I abruptly stopped speaking when Marl Braxton quickly shifted in his chair in what I took to be a warning signal. I turned around just as Tommy Carling came up behind me.
"Time for therapy, Garth," the male nurse said brightly. "Dr. Slycke is waiting for you."
Garth immediately rose, walked off with Tommy Carling.
I started to rise, intending to leave, but Marl Braxton put his hand on my arm.
"Relax, Mongo," Braxton said in a curious tone of voice that sounded something like a plea. "Garth won't be back for at least an hour-maybe two, if he's feeling talkative. We don't get that much intelligent company in here. If you've got nothing better to do, I'd like to buy you a beer."
He hadn't been kidding about the beer. His room, radiating off the commons area just to the right of the entrance, was pleasant and spacious, decorated with prints of impressionist paintings. Bookcases, filled to overflowing with well-worn books and magazines, lined all four walls. In one corner was a small electric cooler, and from it he produced two frosted bottles of Coors. He opened one, handed it to me.
"We get a six-pack a week," Braxton continued, reacting to my somewhat surprised look. "That is, if we've behaved ourselves, and if alcohol isn't contraindicated by our medication. Since Garth has been coming around, the clinic has had to up its beer budget. There's just something about the things he says and does that's very soothing."
"You find predictions of human extinction soothing?"
"It's soothing to know that there's a man alive today on the face of the planet who can prevent that extinction."
"Garth?"
"Yes. Your brother has a great gift."
"So I've been told."
"He is a great gift."
"I'd agree that he's become something else, and that's for sure."
Braxton looked at me oddly for a few moments, and he looked as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he finally nodded toward the one chair in the room. I sat down in it, while he sat on the edge of his bed. He opened his bottle of beer, sipped at it.
"This bottle of beer I'm drinking represents a heavy percentage of your weekly allotment," I continued. "That makes it taste even better."
"It's my pleasure to share it with you."
"Thank you."
Braxton drank some more of his beer as he studied me with his bright eyes. "Garth really does have a very calming influence on the patients here, Mongo," he said quietly. "He certainly does on me."
"You always seem pretty calm, Marl-at least to me. It's hard for me to imagine you losing control of yourself the way Mama Baker does. Why do you have to stay here in the secure unit? If you don't mind my asking."
Braxton smiled thinly. "I don't mind you asking-in fact I appreciate your candor in asking me about things which interest you, without worrying that I might be offended because I'm a patient in a funny farm. It makes me feel that you're comfortable with me, and I like that."
In fact, I felt far more comfortable with Marl Braxton than I did with Garth. The realization made me sad. "I guess I'm saying that you don't seem all that crazy to me."
"I take that as a compliment, and I thank you."
"It's just an observation, Marl."
"What you observe on the outside is not necessarily a reflection of what's going on inside."
"That's true of many people."
"With me … I don't act out. Not in here. But Dr. Wong-he's my therapist-understands what could happen if I were let out of here. He's the only person besides Garth who fully appreciates the relationship between me and my maid of constant sorrows."
"You've told Garth about your maid of constant sorrows?"
"Oh, yes. Garth knows everything about me."
"Your maid of constant sorrows is your madness?"
"No. It's personal, Mongo, and I don't want to talk about her with you."
"I'm sorry, Marl. I didn't mean to pry."
"Don't apologize; I told you I'd like you to feel free to ask me anything you'd like. When you ask me a question I don't want to answer, I'll just let you know."
I smiled, nodded. "Like I said; you don't seem all that crazy to me."
"You seemed a bit nervous when you first walked into the unit. You don't now."
"I was never nervous for myself. Frankly, I don't much like the idea of Garth hanging out in here. All of the patients in this unit, including you, are potentially violent. I'm afraid Garth could be hurt-if not by you, then by somebody like Mama Baker, who doesn't have your kind of control."
"If Garth had been in here last night, Mama wouldn't have gone off."
My response was to shrug.
Braxton smiled, continued: "Don't you think your brother can take care of himself? He certainly has in the past. In fact, he came within a punch or two of busting up Jake Bolesh and a jailful of deputies when Bolesh had you locked up in Nebraska. I believe that was just before Bolesh injected you with the stuff that caused your bodies to change."
"Obviously, Garth has gone through some radical changes," I said, ignoring the clear invitation to discuss Valhalla-while taking note of the fact that Garth had indeed been telling Marl Braxton all about it, in detail. "He's a bit mellower now, to say the least. If he was attacked, I'm not even sure he would make a move to defend himself."
"Don't worry. I'd never let anything or anybody hurt Garth. But he won't be attacked; it's not meant that he should be harmed."
Something in the other man's voice made me sit up straighter. "Why not?"
Marl Braxton set his half-empty bottle of beer down on the floor, then folded his hands in his lap. "Because Garth is the son of God."
I was sorry I'd asked, and I tried to cover my embarrassment by taking a long swallow of beer.
"Garth is the Messiah," Braxton continued evenly. "He's been sent by God to save us from ourselves."
"Oh," I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. And I couldn't resist adding, "Son-of-a-bitch."
Marl Braxton laughed loudly and easily. "All of a sudden I'm seeming a little crazier to you, aren't I, Mongo?"
"Yep. That you are."
"Well, at least you're not trying to patronize me by denying it. I can see that what I've said comes as a shock to you; it came as a shock to me when I first realized the enormity of just what it was Garth represented."
"It will come as a shock to my mother and father. Listen, Marl, I've got a flash for you. Garth doesn't even believe in God."
"I know that," Braxton said evenly, apparently unperturbed by my revelation. "Garth told me. It doesn't make any difference."
"It doesn't make any difference that the man you believe is a messiah doesn't even believe in God?"
Braxton shook his head, ran his hand back over his widow's peak. "Garth is still God's messenger, the Messiah, whether he chooses to believe it or not. Do you believe in God, Mongo?"
"I certainly don't believe in messiahs, or divine intervention. I consider them primitive notions-answers to human longing, fear, and suffering that have always been a big part of the problem. Garth's got one thing right; any help we get is going to have to come from ourselves."
"Can you see his aura?"
"Whose aura? Garth's?”
"So you can't. There's a blue-white light all around him; he literally glows with holiness. Eventually you'll be able to see it, as will others."
Marl Braxton paused and looked at me, as if waiting for a response. His casual assertion that my brother was some kind of divine messenger had indeed shocked me, precisely because he had seemed so rational up to that point. I did not want to begin to condescend to Braxton's insanity, or appear to be mocking him, so I decided it was best to leave the subjects of my brother's divinity and his blue-white aura alone. I said nothing.