"How can God have trouble with His children?"
"Hey, friend, did you ever read the Bible? A lot of His kids gave him lip. From what I heard, Moses sat up on the mountain and argued forty days! Christ? 'Why have You forsaken me?' Some gratitude, huh? And Job! He wanted personal proof! He wanted us to drop everything, come down and show him, like we were demonstrating a vacuum cleaner!
"I thought you said all thirty-six of you never got together."
"Not anymore. In the old days, but not now. It hasn't been necessary until now. Don't you see, Scott? That's why man keeps wanting to be immortal. Not so he can live a million years, but because, deep in his blood, he knows God must be kept alive for every generation. God, who's a part of every man because He's made up of men. Thirty-six of them. From all cultures, all kinds of personalities and professions, men, women, kids. … The faces of God are always changing, because the separate pieces change. But at the end, there's just Him, and He's immortal so long as man wants to be. The fact that I have trouble with my daughter, or that I'm dying of cancer, doesn't matter. It's important to me, sure, but not to the big picture. Those're some of my tests – making peace with my children, and learning how to die. Christ had to learn how to die, too."
I made fists and shook them at the sky. "It's too earthly! It's supposed to be more majestic!"
Beenie said nothing while I raged, and after, when my futile hands opened and dropped slowly to my lap.
"Finish your lunch, Scott. I recondite it very highly."
The snow had started again as we approached her house. I would much rather have stayed outside and watched it fall than go in and talk to Annette.
"What am I supposed to say?'
"Play it by ear. See how she acts."
Beenie opened the front door and waved me in. It smelled nice inside. An aroma of woodsmoke and soap. Brushing the top of her head vigorously to get the snow off, she called, "Annette?" No answer.
"Annette, come on out here, will you?"
When nothing happened, she scratched her nose and went looking. No Annette.
"Nowhere! That little skunk. Where'd she go?"
"Maybe she doesn't want to see me." I hoped my relief wasn't too obvious.
"I guess not. Well, that isn't your problem. I'll find her and get you two together. You want a hot toddy or something! Another sandwich?"
"No, thank you. I need to go and sit alone awhile. There's too much to think about."
"I'll say!" She opened the door and walked me out to the car. "Say, what's that inside there? Is it Annette?
"I don't know."
There was something propped in the. passenger's seat. At first, I, too, thought it was the girl, because it was so large. Getting closer, I could almost – "Nisco?! Great God in Heaven, it is! It's Nisco."
"What?" Beenie came up next to me and bent over to look through the windshield. 'What's Nisco? It's a stuffed animal. Look how big it is! Must have cost you a fortune. Did you buy it for one of your grandchildren? Hey, what's the matter?"
"It's the Nisco! I can't believe it I haven't thought of that – I couldn't finish the sentence. My jaw worked up and down a couple of times, but didn't have the oomph to do anything else. "Hey, what's up? What is that thing?"
I turned to Beenie and looked at her with, I'm sure, very stunned eyes. "It's the Nisco."
"You keep saying that. Looks like a stuffed animal to me."
"It is. When I was a boy, the only bad dreams I ever had were of that wolf. See the X's where the eyes should be. I once went to the movies and saw a cartoon with him in it. He was the bad guy. The tilted hat, big mouth, fangs. He was chasing the Three Little Pigs. That night and for months afterward, I dreamed he was chasing me. Holding a knife and fork and always drooling, he was going to carve me up. I was so scared. I used to wake up screaming. My parents'd run in, thinking someone was murdering me-"
"Why'd you call him Nisco."
"I don't know. He was always that: Not Big Bad Wolf, just Nisco. The only thing that really frightened me when I was young."
"Annette put it there, didn't she? No one else in the world knew about him."
"Yes, she probably did. That's why she's not around. Left her calling card, but I don't know what she's trying to tell you. What're you going to do with it?"
I thought of that petrified little boy jerking awake in the middle of many nights, heart banging, panting – escaping, but only just. The sound of him behind me running, running so fast, rubbing his knife and fork together, ssslick-ssslick-ssslick, inches away, screaming, "I'm going to EAT you!" Laughing that terrifying, stupid cartoon laugh. No Devil from Hell can scare us more than childhood demons, cartoon wolves or not. Our soft spots are so much larger then. We have no armor.
"Huh! You want to keep it?"
"No! Can I throw it out here?"
"It's not necessary." She put her hand on the windshield over the passenger's side. The Nisco faded and slowly began to disappear. Then, at the last moment, when it was mostly shimmer and dark blur, there was a loud BLAP., and the inside of the windshield splattered with blood.
I didn't hear from either of them for three days. I tried to go about my life in as normal a fashion as possible, but that was absurd. God and Death and Sanity had all walked into my house and sat down at the table. They wanted to talk; they had plans for me. Was I supposed to pretend it wasn't them, and listen as if theirs were only another business proposition!
How would I handle Annette? What other tests would I have to face if I were able to resolve the conflict with her? What happened to you after you 'passed'? Did angels come down and take you on a tour of the heavens? Were there angels? I had to remember to ask Beenie: Do Angels exist?
Can you imagine having someone in your life who could answer that question conclusively?
I remained nervous and alert. I taught well, really singing out the questions and answers in my classes, keeping the students up on their toes. One girl stopped me in the hall and asked why I was in such a good mood. I laughed like a hyena. Good mood? Oh my dear, if only you knew.
Norah called one night to say she had broken up with the cartoonist and was going out with an airline pilot now. My daughter's fickleness and vague promiscuity had been a real thorn in my side for years, and we'd had more than one squabble about it and about her whole life-style. But this time, we talked seriously and illuminatingly about why she'd decided to make the change. At the end of the conversation, there was a comfortable silence, then she said, 'Thank you, Dad."
"For what?"
"Taking me seriously."
"Darling I've taken you seriously since you were a girl."
"No, you've often treated me like I was a student you thought was going to be great, but ended up disappointing you."
"Norah!"
"It's true, Dad, but listen to me. Hear what I'm saying. This conversation was special; it was really different. It's the first time in I-can't-remember when that I felt you were listening and were actually interested. You don't have to approve of me, Dad. I'm not asking for that anymore. I want only for you to love me and hear about my life."