Westside Saints, page 15
“Have you seen a woman in a black dress that matches mine?” I said, knowing it was a hopeless question.
“Every widow in the city is here tonight, ma’am.”
“Then can you point me to Enoch Byrd?”
“Please, ma’am. People are waiting.”
I was about to step inside when a voice I had hoped to never hear again called my name. Max Schmittberger had found me. He elbowed past everyone else in line to speak to me across the rope, drawing a stream of curses that he didn’t seem to notice at all.
“Gilda Carr, you gotta get me in there,” he said, fumbling with a Turkish cigarette before he managed to jab it into his mouth. I’d never known smoking to be so annoying.
“It’s Westside only.”
“That’s what they tell me, and I tell them I’m press, and they tell me they don’t care, and I tell them—”
“I don’t care either, Max. I gave you the best scoop you’ll ever get, and you let Storrs Roebling take it away.”
“I didn’t let them take anything from me, Gilda, honest to god. They had to drag those papers out of my clenched fists. When Gish gave it the spike, I threw myself on his floor and screamed at him like nobody never screamed before. I cried so hard I near about drowned the ad boys downstairs. Nothing doing, but I swear I tried.”
“For god’s sake, stop shrieking.”
“Sorry. I just love my work. Now can you get me in or what? I saw an extra ticket there peeking out of your coat.”
The crowd pulsated with impatience. A tinge of fear crept into the ticket taker’s smile. He put a light hand on my wrist.
“Please, ma’am, step inside or get out of the way.”
I had spent too much time that winter being hard. What a relief it was to take pity on something so pathetic. I handed Max the ticket, and he clutched it to his chest.
“Gilda, Gilda, how can I thank you?”
“Just please don’t mention my name.”
He slapped his ticket onto the box and gave the acolyte a truly lewd tip of his cap, then took my elbow and led me inside. We stood between the two long banks of believers, like Moses dawdling in a parted sea of black fabric. It really was more widows than I’d ever seen.
“What do you think?” said Max. “Can this Byrd really bring fifty stiffs back to life?”
“You couldn’t possibly believe that.”
“I don’t, no, not really. But it would be a dream if he could. Say—you all right? You look a little corpsey.”
“My mother’s come back from the dead.”
“Don’t you hate when they do that?” He saluted me and melted into the crowd. I hoped he’d stay disappeared. I jogged down the muddy, trampled earth, searching for a woman who would surely not be easy to find. The faces became a blur. They were frostbitten and hungry, their clothes torn, skin scarred and stained, hair matted with dirt, and mouths black with missing teeth. They were in the depth of another hard winter in a lifetime of hard winters, but tonight they held hope in their hands: a raffle ticket that promised a chance to ease the pain. It seemed foolish to me, and sad, but I was spoiled. My mother had already come back, and I’d let her slip away.
If she was here, I didn’t see her. I found Enoch Byrd instead.
He was halfway to the stage, hunched and walking slowly, supporting an ancient woman in a coarse black dress on his left arm. I yanked him away from her. She managed not to fall.
“Miss Carr, I simply do not have the time,” he said, paler than ever.
“Everyone’s always in a hurry,” I said.
In the pocket of my coat, I found something small, cold, and hard. I unscrewed the lid.
“You wanted blue ink?” I said. I snapped my arm out of my pocket and flung the whole bottle at him, drenching him from necktie to navel in the Roebling Company’s own special blue. He froze—really froze, like he’d been dipped in cement—and the widow backed away.
“Why?” gasped Enoch.
“I’m tired of being lied to. I know you want to hurt me or throw me out, but there are hundreds watching, and if you want to keep them calm, you’d better lower your arms, straighten your tie, and escort me to the reserved section.”
He looked left, then right, and found himself in the unfamiliar situation of being the center of attention. He tidied his tie, smoothed his ruined coat, and walked to the front of the crowd. I followed, firing questions nearly too quick for him to answer. I didn’t want to give him time to come up with any more lies.
“Have you seen my cousin Mary tonight?”
“No.”
“This is the shade of ink you’ve had me looking for?”
“Unquestionably.”
“The same as on those papers I found yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Had you ever seen them before?”
“I swear to you, I hadn’t.”
“Then how the hell did they come to be printed in ink the color of the evening sky?”
“If I say it’s a miracle, will you throw another pot of ink at me, or will it be acid this time?”
I don’t think I’d ever heard Enoch make a joke before. It didn’t suit him, but he looked like he was telling the truth. He looked tired, too, in a way I found familiar.
“Where is Bully keeping himself?” I said.
“Nowhere you’re allowed to go. Please, Miss Carr, for once in your life, sit back and enjoy the show.”
“I wish I were the type. Since he came back, has Bully seemed himself? Is he what you remember?”
“I remember my father as a very big man,” said Enoch, speaking slowly, as though interrogating himself about this for the first time. “Warm and captivating. Full of life, always the loudest, happiest man in the room. Bursting with love for my sisters and me, for all mankind.”
“And how does he seem now?”
“He’s all of that,” said Enoch, not quite selling it, “but smaller. It’s to be expected, isn’t it? He’s younger than I am now. He’s just a man.”
Nearly at the front of the crowd, among a group of people who must have shown up at dawn to be so close to the stage, I saw a face I knew. Bex Red stamped her feet to keep warm, raffle ticket clutched in her hand. She looked away when she saw me. I would not let her off so easy.
I tapped her on the shoulder and she shook her head like she knew she’d been caught. I tried not to let her see how disappointed I was that she had fallen for Bully’s lie.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said. “And I bet you didn’t expect me.”
“We’re too smart for this, Bex.”
“In the summer, maybe, but this winter has been cold.”
“You wasted good silver on that ticket?”
“What else should I spend my money on? It’s just two dollars, and they’re never gonna call my name, and even if they did I know it’s all hooey, but still . . .”
“How early did you get here?”
“Dawn. I brought a sandwich. If you’re going to be a fool, why not go all the way?”
Enoch took Bex’s hands and looked deep into her eyes the way only a preacher’s son can.
“I see you found your shade of blue,” she said, nodding at his freshly dyed suit.
“There’s no need for irony,” he said. “You hurt. We all hurt. And we are so, so grateful to have you here tonight.”
The unexpected sympathy hit her like hot water on frozen skin. She squeezed her eyes tight enough that not a single teardrop stained her cheek, and she put on her old, chipper smile.
“Thanks for having me,” she said.
“And if your number is called,” said Enoch, “who will you invite back?”
“Her name was Ellie. The best painter I ever knew, and a wizard with charcoal. We met at school, and we lived together for a long time, and . . .”
“She vanished?”
“In 1910. Went to walk the dog and I never saw her again. The dog, either.”
Now the tears came: two plump ones that rolled down her cheeks, making tracks in her powder. I wanted to hold her—she was my friend, damn it, not Enoch’s—but for the first time, I found him impossible to shoulder aside. Every ounce of her pain was mirrored in his face.
“You never told me about her,” I said.
“You’re not the only one who likes to hide.”
“Good luck.” There was nothing more to say. Enoch let her go and led me on to the front of the crowd, where a small area had been roped off for honored guests, including the withered electric faithful, who wrapped their white robes tight against the frigid wind.
Billowing torches ringed the whitewashed stage. At right, three rows of bleachers awaited the winners of the resurrection lottery. At left, seats were provided for the Byrds. Dead center sat a massive brazier, and looming over the entire scene was a towering black cross framed perfectly by the snow piled behind. From afar it looked like steel, but up close I saw it was flat, painted cardboard.
“You’d better shut the gates soon or you’ll have a crowd too big to control,” I said.
“There’s no crowd my father can’t handle.”
“Don’t look so proud, Brother Byrd. That’s a sin, isn’t it?”
“I can’t help it. I’ve waited for him for so long.”
“Where did he come from?”
“From the flames. You saw him leap out, remember.”
“I saw the asbestos bag, Enoch. Quit fooling.”
“Miss Carr . . .”
Ruth and Judy walked onto the stage. The crowd roared, but the show was not starting yet. Behind the brazier, an ax leaned on a pile of freshly chopped wood. The sisters started stacking lumber for the fire.
“How can I hurt you now?” I said. “The electric resurrection is at hand. You must have brought in two thousand in silver, and I couldn’t shout loud enough to stop this ceremony even if I wanted to. The Byrds have won. Why not tell me how?”
A little smirk, and he was ready to spill. I think he’d been waiting to share for some time.
“The ceremony you saw was staged, yes, for the benefit of the faithful. They’d been praying for it their whole lives. They earned it. Bully put it together—the bag, the blue fire, everything. He is a professional.”
“You mean an actor?”
“Of course not! He is my father, Miss Carr, and there’s nothing else I can do to prove that to you. He appeared at the church the night before—just walked through the door, dazed and frozen but undeniably ours.”
“Did he recognize you?”
“Not at first. But then, we have all changed quite a bit since he saw us last.”
“Where did he come from?”
Enoch started twitching, kicking the ground like a bull about to take off, scanning the crowd, looking for a soul to save—or for someone to save him. He found neither. I put my hands on his shoulders. He shrank back, unused to the touch of even an unremarkable woman.
“Where?” I said.
“He killed himself, Miss Carr. We’d always suspected it and he said it was true. He couldn’t bear the loss of Barney, the church . . . he swallowed a bullet and woke in fire.”
“With snakes pricking his pecker?”
“He did not stoop to my sister’s colorful language. He described a forest of blue fire, boiling like pitch, swinging like vines. An eternity of agony—not just physical torment, but watching his own son, strapped in a high chair, burning to death endlessly, and always calling for Papa, Papa, Papa.”
“You believed him?”
“I am a believer. That’s what I do. He killed himself, and hell was his reward, until, after uncountable seasons of torment, he heard another voice calling his name. He walked toward it and awoke in the Westside. Home at last.”
“Whose voice?”
“He didn’t recognize it.”
The fire was laid. Ruth, alone now, stepped before the brazier, raised her hands, and bellowed, “Who is ready to defeat death?”
It was like flipping a switch. A cataract of noise erupted, louder than the Polo Grounds during a pennant race. Enoch’s eyes went wide.
“I have to join my family,” he said. “We’re starting.”
“A last question—what is your relationship to Storrs Roebling?”
“I’ve never heard the name.”
Before I could press him, he slipped under the rope, scooted along the stage to a short flight of steps, and bounded up behind the curtain. In the moment the drapery was open, I saw Bully flanked by Judy and Helen, his white suit shining in the candlelight, his hands massaging his temples.
“Brother!” cried Ruth, and Enoch emerged onstage carrying a wooden barrel. Behind him came the four stoutest of the faithful, hauling a chest painted gold. Its impact shook the boards.
“You paid your money, friends, a gesture of faith more moving than this old sinner has ever seen,” said Ruth. “You paid it because you have God’s light in your heart and sorrow on your breast, and you are praying for the Almighty to pass His power through my father and ease your grief. Well, I assure you, your faith will be rewarded, just as mine has been.
“I was a girl when I lost my father, and for years I dreamed of him—the funniest sort of dreams, because there was nothing strange about them. I dreamed of watching him drink a glass of milk or choose an apple at the market. I dreamed of saying hello in the morning and ‘night night, Papa’ in the evening. I dreamed of normal, and I never got it until this week, when my daddy came home.
“I know you didn’t come to hear me talk. I’m just filled to the brim with joy, and you’ll forgive me for bubbling over. I’ll still my tongue now, because the electric resurrection really is at hand, and it’s time to choose our lucky fifty.”
She dug into the barrel, pulled a ticket, and called a number. The crowd disgorged a grinning young man in a patched black overcoat who sprinted down the center aisle like he was beating out a play at first base. Ruth called number after number, and though the crowd responded gratefully at first, the novelty wore off fast. By the time the thirtieth person had scaled the steps, the audience was bored and so was I.
I was shifting on my feet, trying to decide which one was more numb, when I saw Mary in the crowd. It was the first time I’d seen her when she didn’t know I was looking. She looked older than ever, and as cold as a switchblade.
I ducked under the rope and pushed into the horde on the far side of the aisle. Impatient for the miracle, the people were in no mood to step aside. I stomped on toes and dug my heel into ankles, throwing elbows and squirming as forcefully as I could until I found myself where I’d seen Mary—right at the steps that led backstage.
I could see Bully’s wingtips beneath the bedsheet curtain—where were the Byrds getting all these bedsheets? I wondered—and between Ruth’s shouts, I heard Bully clear his throat, beat his chest, and run his golden voice up and down the scales. Ruth called the fortieth name, and the crowd’s interest revived. Every face was on her. Even the acolytes tasked with guarding the stairs were looking the wrong way. It was better than a formal invitation.
I darted up the steps and through the curtain, into an indifferently heated tent where Bully Byrd massaged his throat. Beneath five pounds of stage makeup, he looked savage.
“I don’t want another thing to do with you or that crazy bitch of a cousin,” he said. I took great pleasure in ignoring him as I squatted down and forced him to meet my eye.
“Why did you attack her?” I said. An utterly disgusting look of satisfaction spread across his face.
“I didn’t. She came after me.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“If a lifetime at the pulpit’s taught me anything, it’s that women usually don’t.”
There were a hundred or so different ways I might have answered that stupid comment, but I was startled by the fact that beneath his makeup and bluster and misogyny, Bully seemed to be telling the truth. Mary had disappointed me again and again that week. It was shockingly easy to believe that she had lied.
He swept me aside and walked to the edge of the stage. A corner of the crowd spotted him and screamed his name. He did not look their way.
“How did it happen?” I said.
“Our little talk was a waste of time. I could have helped her, but she didn’t want it. When I got sick of banging my head against her nonsense, I told her to leave. She leapt across the chair and tried to smash a cup of hot tea against my face. I dodged it, and she went after my throat. I got hers instead.”
“Why?”
“The hell do I know? All I could tell was I had to fight her off. When she caught me with that teapot, I thought I was finished. You dragging her out the window just about saved my life.”
He said this without gratitude. It was a statement of fact—everyone on earth was here to protect Bully Byrd.
“Where had you seen her before?” I said.
“If she didn’t tell you, there’s no way you’ll believe me.”
“Did she follow you back from the other side?”
“The other side of what?”
“Of death.”
“You want the gospel, darling? There is no other side. Every person in this world is dead already.”
I smacked him across the face. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but I’d had enough of being lied to and pretending I didn’t care. My hand came away slimy with blush.
“I don’t know what gave you and that cousin of yours the idea that you were strong enough to hurt me,” he said. Lord, but I wanted to hit him again. “Got any other stupid questions while I wait for my cue?”
“Tell me,” I said. “Why did the ceremony work this time? How did you and Mary wind up at the Electric Church? Whose voice called you back from death?”
“Wanna hear something that’ll make you chuckle? I got no goddamned idea. That gate opened and I walked through, and since then, things have been dreamy for Bully Byrd.”
The man had timing. As soon as he finished oozing out the syllables of his own name, Ruth called the final number, and disappointment spasmed through the crowd.
“Don’t weep, my friends,” she called, gesturing for them to settle. “This is only the beginning. Today we bring back fifty—next week it will be a hundred, then five hundred, then a thousand. My father will make your families whole.”
