Russ Franklin - Cosmic Hotel

“Can’t,” he said, searching each stranger’s face as they passed the smoking lounge.

“Are you looking for someone?”

“No one particular,” he said, “just the annoying interfaith chaplains.” He shrugged. He touched the valise. “Do you have any clothes I can borrow?” He eyed my carry-on.

“Not with me. Go to the hotel and I do.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to have to go kick the bishop soon.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just a euphemism. I wish I were having visions. You’re lucky, you know that, right?”

He held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger to smoke and think. “I’m slowly losing touch with the church, and I don’t think that’s exactly healthy, but I don’t want to stop what I’m doing with this.” He touched the valise. “You know, when I travel, it’s a good time to talk to God. You should try it.”

“I hope you aren’t talking to God out loud when you’re walking around airports.”

“Traveling alone, it’s a giant meditation with God. I can feel Him sometimes, like He’s right there with me. It can happen to you, you know.”

“Yeah, your life seems so sexy,” I said.

“You think life is a grand hotel?” he said. “Well, it’s not. It’s serving a higher purpose. I didn’t ask to do this service,” he tapped the valise, “but this was what He chose for me. I released myself to God. The other night in the Denver airport, I clearly heard a voice tell me, ‘Wash your hands.’ I did it literally, you know.”

He shook his head like I was a child who would never understand, and he crossed his arms on his chest.

I said, “Sometimes I just want my cousin back.”

“You got your cousin. You got your brother too. Where do you think I’ve gone?”

“You can’t talk like we used to.” I wanted the regular him back — back from before his big moment on the hiking trip in college when he felt God on the mountain and cried for a whole day.

He said, “I know you’re not a believer, but He’s here. Sometimes I go days without talking to anyone. I mean I’m right here among all the people, but I’m silent for days. To be silent among everyone is wonderful.”

His ordination ceremony in the cathedral that hot spring was three hours long. When I showed up, a Knights of Columbus in his commodore hat and sword seated me in the back until Aunt Lucy, Dubourg’s mother, saw me and moved me forward, a big, deep-voiced, strong woman whom I loved for finding me and bringing me to them when I was nine years old.

Aunt Lucy cried during the ceremony; lots of people cried like it was a wedding. I leaned forward and saw Ursula dry eyed with her brother Cecil and Aunt Myra and Uncle Ben.

In the airport smoking lounge with Dubourg, I pulled the copy of The Universe Is a Pair of Pants out of the satchel, and the pack of Marlboros, and gave it to him.

“His latest book,” I said.

He leaned away from the book as if to see it better before touching it. “Maybe that’s not what I need at this exact moment.”

“What do you mean? He can’t have fucked up your life that much. You’ve barely known him.”

“But all the science. Maybe I don’t need his rich thicket of reality at the moment.”

“Maybe you do,” I said.

He saw my puzzled face. He took the cigarettes but left me the book. “But thanks for the smokes.”

In the ordination ceremony, Dubourg had to lay facedown on the altar while a woman in the balcony sang out for the blessing of every saint upon him. I remember seeing the soles of his shoes up there on the altar, which were unscuffed and a symbol so blatant it was laughable. The ceiling’s mural depicted Christ showing his scarred hands to his disciples, and I noticed that the woman singing in the balcony was standing near the railing, and through the gap in the marble railing, I, the only one in the cathedral whose head wasn’t bowed, looked up into the shadow of her short skirt. I sat in the ceremony realizing that if all this were true, then I was going to hell, but I began to hear the wind chimes in my brain that proceed an erection, the exact sound, I realized, as the church’s Sanctus bells rang, those bells that signify a supernatural occurrence, and I thought about how happy Dubourg seemed when I went to see him in college, before he ever mentioned wanting to be a priest. He had boyfriends in college, and I have this image of him when he was joking around with a guy, grabbing him by the wrist to pull him out of a car. I can still see Dubourg’s hand around the other guy’s wrist, playfully pulling. I can still see him asleep on the train when we went to New York, boyfriend’s head on Dubourg’s shoulder, Dubourg watching out the window.

I was surely going to hell, but I wondered how Dubourg gave up the happiness of tugging his boyfriend by the wrist, the way they were laughing together, or giving up ever having someone to sleep with you, to protect you at night from the Creature listening through the wall. On the altar he repeated, “I vow poverty, chastity, and obedience to my superior in the Society of Jesus. .”

“Father Dunbar?” someone said in the lounge. “Is that you?”

“Yes? Oh, hello,” he said to the man.

The man had a suit on, a red tie he rearranged with a flick. “We would love to have you come worship with us today. Would you?” His nametag said:

Deacon Donald K. Cook

Airport Interfaith Services

(Baptist)

The man squinted his eyes, not used to being in the smoking lounge. He tried to smile at me and resisted the urge to fan the air in front of his face. “You too, my friend,” he said to me.

“Oh, right,” Dubourg said, rising. “May I have a minute?”

The man nodded, and we watched him walk out the door. Through the glass we could see him smiling at passersby.

“Are you in trouble?”

“No,” he said. “Interfaith people,” he rolled his eyes. “The hazard of spending too much time in airports is they start to recognize you.” He faked a smile to the man.

“Can I pray before we leave?” Dubourg asked me, and he didn’t give me a chance to answer, only put one hand on my shoulder and bowed his head. “God, this is Dubourg Dunbar in the Atlanta airport. I say a prayer of safety and tranquility for my cousin, if it’s Your will. Look after him on his journey. You are all powerful and loving God, and it is in Your son’s name, Jesus Christ, we pray, amen.” He patted my shoulder.

“Well, thanks,” I said, picking up my bag.

He frowned. “Sandy, do you need a sign as literal as the dog’s eyes to believe something?”

Dubourg and I stood inside the fishbowl of cancer, being watched by the interfaith man through the glass, and I searched my memory for the meaning of “the dog’s eyes.”

“I remember the dog’s eyes,” I said. “Was that when you had the experience? I thought it was that camping trip.”

“These feelings of understanding God’s love happen a lot,” he said. “It’s ongoing and magical. One aspect that William James observed with conversions is that the experience can’t be explained. The feeling I got when I saw the dog’s eyes couldn’t be explained.”

This was before we were teenagers. We were playing in the graveyard at night. Someone dropped the flashlight and ran. This was my memory: A dog barked and cousins ran in different directions, and there was stifled yelling and laughter. Dubourg picked the flashlight up. One of the dogs stood in the beam of light. The dog’s eyes were floating gold orbs, disks, reflectors, and Dubourg saw me behind a grave marker, but he didn’t turn the light on me. He shook the light at the dog’s eyes and said, “That’s proof God exists ’cause they protect him from getting run over by cars at night.” He turned the flashlight up at the sky as if to search for God. “He made dogs with reflecting eyes!” Dubourg had yelled and claimed he was overcome with comfort, a feeling of ease in the universe. It scared the shit out of me. What is an anxiety attack and what is a religious experience?