I stared at the Gluebird for several long moments. He was tall, and gaunt beyond gaunt, his angular face webbed with layers of white sear tissue burned to a bright red at the edges. His sandy hair was long and matted sideways over his head; his reddish-blond beard was sparkling with gooey crystalline matter that he picked at absently. It was a breezeless ninety degrees and he was still wearing wool slacks and a turtleneeked fisherman’s sweater.
I walked up to him and checked out the contents of his lap as he stared slack-jawed at a group of children building sand castles. His bony, glue-encrusted hands held the plastic chassis of a 1940 Ford glued to the fuselage of a B-52 bomber. Tiny Indian braves with tomahawks and bows and arrows battled each other upside down along the plane’s underbelly.
The Gluebird noticed me, and must have seen some sadness in my gaze, because he said in a soft voice: “Don’t be sad, sonny, the sister has a cozy drift for you and I was in the war, too. Don’t be sad.”
“Which war, Mr. Melveny?”
“The one after the Korean War. I was with the Manhattan Project then. They gave me the job because I used to mix Manhattans for the fathers. By the piteherful, with little maraschino cherries. The fathers were cherry themselves, but they could have told the sisters to kick loose, but they were cherry, too. Like Jesus. They could have got fired, like me, and left the sisters to work for the sister.” Melveny held his mound of plastic up for me to see. I took it, and held it for a moment, then handed it back to him. “Do you like my boat?” he asked.
“It’s very beautiful,” I said. “Why did you get fired, George?”
“I used to be George, and it was George with me, but now I’m a bird. Caw! Caw! Caw! I used to be George, by George, and it was George by me, but the padres didn’t know! They didn’t care!”
“Care about what, George?”
“I don’t know! I used to know, when I was George, but I don’t know anymore!”
I knelt beside the old man and placed an arm around his shoulders. “Do you remember Johnny DeVries, George?”
The old Gluebird began to tremble, and his face went red– even the white scar tissue. “Big John, Big John, squarehead krauteater. Big John, he could recite the table of elements backwards! He had a prick the size of a bratwurst! Eight foot four in his stocking feet, Big John. Big John!”
“Was he your friend?”
“Dead friend! Dead man! Guy Fawkes. Welcome back, Amelia Earhart! Redevivus Big John! Big John Redux! Didn’t know a bunsen burner from a bratwurst, but I taught him, by George, I taught him!”
“Where did he get his morphine, George?”
“The nigger had the dope–Johnny just got the cat’s bones. The nigger got the pie and Johnny got the crust!”
I shook the Gluebird’s bony shoulders. “Who killed Johnny, George?”
“The nigger had the pie, Johnny had the crumbs! Johnny Crumbum! Johnny said the slicer paid the piper, the slicer’s gonna get me, but I got my memoirs at the monastery! Buddha’s gonna get the slicer! And make my book a best-seller!”
I shook the Gluebird even harder, until his glue-streaked beard was in my face. “Who’s the slicer, goddamnit?”
“Ain’t no god. Johnny-boy. The Buddhist’s got the Book and they don’t believe in Jesus. Turnabout’s fair play, Jesus don’t believe in Buddha! George don’t believe in George, by George, and that’s George!”
I let go of the Gluebird. He caw-eawed at the seagulls flying above the lakefront, and flapped his emaciated arms in longing to join them. On the extreme off chance that God existed I said a silent prayer for him. I walked back to my car knowing I had gleaned enough from his ravaged mind to take me at least as far as Fond Du Lac.
22
I got a room in a motor court on Blue Mound Road and slept for sixteen hours straight, dreaming of Michael and Lorna floating on life rafts in a sea of airplane glue. It was just before dawn when I awoke and called Will Berglund in Tunnel City. Did the Clandestine Heart have a monastery near Fond Du Lac? Yes, he said, his voice blurred by sleep, it did. Did it have an orphanage? No, it didn’t. Before I hung up I got explicit directions on the shortest route to the order. Will Berglund came awake as he sensed the anxiety in my voice, and he said he would call the prelate at the monastery and tell him I was coming.