The Flex of the Thumb (23 page)

“I suppose you think that's a good answer.”

Herne slid in behind the wheel, with Rita beside him. Arnold rode on the passenger's side in front. Vano and the chaplain sat in the back seat on either side of Rita's Aztec statue. They purred north at high speed on the Pacific Coast Highway. The sun was playing hide and seek among the clouds. Vano shimmered in the merger of earth and sky and sea.

The chaplain and Vano conducted an over-the-statue conversation. The chaplain said, “Arnold Beeker tells me you were once a great pitcher.”

“I think that's true,” Vano replied. It was only a few months ago, yet it seemed so distant, practically like a different lifetime.

“You seem so contemplative to be an athlete. I hope that's not an offensive remark.”

“It's not offensive. Taking offense is not a part of
hooommm
.”

Chaplain Johansen told Vano that Coach Radulski wasn't on the staff any more. He was in a rehab center. “Did you know that?”

“No,” said Vano. “I didn't know. What I do know is that Coach Radulski was depending on me to cover the Entrada baseball team with fame and glory. He thought the program would become the recipient of millions of dollars in gate receipts and television revenue.”

“But you mustn't feel guilty, my son. The coach had a serious problem with alcohol abuse long before he met you.”

“I don't feel guilty,” Vano replied. “Guilt is not a part of
hooommm
.”

Chaplain Johansen tilted the angle of the statue so he could make eye contact. “Just thinking out loud, but it may turn out that your presence may still be of major economic benefit to Entrada.”

Vano was in too deep to process this change of direction quickly. “I don't think I understand.”

“What I mean to say is that Wilfong Weingrad was inclined to give us this huge endowment after he read a memo I wrote. That memo was based on the material you gave me about particle dust intelligence floating through the heavens.”

Hooommm
. “I see.”

The chaplain continued, “I thought you should know, because if the college does receive the gift, most of the credit will belong to you.”

The pause lingered before Vano answered politely, “The truth is, what I know about particle existence comes from the particle people. Not from me.”

When they reached rural Salinas, they needed to stop at nearly every intersection to check directions. Chaplain Johansen referred to his map, while Arnold looked his calculations over. Since Rita Lieberman was sliding her hand inside his pants at every stop, Herne Hill had no objection to the frequency of these delays.

Their combined reconnaisance proved successful. The sun was low by the time they pulled to a stop in front of Weingrad's remarkable mailbox, perched next to the lonely stretch of blacktop. “This is a crusader,” observed Chaplain Johansen. “Weingrad's mailbox is a statue of a crusader.”

Herne Hill couldn't help but admire the statue's rigid attire. “Hot damn, look at the chain-mail. I could see myself wearing these duds on the Harley. I wonder if the armor comes off.”

Chaplain Johansen felt a knot of tension forming in his stomach as he looked closely at the security system which sealed Weingrad's premises from the rest of the world. Near the road was a chain-link fence, 12 feet high, with spirals of barbed wire bristling along the top. A large, painted sign was posted on the fence:

WARNING: ELECTRIFIED FENCE. THESE PREMISES

GUARDED BY KILLER ATTACK DOBERMANS

Despite these daunting admonitions, however, the gate was open. Herne shot the car up the long lane, spinning gravel.

The chaplain got out of the car, but owing to his escalating case of nerves, he spoke briefly with Herne: “This shouldn't take too long. You'll be right here when I'm finished?”

Before he could answer, Herne had to lift his head from beneath Rita's skirt. “We'll be right here, Bro.” Droplets of drool bobbed on his beard.

The chaplain didn't notice these logistics, so absorbed was he by the tension of his imminent mission. He rubbed his hands together several times. “Thank you,” he finally said.

“We'll even have the motor runnin'.”

Arnold Beeker put in his two cents: “I hope so. It's very important to get to Alta Plaza on time.”

Chaplain Johansen paced uneasily on the front porch after ringing the bell. His uneasiness increased when Grizelda opened the door to greet him. She was a large, barrel-chested woman with solid forearms. Her breath smelled of whiskey. “You haff come for seekink Wilfong?” she asked.

Chaplain Johansen confirmed it, but he asked her if she could give him a little information about the potential benefactor.

“Wilfong hass cuckoo,” said Grizelda.

“Wilfong hass cuckoo?”

“Don't dare to make spordt mitt Grizelda!” warned the formidable housekeeper. She grinded her right fist into her left palm. The chaplain stared at the huge fists. She could probably pound him into the ground like a tent stake.

The house was poorly lit. Grizelda led Johansen to the basement where Wilfong was playing with his electric trains. The very elaborate train set treatments were precise in much detail. Wilfong Weingrad operated the transformer with unrestrained glee. He wore a striped engineer's cap while shouting “Woo woo!” every now and again. The trains zoomed around the tracks.

After Grizelda informed him it was Chaplain Johansen from the college, he took his guest upstairs to the study.

It was in this room that Johansen saw the 32 cuckoo clocks on the wall.
So this was what Grizelda meant
. Without thinking, the chaplain blurted out, “You hass cuckoo.”

“You hass cuckoo?” asked Weingrad.

Chaplain Johansen felt like a fool. He got red in the face. In a panic, he tried to think of some manner of explanation for his remark, but he was speechless.

It didn't matter in the least. Weingrad was sitting at his desk and getting out his Bible. He was wrapping the wire frames of his glasses around his ears. The pink scalp glistened through the few white hairs.

Wilfong laid it on the line: “These are the Last Days, so I hope you're prepared for the Apocalypse! The Beast is all around us. The Lord is coming in his fury to smite the enemy with His terrible, swift sword! Do you have the fear o' the Lord in you? Does your college have the fear o' the Lord?”

Still very nervous, Chaplain Johansen tiptoed in the direction of some cautious speculation: “I would say that's a difficult question. First, we would have to examine what we mean by fear.”

His tentative preamble was as irrelevant to Weingrad as the relative humidity in Chula Vista. “I will give the 25 million dollars if you have the fear o' the Lord! Having said this, Weingrad proceeded to read from Revelation the description of the Lord coming from Heaven as a warrior on a white horse. So moved was he by this battle imagery, he embellished with a few details of his own device: “He will be armed to the teeth! He will have a sword and a doublebladed ax and he will be outfitted with shining armor. It won't be ordinary armor either, but chain-mail! There will be steel mesh on his terrible, swift fists!” At this point, red in the face and short of breath, he had to pause.

Chaplain Johansen had concluded by now that Wilfong was unbalanced, but this knowledge did nothing to allay his discomfort. At this moment, the 32 cuckoo clocks began going off. It was a startling, nerve-wracking cacaphony which provoked Johansen to jump to his feet. For his part, Weingrad was merely annoyed. He jerked out his hearing aide and threw it on top of his desk.

He was now deaf as a stone. Hearing nothing, he shuffled across the room. “Goddamit, Woman! You're not to wind these clocks! How many times have you been told?” The clocks were slightly out of sync, which meant they would be sounding for quite some time. On the other side of the room, Wilfong punched a button on a control panel to shut off the clocks. By accident, he punched the wrong button, which activated the warning siren which was part of the security system.

To the chaplain, it sounded as if a squad car had just entered the room. His pulse increased to 205, and he broke a sweat. The clocks cuckooed while the siren screamed. But hearing not a sound, Weingrad returned to his seat behind the desk; he resumed the reading from Revelation.

Johansen didn't know how much more he could stand. While there were shrill cuckoo clocks and a wailing siren, Weingrad was reading from the scriptures and moving his lips. Then two large dobermans came racing into the room, snarling and baring their fangs. They stood four feet from Johansen while curling back their lips and growling their menacing growls.

In great fear, Chaplain Johansen jumped up onto his chair. He covered most of his face with his hands. Weingrad was still absorbed in the text. Grizelda came charging in. “Shut up the noiss!! Mein Gott, shut up the noiss!”

Weingrad was aware of nothing save his chapter and verse, but the chaplain was in such terror he feared his sphincters were about to dysfunction. The dobermans seemed to irritate Grizelda more than the clocks or the siren. She doubled her fist and socked the larger of the two dogs on the jaw. The dog tumbled over and began to whimper, but the other one held its position while maintaining its snarl.

Grizelda crossed the room in long, impatient strides. She punched the right buttons, so that everything was suddenly silent. Only Weingrad's voice was audible. The upright doberman still had its teeth bared. Drenched in his own sweat, Chaplain Johansen wondered if his pants were peed.

Then Weingrad, having finished the passage, looked up from his Bible to see Chaplain Johansen standing on his chair and cowering in utter terror. This, Weingrad presumed, was Johansen's reaction to the passages of scripture vis-a-vis the End Times. Wilfong pounded his measly fist into his measly palm. “By Jove, Grizelda, would you look at this? This boy has the fear o' the Lord in him or I'll eat my hat!”

Grizelda was leaving the room. “Cuckoo!” she exclaimed. “All hass cuckoo!”

When the chaplain returned to the car, he was contending with the full range of stress-associated symptoms. Sweaty palms, dry mouth, increased pulse rate, elevated blood pressure, flushing, and shortness of breath. In response to the curiosity of his colleagues, he could give only the briefest summary of his bizarre encounter. He was much too shaken to review in detail. To calm his nerves he tried some deep breathing and a short pull on Herne's bottle of Wild Turkey. They were clear to Santa Cruz, though, before he recovered a comfortable level of equilibrium.

Arnold Beeker was afraid they might be running late, so he navigated Herne and the Lincoln into the Bay Area by way of Interstate 280.

As soon as they arrived at Alta Plaza Park, Vano had instant recognition. This place was the dream. Ancient but urban, the huge park formed a mountainous, terraced pyramid. The wind began to blow.

“Arnold, this is it.”

“I can read maps, Vano; Alta Plaza isn't hard to find.”

“That's not what I mean. I mean this is
it
.”

“This is what?”

“This is my dream. This is the pyramid. This is the place.”

“Oh my god, Vano, oh my god. Did we need another sign?”

They ascended the stairs, but slowly. There were many flights. Arnold urged them on. “Time is of the essence!” he implored.

On each level, the stronger wind seemed to blow colder. To complicate matters, Rita Lieberman struggled with her Aztec statue, stopping frequently to shift its weight from one shoulder to the other. Herne Hill helped out by carrying it a flight or two, but then he handed it back. “Piss on this,” he said. “Why didn't you leave the damn thing back in the car?”

“Oh sure, just leave it where anybody might steal it. You got any idea what this statue is worth?”

Vano wondered if he should remind Rita that the statue was most likely manufactured in San Diego or South Korea. Maybe she forgot that Revuelto had two more of them in the closet? But he had no voice with which to speak; he was overwhelmed by the orange sea which lapped the sky and the inner chamber vibrations which were shaking the firmament.

“It's cold up here,” observed Chaplain Johansen. He buttoned the top button of his cardigan sweater to shield against the wind.

“It's colder 'n a witch's tit,” Rita agreed. “This is nuts, why did I even come here?”

Cold wind or no, when they reached the top they gained the breathtaking view of the Bay Area after dark. By looking north, Vano could see beyond the vista of city lights clear to Sausalito. Alan Watts was dead, but was his houseboat still moored there? To the east, across San Francisco Bay, he could see the twinkling galaxy of Oakland. Which of those lights, he wondered, burned atop Oakland Alameda County Stadium?”

It was a confluence of physical and psychic forces which shook him to the depths of his soul. It was exhilarating. Like those few other times, he felt the world wobble on its axis. He stood at the threshold of
Ultimate Hooommm,
no doubt about it. Would it be a matter of minutes, or merely seconds?

Arnold could see the body language. “Are you scared?” he asked Vano.

“No,” replied Vano. The lights were going dim. “Fear is not a part of
hooommm
.”

“You don't have to yell,” replied his friend. For Arnold and the others, there were no roaring chambers, no oceanic gongs timbring from the nether trail of the solar system. No shaking firmament. Nothing at all, in fact, to modify the ordinary patterns of their senses.

“What did you say?” asked Vano in a loud voice, as he assumed the lotus position in the grass.

“I was saying it's too bad Mary Thorne couldn't be here.”

“Mary will be fine.”

“Let's don't talk about that babe,” said Herne Hill. “I don't think I could stand it.”

Rita Lieberman asked Arnold, “What did you say about Mary Thorne?”