I am covered in urine from their balloons, officer.
This happens to be my nephew, says the officer.
OK, but I’m covered in urine.
Sounds like a personal problem, he says.
I am a man of the cloth, I say.
He tasers my scrotum.
If a summer day goes wrong it can break you. A girl in Tupelo took an overdose of sleeping pills because her day at the pool wasn’t fun enough. But autumn is coming, season of dark poets, my best time. Football will be back and cold beer and pumpkin-launching contests. I will take Darling to the first game in her gingham dress and sweater. We will drink champagne we can’t afford at the restaurant we both hate and walk out on the bill. Hail Mary. Hail Mary. Hail Mary. Go team. Go.
I can’t read the news anymore. It’s a racket, Eli. All I need is the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance and have the band play “Dixie” when I die.
Darling has taken my hand as we walk home and I have taken hers, my heart growing ten thousand. I spend the day cleaning the boat, then drive the Saab to my old house where the tall grass grows around the For Sale sign. I drive to the country to see the cotton. Wise Jane gardens in the pleasant morning in her van Gogh straw hat. We talk flowers.
These flowers, she says, are called naked ladies. When you pick them they make a good noise.
How do I do it?
You snap their necks.
Wise Jane has a pot of the good chicory coffee and her sweet dog Willie is at my knee.
What happens when they all run out on you, Wise Jane? I thought I used to know.
St. Elizabeth is shoved into a pit of snakes by soldiers. They throw grenades in the pit, but hear her singing hymns. They throw three more but she still sings. Finally they set her on fire. The snakes crawl into the woods and breed more snakes and the snakes grow to eat soldiers’ children in their sleep.
I go to Tuesday and Finger’s new apartment on the north side and watch them through the window. It is a comfortable condo with brand new carpet and a video game room. Tuesday has given over to the money now like Finger. She wears furs and high heels and eats at restaurants with no prices on the menus, like the one with the shark tank. Finger sells stocks online and plays high-stakes poker in Atlantic City. I call Tuesday.
Remember when we made love in the sanctuary, I ask her.
Yes, she says.
I hang up.
You could count the bricks in the schoolhouse, Eli. It was something to see. No one taught you anything, you just read Shakespeare in the basement with a joint in your lips. The bad boys put your head in the toilet and made you tongue-kiss a dog. And the teachers slapped you across the mouth for writing with your left hand. Remember, Eli? Remember Mulberry Street School and the tiny room where they put the kids like you?
I dream the Holy Ghost drives a bus while I give her head. I dream about an accountant in a Wild West town twirling his empty pistols for the love of a girl who’s run away with an outlaw. I dream all the doctors heal and the firemen fight fires and the policemen police and the nurses nurse and the wrestlers wrestle and the dog sitters sit and the kidnappers nap.
I see the teenage electric fiddle player who plays the Beatles. She’s in college now with large breasts that do not sag. She loves an MMA fighter with tattoos covering him. This man is unemployable with his face full of ink. A gentle man who likes to hear the crack of bones. I’m doing the backstroke now in the ice-cold water under a faint day moon with my eyes full of the red vineyards of France. I never told you but I have dreams of going there. To the place where love began.
Al and Hal the wizards are here. They hate the pain of this world so live in another. I envy their happiness with fantasy and play.
Hello, Al, I say. Hello, Hal.
Maloney, we’ve got a battle plan.
I am at a banquet with ghosts. White Mike Johnny and the frat boy with the gun are pouring wine for everyone. John Lennon and Joan of Arc bicker about the kind of turkey Napoleon bought. There are peaches everywhere. I am waist high in peaches. Boom is seated at the head of the table with his prayers and his pony.
I’ve got kids raining pee down on me, Boom, I say.
Every woman’s a feminist until they need a jar of pickles opened, he says.
What does that mean?
Money, says Boom.
Money?
Dick Dickerson comes to the boat with a loaded.45. He has no real talents or memories or cares. He’s gone on junk and Everclear.
I want Tuesday, Dick Dickerson says pointing his weapon.
Well she ain’t here, I say.
Declare God doesn’t exist or I’ll kill you, he says.
I take his gun with judo and make him walk the plank.
I come to the Starlight for the first time in months and prop my boots up on the table.
You’re not allowed in here, the cook says.
I love you, I say. I wish I could remember your name.
My father was a famous eye man, looked into the soul for a living. My mother a sweet librarian who hid the dirty books on the top shelf. A man orders a latte but he pronounces it luh-tay. The radio keeps predicting rain but there is never rain. Darling is on my mind now. Her sapphire eyes.
St. Miguel’s last request is to be allowed to pray as doves swoop down and touch his lips. The firing squad shoots him twelve times but he won’t die. They put a bullet in his head and as it passes through he thinks of a little girl he saw eating ice cream on a winter day and how stupid and courageous she was.
I’m up in a tree with my opera glasses, scratching my balls, waiting. Down below the middle schoolers reveal themselves. I watch them stalk their victims. Like in nature, they prey on the weak. A kid in a neck brace with a lisp is in their crosshairs. They shoot M-80s at him till he falls and they steal his Subway sandwich. One of the bullies has a popped collar and a silver watch and the hair of Matt Damon. Then I see Dick Dickerson. What is he doing? He talks to the boys and points around. A yellow Hummer rounds the corner playing Aerosmith. He gets in.
Eli, I watch you and Nono through the window of her organic market. You seem happy, content. You are my friend and she is your lover. What’s my problem with other people’s happiness? I see you dancing, I see you eating pink beet soup. Why can’t I have this ease, Eli? I stalk Tuesday and Finger, too. They are playing Xbox and smoking bongs. Jumping on the bed with joy. Darling catches me in the tree looking in their house.
What’s up, doc, she says.
I fall out of the tree.
Darling, what are you doing here?
I’ve been stalking you.
Stalking me? Why?
I might be in love with you, she says.
Good to hear, I say.
The days pass without much terror. I’m content with my ship and its amenities, microwave, cable TV. Darling makes me breakfast and I smoke my pipe. It’s good to be out of bed and in the air again watching the birds eat the fish and the hawks eat the birds. We go to town in the Saab and buy things from the market. Taking a woman to a market to buy fresh food is the right thing to do. In the parking lot on the way back to the car, I hear something over my shoulder.
Maloney, the voice says. It’s Dick Dickerson. I have Eli.
Have him?
He’s in my basement. Tuesday, too.
St. Toro is shot by soldiers, falling into his sister’s arms, saying, Long live Christ the King. He is deaf and the stars become his ears.