John Gardner - The King's Indian - Stories and Tales

“You really bomb things?”

He nods. “Not people. Things.”

“Of course.” I nod. I squint at him. I cannot seem to make the room come real, and I remember Carol Ann Watson’s remark that that was how she felt the first time she found herself in bed with another man. It wasn’t possible, yet here she was. It wasn’t possible. She felt no guilt, no trace of fear. How could it be? I imagine Miss Ellis, bent over, wide-eyed, at the outer office door, all color drained from the rouged and powdered cheeks. A communist anarchist talking with the Reverend, and the Reverend going on as he would with a deacon he’d happened to meet at the Post Office. Lost again in a senseless, mindless universe.

“I’m not a Jesus freak,” the young man says. For some reason it’s important to him that I understand. “Not like some, I mean. I don’t really care if there’s a God or Heaven, and like that. But I dig the third temptation.” Though he’s otherwise motionless, his long, thick fingers move on his leg, extending a three.

I consider. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Jesus in the desert.” All this time he hasn’t moved a muscle, except those fingers — he still has them raised like a weary blessing— and his lips. “The thing about coming to terms with world powers. I read a book about it, when I was over in Nam. And persecution.”

I shake my head, admitting bafflement.

“Like Osiris and Cybele and all those other goddesses and gods. But when Jesus’ religion hit Rome, they had to persecute. They were anarchists.”

I think about it and begin to understand, despite the problem of his pronouns.

He says, “And I dig what you said about the true church, and how God hates the feasts. I wanted you to know I been thinking about it. You blew my mind.”

I smile, slightly wincing.

“That’s all. I just wanted you to know. And also the part about the fig tree, whatever.” I try to think what, if anything, I said about a fig tree. Abruptly, gracefully, the young man stands up. “Far out,” he says like a parting benediction. With these words he backs toward the door, keeping his face to me. It crosses my mind that he thinks I may pull a gun on him. But I’m sure it isn’t that. Then he’s crazy, simply, as Marilyn said. But it isn’t that either. Still gazing at me, benign, inhuman, he backs away through the outer office. At the far door he gives me a peace sign and suddenly — amazingly — smiles. He has a beautiful smile. His eyes are like Brahma’s. He vanishes. I shake my head. I have told him nothing, I haven’t even contradicted him. The thing’s impossible. And now all at once I see perfectly clearly that every word he said was true. I jump up to follow him, but when I’ve passed through the outer office (my secretary frowns at me, cross), there is no one there but old Sylvester, bending down to the vacuum cleaner. He cautiously rolls his eyes at me.

7

The meeting goes dully, as usual. As usual, I hardly listen. The treasurer’s report goes on forever. We have a ditto we could read for ourselves if we wished, if my Elders weren’t mindless ritualists. Let God forgive them; myself, I’m too tired. I’ve been dragged into meetings every night this week — City Planning Commission, Boy Scouts, Urban League.… The secretary reads, and again I don’t listen. But something puzzles me. They’re nervous. There’s something going on at this meeting that I’m not in on. It’s not the reports.

When it’s over they do not stand around talking as they usually do. They button up their suitcoats, put on their hats, say goodnight to one another and, distantly, to me, and they walk, studiously casual, out into the warmth of the hushed fall evening, the smell of burning. I line up my pencils on the top of my desk, thinking, waiting for something, then snap out the office light. Someone clears his throat at the outer office door. I jump.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says quickly. It’s Dr. Grewy.

“You startled me,” I say, and smile. He too smiles; falsely. The church is dark now, except for the light above the glass double door and the wash of gray light from the parking lot. Dead leaves blow past the arch, scrape dryly on the blacktop.

Dr. Grewy rubs his hands together as if to warm them. “Actually, Reverend—”

I study him. His distress is acute. He unhooks his glasses and clumsily unfolds his handkerchief to clean them.

“Can I take you home, Reverend?”

“I have my bicycle, John.”

“Mmm. Yes.” He continues cleaning his glasses. At last he looks up, takes a deep breath. “Reverend Pick, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying this. I think you know how I feel about you. That is, how we all—” He pauses again. Lies are bad for the digestion, he once told me. He puts his glasses on, looks at me sadly. “I wish you’d be a little more discreet,” he mumbles.

I wait. “About what?” I can’t tell whether to laugh or be frightened.

He sighs again. “The other day… that is …”

“Come out with it, John.”

He nods. He feels as stupid as I do. “That young man you were talking to, Gene, that bearded one … in your office.” Again he finds it difficult to speak. “We’re not prejudiced against beards in this congregation. You’re proof of that. But for the sake of all of us—” Again he clears his throat. “Certain people overheard your conversation.”

Memo: Fire Janice.

Memo: Also Sylvester.

“You want me to lock the door on him?” My anger’s absurd; I realize it even as the anger flames up. I do not fool myself that it’s righteous indignation. They are telling me what I can do and can’t, and like any hot-headed, undisciplined child, I demand my egoistic will. But I turn it into righteous indignation, protecting my freedom with grandiose noise and smoke. “Is he not human, John? Is he not as good as a leper, a beggar, a woman taken in adultery?”

He’s more miserable than ever. Even he knows my tactic is vulgar and unfair. “It’s not what I think,” he begins.

I touch his arm. “All right, John. Thank you. Sorry I blew up.” We walk toward the door and through it. I lock it behind us.

“I really am sorry.” He is shaping his hat now, sick at heart.

“It’s all right,” I say, and smile.

I am angrier than hell, beginning work already on my sermon.

8

My gaze sweeps the congregation. They sit docile and expectant, as usual. Not universally fond of me (here and there I see a friendly face, here and there a hostile one) but willing to be lectured, willing to permit me the license the pulpit between us grants. I hesitate longer than usual, I’m not sure why. It dawns on me that I’m looking for the stranger, the wild man who’s “into revolution.” I don’t find him, and for reasons I don’t take time to analyze, I’m relieved. I lean forward, precariously balanced on my stool. My voice trembles. It’s not the tamest of sermons. There will be some — I have no idea how many— who will want to see me hanged for it.

I tell them:

“It’s Passion time. Jesus has been saying he’s going to be killed. He and his disciples have come up to the city — to Jerusalem — for the feast. They’ve been spending nights with friends out in the suburbs, partly as a security precaution and partly because it’s cheaper. They are coming back to the city in the morning. It’s early. Still cold. Jesus is hungry. He spots a fig tree by its leaves. He jogs ahead of his disciples to see if there’s fruit. There is nothing. He curses the tree: ‘Be barren forever!’ By evening the tree is dead.

“It’s a strange incident. Most Biblical scholars doubt that it ever happened, though both Matthew and Mark record it. Some treat it as an acted parable. But a parable of what? Proof that Jesus suffered psychological pressure like an ordinary man? Proof to the disciples of the power of faith? So Matthew reads it. But Matthew came late and was probably quoting Mark and trying to rationalize the grizzly story.