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

I could weep and confess, like Dr. Grewy. Throw up my hands in despair, like Miss Ellis.

My mind flicks away from the idea as if burned.

I try to read the paper that I’ve already read three times. The light outside is green. It will be night soon. Abruptly I get up and start toward the club car. I can drink myself into a stupor if I please; there’s no one here to be offended by the sight of his minister drunk. It’s a curious feeling. If I meet some young lady who’s willing, I can climb into bed with her. Everything is possible. I think of Levelsmacher. What conceivable line can he have used on Marilyn Fish?

Though my own car is practically empty, the car behind is half-filled. Long-haired boys and girls in beads and rags; an acrid stench in the air, maybe pot. Legs and arms sprawl into the aisle. I carefully step over them. A beefy man in an expensive gray suit looks up from his magazine and nods as I pass. I nod back, though I’m sure I’ve never seen him before, and I continue down the aisle, steadying myself on seatbacks against the swaying of the train. I push against the pressure of the door; the roar of wheels assaults me. I push against the second door and enter the club car.

As soon as I’m seated with my drink I see him coming — the man in the suit. Alarm leaps up in me, then passes. It’s impossible that the man’s a policeman. Even if he is, what have I to hide? He stops, tips his head, smiles at me.

“Care for company, my friend?” Before I can answer, he extends his big hand. “Name’s McGiver, Paul Anthony McGiver, M.D.”

I’m not sure I believe him. His jaw is enormous, with creases like pits at each side of his mouth. He has similar cracks between his eyebrows and running from beside and below his eyes. His chest and arms are like a wrestler’s, or maybe a weight lifter’s.

“Have a seat,” I say, and gesture across the table.

He accepts at once, sliding in, carefully holding up his large glass of bourbon. I consider telling him my name’s Johnson, but, then, for no reason, I tell him the truth.

“A minister,” he says. He studies me, then smiles. “I’d have guessed in a moment. I’ve got a good eye for things like that. Of course, with ministers it’s easy.”

I struggle not to be offended.

“I couldn’t help but notice that paper you’re carrying. It’s a terrible business.”

I nod. “Terrible.” It occurs to me only now that I’m still carrying the thing. It’s two days old.

He lifts one black eyebrow. “You heard the latest, I suppose?”

I wait, keeping calm.

“The crazy nut’s blown up some church. I saw it on television.”

Every line of the club car, the stranger’s face, is suddenly too sharp, so precise as to seem unreal. I can’t speak for a moment. I bring out, finally, “In Carbondale?”

“That’s what they said on television. It’s a hell of a thing!” He leans toward me. “You all right, Reverend?”

I suck in breath. He scowls at me as if furious, then leans forward, preparing to stand up. “Let me get you something. I’ve got my medical bag right back—”

“No no. I’m fine. What church was it?”

He continues to study me, not hearing. I repeat the question, and he relaxes a little, looks down at his glass, shakes his head. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch the denomination,” he says. “Maybe someone here knows.” He looks around the car. Two soldiers playing cards; the conductor sitting in the corner, writing on a tablet; an elderly man in a straw hat, drinking beer.

“Never mind,” I say. “It’s not important. Please.”

He scowls at me again, then decides to accept it. Suddenly, he smiles. “I gave you one hell of a shock there. Never crossed my mind how news like that would hit a minister.”

I too smile, then notice my martini, and drink.

“It’s a hell of a thing all right,” he says. He nods, solemn. He takes out cigarettes and holds the pack toward me. I wave it away. “They just don’t care about anything, those people. I’ve been watching them— those hippies up there in the car where I am. I don’t mean they’re evil, I don’t mean they’re all of ‘em nihilists; nothing like that.” He scowls at his drink waiting for the idea to come clearer in his mind. His huge jaw works and the heavy cracks in his face deepen. He looks furious, as if any moment he might leap up and smash things. When he speaks again I forget to listen. I feel again as if I’m falling endlessly through space. In a kind of daydream, I imagine John Grewy coming into the club car, lips pursed, eyes distressed, perspiration on his forehead. Ever since I vanished he’s been looking for me. He knows well enough what shame I feel, and he knows my arrogance — knows how impossible it would be for me to face them all. But a man can’t simply drop out, he tells me. His fingers tremble and his eyes are wet. And so he’s come seeking the hundredth lamb, bringing encouragement, concern, forgiveness.…

I smile, sickened. It is more blessed to give than to receive. They won’t come after me. I have vanished from the face of the earth, fallen into freedom. It is nearly dark. In the west, a blood-red line. I sip the martini. It runs down my throat like lava. My fingers are already losing feeling. When you get used to martinis, like Marilyn Fish, like Level-smacher … I suddenly understand something, but before I can firmly grasp it, it’s gone. Be barren forever. For an instant the darkness hurtling by us alarms me, and I focus intently on the face across the table. The man is saying: “… of fatalism. Nothing is any longer evil to them, that’s the thing. They ‘love’ each other — you’ve heard their talk — but they don’t ask anything, they don’t expect anything. If anything, in fact, they expect betrayal. The people they care about go through ‘changes,’ as they say, so they shrug and separate, have a smoke, a little wine. It’s a strange way of life.”

I nod. “Strange.”

“Life’s absurd, they say. Why fight it? So they put on funny-looking clothes, let their hair grow however it may, they abandon soap …” He shakes his head slowly, and the muscles of his neck bulge. He’s outraged, if faces mean anything, but his voice is calm, as if weary. It comes to me that his leg is pressed against mine. I consider moving my leg but do nothing. If he hasn’t yet noticed … Either way, embarrassment.

Suddenly he asks, “Do you believe in God?”

“Doctor, I’m a minister!”

“Yes of course. Of course. Forgive me.” He’s badly flustered— and still, it seems to me, furious. I too am furious. Why, I wonder?

“I wonder if it matters,” he says. He seems to speak more to himself than to me. His leg is pressed firmly against mine, and now I’m certain that he knows it. His right hand is under the table, in his lap. I could laugh, it’s all, suddenly, so obvious. The weight lifting, the seductively serious talk.

Fruit, I think, and am back to the fig tree, to fruitless Pick. And if my life is fruitless, does it matter? Outside, the night falls endlessly. Where the darkness is heaviest I see for an instant the bearded, blue-eyed face. It does not matter. The truth explodes out of the night and the sound of wheels. The world is dying — pollution, old, unimportant wars, the grandiose talk of politicians, the whisper of lovers in cheap motels. The sentence of death is merely language, a pause between silences. They know, the Children of Albion asprawl in the aisles of hurtling trains. They have seen and understood, have abandoned all mission. I sip my martini, then on second thought drain it. As I rise to get another, I’m thrown violently forward, my head slams against the doctor’s, then both of us are falling, clutching one another, shouting. The lights go off, then on again. The whole train jolts and shudders. We’re standing still. People are shouting.