No one would know who he was until Winston Niles Rumfoord, the head of all churches of God the Utterly Indifferent, gave the world the Space Wanderer’s flame.
The signal, should the Space Wanderer arrive, was for Redwine to ring the church bell madly.
When the bell was rung madly, the parishioners were to feel ecstasy, to drop whatever they were doing, to laugh, to weep, to come.
The West Barnstable Volunteer Fire Department was so dominated by members of Redwine’s church that the fire engine itself was going to arrive as the only vehicle remotely glorious enough for the Space Wanderer.
The screams of the fire alarm on top of the firehouse were to be added to the bedlam joy of the bell. One scream from the alarm meant a grass or woods fire. Two screams meant a house fire. Three screams meant a rescue. Ten screams would mean that the Space Wanderer had arrived.
Water seeped in around an ill-fitting window sash. Water crept under a loose shingle in the roof, dropped through a crack and hung in glittering beads from a rafter over Redwine’s head. The good rain wet the old Paul Revere bell in the steeple, trickled down the bell rope, soaked the wooden doll tied to the end of the bell rope, dripped from the feet of the doll, made a puddle on the steeple’s flagstone floor.
The doll had a religious significance. It represented a repellent way of life that was no more. It was called a Malachi. No home or place of business of a member of Redwine’s faith was without a Malachi hanging somewhere.
There was only one proper way to hang a Malachi. That was by the neck. There was only one proper knot to use, and that was a hangman’s knot.
And the rain dripped from the feet of Redwine’s Malachi at the end of the bell rope —
The cold goblin spring of the crocuses was past.
The frail and chilly fairy spring of the daffodils was past.
The springtime for mankind had arrived, and the blooms of the lilac bowers outside Redwine’s church hung fatly, heavy as Concord grapes.
Redwine listened to the rain, and imagined that it spoke Chaucerian English. He spoke aloud the words he imagined the rain to be speaking, spoke harmoniously, at just the noise level of the rain.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droughte of Marche hath perced to the rote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendered is the flour —
A droplet fell twinkling from the rafter overhead, wet the left lens of Redwine’s spectacles and his apple cheek.
Time had been kind to Redwine. Standing there in the pulpit, he looked like a ruddy, bespectacled country newsboy, though he was forty-nine. He raised his hand to brush away the wetness on his cheek, and rattled the blue canvas bag of lead shot that was strapped around his wrist.
There were similar bags of shot around his ankles and his other wrist, and two heavy slabs of iron hung on shoulder straps — one slab on his chest and one on his back.
These weights were his handicaps in the race of life.
He carried forty-eight pounds — carried them gladly. A stronger person would have carried more, a weaker person would have carried less. Every strong member of Redwine’s faith accepted handicaps gladly, wore them proudly everywhere.
The weakest and meekest were bound to admit, at last, that the race of life was fair.
The liquid melodies of the rain made such lovely backgrounds for any sort of recitation in the empty church that Redwine recited some more. This time he recited something that Winston Niles Rumfoord, the Master of Newport, had written.
The thing that Redwine was about to recite with the rain chorus was a thing that the Master of Newport had written to define the position of himself with respect to his ministers, the position of his ministers with respect to their flocks, and the position of everybody with respect to God. Redwine read it to his flock on the first Sunday of every month.
“‘I am not your father,'” said Redwine. “‘Rather call me brother. But I am not your brother. Rather call me son. But I am not your son. Rather call me a dog. But I am not your dog. Rather call me a flea on your dog. But I am not a flea. Rather call me a germ on a flea on your dog. As a germ on a flea on your dog, I am eager to serve you in any way I can, just as you are willing to serve God Almighty, Creator of the Universe.'”