AS of 12/20/2005 it appears that I have an agent! I do have some preliminary queries floating around out there. If you are here as a result of one of them - I guess you need to go back to the slush pile.
Hossanna Sings By Todd Vogel Copyright 2005
Chapter 1
Tony only went to visit his uncle because the man claimed he didn’t have much longer to live and said something about an inheritance. Max was a lot like Tony’s father, and Tony had no reason to want to relive any of that. He put off going until the weekend when he knew he would have time to deal with whatever shit the old man stirred up.
Though it had been years since the last time they’d met at Tony’s father’s funeral, there were no pleasantries in this branch of the family. Max, who Tony had noted looked like he was on his last legs, nodded - indicating a chair Tony should sit in, and immediately got to the point, telling him of the one significant string attached to the impending inheritance. “You probably don’t remember your Aunt Martha; she went into the hospital when you were little. It wasn’t something we talked about – but with the end coming at me I got to let someone know and make provision for carrying on.” The gaunt man paused, he seemed resigned. “It’s a long story, and I don’t know if I want to tell it at all.” He looked Tony in the eye and said, “Listen good. I ain’t repeating none of it. I guess it all started when she decided that she didn’t want to have any children. I told her it wasn’t her choice to make. Then she decided that she wasn’t happy and wanted to go away and be a writer. Now, you got to remember that there never has been a divorce in our family and I sure wasn’t going to be the first. Besides, I told her father I would take care of her. Having her turn into a beatnik wasn’t in that agreement. She always was a little strange, I thought I could tame her.”
Max stopped and used his inhaler. After a moment he caught his breath and went on. “Back then things were still the way they used to be; this doctor I used to play poker with, he arranged it so she could go away to the hospital. Just to teach her a lesson. That was in 1967, I think. Plan was it was just going to be until she came to her senses.” He balled his fist and struck the arm of his chair. It was a feeble blow, but it reminded Tony of his father’s anger. The old man continued, “Martha was stubborn and fought it. I fought back. She took me to court, but a case of good scotch and the doc’s statements convinced the judge that she belonged there.”
“It went on and on, but I’ll tell you the one thing I’ve learned, that time will fly by if you give it a chance.” He shook his head, “So one year led to another and then back in ‘85 they told me to come get her. I guess being in the loony bin made her crazy because she didn’t recognize me or pretended not to when I gave her the chance to come live with me. She said some crazy things - still being stubborn, I guess, but she was on enough medication that she followed orders good and seemed pretty happy when she moved up into the attic over the garage. Having the aides from the ward along made it easier too. I made it pretty nice for her; the skylights helped a lot making the place ok and she seemed to settle in pretty good. When she came back she had two dresses, a sweater, and a box of papers. Over the years I learned what she liked to eat by looking at what she threw out.”
“You should get her mostly prepared food, canned soup, cold cuts and cheese and bread. Some things for salad, women like that stuff. Not much of a kitchen up there. I buy her one cake and one pie each week as a treat. The only thing she ever asked for was some paper and pens. I bought her a big box of paper and a bunch of pens and that was that. Last Christmas, gave her a sweater.”
He used his oxygen mask, sucking in a couple of breaths, then went on. “She was always frail, so I heat the place good in the winter. Every week I half expect to find no garbage bag, the place stinking, and that she has gone on to the next world. But, since it looks like I’m going first, you are going to have to carry on. I’m going into the nursing home next Tuesday and I’ll need you to start taking care of her as soon as you can, today even - it’s been a week or so since I had someone bring her groceries.” He handed Tony some papers that were folded and wrapped with a rubber band. “This is the title to the house – had a lawyer do it up last week. It’s yours, everything is taken care of, but you got to take care of her.” He paused, then added a final note, “Garage is open. Key for the door to the stairs is hanging next to it.”
Tony could only nod, he was thinking too fast for words. As Max slipped into a doze he quickly read the papers and then let himself out.
* * *
Tony was glad for his cell phone so he could call his wife from outside. “Jesus, Jeanne you got to come here. I got to do something and I don’t think I can do it by myself.”
“Where are you?”
“Over at Uncle Max’s house, remember how I said he called and he wanted to see me? Well I stopped by. Look, I can’t talk about it now. Can you come here right now please and bring some food with you, juice and some bread and a pie. No, never mind that - I’ll get the food while you’re on the way. It’s important, come soon.”
“What do you mean, ‘Locked in the attic?’” Jeanne had that look about her that made him want to explain.
He pointed to the garage, “Up there. You know how I always told you my family was strange?”
“Let’s keep it simple Tony. Who is locked in the attic?”
“My Aunt Martha.”
Jeanne walked quickly up the driveway, faster than he was ready for. “How long has she been there?”
Tony did the subtraction, “I guess about eighteen years.”
That stopped her in her tracks. She shook her head. “No! Your f-ing family…I thought your father was bad but . . .” Jeanne looked up at the garage – then turned to her husband. “Tony, you are going to let me handle this. You are not going to say a f-ing word. And if she wants to go in and take an axe to that monster inside, you’re going to find one and give it to her – do you understand?”
The garage was empty and silent; it had spaces for two cars, but held nothing except for a lawnmower and some garbage cans. An enclosed stairway ran up the back wall. The door at the bottom was secured by a heavy padlock. Remembering Max’s instructions, Tony found a key hanging on the wall. As he went up the stairs he was happy to see there was a bag of garbage on the landing. “Do you think we should knock?”
Jeanne shook her head, “She hears us.” As she opened the door at the top of the stairs she called out, “Martha. Hello Martha, We’ve come to help you.”
Because of the slope of the roof, the room was much smaller than the garage below. There was a bed against one wall, a wooden table with a chair against another and an easy chair more or less in the center of the room. Martha was sitting at the table on which was a small pile of paper. She was wearing a worn, but clean, blue dress, her hair was tied into a bun, and although thin and pale, she looked healthy. Tony guessed that she was about sixty, about five years younger than Max.
“It’s about time.” She smiled and looked at Tony. “I’ve been expecting you. I know you didn’t want to come, but it is time. ”
Jeanne walked to the table and then bent down so that her face was at a level with Martha’s. “I’m Jeanne, this is my husband Tony, he’s your nephew, but don’t hold it against him. We’ve come to help you.”
“That’s nice dear, I was getting a little worried. My pantry is getting a little bare.” Jeanne reached in the bag of things Tony had hurriedly bought at the nearby convenience store and pulled out the loaf of bread. She scowled at his selections and said, “We’ve brought you food, but we can take you out of here to eat if you’d like to come.”
Tony who was still riding his relief that his aunt was well and not obviously demented, wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but knew better than to interrupt.
It took Martha a moment to respond. “Leave here? Now?” She paused and looked around. “I know it’s time, but I’ve been here a while, you know. The idea takes some getting used to. Where would we go?”
Jeanne replied, “Why don’t we start with a walk in the sun? It’s a nice day. We don’t have to make any decisions right away.”
Martha picked up her pen. “Could I finish this sentence first? I’m afraid I’ll lose the thought I had.”
While she wrote, Tony looked more closely at the apartment and saw small boxes stacked at the foot of the bed. When Martha finished and stood up, he gestured to them, “What’s in those boxes?”
“Those? They are my finished books. Now I’ll be able to send them off to my publisher.”
Martha had no trouble on the stairs, telling them that she had used them for exercise. “Twenty times in the morning and again in the evening.”
“What kind of books have you been writing?” Jeanne asked as they walked down the driveway.
“Fiction. Some are romances I guess you would call them, I wrote them when I was lonely. But the best one I wrote when I was angry. It’s about how God sent another child to earth, but this time it was a woman and she wasn’t nice the way Jesus was. It’s my favorite. I’m almost done with the revisions. I had trouble keeping it from getting too long. You see, there was a lot of cleaning up that needed to be done – almost too much for one book.”
She paused and looked at the house. “I used to live there, you know.”
“Yes,” Jeanne said, “And you can again.”
This startled Tony who was just getting used to the fact that the house had been given to him - and he wanted out of the crappy apartment they were in really bad. But he realized that Jeanne was right. It wasn’t his house. It was going to take giving it back as a part of undoing what Max had done to her. Jeanne continued, “Max is in there. He is old and sick and will be leaving soon, in a couple of days.”
“In my book about the female Jesus, who I called Hosanna, I have a scene where she comes and visits him.” Martha smiled, “It was quite a visit, but it was only a preview of what is going to happen when he gets to the other side. Hosanna, you see, can put images inside people’s heads, and can make them feel pain. Jesus could heal, she can summon their demons.” Martha stopped and turned back towards the garage. “You know, I would like to read him that chapter.”
In the few minutes it took for Jeanne to take her back upstairs and for them to find the passage Tony went inside and roused Max from his doze. The old man spat out the words, “You can’t do that. Don’t let her out. Is this the thanks I get for giving you this house?” He was frail, but there was still an angry force behind his words, and he had the same tone that Tony’s father had used to keep him in line.
Tony blinked, but said nothing as he pulled a couple of chairs closer to Max. He had figured out he owed this man nothing – and was about to say exactly that, when he heard them coming through the kitchen. The scowl on his uncle’s face had been replaced with a look of fear.
“Hello Max,” Martha said as she sat. “That’s how the scene starts when Hosanna, the Daughter of God comes to see you.” She opened the papers she had folded in her hand and began to read.
“’Do
I know you?’ Max asked, his voice holding that edge of scorn it usually did.
“’No,’
she replied, ‘but you are going to understand just how well I know you.’”
“‘Whatever you’re selling, I’m
not buying,’ he started to close the door, but as he pushed it – it turned into
a piece of fine azure silk which fluttered as she passed through.”
Martha looked at the shrunken man and took a deep breath. When she spoke again her voice was more resonate - it seemed larger than what could come from this small woman, Hosanna said, “There is a second part to the golden rule – it will be done unto you as you have done unto others. And perhaps you thought that you could avoid that judgment until the reckoning, but I am Hosanna. I am the reckoning and it is now.” Martha’s voice dropped back a notch as she went on.
“Max had nothing sharp or cutting to
say. The words he had used as clubs all
his life did not come to him. Hosanna stared at him and sent a shiver into his
soul. ‘Old, feeble and alone you will
be. Filled with pain in your heart and in your mind. That was your living punishment. Then, just
when you think it can get no worse and that death will save you – it
won’t. Being buddies with a priest
doesn’t help. In your hell you will
always be wrong. Your damnation will be
living with your mean, bitter self and not being able to believe any of the
lies you tell yourself.”
Martha paused and looked at the man who had been her husband. “In the book Max falls to his knees and asks forgiveness. That was a fantasy. You won’t do that, your pride is too strong, besides you know there is no forgiveness, not while you are still mean – and you’re going to die mean.” A slight smile crossed her face, “One final thought – even though you don’t believe in reincarnation, that doesn’t mean your next life won’t be interesting. Karma’s a coming Max. Got your name on its bumper.” She folded the papers and slowly stood. Max seemed to have shrunk more in the past few minutes. She turned her back on him and slowly walked towards the kitchen.
It was a hoarse half whisper when he finally spoke, “Wait.”
Jeanne answered for her, “Too late - much too late.”
Chapter 2
As they walked down the block Martha said little. Jeanne and Tony refrained, as best they could, from asking questions. It was a beautiful day. The sun felt good and Tony was reveling in the possibility that he was somehow going to be able to walk away unscathed from this encounter with his dysfunctional family. Then Martha spoke again. “I am Hosanna, you know. Not always. Sometimes - when I need to be.”
Tony floundered for an answer, but Jeanne grabbed the right response. “We probably should keep that to ourselves until things get a bit settled.”
Martha nodded. “Yes, wouldn’t do to end up back on 17K.”
When they reached the end of the block Martha turned around, saying, “He’s had enough time to leave.”
Tony was getting ready to say something about how Max was going into the nursing home on Tuesday, but Jeanne put her hand on his arm and he held the words back and was glad he did. The way his aunt had said it was so sure. She was either batty – or really spooky. Leaving earlier meant…he decided not to think about that; adding it to a lengthening list of things he was not dealing with.
As they turned to walk up the driveway Martha said to Tony, “Go see to things in the house.” The way she said it made him even more certain that he would find Max dead. He delayed going in for a minute as he watched his aunt lead Jeanne back into the garage.
The end had come quickly, but not easily. Max was lying on the floor, his legs curled up, pain etched on his face. A thin stream of blood had flowed out of his ear. His eyes were open as though he had seen death coming and it had taken him before he could blink.
Tony knew to call 911. “My uncle is dead,” he gave the address. He knew that they would introduce Martha as his widow. And simply say that she lived there too. The sleeping arrangements were no business of the police who would not care.
The cops took one look at his oxygen tanks and, after hearing Max had been scheduled to go into a home on Tuesday, canceled the call for an ambulance - instead asking what arrangements Tony wanted to make. He remembered the name of a funeral home they had used for his father, found the listing in the phone book, and called.
“Cremate the body. No services. No wake. I will distribute the ashes later.” Tony nodded, there was something about the way Martha said it that unnerved him, but there was no time for that. He turned and went back down the stairs and to the house where the Funeral director waited.
As Tony moved through the house after the
hearse left, he pushed open the door to what had been Max’s bedroom. He didn’t want to go inside; instead he
leaned through the door and took a quick look around. It was cluttered with the effects of a dying
man, a walker, an atomizer on a table next to the bed,
and a row of pill bottles lined up on the dresser. As Tony started to pull the door closed, he
heard the sound of claws skittering on the floor. A second later a small dog burst from beneath
the bed. His first thought was that it
was a rat. It was small and had beady eyes.
It was a mutt that combined the ugly features of several small breeds. The bowed legs of a bulldog, the low long
body of a dachshund, the bug eyes of a bull terrier, the oversized tufted ears
of a
Tony slammed the door and heard the dog thud against the wood. He hadn’t known that Max had a dog, though it made sense it would be as mean and ugly as this one. It scratched the door growling and barking in an unconvincing high pitch that never-the-less raised the hair on the back of his neck. Just another detail to be wagged he thought.
He came down the stairs to find Martha and Jeanne in the kitchen. Martha nodded when he told her of the dog.
“I’ll call the pound,” he said, “I don’t think you will want it. It’s the strangest looking dog I ever saw.”
Before he could tell her about its apparent desire to rip him apart, she reached out and touched his arm. “Don’t do that. The world is full of little jokes. What do you know about reincarnation?”
It wasn’t really a question. Tony didn’t know enough to answer anyway, so he kept his mouth shut.
Jeanne, on the other hand seemed to understand. “Not Max’s dog, the dog’s Max?”
“The dog’s Max? I don’t understand. That doesn’t make any sense,” Tony said, trying to edge back into the conversation.
Jeanne did not try to explain, “I
think there’s a pet store one block up on
He added, “And a muzzle, maybe a dart gun with heavy duty tranqs.”
Jeanne had already turned back to Martha, she wasn’t listening and waved her ‘whatever’ gesture.
It took Tony the best part of fifteen minutes to catch and subdue the dog using a blanket. Even with a choke collar it kept trying to bite his ankles. Tony shortened the leash in his hand and extended his arm so the dog would lift off the floor as it rushed him.
The snarls became whines as he half led - half dragged it into the kitchen where Martha was sitting at a kitchen table. She looked at the dog, then smiled as she said, “Well here he is. What a bad little boy.”
The dog’s claws clattered on the floor as it tried to retreat from the room.
“Sit.” The word sharp, and brooking no resistance scythed across the room.
To Tony’s amazement the leash went slack. The dog turned and, with a little whimper, sank to the floor. First his batty aunt tells them she is Hosanna, now she shows them she’s a lion tamer.
“What’s its name? “ He asked realizing that none of them could know as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Martha looked down at the dog for a moment before answering. “When he’s good we’ll call him Maxie. And he wants to be a good doggie doesn’t he?”
This is too strange, Tony thought. He had the wild thought of wondering if Maxie knew tricks, like play dead?
Jeanne must have been having similar thoughts, “Maybe we should not worry about the dog right now.”
“You’re right. Open all the windows, will you? I want the smell of that man to be gone.” It was an old house. Tony expected the windows to stick, but they all opened easily - some seeming to need only a touch. A breeze, strong enough to feel, passed through the house. He sensed Max being expelled.
Martha and Jeanne were in the living room when he came down the stairs. He sat as he heard Martha speaking to his wife, “In the hospital, in all the years, there was one good doctor. Though, to be fair, you never saw most of them. He was one of the young ones who were training there. He told me he couldn’t get me out, but that he could do the next best thing. He taught me how to meditate. He gave me some books too. Meditation came easily to me and I learned I could escape with it. Later, when I came back here I had things to do, writing the book of Hosanna foremost, so I was content to stay up there. Besides, Max was getting his due. I knew the end was coming. I started revising the last chapter yesterday. I will finish it tonight and then will leave that place.”
She looked around, “We have to clean this house out. I will need your help in that and many things. There will be enough money. Max was a miser. We’ll get the manuscripts typed and then send them to a publisher. The Hosanna book first, the others will have to go out under another name, maybe my maiden name - Martha Scott.”
The lawyer who had done the title change for the house had a small cluttered office on the second floor of a strip mall at the edge of town. He started out telling Tony and Jeanne that he had only met Max twice. He went a little pale at the news of a more legitimate heir locked away in the attic of the garage. Max had not thrown away any papers so they were able to show him the original marriage certificate. After insisting that he’d been sure the property transfer had been legal, the lawyer agreed to settle the estate, though he voiced a little concern that the widow had been once committed. Jeanne and Tony had discussed this and agreed that Martha was remarkably well put together, if you didn’t spend too much time on the Hosanna thing - which they didn’t want to because it made them nervous. They did not mention any of it to the lawyer.
In 1967 Martha had corresponded with a woman named Sally Hester at a large publishing house. The name gave Jeanne something to enter into a search engine on her computer. To her amazement, she found that - after all these years and many mergers, the woman was still there.
The letter they wrote made reference to the earlier correspondence. It did not detail the intervening years, and was accompanied by the first chapter of the book of Hosanna, which Jeanne had typed on her computer.
The call came three days later. “I was just thinking one of those ‘what ever happened to’ thoughts about you. The sample chapter is promising. I want to look at the rest.”
The following day Tony and Jeanne
found creative excuses, took days off from their respective jobs, and drove
Martha the hour and a half to
As they searched for a parking garage Jeanne said, “It might be best to not be Hosanna right yet.”
Martha nodded, “One thing you learn in the loony bin is to keep certain things to yourself. Sometimes you worry too much.”
After her meeting with Sally Hester,
which Martha described as being very brief, professional and noncommittal, they
walked around Midtown for a while. She
seemed to take it all in stride and Tony mentioned it. “I may have been confined, but in some ways I
was free. One of my other books is about
a cabdriver. So I was here a lot when I wrote it. As I told you, when I
meditate I can go places. I may get some details wrong from time to time.” She
pointed, “when I was last here, the stop lights had
only red and green – it was a
She stiffened and moved close beside Tony as a man passed. “That man is a thief.” Tony turned and looked, the guy was pretty ordinary looking - better dressed than many on the street, “A thief?”
She turned too. “Watch,” as she said it the man stumbled and half fell against another pedestrian. He caught himself, grabbed the man’s shoulder, recovered and quickly apologized. In a second he was gone, continuing down the street. As the man he had fallen against came abreast of them, Martha said, “Your wallet is gone.”
Instinctively the man patted his pocket and then turned. At the end of the block there was a screech of brakes and a thud. “Go back, I think he may return it to you.” Quickly the man looked at her, patted his pocket again, and set off towards the corner where a crowd was gathering.
Martha turned back and said, “That’s enough of the city for one day; don’t you think?”
It wasn’t until they were in the car and headed up the West Side Highway that Jeanne found the words for the question she had to ask. “Martha, back there, the man, could you tell me what happened?”
“I think you know.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
Martha nodded and, after a moment, answered. “I was scared in the beginning, I thought that they might be right - that I really was crazy. It was the intense fear that first made me break loose from what the books call normal consciousness. One of the meditation books the doctor gave me talked about how it was like a ship untying the lines that hold it to a dock. Mine were broken by a strong wind. Once you start to float many things are possible – things that we lose in the clutter of daily life.”
Tony said, “So when you said you are Hosanna…?”
“I am. You could be too, perhaps not Hosanna, but there is a spirit hidden inside you too. It’s buried under a lot of things from growing up. Deep. Your father was a lot like Max.” She turned to Jeanne, “With you it is closer, not so far.” Then she smiled, “Relax, you two are good enough. You have little to fear,” She looked at Tony, – “except perhaps the way you sometimes look at that woman in your office.”
Tony’s ears went bright red. The car slowed some and swerved slightly until he caught himself. “I…”
Martha continued, “Jeanne, you need to give him more sex, it’s one of the flaws in men, and about the only way to keep a hold of them. And don’t worry, he hasn’t done anything.”
Jeanne laughed, “I know that. One thing about Tony, he can’t tell a lie if his life depends on it.”
“Comes from when his father trapped him in a lie and beat him so bad he needed stitches, but didn’t get them.” Martha said, “That’s the scar on his arm; the one he told you was from falling off a bike.” After a second she continued, “Tony, it’s okay to be glad he’s dead.”
Tony focused on getting onto the
“Jeanne,” Tony asked later that night, “Have you noticed about the dog? It’s very strange. I mean when he’s with Martha he’s well behaved, but when I take it for walks, it turns into demon dog. I have to stay in the back yard, because on the street it lunges for anyone that comes even close.”
His wife took a moment before she answered, “Yeah, I’ve seen some strange stuff too. The other day I went into the living room and it was pawing at the floor in the corner like it was trying to dig. Maxie didn’t see me and then when I made a noise he turned and sort of pretended to do something else. I mean he moved around and would scratch the floor here and there. I know it’s a dog, but I swear it was behaving like a guilty little boy. I saw that all the time when I was the teacher’s aide.” She paused, “You know, maybe you’d better take a look in the living room. It was the corner away from the door.”
The next morning Tony pulled the rug back a couple of feet and squatted down to look at the floor in the living room. At first he saw nothing, then he noticed that there was a little gap between the floorboard and the molding. Sliding the screwdriver in between he found it was loose. He moved to the end of the plank, inserted the blade again and pulled. With a squeak the plank rose an inch and he slid the blade deeper. Using a beam for leverage he pushed and the plank came loose.
Nestled between the beams there were two rectangular Tupperware containers of the sort used to keep leftovers in the refrigerator. As he lifted the first of them out Tony heard the clatter of Maxie’s claws in the hall. It gave him time to turn as the little dog rushed across the room at him. With a slap he brushed the small dog away, “No!”
The dog stumbled then got its stubbly legs beneath it. Tony was ready for another assault, but instead Maxie gave a little whine and wagged its tail. It was the posture he took when he wanted to get fed. Tony had the feeling that the dog was trying to manipulate him. He filed it under ‘yet another spooky occurrence’ and removed the second box. Laying the plank loosely back on the floor he got to his feet. The dog moved to his ankles rubbed against him and like a cat.
Tony had never had a dog while growing up. His father hadn’t liked them and that was that. He felt self conscious talking to dogs in general, and this one more than most, because he was not sure exactly what he was talking to. Still he felt the need to say something. “Well this certainly makes the day a bit more interesting. Question is what did you want this for?”
He briefly thought of waiting for Jeanne and Martha to get back, but quickly decided against it. Knowing Max, it might be something mean or nasty. Maxie followed, subdued, as Tony went into the kitchen and set the boxes down on the table. The first box contained some cash, a couple of packs of twenty dollar bills bound with rubber bands that were brittle and broke when he rifled them. The impulse to take a few fluttered through his mind, but Tony looked down and saw the dog watching him. There were some papers, legal stuff, it seemed with blue covers, also closed with rubber bands. These he set off to the side.
The other box was heavier and had rattled some as he moved it. Inside was some jewelry, a string of pearls, a pendant and a few pins, the kind that went on dresses. They looked old. Some of the pins were large and heavy, he wondered if they were gold. He was sure they had belonged to Martha. There were some more papers and at the bottom were a couple of dozen pieces of cardboard, which, when he turned them over, were very old Polaroid photos. They were so old they were quite faded and yellowed, but he could still make out that they were of a woman. Naked. He looked more closely, she was alone in all the shots. Most were set in crude vulgar poses, one of them seemed to be right here bent over the kitchen table. The faces were faded and indistinct, but he was certain they were Martha.
Not knowing why he looked down at Maxie. “Bad Dog!”
Maxie skittered under the table. Tony wondered if this is what the dog had wanted. Could this have been some blackmail Max had used in his fight to control Martha? He put the photos back in the box and briefly thought about keeping this part of the discovery from Martha.
Most of the legal documents seemed to be involved with the legal proceedings around Martha’s commitment so he put them off in the box with the photos. Tony suspected that Martha would be glad to see the jewelry, and the cash would help. But the other box was going sling some shit at the fan. He put the lid on that box and set it on the top shelf of the cabinet above the dishes. He wanted to talk to Jeanne about it before showing it to Martha.
After helping bring in the bags from the supermarket, Tony announced, “I’ve found something.”
Martha walked to the table and looked down at the blue topped plastic box.
She hesitated, then lifted the lid. Her hand dipped inside and emerged holding one of the pins. “This belonged to my mother. She got it from one of her aunts. My father tried to make her sell it. It was one of the few times she said no to him. I’m glad you found this.” She looked into the box, “Cash too, told you Max was a miser.” Then she looked at Tony. “What else was there?”
He thought about lying, he really wanted to talk to Jeanne about it first, but there was something about the way Martha said it that forced him to answer. “Another box.” He took three steps to the cabinet. “This one won’t bring back good memories. I kind of think we should burn it.”
Martha nodded. “Probably. But you don’t have to protect me from it.” She turned to Jeanne, “I told you about some of the things Max did to try and break me.” She turned quickly and pointed. The little dog was edging towards the door. “Maxie, sit!”
The dog collapsed as though it had been struck. It lay on the floor quivering. Martha smiled. “As Max used to say, ‘Ha Ha Ha – who’s laughing now?’” She waved her hand, “Git. Get out of here.”
Maxie scampered to his feet and with the claws slipping on the linoleum, ran from the room.
Two days later the editor called. “I have six people transcribing and assembling the book. I’m reading the pages as fast as they can produce them.” She paused, “it is extraordinary. I am not sure exactly how we will do it, but, do it, we will. You see, this is going to be my last project before I retire. It also so happens you were my first project. It makes a wonderful circle. I was just an assistant to an assistant and was given the job of working with you to see what you had. Back then they did things like that. But you disappeared and I moved on and up. Until last week I had forgotten about you.”
Martha said, “When you’ve read it all you should come here and we will talk.”
Chapter 3
“Tony, do you remember the day we found her, how you started to say that your family was strange?”
“Yeah.” He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his shoes. “You kind of cut me off. Do you want me to finish the thought?”
Jeanne nodded, “I just want to know if there are any more surprises.”
He sighed, “I sure hope not. None that I know of. My sister got pregnant when she was young and they sent her away for a while. I was younger by five years – they kept me out of it. All I really remember is my father’s rage, he put his fist through a wall and my mother hung a picture over the hole. Nobody talked about it. I suspect I have a niece or nephew somewhere. I tried talking to her about it once when we went over on Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, but she got so upset I had to turn away.”
“Your family has a habit of sending people away.”
“You noticed that. And keeping secrets. Are you going to tell me that your family doesn’t have any black sheep?”
“Black sheep are one thing – your family uses a magic wand on them.”
Sally Hester arrived with an assistant two days later. “It’s good that this is my last project. I’m going to have to break all the rules. Coming out of the office is most unusual, but the work is so very different from most of the other things we publish. We have to get to know you. Frankly, I’m not sure what the best approach is. The work is very powerful, but at the same time it is,” she paused…
Martha interrupted – “Different.”
Sally nodded. “That’s one way of putting it. When reading it you are caught up in it all. I was totally engrossed. Especially the part when Hosanna first starts to understand that she has these powers. But when you put the book down and look around you say, ‘no way.’ One person who read parts of the manuscript called it ‘spiritual science fiction’.”
Walking to the center of the room, Martha said. “I think you need to hear where this story came from. It is the fruit of a twisted orchard.”
She took a step back so that she faced them all. “It was 1964, I was just married and I realized that being June Cleaver was not my destiny. I woke up and saw that I was married to a man who wanted nothing less than to dominate and control me. I had married him to get away from my father who did the same thing. But it hadn’t worked the way I had hoped and Max was determined that I was going to surrender my self to him. For a while I was able to have a bit of a life of my own when he was at work and he thought I was being a housewife. I discovered a talent to write and saw it as a way out.” She nodded towards Sally, “That’s when I wrote to you those first few times sending you samples of things I’d written.” The last letter you wrote invited me to give you a call if I was ever in the city.
“I hid the letter, but Max used to search my things and found it along with some stories I had written. He accused me of trying to leave him. And it was true. I just took too long.
“He told me that my career was to have his children and nothing else. There was nothing I wanted less – it was what had happened to my mother. Max was a powerful man who seemed to enjoy it when I resisted him. I quickly learned to go somewhere else when he had his way with me. After a while he tired of raping a rag doll, and he set about trying to teach me lessons. You will find some mention of it in the other books I wrote. Other things I could not include.”
Martha paused and took a sip of water. “I was fighting for my life. He wanted a brainless baby machine, cook, cleaner and occasional punching bag. At some point he realized that hitting me wasn’t going to make me do what he wanted. At least if he restrained himself enough so I didn’t end up in the hospital. He had this doctor he knew sign some papers that put me in a loony bin. It was pretty common then. There were others like me there.”
Martha looked out the window. “It all started in this room. The doctor parked his car out there.” She pointed, “I remember he gave me a shot that made me really sleepy. We went for a car ride, I actually remember enjoying it – whatever he gave me made me feel good. When we got there he led me into this big, dark, drafty building built of stone and cement. The windows placed high on the wall had thick metal screens set inside them.” She spread her fingers and put her hands together to show the lattice. “Behind them the glass was dirty. I had to stand on tiptoe to see out and what I saw was another set of buildings like the one I was inside. I was lucky, this was after they stopped doing lobotomies. The ones they had done that to were still there.”
Martha shook her head slowly, and took a deep breath. “But they did other things, something called hydrotherapy that involved cold water. There is a lot to tell about that place. But not now - I need to move on, just think; trapped in a nightmare. One that gets worse when you wake.”
“There was another woman, I try not to use the word patient because it would legitimize that place. Joan was put there her by her husband too. He wanted a divorce so he could … That’s not important. Anyway, we became close. It was easiest to make friends with the ones who weren’t really crazy. Then one day they assigned a new aide to the ward. One look and we all knew he was sicker than any of the inmates – even the real crazies could see it. He decided that he liked Joan. She was blonde and kind of pretty when they gave her shampoo and let her wash her hair.”
“At first he just paid a little extra attention to her, but soon he was checking on her all the time. Then one day he followed her into the bathroom. I was there too.”
Martha paused and looked out the window for a second. “I had been there about two years by then I guess. It’s hard to say, time got strange inside that place.”
She looked at Jeanne and nodded, “I already told my niece about the one good doctor I had there and he’d taught me meditation. When he left gave me some books so I could study it on my own. If I do say so, I got pretty good at it. Of course, being there was a little like being in a monastery - it really let me focus. I guess you could say I’d leaned some tricks of the mind. Anyway…” she took a deep breath.
“So when this brute came into the bathroom I felt the enormous strength of his hate – it almost overwhelmed me until I removed myself using the meditation. It was like I was in a corner of the room,” Stretching her arm up, Martha pointed up at a corner where the ceiling and walls met. “I was there - watching and feeling as he grabbed for her. She was so scared she was about to give in to him, and then I tried something and found that I could slip into his mind. It was sort of like lifting the lid on a pot or opening a drawer. There are a lot of lids and drawers that we can’t see.“
“But I’m getting diverted. There was so much fear in that room... When I got inside, it was like being in a blizzard – but not cold – the temperature of vomit. I saw how sick he was. For a second I was terrified that I was going to get swept up in it, but then I heard Joan scream. I was there for her so I put feelings into him. Again, it’s hard to describe the how. Just happened, very fast, I made his dick itch so much that he stopped to scratch it. And he kept scratching it until it bled. He would have torn it off if another aide hadn’t walked in on him after a while. They led him out and we never saw him again. They knew something had been going on cause he’d ripped Joan’s dress and she was curled up on the floor.”
Remembering, she looked at the floor for a second. “When something happened they covered it up faster than you can say, ‘nothing happened’. That was the one thing they were good at. They doped Joan up and put her on another ward. Sometimes I went to visit her mind, but she was pretty broken. The aide ended up on another ward. They had to keep him restrained. For a long time. Maybe even now, if he’s still alive.”
“I was spitting out most of the medication they gave us. So when I started having the dreams when I wasn’t quite asleep, I got worried. But there were so many people hearing voices around there it was kind of normal.” She was quiet for about ten seconds, which seemed like a very long time to Jeanne.
Her voice was deeper and stronger when Martha spoke again. “’Your talent is not to heal. Your talent is to stop the evil around you. You will know what to do when the times are right’.” She dropped her voice back to normal. Now, that’s pretty scary here, but there on ward 17K where the steel doors clanged and everything echoed, it kind of threw me for a loop.
“The next day there was an incident where one of the patients went off in the day room. I tried to go into her head to calm her, but I could not. The voice spoke again, ‘not there’, and my attention was drawn to the other side of the room where another woman stood. She was laughing.
“Her name was Rose, and she was mean. She would tease, she would bully you for your cookies and cigarettes. ‘There.’ The voice said. Again I floated up to the ceiling. And then I slipped into her mind. This time I knew just what to do. I made her laugh harder and harder until her ribs hurt and she peed on herself. She couldn’t stand. She wiggled on the floor in the puddle she’d made. She tried to stop, but she could not. She laughed until the needle they gave her took effect. After that, whenever Rose tried to say anything she started to laugh. She would laugh until she screamed and they gave her another needle. She learned to keep her mouth shut.”
“That night I had a dream. Or maybe I was awake. It’s easier to say it was a dream – people will accept strange dreams.” She paused and stretched and looked at her small audience. “Are you still with me?”
Jeanne took a deep breath, “Like nowhere I’ve ever been before.”
Chapter 4
“‘HOSANNA, SING’ - I swear those words woke me up. You’ve got to understand, it’s never really quiet in the loony bin – even late at night. Besides the farts and the snores, there are the sometimes quiet cries of those both dreaming and awake. It all echoes and if there is the slightest breeze outside, it whistles and moans as it passes. So I was used to sleeping with noise around me. ‘You are the one. I give you the power to speak for me. There is a story that you must tell.’”
“Long about that time a civil rights lawyer was assigned to the hospital. I wanted to get out of there so badly, a part of me thought I really was going crazy. I sued the hospital and Max. But the doctors had too much to lose, I guess, so they lied and I lost the case. I tried to get into their minds, but I couldn’t. I don’t know why. I couldn’t find the handles on the drawers. I was devastated. I withdrew. I spent two years hearing the voice and learning. The voice told me I needed to be there to become ready. That’s when the idea of Hosanna came to me. You see, she was me - when I was first locked up in that awful place.
“After a while, once I started getting strong, I cleaned up things on that ward. I made it so all the bad nurses and aides stayed away or transferred out. And some of the patients started to follow me. I became strong in a way they didn’t understand. That made me dangerous. A new doctor came and decided that I was cured.”
Gesturing towards the phone Martha went on. “They called Max and he came. I needed him, there was no place else for me to go until I had the books written. And I had a score to settle. Not exactly a coincidence that he had a really miserable life. I made him afraid and guilty enough that he gave me all that I needed. At first, he wanted me to move back into the house with him, but he got the idea that it would be better if I was up there.” She nodded towards the garage.
“It took a long time to write the books. I would get diverted – I would rebel. I fought it – I wasn’t going to surrender to any voices any more than I would to Max. And if it was God talking to me, I had issues there too. Some of that shows up when Hosanna talks to God in the book.”
She took a deep breath and released it slowly, “The meditation helped a lot. I spent a lot of time traveling. I’m still most comfortable in the upper corners of rooms, but it pretty much does not matter where the rooms are. Then I would have another of those living dreams and I would get brought back. The anger of Hosanna is heavy. It hurts if you carry it too long.
“Max had a long spell of darkness and pain.” She gave a little shake of her head, “I may have got caught up in that. Vengeance gives little satisfaction. It’s sort of like stepping on cockroaches. The crackle they make gives you a little something, but then you have to wipe some slimy goo off your shoe afterwards.” She stood up again and shook her head. “Now that I’ve convinced you that I belong back on 17K, do we have anything to eat? It must be lunch time?”
After lunch Sally took a sheaf of papers out of her briefcase. “I think this is a good place to begin. She began to read, “School was boring, especially
when Mrs. Drew substituted for Miss Pettico.
Hosanna didn’t like the way she clapped her hands and shouted for them
to get quiet.
Her
book was open on her desk, but Hosanna wasn’t paying attention. If she was asked a question, Hosanna knew she
could answer it. She wasn’t ever going to be one of those Goody Girls who
raised there hands and squealed that they knew the answer. Instead she took a little piece of silly
putty from its hiding place and made a little dog out of it. She was careful not to let anyone else see
what she was doing as she made it as good as she could. Then she used the
special touch and watched it move across her desk. Sometimes they didn’t move so good, because she’d made the legs funny. Sometimes she made the legs wrong on purpose
just to see what happened. Never quite
got kangaroos right; they were always falling on their faces.
The first time Hosanna had done the trick
with silly putty, she’d started giggling and had
wanted to show her friend Alex. But then
she heard, “Don’t Tell.” And she knew
this was another secret.
There were a lot of secrets. Sometimes she was bursting to tell, other
times they made her feel different.”
“It’s so lonely,” said Sally.
Chapter 5
She
had never understood the vague answers her mother had given why she had been
named Hosanna. Growing up amid a
classroom full of Nancys and Marys and a ton of Susans she always felt a little
wronged. It made her stand out and
sometimes the mean kids in class would sing out her name. Hooosaaannnnaaa.
She hated it when that happened. Her
mother tried to convince her that it was just one of the things that made her
special, but Hosanna did not want to be special. Special kids had thick glasses and went to
special classes and everybody knew what that meant.
One
day, when Hosanna was in fifth grade and didn’t think things could go any
lower, she was walking home from school and, as they were passing a vacant
debris filled lot, a dog came running at them.
This was a dog that was usually chained up behind a house farther up the
block and some of the boys would tease it as they went past. They used to make it run at them until the
chain jerked it back. Today there was no
chain. Growling, not barking, tail down - it was
coming fast. The kids she was with
screamed and started to run, Hosanna stayed in place. She could feel the rage
boiling in the dog and knew she could hurt it because of the rage. Clenching her teeth Hosanna poured some of
her own feelings back into the dog. She
felt clumsy, but the dog slowed; then stopped.
She found the way inside and pushed harder and pinched. In a second the dog was yelping as it ran
away. Hosanna then turned back and saw
that the other kids were looking at her.
She didn’t know quite what they’d seen, but something told her not to
take credit for it. “Oh that was scary.
Tommy, did you throw that rock?”
Tommy
hadn’t thrown any rock, he was too busy trying to run, but he was good at
making things up about himself. “Yeah! Did you see that? I’m a hero.” He picked up another rock and threw it in the
direction the dog had gone.
In
the days that followed Hosanna experimented with that trick. There was Eleanor,
a stuck-up know-it-all who always got a hundred on her spelling tests. The next
one - she got a forty-five, and cried for the whole afternoon after the teacher
returned the tests. Hosanna, who was
glad to see the girl’s pride pricked, wondered if maybe she was being
mean. It was then that she heard the
voice again. It was soft, not much
louder than a thought, but she knew it was coming from outside her. “It
will take time for you to learn to use your talent. Do not be afraid to try - you speak for me
and that makes whatever you say all right.
Besides, she needed a lesson.” The voice made Hosanna even more scared. It
meant that the feelings were real – and that she was the freak she had always
feared she was. The thought was cut short.
The voice was louder this time. “Be not afraid – you have the power. You have
a destiny – you alone can be proud because I have sent you and you are
perfect. But you must be circumspect
because you are not ready. There will be a time when you are known, but it will
not be for years.”
Hosanna
felt a little better. She did feel
stronger, but she was a little confused. “Curcumspect?”,
she thought. She reached into her desk
and tried to find the word in her dictionary “C-I-R-CUMSPECT. Don’t let others
know of your powers – not yet – that day will come, but not for a long while - you did good when
you let that boy take credit the other day.
In the future you can make others see things differently from what
happened. By the way, that word will be on next weeks spelling test.”
“Why
did you do this to me?” She muttered under her breath
“You are Hosanna, my daughter, whom I have
sent. You will act for me.. Do not worry. I will tell you more when it is
time.”
That
evening, as her mother was cooking dinner, she asked, “Mom, could you tell me
more about my dad?”
“You
know I don’t like to talk about that.”
Hosanna
tried to accept it; like she had the other times she had gotten the courage to
ask. It made her angry and for a second
she thought about going to that part of her mind, but she knew she’d better
not. “I think I met him today.”
“What?”
Her mother turned and put down the pot.
“How could you? Tell me what happened.”
“It’s
kind of strange, but there was this voice, he said I was his daughter.”
When
she’d told her mother that, she suddenly felt a little guilty. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to tell. This wasn’t circumspect.
Her
mother moved to the stove and turned the burners off. Then she sat at the table and motioned for
Hosanna to sit too.
Her
mother started to speak once and stopped.
Then, after a minute, she said, “I’ve heard that voice. I never told anyone. I wanted to pretend that it didn’t
happen. Maybe I was going to tell you
when you were older.”
She
stopped and took a deep breath before speaking.
“I was young and lonely and drunk and stupid. We went out to this
commune. I remember laying out under the stars and
later I think I went to bed with this boy I didn’t really like. It was kind of
hazy. Some of this you are too young to
understand, but the next morning when I had the feeling that I was pregnant and
I was thinking that I wanted to die, that’s when I heard the voice. It said, ‘The seed is mine – not his. Her name will be Hosanna and she will perform
wonders. Be not afraid, I will care for you.”
Hosanna’s
mother looked at her, “pretty spooky stuff.”
Hosanna
nodded. ”Oh YEAH!” It came out louder than she meant,
but her mother only smiled.
“The next day I was calling
around to get the name of a doctor and was looking for piece of paper to write
on - and in my pocket there was a lottery ticket. I checked in the paper and there it was,
just like it was on the ticket. I hadn’t
felt right about calling the doctor, especially because of the voice, and this
settled it. It wasn’t enough to be rich,
but it took care of us until you started school and I could go to work.”
*
Dog segment - proper place? *
“I think I’ll take Maxie for a walk.” Martha stood and picked the leash off the table.
“But you just got back. I mean, do what you want, but . . .”
“I know what you’re thinking Tony, and yes, there is something strange about the dog. It’s just another thing that can’t be explained if you are sitting down.”
“Sitting down? What’s that got to do with it?”
“Nothing really. You could say standing up just as easily.”
“Aunt Martha, you’ve confused me again.”
“Still. If you want to be correct. I’m not sure you can say you ever were not confused. And I can’t say I blame you,”
“What do you mean?”
“Come take a walk with Maxie and me. It’s a nice day.”
It was a nice day. The sun warmed without being hot, and the sky was the wonderful blue that seemed to cleanse the world. Tony had expected Martha to continue with the conversation, but after a couple of blocks, she hadn’t and he decided that maybe he shouldn’t persue it.
Then, a little later, she spoke. “Your father was a lot like Max. He got a lot of it from his father, but that’s not too important. The thing about growing up for you was that you were never sure of anything. You never knew if your father was going to laugh or start swinging. If he said something was going to happen, like going to the movies, the chances of it happening were dependent on his remembering, not changing his mind and not getting drunk and passing out.
“When you did things you thought would please him, he’d often get angry. You didn’t know up from down, but, somehow, you knew what was right. Of course that still leaves a lot of room for confusion. Do you see?”
“No, not really.”
Martha chuckled. “That proves my point. Now, take Maxie here.” She pointed down at the little dog that was scampering on its stumpy legs trying to keep up with their sedate pace. “Maxie is getting a whole new look at the world. He’s learning what it’s like to wear a collar and have a leash jerk him back when he wants to run off. But he’s also learning that without that leash he’d be run over by a truck or eaten by the big bad dog that lives on the other side of the park. But you know what I like the most?”
“What?”
“I like watching him have to lick his little penis. It was something he tried to make me do before he sent me away. My refusal was probably the straw that made him commit me. Now he can do it for himself. Somehow that’s a nice circle, don’t you think?”
Words did not come.
Tony nodded then shook his head.
Understanding was not the issue, he realized.