Walter Mosley - Parishioner

“Ecks,” Frank said at last.

Xavier raised his head and teetered in the chair.

“Tell me what happened,” the minister said. “All of it.”

By the time the declaration was over Xavier was sitting up again. He neither shivered nor cried. But he felt empty, directionless.

“The sun is up” were the first words Frank uttered after Xavier’s story. “Let’s take a walk down to the beach.”

The path from the church down to the seashore was a gentle sloping trail through succulent plants and hardy grasses. There were small blue and white flowers here and there and huge white boulders that made Xavier think of superior beings so advanced that they could afford to ignore us, finally outlasting the passage of man.

“You brought your friend back to his home and told him to follow his own mind,” Frank said as they walked north on the hard-packed sand.

“Yes.”

“You only protected yourself from men who would have certainly murdered you and him.”

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“That’s the only way, Brother Rule. The only way. You’ve taken up this cause for a good reason. You weren’t looking for trouble, not really.”

“Sedra is dead because I kicked the hornets’ nest.”

“She’s dead because she lived a life dealing in slaves, suffering, and murder.”

“But if I hadn’t gone there …”

“Somebody else would have gone. Benol was dead set on this course.”

“Do you believe Benol?”

“I believe that she abducted three babies. I believe that she will lead you to those lives that were stolen.”

“But is she an innocent or at least a penitent?”

“I don’t know,” Father Frank admitted.

“Then why send anyone to follow her lead?”

“Have I ever told you what I think men are, Ecks?”

A seagull cried, and Xavier’s heart quailed one of the few times when life was not on the line.

“No, sir,” he said.

“Earth,” the minister intoned, “is a multitiered plane of existence. For the animals and plants it is, for the most part, an Eden of extraordinary beauty and wonder. For these beings life is one continuous story with no beginning or end.

“But for humanity this life is hell. We were once, I believe, angels existing in some higher dimension. We faltered in our duties or our faith and were thrown down here among others like us to experience the anarchy that a failure of duty causes. We don’t remember where we’re from or what we did to bring us here, but here we are-up to our necks in blood and shit, torture and death.

“We cannot escape the reality foisted upon us by whatever powers there are … maybe something without sentience-like fate. Maybe our consciousness is just some ephemeral biotic that we must experience before returning to the unconscious unity that once embraced us-I don’t know. What I do know is that we must act. We have to work for what we think is good. We will stumble and fall and take many wrong turns on this journey. But we have to keep on getting back up and searching for our bearings. We must try to do right in a world where everything is wrong.”

They walked for two hours after that. Xavier wanted to respond; he wanted to ask about the details of his minister’s complex faith. But the words remained unformed-inarticulate.

When they finally climbed back up to the rectory the small table was set out with two bowls of steaming porridge and cups filled with hot coffee for Xavier and black tea for Frank.

“So you’re telling me that anything a man does is forgiven if he does it trying to do what’s right,” Xavier said when they sat down to the repast.

“I’m saying that we are unforgivable but still we have to press on.”

He ordered waffles and crisp bacon at a seaside hotel restaurant where Pico Boulevard meets the ocean. He liked the coffee there and also watching passersby through the windows who were drawn to the shore.

For nearly an hour he went over the minister’s private sermon, wondering whether it was all a Bible story or if Frank actually believed that humanity was the definition and the real manifestation of hell. This question seemed very important to him, more so than the dead and dying left in his wake.

“More coffee?” a young woman asked.

She looked to be in her twenties if you didn’t notice the thin lines around her eyes. Her hair was natural blond with dyed blue highlights and her skin was pale copper.

“What’s your name?” Xavier asked.

“Benicia.”

“From Brazil?”

“Rio.” She smiled for him.

“Coffee’d be nice, Benicia.”

The notepaper in the money clip had Sedra’s address scrawled across it. There was no signature or printing on the small sheet, but when holding it up to the sunlight Xavier could see the watermark: The Federal Hotel .

“Have you been to my country?” Benicia asked as she poured his coffee from a white ceramic thermos.

“Yeah.” He smiled. “Friend of mine had a place down on the water outside Bahia.”

When her eyes widened Xavier could see the woman’s irises were green and gold.

“It is so beautiful there,” she said.

“And real,” he agreed.

Three days after he left Bahia his friend down there had been killed. Word was that it was the police. They had come to the seaside condo looking for Rule.

“Too bad I don’t speak Portuguese,” he added. “I think you can’t really get to know a Brazilian woman without speaking her tongue.”

The copper of Benicia’s skin deepened and she hurried away.

“Federal Hotel,” the proper man’s voice on the phone said. “How can I direct your call?”

“Concierge, please.”

“Concierge, yes, sir.”

The phone rang once and another courteous man’s voice said, “Federal Hotel. How can I help you?”

Benicia put Xavier’s bill down in front of him while at the same time removing his silverware and empty plate.

“This is Mr. Gonzalez from Fleet Florist,” Xavier Rule said. “We’re supposed to deliver a bouquet of sweetheart roses to a Ms. Doris Milne.”

“Yes?”

“It’s what we like to call a time-sensitive anniversary. She and the man who is sending the roses, Lawrence O’Kate, met at three forty-six a year ago. He wants them delivered at exactly that time. Can you do that?”

“Let me see,” the practiced voice said. “Milne … Yes. Of course we can. When will you be delivering the flowers?”

“Just after noon. But please don’t tell her. Mr. O’Kate wants it to be a surprise.”

“It’ll be our pleasure.”

The inflated bill had the waitress’s name and phone number written across the bottom. Benicia Torres.

Xavier’s disquiet receded between the private talk with Frank, the beautiful Brazilian, and having a purpose. He bought thirty small roses and wrote a note on the card. After that he went home and donned a dark blue coverall jumpsuit with the name Fleet Florist embroidered over the left-side pocket in yellow thread. It was one of the many tools he’d collected from garage sales in preparation for unexpected eventualities. He delivered the bouquet at one twenty-nine, went to his Edsel, and took off the overalls to reveal a yellow suit and olive shirt, and then went over to MacArthur Park, where he sat watching young (and not so young) lovers, brash teenagers, and retirees taking it all in like breaths of fresh air through an oxygen mask.

“Ecks?” Winter said answering his phone.

“How you doin’, kid?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“It’ll come. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“That’ll come too, Win. There’s no rush.”

“They say on the news that the guy with the crowbar in his chest is expected to live.”