The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish (3 page)

T
he Tent of the Holy Redemption was a forty-by-sixty-foot blue-and-white monster. Timmy fell silent the moment it came into view. As he approached, all he could think was: “Once upon a time, a man was
naked
in that tent. With a
woman
. And now they’re dead. And in Hell. Both of them. Together. I wonder if they’re still naked?”

“Hi there.” It was Mr. Wertz, fresh from securing the last support. He gave Mrs. Wertz a sweaty bear hug and she didn’t even mind. Timmy bet they did things that would make his Uncle Albert and Aunt Grace drop dead of a heart attack.

Mr. Wertz turned to the youngsters. “What would you kids say to a tour?” The boys were in heaven.

Their first port of call was the portable generator and trailer-truck at the rear. The truck was bright enough for a carnival caravan, covered in colourful curlicues, squiggles, and capital letters. “She’s quite the beast, eh?” Mr. Wertz enthused. “Everything you see — tent, poles, generator, the whole shebang — folds up and fits inside.”

“Are those the eyes of God?” Timmy asked, pointing at the trailer wall. Circling the command P
REPARE TO
M
EET
T
HY
G
OD
were a dozen gigantic bloodshot eyes, more scary, all-seeing, and all-knowing than even the eyes of his Aunt Grace, who claimed to have an extra set in the back of her head.

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Wertz. He gave them a knowing wink: “So what do you want to see next?”

“Blood, blood!” Timmy squealed.

Mr. Wertz tousled the little ghoul’s hair and threw him in the air. “You got it.” He trooped his charges up front, lifted the tent flap, and hustled them into the sanctuary of horrors. Ahead stretched a wide centre aisle, flanked by twenty rows of benches and chairs, which led to a platform with a pulpit on its left and a piano on its right. Above the stage, shards of light entered where brains had once been blasted out.

Timmy was beside himself. He imagined naked people running back and forth, dodging bullets like mechanical ducks in a penny arcade. Bang! Bang! AAAH!!! Bang! Bang! AAAH!!!

What he loved most were the gore stains radiating from each hole. Ten years of rain and sun had failed to wash, weather, or bleach them away, as if God had decreed the tent’s taints would never fade, but remain an eternal warning to sinners. (Brother Floyd prized this effect, which made worthwhile his periodic efforts with slaughterhouse guts and a paintbrush.)

Outside, Mrs. Wertz and the women were calling the menfolk to supper. Timmy made a beeline for the food lineup, appetite whetted no end. What a spread! The fairground tables bowed under a weight of roast and boiled meats, fresh vegetables, salads, sandwiches, and pies of every description.

Timmy was a prize piglet, even gobbling a scoop of his aunt’s potato salad, except for the olive bits. These he stored in his pants pockets, where he hoped they’d dry into ammunition for his peashooter.

“You’re like a little oinker fattening up for slaughter,” Mr. Wertz said, laughing. How he’d regret those words, wish to gobble them back as surely as Timmy did butter tarts. For if the Wichita kid was as stuffed as a mounted deer head, within two hours he’d be as dead.

God’s Judgment

E
yewitness
reports of the tragedy were as varied as the Gospels. Nonbelievers, outside the tent, focused on the explosion of the generator, and the sight of the eyes of God, ripped from the side of the trailer, whirling in a metallic ring of fire into the heavens. Believers within recounted visitations by the beasts of Revelation, and of electrical wires transformed to the snake of Eden spitting fire as they whipped and darted in demonic pursuit of sinners.

Most famous within this apocalyptic tradition was the account of Mr. Bud Smith, featured in the
Stratford Beacon Herald.
Mr. Smith declared that the Pit of Hell had opened up to the right of his lawn chair, releasing a Satanic legion of armed skeletons that he’d single-handedly dispatched with the aid of his cane. The
Herald
declined to report that old age had been bringing the grizzled ancient similar visions on a more or less weekly basis.

Most widely circulated, however, was the version of Mrs. Betty Wertz, written for
King Features Syndicate
by then cub reporter K.O. Doyle.

I SAW TIMMY BEEFORD DIE

by Mrs. Betty Wertz

As told to Mr. K.O. Doyle

It was a terrible night, the night Timmy Beeford died. Died, dead, in the Tent of the Holy Redemption!

Under the big top, the air was so hot you could bake muffins. And so high you’d swear the Bennett brains were fresh from yesterday.

Worst of all, the service was late. According to Brother Floyd Cruickshank, his partner Brother Percy Brubacher had been detained by the Lord. “That’s all very well,” said I to my Tom, “but it means we’re left suffocating in an abattoir.”

Brother Floyd could see the flock was restless. He urged a singalong. So me, Tom, and the rest of the Bethel gospel choir took to the stage with our song sheets.

No sooner had we launched into “Power in the Blood,” than a snap storm hit. Thunder and lightning to beat the band, building to the third chorus, when out of nowhere Brother Percy staggered up the aisle, soaking wet, hollering in tongues.

We have the like at church each Sunday, hands heavenward, palms up, but never before the invocation. The sounds lit the crowd like a brusher, tongue-speaking blazing through the tent. It was as if we’d been beset by demons.

I wonder if folks went strange on account of the heat or something in the mayonnaise. Whatever it was, it was madness, and above it all the squeals of a child. “Apple cider! Apple cider!”

I looked over to the boys. Timmy Beeford was standing on the front-row pew, pointing at Brother Percy with one hand, while he made the crazy sign with the other.

Right then and there, I should have marched off that stage and given those kids what-for. Instead I froze. And in the seconds that followed, I lost the chance to act forever. For I wasn’t the only one to hear wee Timmy. Brother Percy’s eyes bulged and his index finger flew forward. “THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN. EXODUS 20, VERSE 7.”

The congregation snapped to attention. A moment of silence, except for the storm. Timmy woke to the rage before him. Too late.

“WOE TO BLASPHEMERS, FOR THEY SHALL BE STRUCK DEAD, AND GREAT SHALL BE THE TERROR THEREOF!”

No doubt Brother Percy only meant to give the lad a scare. But no sooner did those words fly from his mouth than lightning hit the metal cross on top of the tent.

A roar like Armageddon. The pole split in two, cords severed, wires fried, bulbs exploded, glass sprayed, as the bolt shot down the line outside and hit the generator. An explosion. In the pitch black, the creak of bars bending! The tent was caving! Bedlam! Everywhere, a mob of screaming worshipers scrambling to escape!

I feared the boys would be crushed underfoot. A raging bear, I tore through the dark to find my cubs. Found them. Grabbed them. Carried them to safety.

But something was wrong. Timmy was a lump, as pale as the moon.

“He got tangled in wire,” Billy wailed. “It sparked something crazy. Mommy — Mommy — he’s dead!”

As God is my witness, so he was.

Resurrection

M
ary
Mabel could swear on a stack of Bibles about what happened when she arrived at Riverside Bridge. She’d climbed on top of the railing, peered down, and felt a chill at the sight of the river rocks. Her mama’s voice had rung in her head like church bells: “Let go. Let go.” She’d closed her eyes, stretched out her arms, and then … and then? She hadn’t a clue. The next thing she recalled was twirling barefoot, like a dervish, before a radiant young man bathed in light.

At the sight of the angel, she’d dropped to her knees in wonder. “Am I in heaven?” she asked. “Are you God’s messenger, Gabriel?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied, “I’m George Dunlop. Ambulance driver from London General.”

Mary Mabel shielded her eyes from the sun, and saw that her angel had chin stubble, pimples, and a grass stain on his left knee from scrambling down the embankment. They were standing on the rocks by the river’s edge. The driver looked embarrassed. “The Petersons spotted you,” he said. “They called for help. Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. Am I?”

He said she ought to come with him, which seemed a good idea. Though otherwise unharmed, her dance on the sharp stones had cut her feet.

T
hing were slow at the hospital, typical of a Sunday. The town was taking the Lord’s Day to rest, what with Saturday night hangovers and church. Aside from a couple of orderlies and a janitor, Dr. Hammond was alone with his trusty sidekick, Nurse Judd. Dr. Hammond had been a drill sergeant on home duty during the Great War, and used his army whistle to boss the wards. He had a reputation as a crusty sonovabitch who saw the sick as a nuisance, and forestalled discussion by making their diagnoses as incomprehensible as possible. His motto, “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” was a comforting thought, though patently untrue judging by his contribution to the local cemetery.

As Nurse Judd wrapped her feet in gauze, Mary Mabel imagined herself an Egyptian princess being prepared for burial, her grieving Pharaoh father leading the court in lamentations so profound that the river Nile o’erflowed its banks with tears. Meanwhile, Dr. Hammond was calling the Academy. He told the porter to inform Mr. McTavish of his daughter’s whereabouts. Then he returned, took out his notepad, and began asking Mary Mabel questions so silly she thought he was teasing.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Westminster Abbey.”

“What is the date?”

“1812.”

“Is George Dunlop the Archangel Gabriel?”

“Of course not, he hasn’t a trumpet.”

Dr. Hammond paused. “Are you a humorist, Miss McTavish?”

“No, sir.”

There followed a heavy silence animated by medical jotting. Mary Mabel glanced from Dr. Hammond to Nurse Judd. It was clear they thought she was crazy. She decided not to mention her conversations with her mama. “May I go now?”

“No. You’re to spend the night under observation, subject to your father’s approval.”

“Oh, he won’t approve,” she assured them. “I’m to be at work come five in the morning. Even if I was dead, Papa wouldn’t let me off my chores.”

Dr. Hammond furrowed his brow, muttered “melancholia,” and scrawled furiously in his notepad. At the mention of melancholia, Mary Mabel giggled, which made Dr. Hammond scribble even more. But the truth was, since her escapade at Riverside Bridge, Mary Mabel had been suffused with a joy so warm that nothing could extinguish it — not even the realization she was alive.

Nurse Judd escorted her to a sickbed to await Brewster’s arrival. “He’ll be along shortly,” she said. Mary Mabel knew otherwise. By the time the ambulance driver had found her, her papa would’ve read her suicide note and hit the bottle, terrified of impending scandal. The porter knocking would have sent him scuttling under the bed. It would be supper before he got word that she was alive, good news that would occasion a fresh bottle by way of celebration.

T
here were thirteen other beds in the ward, a long rectangular room divided by yellowing muslin privacy screens. Mary Mabel wasn’t sure how many souls she had for company, but counted at least eight: five coughers, two snorers, and a woman across the room with hiccups. Together with the hum of the ceiling fan, the rattle of the dinner trays, the squeak of the medicine carts on cracked linoleum, and the periodic buzz from the fly strips, they made napping difficult. By dusk it was more so, a snap storm beating a tarantella on the window panes.

Still, Mary Mabel daydreamed happily till eight, when she was overcome by an acrid waft of body odour, booze, and raw onions. Her papa had arrived, a buzzard in from the wet. She listened to Nurse Judd give directions to her bed, then closed her eyes tight shut as she heard the approaching squish of his soaked boots, the screen rolled back, and the sound of him slumping heavily onto the chair to her right. He sat in silence, save for the drip off his rain slick.

She opened her eyes. He was peering at her with the intent gaze of a stuffed bird. She pictured him on a mantel. “Shall
we go?”

A heavy groan. “I love you.”

“I know.”

He groaned again. “No you don’t. I love you. Very much. Very, very much.” A shudder. “Do you love
me
?”

“Of course, Papa. So, shall we go?”

“We can’t. We have to wait. The doctor’s with a patient. You’re the picture of your mama. I love you, Mary Mabel. I love you very, very much.”

Lord
, Mary Mabel thought,
how many times will he tell me he loves me before Dr. Hammond comes and rescues me?
Spending the night at the hospital was beginning to look attractive.

Brewster horked a wad of phlegm and spat it in his handkerchief. More laundry. “I haven’t said a word to your Auntie Horatia,” he confided.

“I don’t have an Auntie Horatia.”

“Suit yourself. I’ve kept this from her all the same. It would drive her wild. And after all she’s done for you. “

“Please, Papa.” She indicated the world beyond the screen. “You’re shaming me.”

“No more than you shame me, with that cow face of yours.” He rose from his chair. “Hey, you folks with your ears in our business, my slut of a daughter ran off to kill herself!”

The woman across the room stopped hiccuping. Mary Mabel hid her face in her pillow.

Brewster fell back into his chair. “I’m sorry,” he wept. “I’m a bad father.” He wanted her to contradict him, but she wouldn’t. “I’m a bad father,” he snivelled again.

“So you say. Now be quiet. I’m alive. There won’t be a scandal. Lucky you.”

“How could you think I’d care about scandal if my little girl was dead?”

Mary Mabel laughed. Her papa looked so startled that she forgave him despite herself. She got up and kissed him on the forehead. He let out a wail. And that’s when the mayhem struck.

Down the hall, the emergency doors burst open and a flood of Pentecostals washed into the waiting room. A clatter of chairs and trays. Cries of “Doctor!” “Devils!” “Save us!”

Mary Mabel ran to the door of the ward and looked down the corridor. It was a war zone. Home duty had not prepared Dr. Hammond for a horde of Holy Rollers. He let rip with a toot on his whistle. “Smarten up. Get in line. Take a number.”

No one paid heed, least of all a frantic couple who’d clawed their way to the front with a lad as limp as a rag doll. “Doctor, please help,” the woman cried.

“Shush,” Dr. Hammond roared. “Can’t you see I’ve a riot to take care of?”

“But this boy may be dead!”

“Then take him to an undertaker.”

Her companion clutched the doctor by the throat. “Examine him now!”

Dr. Hammond peered at the youngster. The child’s face was a light blue, the lips purple. His jacket was burned through, the exposed skin raw. Orderlies kept the crowd back as Dr. Hammond ripped open his shirt, and listened through a stethoscope. “There’s no heartbeat,” he said. “How long has he been like this?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Then you’re right. This child is dead.” Dr. Hammond scratched his initials on a death certificate handed him by Nurse Judd. The woman howled, but the doctor had no time for consolation. “I didn’t kill him. If you want a second opinion, go down the road to St. Mike’s.”

That was too much for the man. “Sorry, Jesus,” he exploded, “but I got business to attend to!” With that, he decked Dr. Hammond, leapt on top and pummelled away.

Mary Mabel felt her mama’s presence. “Go to the boy,” her mama said. The room disappeared. All Mary Mabel could see was the child. As if in a dream, she floated beside him. She knelt, smoothed his hair, and clasped his hands within her own. There was a whirring, a dark fluttering. Heat flooded her body, coursed down her arms, and out through her fingers.

It was then that the boy gave a cough. And a second. His chest began to move as he inhaled. His cheeks flushed. His eyelids twitched. Opened.

“Ow,” he said. “I hurt.”

Mary Mabel glowed. With her mama inside her, she’d raised the dead.