The feelings Harry August stirred in me weren't quite so benign or reassuring. As far as I was concerned, despite his misshapen face, he had "phony" written all over him. His greasy hair and generally unkempt appearance made him an eyesore in a place where the watchword seemed to be cleanliness; obviously, he wasn't taking advantage of the shower facilities at the rear of the building. He was unshaven and looked thoroughly grubby. His facial features were twisted horribly out of shape by scar tissue which ringed both his eyes and radiated up over his forehead, down over his cheekbones. One milky brown eye was permanently tugged half shut by the scar tissue. I stared back into the one fully open eye of the "blind man" responsible for getting my brother on the front page of The National Eye.
"Pleased to meet you, Dr. Frederickson," the nun said in a low, pleasing voice. "I'm Sister Kate, and this is Harry August."
"You could have met me a lot sooner, Sister," I replied coldly, "if somebody in this organization had extended me the courtesy of picking up a telephone and calling me to let me know where my brother was."
Sister Kate looked inquiringly at Tommy Carling, then back to me. "Then I must apologize for all of us, Dr. Frederickson," she said in the same mild, disarming tone. "Not all of us were aware that you didn't know; I guess we all just assumed that Garth had been in touch with you."
"You assumed wrong."
The nun's silence and slightly downcast eyes comprised a most eloquent response; other people shouldn't be blamed for failing to do something that should have been my brother's responsibility. She had a point.
"There's something you wanted to say to me, Frederickson?" Harry August asked, peering at me with his one good eye.
"I have nothing to say to you, Mr. August," I replied sharply. I was feeling colder, angrier, increasingly helpless and frustrated. "I came here for one simple reason-to see my brother. I believe I've outstayed my welcome, and I'd appreciate it if one of you good people would tell Garth that I was here. Now you'll have to excuse me."
"Garth is here, Mongo." My brother's head and broad shoulders suddenly appeared in the doorway, framed by the nun and Harry August. Sister Kate and August moved aside at the sound of my brother's voice, and I could see that Marl Braxton was standing next to Garth. Behind them, crowded in a semicircle, were a number of tough-looking young men, all dressed in green jackets. "Welcome."
"Hello, Garth."
"You look well, Mongo," Garth said evenly as he and Marl Braxton entered the office. The stony-faced young men remained outside-as if standing silent vigil. From Garth's tone and manner, one would have thought that no more than a day or so had passed since we'd last spoken. He didn't seem at all surprised to see me; indeed, his expression seemed oddly blank to me.
"Hi, Mongo," Braxton said to me, his tone curiously flat.
"Hello, Marl," I said curtly, then turned my attention back to my brother. "Garth, I'd like to talk to you alone."
"Why alone, Mongo? All of us here are like a family."
"Not my family." I paused, watched as Marl Braxton leaned close to Garth and whispered something in his ear. Garth shook his head, smiled thinly, and made a deprecating gesture with his hands. I continued tightly, "Have you got something to say, Marl?"
Now Braxton shifted his gaze to me. "I've told Garth that I believe you may have been marked by God as a warning, Mongo," he said evenly, the expression on his face curiously bland. "I mean no offense."
"Marked?"
Slowly, Marl Braxton lifted his hand and pointed his index finger at my forehead. "That scar may have been put there by God as a warning to Garth's followers to be wary of anything you do or say. I've told Garth that I'm not sure it's a good idea for him to be alone with you."
I glared back into Marl Braxton's impassive face for a few moments, then bit off what I wanted to say as I reminded myself that Braxton was a certified madman. "Do you honestly believe I would do anything to hurt my brother, Marl?"
"You have been marked."
"Garth, do you believe that?"
"No," my brother replied matter-of-factly. "Garth doesn't believe you'd ever try to hurt him, and Garth doesn't believe you've been marked by God. There is no God."
"Everyone around here seems to disagree with you. They not only believe in God, they believe you're His son."
"What difference does it make what my friends believe, Mongo? Actions are what are important, and all of us here work toward a common goal."
Slowly, I swept my gaze around the office-meeting the gazes of Sister Kate, Harry August, Tommy Carling, Marl Braxton, and the silent guardians outside the doorway. "I've got a flash for all of you," I said tightly. "Marked or not, I'm still Garth's brother; he's my flesh and blood."
"He belongs to all of us now," Tommy Carling said evenly. "He belongs to the world."
"Well, I want your Messiah all to myself for a few minutes. After I've talked to him alone, I don't give a damn what all of you do. But if everybody but Garth isn't out of this room in twenty seconds, and that door isn't closed behind you, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. The Messiah's earth brother is going to walk out of here and do something really crazy just so he can get some newspaper space and a few minutes on the evening news. I'll see if I can make a big enough fool out of myself, so that maybe people will begin to see what fools all of you are; I'm not sure Garth's People are ready for the kind of publicity I plan to get you. I'm not sure yet just what stunt I'll pull, but I'm already giving it some serious thought."
Only Garth, who was smiling benignly, seemed unperturbed by my patently ridiculous threat to try to embarrass a group of volunteers whose only crime was trying to feed, clothe, and otherwise care for the countless numbers of the homeless, helpless, and hopeless who lived on New York City's streets. Harry August took a step backward, as if I had physically struck him; Marl Braxton's dark eyes clouded, and I could see the muscles in his neck and jaw begin to move: Sister Kate and Tommy Carling exchanged a quick glance.
"Garth?" Tommy Carling said. "Is it all right with you? Do you mind talking to your brother alone?"
"Of course not," Garth replied, and shrugged. "Why should Garth mind?"
It seemed an eminently sane response. Now Sister Kate took charge, ushering August, Braxton, and Carling out the door before leaving herself and quietly shutting the door behind her. I was left alone with the strange stranger who was my brother, who simply stood in the center of the room, his heavily muscled arms crossed over his chest, smiling at me. His wheat-colored hair had grown very long, and almost reached his shoulders; his brown eyes seemed full of strange lights, and the expression on his face was inscrutable.
"I almost didn't recognize you without your earphones," I said.
I'd hoped for at least a chuckle; instead, I got a serious reply.
"Garth doesn't listen to the music when he's on the streets. It isn't needed out there. Garth goes out to hear and be heard. The people living on the sidewalks are the music."
"What does Garth hear, and what is it that he wants to be heard?"
"We talk of need, loneliness, and pain. Then Garth tries to bring them back here so that we can do something about those things."
"You're doing good work, brother."
"Yes; Garth knows that. As you see, Garth has a lot of help."
"How did all those volunteers out there find out about you?"
"Garth doesn't know. They just come in off the street and ask if they can help."
"How come I didn't hear about you?"
"Garth doesn't know."
"Garth. ."I took a couple of steps forward, then stopped. I wanted to hug my brother, tell him that I loved him and was proud of him; and tell him just to stop being crazy. But my heart wasn't in it. There was a wall between us that I couldn't find a way to cross over. Besides, Garth no longer seemed all that crazy to me. Carling now sounded crazier than my brother. Everyone in the world, I thought, should be as crazy as this big, gentle man who, with no thought whatsoever of earthly or heavenly gain, simply walked the streets to gather in the mentally and physically crippled. Garth no longer seemed crazy, only. . different. Perhaps unalterably changed. He was now a stranger I would probably never get to know, because I would never be able to hear the music he heard, the way he heard it. Which was probably the reason neither the NYPD nor I had heard anything about him until he had turned up on the front page of The National Eye. "Why didn't you call me?"