To Play the Fool Read online

“Antiques,” she finally muttered. “Junk really, but pretentious. I saw him inside the antique store on the corner of Masonic one morning before it opened. He kissed the owner; she let him out. He didn’t see me.”

  “Is she the only one?” Beatrice shot her a look full of anger and closed her pad.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said. “Thank you for that. I’ll talk with her, and of course I won’t tell her where the information came from. Is there anything else you know about him?”

  Beatrice did not open her sketch pad again, but neither did she stand up and leave.

  “Horses,” she said suddenly. “He once said something about quarter horses, I think it was, one day when the mounted police went by. I suppose he was from a farming community of some kind, between the horses and the drawl.”

  “Drawl?” asked Kate sharply.

  “Yes, he spoke with a drawl. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Nobody’s mentioned it that I’ve heard.”

  “Oh yes. I mean, it wasn’t strong, like Deep South, but it was there. Texas, maybe, or Arizona, though it sounded like he’d lived in cities for a while.”

  Kate thought for a minute. “You said you’d once seen him in a car with someone.” Beatrice did not respond, but flipped open the sketch pad and thumbed the cap off her pen. “When you made your statement downtown,” she elaborated. When the woman merely turned to a clean page and began to run her pen up and down, Kate’s interest sharpened. So far this evening, Beatrice had shown little of the blithe, slightly disconnected stepping-stone quality of the earlier interview: Was it back, and if so, what had brought it? “Do you remember saying that?”

  “It was a remarkably ugly car, considering how much money must have been spent on it.”

  “An expensive car. Foreign? A sports car? A big car? Cadillac? Rolls-Royce?”

  “Just like a ten-gallon hat, all show and terribly impractical.”

  “Imagine the problems with parking it,” Kate suggested, with success.

  “Exactly.”

  “But at least he bought American,” Kate offered tentatively, and held her breath. This system of interviewing a witness was inexcusable, leading questions compounded by guesses and utterly inadmissible as evidence, but there seemed no other way, and indeed, the responses kept coming.

  “I never thought that a particularly good argument. The last car I owned was a Simca.”

  “The man driving the car looked the sort who would use that argument, though, would you say?”

  “I suppose. The cost of gasoline certainly wouldn’t trouble him,” she added in a non sequitur.

  “Was he actually wearing his ten-gallon hat when you saw him?”

  “No.” Ah well, it was a try, thought Kate. “He didn’t have it on. A ridiculous notion, isn’t it? A hat that literally held ten gallons would be big enough to sit in. It was on the backseat.” By God. Bingo. Kate sat back in the flimsy chair.

  “You remember what color the license plates were?” Might as well try for the big prize, if one’s luck is in.

  “Color? I don’t remember any color. They weren’t black and gold, though, I’m pretty sure.” The old California plates had gone out of use about the time Kate had her first pair of nylon stockings, so that wasn’t much help.

  “I don’t suppose you remember when this was that you saw the two men?”

  “My dear Katarina, life on the street does not necessarily mean a person is brain-dead.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Of course I remember. It was election day. The church served lunch outside that day because the hall was being used as a polling place and there was a mix-up over who was supposed to hold the soup kitchen instead, so they just worked inside and brought it out the back. Very apologetic, they were, but it was actually quite festive, I thought. Gave one a sense of participation in the democratic process. The last presidential candidate I voted for was George McGovern. He didn’t win,” she explained kindly.

  “Er, no.”

  “I know that the man was in the city for a few days at least, because I remember seeing the two of them again on the Friday. They came in here. Didn’t stay, just bought something to go, coffees probably, talked for a minute and looked around, then left. I was busy and didn’t talk to them, but I think John saw me. I was a little nervous that he would come over, but he didn’t, so that was all right, and he hasn’t come in since, either. I did not like the idea of his taking over my Friday nights.”

  Beatrice took another thoughtful bite, then said suddenly in a muffled voice, “Texas!” Kate waited while she chewed and swallowed rapidly. “Pardon me. Texas, I’m sure, because of the star.”

  “Which star was that?”

  “The license plate. The Lone Star State. That is Texas, isn’t it? Or is it the yellow rose? No, I’m certain there was a star on it.”

  “The yellow—” Kate stopped, struck dumb, and slowly shook her head. The old bastard.

  “What is it, Katarina? You look amused.”

  “Something Erasmus said—or rather, something he told me.” He had told her by humming, over the breakfast table in Berkeley, a tune she had only half-recognized and ignored: “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

  So, both Erasmus and Beatrice agreed that the mysterious womanizing John had probably been from Texas, and according to Beatrice, as recently as the first week of November he had retained a (wealthy?) possibly Texan connection.

  “Did John smoke, do you know?”

  “He did not.”

  “Did he wear false teeth?”

  “My dear, I never looked in the man’s mouth. Although, come to think of it, he occasionally hissed his s’s, and once when he was eating a banana it sounded like strawberries, that click-crunch noise. Ask Salvatore,” she said dismissively, starting to close up her pen, preparatory to moving on.

  “Let me buy you a coffee,” Kate suggested. “Something to eat?”

  Beatrice stopped, suddenly wary, then resigned. “Very well, dear. Krish there knows what I’ll have.”

  Kate ordered herself yet another coffee, a decaffeinated cappuccino this time, and asked for whatever Beatrice liked, which turned out to be mulled apple cider with a toasted scone, a large dollop of cream cheese, and some plum jam. She arranged plates, cup, and cutlery onto the inadequate table, retaining her own cup for fear it would end up on her lap, and waited while Beatrice delicately cut her scone and scooped up cream cheese and jam in a practiced heap, then popped it into her mouth.

  “I need to ask you a few questions about Brother Erasmus, now that I’ve had the chance to meet him.” Kate’s attempt to make the meeting sound like a social occasion fell flat beneath Beatrice’s rather crumby words.

  “You arrested him last week, I heard, and then let him go.”

  “No. There was no arrest; he was not even detained,” she protested, stretching the truth slightly. “I gave him a ride back from Berkeley so we could take his statement, then we turned him loose. I admit it took us a while to get a statement, but that wasn’t exactly our fault, if you know what I mean,” she added pointedly. Beatrice got the point and laughed.

  “I can imagine.”

  “Does he talk like that to everyone? Using quotes and sayings for everything he says?”

  “Is that what he does? Good heavens. I knew he was using the Bible a great deal, but that would explain the sometimes…inappropriate things he says. Surely not everything he says comes from somewhere else?”

  “That’s what I was told.”

  “How extraordinary. How utterly sad.”

  “Why sad?”

  “What I was talking about, the power of names, of words. He must be very frightened of his own words if he never creates any. Terrified of his own thoughts, to push them aside for the thoughts of others.”

  Kate stared at Beatrice, who took a mournful bite of her scone. “You’re an amazing person,” she said without thinking.

  “Oh no, not really. I just keep my eyes open and think about things. One thin
g about being on the street, there’s lots of time for thinking.”

  “What are you doing here, anyway? I’m sorry if that’s rude, but most of the street people I see are pretty hopeless. You’re articulate, skilled—you could have a job.”

  “Oh indeed, I taught art history at UCLA,” she said, and seeing Kate’s astonishment, she added, “There’s really quite an interesting intellectual community among the street people here. I’ve met an astrophysicist, a couple of other university and college teachers, three computer programmers, and a handful of published poets. To say nothing of the young men, and a few women, who make a deliberate choice to remove themselves from the race of the middle-class rat and as a form of practical philosophy choose this admittedly extreme form of freedom. Wasn’t it Solzhenitsyn who said that a person is free only when there’s nothing more you can take away from him? Dreary man, but unfortunately often right.”

  “And you?”

  “Oh no, dear. You don’t want to hear about me, it’s not a very pretty story.” Her voice remained light, but her eyes began to shoot around the room, looking for an escape from this topic. Kate relented and gave her one.

  “Tell me about Erasmus, then. He won’t, or can’t, tell us anything except that he’s a fool.”

  “I told you all I know about him. He comes to us on Sunday morning and leaves us on Tuesday. While he is here, he tells us stories from the Bible, sings hymns, leads us in prayer. He listens; with all his being he listens, and does not judge. The disturbed are quieted; the drunks are calmed; the angry begin to see that there may be ways they can help themselves. He looks, and he sees; he listens, and he hears. This alone is an unusual experience for most homeless people: We are used to being either invisible or an annoyance. He brings dignity into the lives of those who have lost it. He is like…he is like a small fire that we warm our hands over. What else can I say?”

  “But you don’t have any idea who he is or where he came from?”

  “He came here in the summer. It would have been two summers ago, I suppose. How time does fly. He gives us Sunday and Monday; he gives the people at this place with the holy hill Wednesday and Thursday.”

  “And the other days?”

  “Travel, I suppose,” Beatrice said dismissively, but her eyes began to roam and her fingers gave a twitch on the knife.

  “Does it take two days to get back from Berkeley?” Kate asked mildly.

  “I was never much for distance walking myself.” Beatrice was retreating fast, but this time Kate would not let her go.

  “Where does Erasmus go on Saturdays?”

  “I have to get back to my drawing.”

  “Just tell me where he goes.”

  “The world is a big place.”

  “Where does he go?”

  “It has many needs,” Beatrice said wildly. “Even the world needs comfort.”

  “He is off comforting the world?”

  “They don’t deserve him. They don’t understand him. All they see is the surface, shallow, silly, violent—no, not that, I didn’t mean that!” she said quickly, looking frightened. “I meant crazy-looking, all they see is the act.”

  “Beatrice,” Kate said evenly, “I know Erasmus performs for the tourists at Fishermen’s Wharf. You haven’t told me anything I don’t know. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you, but I could see that you were trying to hide something about Erasmus and I wanted to know what it was.” Kate did not make it a habit to apologize to witnesses she’d been pressing, but this woman, strong to look at, struck her as being too fragile to leave in an upset condition. Besides, she wanted her friendly and helpful in the future. “Trust me. I won’t be misled by his act for the tourists. Okay? Good. There was just one other thing: Was there ever any direct animosity that you saw between Erasmus and John?”

  This last question blew Kate’s soothing words out of the water. Beatrice slapped the top down on her tin box, picked up box and pad, and rose to her feet.

  “Don’t I get my drawing?” Kate asked mildly. Beatrice tucked the box under her arm, flipped open the pad and tore off the page, and dropped it on the cluttered table. It was a caricature, a clever one, that emphasized the look of dry cynicism Kate sometimes felt looking out from her eye. She started to thank Beatrice, but the woman had already moved off to another table and was fumbling with unsteady hands at the clasp of her box. Kate put on her jacket, fished two five-dollar bills out of her purse to shove into the FOR THE ARTIST cup, and rolled the caricature gently into a tube.

  It was raining lightly when she stepped out onto the street, raining heavily when she got home, and for the first time in her life she lay awake and wondered where the homeless were resting their heads this night.

  Twelve

  The jester could be free when the knight was rigid.

  Saturday morning was clear and clean and cold, and Kate stood drinking her coffee in a patch of sunlight that poured through a high side window onto the living room floor, wearing her flannel robe, talking to Al Hawkin on the telephone, and speculating with one part of her mind on how Beatrice and Erasmus fared this day.

  “Fine. Good,” she was saying. “No, I don’t think there’s any need for you to cancel. I’m only going because I’m curious, after Beatrice’s reaction. He probably just talks dirty or something that embarrassed her; I don’t think she was actually trying to hide anything from me. Right. Fine, yes I have Jani’s number. I’ll call you if anything comes up; otherwise I’ll talk to you tonight. Have a good time, Al. Say hi to Jani and Jules for me. Bye.”

  She pushed the off button and dropped the handset into her pocket, then closed her eyes and absorbed the pleasure of the winter sunlight in the silent house. Saturday mornings, Jon and Lee went to a pottery class, where they produced lopsided bowls and strange shapes from the unconscious. Three whole hours with a house that held only her was a treat she looked forward to every week; illicit, never mentioned, and resented when her job or an illness—Lee’s, Jon’s, or the pottery teacher’s—took it from her. This morning she could have half of it before she went hunting Brother Erasmus in his Fishermen’s Wharf manifestation.

  Normally she kept this time for something unrelated to daily life: loud music, frozen waffles with maple syrup, a book in a two-hour bath. Not today, though. She pulled a pillow from the sofa and dropped it onto the patch of sunlight. A million dust motes flew up, and she settled herself with a fresh cup of coffee and the folders from Professor Whitlaw. Very soon this case would be pushed to a back burner, superseded by another, probably one considered more pressing than the odd death of a homeless man in a park. But Erasmus interested her—no, he bugged her. He was an unscratched itch, and she wanted him dealt with. So she read the impenetrable files for a second time, this time with a lined pad to write questions on, things she needed to know.

  Did Erasmus have the scar of a removed tattoo on his left cheekbone? Might John have had one?

  There must have been some organization behind the Fools movement. Where were the original Fools? Someone must have known Erasmus.

  Who was the David Sawyer whose notes were marked as a personal communication from 1983? A Fool?

  Kate wanted more details on the crimes committed by Fools, both misdemeanors and felonies, primarily the names of those arrested for attempted kidnapping (later dropped) and the murder of the bystander in Los Angeles.

  The sun had moved, and Kate scooted the pillow across the wooden floor so as to be fully in it again, then opened Professor Whitlaw’s folder, the one with the loose scraps and notes. She picked up one page at random, and read:

  It used to be thought that only through the prayers of aescetic monks did the world maintain itself against the forces of evil, that monks were on the front lines of the battle against evil. Now, we are willing to grant monastic orders their place, for those of excessive sensitivity as well as a place of retreat and spiritual renewal for normal people. However, when a monk comes out of his monastery, we are baffled, and when confronted with a Saint
Francis making mischief and behaving without a shred of decorum, we call him mad, not holy, and threaten him with iron bars and tranquillisers.

  Christianity is, by its core nature, more akin to folly than it is to the Pope’s massive corporation. The central dictate of Christian doctrine is humility, in imitation of Christ’s ultimate self-humbling. Christians are mocked, persecuted, small: The powerful so-called Christian empires are the real perversion of the Gospel, not the Holy Fool.

  One cannot be a Fool for Christ’s sake and be truly insane. Holy Foolishness is a cultivated state, a deliberate choice. However, the movement’s greatest strength, its simplicity, is also its greatest weakness, for it cannot protect itself against the mad or the vicious. The innocent Fool is as helpless as a child before the folly of wilful evil. Hence the absolute catastrophe of the Los Angeles shooting.

  The Fool is the mirror image of the shaman. The shaman’s mythic voyage takes him from insanity into control of the basic stuff of the universe; the Fool goes in the other direction, from normality into apparent lunacy, where he then lives, forever at the mercy of universal chaos. Both remain burdened by their identities: the shaman paying for his control by personal sacrifice, and the Fool being in the grip of what Saward calls “the rare and terrible charism of holy folly.”

  Kate came to the end of the file without feeling much further along in her understanding. She set the folders on the table by the door, ate a breakfast of pear and a toasted bagel, and went to dress for her encounter with tourism.

  Given a sunny Saturday, even in February there will be a decent crowd in the Fishermen’s Wharf area, meandering with children and cameras along the three-quarters of a mile between the glitzy Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square, that grandfather of all factory-into-shopping-mall conversions. Kate parked in the garage beneath the former chocolate factory and made her way to the street that fronted Aquatic Park, but there was no sign of a six-foot-two elderly bearded clown. She went up the stairs back into Ghirardelli Square proper and found a puppet show in progress, but no Erasmus.