R.M. led his pack over to the lake. The thirty minutes gave him time to think, unless of course his walking companions or encounters with neighbors distracted him along the route. His wife rarely pushed conversation, even for these public appearances. He was walking and that was concession enough. So he thought about business, reviewing points – mostly fine – that he’d stashed away, in the heat of the customer-centric moment, for his further consideration. The Shells had decided to write an offer on the unit they’d seen two weeks ago at the POPS. As promised, he’d taken them out to view other buildings that offered a morning lake view, their priority. Apples to apples, there were other units they liked the layout of somewhat better, but for the price, and building to building, they preferred the POPS.

It never surprised him anymore, what people thought was important. For some, like the Shells, it was a certain view. For another buyer, it was the soundness of the finances of the association, those able to follow, or able to pay for the services of an attorney or accountant to follow the chain of minutes and budgets back to a faint certainty that few surprises would meet them at the door when they moved in. For others, the concern was their dog. They’d had a terrible experience in their previous rental, felt like pariahs every time it barked. Or, somebody else had to know if their SUV would fit in the assigned garage space, and would the doors open, once it was parked? Little things meant a lot; they were just different little things, each to each.

R.M. had informed them that it was possible, sometime out into the hereafter or perhaps next week and at the whim of the owner, that an entirely east-facing unit might come on the market. But they had resolved to buy in this market, not the one over the rainbow, and this was music to his attuned, Realtor ears. They had thrashed out their original wish list, decided together what they should do, and R.M. felt on surer ground with them. There came a time when a buyer knew that of all the potential units this was the one to buy, that this was as good a deal as it could be.

After all the conversation about sedately welcoming in the dawn, the Shells had been misled by their dream of sunny mornings gazing eastward. Turned out it was too hard to look at, and anyway, they had little time for gazing. If they could grab a few minutes of sparkling sunshine when the weather offered it, before they headed out each morning, that would suffice. Retreating from their original stance and opting for a place offering a wider variety of exposures, to the east, south, and west, in a range of seasons, they could command longer, and less blinding views.

That, plus they appreciated that this unit was in move-in condition. They had zero time for ‘HGTV’ related activities, no matter the clarion call of ads reinforcing that without a home improvement agenda, and new wallpaper preferably of their own design, they could not find happiness. They had to get up and go to work, and re-pay their student loans. He was pleased that they had seen it through, and that the color of the granite counters was now immaterial. R.M. and company crossed Lake Drive.

It was too late to run the dog down on the beach but they could enjoy the view of Lake Michigan from the grassy top of the bluff, where there were benches for those requiring a rest before the return leg of a jaunt. And the panorama was a remarkable one. Even at this time of the year, nearing midsummer, as the light faded to twilight on the eastern shore below the bluffs, obscuring the strand at the shoreline, the sun still played out over the lake, far out to its Adam blue rim.

Balanced against the blue, a triumvirate of white boats skirted this horizon, riding the altar cloth that split the heights from the depths. As the hulls rested below this edge, mast fingers prayerfully lifted skyward, their illuminated sails like hands folded in supplication, revealing a sunset-gilt triptych. R.M. recollected himself as an altar boy at St. Agnes, schooled to revere such beauty but easily diverted. A swallow, another watcher, churred from its twisted, cliff-side perch; R.M.’s eyes tracked its dart as it swooped towards the scene playing out in the bay below. He’d observed events of many kinds in the bay; weddings by the score, family photo sessions, even a bounding chorus of teenage boys whooping out a show tune, oblivious to onlookers, spurred to a quick run-through by the chilly waves from which their circle sprang.

This was different, a drama played out upon a single boat anchored just offshore. He absently took it in, through the thickening gloam. A cluster, largely female, manned the deck. One of the women hailed an unseen ’sister’, her megaphone-d demand reverberating across the water. A golden head surfaced near the boat, followed by a black body, some new variant of otter, perhaps. No, it joined the line-up on deck; human, then. Voices rose, this time unaided, he assumed as the resonance was hostile, not mechanical. The action reached the forefront of the crowded, miniature stage, with something heaving at the far side before he heard an irregular splash. It grew too dark to see, even as he squinted, waiting for more. He gave up and stood to go.

“The train of Oberon.” said Mrs. R.M.

“Eh?”

“The train of Oberon, remember, from a Midsummer Night’s dream?”

“Um…oh that train.”

“Really R.M. Do you just pretend to be awake when we watch old movies?”

“Remind me, then.”

“At dusk, Oberon, the King of the Fairies, lets loose all his folk from his vast, black, trailing cape, as night falls behind him, until dark surrenders to dawn when he gathers them again. It’s magnificent, and set to Mendelssohn.”

“I remember the Mendelssohn.” R.M. fancied himself a devotee of classical music but this did not extend to fairies. His wife was more fanciful than he. His ‘ocean-front’ buyers imagined a deep sea before them, not a shallow, benign lake. Condo dwellers lived above the fray of creatures of the deep, and perhaps of evil lurking in those depths. “I don’t remember that bit.” He confessed; his thoughts today were destined to be framed by others’ pre-occupation with sunrise and sundown. The newly installed sign at the top of the walk insisted that the park was closed at 10 p.m. He supposed it was always too dark by then for anyone to see the sign but in any case, the rule was typically overlooked.

“Morning comes early, especially at mid-summer, and we should head back.” she said. “But I’d like to walk up the park, take the longer way home.” Resistance being futile, they took to the sidewalk again, heading north.

“Si, can you keep us in this spot?” The weeds on the surface seemed further onshore; Si dropped the anchor.

“I’ll be in the cabin. Call me when you need me.” Si wanted to avoid being cast in this drama. He retreated down to his comfortable chair, and looked out towards the beach where the Pastor’s partner lingered, awaiting instructions on this training ground for newbie miracle workers. What these instructions were eventually to be was the subject of some disagreement, if the tone of conversation on deck was anything to go by. She perched, apparently impatient of the delay, on what must have been a larger piece of driftwood, that in the gloaming undulated as a sea serpent, raising dragon sharp talons and lashing tails. It rose up on the north side of the wall that severed the beach in two, and with she its black rider, it merged into a fearsome apparition, a creature of oceanic, not of lakeside, depths.

He closed his eyes to it. As he drifted off, the shadows rubbing out the ever-darkening face of the bluff shooed the beach going public reluctantly up the ramp, as the beautiful day ended. Silhouettes criss-crossed the top of the bluff, dissolving as night arrived. He dozed, aware of voices and movement above him, as in a dream.

“It’ll be too dark soon to do anything, now, thanks to your bickering. She’s not going to be able to see my signals.” Herb lectured at all three of them. His plan had been to figure the distance between boat and beach at which the sound level was consistent over a number of tries, with a range of speaking voices and with set pieces: prayers, songs, readings, and preaching, as they’d have to use all of these, in the event.

The culmination was to let out the nets over the side, and to haul them in overflowing with fish. Kitty had researched nets and proposed using lightweight, plastic mesh ones. The only fish substitutes that Myrtle and Thea had found, their assignment, were in bright tropical colors, inflatable and expensive. Kitty had then made a suggestion to Herb to just use beige packing peanuts; surely, at that distance, the eye wouldn’t perceive. Her sensible and cost-effective alternative ensured another round of back-biting for Herb, and more rehearsal time wasted as they railed on at him about real ropes, then segued to false gods; he didn’t see their point, only felt their rancor.

“We can’t see how to make this ugly net work in the dark, either, so we have to do this right now. I’ll call her in, if you won’t.” Myrtle raised the megaphone to her mouth and before Herb could protest, crowed, “Sister Kathy, swim out.” He was puzzled by her use of the word ‘Sister’ as applied to her nemesis. They all waited for their Sister to appear. She materialized, sleek in her suit, at the foot of the boat ladder.

“Sister Myrtle.” Kitty mimicked the Pastor’s wife, ignoring the other two women jockeying in on the exchange. They towered behind Kitty’s brand new Sister – in post position – at the head of the short flight of steps.

“Sister Kathy, it’s time to check the nets. Climb up and demonstrate.” As Kitty rose from the water and stepped onto the deck, Herb interrupted his wife’s run-on agenda, and attempted to re-establish his own, now in a more deferential tone.

“Kathy, while I remember to ask, before you go back to the beach, will you please quick check the propeller, make sure we haven’t picked up any weeds.” This politeness to her only served to whip up more rage in the under-served hearts of the other three. “Si was concerned we might be catching some. That would stop the propeller from working, so he says. I’m no sailor.”

“Certainly.” Kitty knotted a length of twine she pulled up behind her to mark the length of the distance from shore, where she’d left the other end tied to a stake firmly set in the beach. “I’d estimate that we’re still in the ball park. I’ll pull this in when I get back to the beach and measure, to be sure.” With a precise and supple arm, she aimed and hurled the ball of twine back toward the shore. Turning her attention to the bale of plastic netting strewn about her feet, she commented, “Actually best, Sister, if you untie this up here on the railing, or in the water, otherwise you might trip up. It springs at you. Future reference.” She faced Herb. “What’s next, Pastor?”

“My timing hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped. We didn’t get to rehearse many of the sound issues we’d pre-arranged to try. Now that night is falling, unfortunately we’ll have to wait until another opportunity. All part of the learning curve, yes?” His attempt at excuse came out with an unconvincing snigger. Not one of them echoed his expectations. His family was glaring, closing in, encircling Kitty, though she seemed to rise, standing head and shoulders above them, her hair a glowing halo, re-directing the remains of the dying light. “Mrs. Minosa, Thea, and her niece, Erin – have you two actually met, well you have now, haven’t you? – are suggesting that before we head back, that we test the fishing net portion of the event. Can you show us how that will work, while we can still see?”

“Yes. This should all be done on the side of boat, or boats, facing away from the shore, of course, so that we can work the miracle unseen. We’ll have to secure the net to the side, to be able to haul it back up.” Kitty maneuvered her way under the plastic bale, finding the openings as she wrestled the expanding net over to the railing. “Are there any fish to put in?” Erin huffed, and stuffed in their paltry sample. Kitty tossed an end of the net up on the rail, and pulled up on the attached drawstring. Smiling, plastic fish eyes peered through the mesh. “Are there any more lights on the boat? Can you find out?” Herb nodded and went below where he found his pilot, fast asleep. The moment Herb’s back was turned, the women let go, their anger a hissing quiver of speech, first Thea, then Erin, then Myrtle.

“You harlot.”

“You shape shifter.”

“You whited sepulcher.” They formed a chorus. This was an unfamiliar portion of the script to Kitty.

“Wait, is this a re-write?” Maddened by Kitty’s belittling, Myrtle wound up again.

“Who violates my son, is evil!” At this, Kitty just laughed in her face.

“Look closer to home, Sister.” With that taunt, the angry birds descended, and man-handled their startled prey into the net.

“False unbeliever!”  Thea pronounced, as she lashed a rough knot in the drawstring, while Kitty kicked.

“Let me go… you can have all of them back again.” Kitty recanted, reaching her fingers through the mesh. Myrtle spit at them.

“Keep your foul hand and your unclean hair. Drowning is too good for you!” They heaved the closed net and its castigated contents overboard into the dark waters.

“My hair is clean…” was the last they heard of her. Herb stumbled back over the cluttered deck, flashlight in hand.

“This is it for light, Kathy. Where is she, Myrtle? What was that splash?”

“She had to go.”

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As they came aboard, carrying large plastic bags of props, Si learned that their destination was a beach on the northern Milwaukee county shoreline. He’d first have to negotiate the Milwaukee River, under the Hoan bridge and out into the harbor, up past the festival grounds and the marina, then skirt the city beaches northward to the suburban ones. Even on his sleek cabin cruiser, he could only pick up any real speed over the open lake waters, so it was going to be a be a fairly long ride, at least eight miles each way with a return journey in the dusk, and probably dark, to slow them down further. This trip should take care of a lot of his guilt.

His four guests had their heads together most of the way there. They seemed almost conspiratorial; the Minosas always looked that way to him. At least this saved him from making small talk. He needed to pay some attention to where he was going; he was a bit rusty after a winter away from his helm. It was still early in the summer, with most of his boat time spent down in the cabin, his home away from home, reading and resting up for the really fine days to come. He was a fair weather fiend when it came to boating.

“Uncle Herb?”

“Yes, Erin.”

“My interview with Mr. Thuss is tomorrow, remember? I’m still the only candidate you’ve recommended, right? You didn’t suggest Kathy Doyle, did you? Linwood thought you might be thinking about it.”

“Linwood did?” Of all things, Herb intended to keep his Kathy away from Thuss, not expedite their relationship. Erin asked too many questions. “Mr. Thuss has hiring guidelines he needs to follow, dear. You just do your best to show well. You have no work experience, so you should emphasize your other, um, qualities.” Erin simpered back at him but was sure she should be offended by this avuncular advice.

“People like her, with her kinds of experience, don’t deserve to go to Heaven, isn’t that right?” Erin had seen but never met her and resented the comparison.

“I teach that Heaven is for the helpers and heroes of this world, Erin. But I don’t decide who gets into that lovely and peaceful place. I hope it’s full of people we love.” Herb’s glib platitudes reeked of hypocrisy.

“Who loves Kathy Doyle?”

“Kathy Doyle deserves to be punished, not rewarded, for her misdeeds.” Myrtle had her own ideas about what should be taught. “She’s a sinner and it’s our job to catch her out in her artifice.” Herb had a few diddles of his own at stake as far as Kathy was concerned and wasn’t sure how much they all knew, or guessed. How far out on this limb should he go crawling?

“She’s supposed to be working for you, not against you.” Thea put in her two cents and received an ominous look from her brother-in-law, who preferred to keep his teaching in house. Bad enough he had to endure Myrtle’s pronouncements but he intended to squelch Thea’s entrance to his limelight. She belonged in the choir. He changed the subject.

“We don’t want to be punished for the sins of omission, either.” Herb needed to get at least one venue under his belt this week or he might lose his own job with Thuss, as well as Kathy, if this kept up. “We do have a job to do, here, remember?” Herb admonished his wife, then regretted it. “All of us, here, tonight.” He tried to amend, too late to sidestep the public reproach, the curse of marriage.

“And you mean to listen to that whore, that Babylon, and not to us?” Myrtle stood and drew herself up to her full height, so that she was nose to nose with her seated husband. He was getting a whiff of professional jealousy in her breathy judgement.

“Sit down, Myrtle, it’s a bumpy ride.” Herb was trying to keep an even keel himself, unused to the chop of the waves much less the murderous look in the eyes of these women. Despite his appeasements, all three appeared to be working themselves into a silent and deadly fury. He took the moment to consider his own position. True, Kathy was good at this job but after her defiance last night, he was less and less sure of her compliance. Would she still hold any value for him if she continued to do that? He’d excused it last night because the boy was there, and he assumed it was a show on her part. But if she was totally uninterested in bonding with him, what use would she be, especially now with Myrtle so dead set against her? He’d never change Myrtle’s mind and he couldn’t run the parish without her. He’d been so convinced that Kathy would become his private doll, his very own toy, his secret plaything, to keep in his little house, in the same toybox he kept Moth. His choice of playmate, to take out at will.

“Pastor?” Si was hailing him. “We’re almost there. What do you want me to do next?”

“Thanks, Si.” Herb went out on the deck, scanning the beach for signs of a whore in a wetsuit. A creature in black emerged from the waves, beckoning to him. His heart gave a final thump, then turned inevitably as cold as the water around him. He felt his own tragedy playing out before his disbelieving eyes. He rejoined his wife.

“Si,” he instructed, “apparently there’s a restriction here on how close you can come to that groin. Can you show me what fifty feet away looks like?” Si really couldn’t but he made a guess, to play the Pastor along. “And now, fifty feet from the shore?” Si repeated the charade.

“Herb, get her here, onboard.” Myrtle hissed her command. Herb saw that the three had unpacked the bags and stood huddled amidst the nets and fake fish.

“All in good time, yes. Save your breath to blow up those fish.” Herb then spoke across the water, not raising his voice.”Kathy, can you hear me?” She stood back from the shore, in the middle of the beach. They had practiced the steps of this dumb show in advance, with an agreed signal system. She gave him a thumbs down. Same when he cupped his mouth and spoke again. Herb reached for a megaphone, tried at the volume of his own voice speaking normally into a microphone. Again, she gave the thumbs down. He cleared his throat, and raised his voice to the pitch he sometimes reached at the culmination of his sermons. This time, she pressed her open palms up and down, an indication that she could hear some but not all of what he said. The boat would simply have to be closer for this to work, without amplification.

“Anything I can do, Pastor?”

“Can you get in any closer to the beach?”

“Well now, Pastor, I could get closer but then we might not get out again. See all that seaweed floating in the bay? That gunk gets in the propeller, and the propeller won’t turn. Could we ask that wetsuit lady of yours to come out and untangle it all from below, if you want to take the chance?”

“Did you see that Kathy showing off up there onstage? Parading like a prom queen? Disgusting.” Thea led the waltz, as they entered the auditorium.

“At least you couldn’t see her tits. When she’s with Herb, she sticks out in a church t-shirt that’s six sizes too small for her.” Myrtle was unaware that her suffering husband had himself selected the size that Kathy was to sport in his presence.

“She must be a terrible trial for him, throwing herself at him that way. You’re lucky he’s so loyal.” Thea reassured her smirking sister. “I mean, she’s so fake. That hair! At morning meetings she looks blank, like nobody else is there. Here she’s all smiley and happy. And she can’t sing a note right either. Everybody in the choir said so.”

“I think she must be stupid, or slow. How can it take that long for anybody to learn a few miracles, I ask you? They’ve been holed up for weeks now.”

“Bet she’s trying to make it last longer, to tempt poor Herb. And, it’s not just Herb she’s been tempting, either.”

“I know. Herb said he’d found Linwood up in her bedroom, last night.”

“Alone? Not?…”

“They were praying – ha! Herb’s a fool if he thinks that.”

“What did Herb see?”

“They were kneeling, or something. He ordered the boy to leave, he said, and warned the woman. I demanded an explanation from Linwood this morning. All he said was that she was the answer to his prayers, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and that she was ‘nice’ to both he and Timothy.”

“Nice, he calls it? Can’t Herb dismiss her or cut her pay, or something?”

“Not without trouble. She’s paid out of a separate account set up by Thuss. And he’s too good to be true, too, if you ask me. ”

“He’s flashy, not like Herb. Herb works hard. People are way too taken in by flashy, in my opinion.”

“But what else do you know about her?”

“Well I do know something, but I’m not the only one. What I know is that I heard Woody boasting to Thaddeus about kissing a blonde – I think he said ‘kissing’ but now you’ve got me worried – at our storage place. I didn’t hear it all, of course, though I tried too. Something about a pizza. That didn’t make any sense, kissing a pizza. Do you think Kathy is the blonde? She’s so old. Could it even be possible?”

“A whore in my own house, seducing my husband and both my sons.”

“Sons? Not Timothy, too?”

“She was huddled up with him the other night looking at porn on the computer, I’m sure of it, now. It’ll be your son next, if you’re not quick.”

“Sister!”

“This is what comes of letting into our midst a harlot who keeps shocking underthings in drawers and puts nasty, cloying scents in my bathtub.”

“You found those upstairs? You searched her room?”

“Wouldn’t you? Stinking candles everywhere, too.”

“Come on! And I still haven’t told you what Erin told me. Timothy’s been asking her a lot of questions about getting a job with Thuss, and if there were other positions open. And even worse, Thaddeus and Linwood were asking her about how it was to get away from her family, what kind of things she did without parents around. Poor, innocent Erin didn’t understand what they were talking about, she confided to me, as she was so, so happy to be back amongst us again after all the corruption she saw at her college. Myrtle, something must be done.”

“Erin is most suitable for the new position. I told Herb so and that’s why he hasn’t recommended anyone else for it. The job belongs to Erin, not an upstart floozy like Kathy Doyle.” Myrtle, as a sensitive wife properly would, increasingly discouraged Herb’s unwanted personal attentions but she drew the line at his making a fool of himself at her expense. She had far too high an opinion of herself as Mrs. Pastor to allow that to happen, not right under her tiny and domineering feet. Her family history was private, an unopened book of tyranny and merciless fidelity, not available to strangers and harlots, nor to sisters either, not in its entirety. “There must be some way to get rid of her, and fast.”

“She doesn’t look to me like she’d scare easy.”

“She should learn to be afraid of respectable people like us, and not be putting ideas, or whatever else, into young boys heads.”

“It will have to be more than a hint. She’d never take a hint.”

“A push, then. A big push. To get the message through to her. A little pebble in a sling shot would just bounce off all that pile of yellow hair. Never get near her forehead.”

“And she could sweet talk any lions, in any den, easy.”

“The walls of Jericho will have to collapse before she’d notice a thing.”

“Let’s blow the horn at her then, and hope she’s standing on them when they fall. But how?”

“We’ll go along to that rehearsal, the one for the miracle of the fishes. Bring Erin, too. I don’t trust Herb and Petersen to fend off her calculating claws.”

************

Simon Peterson owned a speedboat, the ‘LakeSea of G’, docked at his riverfront condo downtown. He and his wife had purchased the condo when they retired from his manufacturing business in Waukesha, thinking that they would enjoy life more as empty nesters in the city than all alone in the big house in the same old subdivision. He was glad he’d bought when he had. Then the dock was an $18,000 upgrade. Today, the same private dock was running at least twice that amount. His wife liked to shop. Many days, when she hopped the train to embrace retail Chicagoland, he took off for a day in his boat. Often, he went on days when she was home, too. It was a great place for an uninterrupted read of a few newspapers and an unsupervised nap.

To make up for his twinges of guilty conscience for his idleness, he occasionally offered days on the river or the lake to other members of his church. The Petersons didn’t attend as often as before, when they’d had kids, but they kept up their membership, and gave generously. Pastor Minosa had called him just last week to see if he’d be willing to share his boat for use in the church’s upcoming Miracle Tour. If it worked out, there might be multiple times over the summer but there would be only a few people on the boat each time. All highly controlled, and all he’d have to do was be captain. Unlike his more socially skilled wife, Si didn’t know how to refuse. He was on tap for what they were calling a rehearsal, this evening. Four of them, Mrs. Minosa confirmed, would meet him at his publicly accessible, RiverWalk dock at 7:30.

Woody often parked the truck and then took off with Tad, in Tad’s car. On Mondays, though, he stayed with Moth, to pick up the battered, barely fluttering, pieces of his brother, after their father’s ministrations. Even on the off chance that he might notice the truck outside, Herb would never expect to find Woody upstairs. It hadn’t occurred to Woody that his father might frequently want to be in Kitty’s room, too, especially after a vigorous session with Moth. With his pastoral visit complete, he usually scurried off home to Myrtle – though why, Woody didn’t comprehend.

“Sure.” Kitty was curious, after all. There was no lock on her door. Anybody could wander in at will so she’d kept her possessions there to a minimum, as the very thought of Minnie Minus fingering through them revolted her. She left only things that would surely annoy that aura of sanctimony; her unlit, scented candles (in scrupulous succession, and to repel potential accusations of a reckless pyromania, she swapped in candles with virgin wicks for the ones she’d lit the previous night, relishing the deception), the flimsiest of sleepwear, a vial of musky perfume, a Bible religiously open to the designated daily passage. The rest of her stuff she’d, almost cheerfully, lug up and down the steps to her car each day, to escape detection. It was so, so worth the effort to thwart her prim hostess.

Once in her room, she would firmly click shut the door and quickly light up a dresser top of candles, before dousing the merciless ceiling light. If Herbie showed up, she’d claim to be at prayer or already in bed, to dissuade him from entering, although there had been nights when, after returning an unconvinced goodnight through the door, she’d sensed him hesitating outside, stalking awhile before creeping back down the stairs.

This time, with Woody in tow, she switched off the unflattering overhead lighting first, while he removed his dripping coat and draped it across the back of the chair stacked with Bibles and promotional materials, as Kitty struck a match and lit a single candle.  She sat cross-legged on the bed, and patted the space beside her, unsure as to the degree of difficulty this further extraction of family truth might prove. Woody searched the floor for an available seating alternative. Other than standing, there was none save that one fully loaded chair. Memory served; he perched on the bed, hoping.

“Tell me.”

“It’s a mess.”

“Is it just Moth?”

“He tried it on with me once, a long time ago but my Mom found us. He told her he was saving me but then he stopped and left right away with her. After that, I started working out, so I could defend myself, if he tried again. He didn’t and Mom never said a word about it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell somebody when stuff like this happens?” Kitty wasn’t up to speed on child-rearing skills but she vaguely recalled some advice about reporting abuse.

Woody scoffed. “Tell? Like, who? My kid brother, my parents, my teacher – when we were both home-schooled – my pastor?”

“Did you ever tell anyone?”

“Moth, after it happened to him, too, and he told me. See, awhile after my turn, Dad moved Moth into this house, as a caretaker, a satellite office person but it was really so he could work Moth over. He was barely sixteen. Moth says the drill is that Dad tells him he’s bad and needs to be punished and Moth’s supposed to say back that he’s sorry, over and over and fucking over, to Dad for everything he’s done, and after that he needs to be healed, even though Moth hasn’t ever done anything, just Dad has, pretending he’s Elijah, or something. It’s all bad shit.”

“And Moth?”

“He doesn’t know how to get out of it, though he knows it’s all crap.”

“And your Mom?”

“As long as it’s not under her roof, she doesn’t care. Moth’s very good at keeping the books straight and he keeps quiet. Why am I telling you all this?” Woody, like many, wanted to tell and then regretted having done it.

“I didn’t try and find them, Woody. It was all happening when I went in the office, to drop off some paperwork. I had no idea, really. I was shocked.” Kitty hadn’t realized that things were this bad for Moth but it was an unexpected boon. The riveting details were undoubtedly the means to her end. “You say this happens often?”

“Let’s say regularly, scheduled, like church services. He comes Monday nights to review the receipts, when Mom leads a prayer group at the church. Just lately, there have been more times, like he’s getting crazier.”

Kitty regarded the burning candle, as if for insight. “Do you ever want to hurt him, your Dad I mean, not Moth?”

Woody gazed into the fire, as if to be inspired to answer. “Hell, yes. I love my brother.” Woody gulped. “I’ll need to go down after Dad leaves. My parents are total frauds.”

“That must have been hard to say, Woody.” She’d endured analysis herself. Woody wiped away the obligatory tear. She moved to hug him. He offered no resistance. As they moved silently together, still fully dressed, a tap came at the door.

“Kathy, are you still awake?” Kitty moved instantly to a kneeling position on one side of the tract bearing chair, beckoning Woody to the other side of it; he at once obeyed.

“Kathy, it’s Herbie. Can I come in?” They barely breathed. Woody raised his eyebrows and mouthed the question, “Herb – ie?”

The door cracked open. “I want to be with you…” Woody stood up, abashed. Kitty, still kneeling, spun to face the pastor.

“Why Herb! Here we are, your devoted son and I, so deep in prayer for our impending mission that we didn’t hear you. Come, join us.” Like son, like father.

“Whoring? Linwood, leave at once.” Herbie spluttered at the sight before him, indignation rising faster than lust.

“This is my room and we are at work for our ministry.” She reared up, virtuous before the pastor. “You are the intruder here, not Linwood. I invited him here to pray with me. If you will not join us, leave us at once.”

Herbie raised his hand above his shoulder, as if to strike her. Her unexpected defiance defeated his purpose. She knew he’d been there for more of something else, and knew he knew it, too. His hand dropped, as did his tone.

“Of course, Kathy. We’ll speak at another time. Please be sure to put out the candle. We don’t want to start a conflagration, do we? Linwood, good to see you at prayer again.” Herbie was bailing out this boat as fast as fast could be.

After the front door slammed shut, they listened for the cough of his car, watched the headlights scour the drive, and only then did they douse the candle, and Woody’s prayers were answered while the renewed rain threw itself at the windows, staccato-ed on the drum of the roof, and competed with the rhythm thrummed in the bed just below.

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Relieved to have already put in her penthouse hours, she set aside the rest of the day to deal with the little treasures. It was important to rinse and sort first. Small ripe ones for the freezer, for the winter making of muffins. The plumpest, grape-like look-alikes were perfect for eating fresh out of hand, or with a green salad, though their somewhat mushy texture was not to everyone’s taste.

It generally wasn’t worth it to bother about the youngest, hard green or the oldest, wizened ones; nothing much going on with these. In her previous gardening life, the discarded ones were carted to the compost pile – no such communal pile in a condo, and so into the trash – and although they might do for making a flavored vinegar, she’d experimented and found that disappointingly tart; raspberry was so much nicer.

Gooseberries sometimes grew in clusters and often in pairs. The tiny green, stripy ones were translucent; you could almost see right through them. There were always a few large green ones that had apparently forgotten to grow up properly, avoiding the normal stages to pinky maturation. With the riper ones, size didn’t matter, flavor did; some of the ripest ones were on the smaller end of the scale.

All the berries required topping and tailing before use. It was a repetitious job but it was only once a year. It took considerable time to get through a pint and she often changed her position, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting. She would dread doing it everyday. With her fingers occupied, she took the opportunity it offered for long contemplation of some larger issue, or anything she liked, really.

The topping and tailing technique was all in the wrist, R.T. had concluded as he’d watched her, annually amazed at the patience applied to each tiny, or not so tiny, berry. She’d winked, and observed that if you wanted the pleasure then you had to do the work. To get the most out of each berry, what you had to do was this. The tailing took place at the blossom end of the berry where the woody and thicker tail appeared suspended from the bottom. At the tip of the bottom was a little, harder knob and the trick was to probe for and extract it, carefully exposing, without releasing them, the glistening contents held inside by the taut enclosing skin. Some exploded the minute she touched them, popping like the seed pods of an impatience flower, bursting in the grasp of warm fingers. Then she had to interrupt the rhythm of the thing, to wipe the goo from her hands and her paring knife.

To deal with the topping at the other end, one had to roll the ball of fruit, holding firmly, delicately, precisely, once again being careful not to allow the squishy, pale, and seedy jelly insides to escape through the opening just created, while putting slight pressure on the tail and nicking off the slender green stem. The purpler, softer ones were easier to grasp and turn over. Some required more special handling. It often needed coaxing and quite a hard pull to release the top and with the larger and riper ones, if you pulled too hard all the fruit came out at once.

If you did all this just right, the reward was one still full berry. Then, on to the next one. After topping and tailing, the berries quickly lost their firm, round shape, so it was best to get on with the recipe and use them up right away. Today, she would make plum and gooseberry curd. She liked the monotony of the slow stirring, watching the curd thicken, like the plot of a murder mystery.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Kitty had some receipts to turn in to Moth. Herbie’s car was there but no others. It was pouring; she parked as close as she could and sprinted inside. Though it was dark in the house for the time of day, no lights were turned on. Even she found this oppressive. She stood in the tiny foyer, her eyes adjusting to the obscurity. She heard a muffled sound, coming from the direction of the office. Somebody must be there, with any luck Moth; she could be quickly reimbursed for her expenses, before Minnie Minus got her calculating hands on them.

The office door opened in from the hallway, and from the office, to the left, through the door left ajar, just a corner of Moth’s bedroom was visible, the end of the bed, a window, a chair. As far as she’d ever seen, Moth lived like a monk, confined to his cell, moving between bedroom and office in twelve hour shifts. His visit to her room must have seemed like a fantasy cruise, and unimaginably far from the ordinary routine. Oddly then, he wasn’t apparently in the office. She was about to call out his name when she heard a groan.

She sensed someone moving in the bedroom, and waited for Moth to come out. Herb’s backside hoved into her full monty-esque view, framed in the doorway, his buttocks and thighs exposed and his trousers rippled in folds at his feet as his knees inched crab-like, across the side of the bed. He was wearing his signature gold t-shirt with the ‘Plenty for All’ logo proclaimed in purple on the back, wielding a belt and bringing the business end of it down hard on a naked Moth, who squirmed along the top of the mattress to keep up, chasing the leading genitals, following in his father’s sideways steps. She could not see their faces. It was like an auto-response with her now. She whipped out her phone and grabbed a flash-less picture, retreating into the hallway, praying to the photo-editing gods for clarity. The moaning continued, louder now.

She went back in to get a better look. Their backs still to the door, they had migrated to the end of the bed, with Moth face down, spreadeagled, his legs skewed apart like the tines of a deranged serving fork around his father’s heaving bottom. With each downstroke of the belt, Herb hissed, “Bad, bad, bad” while Moth whimpered, “Sorry, Father, I’m so sorry.” Then he stretched and stood over Moth three times, raised his arms up, as if in exaggerated prayer. Herb threw aside the belt, pinioned Moth, leaning into him, his hands to mattress on either side of his son, and began pushing, oblivious to the other intruder, as their call and response litany pervaded the space. She set her receipts on the desk and withdrew, before Herb did.

She was heading up the stairs to her room to check the quality of her pictures – if these didn’t turn out, she surmised there would be other photo opportunities at regular intervals – when Woody came in the front door, jacket soaked.

“Still raining out there, Woody?” she teased.

“Funny. You’ll have to move your car, you know. Dad’s a stickler with assigned positions.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Are you here alone?”

“No, I’ve just come from the office. They’re quite busy in there.” Woody stared and reddened.

“You saw them, didn’t you?”

“Briefly. What’s up with that, Woody?”

]]> http://www.condomilwaukee.com/resources/realtorman/118-topping-and-tailing/feed/ 0 http://www.condomilwaukee.com/resources/realtorman/117-the-psalm-before-the-sturm-and-drang/ http://www.condomilwaukee.com/resources/realtorman/117-the-psalm-before-the-sturm-and-drang/#comments Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:34:57 +0000 admin http://www.condomilwaukee.com/?p=7762 “Mrs. James. Rod Thuss again.” It was Sunday morning, 8-ish. “I’ve left my door ajar and a key for you to use. Looks like you made some progress. Anything I can answer for you, before I’m on my way to services?”

“Thanks for the key. Of course, I’ll always call before I come up, make sure it’s a convenient time for you, first. So far, the work is raw organization, setting up a workable space. Perhaps in a few days I’ll have more specific questions about how you’d like things arranged. By the way, and this is a silly question, but do you have scissors anywhere?”

“No, I don’t. I borrowed some from Gervase but gave those back. There are scissors on an order form someplace. If you come across it, it should really be sent in at once.”

“I’ll bring my own then – so useful aren’t they? – and keep an eye out for your order. What time will you be back?”

“It’s a big day today. So not until mid-afternoon, I expect.”

“I’ll work for several hours and let you know what times this week, alright?”

“We’ll have to co-ordinate on that, yes. And, leave me your hours for this weekend. I’ll pay you in cash, every Monday.”

If she went up soon, she figured she could get in a good six hours today, with one break for a quick lunch. She’d already packed up a box of tea things to carry along and stash in one of many empty kitchen cupboards. She’d added a lunch to her tea box before setting off to her labors on the Thussian heights, like Sisyphus, condemned to roll the same rock up the hill in perpetuity, a cousin of Jack and Jill with their pail of water. Putting her lunch in the refrigerator, she noted a goodly supply of ice cubes in the freezer, along with a flimsy plastic bag bursting with the cookies she’d brought him two weeks ago.

Today, she thought she’d tackle some of the heavier boxes that she’d been unable to shift the previous afternoon. She had room now to open them and lift out the contents in smaller weights before she decided where to place them. She proceeded, getting up and down until she thought she would be hearing from her knees.

Her poor swim-less knees. The question of whether to re-open the pool was still unresolved, a full month later. Martin and Martinelli were at a standstill on both their ‘cases’ at the POPS, the likely drowning and the certain snipping and unable to ‘clear’ either, she was informed was the way they said it, not ’solve,’ the way she’d learned, probably from mystery stories. In any case, and here she giggled at her own small pun, there was nothing doing, according to Gervase. She hadn’t spoken to the detectives in over a week so if there was any headway, she knew nothing about it.

The association would need to make a decision about the pool; whether to re-open after some modifications, or improvements, depending on who was talking about it, or close it and adjust the monthly fees to reflect that choice.  In the fairly constant company of Sebastian, Hans still assured her he could run some numbers, in between bouts of renovations in his new unit, or his old one.

In the meantime, she’d heard only good reports about the ping-pong activity in the solarium. Well, one old biddy had grumbled to her about stumbling over loose balls all over the floor but that was before the barriers had been set up. And Mr. Hazell, who regularly retreated to the solarium to escape his wife’s chronic telephone discussions with her friends about their respective health issues, hazarded his opinion that the constant pinging and ponging disturbed his reading and or, slumbers. Mrs. James had encouraged him to consider the equally annoying alternative to this relative peace, and to think of it instead as restful white noise, or to take up the game himself with his wife, even.

She went back to the penthouse foyer where she’d hastily dropped her bag on the entryway table, while still juggling the box of tea things. At previous workplaces, she’d always had to secrete her purse or personal items in a lockable drawer, such was the level of modern trust. But she was a creature of habit; leaving her place without a bag was unthinkable, and she’d need her own unit key. She might just as well leave the bag here when she came in; there was nothing that she really needed, and there was certainly no convenient spot to set it in the office, at least in its current state. If she were working here alone, her things could be in nobody’s way. She fished in her bag for the scissors and summoned up R.T., once more quite happily, with his penchant for scissoring every room. He would approve of her beginning a collection here, in this many-roomed, though father-less, mansion. She’d found a blue-handled pair she could easily spare, a multi-purpose type and still reasonably sharp, pending the arrival of her employer’s lost order.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Today was a big day for the mission. Rod was to do his awaited tout, revealing some additional details as a teaser. For his text, he had chosen a Psalm. Not the one designated for the day, but Psalm 140. He’d been trying to find some additional connection with the first miracle on tap for the tour, the fishers of men, the one Kitty had given her initial report about when she’d been with him on Friday. He was used to following guidelines for sermon or address topics, not thinking it through on his own. Formulas worked, so he used them most of the time.

Switching gears at the last minute, he hadn’t taken much time to prepare but he’d found this Psalm verse, and it had to do with water and nets so he thought he could make it work, with a few twists of his own devising. The 5th verse read “the proud have laid a snare for me, and spread a net abroad with cords, yea, verily, and set traps in my way.” He figured it would make a nice juxtaposition to the reading of the miracle of the full nets, that he would interject into his announcement, while pitching the Miracle Tour, rounded out with the action song readied by the choir, “I will make you fishers of men.” Not the snares and traps of the Old testament but the generosity, plenty, and abundance of the New Testament, with their Savior in full control of the forces of the deep. Nets not only full of fish but teeming with men, women, and riches, too. No matter how prosperous they already were as fishermen, James and John would again opt to give it all up to serve the Lord. This was the spirit the mission intended to inculcate, the well to tap.

On the stage with him were the crowd from last Sunday, including the Minosas, and Kitty playing at her Kathy role. Her transformation amused him but that Mrs. Minosa unnerved him, especially with her glasses on. He was reminded of some shrewish creature illustrated in a book he must have known as a child. Myrtle invoked a Mrs. Tiggy Winkle minus the generous nature of the original hedgehog, and instead glaring, disapproving above the steel rims, listening intently to every his word, hoping to trip him up, perhaps into one of the meshy nets in the miracle he was busy declaiming.

“If you intend to make a hole, then you first wrap the yarn around the hook, before you insert it, and then make the stitch. The more times you wrap it around, the larger the hole becomes. I’ll show you, next time.”

“O.K. But I can do it, too?”

“Yes, if you pay attention. Pansy, when you said ‘Sisters’ for the list, what did you have in mind, do you know?”

“Kinda. Mom and Gina are sisters, and we’re sisters and sometimes we fight and other times we’re best friends. Is that what happens to other sisters?”

“You’re very lucky. I never had a sister, only an older brother, so I have no real answer. But there are lots of stories that do. Stories, and poems, and songs. When I was your age, my mother made it my chore to wake him up in the morning. She didn’t have the time, she said, because it took him so long to get up and he was a bear when he finally did. So I used to hide behind his bedroom door and read a poem out loud. It was a poem about two sisters. He hated that poem. But when he started to throw things across the room at me, to get me to stop, I had the door to protect me, and I kept right on reading.”

“Do you remember it, now?” said Pansy.

“The refrain, anyway. ‘There were twa – that’s two, to you – sisters sat in a bower, Binnorie, Oh Binnorie.”

“What’s a bower?” said Pansy.

“What’s a bin…ory?” said Poppy.

“I remember being pretty confused about all that myself, at the time. We’ll look for a copy of it this morning, and I’ll read it to you some morning when you don’t want to get up, how’s that? But the gist of the poem is that two sisters both loved the same man and what happened when he chose one of them. I don’t want to give away the ending – it’s a surprise. In the meantime, a bower is a little bench in a garden, all surrounded by beautiful flowers. And Binnorie is the name of a place in Scotland, where the story happens, with a large body of water, with a dam and a mill at one end of it. It’s time for us to get going, though, to catch the bus.”

That afternoon, after lunch, and upon request, she read them the poem. It was often sung, a lively folk song but she wasn’t quite up to that. She omitted some of the many repetitions of the chorus that made the song so long. It told the story of two sisters, and of the suitor who chose the younger for his truelove. In a jealous rage, the older enticed the younger to the water and pushed her in – by the bonny mill dams o’Binnorie – and watched her sink, even though the younger and fairer sister stretched out her hand to her older sister and pleaded for her life. The girl washed downstream and was found dead, by the miller at the dam, and laid out on the bank – by the bonny mill dams o’Binnorie – where she was mourned by a passing minstrel. Years passed – by the bonny mill dams o’Binnorie – and when the minstrel returned, it was to enter a musical competition sponsored by the King. He passed by the grave of the maiden and retrieved her breastbone, for a harp. At the castle, as his turn came, his harp played of its own accord, sighing out a dirge for the lost lady, and naming the sister, now the Queen, as her murderess.

“Oh Mrs. James, that’s so sad. I’d never let Pansy drown, no matter how much I hated her. I mean, was mad at her.”

“Let us live in that hope.”

“I might pretend to let you drown, Poppy, if I got really mad, just to show you. But then I’d save you.”

“Do sisters always fight over other people, Mrs. James?” said Poppy.

“Not in my experience, no. But it can happen that they both care for the same person, as we just read. You’ll come to learn, though some people never do, that there are different ways of expressing love, and hate.”

“Could that actually happen, Mrs. James? I mean, that somebody’s bone could be just lying there and be a harp, and sing a song to get somebody in trouble?” said Pansy.

“It’s called a legend. It’s a story that lets us think about our feelings, or our past experience. So no, the details aren’t as important as they sound. But, is it better to save someone, and figure out later on why you did it, or to let someone get hurt because you think you know they deserve it?” The phone rang. It was Greg.

“Afternoon, Mrs. James. Coming to collect them now, please. And we’ll keep them for the rest of the weekend, if you could organize that.”

After their departure, over which she’d heard nary a scheduling word, she had a think about Sunday; whether she’d prefer to accompany Betty out to hear Rod Thuss in action mode at the church and throw her widow’s mite in his collection plate, or to handle his heavy files and collect from him herself. She almost heard R.T. laughing. She called her new employer.

“Mr. Thuss. Ivy James. I have an opening in my schedule this weekend, as it turns out, and have a few hours available this afternoon, and tomorrow, too. Would that be convenient for you?”

“Excellent, yes. Wonderful. I’ll be here for awhile. Do please.” She packed up her purse, though she could hardly imagine what she would be needing, except her wits or possibly a back brace, made excuses to Mull, who merely stretched a paw out into the sundialing afternoon sunsplash, and made for the elevator.

A few hours into the job, and alone in the penthouse, she took a little stretch herself, and a quick look around. Across the hall from his office room, there was a bathroom. It was the first time she’d ever worked in an office with a whirlpool bath. Perhaps if she got tense or a sore back from lifting, she could stop everything and jump right in, to relax. She’d been invited to use the kitchen, carte blanche, enjoy anything she wished, and she went in to discover the tea making potential, before her next stint. She wandered upstairs, finding self-contained, glassy suites of bathrooms and bedrooms, complete with mini-bars and refrigerators, entertainment centers, and other, to her, unusable luxuries. A guest might spend days before having to descend. But she was a worker at heart, and returned to the office.

It had all been fairly straightforward, so far, and the hardest part was to find a space to pile the preliminary sort out. She’d spread horizontally into the hallway. She left Thuss a note explaining that this was temporary, and to please not disrupt the stacks. Once she’d carved out an operable space, she’d put them all back, and in order. She’d return in the morning, and request a key, to permit her to freely come and go.