Henry of Atlantic City (11 page)

The priests didn’t say anything. They waited for Henry to continue.

Once Henry’s father took him through it. In a
boat
.

“Is that so?” the old doctor said and leaned forward a little.

Henry nodded.

“What were you doing there?”

Looking for corpses.

“Corpses? Why would you want to do that?”

Enemies of the Palace were dumping them into the water to ruin it for drinking. The boat had a long, curved prow and they built a fire in a large clay pot in the middle of the boat that gave off as much light as twenty torches. An old Armenian freed slave guided the boat through the underground caverns and told Henry to keep his eyes open because if you fell asleep underground you might never find the way back out.

“A fascinating story, young man. Is there more?”

Henry nodded and told them about a monk who came to Byzantium because his order was being persecuted and
he and the other monks who lived with him in the wilderness agreed that the only way to stop the persecution was to petition the emperor. The emperor was away at his retreat on the Black Sea with his generals.

“What kind of monk?”

Henry said he didn’t know but maybe a Montani or a Sabbatiani or one of those kinds that were always being persecuted. Procopius said the emperor had to keep tabs on the monks because they could make trouble. They got ideas because they had so much time to think and if they began to write them down and spread them around things could go bad fast. The streets of Byzantium were filled with monks and priests and ordinary people who were persecuted and forced to give up their beliefs but most people had either given up their beliefs because they didn’t make sense anymore or they were like Sy and believed in everything because they were afraid to rule anything out.

“That’s very interesting,” Dr. Alt said.

Henry said it didn’t matter if you were a Christian or a Jew. When you worked at the Palace you had a job to do and everyone was happy that way.

“What about Sy? I’d like to hear more,” Dr. Alt said.

Henry said well, Sy was sort of like a monk, and he was a blackjack dealer too.

“Henry is a great storyteller, Father. But his stories are very confused,” Father Crowley said.

Dr. Alt said, “That’s all right. Go on, Henry.”

Henry said Sy didn’t want to rule anything out and that made him different from everybody else and also he had a head for numbers. That’s why the emperor gave him a Christmas present.

“Yes?”

Henry said Sy wasn’t like most people at the Palace. He wanted to rule everything in and worked toward his full orgastic capacity by sitting in a box so that he could feel the pulse of the universe.

Dr. Alt laughed. “That’s marvelous. Did you hear that, Father?”

Father Crowley stood up and walked to the other side of the room. “I did, and I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk, young man.”

Dr. Alt waved his hand. “Don’t worry, Father. He’s just talking like a Reichian!” The old doctor laughed. “Did Sy talk about orgastic capacity?”

Henry nodded.

“Could you tell me more about what happened around the Palace?”

Henry said sometimes he made the rounds with his father. People respected a family man. Being a family man put everyone at ease. Henry said his father told him when people feared you and you made them feel comfortable anyway you could tell them to do anything and they’d do it.

“Now,
that’s
a charming piece of psychology,” Father Crowley said and sat down again. “What do you make of this kind of talk, Doctor?”

“Henry should feel comfortable to speak his mind.”

Father Crowley rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch.

“What kinds of games did you play? You did play games, didn’t you?”

Henry told him about plague sowing. The old man listened but this time he didn’t laugh or say anything. “What other sorts of things did you do?”

Henry said he liked to go down to the Olympic swimming pool in the morning and watch Theodora swim because she looked like Porphyrius the whale.

“You mean Porphy the whale?”

Henry said no, Porphyrius. She was purple, like the great column in the Forum of Constantine.

“Has he told you this before?” Dr. Alt asked Father Crowley.

“I’ve heard some version of it,” Father Crowley said. “I’ve heard so many different stories that nothing makes sense to me anymore. Tell us about Porphyrius, Henry. That’s something I can’t make heads or tails of. Henry talks about a whale named Porphyrius.”

“That sounds very interesting. Could you tell me something about Porphyrius?”

Henry said whales are beautiful creatures.

“Have you ever seen one?”

Henry said yes.

“Where?”

Henry said in the Sea of Marmara.

“How interesting. When were you at the Sea of Marmara?”

Henry said he used to go there every morning to watch her swim.

“The fish is an extremely interesting and very powerful symbol,” Dr. Alt said to Father Crowley. “I wrote about it in my book,
Psychosis as Excursus
.”

“Oh?” Father Crowley said. He seemed only half interested.

“It’s too complex to go into right now. But it is very significant.”

“Do you think now is the right time to talk about it?” Father Crowley nodded at Henry.

“Of course! I want everything to be in the open. The fish is an archetypal symbol of the self,
de profundo lavatus
, drawn from the deep. As such it is an expression of psychological wholeness.” He rubbed his palms together. “Very nice, Henry. This is a
very
good place to begin.”

Henry said whales aren’t fish.

“That’s correct,” Dr. Alt said, and smiled. “From the standpoint of zoology. But the psyche rarely takes taxonomic distinctions into account in elaborating its symbols.”

“Dr. Alt is a very learned man, Henry. You might try listening to him. Stop talking like a smart aleck.”

Henry looked into the fire for a few minutes. His angel called to him and his vision darkened and his head felt light. The angel’s voice made a melody of the crackling logs and when the music faded and his vision returned, Henry looked at the old doctor and said nothing. Father Crowley stood up again and walked over to the fireplace and stood with his back to it.

Henry told the old doctor about the Olympic swimming pool and Theodora in her purple bathing suit and cap and how his father hated her.

“Your father hated her?”

Henry nodded.

“Why?”

Henry said because she was very powerful and he never knew where he stood with her.

The priests glanced at each other, then back at Henry. “Is that all?” Dr. Alt asked.

Henry shook his head. She was a smart-ass
MBA
bitch and was squeezing him to death too.

“That’s enough of that,” Father Crowley said.

Dr. Alt held up his hand. “Is Theodora the fish?”

Henry said not a fish, a whale. She swam every morning in the Olympic swimming pool and sometimes he saw her at the Golden Gate.

“The Golden Gate?”

Henry said it was the gate at one end of the city that was built by Theodosius and it was the gate through which all conquering emperors entered the city. On one side it said,
Theodosius adorns this place after the doom of the usurper
, and on the other side it said,
He who constructed the Golden Gate brings in the Golden Age
. Then Henry stopped talking and looked past the two priests into the flames. He watched the red and orange tongues flicker and lap and strained to hear the music he had heard a few minutes ago. He wanted to ask them about hell but decided to wait until some other time. The emperors retreat on the Black Sea came
into his thoughts and the owl that lived in the tree and he wondered if the emperor had given his father the job.

It was quiet for a long time.

“What do you make of it all?” Father Crowley asked.

The doctor took off his glasses and cleaned them. “Extremely interesting. But it is going to take time to sort things out.” Then he put his glasses back. “Very well, then. I’d like to say a few things. This might not make much sense to either of you, but I just want to express what I think is happening here.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Father Crowley asked.

“Absolutely. I want Henry to hear everything I have to say. Normally, you see, the relationship between the specific contents of the conscious and the unconscious becomes clear only in later stages of analytic treatment. But this situation is unique. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. The overt confusion of conscious and unconscious facts seems to lead, well—straight to the later stage.” He stopped for a moment. “It’s hard to explain, and I know I’m talking past you right now, but it helps me to focus my thoughts. The situation is a difficult one. Extremely complex. Very interesting.”

Henry looked into the fire.

“Of course, I’m speaking very generally and extemporaneously. What I say should not be taken as a diagnosis of any sort.”

“Of course,” Father Crowley said.

“But it is an extremely interesting situation, and I would like to get to know Henry better as a patient. Do you think that is possible?”

“I doubt there will be any objections,” Father Crowley said. “Would you like to talk to Dr. Alt on a regular basis?”

Henry didn’t want to talk to anyone but nodded just to get it over with.

Father Crowley looked at his watch and said, “Looks to me like it’s time for lunch.”

Henry asked to go to the bathroom.

“Run along. We’ll be in the dining room. And don’t forget to wash your hands.” The two priests walked down the long corridor that led to the dining room and the other parts of the rectory. When they were out of sight Henry slipped out the front door and ran faster than he’d ever run before. A taxicab turned onto the street just as he reached the end of the block and Henry waved to it.

“What’s the problem, kid?” the driver said.

Henry took out a hundred-dollar bill and showed it to the driver and asked him to take him to a store in Philadelphia called Mitzi.

The driver laughed.

Henry took out another hundred-dollar bill and showed it to the driver.

The driver stared at Henry and at the money. “Hop in,” he said and opened the door.

Henry sat in the rear seat of the car and watched the back of the driver’s head. They drove for a little while and Henry tried to open the window but it didn’t work. The driver turned onto a highway and said something but Henry didn’t hear because he was scared. The driver started to sing. “They often call me Speedo, but my real name is Mr. Earl.” Then he looked into the rearview mirror. “C’mon up front,” he said and patted the seat next to him.

Henry shook his head.

“Aw, c’mon. I can’t see you sitting all the way back there.”

Henry climbed over the seat.

“What’s your name, boy?”

Henry told him.

“Pleased to meet you, Henry,” Mr. Earl said. They drove for a long time. Mr. Earl smoked cigarettes and pointed to some factories and steel mills as they drove
past. “The only thing worse than a mill in full production is an abandoned one,” he said. “The world is unfair no matter how you look at it. It’s getting worse too. Never thought I’d see it that way, but there it is. Time was, all I wanted was to stay alive.” Mr. Earl rolled the window down and flicked another cigarette out onto the road. “But that was wartime, and I don’t like to think about it, and I don’t know if it even counts anymore. Probably not.” A little while later he pulled into a rest area that had some picnic tables. “I’m starving,” he said.

Mr. Earl was very tall and had big shoulders and a big chest and long reddish hair that he kept tied in a ponytail. He had a thick mustache that drooped down each side of his mouth, which he smoothed and twisted with his fingers a lot, and a jagged purple stain just under one of his eyes that looked like a tear that had never been wiped away. He wore big black boots and a jacket with lots of pockets. Henry thought Mr. Earl was only being friendly because he was going to kill him. Then he remembered what his angel had told him about the children of the heavenly man and how they too had passed through the degradation of the life of the flesh and suddenly Mr. Earl appeared to Henry as a man who had already passed through those degradations and they had made him harmless. Mr. Earl unpacked things from the trunk of the car and said he was preparing a feast.

Inside the trunk was an entire kitchen. There was a stove with two burners and a large wooden cutting board
that folded up and out like a shelf. There was a jug with a faucet for water and there were drawers and containers built into the sides of the trunk. Mr. Earl said he did a lot of camping and whistled as he mixed things together and cut and chopped. In a little while he lifted up a large plate and closed the trunk. It was cold and the wind was blowing but Henry and Mr. Earl ate the whole omelette. Then they packed everything up again.

After eating Henry felt tired and he got into the back seat of the car. Mr. Earl said he had to take a leak and went to the restroom. Henry fell into a deep sleep. In his sleep he was herded through the crowded streets of Atlantic City with flocks of sheep and cows and children and slaves and captured soldiers. The closer he came to Caesar’s Palace the denser the crowd around him became. Nothing was visible and in the darkness he was overwhelmed by the heat of so many bodies pressing against him. Then a bird came down from the sky and landed on Henry’s shoulder. The crowd slowly disappeared and he found himself standing on the shore looking out to sea. The surf made no sound and there were no boats on the water. The hotels and casinos rose up behind him and there was perfect silence.

Henry woke up in the parking lot outside Egypt. He sat up and looked out the window. It was dark and there were only a few cars in the lot. Across the street was a building with a red neon sign that flickered on and off. There were no windows.
A car drove by. It slowed down as it passed in front of Egypt but then it sped away and the street was silent again. Henry was frightened. The darkness around him was not sweet and it was cold inside the car. He began to cry.