Excerpt

MURDER AND MISS CONCEPTION

Margo trudged through her own private hell. 

                The award-winning Manhattan journalist slogged through an empty fairground on the outskirts of nowhere – an upstate town called Conception.  “Town” in this case meaning one dangling traffic light, sixteen churches and forty thousand acres of rural poverty, like third-world send-money-now poverty. 

                It was the hottest day of August, damp and sweltering, dizzy and swirling, desperate and suffocating.  The air was thick with church-hymns churned through carnival pipe-organs, the hiss of deep-fryers and horseflies, intermittently heaving with the roar of some distant crowd.  The breeze carried a Ferris wheel of smells - fried dough and porto-potties and fried dough and porto-potties, a sickening circle of life. 

                The humidity possessed every strand of Margo's tight-slicked black hair into its own curling, cringing contortions, she could feel it twisting into a hopeless bramble.  Her black button-down gripped and groped at her curves like a patchwork of hot, sweaty palms.

                The tall black combat boots she'd bought at Saint Mark's Place were heavy with a gray-brown muck, the primordial ooze of her Western New York birthplace.  The muck in her treads clung to the muck of the slimy ground, straining to stay put.  Each step wrenched from the slime smacked a horrible kiss goodbye, then slurped a horrible kiss hello.  She'd fought so hard to escape this place, and now it seemed the soil itself wanted to swallow its runaway daughter and mulch her into fertilizer to grow more oaks and yokels.

                Muck-raking journalism was a lot more fun in her air-conditioned apartment overlooking Sheridan Square.  Right now she wished she had a muck-blowtorch.

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                After lurching through the labyrinth of ghost-carnival, Margo found herself in some sort of clearing.  An open space facing a large wooden stage with a hand-painted banner reading “MISS CONCEPTIOͶ NY - PIETY PAGEANT.”  On the stage was a podium with an American flag nailed to it, and a long table with a chequered cloth.  Beside the platform was a shooting gallery with a poster on its side: “DOLE '96,” mostly covered by a crooked poster reading “PEROT FOR PRESIDENT '96.” 

                She saw a sign-post with numerous arrows pointing in different directions, labeled “Tent Area (Goodmen),” “Petting Zoo,” “Bingo,” “Good Food,” “Tent Area (Goodies)” and “Arena.”  And there beside it, at last what she'd been searching for.  A lifeline that could connect her back to Manhattan and the award-winning self she'd painstakingly created there – a payphone.  Lunging toward it she almost lost a boot to the muck, a small price to pay for the sound of a voice, any voice in all Manhattan.  Dialing 212 and any seven digits and hearing a voice say “whaddaya want?” would be like a breath of fresh urban air.  She could almost smell the sidewalk manholes and hot-dog carts.

                Margo dug through her messenger bag – nicotine gum, cassette recorder, the unused nail-file from her New Year's resolution vindictively jabbed under her fingernail, Love-Spit-Love CD, more nicotine gum, then at last coins at the bottom.  She scooped them up.  All subway tokens.

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                “Hello, operator?  Yes, a collect call please to the Manhattan Harold Examiner.  Yes, in Manhattan.  Margo Butler, calling for Editor-in-Chief Charles Pope.  Yes I'll hold.”  Margo didn't realize she was pacing until the metal phone-cord jerked against her neck.  “Mister Pope this is Margo, I need you to change my flight--  What-- Candy?  What do you mean 'indisposed'?  Tell him to pull his 'pose' back up and take the phone.” 

                Her feet began pacing again.  “Mister Pope it's Margo, I need you to change my flight to four pm – call me back and confirm at this number, it's a payphone, 716-555-2879.  ...Why?  My last interview hasn't shown and without this source there's no story and without this story there's no Golden Muckshovel award.  ..?  Of course I spoke with the mayor and the doctors but nobody in this town seems to know anything except 'Talk to Pastor Lamm.'  So I drive into this forest and wander through miles of tents in this wacko carnival--” 

                Again the telephone line gripped her neck. 

                “Ow!  I hate you!  What?  No I wasn't—you know what?  Yes I was talking to you.  Saying if you blow this story, then next Monday morning a new editor's gonna be on your desk eating your secretary and screwing your lunch and I'm gonna be right—not right there but nearby, laughing!  ..?  Well you're the editor, correct it.  You tried to yank me off the 'Born to Diabetes' story, I stayed and won my first Golden Muckshovel, you tried to jerk me out of the 'Welfare Farewell' piece but I went with my instincts, won my second Golden Muckshovel, now you're— You keep yanking me out and jerking me off-- What?  You would say something like that.  Goodbye Mister Pope.  If you've got today's paper in front of you?  I hope it's open to Help Wanted.”  She slammed the receiver back onto its cradle but it didn't catch.  Gripping it again she bludgeoned the payphone like going crowbar-cazy on a burglar.  Finally it hanged and the dial-tone died. 

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                Margo turned and took a series of deep breaths, little maggots of light wriggled at the edges of her vision.  Then a low-floating sunset-pink fluffy cloud drifted toward her, hovering just four feet above the ground.  She squinted down at it, this strange puff, it looked like cotton candy. 

                It spoke: “Young lady it may be none of my business, but if you keep making that face it's gonna get stuck that way.”  Its voice was wrinkly and warbly.

                Margo sighed.  “It's just my editor, Mister Pope, he makes--  I'm fine.”

                “Silly Catholic.  The Pope will never take a pretty girl seriously.  I am a bit surprised to hear what he does with his lunch, though.”

                “What?  No, he's not--  He's an editor--  In New York-- The New York-- City.  Manhattan.  What's happening to me?  I--”

                Then the cloud looked up – it was hair.  A pink poodle-puff on the head of a tiny, withered old woman.  She extended a hand with a disc of fried dough that was bigger than her head, a single small nibble taken out of it.  “Fried dough?  I can't finish it.”

                Helpless, Margo heard her own voice yelp “Yes!” and watched her hand snatch it away.  But just as the doughy disc approached her face, she froze.  A statuesque blonde bombshell strode by, voluptuous bust and magnificent hips barely contained in a strained-to-bursting American flag swimsuit.  Margo tried to blink the vision away but it stared into her with cold blue eyes, and winked.  “I mean NO,” Margo threw the fried dough to the ground.  “Thank you.”  She blinked around, the swimsuit vision was gone.  Yet a slight whiff of hairspray remained...

                “Gretel,” the old woman said.  “'No thank you Gretel.'”

                Margo picked up the fried dough and brushed it off, “...Sorry..?  I didn't mean to--”   Then she realized she was talking to it.

                “It's Okay,” Gretel said, “I was done with it.  You just looked like you needed something greasy.”

                “I do...  But I'm alright,” Margo closed her eyes tight, “You are strong.  You are strong.”

                “Yes!” the matchstick woman tossed her cane, “He is strong, amen-hallelujah!”

                “What?  No, I wasn't--”

                “Down with that devil-donut!”

                “I was talking to myself.  Talking to myself!  Grabbing at fried-dough!  Barely able to assent--  Assemblance-- sentence-assemble!  Back in this town one day and...  Deep breath, Margo.  You can handle it.  You are strong.”

                “You don't have to handle it alone.  Have you thought about asking...Him?”

                Gretel was flat on her back, looking at the sky.  Margo followed her glance upward, “Who, Superman?  Thanks but I don't believe in him.  And not all lady reporters are--  Hey, maybe you can help me.  I'm looking for Pastor Lamm.”  Margo retrieved the cane and helped her up. 

                “Pastor doctor Lamm.  But he lets us call him Pastor Harry.”

                “Oh, I didn't know he was—anyway yes.  Do you know where he is?”

                “At the other end of the fairground, judging the young goodmens' corn-shucking contest.  That's what all the cheering's about.  He'll be here in a few minutes.”

                “Great!  He didn't show up for our interview this morning, and...” Margo's voice trailed off as a policeman strolled into view, walking his bicycle.  He was tall with feathery hair, a duckling-yellow halo in the sunlight.  His sunglasses glinted as he nodded politely without stopping. 

                “You're writing a story,” the wrinkly voice, “About the Rapture about to come?”

                Margo's eyes followed his crisp tan shirt and shorts till he rounded a corner, out of sight.  “...Rapture..?”

                “The twenty-third?  October?  Year-of-our-lord nineteen hundred and ninety six?  As the scriptural prophecies foretold?  Haven't you read Pastor Harry's latest book?”

                Margo smirked.  “I write for a newspaper.  For grown-ups--”

                Gretel burst into laughter and slapped her knee.  “I was about to say – who's gonna be around to read a paper after the Apocalypse?  But then I remembered, you're from New York City!  Right?  The big apple of sin?  The broad-way that leadeth to destruction?  Everybody there is gonna be left behind, confounded, looking for some high-falutin poppycock to read.”  She sighed and wiped away a tear, “I shouldn't laugh.  And you won't write that story.  Because you're coming with us.”

                “What are--  Coming where?”

                Gretel's eyes widened, “Be not afraid, child.  You'll meet Pastor Harry and I believe, you spend just ten minutes with him alone, he'll bare your lily-white soul and you'll be squealing the name of Jesus.  He'll touch you, like he's touched so many other confused young ladies.  And young men, and seniors and children.  He touched me and I knew...  My Lester...”

                “Wait.  You don't have to tell me this--”

                “Lester, my husband, had just passed away.  And the things you learn about a petroleum baron after he dies of a heart-attack, awful...  But then next Sunday I was watching Pastor Harry preach and I knew...  I knew it was Lester's destiny, his money's destiny to sow a harvest of good deeds...  I have his seed right here...”  Gretel rifled through her purse, pulling out several wadded tissues “Hold these?”

                “No!”

                “This...” She lifted a small book, “This is Lester's seed which has spread all over the world.  His filthy billions have sown these books to harvest millions of tender budding souls.  It'll tell you everything you need to know.”

                Margo squinted at the cover, a jumble of stone-block letters, “'Apostle-ophagus'..?  'A-proctapology'..?”

                “Apocalophecy.  Pastor Harry's guide to Biblical apocalyptic prophecies.”

                Margo absent-mindedly flipped to the last page.  “'And this shall come to pass on October the twenty-third, year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety five'..?  Well?  Guess I'll be damned then.”

                “What?  Oh!  That's last year's edition.  Here.” Gretel produced an identical book from her purse, flipped to the last page and held it up for Margo, “Nineteen ninety six.  Right there in print, irrefutable.”

                “But this one's in print too.  And it says here he's also the best-selling author of Apoca-laugh-agus--  Apocal-apagos nineteen ninety-four, ninety-three, every year since nineteen seventy-two.  And then it says 'Coming soon: Apocalophecy nineteen ninety-seven.'  Doesn't this...tell you something?”

                “It'll tell you everything.  Take it, read it, drink it deep into your bosom and your bowels.  Pastor Harry will be here in a few minutes for the young goodies' Christian riflery exhibition.  I'm sure he'll answer all your questions, especially the ones you didn't even dare to ask.  The deep, yearning ones.  'Deep calleth unto deep,' sayeth King David.  Which remindeth me, I need to find a porto-potty before the event begins.” 

                “Wait!  I have more questions--”

With astonishing speed, the pink cloud-woman had floated away.