A Graveyard for Lunatics

?I?ll only be in there a while, Constance,? I said. ?Another month or so, and I?ll head South to finish my novel.?

?Can I come with you? One more trip to Mexicali, Calexico, South of San Diego, almost to Hermosillo, bathing naked by moonlight, ha, no, you in raggedy shorts.?

?I only wish. But it?s me and Peg, Constance, Peg and me.?

?Ah, well, what the hell. Kiss me.?

I hesitated so she gave me a smack that could flush a whole tenement tank system and make the cold run hot.

The gate was opening.

Two lunatics at midnight, we drove in.

As we pulled up near the wide square full of milling soldiers and merchants, Fritz Wong came leaping over in great strides. ?God damn! We?re all set for your scene. That drunken Baptist Unitarian has disappeared. You know where the son-of-a-bitch hides??

?You called Aimee Semple McPherson?s??

?She?s dead!?

?Or the Holy Rollers. Or the Manly P. Hall Universalists. Or??

?My God,? roared Fritz. ?It?s midnight! Those places are shut.?

?Have you checked Calvary,? I said. ?He goes there.?

?Calvary!? Fritz stormed away. ?Check Calvary! Gethsemane!? Fritz pleaded with the stars. ?God, why this poisoned Manischewitz? Someone! Go rent two million locusts for tomorrow?s plague!?

The various assistants ran in all directions. I started off, too, when Constance grabbed my elbow.

My eyes wandered over the facade of Notre Dame.

Constance saw where I was looking.

?Don?t go up there,? she whispered.

?Perfect place for J. C.?

?Up there it?s all face and no backside. Trip on something and you fall like those rocks the hunchback dropped on the mob.?

?That was a film, Constance!?

?And you think this is real??

Constance shuddered. I longed for the old Rattigan who laughed all the time. ?I saw something just now, up on the belltower.?

?Maybe it?s J. C.? I said. ?While the others are ransacking Calvary, why don?t I take a look??

?I thought you were afraid of heights??

I watched the shadows run up along the facade of Notre Dame.

?Damn fool. Go ahead. Get Jesus down,? murmured Constance, ?before he stays like a gargoyle. Save Jesus.?

?He?s saved!?

A hundred feet off, I looked back. Constance was already warming her hands at a hearth of Roman legionnaires.

40

I lingered outside Notre Dame, afraid of two things: going in and going up. Then I turned, shocked, to sniff the air. I took a deeper breath and let it out. ?Good Grief. Incense! And candle smoke! Someone?s been?J. C.??

I moved through the entryway and stopped.

Somewhere high in the strurworks, a great bulk moved.

I squinted up through the canvas slats, the plywood fronts, the shadows of gargoyles, trying to see if anything at all stirred up there in the cathedral dark.

I thought, Who lit the incense? How long ago did the wind blow the candles out?

Dust filtered in a fine powder down the upper air.

J. C. ? I thought, If you fall, who will save the Saviour?

A silence answered my silence.

So

God?s number one coward had to hoist himself, ladder step by ladder step, up through the darkness, fearful that any moment the great bells might thunder and knock me loose to fall. I squeezed my eyes shut and climbed.

At the top of Notre Dame I stood for a long moment, clutching my hands to my heartbeat, damned sorry to be up and wanting to be down there where the great spread of Romans, well-lit and full of beer, stormed through the alleys to smile at Rattigan, the visiting queen.

If I die now, I thought, none of them will hear.

?J. C.,? I called quietly into the shadows.