An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

"This is the CBS Radio Hour," the voice in the box said, "and we now bring you Father Charles Coughlin, live, from Royal Oak, Michigan."

Another man's voice, smooth and sonorous, filled the room, and Timothy had a hard time following what this priest, this Father Coughlin said, for the man talked about the dangers of something called communism, and about how Jews in places called Washington and New York had taken control of the nation's banks, and that the new German chancellor, Adolph Hitler, had just introduced new policies to handle what he angrily called the Jewish Problem. Coughlin said these new policies seemed more and more appropriate with each passing day, but even so, what struck Timothy was how skillfully the man used Biblical teachings to justify all the points he made, and he was thunderstruck when he considered how he might use religious doctrine to shape political discourse in the colony.

+++++

Charley and Sumner by her side, Jennifer stood by the water's edge -- completely mesmerized by the animal -- and yet...she remembered a day long ago...

'Too far away,' she told herself, trying to grasp memories out of time -- as fragments flew out of reach on the wind. 'That wasn't me, my life...'

But the eyes held her -- now as then -- and she stepped into the water.

"Jenn? What are you doing?"

But Charley was by her side now, in the water with her, and together they went ahead, walked into the water until wavelets brushed her chin, and the animal came to them.

"Why are you smiling?" she asked the dolphin, but the animal only turned on it's back and looked into the sky -- so she did too -- and his music came back to her. 'Strawberry Fields Forever? Why? Why am I hearing that song now? Why am I thinking of John Lennon -- now?'

But she was, and she remembered seeing him sitting on the grass...singing...in a field not far from here...and there had been a lion, too. She'd helped the lion. Injured? 'No, that's not it. It had been wounded, by an arrow. And a whale...? Something about a whale?'

And then the dolphin was in her mind, speaking to her, telling her everything would soon be as it was supposed to be, that she was going ahead, and that she had to be patient.

She felt Sumner's hands on her shoulder, then she was floating in darkness, warmth enveloping her entire being. Sumner standing there by the bed, his eyes soft with tears, nothing now but pure black everywhere she looked, just Sumner in a pool of light.

An organ? Do I hear an organ? What is that? Bach? One of the Brandenburg Concertos? The Third? And -- is that a star? It's so bright...but it's moving? Coming closer... "Oh my God..."

As the star came for her, as incredible lightness flooded her senses, she felt herself falling...falling...then tumbling...the sense of motion suddenly violent. She opened her eyes and sensed she was inside a cloud...cool and brilliant white...and she was in an airplane. An old bi-plane, and a huge city was laid out below the clouds. She heard someone yelling now, emotions like euphoria coming from behind and she turned, saw the wizard at the controls, segmented glass goggles over his eyes and a long red scarf trailing in the slipstream. They were in a dive now, inverted, and she looked 'up' at the earth below as it came rushing up for them...

Suddenly the aircraft snapped level for a moment, then they were climbing again, a gut-slamming climb, her eyes feeling like they were being pushed into the back of her skull, and the wizard was screaming now, berserk with mad, wild abandon. She looked at the airplane, it's wings vibrating -- almost alive -- and she tried to turn her face, but her head was being pushed into the headrest with so much force she was afraid her neck would snap if she moved it even the slightest...

Then another jarring roll-over, hanging upside down with only a seatbelt keeping her in the airplane, and she looked at the city below in it's almost infinite sprawl, pulsing with life, life everywhere bursting free pushing forward moving always moving...like moths to a flame...

"Where are we? Is that Boston?" she shouted, trying to make herself heard over the thundering engine, then the wizard pointed at something far below...

"Look," he said, "and see what you may..."

He pushed the stick hard over and the airplane nosed into a perilously steep dive, their speed building at an impossible rate. She reached out for something, anything to hold on to, fearing this was indeed now the end -- but he leveled out again just a few feet over a vast body of water and they hurtled towards a vibrant shoreline just ahead.

She saw lights, bright, gayly colored lights coming for them, and as they approached the beach she saw an amusement park...huge...like a city unto itself packed with teeming crowds. He flipped the wings and, inverted again, she she looked down at the crowds as they streaked by just overhead, then, still inverted, he pushed over into a climb and they were in cloud again. Now completely disoriented a wave of vertigo hit and she felt her stomach lurch...

The airplane seemed to be tumbling now -- but it was impossible to tell in this infinitely spinning cloud -- and then it turned dark and cold, foul bitterness filled the air. In an instant the purity of only a moment before was replaced with choking, sulfuric fumes, and when they burst free of the cloud she saw streaking gouts of flame slamming into the earth, still far below beneath a blackening layer of cloud.

The wizard rolled over into another dive, this time slowly, cautiously, feeling his way down between banks of smoldering cloud, and the air turned into a choking miasma of putrid dust the lower they flew. The drifted down into a layer of bronze, the air heavy and warm now, and he lined up and flew over the vast amusement park again...

The world was silent now, dark and gray, and pockets of burning wreckage could just be seen in the distance...

"What's happened to this place?" she cried as she turned and looked out over the smoking remains -- then she looked at the wizard. Only the wizard was gone, and she was adrift in space. Cold, dark space, surrounded by an inky black void, the only visible thing a receding orb, impossibly bright but fading rapidly.

Feeling left her hands and feet first, then a tightness gripped her heart as the emptiness pushed in from everywhere. It was getting hard to breathe now, impossible to move, and suddenly, as she drew her last breath, she knew this was it, the end of things, of life. She wanted to cry now, but feelings ebbed away in the suffocating stillness, and then even darkness fled.

+++++

He watched the first torpedo slip by a hundred feet off the port bow, the second two heading just to starboard, and anti-aircraft fire erupted from ships throughout the fleet. He walked out onto the bridge-deck and saw one battlewagon dead in the water, fires out of control visible all over her deck, and the other Japanese ship retreating under cover of smokescreens her escorts laid.

A horrendous barrage of anti-aircraft fire began and he looked up, saw three Japanese aircraft boring in -- diving under full power, aiming for...

"Me," Langston Clemens said.

"Kamikaze!" lookouts shouted.

One incoming aircraft was shredded by fire, disappeared inside a ball of flame, but he saw the final two would make it...

The first hit just aft of the stacks, near number three turret, and the five hundred pound bomb inside the aircraft went off -- to devastating effect. He looked on helplessly as the aft gunnery tower collapsed, and as the deck buckled, then he saw the third -- just moments before it slammed into...

He yawned, rubbed his eyes and tried to concentrate...

...for Mahan himself was lecturing today -- about Jomini's theories of strategic chokepoints and forward operating bases, and Nelson's tactics off the Nile. The corollary implied? It was America's manifest destiny to control the seas, for only through military engagement -- when diplomatic and mercantile engagement inevitably failed -- would she be able to secure her rightful place as leader of a world free of aristocratic whims.

But today, everyone was talking about revolts in Cuba and the coming war with Spain. He looked over the snow-covered drill fields to the capitol dome that brooded over the hill, and the town of Annapolis below, in it's shadow.

A midshipman entered the lecture hall and handed a note to the admiral, and Mahan stopped and read the message, then put his pointer down and addressed the class.

"Men, we've just received word that the Maine has been lost, in Havana harbor. Spanish forces are involved, and I dare say we shall have a little war now. You'll excuse me, but I've been summoned to the White House and must leave you now. I'll collect your reports on Mahan's treatise next week, so get on with it!

'The Influence of Sea Power Upon History...' Clemens opened to the final chapter of the book and began rereading the text, and was jotting down notes for his report when he looked up, saw an old man standing beside him. "Yes," Langston asked, "do I know you?"

"Are you ready?"

"What?" Clemens said, but he was already drifting through time, struggling to recall his name, just who he was. A carnival? Something about a carnival, but he struggled to cast aside his years in Annapolis...and what about that native woman? He remembered Jennifer and his brothers -- and wondered what had happened to them...

+++++

'Snakes in a ball,' Foster thought. 'I feel surrounded by snakes in a ball, eels in wet mud...all is contact, perpetual motion, endless orgasm, senseless now, lust with no meaning...'

The music was hypnotic, a driving, pulsing beat, like the mouth working his cock just now. He opened his eyes to a world awash in undulating indigo, the boy sucking his cock an anonymous blur, the head moving faster and faster -- then he was coming again. So many times he'd lost count, then a woman was straddling his face, but she had a cock in her hand and was feeding it past his lips, down his throat -- then she was fucking his face, holding his face in her hands -- talon-like fingernails digging into his scalp as her cock drove in and out of his mouth. Gagging, hard to breathe, impossible to stop, lust all consuming now, an all consuming frenzy of emotion...

Another one, another woman with cock and balls, lifting his legs over her shoulders now, driving her cock into him...

'I'm impaled...being impaled...' and the room was ablaze, visions of Hell danced in his mind's eye, the he felt the cock in his mouth stiffening, twitching before an enormous wave of semen washing over his tongue. He gagged, was struggling to swallow...

When in that moment he thought of...his soul.

He closed his eyes, grief closing in from every direction, wondering what was to become of his soul.

"What's your name?"

"What?" He looked around the room. A bar, wasn't it? He shook his head, tried to remember where he was. Who he was...

"You have a name, don't you?"

He looked at the man sitting next to him, the Armani suit, the Hermes tie, perfect hair, perfect manicure, and he remembered now. He was at the Ritz, in Laguna Beach, and he looked down at his dress, at his perfect legs. Sheer silk stockings, six inch Louboutins, and his cock was twitching already. Ready to suck this man off...his third tonight...

"Tonio, but call me Toni."

"Toni? Are you what I think you are? You have a little something extra for me tonight?" He felt the man's hand on his leg, sliding up under his dress then massaging the head of his cock.

"So," Foster sighed, "is that what you're looking for?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, you are."

"Your room? Or would you like me to do you right here?"

"Why don't you come with me...?"

And they're outside, walking in the fog, then the man pushes him to the ground and frees his cock, shoves it in his mouth and starts fucking his face...

He's working it over with his tongue, coaxing the cock in his mouth to cum once again when the first blow hits -- on the side of his face -- then he is down on the ground, trying to protect his face as a group of boys, teenagers, kick and beat him with their fists and heavy boots. He covers his face, tries to get up and run but they have him now and one of the boys pulls out a knife -- a huge knife -- and reaches out for his neck.

He feels the blade against his skin and tries to scream...

...and winces as the IV punctures his arm.

He looks up, sees a nurse and notices she winces too.

"Sorry...missed that one...but your veins are really deep, and they roll. Hard, I guess."

He felt himself nodding. "Too many IVs. Doc told me they're scarring up."

"They can't put in a shunt, can they?"

"No," he said. "It'd be infected in a few days."

"If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been positive?"

Foster shrugged, shook his head as another wave of nausea came for him. "I can't really seem to remember now...everything seems so jumbled up."

"You live in The City?"

"Used to, near the park. I was evicted a few weeks ago."

"Why? Because of the HIV thing?"

He nodded his head.

"Where are you living now?"

He sighed, then smiled a little smile. "Oh, I have a nice spot in mind, under an overpass, I think."

"I think it takes courage. The whole sex-change thing. You know, be true to who you are."

"Courage?" he sighed, then he laughed. "Oh, the stories I could tell you -- about courage."

"Yeah? I'd like to here one someday."

He nodded his head again. "Sure."

When she finished the draw she gathered her vials and put them on her cart and left, and he smiled at the silence that came for him -- that had been waiting for him -- and he turned on the television and watched it come to life, found an old station that played classic movies all day, every day, and he settled in -- wishing he had some popcorn, maybe even a hot dog. "A chili-dog would be even better," he said aloud.

The Toho logo came onscreen and he sat up in bed, wanting to see the Seven Samurai again and glad he'd turned on the TV, but no, it was a Kurosawa film he'd never seen before. The word Ikiru drifted into consciousness, then 'to live,' and he spent the next two hours enraptured by Kanji Watanabe's choices. He watched the end, the man on a swing-set as snow falls, surrounded by his creation as death comes -- and he began to cry. He cried for his soul, for the choices he'd made. True to himself...wasn't that what the nurse said?

"But what have I done with my life?" he sighed as he watched snow falling outside the window. "Who will remember me? And for what?"

"I ask myself that all the time," the girl said, coming back in the room -- now carrying a tray. She pulled the rolling table into place and set it down in front of him and he burst out laughing...

"A chili-dog!"

"I heard you, from out in the corridor. You sounded like you could use a chili-dog, so..."

He muted the television and patted the bed. "Can you stay a while?"

"I got off an hour ago," she smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed. "What were you watching?"

"Oh, a Kurosawa, one I'd never seen before. Ikiru..."

"Oh, God, I loved that one," she said. "Watched it in nursing school...changed my life -- in a way."

"Oh?"

She was so easy to talk to...accepting, nonjudgmental...and when she yawned, when she said she had to go home he felt awkward. It'd been so long since he'd felt this sort of connection...too long.

"It says on your chart you're going to be released in the morning..."

"Oh, joy."

"Where will you go?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea, but not too far, I hope."

"I have a spare bedroom," the girl said brightly. "You're welcome to stay with me, if you like..."

"What's your name?"

"Emily. Gee, I thought you knew."

And he went home with her the next day, and he stayed. Days turned to weeks, but his illness did not dare turn him loose, set him free, and one day an ambulance crew came. Hospice, Emily said. It was time. He cried, not least of all because he knew he would be leaving her soon -- and-he-did-not-want-this-to-end. He cried out, asked for God's help -- but God was silent that day, and next.

But on the last day of his life he saw the wizard -- standing in the corner of the room -- and the old man was looking at the girl, Emily, his eyes impassive...and then he knew who he was again, where he had been, and that all this had been little more than a dream.

Then she was by his side, telling him that she loved him and that she would miss him forever. Holding his hand, tethered to life in a hospital bed one moment, cast free of worldly concerns the next, adrift in swirling mist, darkness pressing in all from everywhere...gasping, clawing for life...

Then sound. Like a million cats crying in hunger, and then that smell, like sulphur -- and sensations he had never experienced before, revulsion at the very idea of life, the sadness of existence -- all pushing inward now. Suffocating him. A feeling something like fear -- yet mixed with curiosity -- pushed him into the light and he was awash in a sea of humanity -- more people than he had ever thought possible crowding past on their way to nowhere, all in a terrible hurry.

"You'd better come with me," he heard someone say, and he turned to the voice. A woman, very small, skin very dark -- colors of teak and mahogany. Green eyes, strange -- too large, an odd counterpoint to her lips -- like thin slits, too dark, everything out of balance.

"Follow you?"

"Follow me..."

The woman took off through the crowd -- and not knowing what else to do Foster turned and hurried after her.

The vast, inrushing crowd was a seething, tumbling mass, all jostling elbows and senseless rushing onward, and he caught up with the woman, turned and followed her down a narrow alley, the way ahead lined with beggars and, he assumed, thieves. She turned down an even darker path, the smell of feces and stale urine closing in from every direction, and people here lay in the shadows, waiting. Some moaned quietly, others lay waiting in stillness -- but they were too still.

She came to a door, a very small, very short door -- and she knocked six times. The door opened from within and the woman spoke to someone beyond, in the shadows, then the door opened further -- to let them in.

"Prostitutes, mainly," the woman said, and Foster peered into the fetid gloom.

"Aids?" he asked, thinking of the hospital, and the girl, Emily, he would love forever.

"For the most part, about ninety percent anyway, though we have our fair share of tuberculosis, and a few garden variety STDs, too."

"How many of them do you have here?" he asked, trying to guess the number of beds in this one room, but he could just barely make out a few dozen in the gathering closeness,

"Here, at this facility? Not quite a hundred, though it seems most of the gays and transsexuals in Calcutta will pass through these doors -- sooner or later."

"Jesus..."

"Jesus? Really? The feeling among most people now is that Jesus left India years ago, right after He turned his back on Africa."

"And yet you fight on, Mother. Why?"

"Because those people are wrong."

+++++

He wasn't sure what kind of conveyance this was, but whatever else it might be -- this thing was fast...

Timothy held on as the contraption raced around a sharp turn in the road, and he looked at the man operating the thing: black skin, very muscular, a hint of premature gray in his close-cropped hair. Blue uniform, the patch on his sleeve read 'Jackson Mississippi Police Department.'

There is a voice in the air, and the man pics up something and talks into it...