The Reverend looked at his watch. “He’s late.”
“Probably didn’t want to get stopped for speeding.”
The Reverend started to laugh, stopped himself, said, “Sam, that’s not funny,” and then burst out laughing. The man in the cart heard the laughter, pulled back his canes, adjusted the gloves on his hands, then folded his arms across his chest and stared at us. With the canes forming a giant ‘X’ across his body, he looked like some ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, only crabbier.
The Reverend reached back and slid open the side doors, calling, “Come on, Linus, your security blanket hath arrived.”
“Oh, jeez—I’ve never heard that one before.” Linus—I don’t know his real name, he calls himself that after that character Humphrey Bogart played in Sabrina, not the Peanuts character—pulled down his canes and pushed himself over to the van. “You were laughing at me.”
“No,” said the Reverend. “I was laughing near you. There’s a difference.”
“Especially when you ain’t the one who’s wet and cold.”
“Now-now, Linus; don’t get short with me.”
“Oh, that’s a stump-slapper, all right.” He tossed his canes into the back, then pulled himself up into the van while I got out and went around to retrieve his cart, watching as he maneuvered himself around and up into one of the back seats. Most people would take one look at Linus and feel revulsion or pity; me, I marvel at the strength of the man. His arms are the most muscular I’ve ever seen in person. You had to feel bad for anyone who might be on the receiving end of one of his punches. “You got any more carny worked lined up?” I asked him. “Starting in early June,” he replied. “I will once again be touring the tri-state area as Thalidomide Man.” “You gonna carve out any more of those little wood figures you used to sell?” “Always.”
Linus makes a seasonal living with whatever touring carnival will hire him. He calls himself “Thalidomide Man” because of his legs—tells people it was because his mother took the drug during her pregnancy. Every season he whittles a couple of hundred little wood figures of himself—long arms, hands, no legs—and sells them for a couple of dollars each. I have a few, and have noticed that he tends to change the look of the figure every year, usually making himself much more handsome than he really is...and I tell him that every year. One of these days he’s going to carry through on his threat to bite off my kneecaps.
I put the cart on top of the van, covering it with the tarpaulin we keep there, then secured it in place with a length of clothesline. The Reverend reached back and slid closed the side door as I was climbing back in just in time for their traditional Godzilla Trivia game.
“All right,” Linus was saying. “I got a toughie for you tonight.”
“I doubt that.” The Reverend knows his Godzilla trivia.
Linus made a hmph sound, then cracked his knuckles like some card dealer ready to toss out a losing hand to an opponent. “Okay, Mr. Chuckles, try this one: Name the first movie where Godzilla was the good guy and tell me the other monsters who were in the movie and how long into the movie it is before good-guy Godzilla makes his first appearance.” The Reverend looked at Linus and grinned. “Is that it?” Linus looked at me. “’Is that it?’ he asks me. A lesser man would feel insulted.” “A lesser man would have no arms and be hanging on a wall and be named Art,” I replied.
Linus made the hmph sound again and shook his head. “You know what you two are? You’re limb-ists.”
“That’s not a word,” I said.
“Then how can I say something that isn’t a word? Huh? Answer me that one, Kato.”
“Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero,” said the Reverend. “Godzilla, Rodan, and Ghidra. And it’s thirty-seven minutes into the movie before both Godzilla and Rodan first show themselves.”
Linus was visibly crushed. “I thought for sure you’d miss it. A three-parter. I’d’ve bet money you’d miss at least one of them.”
“Try another one.”
Linus shook his head. “No, thank you; one disgrace a night is my limit.”
“I got one,” I said. Both the Reverend and Linus looked at me in surprise. I shrugged, then said: “What was the name of the giant rose bush that Godzilla fought with?”
“Biollante,” they both said simultaneously; then Linus chimed in with: “The best special effects they save for the dumbest story line. It’s a damn shame.”
“Well, I tried.”
Linus reached over the seat and patted my shoulder. “It was a good question, though, Sam. Most people don’t know that any new Godzilla movies were made after Terror of Mecha-Godzilla. And I don’t count that big-budget abortion from ’98…although Jean Reno kicked ass in it.”
“Yeah, he’s great,” said the Reverend.
After that, the three of us fell silent for a few minutes. The rain was turning into serious sleet, and a few pebble-sized chunks of hail bounced off the windshield. I turned up the defrost and ran the wipers, turning the world outside into a liquid blur of shapeless colors.
“A fit night for neither man nor beast,” said Linus.
I turned around and grinned at him. “That’s a line from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, right?”
Linus rolled his eyes and sighed. “We three are just a fount of useless information this evening.”
“No, I fixed up the VCR back at the shelter so this woman and her kids could watch Rudolph before we left.”
“That’s some truly unnerving syntax,” said the Reverend.
“I work hard at it.”
The Reverend poured Linus some hot coffee and gave him a sandwich, and while he ate I checked the time and saw it was about time to move onto the next pickup point. I put the van into gear and was just pulling away from the curb when a police cruiser rounded the corner doing about sixty, its visibar lights flashing but the siren turned off: silent approach. It sped past us, followed by an ambulance whose lights were flashing but whose siren was turned off, also.
“Okay, that’s interesting,” said the Reverend.
Both of the vehicles stopped at the mid-way point on the East Main Street Bridge. One of the police officers got out and looked over the side of the bridge.
Without being told to do it, I spun the wheel and headed in that direction. There’s an old fisherman’s shack on the banks of the Licking River below the bridge that some of the homeless folks in town use as a flop when the weather’s bad and they can’t make it to the shelter.
By the time we got to the bridge, two more squad cars had pulled up and I could see that there was already another ambulance and at least three other squad cars parked down near the river bank.
“They must’ve taken the access road,” said the Reverend, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t want to try and drive back up that thing tonight.” He threw open the door and climbed out. The police officer who was looking over the railing caught sight of him and turned around, his hand automatically resting on the butt of his gun, but then he saw who it was and relaxed. The Reverend went over and spoke to him for a few moments, the officer nodded his head, asked a question, and on hearing the Reverend’s answer turned his head slightly to the side and spoke into the radio communications microphone attached to his collar. The Reverend thanked him, and then came back to the van.