Read Online Count Geiger's Blues by Michael Bishop - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Bishop
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Xavier.
“Fine,” he said, surprised they were still in a building in latter-day Salonika.
The robed priest had finished his homily. He was calling parishioners to the altar to take the wafer and drink from a silver goblet. Ushers were gesturing pew occupants to their feet and nodding them into a shuffling double queue. The huge painting of Christ behind the altar, a fresco in which Jesus looked like either a Dante Gabriel Rossetti longhair or a superannuated hippie used-car salesman, seemed to lend the Savior’s own blessing to this steady procession. Xavier grabbed a pew back to get to his feet.
whoosh! his sinuses roared open. He pulled out a handkerchief, blew his nose, dabbed his upper lip and chin. But Xavier was the victim of an untimely allergy. Not only did his nose run, but his eyes gushed, his lips discharged a colorless sebum, and his ears drained a waxy amber goo.
“Fucking gross,” yucked The Mick.
Xavier was disoriented, as if a very large person—Lee Stamz, say—had seized his head and plunged it into a zinc bucket of acidic vanilla extract and melted crayons.
“Xavier, you’re ill,” Bari said, taking his arm.
“I’m all right!”
“You can’t go up, Uncle Xave,” The Mick whispered. “They’re using a fucking common cup.”
An usher—a watery ghost in a three-piece suit—said, “He’s right. Things being what they are nowadays, we can’t let you take with everybody else.”
Had Xavier insisted on that privilege, there might well have been a scene in Christ’s Episcopal. But Xavier didn’t insist. Balloon-headed, he offered no protest when the usher led him and his companions to the vestibule.
Asked the usher, “Should I see if there’s a doctor in church today, Mr. Thaxton?”
“No, thank you.”
Xavier, Bari, and The Mick walked home. Or, as it seemed to him, swam home, dog-paddling through the bizarre mists generated by his own inner weathers. Yuck. (The only word adequate to the situation.)
Later, laid out on the sofa in his living room, a towel protecting the pillow under his head, Xavier tried to compute the chances of drowning while unsubmerged.
“We should call a doctor or visit the ER at Salonika General,” Bari said.
“Unh-uh. I’ll be all right.”
Squatting, The Mick opened the louvered doors hiding the TV.
“Not now, Mikhail,” Bari pled.
“Uncle Xave didn’t get decently churched. Watch this.”
Dwight “Happy” McElroy’s Great Gospel Giveaway flickered into view. Wide-angle pans of the Televangelism Temple in Rehoboth, Louisiana, revealed several thousand jubilant worshipers. McElroy was dunning them and his video audience for money, now with a performance by twelve poodles dressed in robes: McElroy’s Dixie Dog Disciples. The poodles danced about the stage as a two-hundred-member choir sang: “Giving your all, / O yes, your all, / Yes, giving your all / For JEEEEEE-suhss.”
“What a fucking trip,” said The Mick.
“Spare me,” Xavier said, squinting at the spectacle between his stockinged feet. “Mikhail, spare me.”
“Come on, Mick,” Bari said.
“Just want Uncle Xave to get his minimum weekly fix of religion, Bari-Bari.”
“That’s not religion, Mikhail, but an abominable mix of sideshow hucksterism and pious razzmatazz.” Xavier sat up and pointed at the screen. “ Great Gospel Giveaway has about as much to do with cultivating faith as astrology has with acquiring knowledge about the heavens. A hypocritical sham. It makes me sick. Sick to my soul.”
“That may be. But,” Bari said, “you seem to be doing a little better physically.”
Xavier recoiled to find this true. Strange fluids had ceased flowing from his eyes, ears, and nose. His mucous membranes had dried out, he was witnessing McElroy’s vaudevillian tom-foolery with mist-free eyes. Gospel Giveaway offended him spiritually, but he couldn’t deny that he was otherwise in the pink of health.
How thoroughly he’d recovered from his untoward
“Fine,” he said, surprised they were still in a building in latter-day Salonika.
The robed priest had finished his homily. He was calling parishioners to the altar to take the wafer and drink from a silver goblet. Ushers were gesturing pew occupants to their feet and nodding them into a shuffling double queue. The huge painting of Christ behind the altar, a fresco in which Jesus looked like either a Dante Gabriel Rossetti longhair or a superannuated hippie used-car salesman, seemed to lend the Savior’s own blessing to this steady procession. Xavier grabbed a pew back to get to his feet.
whoosh! his sinuses roared open. He pulled out a handkerchief, blew his nose, dabbed his upper lip and chin. But Xavier was the victim of an untimely allergy. Not only did his nose run, but his eyes gushed, his lips discharged a colorless sebum, and his ears drained a waxy amber goo.
“Fucking gross,” yucked The Mick.
Xavier was disoriented, as if a very large person—Lee Stamz, say—had seized his head and plunged it into a zinc bucket of acidic vanilla extract and melted crayons.
“Xavier, you’re ill,” Bari said, taking his arm.
“I’m all right!”
“You can’t go up, Uncle Xave,” The Mick whispered. “They’re using a fucking common cup.”
An usher—a watery ghost in a three-piece suit—said, “He’s right. Things being what they are nowadays, we can’t let you take with everybody else.”
Had Xavier insisted on that privilege, there might well have been a scene in Christ’s Episcopal. But Xavier didn’t insist. Balloon-headed, he offered no protest when the usher led him and his companions to the vestibule.
Asked the usher, “Should I see if there’s a doctor in church today, Mr. Thaxton?”
“No, thank you.”
Xavier, Bari, and The Mick walked home. Or, as it seemed to him, swam home, dog-paddling through the bizarre mists generated by his own inner weathers. Yuck. (The only word adequate to the situation.)
Later, laid out on the sofa in his living room, a towel protecting the pillow under his head, Xavier tried to compute the chances of drowning while unsubmerged.
“We should call a doctor or visit the ER at Salonika General,” Bari said.
“Unh-uh. I’ll be all right.”
Squatting, The Mick opened the louvered doors hiding the TV.
“Not now, Mikhail,” Bari pled.
“Uncle Xave didn’t get decently churched. Watch this.”
Dwight “Happy” McElroy’s Great Gospel Giveaway flickered into view. Wide-angle pans of the Televangelism Temple in Rehoboth, Louisiana, revealed several thousand jubilant worshipers. McElroy was dunning them and his video audience for money, now with a performance by twelve poodles dressed in robes: McElroy’s Dixie Dog Disciples. The poodles danced about the stage as a two-hundred-member choir sang: “Giving your all, / O yes, your all, / Yes, giving your all / For JEEEEEE-suhss.”
“What a fucking trip,” said The Mick.
“Spare me,” Xavier said, squinting at the spectacle between his stockinged feet. “Mikhail, spare me.”
“Come on, Mick,” Bari said.
“Just want Uncle Xave to get his minimum weekly fix of religion, Bari-Bari.”
“That’s not religion, Mikhail, but an abominable mix of sideshow hucksterism and pious razzmatazz.” Xavier sat up and pointed at the screen. “ Great Gospel Giveaway has about as much to do with cultivating faith as astrology has with acquiring knowledge about the heavens. A hypocritical sham. It makes me sick. Sick to my soul.”
“That may be. But,” Bari said, “you seem to be doing a little better physically.”
Xavier recoiled to find this true. Strange fluids had ceased flowing from his eyes, ears, and nose. His mucous membranes had dried out, he was witnessing McElroy’s vaudevillian tom-foolery with mist-free eyes. Gospel Giveaway offended him spiritually, but he couldn’t deny that he was otherwise in the pink of health.
How thoroughly he’d recovered from his untoward
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