The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [35]
Next to the table there’s a freestanding cupboard. I creep over and open the slatted door. A jar of pickled eel, a bottle of dandelion wine, a few apples and nectarines, a bag of flour and some salt, two bread rolls, a roll of tinfoil, a jar of instant coffee. I pick up an apple, hard and green. Whoever lives here hasn’t gone far. I sit down on a wooden stool to wait.
I’m thinking of the little girl with her stained yellow T-shirt who found her way into the locked church in Sacramento. Her hopeful face, her sick father. My remorse tastes like stale bread. I want to rewind to that moment. What could I have done? Surely something. How far had she come to be whisked away without so much as a nod of condolence? I want to rewind further still, to Clatsop Beach with its saltwater breeze, the iridescent sand, Judy’s prying questions. That old shipwreck. “Nobody die,” the hotel man had told me. “Everybody save. You like.”
I climb down the porch steps and make my way along a sandy trail to the lakefront, scan the landscape for any sign of humanity before I strip down to my underwear.
The water feels like an ice floe as I wade in. The trout and guppies can stand it, why not me? Rocks slippery under my feet, a mosquito eater glides on the lake’s glassy surface. The giant glistening basin of cool is a blue world without any trouble or shit, egos or money counting, performances or freeway miles.
Dive in.
All quiet and cold.
When I finally emerge from the lake shivering wet, the June sun is sinking over the granite ridge behind the cabin, a reflection of the sunset turning the face of the volcanic mountain shades of amber, red, and purple. Pine needles and pebbles prick at my soles as I carry my clothes back to the cabin porch. Mosquitoes swarm my goose-bumped skin, their bloodsucking buzz-whine some fresh hell. I hurry inside, close the windows and the heavy wooden door, but it’s no use. The place is already abuzz. I light a candle, hoping they’ll be attracted to a fiery death as I pour myself a cup of watered wine. I wonder when the cabin’s rightful sleeper will show. If she’ll show. Making myself at home in a stranger’s house.
I want my saint book, but I guess the napkin I pocketed at the diner this morning will have to do.
Anthony of Egypt
(IF YOU NEED TO CLEAR YOUR HEAD)
A.K.A. Anthony the Abbot, Anthony the Great
FEAST DAY: January 17
SYMBOLS: a pig, a bell, a T-shaped staff
Hasn’t everyone heard the Gospel story of the rich young man who comes to Jesus saying, “I’ve followed all your commandments. What more can I do?”
“Go and sell all you have,” Jesus tells him. “Give it to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven.”
We hear it, do nothing, but when Anthony of Egypt heard the tale back in the third century, some rusty engine inside of him turned over. The barely literate orphan son of prosperous merchants sold most of what his parents had left him, gave the money to the poor.
Back at church, he again heard the Gospel. “Be not solicitous of tomorrow.”
He gave away the rest of his belongings, made his way out into the Libyan desert to take up residence in an abandoned tomb. He spent his days in prayer, ate only after sunset—a little bread and water. He slept on the bare ground, welcoming angels and battling old psychic demons. Even without possessions or contact with friends, it took Anthony thirteen years to clear his mind.
He crossed out of the desert then.
On the other side of the Nile, he found an old fort on a mountain and lived there for another