The Lucky Rock Salesman

(Trough Thanksgiving weekend, Malcolm holds the stage. Brian and Trevor et al. will return late Monday.)

After Maggie ducked inside the car, leaving me forever, my recollection produces a dank haze and a dearth of signs of life.  I know I ambled for hours, in the dark—during the day—as if in shock.  If I treaded on grass or asphalt, beneath trees and birds, above worms and bugs;  if, in transit, I passed people on limb-flapping power walks, crossing guards, school kids—nothing penetrated.

I remember feeling suspended, adrift, as if my soul were holding its breath.  My goal was to keep moving.  Please God, let a path form, a door open, as long as I stay on my feet.  If I act natural. . .  If I behave scrupulously, a clean and perfect way out might—might—appear out of nowhere.

As Maggie’s adieus ebbed into history, a crest of admonitions—don’t worry, never fear—buoyed me along.  Hopping from foot to foot, I decided my existence was not marginal as I’ve always feared; it’s grotesque!  It’s glaring and conspicuous!  There’s no disguising what a bulbous, quivery thing I am.

[This is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here for the first episode, or here for the previous one.]

At the intersection of Green Bay Road and Maple, a show-off-y couple (mink coats, silver Mercedes) blatantly ran a red light.  The driver behind them, inching forward in a Dodge plastered with Jesus stickers, was singing at the top of his lungs.  Hands on the steering wheel, head back, mouth open, his chest was heaving, his eyes shut.  As the light changed, a cigarette-smoking young woman behind him leaned on her horn, making me jump.  A simultaneous gust of cold lashed at my skin.  I felt it pierce my bones, and on the outside, push things, so that I stumbled and shuddered and oh, I don’t know:  This business of us each being separate, fixed creatures struck me as slim hope and nonstop neediness, no matter what. 

I crossed onto Washington Avenue, away from the wind, toward, I hoped, normalcy with its little shops and single-family homes.  For a while I encountered no one.  Then a blotchy faced man in outdoor coveralls lurched—drunkenly—from a pink gravel driveway.  With a can of Budweiser in one hand and a rock in the other, he headed straight for me.  I was backing away, but he begged, “No, come on, wait.  Take a look at this.”  He turned over the rock, revealing a dazzling purple and white geode the size of a cut-in-half grapefruit. 

“Go on,” he said, “take it.”

“No, but thank you.”

“I want you to have it, achu-ally.”  He swiped at my shoulder.  “Because achu-ally, it much more belongs to you than to me.”

Assuming he wanted money, I slapped my pockets.  “All I’ve got is a twenty.”

“Will you fuck that?  What do you think I am?  A fucking door-to-door lucky rock
salesman?  Don’t you know you are looking at your biggest, truest, hard-fucking-est-core believer on the planet?” 

Not facetiously (at least at the time, it didn’t sound as bad to me as it does here), I said, “You do look familiar.”

“Take the rock.”

“Thank you.”  And upon inspecting the geode, I mumbled further appreciation.
My biggest hardest-core believer on the planet drained his beer, tossed the empty can in some bushes, and said, “Now give me your blessing.”

I cleared my throat and was about to resort to a tap on the cheek and a Dominus Nabisco, when the man ranted instructions at me.

 “Touch my head,” was all I could clearly make out.

 So, “Here, hold this— ”  I handed him back the geode and stroked wiry tufts of his mustard-brown hair.  For good measure, I pressed my thumbs against his temples.  Go, I thought of saying, and drink no more.  But that seemed pretentious, even for me. 

Instead, I asked, “What can I do for you?”

My rock-giver bowed his head, saying “Keep me steadfast in love,” as I mentally sifted through nostrums:  Okay, sure.  Go on and be steadfast.

“And,” continued the drunk, “keep me forever in awe of your holiness.”

What can you say to that?

I said, “Go. And drink no more.”

(To Be Continued)