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Salem Dade was so spent after his ordeal, Marie
decided that the twelve must fend for themselves their first night as
disciples. Tonight Salem and his
mistress would, for the last time, have the hotel to themselves. Such an interval could test the
disciples’ resolve. Were they
ready to change their lives? Did
they really want to become the founding members of the Universal Church? Another reason for the delay, which she
must overcome, was the natural distrustfulness of street folk. The hotel, they told her, had a bad
reputation, which is the reason why it wasn’t used as sleeping quarters by
vagrants on the street. Its
rickety staircase, flimsy floorboards, and history of muggings and mayhem were
well known on skid row. Not
wishing to flaunt her powers in front of the disciples or test Salem’s
patience, however, she would wait for the right moment to transform these
quarters into a safe and livable home.
Salem needed time to rest up before playing his part. It must be obvious that he, not she,
was responsible for the transformation.
When it was done, it must be his, not her, powers they see. Not one of the twelve disciples wanted
to stay in the hotel in its present condition, so they scattered (in Salem’s
thinking as so many vermin) back into various corners of skid row, promising to
return the next day. Marie had
clapped her tiny hands in approval, but Salem shuddered at the thought. Since street people were normally
nocturnal and often slept late, the designated hour was 12 pm. It would, she explained to her
exhausted and overwrought protégé, be a test for them. If they returned at the required hour,
they were meant to be members of the twelve. If they failed to arrive or filtered in later than required,
they were unworthy to be counted in the twelve.
Salem, of course, had expected far more stringent
requirements for membership, which would have eliminated all of them and any
future derelicts selected in skid row.
Salem had wanted respectable “uptown folk,” and in his opinion even the
vagrants who finally stood up for him were unacceptable lowlifes, who had been
too cowardly to answer the call.
A bolt of lightning—Satan’s wrath—had saved
him. Only Marie Roget could he
count as a friend on earth.
That night, after a less sumptuous feast, the
prophet-to-be took a shower in resurrected plumbing nearby their room. Marie, not wanting to suffocate him
with her affection, followed suit, allowing her protégé to crawl into bed alone
this night, as she showered, and fall into a deep, untroubled sleep. When she was finished, she stood naked,
dripping wet, staring down at the world.
For many hours, she would pace the creaking floors of the hotel, wrapped
in thought. Never hungry or tired, unable to sleep as mortal folk, she stood
there, the most perfect specimen of womankind, hoping her calculation were
corrects, wondering if the Gate Master of Hell might just rebel and claim her
dominion in hell.
******
The following morning, after sleeping in late
and a frugal meal, Salem and Marie waited in expectation that all members of
the twelve would arrive on time—Marie hoping they would and Salem hoping they
would not. Marie had modified his
wardrobe significantly. Instead of
the Biblical getup he had worn on the street, he now wore a conservative white
suit. Though his Nazarene beard
had not changed, he wore his hair in a ponytail and had, on his feet, a shiny
pare of black shoes. When the
clock, which Marie had set on the wall, struck twelve, all members were seen
congregated below the hotel. With
a sinking feeling, Salem followed his mistress down to the lobby, where they
greeted the twelve. Heck and
Johnnie appeared, upon close inspection, to have hangovers, and a few of them,
who scratched, shivered and wiped their noses nervously, seemed to be suffering
from withdrawal. Most of them,
however, Salem noted with disappointment, had expectant expressions on their
dirty faces. Not one of them had
failed to show up, and they had all arrived at the hotel at the same time.
This morning—the first morning that Salem,
Marie, and the Twelve Disciples would go forth as members of the Universal
Church, Salem was expected to shepherd his small flock. They were, at this stage, Marie
explained patiently, like Bible students and, as the old bum had promised him
on the street, the nucleus of his congregation. He was, she reminded him, still a pastor. He just had a different faith and
different church. But now that he had what would be the founding
fathers and mothers of his congregation, Salem wondered what he was supposed do
with them. What doctrine would he
teach them? Marie remained silent
about this issue, as if she herself didn’t know. He knew that she wasn’t impressed with his new age form of
religion and showed little enthusiasm for the positive thinking, liberal
messages he had recently espoused in his church. So what exactly did she have in mind with this bunch? If not Christianity, what doctrine
could he teach men and women, who had been living as lost souls on the street?
He was repulsed and
nonplussed by this collection of ragamuffins and derelicts following Marie and
him now. In spite of her power to
give him anything he desired, she wanted him, for inexplicable reasons known
only to her, to live here on skid row and parade around with a dozen unwashed
bums. At this stage, though, he
had little choice but to rely on his mentor for almost every thought and
action. He felt like a toddler
taking his first steps, but they were steps into the unknown rather than steps
into the familiar environment of one’s home, and yet, for the time being, this was his home.
To
make matters worse, he told himself, though no longer an indwelling spirit, she
was still able to read his thoughts whenever she wished, and she was probably
reading them right now. Kiss my ass bitch! Go to hell! He experimented with his thoughts, but
there was no response. Glancing
back at the newly formed congregation following he and Marie down the
boulevard, he shuddered at his task, half hoping that they would still lose
interest, as burned out bums often do, and disappear into the alleys from
whence they had come. He still
couldn’t believe that all twelve of them had shown up today. In spite of his liberal leanings, Salem
realized now how much he disliked these folk. They were dirty and smelly souls, with rotting teeth, bad
breaths, and uncouth ways. His
resentment at this collection of ragamuffins increased steadily as they
wandered through skid row.
So
far, in spite of his efforts of mentally shutting them out, Salem had gleaned
information about the twelve as he listened to them talk amongst
themselves. There were eight men and
four women. The loudest and most
uncouth members of the group were the overweight and bloated faced Buff Peyton
and shabbily dressed, crone Effie Powers, who, it was explained to him by
Marie, had once been a call girl on the street. This was difficult for Salem to imagine, since she
was, without a doubt, one of the most uncouth members of the group. A more recent lady of the evening had
been Ursula Painter, who had been on and off drugs for the much of her life, a
still attractive, but hard-looking Afro-American woman, with a shaggy head of
frizzy black hair. Among the
twelve derelicts, there were also those two fierce-looking fellows, Heck Reyes,
an ex-gang member, and Jonathan Trueblood, an American Indian, with nothing in
common but their size, muscular stature, and unkempt beards. More clean shaven, though still
sporting stubble on their faces, were the less unsavory-looking members of the
group, such as the talkative and affable Royal Channing, nicknamed Stork, who
sported a shock of blond hair and had almost albino-like skin. Yet another one in this group, Troy
Holland, who managed to maintain a crew cut, had a tattoo on his arm with the
telltale inscription The Few, the Proud,
the Marines. Salem had heard
Wyatt, the youngest man in the twelve, referred to affectionately by members of
the group as Padre. He wore the
dark jacket of the cleric and yet couldn’t have been more than twenty years
old. Salem found it hard to
believe that Wyatt had been in the seminary, but he heard him explain to Troy
and Ursula that he had actually been a novitiate priest.
The
third and forth woman in the group appeared to be good friends, and yet one of
them, Liz Moydin, had a hard look about her, perhaps from drug use or simply being
outdoors for so many years. The
younger of the two, whom Liz called Cassie, seemed to be only a teenager— a
Samoan-American girl it appeared, who talked in rhyme and riddles and seemed to
be getting on everyone else’s nerves.
Kaz
Yorba, the dwarf, was the strangest-looking member of the group, yet, in spite
of his features and small size, he had a sense of humor and seemed well
adjusted to life on the street.
Always
near the dwarf, perhaps to protect him, was Alden Taylor, someone whom Salem
had mentally saved until last in his reflections, perhaps because of this black
man’s uncomfortable resemblance to a renowned actor he had always admired. Of all the ragamuffins following
he and Marie, he seemed the most out of place, for he wore an old, tattered
suit and a derby. Clutched in one
of Alden’s hands was an umbrella, probably serving the duel purpose of a
sunscreen and protection against the rain.
As he glanced back
furtively at the twelve, he noticed from the corner of his eye Marie’s probing gaze. He knew that she was watching and
appraising everything he said or did.
“It’s good to be thinking
about them,” her thoughts came impulsively into his head. “When we reach the
park, we’re going to get to know each other. That black fellow, Alden Taylor, caught my eye too.”
“How
long do we have to stay down here?” Salem blurted his thoughts aloud.
If
she had, in fact, been tuned in to him, Marie was slow to answer, which was, he
was certain, deliberate.
Everything Marie did was deliberate. The fact was, however, she probably didn’t know how long
they would be down here. All of
this, including these twelve ragamuffins, he sensed with dread, was unfolding
before her dark eyes as a great pageant, beginning in these lowly depths and
perhaps ending, he suspected, at Armageddon during the latter days.
What if the fundamentalists had been right
all along? He asked himself, as he waited for her response.
“…. How long?” she mused,
a dreamy look appearing in her black pupils. “…. That’s a good question, Salem…
a good question, indeed…. But don’t trouble yourself…. We have plenty of time!”
“Don’t
trouble myself?” He
wanted to scream. “You change my entire life and you tell me not to trouble myself!” But instead he smiled wryly at her, certain
that she had read his thoughts.
With all his theology and Biblical knowledge
turned upside down by Marie, he wasn’t sure how much time they had. Perhaps a doomsday clock had suddenly
begun ticking away when she returned in the flesh back on earth. He didn’t recall this event they were
sharing prophesized in scriptures or apocalyptic literature. Satan, in fact, appeared to be making
all this up as she was going along.
Reaching down and taking his hand again, she squeezed it gently as would
any coquettish damsel, with the exception that she had the power of life and
death over her enemies, as well as himself, and could shift shapes into
anything that walked, flew, swam, or crawled on earth. She
was the mother of all deceit and father of lies, he reminded himself
light-headedly, as she brought his hand up to her warm lips and kissed it. Yet her interpretation of reality was
becoming his own.
“I
love you Salem,” she broke her silence. “…. Did you ever hear What’s-His-Name
say that?…. I will protect you and take care of you as no one, even your own
mother, could have done.”
“What?….
What did you say?” He broke away from his own thoughts again and looked askance
at her. “My mother, indeed. How
very absurd!”
Her last sentence sounded
so ludicrous to Salem that he broke into hysterical giggles. Here beside him, now fashioning
herself as his soul mate, was Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, the devil; he could
take his pick of titles. Had he
been wrong all these years? Was
the dark hermit of hell merely a master opportunist, on a power trip and not
interested in corrupting his immortal soul?
“I
could almost believe you,” he murmured, glancing back at Effie Powers, who was
suddenly a few paces behind them, puffing and panting, a protest on her
nicotine-stained lips.
“You
must believe me,” Marie squeezed his hand. “If you believe in me, you will have
great power.”
“Hey,”
Effie called out rudely, “what’re we suppose to do now? These people are getting restless. I think they’re hungry.”
The
other eleven ragamuffins nodded in agreement yet said nothing.
“Oh,”
Marie shrugged faintly, motioning with her free hand to the side of the road,
“over there near that old dumpster between those buildings....There’s something
special for his children.”
“Garbage?”
Effie made a face. “We thought he had power!”
“Yeah,”
scowled Buff, “I’m tired of scrounging in garbage cans.”
“Could
you scrounge me up a tuna sandwich, deary,” whined Liz.
“Salem,”
Marie murmured, “show them your stuff!”
I don’t have any magic, Salem thought
bitterly. All I am is a conduit
for your power!
“Point
to the dumpster,” Marie said from the corner of her mouth, nudging him gently.
“Say what I tell you, as it comes into your head.”
“No,”
he bolted at the thought, “do it yourself!”
“What
was that?” Effie asked Stork with suspicion.
“Salem,”
Marie whispered aloud, “ad lib if you wish, but you do have the power. I have already given it to you!”
“Abra
cadabra, hocus-pocus, shazam!” he jerked both hands around in pill-mill motion.
“Lobster thermidor, au gratin potatoes and French apple pie! Ouá
la!”
Suddenly,
as all eyes turned that way, a serving table appeared out of thin air. As if Satan had second-guessed him, she
added several side dishes and several beverages, and yet omitted alcoholic
beverages this time. He was
famished, himself. The twelve
disciples now ran toward this apparent mirage, laughing and giggling
hysterically amongst themselves.
At one point, Kaz, the dwarf, tripped but quickly jumped back on to his
feet. Ill-mannered Buff, Heck, and
the mysterious Jonathan Trueblood, were the first three to arrive at the feast,
elbowing everyone else, including each other, out of the way. Trueblood, the largest and meanest-looking
member of the bunch, was the first to grab a lobster and can of coke
“Abra
cadabra, hocus-pocus?” Effie muttered to herself, as she waited her turn. “What
kind of Christian talk was that?”
“Who
cares?” Buff snarled, piling his silver plate with vittles.
“I
can’t eat lobster, it gives me hives,” Stork complained, as he surveyed the
main course.
“Look
at the casseroles and breads,” exclaimed Alden, motioning with his fork. “You
don’t need a main course, man; I could fill up just on the bread!”
“I’m
starved,” Salem murmured to Marie. “I’ve never had such an appetite. You have truly bewitched me!”
Marie,
the Princess of Darkness, smiled wanly.
Though he had come a long way, Salem, she realized, was not yet working
with the program. He felt burdened
with this riff-raff. His lingering
distrust of her was becoming transparent.
It was also becoming apparent to Effie and Buff who was really in
charge. His attitude would have to
change soon, she reminded herself, as she watched him, without so much as a
“bless the food,” heap chunks of lobster and au gratin potatoes onto his plate.
******
While
the small group feasted upon the lobster, soft drinks, and various delicacies,
other derelicts were naturally attracted to the scene, which was all right with
Marie but disturbed Salem that much more.
Once again, he was reminded of flies converging upon spoiling meat, but
this time they were interested in food and not his radiant appearance. Skid row had grown used to one more
lunatic wandering its depths. The
additional vagrants were surprised at this feast but didn’t pay homage to the
new messiah. The retention
span of many of them was evidently short, and many of these particular street
folk had probably not witnessed the miracles performed. Salem was surrounded by enough
derelicts as it was; it would take several weeks just to rehabilitate this
group. When the world saw the
before-and-after story of all these down-and-out bums, they would be moved in
the same way Christians are moved by Jesus’ motley crew. This had been, he sensed acutely, Marie’s
plan from the beginning. She would
not admit this similarity to him, but he understood the number and the
significance of her choice. She
was attempting to outdo Christ in picking twelve humble folk as disciples. She had even thrown in four women to
round it out, two of whom had been prostitutes on the street.
As far as Salem was
concerned, however, bums were bums, and he still saw himself as a counterfeit
Christ.
“Tell
me Salem,” she said, watching him wolf down his food, “do you feel differently
at all about yourself?”
“Huh?”
he made a face, wiping butter from his beard “Of course I feel differently,
Marie. I just made love to the
Princess of Darkness. I just took
part in the incineration of a man and a woman, witnessed several miracles, and I
now have twelve disciples, and still look like Jesus Christ!”
He was being
sarcastic. Satan was not amused.
“Don’t
use that name in my presence,” she shuddered, giving his arm a sock. “You’re wearing a white suit now,
Salem. With your ponytail and beard,
you look more like Rasputin than Him.
But we can change that too, Salem, if it seems too close. After a few days, we could modify your
appearance entirely.”
“Yes,
entirely,” Salem cried out through a
mouthful of food, “even the white suit and this ridiculous beard and hair. You promise, Marie? I don’t like the symbolism and
message. You’re not fooling me,
Marie. I can count: twelve of’em,
just like in the New Testament, except that they’re the dregs of humanity.”
“Believe
me, Salem, the number is a sublime coincidence,” she lied sweetly, shaking her
head. “These folks just happened to be there at the right time. There’s no black magic here.”
“Hah,
believe you?” He scoffed, after
another mouthful of lobster and long swig of Coke. “That’s like believing in
Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.” “…. By the way,” he frowned into his
Styrofoam cup, “how about a little rum in this Coke for me, huh? I could use it right now. Why didn’t you just zap up some
champagne and wine like you did in the hotel?”
“Tsk-tsk,
so they could all get drunk?” She looked at him with disappointment. “You know
the problem some of these people have with alcohol and drugs. It will be part of our job to
rehabilitate these lost souls.”
“Those are fine words,” he
took a bite of croissant, “… but please remember that I know who you are!”
“Please don’t talk with
your mouth full,” she made a face.
Realizing that he had been
displaying poor manners, he washed down his mouthful of food with Coke and
unceremoniously wiped off his mouth with his sleeve.
“…. My first task, Marie,
before I whip these bums into proper form, is to forget who you really are,” he
explained after a loud belch. “I
have to get to know Marie Roget first.
What better way than through an alcoholic fog?”
“You
know me already,” she said with a
frown. “You just have to open your mind.”
“No,”
he uttered a bitter laugh, “you seduced me, madam, and we made love. I remember you going through three
stages: temptress, comforter, and enchantress—all of which made you no less the
devil. Now you must convince me, that you are not Lucifer or the
devil, but my friend and confident Marie Roget.”
“Yes,”
she acknowledged slowly, “… that’s my goal.”
******
After
the feast, Salem, with Marie’s coaxing, gathered his bums together and led them
to the park. All he had to do, he
was surprised to find out, was to give them a come-on motion with his hands and
they rose up like zombies and followed him down the street. He wondered at first if Marie
might have bewitched them. This
thought as soon as it popped into his head, he noted immediately, caused a
faint smile on her infantile face.
He couldn’t be sure, however.
They were all surfeited with victuals, and it had been a long
morning. There need not be a
supernatural reason for everything Marie did. After stuffing themselves with fine food, the group, Salem
included, wanted to find a shady place and take a nap. But Marie was relentless, and she
forced her will on her protégé, who, in turn, turned and motioned impatiently
again for the twelve bums to hurry up.
“Let’s
get the lead out,” he called back at them at one point.
“The
holy man is testy,” Liz murmured to Cassie.
“The road is long; the
task is great.” Cassie replied enigmatically.
Several members of the
twelve groaned. Buff spun around
and exposed his middle finger to the prophetess, and Marie flashed Cassie a
questioning look. At one point, when
they could all see the park at the boundary of skid row, sighs were heaved and
steps quickened. After such a
feast, members of the twelve were now thinking about finding a nice shady tree
and taking a nap. Salem knew what
was coming up now. He had seen it
in a Biblical movie many years ago when he still felt his faith. He refused to believe, as Marie kept
telling him, that Whats-His-Face (she refused to call him Jesus) had started
with twelve dirty ragamuffins.
Peter, James, and John had been respectable fishermen and Judas had been
a scribe. None of them had been
down-and-out derelicts like these people.
That it appeared that at least one of them in the current twelve had
been a U.S. Marine and the handsome black man still wore a suit proved nothing
to him.
“They’re bums now,” he said petulantly under his
breath. “Tell me, Marie. Didn’t
you tell me Effie and Ursula in their former lives were hookers? What was Kaz, the dwarf, a circus
clown? And Stork, what was he—a
pimp?”
Before
Salem had a chance to characterize the other members of the Twelve, Marie eyed
a random telephone pole, and the group watched in horror as it erupted in
flames.
“Must
have been the encasement,” Marie quickly responded, “they’re in pretty
dilapidated condition down here.”
“Very
clever,” Salem whispered into her shell-like ear, “what does that prove? That you can destroy me and anyone else
who pisses you off? I already know
that.”
“You
are such a fool,” her thoughts raced into his head. “I only care about you. These poor wretches and everything else I control around you
is for your benefit!”
“Stop
that!” He brought his hands to his ears. “Once and for all stay out of my
head!”
“What’s
wrong with the holy man?” Buff now asked Stork. “That explosion must’ve spooked
him!”
“I
don’t think it was the explosion,” Stork answered, walking rapidly forward and
gently pulling Salem’s sleeve. “Sir, I say sir,” he inquired timidly. “Are you
all right?”
“He’s
tired,” Marie explained gently. “We’re all tired. When we get back to the hotel, we’ll all take a nice nap.”
“That
hotel’s condemned,” Effie informed Marie wryly. “It’s a wonder one of them
floors hasn’t collapsed yet. If
it’s all right with you, I’ll sleep in the park.”
“It’ll
be all right with Salem protecting us,” Marie promised, taking his arm.
Salem
recoiled only slightly this time.
He knew that Marie had the power to do what she wanted with him no
matter how he much he resisted, and, more importantly perhaps, he had nowhere
else to go. All that mattered to
her, he realized light-headedly, as they approached the city park, was that he
accept her—one hundred percent.
Looking ahead, as he recalled the incineration of Charlie and the witch,
the healing of Buff, and the recent miracles on the street, he knew it would be
a monumental task for him to look upon her as a normal person, but he knew he
must try. She was Marie Roget, his
mentor and savior, but no less the Satan who had once tempted Christ.
******
She
had called it a sublime coincidence, but Salem was not fooled. Why were there exactly twelve disciples
in their group—the same number as Christ’s Twelve Apostles? Why not eleven or thirteen? The odds against such a portentous
number of transients seemed great to him.
Why had Marie used the adjective sublime too? Wasn’t that
another word for miraculous? Since
this collection of ragamuffins was obviously not an act of God or a
coincidence, as she claimed, it had to be a deliberate selection. Infernal
coincidence therefore seemed to be a more appropriate catchword. In the same way she had observed and
probably corrupted his wife, these wretches were her “children”—lost souls whom
she had been watching for a long time, as she had been watching him.
What supported
Salem’s suspicions now was Marie’s knowledge of members of the group. How, for instance, did she know that
Buff Peyton had been abused as a child?
How had she known that Ursula Painter and the crone Effie Powers had
been prostitutes on the street?
She probably knew the backgrounds of the other nine members too. This ‘get-to-know each other’ meeting
she had planned after the feast seemed so unnecessary to Salem. She obviously knew everyone
already. She could brief him
beforehand, giving him thumbnail sketches of each member of the twelve and make
it seem like he could read their minds.
To get his religious movement going properly, however, she should could
have selected a much better crop of followers and started off in a respectable
part of the city, instead of leading this sorry lot through the worst sector of
town.
He didn’t want her back
inside his head again, but his mind was filled with questions. “Why
are you doing it this way?” He
could not help asking her again.
“Why don’t you use your black magic like you did this morning!….
Couldn’t we at least take a bus?”
“There
are no buses stopping here,” she replied icily inside his head. There was no answer for the other two
questions, only a disappointed sigh and heavy silence, the same presence he had
felt before.
“Jesus
Christ, Marie!” Salem thought in
desperation. “You’re the Queen of Hell!
What are we doing on skid row?”
“Do not curse at me,” responded Marie calmly, “I told you not to use
His name!”
He couldn’t help
giggling hysterically to himself.
Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, was now a curse word. He was forbidden even mentally to use
His name.
“This is absurd,” he
whispered this time. “Everything that’s happened to me is absurd. Please get out of my head, Satan. Talk to me like a mortal woman. What kind of game are you playing with
me, Marie? The twelve disciples
you picked for me are nothing but skid row bums!”
“I picked no one,” she whispered back testily.
“Keep you voice down. This has
never been a game!”
“I don’t trust you,
Marie,” his voice rose above a whisper. “For once tell me the truth! Are these not my future Apostles? Am I not some sort of counterfeit
Christ?”
“That
is nonsense!” She declared shrilly in his mind.
Suddenly, as he glanced
back at the twelve, he sensed, as a prickling at the back of his neck, what she
was up to. His suspicions had been
justified. He felt giddy from this
insight. He had been wrong about
one thing only: she wasn’t making this up as she went along. She knew exactly what she was doing. He was a false Messiah and these were
his disciples. He felt trapped and
had the momentary yet overpowering urge to run—anywhere to get away from this
plot.
“It’s true!” He exclaimed
aloud. “Are you not the greatest mischief-maker of all time? This is how it begins!”
“Shut
up! They’re listening to you!”
Her voice now blared into his head.
He wondered, feeling
light-headed as they entered the park, if she would always be lurking like this
in his brain or if she was just being overprotective and controlling
today. He could never be sure of
her presence, unless she shared her thoughts or flashed him that enigmatic
smile to let him know she had read his mind. Even without her mental communication or expressions, he at
least sensed a pervasive presence in his head, as if she was studying his train
of thought, always ready with her counsel if he began going astray, which, in
fact, he felt himself doing now.
“Please be patient this afternoon,” she counseled him again. “This is all strange to you Salem, but
you have been making progress. You
are wrong about many things, but you are right to want to think on your own. When you learn to trust me completely,
then will you be free, like no man ever born. You are my anointed and my perfect love. I think of you as my very own son!”
“Good grief!” Salem
groaned.
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