The Man Who Could Only Be Human
by Shawn Jacobson
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 On Memory Lanes appears in issue 726. |
conclusion
After that, Mary became one of our regulars. She took to drinking to drown the sorrow of that night no longer considering it barbaric. She tried all the beers we carry and most of the mixed drinks I knew how to make. She drank while she played old country crying songs on the juke box. She chose the old sad songs, songs about love gone wrong and lives wasted, songs about drinking, prison, and death, songs with wailing steel guitars that cried with the anguish of angels cast from heaven, songs to kill the loneliness of misery, if not the misery itself.
“I was helping Ben watch for trouble that night,” Mary said letting out the horror within. “I dropped him off at Jephro’s, I’m sure you’ve heard of the place.”
“Yes,” I said. I’d heard of Jephro’s. It was a big nightclub favored by the younger crowd, Falcon Lab go-getters. It offered all the entertainments that we didn’t. It was also, unfortunately, close to the crash site. He must have heard the crash and felt he could prove his worth by riding to the rescue. I knew that folly, as I’ve said, I’d done it myself.
“You couldn’t know,” I said. “Not even your people, for all they know, can tell the future.”
“I should have known it was possible,” she said. “He came out here as part of a cowboy army, the big one a dozen or so years ago.”
Folk around here know about cowboy armies. From time to time, someone would stir up the unhappy people — life’s losers with nothing left to lose — who lived in places like Dodge City. They’d tell the folk that they’d been cheated out of their manifest destiny, that their lives would be better if they could restore the world of those old Zane Grey novels. The folk would get all worked up and storm out here to drive the Spirit Folk back where they came from.
Once they got here, once someone paid the price for their folly, the would-be riders of the purple sage would come to their senses and scurry back East. Mary’s husband, apparently, hadn’t scurried.
“He got separated from the rest in the confusion of battle,” Mary said picking up on my thoughts. “We found him wandering in the hills. We took him in. In time, he came to like, or at least respect us, and I came to love him. He was better than the rest of that rabble. I loved his spirit, his exultant pride....”
“His cowboy’s pride?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mary said. “That’s why I should have left him at home.”
When she said that, the memory of being less than the others I knew, needing to be protected from life, being left out, cut through me with the residual pain of my childhood. A crazy part of me wants to join a cowboy army when I hear such talk. I left to attend to other customers; Mary had the good sense to leave the subject be.
* * *
I don’t believe that time heals all wounds, but I do believe that enough of it blunts the pain. In time, Mary stopped drinking and started asking questions. She asked Ralph about life in a hostile marriage. She asked Andrew, one of our regulars about how he’d persisted after the untimely death of his wife. Mary asked the blind man about the failure of his marriage. And you can bet she had questions for me.
“Why did you rush in to help with the wreck where you lost your arms?” she asked. She really wanted to know why I’d lived. I could answer both questions.
“I felt useless. My dad and all his family could do all the great things your folk can do, but Mom and I, we were just human, no talent, no magic, we were never involved with the important work of the family. Mom couldn’t take it; she headed back East. She’s working in some big company in Kansas City, at least that’s the last I’ve heard.”
“As for me,” I continued, “I was too young to leave. So, I remained here. Anyway, when the big wreck happened, I thought this was my big chance to belong. I probably would have died to, but I was a coward. I pulled away when I saw my arms burning, burning into useless stumps that had to be removed. Sometimes, in dark moments, I think I would have been a better man if I’d not backed out, even if I’d died.”
Mary also went to church for answers. I found out about it from Brian, the blind guy. He was sitting in the bar one Monday afternoon, relaxing after work when he told me about it.
“The strangest thing happened at church yesterday,” he said.
“What would that be?” I asked. I figured It would have to be crazy strange to top the things I’d seen.
“Well,” he said. “The one thing that bugs me about church is how they have the hymns up on this big screen in the front of the sanctuary. I can’t see the words to sing along. Well, today I could. It was like the words popped into my mind, like someone was speaking the words into my soul. Then, after the service, I bumped into the lady, you know, the one who lost her husband in that wreck a few weeks ago. Anyway, she asked me how I liked knowing the words.”
“Neat,” I said. It was one of those little kindnesses that can be a light in a dark place. The Spirit Folk never go in for things like giving a blind guy his sight back, I guess they feel that is too much like interfering. Their way is to help folk work around their problems, like being someone’s eyes at opportune times.
From then on, Mary and Brian were regular partners in the bar. They had some deep discussions about life, life without sight, life with magic, and the things common to everyone, things that transcended magic and abilities. I tried to pick up on the discussions, but there were other customers to serve and other troubles to hear. It is the nature of my job that you jump from one man’s crisis to another as you move down the bar.
One day, the couple came in without their usual cheery greeting to the bar. Moving to take their orders, I was struck by how they both ordered beer. It was the first time they’d ordered something strong in several weeks.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. It was a question dumb as they come, but you must open the conversation somehow.
“Church,” they answered almost in unison.
“What happened?” I asked, again, not a smart conversational gambit but it would get an answer.
“We’re told not to come to church anymore,” Brian said.
“Not precisely,” Mary amended. “We were told to stop disturbing the congregation.”
“What?” I asked, “did you levitate in the service, tell the congregation about the pastor’s secret affair, what?”
At this point, my imagination was a fount of possibilities, each more bizarre than the last.
“The church would be better off if the pastor had an affair,” Mary said. “It would remind him of his need for grace.” Mary continued.
“It’s just that, they know I’m talking to him with my mind and, well, the very idea frightens them. They don’t quote that bit in The Bible about not suffering a witch to live, but they think it. They mutter it when they think I can’t tell. There are even some old biddies that think we rig the church bingo games, as if we’d bother.”
“The point is, we’re leaving,” Brian said. “I just don’t want to be there anymore. It used to be a place of peace; no longer.”
I broke my personal rule against drinking on duty. We shared a toast to churches well left and to finding the right religion.
* * *
It wasn’t long after that when I saw Mary and Brian for the last time. I had my assistant spell me, so I could take a break. I walked out the back door, the one by the pool table and the restrooms, and looked up at the mountains. Clouds hung over the high peaks. It was raining, or maybe snowing, on the mountaintops. The Spirit Lands, and all their mysteries, lay beyond, obscured by mountains and clouds.
In the distance, I saw what, at first glance, looked like a witch on a broomstick, and stranger still, it was a two-headed witch. Then, I did a double-take; what had looked like a broomstick was really a cane, the kind Brian used, and the people riding it were Mary and Brian.
“I guess they’re going to try it, the kid said, looking over the big rock garden to the west. “Do you think they can make it work?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I replied. “Even Spirit Folk can’t predict the future, and all I am is a half-breed bartender with no hands.”
“It won’t be easy,” Gretta said. I wondered how she had snuck up on me. “They’ll have issues; they come from such different places. Even people who are alike fail in marriage,” she said, and I thought of Ralph.
“So, what do you think can help?” I asked.
“Grace,” Gretta replied, “grace given and received without the need to earn it. That’s the one thing that will work.”
“That kind of grace exists? The kid asked.
“It exists,” Gretta said, “though it’s hard to find.” Then she continued, “the ability to give and receive grace is the kind of skill that will make you welcome in the West and keep you sane there.”
“They look like they’re having fun,” the kid said as he pointed to the couple soaring towards the mountains.
“Sure does,” Gretta said. “Let’s try it?”
“Sure.” the kid said, then “whee!” as Gretta levitated him into the sky. They started their own air-born tour of the rock garden.
“Man! what a ride!” the kid said when they had come back to earth. “That was something.”
“My marriage was fun once, too,” Ralph said. He had poked his wrinkled gray head out of the bar to see what was happening. “I remember feeling so high that I thought we were flying.”
Later, the kid was heading out the door for the last time.
“Hey!” I said, “you forgot something.” I used my invisible hand to wave the book he’d left on the bar.
“Oh, thanks,” the kid said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to leave that, it’s my diary. When I decided to go west, I felt a calling to write the whole adventure down, put the wonders of the journey on paper, keep a record of it all.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I hope you didn’t say anything bad about me in there.”
“No,” the kid said, “you’ve been great, a guy you can talk to.”
“Hey, that’s part of the job, along with serving drinks and performing magic.”
“That sure was a wonder,” the kid said, “but I’m sure I’ll see even more wondrous stuff once I cross the mountains.”
I had no doubt that he’d experience wonderful things. Would that be enough to sustain him through the trials of life with someone from a different world? I didn’t know. As I’ve said, all I am is a half-breed bartender; predicting the future is not within my power. I did reckon that this sort of quest was worthy of being pursued, even if the ultimate end of it all was failure; one of those things common to us all, regardless where our folk come from.
“Good luck,” I said wishing I had a hand to wave.
“Thanks,” the kid said, and I knew the Spirit Lands, with all their mysteries, would draw him onward.
I went to the door wishing I could salute his great adventure. I settled for watching him continue his journey westwards.
Copyright © 2018 by Shawn Jacobson
