A Handicap of the Devil? (19 page)

So these four diverse people, whom society considered handicapped, met at a drop in centre connected to a council Health Service. They got along famously. The binding thing they had in common was their love of dope. They smoked whatever they could get and even grew their own when they found a squat they were able to remain in for five months. They had been together for just over a year before Jonathan blundered into their world, and had just found the house with the ceiling and shed full of drugs. This seemed to them like manna from heaven.

Now the four of them were out in the cold, clear air on the deck of the houseboat. They were attempting to clear their heads of the drug fumes and trying to work out the veracity or otherwise of what they had experienced in the cabin. The four of them also had decisions to make.

"I don't know,” said Cowley. “I just don't know. What was it we saw? That big flash of light and those two dudes who appeared?"

The dwarf peered at Cowley in the dark. “It was a joint trip. That's all it was. A joint trip."

"And what a trip.” Sampson was impressed. “Man I seen God before when I been doin’ drugs. But wooby woobah, that was the best I ever seen."

"We seen God, God. We seen God, God.” Old Crone was clearly distressed.

"Nah, relax old Crone. It weren't God,” said the dwarf.

"He was tryin’ to tell us somethin', somethin'."

"What you think he was tryin’ to tell us?” Sampson was patting the old woman on the back to calm her down.

"He was tryin’ to tell us to be good, good."

"It was just the dope, it's real strong stuff. You could see anything smokin’ that stuff.” The dwarf was adamant.

"You believe anything you want to believe,” said Cowley. “I know what I saw before that sleep hit me like an express train."

"You were stoned, that's why you went to sleep,” snorted Sampson.

"No way, not that stoned. Old Crone is right, that was God appeared right there in that cabin and there's something mighty strange going on here.” Cowley paused and the others were silent as they reflected on what they had seen. She continued. “This Jonathan Goodfellow dude and his Marcie friend reckon he's on a mission from God. He tells us all that stuff in the van, then we get back here, light a joint, he tells us he's talking to God through those rabbits, and then God appears. Too much coincidence for me. It's got to be real."

"Auto-suggestion,” responded the dwarf.

"Auto ... what?” Sampson was confused.

"Suggestion. It's like when you think something might happen, and then your mind plays a trick and you think it's really happened. Happens to dope smokers all the time."

Sampson eyed the dwarf suspiciously. “You been reading books again, little dude, ain't ya?"

"We seen God, God,” said the still awestruck Old Crone.

"Okay, let's analyse this.” The dwarf was at his persuasive best. “If that was God in the cabin, then he sure didn't want us to know what was going on. So he sends us to sleep while he talks to those two dudes. So what? Missions from God? Who gives a stuff? We got problems, and I don't see God solving those problems."

"What you mean, man?” Sampson was confused once again.

"We got bugger all money, but we do got a boatload of drugs. Our problem is to sell the drugs. Let's worry about this God thing after we do that. We need money. We need to find a place where we can live and have a life, yeah?"

Old Crone began to cry. Sampson held both of her hands in one of his and patted her gently on the back. “Don't you worry, Old Crone. We gonna come out of all this okay. You'll see."

Old Crone was not to be consoled. “God wants us to be good, good."

"Will you shut up, Old Crone? There isn't a God and we didn't see him."

Sampson glared at the dwarf. “Don't you snap at Crone like that, man. She's upset and you ain't gonna help nothing by taking that attitude with her."

"Yeah, leave her alone, dwarf. You're always picking on her,” said Cowley.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Sorry, Crone, I didn't mean to upset you.” The dwarf rubbed his forehead and spat into the black water. “If that was God, so what? We weren't invited into his confidence. He's talking to Goodfellow and the bird, but he ain't talking to us. We got the drugs and that Marcie bird can help us sell them. That's what we got to focus on."

Sampson stared up at the stars that were bright in the moonless sky. “Yeah, if that were God, so what? What did he ever do for us?” The others said nothing and Sampson resumed after a pause to think things through. “Here I am got no mouth and no nose. Dwarf here got himself a hunchback, wooden leg and a glass eye. Old Crone got herself no legs and ain't quite right.” He paused again, unsure how to express what was wrong with Crone without giving offence, and then resumed. “Cowley got her a hump on her back and no ears. What we got to thank God for? What did he ever do for any one of us? We got no home and we dirt poor all the time. If he exist, he sure as hell don't look after us, and he sure as hell don't look after a lot of other poor dudes and mothers in this here world. I got nothin’ to say to him and he got nothin’ to say to me. Dwarf here is right. We gotta focus on sellin’ these drugs. Get rich first, and then maybe we can afford to find this God or not find him, whatever the case may be. Maybe if we get rich, that God dude want to talk with us."

"Marcie Mablegrove ain't rich and nor is Jonathan Goodfellow.” Cowley was reflective and not upset by what Sampson had said. She knew why he was coming from where he was coming from.

"Maybe they ain't rich, but they got legs and mouths and noses and ears. They got jobs and a place to stay they own or rent. They different to us for that reason. In this world you got money or you're shit. You reckon this the way this God dude wants it, hey?"

"Yeah,” agreed the dwarf. “That's okay, Sampson, only God don't exist and what we saw was a hallucination, that's all. Let's get on and sell the drugs. Cowley and Crone can believe whatever they want to believe. Once we get the stuff sold and we get a house, Crone and Cowley can go to church every Sunday if that's what they want. I'll even drive them in the Mercedes."

"How you do that, Shorty? You can't reach the pedals.” Sampson laughed gently.

"When we've got lots of money, I'll get special hand levers to drive that Mercedes."

"You can't see out no windscreen."

"I'll sit on lots of cushions. Hell, when you've got money, you can do anything at all, Sampson. Maybe even be friends with this God Cowley and Crone want to believe in."

"Okay.” Sampson rose and moved back towards the cabin of the houseboat. “Tomorrow we lean on this Marcie chick to move them drugs for us. We don't take no for an answer."

Crone continued to cry quietly, and Cowley believed what she believed and didn't bother to try to express what she felt any further.

In the large black car parked two kilometres up the road in a lay by, the two heavy-set men snored as they slept. The alarm on Scarface's mobile phone was set to wake them just before dawn.

Jonathan found his earlier tiredness had left him and he was wide awake as usual at night. His mind was working overtime with a million questions. How could he convince people that his mission was a real one? What about the dwarf and his friends? What to do about the drugs? How could he return to work on Monday morning after the inevitable newspaper headlines about the fiasco at the meeting? Besides, his boss, Jones P. senior himself was the main antagonist at the town hall. Why had God abandoned him to convert humanity on his own? Surely he could see that using his supernatural powers would make all the difference.
What have I got to work with? One journalist and two rabbits. I can't even get the handicapped people to believe I'm real.

So, I can't do something I've set out to do. What's new? It's the story of my life. Ever since I was a boy I've had problems getting anyone to do anything I wanted them to. Now I'm coming to the end of my life and it's still impossible. God sets me a task, but I lack the tools and most importantly the personality to complete what he wants me to do. Apart from Marcie, who heard the rabbits talk because God let her hear them, nobody has believed me. I've tried virtually everyone I know, Mrs. O'Reilly, Eastman, Tex the towel o, the others at the office, the people on the train. Nobody will believe me.

He thought deeply as the hours of the night ticked away. Why was it impossible for people to believe? Then again, if he had been faced with someone with the same story at home, on the train, in the street or at work, would he have believed them? Of course not. He would have thought the person a nutter and ignored them. While he wouldn't have shouted at them, told them to shut up or threatened them with eviction; he certainly would have walked out of a room, disappeared behind a newspaper or found some other means to avoid a person who was obviously mad. No, he had to find some way, produce irrefutable evidence that his mission was a real one, but how could he do that if God wouldn't give him the power to perform miracles?

Or was the fault really his? Was it his lack of drive, lack of imagination, inability to inspire that was the crux of the problem? Could someone else have done it better? What if a Billy Graham or one of the other great evangelists had come to people with the message that he had? Why didn't God pick someone with a media profile? Ray Martin? Bert Newton? Red Symons? Oprah? Jerry Seinfield? Julia Roberts? Mick Jagger? Michael Jackson? It would have made things much easier.

On and on into the wee small hours, Jonathan Goodfellow listed the litany of his faults and shortcomings. He spared himself no insult or degrading memory of his futility. There was his lack of athletic prowess and lack of success with women. Failure to win promotion in his job. Failure to communicate with other people, to the point where he disappeared from the world hurt and bewildered. He had remained in his self-imposed boarding-house room prison alone, lonely and sad, with two small rabbits as the only creatures on Earth he related to. And they scarcely seemed to relate to him.

They were the wrong breed for that. This sad fact became evident sometime after he bought them from a backyard breeder. The breeder knew so little about bunnies, that he advised feeding them on lettuce and cabbage—food that can make rabbits very sick or even lead to their premature deaths. He had learned much about rabbits by reading about them and from telephone conversations with the Rabbit Society. They sent him a booklet with the correct diet, after which Bugs and Thumper flourished, if a little on the tubby side. Jonathan also learned that the bigger the bunny the more affectionate as a general rule of thumb. He was determined to get some bigger bunnies after Bugs and Thumper were gone, if they didn't outlive him of course. And if Mrs. O'Reilly wouldn't mind the extra mess bigger bunnies might make.

Jonathan had never related to anyone properly. His human relations were stunted, and it was not until Marcie came along that he had ever talked about himself to anyone.

Marcie, Marcie, why couldn't we have been of an age? Why couldn't we have found one another and been soulmates?
’ He opened his eyes and looked in the direction of her beanbag chair, but there was little light in the cabin, and all he could make out was a dark shape. When he thought of Marcie he realised how lonely his life had been for all those years. How much he had needed someone to love and to share life with. It was no use. The age difference precluded her from any romantic interest in an old fossil like him. He turned over once again in an attempt to get comfortable and closed his eyes determined to get some sleep.

Marcie heard Jonathan turn restlessly for the umpteenth time. He was obviously uncomfortable on the beanbag. Marcie was quite comfortable but couldn't sleep either. Like Jonathan, her mind was full and busy. What had she gotten herself into? Could they succeed in their quest to carry out God's mission and save the world from itself? They hadn't started too well, and the meeting in the Blofield West Town Hall had been a disaster.

Why had there been so much opposition? Why was Jones P. senior so vitriolic? It seemed as though he was the leader of an organised push to disrupt the meeting and discredit Jonathan. But no, that was paranoia. She turned her head to look at Jonathan, but it was too dark to make him out. She tried to analyse her feelings for him. He was someone who had been badly damaged by life and was unsure of himself. And yet, beneath the surface of this meek man, Marcie detected a strength even Jonathan didn't know he had. Marcie was attracted to him but felt that he was not attracted to her in any romantic way. The age difference was great, thirty-one years to be exact, but that would not matter to her.

Marcie had been through the mill with men. Her busy life had made it difficult to forge long-term relationships. Many of her affairs had been with colleagues, and some of them finished because her male partners were terrified of her success. Marcie wrote better than any of them. She had a stronger nose for investigative journalism than anyone else in town. Most of her partners felt threatened by her ability. After all, she was a mere female in what was still pretty much a male profession. The successful female journalists tended to club together and to ignore their male counterparts who in turn ignored them. The males attempted to marginalise the females to the arts and fashion pages. Marcie was one of the few who had stormed the citadel of investigative journalism, and as a female reporter she had to be three times as good as the males to hold her position. She was, and this did not endear her to most of her male colleagues. Or to some of the more competitive female ones.

Marcie had given up on men two years ago at the end of a particularly bloody affair with a married colleague. Her lover was always going to leave his wife to come to live with her, if only he could find the right time to break it to his wife. He never did, and she now realised how gullible she had been, how she had been sucked into his fantasy world. Her lover really thought he believed what he said. In reality he meant not a word of it.

So Marcie had given up on men and opted for a life of celibacy. Or at least she had given up on them until she met Jonathan and become attracted to his quiet, shy, bumbling persona. But he wasn't attracted to her that way. She thought she would know if he was. So her path was clear. She must help him in his quest, and they would remain close from then on without it developing into anything else. She could live with that, even though she would prefer something else.