James Morrow - Towing Jehovah

“Farewell, sailor,” I said, thinking how good it would feel to get back inside and savor a mug of Follingsbee’s jamoke.

“ ‘Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory,’ ” Ockham intoned as Dad dropped from view, legs first, then torso, head, and hair. “ ‘O death, where is thy sting?’ ” said the priest, and I found myself wondering whether the Maracaibo’s main pantry held any doughnuts. “ ‘O grave, where is thy victory?’ ”

And, in fact, it did.

Jelly, glazed, and sugar.

Cupping his gloves around the railing, Neil Weisinger joined the solemn little march down the gangway. Gingerly he crossed the slippery pier, one cautious step at a time. By 1715 the whole company stood on the ice, officers and crew alike, shuffling about in the harsh light, puffs of breath streaming from their mouths like dialogue balloons.

When Neil saw how the angels had prepared the crypt, a chill of recognition shot through him; he thought immediately of the Labor Day barbecue he’d attended two years earlier at the home of his neighbor, Dwight Gorka, a joyless celebration that reached its nadir when Dwight’s cat, Pumpkin, was run over by a Federal Express truck. Responding instantly to his preschool daughter’s grief, Dwight had nailed together a plywood coffin, dug a hole in the stiff Teaneck earth, and laid the poor cat to rest. Before her father shoveled back the dirt, little Emily packed the grave with all the things Pumpkin would need during his journey to cat heaven — his water dish (filled), a can of Friskies Fancy Feast (opened), and, most importantly, his favorite toy, a plastic bottle cap he’d spent many mindless feline hours batting around the house.

The north wall of the crypt featured six immense niches, each sheltering a product God had evidently held in high regard. The forward searchlight struck the colossal carcass of a blue whale, a form at once ponderous and sleek. The amidships beacon swept across the soaring hulk of a sequoia tree, limned the wrinkled remains of an African bull elephant, glinted off a stuffed marlin, ignited a family of embalmed grizzly bears, and, finally, came to rest on a frozen hippopotamus (quite possibly descended, Neil mused, from the hippos his grandfather had helped transport from Africa to France). Directly ahead, a cabinet constructed entirely of ice rose nearly twenty feet. He extended his sleeve, wiping frost and condensation from the transparent doors. He peered inside. Every shelf was jammed with items from the divine portfolio, bottle after bottle. Monarch butterfly… chunk of jade… divot blooming with Kentucky bluegrass… orchid… praying mantis… Maine lobster… human brain… king cobra… cricket… sparrow… nugget of igneous rock.

Spontaneously, the Mourner’s Kaddish formed on Neil’s lips. “Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei raba bealma divera chireutei…” Let the glory of God be extolled, let His great name be hallowed, in the world whose creation He willed…

Drawing up beside Neil, Cassie Fowler jerked a thumb toward the trophy cabinet. “God’s greatest hits.”

“You’re not very religious, are you?”

“He may have been our Creator,” she said, “but He was also something of a malicious lunatic.”

“He may have been something of a malicious lunatic,” he said, “but He was also our Creator.”

The instant Neil spotted the altar — a long, low table of ice spread out beneath the blue whale — he was overwhelmed by a desire to use it. He was not alone in this wish. Somberly the officers and crew filed back up the gangway, returning twenty minutes later, tributes in hand. One by one, the deckies approached the altar, and soon it was piled high with oblations: a National steel guitar, a trainman’s watch on a gold chain, a Sony Walkman, a Texas Instruments calculator, a packet of top-of-the-line condoms (the pricey Shostak Supremes), a silver whiskey flask, a five-string banjo, a shaving mug imprinted with a Currier and Ives skating scene, three bottles of Moosehead beer, a belt buckle bearing the sculpted likeness of a clipper ship.

A disturbing truth fell upon Neil as he observed James Echohawk offer up his 35mm Nikon. Years from now, enacting his love for the God of the four A.M. watch, Neil might actually start feeling good about himself. In buying Big Joe Spicer’s sister a dress for her senior prom or funding a hip operation for Leo Zook’s father, he might very well find inner peace. And the instant this happened, the minute he experienced satisfaction, he’d know he wasn’t doing enough.

Anthony Van Horne came forward and, with a shudder of reluctance, laid down a Bowditch sextant replica that must have been worth five hundred dollars. Sam Follingsbee surrendered a varnished walnut case filled with stainless-steel Ginsu knives. Father Thomas arrived next, sacrificing a jeweled chalice and a silver ciborium, followed by Sister Miriam, who lifted a golden-beaded rosary from her parka and rested it on the stack. Marbles Rafferty added a pair of high-powered Minolta binoculars, Crock O’Connor a matched set of Sears Craftsman socket wrenches, Lianne Bliss her crystal pendant.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Cassie Fowler.

Reaching into his wool leggings, Neil drew out his gift. “Veimeru: amein,” he muttered. And let us say: Amen. “Yeah, Miss Fowler?”

“You’re right — whatever else, we still owe Him. I wish I had an offering. I came aboard with nothing but an Elvis cup and a Betty Boop towel.”

Neil placed his grandfather’s Ben-Gurion medal on the altar and said, “Why not give Him your gratitude?”

In God’s private tomb, Cassie Fowler soon learned, time did not exist. No tides foretold the dusk; no stars announced the night; no birds declared the break of day. Only by glancing at the bridge clock did she know it was noon, eighteen hours after she’d watched Neil Weisinger offer up his bronze medal.

Stepping out of the wheelhouse, melding with the small, sad party on the starboard wing, Cassie was chagrined to realize that everyone else wore more respectful clothing than she. Anthony looked magnificent in his dress whites. Father Thomas had put on a red silk vestment fitted over a black claw-hammer coat. Cardinal Di Luca sported a luxurious fur stole wrapped around a brilliant purple alb. In her shabby orange parka (courtesy of Lianne), ratty green mittens (donated by An-mei Jong), and scruffy leather riding boots (from James Echohawk), Cassie felt downright irreverent. She didn’t mind snubbing their cargo — this was, after all, the God of Western Patriarchy — but she did mind feeding the clich й that rationalists have no sense of the sacred.

Raising the PA microphone to his fissured lips, Father Thomas addressed the company below, half of them assembled on the weather deck, the rest milling around on the pier. “Welcome, friends, and peace be with you.” The cavernous crypt replayed his words, be with you, with you, with you. “Now that our Creator has departed, let it be known that we commend Him to Himself and commit His body to its final resting place — ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”

Anthony took up the deckhouse walkie-talkie, pressed SEND, and solemnly contacted the pump room. “Mr. Horrocks, the hoses…”

With the same spectacular efficiency it had displayed during the Battle of Midway, the Maracaibo’s firefighting system swung into action. A dozen hoses rose along the afterdeck and spewed out gallon upon gallon of thick white foam. Every bubble, Cassie knew, was holy, Father Thomas and Monsignor Di Luca having spent the morning in a frenzy of consecration. The purified lather arced through the air and splashed against His left shoulder, freezing solid at the instant of anointment.