The Third Personality: A Novel (20)

LAURINBURG, North Carolina - It was going to be some sunny day today - oh my, yes, it was!

Mrs. Marston, who was now out and about and finally taking her daily late morning "constitutional" walk along the sidewalk (all the way from her house to the Boggses, seven doors down), was reveling unabashedly in the glory that was yet another autumn settling into the crisp-aired suburbs of Laurinburg.

As she shook her head in silent wonder and appreciation of the sparkling new day (not so new, actually - it was a little past 11 a.m.), Mrs. Marston, ever sporting her Ray-ban sunglasses and a bright red wool skirt, temporarily forgot what it was she wanted to tell Mary-Madonna and Hamilton about today.

Oh, yes, of course! - she just remembered: the newly-hired secretary of the Church of the Living Christ (formerly the United Brethren of the Inner Light of Christ Church, which had long since moved closer to town) needed to borrow the Boggses' IBM Selectric typewriter in order to type up this week's church newsletter. That was it.

Lovely days just had a way of turning Mrs. Marston into a space cadet, figuratively speaking, especially in the cool of mid-to-late November. Which is what it was now - wasn't it?

What it was today, in fact? The 18th?

1978, wasn't it?

(...We're getting giddy now!)

Mrs. Marston laughed at her own tomfoolery. So she was a little ditzy at times, so what? If it weren't for that "F" side of her personality (representing "feelings" in psycho-speak, in Meyers-Briggs-ese), she'd never have "met" Yam, the entity who spoke through her while she was in a deep trance - the same Yam who had told everyone that Hamilton Boggs, Jr. was undeniably the Savior Reborn; i.e., The Christ-Come-Back-To-Save-The-World.

(...Of course, the Boggs Kid was a little snot sometimes…)

(And didn't He just hate Mrs. Marston like The Plague…)

(And He ate and ate, like some famished gluttonous little piggy…)

(…Snort, snort [drool]..! Oink, oink..!)

(And He was completely spoiled rotten…)

(-He was, truth be known … a DEVIL Child..!)

"Stop that!!" Mrs. Marston said aloud to herself, to that ever-nagging inner voice (which was always contradicting Yam of late, too, by the way), as she slowly made her way up the steps leading to the Boggses' front door.

The inner voice then immediately stopped nagging, of course, as it always had all these years, simply in response to her voice command.

"There," Mrs. Marston whispered, with a satisfied smile.

She rang the front doorbell.

"Bong-bong, bong-bong-bong!," the doorbell chimed: up a full step, down a major third, down an octave, and up a perfect fifth - just like the key thematic notes to John Williams' musical score for Steven Spielberg's movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

(Which was premiering this very evening on network TV, in fact. It was also the Boggses' favorite film score, and movie.)

Mrs. Marston should "pay more heed" to that Nagging Inner Voice, part of her kept trying to explain to her consciousness. (It was that same expression of, well, conscience, that reminded her that not all of Yam's predictions panned out real well…)

In fact: Yam was far more wrong in his future predictions than he was correct.

An early clue - that dated back to the time her husband marched out the door and left - was this forgotten line:

"…SOON, VERY SOON, WITHIN EIGHT YEARS IN YOUR RECKONING, THE CHRIST CHILD SHALL BE BORN AGAIN INTO YOUR MIDST. YOU, MY CHILD, SHALL SERVE AS MIDWIFE AT HIS BIRTH…"

That was back in 1964, during Yam's first hand-scrawled dictation session given in the middle of the night (14 years ago!), which prompted Mrs. Marston's only husband to seek and inevitably be awarded a divorce, which was a nasty business back then, Mrs. Marston recalled. Her husband didn't push for it, but he argued he might justifiably have his fruitcake wife committed - an idea to which the court was at least sympathetic. But such a legal action was out of its jurisdictional waters.

(…Mrs. Marston never served as midwife during Ham Boggs, Jr.'s birth! - nor was she even "in town," per se! Neither Hamilton nor Mary-Madonna had even invited her to Anderson at the time, which prompted her to visit them, all on her own. But their son, Ham Junior, was born prior to her arrival and…)

She never served as midwife. Yam was wrong about that.

Yam was wrong about a lot of things. And some of his future predictions … Well, even they …

(Even Mrs. Marston herself was…)

"Oh… Hi," said Ham Senior, after opening the door for his something-of-a-pest daily morning visitor. Most days she managed to justify in her own mind stopping by the Boggses for something.

"Top-of-the-morning to you, Hamilton, my dear," chirped Mrs. Marston in her typical forced enthusiasm of a morning greeting.

"Come on in," Ham said vaguely, opening the screened inner door. "Mary-Madonna's with Hammie in the living room, attempting to teach him music theory again - you know how that goes … Is there something I can do you for this morning?"

"Oh, no, not really," said Mrs. Marston, as she entered the house. "Oh, wait; yes - I need to borrow your Selectric. But other than that, I just thought I'd visit and say hello …

"Have you completed this Sunday's sermon year?" she asked.

Hamilton shook his head. She knew better. "No," he said. "I haven't even started it. Thought I'd do something on Yam's concept of Appeasement, this week. But I'm still not sure."

"Well, you know," Mrs. Marston began, looking around the house as she was wont to do each day, "if you need Yam's help on anything…"

Then she spotted an unfamiliar face in the bedroom hallway.

The face looked back at her with a mild trace of annoyance.

"I'm Hamilton's father," the owner of the face said. "Harlan's the name." He formally extended his hand.

Mrs. Marston shook it. Then she smiled perkily.

"Oh, well! - how do you do!" she beamed. "We've never met, but I've heard a lot about you! I even think I know you!"

In the background, she could hear Hammie and Mary-Madonna singing together. It was that song from The Sound of Music:

"…'re,' a drop of morning sun; �mi,' a name I call myself, �fa,' a long, long way to run..," the two voices sang in unison.

The Kid may be a dildoe, Mrs. Marston's Nagging Inner Voice then instructed her - but he sure can sing, can't he..?

The Boggses' house cat, Matilda, skirted beneath her feet.

In five weeks exactly, Ham Junior would turn six years old.

And the Christ Reborn was developing a strong personality.

"Grampy's old and ugly," Ham Jr. announced out of the blue.

"That's not very nice, Hammie," Mary-Madonna scolded.

"Why?" Hammie asked.

"Because it's not."

"Why?"

"Because it hurts people's feelings when you say things like that," she explained tiredly. "You shouldn't hurt people's feelings. It's not nice."

"So it's not nice - it's true," Hammie insisted. "Grampy's old, and Grampy's ugly."

"He may not see himself that way," Mary-Madonna continued. "Thank goodness he didn't hear you … If you can't say something nice about someone, you shouldn't say anything at all. That's what's called being diplomatic."

Hammie looked up at his mom with a swollen mouthful of cookies. He had a milk ring all along his upper lip, too.

"No," Hammie said, finally.

Mary-Madonna was taken aback. "What do you mean, no?"

"No," the chubby child repeated. "'The only apparent purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.'"

Hammie's mother looked at him in temporary disbelief. "Wherever did you hear that?" she asked.

"From Mister Spock," said Hammie. "On Star Trek."

"Hello there, you two," cheeped Mrs. Marston, peeking her head into the living room.

"Oh, hello there, Mrs. Marston," said Mary-Madonna, forcing a smile.

Hammie ignored their routine visitor.

"What do you say to Mrs. Marston, Hammie?" his mother then prodded.

"Nothing," Hammie said.

Mrs. Marston looked at the boy condescendingly. "What - you have nothing to say to your kindly, friendly neighbor?"

Hammie looked at her, and frowned. Then he shook his head, and gazed at the shag carpet beneath his couch.

"Hammie!" Mary-Madonna insisted.

The youngster then looked back up to Mrs. Marston.

"I think you're a witch," he said at last.

"Hammie!" Mary-Madonna gasped.

Hamilton continued apologizing to Mrs. Marston as he led the medium (and the family's Selectric typewriter) back outside, onto the front steps.

"I just can't imagine what gets into him," Ham Senior added.

"Well, God moves in mysterious ways," she nodded. "I expect the child has a few things to learn yet about humility - even if He is The Christ."

"Tell me about it!" Hamilton said, and then laughed. "He recently decided that the ham sandwich was named after him!"

* * * * *

"Well - I'll be God-damned," said Harley Boggs, as he found his focus locked on the TV screen out in the den.

"What's up, Mr. Boggs?" asked Mary-Madonna, as she entered the large room with a couple of ice teas. She'd just put Hammie away in his bedroom for a nap - an early one. (A long one.)

"Look at this, Mary-Madonna," he groaned, motioning his daughter-in-law over to the TV. "The man responsible for this - he was there at the hospital in Indiana on the very day your husband was born."

Mary-Madonna stepped over next to the senior Boggs, and stared at the set.

The television news scene before them was an overhead camera shot taken from a helicopter that was circling an open-walled shelter in a small clearing in some woods - near Guyana, on the upper east coast of South America, the reporter stated.

There were more than 900 human bodies now seen strewn all over the grounds near the shelter in a community called Jonestown and, the reporter said, everybody below was apparently dead.

Early reports had most or all of these members of The Rev. Jim Jones' jungle-based cult committing mass suicide.

The suicide was in apparent response to cult members having just murdered Rep. Leo Ryan of California and four others who'd visited the Jonestown compound, the reporter explained.

"You knew Jim Jones?" Mary-Madonna gulped.

"Didn't know him exactly," Harley Boggs said. "Dealt with him some. But mostly, I just knew of him - everybody in east Indiana did. He was an orderly at Reid Hospital when Hamilton was born. They went to the same high school. Everyone just knew that Jones boy would come to no good."

Mary-Madonna and her father-in-law then watched the balance of the grisly report in subdued silence.

That evening, Mary-Madonna and Hamilton decided to turn in early (Hammie was forced to do the same) - leaving Harley Boggs to watch the network's broadcast of "Close Encounters" all by his lonesome.

Not that the elder Boggs gave one royal whit about space ships and little gray men, or whatever-the-hell they were. But his son and daughter-in-law, who'd seen the movie several times when it was first released (and who owned the movie soundtrack album, as well), had gone on and on about how great it was, and how Harley (and Winifred) Boggs ought to go see the film for themselves. He could never figure out why they embraced it so.

Winnie. With a week still to go before Thanksgiving, she'd decided to stay behind in Richmond to take care of housely chores before taking a flight herself to North Carolina to join Harley and the kids - and Mary-Madonna's family, too - for a big Thanksgiving dinner in Laurinburg.

Harley'd decided, at Winnie's urging, to go ahead and leave early without her. She kept insisting her fidgety husband needed a break, and some time to himself. Harley didn't argue.

But their relationship was on shaky ground, and both of them knew it - even though neither of Ham's parents would admit aloud what was obvious to just about everyone else around them.

Their marriage was in serious trouble.

Harley Boggs pursed his lips, and then blew out some air.

But there was something strange going on as well with Hamilton and Mary-Madonna, Harley had long-since decided. There was something real funny, real weird, about that off-brand church of theirs.

And that Marston woman. Holy Jesus. What a nut case.

The movie wasn't all that great, Harley decided only a little of the way into it. And there were discrepancies, too, that anyone from eastern Indiana (where the film was supposedly set) would spot immediately.

There were no foothills overlooking city lights at night in those parts, anywhere. And there were no tollbooths on any major roads (much less interstate highways) leading into or out of Ohio.

Harlan Boggs, the elder, decided it was time for a beer.

But as he started to get up, a scene from the movie caught his attention.

In it, an isolated two-story house adjacent to some woods at night could be seen, and then printed as an overlay on the screen below it were the words, "Muncie, Indiana."

Some dark clouds then began to roll in over the house.

Harley felt a catch grab in his throat, and suddenly it seemed to him that he needed air. A sense of anxiety, and then dread, quickly began to flood in on him.

He sat back down again, vaguely remembering something:

There was that lightning, that flash, above his truck - only it wasn't overcast that particular evening when …

What?

Muncie, Indiana. Something terrible happened that night, a few years back, when Harley couldn't account for where he'd been for more than six hours while driving home to Richmond.

Something absolutely unbelievable had happened to him, just outside of Muncie.

Harley knew it.

He just couldn't quite figure out what "it" was.

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