The Crash of Hennington (21 page)

—I wasn’t going to officially announce it until tonight, but—

—This is now a fundraising dinner without a candidate?

—In a word? Yes.

—How in the hell did
this
happen?

—He dropped out. That’s all there is to it.

—And this is the first I’ve heard of it?

—You’ve been impossible to get a hold of lately. I finally just assumed you weren’t returning my calls on purpose.

—Oh. Well. I’ve been busy.

—So it would seem. Is it true what
I’ve
heard?

—What?

—That Luther’s left Banyon Enterprises?

—Albert! Thank God! Please say you brought drinks.

—Do you honestly think I’d arrive without them?

—Cora tells me that we’re now in a horse race with no horses.

—Looks that way.

—And Archie was just about to confirm or deny the rumors about Luther Pickett.

—That he left?

—Bloody hell, does everyone know?

—So it’s true?

—Yes, unfortunately, but how did everyone find out?

—How did the papers find out about Max? They just do. The world has ears.

—Fuck the world and its ears.

Albert raised his glass.

—I’ll take that as a toast.

—What are you going to do, Archie?

—I’ll live. The more important thing is what are
you
going to do about this campaign?

—You want an honest answer?

—No, but let’s hear it.

—Hell if I know. We’ve got just under four months until the election and not a single legitimate candidate. The ballot’s going to have weirdos and felons and ‘None of the above', and ‘None of the above’ is going to win.

—What would happen then?

—I’d stay Mayor until we had a special election. Somebody serious would have to run eventually. The problem is who. I was hoping to have someone to announce tonight, but so far nothing.

—What about the City Council?

—Marian, Jim and Marcus are all retiring next year and aren’t interested. Wiggins may be but his wife’s divorcing him and that’s going to bring up all sorts of dirty laundry. David barely won his seat last time, and his popularity’s only gotten worse since the DUI. And those are the most credible of the lot.

—Johnson?

—No one’s heard of him.

—That could change.

—Yes, for the worse when they do.

—Henley?

—Lesbian and too liberal. Not in our lifetimes.

—Mornington?

—Incompetent.

—Incompetent good or incompetent bad?

—He’s called me ‘Clara’ for the past six years.

—What about Rushford?

—Are you kidding? The woman’s so right-wing even her staff don’t turn their backs to her.

—Not one potential candidate on the entire City Council? That’s disgraceful.

—Tell me about it.

—You could run, Albert.

—Oh, I think I’d rather swallow my own vomit, thank you.

Archie stirred his champagne with a slightly trembling yet clearly annoyed finger.

—Well,
shit,
Cora. What are we going to do?

—Before I heard the news, I was actually thinking of approaching Luther Pickett.

—He’ll certainly have the free time.

—Ouch, Archie. What happened?

—I don’t want to talk about it.

—When you do—

—So why are all these people here if we’ve got no candidate?

—I was going to make a speech about the current situation. Obviously they want to hear it or they wouldn’t have shown up after the article in the paper today.

—You don’t expect to get a candidate from this group, do you?

—I shudder to think. Most of these people see being Mayor as a step
down.

Thank you all for coming tonight. I want to especially thank Louis and Betsy Prompter for graciously opening their lovely home. Let’s give Louis and Betsy a hand, shall we? Great. I might as well get right to the question on all your minds. You’ve all probably read in today’s
Times
that Max Latham has dropped out of the Mayoral race. I can confirm, to my regret, that it’s true. It was for the simple and honorable reason that he didn’t feel he could be both an effective Mayor and an effective single parent. I tried to persuade him otherwise, but he stuck to his convictions and you have to admire him for that. He has elected to take up a new position in City Government, that of Crash Advocate-General which, pending City Council approval, you’ll all be hearing more about very soon. But this does pose an interesting dilemma. With Max out of the race, we are currently lacking a credible, talented candidate for Mayor of Hennington. Let me take this opportunity to assure you, my friends and past supporters, that we will not be in this position for long. A search is underway and we have some very tantalizing possibilities. So I urge you to keep the faith and keep your money at the ready. Ha ha. As for tonight, please enjoy the food and entertainment and the hospitality of our gracious hosts. And as they say on TV, stay tuned.

Albert held a glass in each hand and smiled at her.

—Well, that was … perplexing.

—I’ve never needed a hard drink more in my entire life.

—Way ahead of you.

—I knew there was a reason I loved you. I used ‘gracious’ twice, didn’t I? Damn.

—So ‘tantalizing possibilities’ was pretty much a complete lie.

—Think anyone noticed? Where’d Archie go?

—Home, I guess.

—And you let him go?

—You can’t force an octogenarian to do anything. There was nothing for him to do here, so he left.

—Without even saying goodbye? I wanted to talk to him about Luther.

—I don’t think he was in a talking mood.

—What do you suppose happened there?

—Hard to say. From what I gather, Luther Pickett has always been something of a closed book.

—But Archie thought he was the sun and moon, everything that Thomas never turned out to be.

—Thomas is as astute a businessman as his father.

—Except his father probably won’t end up in jail—

—Good evening, Cora. Albert.

—Oh, shit.

—It’s Jon Noth, isn’t it? Well, I’ll be damned. Come to make a nuisance of himself in the flesh.

—A gentleman as always, Albert. You’ve never been able to open your mouth without betraying how common you are.

—'Common'? Does anyone even
say
‘common’ anymore?

Cora intervened.

—You’re not welcome here, Jon. You shouldn’t have even been allowed in.

—Fortunately, they must have been looking for some sort of lunatic to breach security, which of course allowed me to slip in quite unnoticed. You do me a discredit by barring access, Cora. I come as a friend and admirer.

—If you don’t leave this instant, Jon, I will have you escorted out as roughly as is legal.

—Are you sure Albert wouldn’t want to do the honors himself?

—I’ve just had a manicure, little man, and wouldn’t want to scuff a nail flicking off a flea.

—Time’s up, Jon. Security!

—Stop it, Cora. I’ll leave peacefully, I just wanted to—

—I don’t care what you wanted. I won’t listen to a single further word.

—All I wanted to say was—

—Yes, ma’am?

—This man is here without an invitation. Please escort him from the premises.

—Cora—

—Get him out of here now.

Albert raised his glass again.

—Goodbye, Jon! Lovely seeing you again.

—How can you … Ah!

—I’m dreadfully sorry everyone. Someone had a little too much to drink it seems. Ha ha ha ha ha. You know how unfortunate and embarrassing a little misplaced rowdiness can be. Go back to your conversations. Enjoy your evening.

She turned back to Albert.

—We’re leaving here at the first polite opportunity.

—Just what I was going to suggest.

—What could he possibly have wanted to say?

—Probably something we’re better off not hearing.

48. Jarvis’ Sermon About the Brandon Beach Massacre.

I was not yet born when Brandon Beach happened. Even our most senior churchmembers wouldn’t have been more than children, but we’ve all heard the story through our grandparents. We’ve read the books. We’ve had the school lessons.
It’s a tragic moment in Hennington history that we all, by rightful necessity, have learned about so that we may be ever watchful not to repeat the ugliness of the past. Brandon Beach is especially painful for the many, many Rumour members of our church. It is, as we all know, a lesson about racism, about the lengths people will go to out of fear, about mob mentality. But the lesson I draw for you today about Brandon Beach, a lesson that has been on my mind for some weeks now, is one for us all, Rumour and non-Rumour alike. It is the lesson of the abuse of the Sacraments.

You all know the story. The economy of the world, and of Hennington itself, had finally blossomed twenty years after Pistolet’s death, and the sun was beginning to shine again on all of our grandparents and great-grandparents as they went about reassembling the world. The tooth-and-nail fight for survival had finally seemed to ebb, and society had seemed to reform. But then a wheat famine struck the Rumour Land. Hennington tried to help as much as it could, but the times were merely good, not exceptional. Things took a dark turn. Good people who could still remember the brutal rationing of the post-Pistolet years began to hoard food in collectives. Whole neighborhoods and communities began to set up private commissaries. A black market reappeared, trafficking in basic staples and foodstuffs.

We know now, of course, that this was an over-reaction, that food stores would turn out to be sufficient, but lest we feel too condescending to our forebears, understand that the world then was a shaky, unstable place. We have ninety years of history behind us. That’s not a lot. Remember, though, that they had merely twenty years and many of them had managed to survive in that impossible time before the start of the Recent Histories, under the thumb of Pistolet’s madness. We can and should forgive them if they acted too hastily
in the face of what they thought was their world collapsing all over again.

What is harder to understand, yet still perhaps no less important to forgive, is the breakdown in the relations between Rumour and non-Rumour. What had for two decades been a full-fledged partnership to put life back in order, disintegrated virtually overnight because of the wheat famine. When starving Rumours moved north in large numbers to join families already settled in Hennington, resentments, as they have a way of doing, began to form.

Fanning those resentments was, of all people, a Bondulay minister, a Rumour. Merrill Eycham.

Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, Merrill Eycham railed against the influx of people from the Rumour Land. Moreover, there are tapes existent of his appearances on public service television shows, complaining about the drain on present-day resources, selling the idea that the immigrants would forever damage the fragile growth that Hennington had managed to achieve. His message was typical demagoguery, a man seeking to cement his own power across the backs of others, in this specific instance conjuring up the supposed ‘difference’ of the Rumours who were immigrating, making veiled references to skin color and so on. The only surprise here is that the people of the day allowed such a man power in the media. You would have thought the fear of a new Pistolet would have caused the people of Hennington to turn a deaf ear towards him. But again, I remind you that these were fragile times that seemed to be taking a turn for the worse, and in difficult hours finding someone to blame can be a dark comfort.

There is of course the matter of Eycham being Rumour himself. History has often wondered why he quote-unquote ‘turned against his own people', especially by making the
matter one of race against race. I do not know the answer to this. Perhaps he considered himself different from the immigrating Rumours because he had been born in Hennington, perhaps it was a cynical and shrewd use of his own race to stoke the fires of racism. If a Rumour is saying awful things about other Rumours, then like-minded non-Rumours could feel okay about agreeing without having to run counter to the unpleasantness they felt towards overt racism.

I do not know Eycham’s justification, but I do know his motivation. I’ve read his sermons.

And in a time of sunlight, a dark wind will encroach, obscuring the truth,

And in the time of dark wind, a light wind will encroach, revealing the truth.

The Book of Ultimates, Chapter 19, Verses 43 and 44. The last words in our Sacraments. We’ve all heard these words before. We as a church have always touched lightly on the Book of Ultimates, primarily because it is so open to interpretation. We do this to avoid division and schism among our own congregations. In this, we have been successful. I know personally this is the first sermon that I have preached since seminary that has focused on the Ultimates, a span of over twenty-five years. You all know this. It is accepted Bondulay doctrine.

But I put it to you today, my beloved brothers and sisters, that perhaps we have been mistaken in skimming over the Ultimates. Not for the reasons you might think, not to look for prophecy, but to learn the lesson of
misunderstood
prophecy. I put it to you that Merrill Eycham started his crusade not just because he was power-hungry, not just because he coveted the spotlight, but also because he interpreted these
verses in such a way that inflamed the fears of an already worried community, that tragically led to violence and to the one hundred and seventy-nine deaths at Brandon Beach.

Picture it if you can. The
Dulcinea,
a fishing boat, one of those big ones, four or five stories tall, more than two hundred meters from stem to stern. They had been at sea for more than four months, pulling in the huge summer catch, storing it in the refrigerated decks below, a catch that normally would have been exported but which was intended that year to help alleviate the famine in the Rumour Land. See in your mind’s eye an enormous ship, packed to the rafters with food intended to help the hungry and filled with fishermen who hadn’t set foot on land for four full months. Now picture if you can their despair when one of the ship’s engines fails and the ship has to limp into Hennington Harbor for repairs so it can make the now-relatively-short ocean journey southward to where hungry families await. Now imagine how that desperation multiplies when the other engine fails under the strain and they realize that the
Dulcinea
won’t even make it to the port inside the harbor and instead strands itself irrevocably on Brandon Beach where, in one of history’s horrible coincidences, the Reverend Merrill Eycham just happens to be holding a tent revival on a sweltering summer’s day.