“I feel to drive,” Sammy say, as they step past the bottom stairs.
“Rich or poor, everybody feeling it.”
Outside the breezeblock stairwell, the yard depressing in true. “Leh we take a drive.” Sam fish out his keys and start heading out.
Mano hesitate a second, then follow. He not sure ’bout this restless business. Supposing Sammy start to speed in a rage, and kill them both? He skip faster to catch up with his friend. “Awright. We could go by the river up in Saint Ann’s, and chill out. It go be nice and quiet there.”
“I just need to drive. I feel I go start back work, instead’a wasting gas. Eh heh. It better so. I go see yuh.”
* * *
“Donkey WHAT?”
“Rally.”
“Rally who? I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Is this some sort of crude joke? Are youall conspiring to push me to the point of NO RETURN?” Slinger’s whole head is red, and when he shouts the “no return” his voice drops down in his stomach to sound like he’s dying, with his mouth horribly open. “All these years. All these painful, heartbreaking, wrenching, yes wrenching, ’cause youall drain every little, last drop of energy and creativity out of me. And sanity! That, that is sucked like an oyster out of its shell, leaving me, ME, empty! Completely and utterly empty. And devastated. Every year. Every goddamned year…”
The group of performers, King, and Queen, are not surprised. They wait.
“Then allyou want to call me CRAZY? Mad? I know what is said behind my back—‘Slinger this, Slinger that’—but this is insanity! Who could’ve thought — no, I don’t want to know whose brilliant idea this is because all’a youall are damn jackasses — who could’ve entertained the idea that I would, for a split second, be open to such ludicrousy?”
From anger to the point of tears and now they watch the corners of his mouth twitching intently.
Slinger stares back at them.
Will he laugh, will he cry? Does he want them to say something? They all hate when he does this, it out-tricks and makes them feel like the dumb pretending to be bright, when they know they are bright and normal.
The sounds coming from him are laughter. They aren’t taking any chances, though, that could make it worse. They wait. The sounds carry on inside him but his face remains the same. Maybe it even looks like pain … getting worse. Maybe he’s having a heart attack? Anything is possible.
He coughs. And chokes. Bends his head, holding his chest.
But before anybody can rush to him, Queen recognizes the shuddering of his shoulders and starts to laugh. She laughs her big ha-ha I-know-de-joke laugh, so all can get the message clear. By the time Slinger straightens up and raises his head howling at the ceiling, everyone is laughing, even King.
They laugh insincerely at first, guarded, because you can never be sure with Slinger. Then, like the good actors he has taught them to be, they get into it, feeling it belly-deep bubbling up, cracking open throat-holes, flaring nose-holes. They collapse on each other, on the floor, doing a good laugh — the biggest joke. They sweat and cry and dribble that joke while Slinger braces himself, doubled over on the manager’s arm.
“This is the joke of my lifetime! Really. Allyou too funny, too … ach!” He starts again like a sneeze. And they can’t stop, not until he’s well finished and sobered up. They must outdo him at it, show him.
The old wire-bender, sitting on his crates in the corner all this time, watches the jackasses. When the lovely cleared silence returns, uninterrupted by a snort or a “O Goood,” he sighs “Amen.”
God of Design echoes it without missing a beat. Says it again. “Amen. Ah-men. That’s it! Yes, Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Good God, that’s it — Amen!”
“Make a joyful noise,” someone says, keeping the beat. “Amen.”
“Sing a lovely praise.”
A church clap starts.
“Oh yes, Aye-men.”
“Hallelujah — make a joyful noise.”
“Aye-men.”
“That’s it. That is it! White. Plain and simple, black and white. Prints on T-shirts. Monday will be T-shirts and then — we can do this!” Slinger is blessed again, weaving and conjuring. His crew singing praise, clapping spiritual chorus.
No elaborate skirts and sewing. Just wraps of white cloth, however people want to tie it — on their heads, draped, swathed like the Holy Grail, sari, toga, sarong, kaftan, cloak — different weights of white with black strips for tying. Oh, why didn’t he think of it before? So simple. Happy. Rejoicing. Slinger rushes up to the old man and snatches him off the crates. “Thank you! Linton, you saved my life, thank you.”
“Yuh mean, is no wire-frame ass heads?”
Slinger hugs the man tight.
“We could put ‘Ketch the Spirit’ on de T-shirts,” comes from the brave heartened bunch.
“Or…”
Slinger holds up his very white palm. “That would be offending. The church will come down on us onetime boop, with a name like that. We must be careful with this one.”
“Is true,” they say, “that go be the problem right there.”
It sets everybody thinking hard, like Slinger, problem solving and arguing.
* * *
Fraser sits out by the pool at 3:00 a.m., swaddled in his bedsheet. He lies down on the bench and stares up at the single heaven. Stars are fantastic things. Even with the orange glow of the city they stand out from infinity, as only stars could. A particularly large one fixes its glory on Fraser. He knows when they were so big and non-twinkly, you could say it’s a planet. But no one is around, so Fraser prefers to think of it as a guiding star. Orion’s Belt and the incestuous cluster of sisters are pointing out themselves, waiting for him to name them too. Book knowledge — it gets in the way of his natural thinking, sometimes. Once his brain acknowledges the learning, though, he finds it hard to keep other names and things from surfacing. Zeus, Persephone, Cadmus, and Aphrodite, they stride this same heaven. Them and all the gods. His body, wrapped in white, feels like an offering. Sacrifice to the gods. Which gods?
Fraser tries to clear all thoughts but that in itself reminds him of TM techniques and Om. Suddenly he’s aware of his huge rib cage, and feet sticking up, bones resting on the wooden planks, lined up straight and bound in cotton. His own pyre. Like the one he saw at the Hindu funeral by the Caroni River, Trinidad’s own Ganges. He can feel the wood stacking around him, high, over him … until he has no glimpse of the stars or the night-river sky or the close hills. Only sucky, tugging, inky infinity and then … a crackling. Dry, greedy flames. Tinkling bones of pinewood. His bones. Crinkling them up, flaring on resin. And knots. Joints. The flames encase him, roaring a forest in his ears, all around, leaping into the air and licking at the magnificent heaven. A torch of amazing strength and power and fiery vitality — blazing away to kingdom come. Fire-shield armor gouging a path, a sword tip flying. Comet. Burning the sky. Burning out. Dark, lonely pain. Cold stars. Tinkling. He can see the pinpricks again. And feel his flesh caught in the stare of his guiding light, and the breath of the greedy hills waiting …
* * *
This is the day of the meeting. Ata and Pierre had agreed with Fraser that the caring business had to be taken in hand. Some sort of rules for respecting their home, and Fraser’s wishes and peace of mind, had to be set up. Everybody, close friends, parents, agreed but they found the word “meeting” offensive. Just the tone of Helen’s voice when she phoned her — the way she tasted the word — told Ata “too cold, too formal.” Ata is not looking forward to the afternoon meeting but Fraser was gaining vigor and sided with Pierre, insisting that it was the only way to sort things out. His strength had improved as her nerves began to tingle. A weakness is loading in Ata’s body. Electronic hourglass trickle while corrupt files multiply. She can feel the virus nestling in spaces she had kept clean and locked but she can’t stop it. Her whole body is unsafe and unpredictable, ticking. Maybe it’s hormones, lack of sleep, the evening glasses of wine she has with Pierre to help sleep? Toxins. In Dr. Turner’s private clinic, Ata had marveled at the woman’s strength — how she could treat patient after dying patient and keep losing them, yet remain so steadfast and bright.