The Past Never Ends, page 12
Chester Morgan crossed the street. After that morning's swim, he had gone directly to court and, from there, to here. Morgan didn't know why, not exactly. Perhaps because nothing had happened on the Kinman case in the last week. Maybe because, instead of thinking about his argument in court that morning, he had thought about a dead strip dancer -- found and forgotten at the Bunkhouse Lodge. Morgan had other sources about life in Kiowa Heights besides Don Hubbard but... The small sign on the door to the white stucco building read: The Corpus Christi Project.
An elderly woman whose earrings jangled when she walked led Morgan past a wild-haired man who silently played an invisible electric guitar. She led Morgan down a fluorescent lit hall to a large, dark office where Don Hubbard waited. On the wall behind his desk, a heavy gold crucifix hung.
"I am pleased you have come to see us," Hubbard said, standing to shake Morgan's hand. He sounded as if he meant it.
Morgan took a seat and looked at the man, much as he would a witness before cross-examination. Hubbard's manner and method, voice and eyes seemed serene and sincere. Still, Hubbard was like a grand piano with a rich sound and an out-of-tune B flat.
"Mister Hubbard," Morgan said. "If I believe our chief of police, there is nothing to salvage in Kiowa Heights; yet here you are."
The minister smiled. "The same was said two thousand years ago and I can assure you that the stable and prosperous, though beloved, weren't the ones who followed that itinerant rabbi over the hills of Galilee."
"I'm interested in what you do," Morgan said, "but more interested in life itself in Kiowa Heights."
The minister held his hand up as if in benediction. "More can be learned from the prophets on the streets than from the bishops in their pulpits."
"My grandfather preached tent revivals in Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Southern Oklahoma. I am confident he would have agreed except he would have added 'on the farms' and 'back in the hollers,' too," Morgan said. He paused. "I've heard that Kurt Hale's campaign against what he calls vice has turned into a war on the people in this part of town."
"Our new chief of police," Hubbard said. He looked away and rubbed his chin, then spoke: "Mister Morgan, I see victims here, not victims of other people necessarily, but victims of life, of life without meaning and of too few resources: economical, educational, social, emotional, spiritual. Kurt Hale's campaign can't change anything except the dynamic, creating different problems, instituted by different means. And, Hale knows it."
"I've read, heard, what he has said," Morgan replied. "For one who knows he can't change things here, Hale certainly sounds convinced, almost dangerous."
"He may really believe what he says, but his campaign is for the press and the public. There's not the political will to do what he wants or to support it. Too much money involved in Kiowa Heights and too few questions asked about where cash contributions to politicians come from. So, Hale'll go after streetwalkers and the really bad actors and close them down, all the time receiving publicity. May try to play up some drug busts, too, but it's to create the public impression he's shutting down Kiowa Heights. That's all it will be."
"Don, I'll be more specific. I've heard that instead of using police to eliminate crime, Hale is using the police to eliminate people, those I've heard you call 'your people.'"
"What's easier? Getting a conviction of a drug seller or shooting him?" Hubbard didn't wait for an answer. "Does it happen? Of course, but most police officers are good men and women who try awfully hard in a world of grays. With a new tough-sounding police chief, those rumors of excess police violence begin anew. They always do. It's akin to urban myth."
"You haven't directly responded," Morgan said. "Are the police killing people to clean up Kiowa Heights?"
Hubbard looked across the room where a small statute of the Virgin Mary stood on a pedestal. He was silent for a moment, and then said, "I've heard the same reports you have."
"You think they are, don't you?"
"Statistics," Hubbard said. He sat up and folded his hands together on top of his desk. "The suburban voter across the river doesn't know crime. The people here do. If you control the numbers for the official crime rate, you can tell those voters that crime has gone down and they'll believe it and feel better. That's enough for them, but the people of Kiowa Heights remain victims. I'm not here to judge those voters, the police, or my people. We're here to help, to demonstrate a greater compassion can make lives -- no matter how wounded or fearful -- whole. That's all we can do."
Morgan looked around the office. Near Hubbard's desk on a pedestal sat a porcelain replica of the Pieta, the Virgin holding the broken body of Christ.
"Why don't you show me around," Morgan said.
The minister locked the door to his office and led the attorney down a hallway. They passed a series of offices, the doors open and the spaces spartan. "I try to teach the benevolence of random life," Hubbard said. "Too often for the people of Kiowa Heights that unpredictability is frightening and harsh. Yet, in it, there is goodness and sometimes justice."
"And, I suppose," Morgan said, "justice never seen or fully understood."
"That's right," Hubbard replied. "It is not ours to determine; it is simply ours to give by living lives of compassion. My people don't need forms or formulas or criteria or minimization by rule and regulation. Therefore, little we do at the Project seems other than chaos."
Hubbard stopped at the door of one of the open offices. "I arrange for volunteers to come in as they are inspired. Psychologists, vocational counselors, nurses, attorneys. They use these offices to meet with whoever might need them. College students often are good at helping however they can."
"Martin Bollant said you were very selective," Morgan said.
"I am," the minister replied. "Too many want to save or to change the people here. We don't have that power. One can only be a conduit for grace."
They stopped at a large room cluttered with beat-up gray folding chairs. "This is our meeting room. Teachers talk here. If I'm inspired to speak on some topic of practical life or psychology, I post a sign with time and topic. More often than not, the place is full. Alcoholics Anonymous meets here as does Narcotics Anonymous. A group of ex-cons trying to live straight uses the room, too."
With Hubbard showing the way, the two men progressed towards the center of the building. Hubbard walked slowly, each step secure and balanced. When he talked about his people or the Project, Morgan had noticed, light shone from his eyes. His voice was deep and peaceful. He spoke as one with authority.
"I keep this stocked as well as I can," Hubbard said when they arrived at the kitchen. A woman in faded denim pants and a scuffed leather jacket poured a glass of milk for a small girl. "I get up at four several mornings a week and drive to the fruit and vegetable markets. Ah, the farmers and the wholesalers! Some of their hearts are blessed with a such a spirit of generosity." He tussled the hair of the small girl. "We cook meals three times a day and share what we can. We have a locked pantry and refrigerator for emergencies."
Morgan looked around the kitchen. It was small and inefficient and lacked the sterility of institutional design. Someone had worked hard to keep it clean, shiny. "What can one expect if they come to the Project?" he asked.
"What they need, to the extent we have. A safe place, a place of peace," the minister replied. "Of material things, I give what I have, but the Project is not a cornucopia. For that, most people know to go to the big shelters where funds and food seem unlimited. This is more for respite and renewal and back to the rest of life again."
"How many employees do you have?"
"Just one," Hubbard said. "Me. Everything else is done by volunteers, when they are so inspired."
They walked through a large sitting room. A pastel mural of flowery prairie and multiple horizons covered one wall. On an institutional blue couch, a young man with a thin, black beard lay passed out. Nearby in a straight back chair, a man, an old sailor perhaps, sat, his hands shaking. A TV buzzed in the background and tears quietly rolled from the eyes of a young woman, her face smeared with heavy make up. She chewed on her lower lip and sobbed alone. Hubbard stopped, then walked to the woman, and knelt on one knee in front of her. He lifted his hands and wiped the tears from her face. He patted her arm, then continued Morgan's tour.
"Friday mornings are usually quiet like this," Hubbard said. "I have no complaint."
The cleric led Chester to a short, dark hall with a door at each side. Hubbard opened the left one. "There are seven bedrooms down this hall. Not fancy -- a bed, a chair, a lavatory. A common bathroom at the end there. All the rooms are occupied almost every night. Zoning and city ordinances limit the stays to three nights. Of course, we aren't a shelter or a warehouse for the homeless; we are a sanctuary, a temporary space for peace. I'm not unhappy with the time constraint."
Chester Morgan turned to open the door to the right. It was locked. "What's this?" he asked.
"My quarters."
"You live here?"
Don Hubbard nodded.
"Are you married?" Chester asked. "Do you have a family?"
"In an earlier life, I was. My spouse now is divine, my marriage is to the Project and her people, and those you passed are members of my family." Hubbard stopped. "Does that sound strange to you?"
Morgan shook his head. "One of the best attorneys I've ever known claimed the law was his mistress."
"I have one more place to show you. Come this way."
The cleric touched Morgan's back and nodded. He led Morgan back past the sleeping man, the sobbing woman, and the shaking man and through an open door to a windowless room, a space where it could always be either day or night. From the high ceiling, lights beamed onto a simple altar. Above it in stark shadows hung a massive sculpture of Christ, nailed to a cross, his side pierced, blood running down his face, his feet, his hands, and his eyes opened but not seeing. Morgan remembered Don Hubbard's explicit description of crucifixion and, from the memory of the words of the manager of the Bunkhouse Lodge, he saw the corpse of Tanya Everly. Morgan shook from a chill.
"The chapel is always open," the minister said. "On Sundays, I lead a liturgy. On other days, prayers of intercession. I usually say a few words, too, depending on the inspiration. I'm still credentialed to marry, to do funerals, to perform the sacraments." He looked around the dark room. "This is the most important space at the Project."
"But you don't proselytize," the lawyer said.
"I don't," Hubbard replied. His voice echoed in the room. "This is the body of Christ. If we are successful showing his compassion, his acceptance, his humanity, people are led here with no words from us. Mister Morgan, you may have heard that Christ died for your sins. I'd rather think God took the form of a man and conceded to cruel death so the people would know that however they might suffer, God too had suffered and understands their pain. That compassion has to lead here."
Morgan looked again at the anguished dying Christ on the cross. Then he saw at the corner of the altar another figure: Mary, the mother of Christ, with her hands outspread, her face serene. He turned to leave.
In a quiet, intimate voice, Hubbard spoke. "In ways I consider this religion incomplete. If God took the form of a man to know suffering, should he have not also, at some time through the ages, taken the form of a woman and likewise suffered?"
CHAPTER TWENTY
Marylin set the bag of groceries on the white-tiled kitchen cabinet. She knew she shouldn't have carried them in from the car, but what choice did she have? Besides, she felt better than she had Friday, the day following her move. She had woken up that morning and her hip hurt so badly she didn't try to get out of bed. Instead, she had called the office and told Shawn to let Chester know she wouldn't be in.
Marylin hoped Morgan wouldn't be mad. He didn't know about the old injury. If Chester would learn of it, he would worry or try to make her go see a doctor, both equally futile. She hated the doctors. Going to one made her feel like Martusé, the carnival's two thousand pound woman on exhibit at a hands-on museum. And, she didn't want Chester to worry, as do all attorneys -- even those with the most braggadocio. By experience, they worried too much: about righting what had gone wrong in the past and trying to prevent wrongs from happening in the future. Chester didn't need more to fret about. She always figured old attorneys never actually retired. They just wake up one morning too anxious about what might go awry to ever leave home again.
When Marylin hurt at the office, she ate aspirin and tried to walk so no one would notice the limp. She considered her forthright posture and graceful walk badges of strength, though they probably resulted from the velvet boot-camp training of childhood charm school interments. She laughed now when she thought about learning to balance books on her head while she walked and how the middle-aged maiden teacher taught the proper ways for a lady to sit.
Marylin knew what caused the pain in her hip -- a motorcycle ride with a cool-looking guy twenty-two years before. It wasn't the ride exactly. It was the cool-looking guy on the motorcycle: He drove like a monkey on acid. The accident fractured no bones, and most of the time, her hip didn't bother her. She didn't even notice. But when she woke in the night with pain burning in the joint or when she stood at day's end with hip locked, she remembered a three night hospital stay and a four week dance with two awkward crutches. She still liked motorcycles and cool-looking guys. She just avoided the ones who resembled non-human primates.
Marylin unpacked the groceries and looked out the window at her landlord's house. Murle Mueller, or Miz Mueller -- too many decibels, too much structure to appear other than intimidating, and too few words. What a trip! Marylin knew what she would do: Make Flaming Chocolate Bursts!
She turned on the oven, heard the burner light, and smelled the first whiff of ignited natural gas, a smell that took her home and back to her grandmother's warm kitchen. She found two glass bowls and mixed eggs, sugar, white and brown, and butter, not margarine. She stirred in a generous portion of vanilla extract. In the other bowl, she sifted bleached flour and salt and baking soda and added an equal part of floured whole wheat. Gently stirring, she combined the contents of the two bowls into a doughy mix. She smiled and looked around as if to protect the secret and poured in twice as many chocolate chips as ever called for in conventional recipes and put in an extravagant dose of cinnamon. As she began to dollop the lumpy dough onto a lightly greased cookie sheet, she hummed a song she knew from twenty years before. Soon, the spoonfuls of dough fell to the pan in rhythm to the music. Her hip felt better.
Later, she stood on the porch of Miz Mueller's house with a plateful of freshly baked cookies. She knocked on the door and the square-built, loud-speaking woman opened the door.
"Go down to the Goddamned basement and beat hell out of the pipe with a hammer!" She yelled as much as spoke.
"What?"
"I said..." Murle Mueller saw the plate of cookies.
"These are for you," Marylin said. "A place isn't home until you make something there. I won't be able to eat them all."
Murle Mueller took the plate and chomped into one of the cookies. She kept talking, yelling. "Forgot to tell you about the plumbing. Make noise?"
"No."
"It will." Mueller set the plate of cookies inside and zipped up her windbreaker. Crumbs had gathered at the corners of her mouth. "Show you."
Murle stomped down the porch stairs and plowed towards her rental house. Marylin turned and tried to catch up. "Would you mind slowing down a little?" she asked. "I'd like to walk with you."
The landlord turned. "Hmph." She waited with expressionless face as Marylin joined her.
"When I move into a new place, I always try to cook or bake something first thing," she said. "Have you ever gone to someone's house or apartment and they've lived there three or four months and it still doesn't feel like a home? I figure they haven't cooked or made anything there yet."
"Hmph."
As the refrigerator-big woman and the lithe legal secretary walked into Marylin's house, an unnoticed man sat in an old pick-up truck a half-block away and watched.
Mueller looked around the living room. A few unpacked boxes still sat on the polished hardwood floor. "Gotta hammer?"
"That's one thing I think I can find," Marylin said. She moved as quickly as she could to the bedroom where she had left it to hang pictures. She met her landlord at a door off the kitchen.
"Don't break your Goddamned neck goin' down into this basement!" Murle said. "Turn on the water."
Marylin did so and started down the narrow wooden stairs into the cellar where Miz Mueller waited by an exposed black pipe. She held the hammer in her uplifted hand.
"When it sounds like this..." Murle Mueller pounded the pipe with the hammer until the plumbing clunked and clanked. "Turn that stupid water off."
Marylin went back up the stairs and turned it off. When she returned, the landlord said, "When it sounds like that, you just beat hell out of that pipe. Just beat hell out of it." She took the hammer and pounded the exposed pipe with flourish and fury. "Turn the Goddamned water back on."
As Marylin did so, the clunks and clanks returned. She started down the stairs.
"Stay up there! Sometimes you got to pound it with the water going and sometimes not."
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
BANG!
BANG!
"Turn it off! Now turn it on slowly!"
The house settled into silence as Marylin turned the faucet off. As she turned it back on, the jumble of knocks and clanks returned louder. She listened to her landlord downstairs.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
"GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH!"
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
