Sweet Jesus (35 page)

But you were
born
to be a clown, Connie said.

Entertainer to the charismatics, Hannah said dryly. Do I see a new character emerging?

Fenton used to say the art of clowning was all about the search for love and acceptance, Zeus said. Clowns like to pretend they’re happier than they are, but it’s usually because they’re trying to avoid something dark.

Avoid it or
illuminate
it? Rose said.

They illuminate human suffering the way falling down the stairs can cure you of a headache, Zeus said.

Rose reached across the table, held Zeus’s wrist for a moment, and said, It takes some of us a long time to learn new ways of thinking about things. I’m not saying I didn’t mess up. I did, I know that, and I’m sorry. But it’s easy to fall into the mistake of waiting for other people to make up for theirs. Even if they do, it will never feel like it’s enough, because the only meaningful change comes from within.

The waitress came over to ask if everything was okay, and Hannah nodded thank you.

What I’m trying to say is, you’ve just got to ignore everything that’s outside of yourself at some point in your life, Rose went on, and be entirely faithful to
you
. And then, you know what will happen? You’ll suddenly come into contact with the rest of the world. At least that’s what it seems to me, although I’m not there yet myself. I’m still working on getting to know Rose Crowe.

I think I understand what you’re saying, Zeus said, but what means the most to me is that you’re here. I mean, you came all this way. That’s what nobody ever did for me, and I wouldn’t want you to think it went unnoticed.

In the morning, they checked out of the hotel and drove Zeus to the bus station, where he bought a ticket to Chimayó. You sure you don’t want us to take you there? Rose asked, and Zeus confirmed that he did not.

This is my final leg of the journey, he said. And I want to do it solo.

Rose asked him if he had enough money, and Zeus told her about Fenton’s twenty thousand dollars. She said, I remember when you were about nine years old, you came to me one
day with this tin box. It had a map of New Mexico you’d cut out from a magazine, I think, and some fruit roll-ups and things you’d been saving to make the trip back to your parents’ place. You also had eighteen dollars in there, saved up. It made me so incredibly sad to see how homesick you were, but that you had made a plan, and come to tell me about it? I realized then that you had a kind of determination, and I knew you were going to be okay, that your heart was open.

Zeus nodded and looked down at his feet.

Rose put her hand on his face and said, It would make me very happy to hear from you sometime, Zeus Ortega. She said goodbye, then went out to wait in the truck.

Connie and Hannah walked him to the bus and Zeus turned to his sisters. They looked so full of apology.

Connie hugged him and said, We’ll stay in touch, okay, little brother? Good luck in Chimayó.

I love you, Hannah whispered into his neck as they hugged goodbye.

Now go, Zeus said and watched them walk out and turn at the door, one last time, to wave.

T
he bus was slow, and Zeus had to make a connection in Oklahoma City and then take the overnight bus to Santa Fe. In Amarillo, in the middle of the night, he woke up and saw in the yellow haze of a lamppost a family of seven, standing beside a mountain of suitcases and striped woven bags, like they were moving house, or on the run. It reminded him of a day Tim and Rose took him out shopping and let him get a red varsity jacket with black leather sleeves and a felt patch of a bluebird carrying a ribbon in its beak like a tattoo across the back. He’d begged them for it and they’d let him have it, and he’d loved that jacket with his whole being, wearing it until the cuffs were threadbare and the bluebird patch was so frayed it had lost all its features. It took the driver fifteen minutes to load all the family’s luggage, and then they boarded noisily and took seats all over the bus beside the other huddled, sleeping passengers.

At dawn, Zeus woke and from the window of the Greyhound bus watched the landscape of his childhood come into view again for the first time, unimaginably beautiful – the
sky its distinctive blue, behind an endless pattern of white clouds, and the red hills spotted with the dusty green pompoms of sagebrush and mesquite. The bus stopped in Santa Fe, and Zeus bought three tamales in tinfoil at the plaza and carried them onto another bus that would take him to Chimayó, though when he tried to eat, he realized he was too nervous. The bus wound its way through hills and past cliffs that seemed to him both to reflect the magnitude of his emotions and make them feel puny. They carried on towards Chimayó and passed the famous pilgrimage church, so much smaller than he remembered it, like the toy model of a church, its rounded corners giving it a soft, spongy look.

Zeus got off at a stop a little further after that and followed the map Fenton had made for him.

As he approached his parents’ house, he began to panic. There it was. A single-storey adobe, old jalopy up on cement blocks, evidence of children. Toys in the yard. A stray dog sniffing around under a window. His feet wouldn’t slow down. He just kept on walking. I can’t do this, he said to himself.

He found a shady spot on the other side of the road and sat there, staring at the house for what felt like an hour, trying to imagine what their lives were like. What would he be interrupting? As he sat there, a car drove up and turned into the drive. It was the same car his father had owned when he was a boy. A bit faded and a little rusty in places, his 1978 Ford Thunderbird. The car stopped and the doors opened and two young girls jumped out of the passenger side and started running towards the house. A man got out and shouted at the kids to come back to the car. It was his father. A thin, wiry man, with tattoos on his arms. He opened the trunk and lifted out some bags of groceries and gave one each to the girls. He carried the rest inside and the door closed behind him. Another
car started to come down the road, music blaring, windows down, two guys about his own age in the front seats with their black hair slicked back. They slowed down to look at him as they passed. Zeus grabbed his duffle bag and hurried away.

He headed back out to the highway and started hitchhiking. It was a long time before anyone picked him up. He was heading north, and at dusk he got dropped off at a crossroads and started to walk. The sky was denim. In the west, a thin band of yellow flared briefly above a bank of violet clouds, then went orange, pink, and finally blue, the dark hills like hunched shoulders, growing blacker and bulkier on either side of him as the light drained out of the sky.

Zeus walked through the dark countryside. Occasionally, a car or a truck would pass, one lit up like a casino, with a neon blue cross on the grill. Its headlights showed trees to his right, tall Ponderosa pines growing out of the sandy ground. Zeus wandered off the highway and started walking into the woods. A half-moon rose. Tomorrow was election day. He thought about his country and the world. He came into a small clearing surrounded by trees, dropped his duffle bag, and sat down. He felt exhausted. He opened his bag for something warmer to wear and as he was getting a sweater out noticed the edge of Fenton’s white clown suit. He put his sweater on and pulled the suit out and laid it on the ground, where it seemed to soak up whatever light was left in the evening until it was a glowing thing. It had a human shape, but it struck him now as empty, just a piece of clothing that Fenton wouldn’t want him to be dragging around with him wherever he went. He caught it by the wrists and swung it over his head, and it hung down his back like a long cape. He tied the arms around his neck, crouched to dig out Fenton’s slippers and stood up, wearing the slippers on his hands. He felt like a confused superhero.

Someone drove by on the highway and the strobing of headlights against the trees gave what he was about to do an almost criminal aspect. The wind was picking up. Fenton’s clown suit rippled like a flag. Zeus tucked the slippers under his arm and got a lighter from his duffle bag and a map he’d picked up at a motel and twisted it into a wick and lit the tip. He cupped his hand around the flame and held the wick upside down to encourage the flame to climb up the map. He took a few blind steps away from his duffle bag. He couldn’t see anything beyond the flame.

Zeus dropped the slippers and crouched to arrange them in a V, the way Fenton used to stand in them, then he untied the silk knot at his throat with one hand and laid it on top. He was rotating and waving the twisted map, trying to nurse the flame without scorching his wrist.

The wind was threatening to blow it out, so he used his body to shield it and tried to think of something to say, but now his fingers had begun to burn, so he flicked it on the ground and kicked it on top of the white silk, which gathered and rushed as if sucked towards the flame. What was left of the map unfurled to expose its breast, a fragment of intersecting highways, then started to shrink around the edges in a tightening noose of orange cinders.

He grabbed some leaves and twigs and laid these down on top. The fire exhaled a lot of grey smoke, a foul smell, then the whole thing caught and there was a sudden burst of flame and firelight, illuminating a cathedral of branches vaulted over his head.

Zeus was poking at the fire with a stick, it was burning well now. He stood up and tried to think of something to say. Your death was like a grand piano falling out of the sky.

He thought he saw a flashlight through the trees. A dog barked.

He poked the fire again. There was more barking. He looked out into the darkness. A furious male voice shouted from somewhere off in the distance. Now Zeus could see lights from a farmhouse, then a gun went off.

He tore off through the woods terrified and ran until he couldn’t run anymore. Breathless, he turned to look and saw, through the black pillars of the trees, a dome of pale light and a ghostly vine of smoke rising up into the night sky where a few early stars had opened up their eyes. Then the black figure of a man obscured the light, his shadow rising into the trees. Sparks flew up and darkness again. Zeus didn’t dare go back for his duffle bag. There was nothing in it he strictly needed, his wallet was in his pocket. He decided to keep on walking, without possessions, without ties, alone under the night sky.

After a while, he found a little hollow beside a fallen log and lay down with his head on his arms and looked up at the stars. Same stars over Tripoli.

That night he dreamt of arriving at his parents’ house in a white pickup truck. He got out and stood across the street as a car drove up and pulled into the drive, loud music coming from behind its closed windows. It was his father’s Thunderbird low-rider with a portrait of Zeus and his mother painted on the side and the words
ámale por siempre
on a ribbon above their heads. The passenger door opened and the music got louder. Two little boys who looked just like he used to sat patiently in the front seat. His mother came out of the house then, braiding her black hair. She paused for a moment and looked in his direction, then called her children inside. His father opened the trunk of the car, lifted out a thin grey dog, and put him on the ground. When he straightened up, he noticed a young man standing next to a shiny pickup on the other side of the street.
He could see his wife’s face in him. The young man started to walk towards him, and José Ortega felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He never thought he’d have the good fortune of seeing his son again. He moved forward with his arms outstretched. Jésus, he whispered, his heart seized hard with joy and pain. My sweet Jésus.

For being my first intrepid champion, heartfelt thanks to my agent, Ellen Levine.

For her amazing skill, generosity, and commitment to this book, I owe a debt of gratitude to my editor, Ellen Seligman. Many thanks also to Kendra Ward at McClelland & Stewart, and Heather Sangster of Strong Finish.

To my friends and readers – who all gave more sustenance than they could possibly know – I would like to thank Natalie Loveless, Michael Redhill, Claudia Dey, Alison Pick, Kathleen Winter, Erik Rutherford, Sheila Heti, Liz Unna, Michael Helm, Laura Repas, Carle Steel, Lisa Moore, and Carole Galand.

To the independent cafés of west-end Toronto, thank you for offering friendly public space in which to work. May the revolution continue!

I would like to pay a note of tribute to the outdoor chapel at Pioneer Pacific Camp on Thetis Island, where all my religious sentiments began.

The skit that Zeus performs at the end of the book was inspired by an act created by the masterful Russian clown Slava Polunin, which he performs in his eponymously titled Slava’s Snowshow.

To my parents, Michael and Elaine Pountney, and my sister, Michelle Troughton, for their love and support, and everything they know, I am very grateful.

Lastly, love and thanks to Michael Winter, for enduring faith and countless hot dinners, and our son, Leo, for being himself a clown of such tender wisdom.