Halvah or Daniel Beloved of God

Part Six

The Krishnas were sitting in a circle on the floor in preparation for their evening meal when Daniel arrived. Those assigned to serving carried bowls of rice and vegetables, placing them in the middle of the circle while others lit candles, or passed out paper plates.  The crowd wasn’t very large, just four or five families, a couple of novitiates, the elders, and a hippie or two who’d wandered in for the free meal.  They let Daniel pass in silence.  

The week before six o’clock had been twilight with orange haze hanging over the city and just a whiff of decay.  Now six o’clock was dark and funereal.   He could hear the girls singing as he climbed the stairs to Marcia’s.  They were off-key.  So off-key that Daniel began to dread having to sit and listen to them politely.  There were so many young people with guitars singing protest songs off-key, each believing they had talent or a gift.  Most ended up on the streets.  He had no idea what he was going to do or say. He thought of turning around and then a voice - God? - told him he must proceed and so he did.

Martin stood with his back to the poster of Che Guevara; the one alive and full of passion, the other dead.  Had he ever been alive, Daniel wondered.  With his dark hair and eyes, his thin, almost effete body he fooled most women but when contrasted with the poster of a dead revolutionary, the truth revealed itself. Che had lived with a passion that even death could not still while Martin's eyes reflected neither light nor warmth.

Like all good demons, he claimed a familiarity: 

“Daniel, old man. How splendid to see you.” 

He remembered the day Martin had insinuated himself into their lives in the coin-operated laundromat down the street. Doing laundry with Marcia had been a weekly ritual since they'd moved to the city, an excuse to keep in touch with each other, and that day was like all of the others - loading and unloading, folding and more folding as Marcia told story after story of families in crises, children abandoned, teens put in juvie.  Daniel put his head in the dryer to gather clothes for just a second and when he rose, the demon was already charming Marcia.  He could tell she all too quickly bought  his story - hook, line and sinker, as his father would say.  Martin claimed to have been an orphaned lad who’d had to scrape by all his life; who’d been in and out of jail, but only because the “coppers” had no pity on poor cockney lads. However his accent was more Henry Higgins than Alfred P. Doolittle.  By the end of his story, she'd invited him back to her place to share in the post-laundry tea ceremony which had become sacred to Daniel.  There he became even more suspicious. For one thing, Martin claimed to be a dockworker but his hands were those of a pampered courtesan. And so he pulled his childhood friend aside and shared his concerns. But would Marcia listen? No. You've been brainwashed by your mother, she claimed, brainwashed to see demons on every corner.   Brainwashed to believe the only road to salvation was through periodic trips to the hell that lie on earth and, if lacking a nearby hell on earth, inventing one. She ended with her favorite refrain:  Religion is the opiate of the people. So Daniel left frustrated and angry.  However the sickness of worry  soon overcame him and a few days later he found himself back at her door.  She was alone. Martin had gone, she said, and would never return. He asked why, how had the demon revealed himself, but she refused to elaborate.  It was one subject she would not discuss.

That had been at least a year ago.  And now Martin was back and Marcia was no where in sight. There were just the girls, strumming their guitars on the floor and Martin standing over them.

 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done,” Daniel began as he crossed the room and lay his contribution for dinner - a grocery bag containing bread, peanut butter, and some wine for him - on the counter. The girls stopped strumming their guitars  and looked up at him bewildered.  “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”