. Nobles’ direction, the
group had written a mystery or adventure novel almost every year for a
decade. After writing up stories based heavily on what they
encountered on excursions around town, they’d have them copied and
spiral bound, then sell them at church bazaars to raise money for one
or another local cause. Arrowroot appeared in most of them, usually in
his role as mayor, and he always paid extra for autographed copies.
Mindful of his side of the bargain with the ladies, Arrowroot
turned to Prophet Banjo as the Literary Society headed for the police
station.
“Banjo, can you do a wedding?” Arrowroot asked him, speaking
quickly to preempt another revelatory outburst.
Arrowroot watched Banjo’s eyes as his proposal worked its way
through the other man’s brain. Getting people to change their
conception of what they should be doing was key to selling commercial
real estate, Arrowroot had learned, and the process always fascinated
him.
For Banjo, adjusting to the new idea of conducting a wedding
seemed to take an inordinate amount of time, and required not just a
lot of blinking and staring but a fair amount of swallowing as well.
Arrowroot imagined the mental gears and levers of Banjo’s brain as
they were diverted from the well-worn path of street preaching to
thoughts of holy matrimony. The Literary Society would be long gone
before Banjo would prophesy again.
Prophet Banjo had been born 35 years before to comfortable
parents in High Heligaux. His given name was Todd but he’d declared
himself to be a prophet about a decade ago. According to some, his
mind had never worked quite like other peoples’, but Arrowroot
suspected an overconsumption of something along the lines of meth or
heroin. Was preaching a happiness to Banjo, Arrowroot wondered, or was
it one of those things people do joylessly, addictively, to fill in
the empty spaces of existence? Like watching TV or hating other
people? Or drinking?
Nevertheless, Arrowroot believed in Prophet Banjo, that he was
truly touched by God. A lot of people had no use for him, and he’d
been taken to court several times for making too much noise on the
Promenade, but what prophet ever achieved universal admiration in his
lifetime, or in his hometown?
Banjo spoke God’s truth most of the time and held a minister’s
license, so Arrowroot considered him as good a choice as any to do a
wedding. And Arrowroot knew that if he could help the hippie girl and
her boyfriend tie the knot, they’d owe him a little information. Soon
enough, he’d be learning what she knew, if she could sober up for her
nuptials, anyways. And even if they’d seen horrible things in the
forbidden zone at Fort Shergawa, at least he’d have his answer.
“I can do it,” Banjo said, with one more blink and a hard
swallow, and the two of them headed over to Philmont’s BBQ, Arrowroot
dressed for a safari and Prophet Banjo in jeans, sandals, t-shirt and
a blue and white-striped bathrobe.
As often happened in the afternoon, the air was shifting to the
south through the valley and had begun gusting. A blast of air caught
the prophet’s sign and sent it slapping against his head.
Startled, Banjo screamed the first thing that came to him: “The
mouth of God shall breathe justice against the evildoer! None shall be
spared!”
Arrowroot put his hand on the man’s shoulder and conjured a
question to calm him down. “Prophet Banjo, can you answer a spiritual
question about cats?”
“The Lord has granted me wisdom,” Banjo replied, scratching his
beard. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess, and he was looking
older than his years, Arrowroot noted. Winter hadn’t been kind to
either of them.
“Okay, why did God give cats and dogs different personalities?”
Arrowroot inquired. “You know? I mean, dogs are what you’d expect,
just as friendly and affectionate, you know, and supportive as a
creature of that intelligence could be. They are truly our servants.
And cats were also put here to serve mankind, correct?”
“Yes,” Banjo said, “All animals were put here to serve man. So
sayeth the Lord.”
“So why would God make cats so blasted independent?” Arrowroot
demanded. “You call a cat, they couldn’t care less. They just look at
you like, ‘Hey, you ain’t food and you ain’t a mouse so get the hell
out of my whiskers.’”
For a moment, they strode on in silence, then Banjo spoke.
“Humility,” he said. “God useth cats to remind us to be humble, to
make sure we know we’re not – we’re not worthy to unloose the sandals
of the Blessed One.”
Arrowroot laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t know. In my particular
case, my life is pretty well-stocked with reminders I ain’t all that.
And, uh, what if someone only owns dogs, on account of they need ‘em
for hunting or some such, or their local pet store only keeps on hand,
say, dogs and goldfish? And down the road, someone else occupies a
small dwelling place where cats are a better choice? Should we assume
the small house person is in greater need of humility than the dogonly fella?”
“Yes,” replied Prophet Banjo, staring up at his sign as he walked
to make sure it wouldn’t whack him again. Arrowroot looked up too and
saw that on the side’s other side was written “Beech Boys Endless
Summer 1974” and, in very small letters at the bottom, “Brian Wilson,
musical.”
The two were nearing Philmont’s and the crowds were thicker here.
A toddler wandered into their path. Arrowroot took Banjo’s arm and
turned to address him.
“Now, Banjo, I’m not convinced you think that’s the answer,”
Arrowroot replied. “In that case, if God was assigning pets to people
on the basis of personal deficiency, most of us would have, you know,
a good number of creatures to attend us. I myself would probably have
a zoo’s worth.”
“Make way a path for the Lord!” Banjo shouted to a throng of
young people milling about before the entrance to Philmont’s. Then, at
almost the same volume, Banjo admonished Arrowroot. “Oh ye of little
faith. Be still and know I am God.”
The youth parted, snickering at Banjo, his sign and his bathrobe,
and the two men approached the door of Philmont’s, one of five
businesses in a long, two-story brick structure that had housed many
enterprises since it was built around 1885.
Arrowroot, knowing they might be about to come face to face with
a drug-addled, very strong and potentially violent young lady,
suddenly felt a churning in his stomach. It hadn’t occurred to him
until just now that something very unpleasant might be about to
happen. What if his questions about the forbidden zone sent her into a
rage? Sometimes, when natural people are asked about something
unpleasant they don’t want to talk about, it can produce a frenzy. Or
what if she or her boyfriend were armed? What if they were in cahoots
with kidnappers? Once word got back to their co-conspirators that
someone was asking awkward questions, he’d be marked for death.
Was this really worth the trouble? Arrowroot asked himself. He
could be about to die, or he could turn around, go home and finish off
that bottle of gin.
I’m staying, he quickly replied to himself.
But he stopped under Philmont’s awning and retrieved his phone.
“Let me check something, Banjo,” Arrowroot said. It was his habit
before meetings to look for updates on his phone. There were no voice
messages, and no one had called, but he’d received a series of texts,
which had come in over the preceding 30 minutes and read as follows:

“You ruined everything last night”
“Oh, and you also ruined my life”
“Why don’t you answer? Still sleeping it off?”
“You’re a fucking drunk”
“Wake up and answer me”
“Oh yeah, and you killed her, didn’t you???”
“I HATE YOU!!!!!!!”

Arrowroot’s put his arm against the wooden column that framed
Philmont’s door and buried his face in the crook of his elbow.
“Banjo, go on,” he said hoarsely. “See if you can find someone in
a wedding dress, tell her you’re the preacher man. I need to take care
of something, but I’ll be right with you.”
“It shall be done,” Banjo said with a shaky voice, and he put his
sign under his arm and walked into the restaurant.
Arrowroot looked up briefly, noticing through his pain that Banjo
was nervous too. Surely this wasn’t his first wedding? Should he have
warned Banjo about the girl’s peculiar disposition? What if she took
his sign and started bopping him with it? Arrowroot tried to peer into
Philmont’s plate glass window, but the glare of a brilliant afternoon
reduced what was going on within the eatery to a series of vague,
shifting shadows.
Arrowroot sighed, put his face back into his arm and experienced
an epiphany. Until he’d read the texts, he’d actually been happy,
truly happy for the first time since November. Or maybe since before
November. Since August. That’s when his life started coming apart,
piece by piece, like the wheels of a train, piece by piece until he
was waking up most mornings in alcoholic agony.
Yes, he’d been happy this morning. Breakfast with Floyd. Lunch
and questions at the Fort Shergawa gate. Helping the literary ladies
with their book. Even talking to Prophet Banjo. And having something
to do – tracking down a crazed bride, regardless what she would
ultimately be able to tell him. Every one of these was a happiness. If
he ever found her, and she asked him about his happinesses that day,
he had his answer ready. “Yes, I’ve had at least a half-dozen,” he
would say. “Thank you for asking.”
Arrowroot began fumbling with the keys of his phone, composing
the following message:
“I’m sorry,” he wrote. He sent it and immediately began typing
another message: “I woke up early. I’m on the Promenade. Looking for
someone who might have information” He drew in his breath and resumed.
“I was drunk last night. I’m an alcoholic and I need help.”
He lifted his glasses, wiped his eyes and typed anew. For
something that would have been impossible yesterday, this was
surprisingly easy. With his shoulder pressed against the cold brick
beside the arched doorway of Philmont’s BBQ, he was halfway into his
next message when a voice brought him back to the present.
“Not there,” Banjo said.
Arrowroot blinked and put his phone away. “Did they say where she
went?”
“To the pier. Was gonna look for someone to do the ceremony
there.”
“Okay, you still up for this?” Arrowroot asked.
“It’s God’s will.”
“Then let’s go.”
The youth that had clogged the entrance to Philmont’s were gone,
but Prophet Banjo nevertheless hoisted his sign above his head and
announced, to no one in particular, “We’re doing God’s work. Make
way!” and the pair marched off to the pier, a 50-foot extension of the
Promenade that jutted out over the Mittelkopp not far from the Eden
Hotel. People used to cast lines from it, but over Mayor Arrowroot’s
strong objections, City Council had outlawed fishing there a few years
back. The natural results of fishing, blood and guts and such, were
offensive to some of the pier’s more genteel visitors. And there had
been a few hooking incidents: hand, ear, a child’s nose.
An unfortunate conflict of happinesses that could have been
resolved some other way, Arrowroot thought to himself.
The pier was crowded, and Arrowroot noticed many of the same
youth who had been thronging Philmont’s earlier. These were the wild
sort, tattoos and slivers of metal shoved through eyebrows and tongues
and God only knew where else. Some were from High Heligaux, some from
Traxie, some from elsewhere, and no one seemed to care. They mostly
took up lodging in a few big apartment buildings on the edge of
Traxie, living three to a bedroom while they went to school, worked
menial jobs or did nothing recognizable as a productive endeavor.
There were black kids, white kids, Asian kids, and more and more kids
whose race was impossible to discern, a little of this and a little of
that. There was probably an illegal or two in the mix as well, usually
Mexican, slipping under the radar until they needed healthcare or
education or something else from the taxpayer. Arrowroot wanted them
all gone, by force if necessary, but Chief Hatfield said he had better
things to do. And of course the other kids, the legal ones, were of no
help. They didn’t care about the law or God or morality or anything
else respectable. They had sex with the same nonchalance they believed
in the sacred, willy-nilly on both accounts. It was all about
happiness. Theirs and, so they said, everyone else’s too.
Pay attention to them, he thought ruefully, or you’ll lose track
of where the world’s headed.
Arrowroot heard laughter, cheers and suddenly a young woman near
the end of the pier seemed to be ascending, her head, shoulders and
torso rising slowly above the crowd.
“Like the rapture,” Banjo whispered reverently. The young woman
dropped abruptly, long dark hair flying, then rose again, and
Arrowroot saw that the engine of her levitation was merely mortal, two
youths raising her by her legs. As she ascended she looked at the
people around her, at the Promenade and beyond, as if she were a
tourist and this was an entirely ordinary form of sightseeing.
The floating woman was wearing black shorts and a t-shirt with a
picture of a black tie ensemble screen-printed upon it. Vest,
cummerbund, bowtie and a ruffled white shirt all had been cast in ink
over the simple garment. Odd, Arrowroot thought. Odd.
“This a wedding?” Arrowroot asked a dark-skinned woman in a
flowered sun dress.
“If they can find a preacher!” she replied breathlessly. “Are you
one?”
“Where’s the bride?”
“Stevie!” she screamed. “Stevie! Got a priesty-man for you!”
The eyes of about 30 young people turned simultaneously toward
Arrowroot and Prophet Banjo.
Arrowroot scoured the crowd, desperately searching for a muscular
girl in a white sheath dress.
The woman in the black-tie t-shirt was at the apex of another
hoist when she tapped the heads of her two carriers and pointed to
Arrowroot.
With due solemnity, they carried her over to the two men, and she
gazed down at them and spoke.
“So, you’ll be the wedding men?” she asked serenely.
“My friend here will be,” replied Arrowroot. “This is Prophet
Banjo. He’s a man of God. And I didn’t catch your name?”
“Stevie,” she answered, looking at Banjo with polite surprise.
“Stevie Faithe.”
“And where’s the bride?” Arrowroot asked.
“I’m the bride,” she said. “We’re both brides. We’re two women.”
Banjo and Arrowroot stared, and someone in the crowd snickered.
This clearly wasn’t the woman he was looking for. She was dark-haired,
slim but not exactly muscular, and her legs had been shaved at some
point in the last day or two. Nor was there anything the least bit
strange about her, other than her willingness to participate in the
upcoming abomination on the pier.
Here’s your damned happiness, Wedding Girl, Arrowroot thought.
Girls marrying girls. Boys marrying boys. People marrying animals soon
enough.
But Arrowroot wasn’t ready to let a complete breakdown of social
and moral order deter him from his quest. Or maybe something had
changed. He felt something stirring, half-thoughts bumbling about in
his mind that he could not understand yet. Don’t let go of it, he told
himself. Don’t let go.
“Well, then, where’s the other bride?” he asked.
“Lift me to the top floor,” she said, tapping her carrier’s
heads. They raised her feet up almost to their shoulders and she stood
like a cheerleader and scanned the Promenade. “Last I saw her, she was
putting on makeup in that barbecue place,” she said. “She’s been at
that shit for close to an hour.”
“Want me to go get her?” someone volunteered.
“There she is!” Stevie announced, waving. “Cindy! Cindy! Hurry
up!”
“I’m here, God,” said a young lady in a white tank top and short
white skirt, pushing through the crowd to a place between Stevie and
Banjo. “Oh my God, you know?”
Stevie gestured to the two youth holding her, they angled her
down and she kissed her bride.
Arrowroot studied the girl. She was no more what he’d expected
then the first bride.
“Hello there, young lady,” Arrowroot said. “You don’t ever go by
the name Tamani, do you?”
“God no,” she giggled.
“And, uh, you weren’t over to Fort Shergawa today?”
“Not in this body,” she said, and she raised her arms and flexed
her biceps.
“Nor you neither?” he asked Stevie.
“Nope.”
Arrowroot, desperate to believe there was hope, turned to Banjo
and was disappointed to see that the man had withdrawn. He was staring
blankly and humming something that sounded a little like “Onward
Christian Soldiers.” The prophet had done the same thing in court
once, a sort of hiatus in his neuronic operations brought on, it
seemed, by the stress of the proceedings.
“Where do you want us to stand?” Stevie asked Banjo.
Banjo just stood, blinking and swallowing. “Follow me,” Arrowroot
said, and he led Banjo, the two brides and the rest of the flock to
the end of the pier. With a backdrop of green mountains and a wide,
rock-strewn bend in the river, it was the most popular place in all of
Heligaux for outdoor weddings.
Several years back, someone had affixed a white cross to the
railing here, its topmost point 15 feet above the deck. Since then,
others had gotten into the act, using nails, glue, rope and gum to
affix the symbols of their faiths – and no faith – to the cross.
Today, a Star of David, a pentagram, a toy broom and a Menorah hung
from the arms of the cross, twirling in the gusting wind. Affixed to
the wood were a crescent meant to represent Islam, several moons and
suns, the two extra cross pieces of Orthodoxy, a Darwin fish, the
flaming chalice of the UUs, and many less-recognizable symbols,
including the plastic faces of a dinosaur, gorilla and Barbie doll
secured with chewing gum. It was probably all blasphemy, Arrowroot
believed, but what could you do? Everybody’s got to get into the act
these days, no matter how wrong they were. It was Satan, all Satan,
some said, doing his worst as Judgment Day neared, but Arrowroot
wasn’t sure. Something was changing, he knew, but beyond that, he had
no idea.
Arrowroot guided Banjo to a place directly in front of the cross
and motioned to the couple. “Now, you’ll be here, facing each other,”
he said, and the pair took their spots before Banjo.
Banjo, newly awakened, lifted his sign, turning the side that
read “Jesus or Hell” and “Free hugz” toward the assembled witnesses.
“Go ahead, Prophet Banjo, make these two, wife and, uh, married,”
Arrowroot said.
The holy man just stared for a long moment, and then he finally
choked out, “Make way the path of the Lord!”
Scattered applause followed. He rarely received encouragement for
his message, and his next words emerged with a great deal more
confidence. “The Lord is coming! Idolators! Idolators and fornicators,
may ye be cast into the fire!”
The applause subsided a bit and then ended altogether as Banjo
began a standard street sermon.
“The blood shall run high as the horse’s necks!” he screamed.
“Sinners! Sinners all! May ye see the truth of God’s love or burn in
eternal hell!“
“Hello?” interrupted Cindy, reaching up to knock on Banjo’s sign
as if it were a door. “Is anyone there? Hello?”
Arrowroot had feared something like this was going to happen and
stepped in, putting his hand on Banjo’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Brother Banjo, for that beautiful introduction,” he
said. “I’ll take it from here.”
Stevie looked up. “Uh, does this count? I mean, is it legal?”
“That’s a question above my pay grade,” Arrowroot said, “on
account of your genders. I have no idea what’s legal anymore. But I’m
the Mayor, so I’m the next best thing to a man of God.”
Arrowroot took his place before the couple, to more scattered
applause, while Banjo stepped to the right and turned his sign to the
side that said “Endless Summer.”
“Normally, I hold a Bible during these proceedings,” Arrowroot
said. “Does anyone have . . ?” His voice trailed off as he gazed about
the throng of enthusiastic, most likely godless young people.
“Here,” a blue-haired girl with a nose ring said furtively,
handing him a collage assembled on a sheet of construction paper.
There were pictures of saints, flowers, guns, and words cut from
various magazines: “Just love the fucking people, will ya?”
Arrowroot glanced at it, drew in his breath in dismay and was
about to hand it back when she smiled at him and confided, “I made it.
It’s sacred artwork. To me.”
“Alright,” Arrowroot said, once again yielding his faith to other
concerns – politeness, in this instance. “Thank you.”
With the preliminaries taken care of, Cindy lifted her hand up to
Stevie’s, made a fist and they bumped knuckles. She vanished into the
crowd, there was some commotion among a knot of people there, and then
she reappeared, marching slowly to as two friends held up the back of
her skirt. There wasn’t much skirt to speak of, and Arrowroot wondered
what the people behind her were seeing.
He’d performed about a dozen weddings during his time as mayor,
and what he didn’t remember he fumbled through. The main thing was
getting the couple’s names right, making sure they loved each other,
and announcing the union, holy or otherwise.
Stevie and Cindy had memorized their own vows, so once Arrowroot
got the formalities out of the way, they promised things like “I’ll
help take care of Num-Num” (an animal of some species, Arrowroot
surmised) and “I’ll tell you your backrub feels good even if it
doesn’t” and “I’ll try not to get headaches at the wrong time.”
Trivial stuff, Arrowroot thought, trivial. And if this marriage was to
last, it would be mostly made of such happinesses.
By the time the couple had kissed and he’d signed a batch of
papers of questionable authority, Arrowroot knew neither was the girl
he sought. Nothing matched up, either with what Hatfield had told him
or what he’d heard on the scanner that morning. They were both too
normal, clearly both products of the Heligaux public school system,
not from New Hampshire or anywhere else foreign. While he’d been
stumbling through a wedding, the bride he’d been looking for had
continued on her way. She could be anywhere by now.