"That's him, Mom. Like I've told you over the telephone, he takes some getting used to."
My father, who was the embodiment of what Garth would look like in twenty years, with twenty less pounds, cleared his throat; it seemed an ominous sound. "Robby, what are you doing about it?"
"Doing about what, Dad?"
"Your mother and I assumed you were still watching over your brother, doing all you could to help him get well. This man who looks like Garth says that he hasn't seen you in over seven weeks."
"Garth and I don't have much to talk about anymore, Dad."
"In the beginning, after his collapse, you were by his side constantly. In fact, you told us you thought he was getting better-until all of these very strange events began to occur."
"I told you what happened."
"You told us about the traitor, and about the killings at the clinic; you told how Garth was taken away by this Tommy Carling, who's with him now and who seems to think that Garth is some kind of god. All of this you explained to us. What your mother and I are asking is why you've left him alone in that situation."
I choked off a bitter, slightly drunken laugh which my parents would never have understood. "I wouldn't exactly describe Garth as 'alone' down there, Dad. Right now, I'd say he's the most famous Frederickson there ever was, or ever will be. He's supported by a cast of tens of thousands of people all over the country, and more believers are coming out of the woodwork every day."
"Don't joke about this, Robby, please," my mother said, her voice quavering slightly. "You know exactly what your father means. Garth is alone, because none of the people who surround him really know him, or love him the way we do. Garth is in terrible trouble, and we don't understand why you're not doing anything about it."
"There's nothing I can do about it, Mom," I said, swallowing the sour taste of afternoon Scotch which lingered at the back of my throat. "There's nothing anybody can do. Even if we tried to have him committed, which I think would be virtually impossible at this point, I don't think it would be right. If you've talked to him, then you know he's perfectly rational. He's doing exactly what he wants to do, and he's doing an enormous amount of good. Anyone who watches television or reads the newspapers knows that."
"People are saying he's the Messiah," my father said, scorn and disbelief in his voice. "They say he performs miracles."
"Where's the harm?" I asked, a shrug in my voice. "Besides, in a way he is performing miracles-just like all those TV preachers do, except with more grace, style, and wit, and denying all the time that he's doing anything. The blind man Garth supposedly cured has to be a phony, but I'd say that most of the others aren't. There are people who claim to have been cured of everything from warts to paralysis just by seeing his picture, or watching him speak on television. And they probably have been cured-because whatever they were suffering from was psychosomatic to begin with. All miracle cures are psychosomatic, but that doesn't mean they're not cures; just because pain is in the mind doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. People have faith in Garth; they believe he can make them well, and so a lot of them get well. Flip the TV dial any Sunday morning, and you'll see a host of guys with toupees and capped teeth doing the same thing-and then asking for money. I prefer Garth's style."
"There are groups of these so-called Garth's People springing up around the world," my father said in a flat voice.
"Dad, a lot of people respond to the things he says, because what he says usually makes a lot of sense."
"But he speaks against religion."
"All religions are intrinsically against religion-other people's. Garth's People listen to what he says, interpret it the way they want, and then put their own spin on things."
"It's blasphemous for people to compare Garth with our Lord."
"But it's not Garth committing the blasphemy, Dad. What's happened is ironic, I grant you, but it's not exactly unprecedented. People hear what they want to hear, believe what they want to believe-a lot of people, at any rate. Some of the things Garth says are very powerful; what he does is very powerful. Even though Garth speaks against religion, a lot of people can only absorb his message in a religious sense."
"President Shannon even called to congratulate us on our son's 'divine mission'-his words. You've met him. Is the man a fool?"
Now I permitted myself a small laugh. "Kevin Shannon is a lot of things, Dad, but he's no fool. He's nothing if not a very canny politician-and not the first who's going to be pestering you. They've been waiting in the wings, seeing which way this thing with Garth was going to go, and now a lot of them are going to be jumping on what they perceive to be the bandwagon of an important international religious leader."
"But Garth doesn't claim to be a religious leader," my father said in a distant voice. It was the first time in my life I had seen him apparently bewildered, spiritually bruised by seemingly contradictory situations and events that were beyond his comprehension. "Quite the contrary."
"It doesn't make any difference, Dad. I told you; people now insist on believing about Garth what they want to believe. Garth's goodness just brings out the craziness in a lot of people-and they're going to grow in numbers, and get even crazier now, after the deaths of Bartholomew Lash and Timmy Owens. Now the messianic movement around Garth is going to grow even stronger, with people claiming not only that Garth has God on his side, but that God is bumping off the opposition. You might as well prepare yourselves, because that's what you're going to be hearing."
"Terrible, terrible," my mother said, dropping her gaze and speaking in a small voice.
I wasn't sure whether she was talking about the deaths, or the fact that thousands-maybe millions-of people believed, or at least strongly suspected, that God might have intervened to strike down Garth's two most vocal opponents, so I said nothing.
Bartholomew Lash and Timmy Owens, two prominent television evangelists who had seen their ratings plummet and their coffers empty in inverse proportion to the growing popularity of Garth and his little homilies, had each had the unbelievably bad taste to die of a stroke within twenty-four hours after a televised vicious verbal attack on Garth and Garth's People. Lash had called Garth the "spawn of the Devil," and Owens had actually called for God to strike my brother dead. Tacky. It had been even tackier when each had proceeded to kick off, thus giving Garth and the movement growing around him millions of dollars' worth of free publicity. The word "messiah" in conjunction with my brother was heard more and more frequently-including on television and radio newscasts. This had served to aggravate what I tended to think of as Millennium Madness, with Garth looked upon as the long-awaited Messiah who would usher in said millennium. Even the chiliasts had adopted Garth; they believed that Garth was going to kill everybody in a very short time-except, of course, for Garth's People, who would begin to glow with golden light once the mass killing had begun. The bathhouse, a massive glass dome now finished and in place, was now used primarily for ceremonial occasions-meaning press conferences, or just when Garth felt like telling one of his little "parables"; "caring houses," various facilities where the homeless and hungry were cared for by Garth's People, had sprung up all over the city, the state, the nation. The world.
And my mother and father wanted to know what Robert Frederickson planned to do about it.
"You and your brother were always so close," my father said at last, pain and disappointment clearly evident in his voice.
"Dad," I said wearily, "you seem to think that there's something I should-could-be doing about what's happened to Garth. There isn't. I'm beginning to think there never was."