He found a diner that consisted of a long counter and a row of stools. The windows were dirty, with old tape marks on‘ them Inside it smelted of grease. As he approached the counter he dragged his money from his pocket and held it before him like a talisman. He made it to the counter and claimed a stool.
A waitress grudgingly paused before him. She was forty and bursting from an aqua uniform with a line of greasy dirt at the collar. She looked at the money in his hand and demanded,
“What do you want?”
“Coffee.”
She nodded, clanked a saucer and empty cup onto the counter in front of him and hurried away. He stared after her, feeling old. So this was what he had come to. The magic had turned its back on him. Here he sat, no character, no hopes of breakfast, just coins for a cup of coffee. He felt dirty.
On her next trip past, the waitress dumped coffee into his cup, wrote his slip, took his money, gave him change and told him, “You get three refills. And I do keep track.” The whole transaction took her less than a minute. He gave a defeated nod. The coffee was old and black and acid. The cream in me little tin dispenser came out stringy and yellow. The sugar dispenser was stuck shut and she hadn’t given him a spoon.
The magic was gone. The top of the cup tasted bitter and the dregs were a sugary syrup in his mouth. She refilled his cup with more of the same and didn’t hear his request for a spoon.
A heavyset man on the stool next to him gave him a supercilious smile. “Going to sober up, huh? Well, her coffee would sober up Jack Daniels himself.”
“I haven’t been drunk.” Wizard spoke softly but clearly.
“No, me neither. Haven’t been sober, either.” The man laughed at his own witticism and went back to shoveling scrambled eggs. Wizard watched him fork a mound of egg onto a piece of toast and bite the whole thing off at once. The smell of the eggs and the sound of his mastication made Wizard’s stomach roll over. He took a deep drink of the bitter black coffee.
By his fourth cup, his headache had changed to a standard migraine. He drank down the last of the coffee, left a nickel tip and headed for the restroom. No mirror. No hot water, and the cold stayed on only if you held it. A blower instead of paper towels. Wizard patted his face lightly with wet fingertips and stared at the chipped plaster over the sink. On the wall was a condom vending machine. Someone had written on it,
“Don’t buy this gum, it tastes like rubber.” He wanted to find that funny, but couldn’t dredge up a smile. The magic was gone. He headed for the streets.
He didn’t know where to go. The more he thought about it, the more he hurt. He wandered into an alley and squatted beside a dumpster, out of the wind. If he had no magic, he wasn’t Wizard. If he wasn’t Wizard… A terrible combination of anger, bitter hurt, and bewilderment churned through his guts on a tide of acid coffee. Like a man helplessly slapping his pockets for a lost wallet. Wizard searched within himself for the subtle signs of the magic.
But all was silent inside him. Nothing. It was gone. Stubbornly, frantically, he tried to think of ways to test it. Nothing came to him. He stepped away from the dumpster, feeling a bit shaky in the legs. He was hollow now, light as a man made of straw. The wind off the bay nearly pushed him down. He hit Western Avenue and tromped down it, feeling the sidewalks slap back against his feet until his arches ached. He could hear the gulls crying on the bay like abandoned babies in bombed out places. The city stinks choked him. What the hell was he doing in a city anyway? He had always hated cities. He walked too fast, feeling his shin stick to him with sweat even as his ears stung with cold. He didn’t pause as he passed me market.
He didn’t want to face Euripides today. Cassie be could not even think of. He turned up Marion, driving himself on.
It was steep going. The first block or two didn’t bother him.
He distracted himself by watching the cars with manual shifts struggle to advance through the changing lights without rolling backwards into the cars behind them There were stoplights at the lip of each rise, and the cars clung there, snorting and then roaring forward when the lights changed. Wizard was glad he was on foot. The buildings along here were old, with ornate decorations, some weathered to near obscurity, but some preserved proudly. Past Third, past Fourth, past Fifth he climbed, his calves aching. On Sixth he was stopped by the great gash of Interstate 5. He leaned against a building, panting. For a moment he closed his eyes and let his head loll back against the wall. His throat was dry, his legs ached. He had to stop fleeing. He needed shelter, quiet, and a moment of thought without fear. He twitched his eyes open and stared around.
Across the roaring interstate in its bed, towers rose tall in me leaden sky. They were tipped with blue one shade deeper than aqua. He shivered in their grip, feeling their attraction.
Then he turned left and jogged down a block to the overpass on Madison. He turned right on Ninth, trotting on, unmindful of the stares of the passing drivers. His throat and mouth were parched from panting. The buildings here emanated cold pride.
He ignored them and moved on, drawn without thought.
On the sidewalk before the fortress he stopped. His bream cracked in his dry throat. The blue towers soared above him.
Concrete steps draped in trailing ivy rose before him. His eyes ascended first. On the front of the building, gold branches twined on a shining black backdrop around a benign figure, I AM THE VINE it Said, AND YOU ARE — WE BRANCHES St. James Cathedral. He crept up the steps, heart thundering. The cathedral doors were of plain brown wood. Sanctuary. For him?
They looked locked. He dared himself to push one, and it yielded to his cautious touch. He went in, out of the wind.
Silence and warmth filled the foyer, but it was a barren place. Posted notices of scheduled meetings said nothing to him. This was but a limbo between the outside world and that which lay beyond the inner doors. They were upholstered in leather with brass studs and prophesied wonders beyond. He coughed and pushed his way in.
It took his breath away. Had he been some European peasant viewing for the first time Christopher Wren’s cathedral the impact could not have been greater. There was too much to behold and all of it shimmered with majesty. He groped his way to the back pew and found himself genuflecting in a reaction that went beyond his memories. He entered the pew and knelt, too humbled to sit. Before and beside and above him the cathedral opened out in swelling glory. Fat pillars of red marble held up the lofty ceiling. The green carpet and brown wood of the pews yet managed to give a sylvan air to the vastness. Marching forward on either side of him were stained glass windows set high in the walls, and below them small shrines to individual saints. Little votive candles burned before the saints in many-hued holders like shining gems offered to God’s holy ones for their aid. His eyes followed me line of shrines forward to the front of the cathedral, where angels decked the main altar and hovered over it.
Slowly he became aware that the church was not empty.
There were folk gathered here and there for silent devotions, but what was their puniness to this immense repository of godliness? They paid him no attention, and, encouraged by this, he rose and began to cautiously explore. Each stained glass window was dedicated to someone. The brilliance of the daylight when it reached through the purple or yellow of the glass brought tears to his eyes. “In Memory of James and Mary German,” he read, and wondered if they knew their window scattered bits of colored light upon his upturned face.