The prophecy was that the weary Space Wanderer would be naked, that the suit of clothes would fit him like a glove. The suit was of such a design as to fit no one but the right man well. It was one piece, lemon-yellow, rubberized, closed by a zipper, and ideally skin-tight.
The garment was not in the mode of the day. It was a special creation to add glamour to the miracle.
Stitched into the back and front of the garment were orange question marks a foot high. These signified that the Space Wanderer would not know who he was.
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.’”
Redwine slapped his hands together, killing the imaginary germ-infested flea. On Sundays, the entire congregation slapped the flea in unison.
Another droplet fell shivering from the rafter, wet Redwine’s cheek again. Redwine nodded his sweet thanks for the droplet, for the church, for peace, for the Master of Newport, for Earth, for a God Who didn’t care, for everything.
He stepped down from the pulpit, making the lead balls in his handicap bags shift back and forth with a stately swish.
He went down the aisle and through the arch under the steeple. He paused by the puddle under the bell rope, looked up to divine the course the water had taken down. It was a lovely way, he decided, for spring rain to come in. If ever he were in charge of remodeling the church, be would make sure that enterprising drops of rain could still come in that way.
Just beyond the arch under the steeple was another arch, a leafy arch of lilacs.
Redwine now stepped under that second arch, saw the space ship like a great blister in the woods, saw the naked, bearded Space Wanderer in his churchyard.
Redwine cried out for joy. He ran back into his church and jerked and swung on the bell rope like a drunken chimpanzee. In the clanging bedlam of the bells, Redwine heard the words that the Master of Newport said all bells spoke.
“NO HELL!” whang-danged the bell –
“NO HELL,
“NO HELL,
“NO HELL!”
Unk was terrified by the bell. It sounded like an angry, frightened bell to Unk, and he ran back to his ship, gashing his shin badly as he scrambled over a stone wall. As he was closing the airlock, he heard a siren wailing answers to the bell.
Unk thought Earth was still at war with Mars, and that the siren and the bell were calling sudden death down on him. He pressed the on button.
The automatic navigator did not respond instantly, but engaged in a fuzzy, ineffectual argument with itself. The argument ended with the navigator’s shutting itself off.
Unk pressed the on button again. This time he kept it down by jamming his heel against it.
Again the navigator argued stupidly with itself, tried to shut itself off. When it found that it could not shut itself off, it made dirty yellow smoke.
The smoke became so dense and poisonous that Unk was obliged to swallow a goofball and practice Schliemann breathing again.
Then the pilot-navigator gave out a deep, throbbing organ note and died forever.
There was no taking off now. When the pilot-navigator died, the whole space ship died.
Unk went through the smoke to a porthole – looked out.
He saw a fire engine. The fire engine was breaking through the brush to the space ship. Men, women, and children were clinging to the engine – drenched by rain and expressing ecstasy.
Going in advance of the fire engine was the Reverend C. Horner Redwine. In one hand he carried a lemon-yellow suit in a transparent plastic bag. In the other hand he held a spray of fresh-cut lilacs.
The women threw kisses to Unk through the port. holes, held their children up to see the adorable man inside. The men stayed with the fire engine, cheered Unk, cheered each other, cheered everything. The driver made the mighty motor backfire, blew the siren, rang the bell.
Everyone wore handicaps of some sort. Most handicaps were of an obvious sort – sashweights, bags of shot, old furnace grates – meant to hamper physical advantages. But there were, among Redwine’s parishioners, several true believers who had chosen handicaps of a subtler and more telling kind.