A Graveyard for Lunatics

?Does it need redoing?? I almost yelled.

?Have you looked at it lately?? Fritz, over the phone, did his imitation of Crumley pulling out his last strands of hair. ?Do it! Then write a narration for the whole damn film to cover the ten thousand other pits, pimples, and rump-sprung behinds of our epic. Have you read the whole Bible, lately??

?Not exactly.?

Fritz tore some more hair. ?Go skim!?

?Skim!??

?Skip pages. Be at the studio at five o?clock with a sermon to knock my socks off and a narration to make Orson Welles spoil his shoes! Your Unterseeboot Kapitan says: Dive!?

He submerged, and was gone.

?Clothes off,? said Constance, still half asleep. ?Everyone in!?

We swam. I followed Constance as far out in the surf as I could go, then the seals welcomed and swam her away.

?Lord,? said Henry, sitting hip deep in water. ?First bath I had in years!?

We finished five bottles of champagne before two o?clock and were suddenly almost happy.

Then somehow I sat down, wrote my Sermon on the Mount, and read it aloud to the sound of the waves.

When I finished Constance said, quietly, ?Where do I sign up for Sunday school??

?Jesus,? said blind Henry, ?would have been proud.?

?I dub thee,? Crumley poured champagne in my ear, ?genius.?

?Hell,? I said modestly.

I went back in and for good measure rode Joseph and Mary into Bethlehem, lined up the wise men, positioned the Babe on a pallet of hay while the animals watched with incredulous eyes, and in the midst of midnight camel trains, strange stars, and miraculous births, I heard Crumley behind me say:

?Poor holy man sap.?

He dialed information.

?Hollywood?? he said. ?St. Sebastian?s church??

60

At three-thirty Crumley dropped me St. Sebastian?s.

He examined my face and saw not only my skull but what rattled inside.

?Stop it!? he ordered. ?You got that dumb smug-ass look pasted on your mouth like a circus flier. Which means you trip, but I fall downstairs!?

?Crumley!?

?Well, Christ almighty, what about that mill race under the bones and through the wall last night, and Roy in permanent hiding, and Blind Henry cane-whipping the air, fighting off spooks, and Constance who might scare again tonight and show up to yank off my Band-aids. This was my idea to bring you here! but now you stand there like a high I.Q. clown about to jump off a cliff!?

?Poor holy man. Poor sap. Poor priest,? I replied.

?Oh, no you don?t!?

And Crumley drove off.

61

I wandered through a church that was small in dimension but burning bright with accoutrements. I stood looking at an altar that must have used up five million dollars? worth of gold and silver. The Christ figure up front, if melted down, could have bought half of the U.S. Mint. It was while I was standing there stunned by the light coming off that cross that I heard Father Kelly behind me.

?Is that the screenwriter who telephoned with the problem?? he called quietly from across the pews.

I studied the incredibly bright altar. ?You must have had many rich worshipers, father,? I said.

Arbuthnot, I thought.

?No, it?s an empty church in an empty time.? Father Kelly plowed down the aisle and stuck out a big paw. He was tall, six feet five and with the muscularity of an athlete. ?We are lucky to have a few parishioners whose consciences make constant problems. They force their money on the church.?

?You tell the truth, father.?

?I?d damn well better or God will get me.? He laughed. ?It?s rough taking money from ulcerating sinners, but it?s better than having them throw it at the horses. They?ve a better chance of winning here, for I do scare the Jesus into them. While the psychiatrists are busy talking, I give one hell of a yell, which knocks the pants off half my parish and makes the rest put theirs back on. Come sit. Do you like scotch? I often think, if Christ lived now, would he serve that and would we mind? That?s Irish logic. Come along.?

In his office, he poured two snifters.

?I can see by your eyes you hate the stuff,? observed the priest. ?Leave it. Have you come about that fool?s film they?re just finishing at the studio over there? Is Fritz Wong as mad as some say??