Russell Banks - Outer Banks

2.

He rapped on the door of his mother’s chamber and, without waiting for an answer, walked in. She quickly covered her breasts with a satin sheet; she had been brushing her soft, ebony-colored hair. Smiling easily, she said, — Egress, how nice to see you. Will you wait outside for a second, honey, while I dress?

He coughed, wiping his mouth with a lace cuff, smearing it with sputum and blood. — I want to talk with you about something important, Mother, he announced. He could hear the shouts and cries of the firemen and the volunteer bucket brigade in the distance as they doused the flames in the Bunkhouse.

— What’s all that sound and fury? asked Naomi Ruth.

Egress coughed again. — It’s coming from the Bunkhouse. I just wrecked the place and set it on fire. Vandalized it, sort of.

— Oh-h-h, Egress, not again! she said in a low voice, pulling him to her, pressing his cheek against her soft, white, plum-shaped breasts.

— I’m sorry, Mamma, he said.

— I know, dear, she replied.

3.

Feeling superficially refreshed, young Egress left his mother’s chamber. But the old heaviness swiftly returned.

— Good god! he exclaimed to himself. — Is there no outrage outrageous enough to lift these dead spirits of mine? Am I doomed, he soliloquized, to an existence of dull eeks and melancholic squeals with naught but long intervals of sodden thought between? Oh, daily, daily diminishes the possibility for suddenness; hourly shrinks the spontaneous! The hot squirts and jacks of ecstatic youth are in manhood mere dribbles, and what ere remains of that rough ecstasy now flatly lies upon the frozen turf before me. I can but prod and poke the memories as if they were the drained entrails of a goat! Would a future could be divined there as sharply as a past! He kicked the loam of his mother’s knot garden with a booted toe. — Shit! he decided. — Guess I’ll snort some coke and go to London and jam. This crap with the Green Man will blow over in a few days anyhow. It won’t amount to shit. Nothing ever does.

4.

He smoked hash and snorted some coke in the library and, rubbing a couple of drops of hash oil into each ear, went up to the east-facing parapet to watch the landscape darken before him while the sun set behind him. Pretending he was the sun setting was a favorite fantasy.

This time, however, just as he was getting off, he heard a ghost. — Eee-gress! the voice called. It was not an unpleasant voice. — Eee-gress! He looked all around him but could see no one. The guards were in the watchtowers. He was alone on the parapet. — Eee-gress!

Well, he’d had bad trips before and had learned the hard way to “go with it,” so he sat down well out of the bitterly snapping wind and said, — Okay, I’m listening. Go ahead. There was a pause; then he said, — I suppose this has to do with the green man. He’s been on my mind a lot today.

— Righto, said the ghost.

— Before we go on, said Egress, — do you mind telling me who you are?

— You can call me Bob or Jack, whichever you prefer. It doesn’t matter, because I’m only a messenger. We’ve never met before and I rather doubt if we’ll ever meet again.

— Okay, Bob or Jack, shoot, Egress said.

5.

After Bob or Jack had given Egress the message, which, he told him, was a “plan” from a “source” whose identity he “could not reveal,” Egress went down from the parapet, caught a car for the airport, and flew to London, where it was morning. The sun shone and birds sang. For the first time in months, young Egress was elated.

Inside the cab from the airport, he snorted more coke and went straight to where his friends lived, in an elegant, brick townhouse near Grosvenor Square. They were all members of a world-famous rock band from California called The Sons of the Pioneers. In the last few years their most popular songs had been written by Egress.

— Hey, man! they all cried when they saw him. — What’s happening? they sang.

— Hey, man! he answered.

— Far out! they exclaimed. Then they all sat down on the floor in the middle of the classically proportioned drawing room designed by Sir Christopher Wren and snorted some coke together.

— Good dope, they agreed.

6.

Egress showed them the lyrics to the song that he wanted The Sons to record and release as a single as soon as possible. He told them it was part of a “plan” he had. Then he hummed the melody. — What do you think? he asked.

— Far out, said Mick. He was the spokesman for the group. The others nodded enthusiastic approval.

Together, they went upstairs to the recording studio and prepared their instruments. Egress stood in a corner and coughed on his sleeve, which by now was covered with a thick crust of dried phlegm and blood.

— Hey, man, you gotta do somethin’ about that cough, Mick called to him.

— I guess so, Egress said. — Anybody got a clean shirt I can borrow? he yelled. Then he laughed long and loud, which made The Sons of the Pioneers very nervous.

7.

BALLAD OF THE GREEN MAN

(to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”)

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage

where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loos’d the fateful lightning

of His terrible swift sword,

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watchfires

of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar

in the ev’ning dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence

by the dim and flaring lamps,

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel

writ in burnish’d rows of steel;

‘As ye deal with my contemners,

so with you My grace shall deal’;

Let the Hero, born of woman,

crush the serpent with his heel,

since God is marching on.

Chorus:

Glory, glory Hallelujah!

Glory, glory Hallelujah!

Glory, glory Hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

8.

The group sang and performed the song well, but the experience left them shaken, Egress included. It was an aggressively antisocial song, and they knew it.

One by one, they put down their instruments and drifted down the stairs and left the house. As Egress went out the door to the crowded street, he called back to Mick, — Be sure the record gets distributed worldwide by nightfall. I’ll take care of any extra expenses.

— Righto, man! Mick replied. Then, to the drummer, Hadley, — Oh, wow, man, that cat is into some heavy shit. Can you dig it? he said.

— Good dope? Hadley asked.

9.

Egress immediately caught a cab for the airport and flew home, where it was morning. As he entered the courtyard, he noticed ahead of him a group of Indians in breechcloths, moccasins, and war paint. They carried their Stone Age weapons. He could tell from their facial tattoos and scars that they were Abenakis, “Friendlies.”

— What’s up? Why the war paint? Egress asked one of the savages, a rotund man whom, because of his slightly arrogant manner, Egress took to be the leader. The others seemed slightly intimidated by the palace and all, which was natural, considering what the wretches were used to.

— We just got paid for cutting trees for the lumber barons, so we kind of decided to drift into town to spend all our money in a few hours of hysteria, the red man said. — Know of any bars that’ll serve Injuns? he asked.

— There’s always the Tam, Egress said. — They’ll serve anyone at the Tam.