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Bullet Park

Cheever John (EN)

"I think I have two hundred upstairs," says Nail-les, "if that would help."

"Oh it would help."

In the dark bedroom Nellie asks who is downstairs. "It's Grace Harvey," Nailles says. "I'll tell you about it later." When he opens the wall safe and takes out the money she asks: "Is the swami finished? Are you paying him?"

"No," Nailles says. "I'll tell you about it later."

"Would you like me to write a receipt," Grace asks.

"No. Of course not."

"I've done the mutual fund for five years," she says, "but I never thought I'd be going from door to door collecting bail for Dads."

By now Tony's room smells strongly of sandal-wood. "Ever since my experience in the station," says the swami, "I have believed in prayer. As I am not a member of any organized religion you might well ask to whom it is that I pray and I would not be able to answer you. I believe in prayer as a force and not as a conversation with God and when my prayers are answered, as they sometimes are, I honestly do not know where to direct my expressions of gratitude. I have cured several cases of arthritis but my methods don't always work. I pray they will work for you.

Your mother has informed me that you were an athlete and played football. I would like you to think of me as a spiritual cheerleader. Cheers don't make touchdowns, do they, but they sometimes help. I have all kinds of cheers. I have love cheers and compassionate cheers and hopeful cheers and then I have the cheers of place. In the place cheers I just think of someplace where I would like to be and then I keep repeating to myself a description of the place. For instance, in a place cheer I'll say that I'm in a house by the sea. Then I pick the time of day and the weather I like. I'll say that I'm in a house by the sea at four in the afternoon and it's raining. Then I'll say that I'm sitting in a kind of chair, a ladderback chair, and I have a book in my lap. Then I'll say that I have a girl I love who has gone on an errand but who will return. I say this all over and over again. I say that I'm in a house by the sea at four in the afternoon and it's raining and I'm sitting in a ladderback chair with a book in my lap and I'm waiting for a girl I love who has gone on an errand but who will return. There are all kinds of place cheers. If you have a special city you like-I like Baltimore-then you pick the time of day and the weather and the circumstances and you repeat all of this. Now will you do what I say?"

"Yes," says Tony, "I'll do anything."

"I want you to repeat after me whatever I say."

"Sure," says Tony.

"I am in a house by the sea."

"It is four o'clock and raining."

"I am sitting in a ladderback chair with a book in my lap."

"I have a girl I love who has gone on an errand but who will return."

"I am sitting under an apple tree in clean clothes. I am content."

"That was very good," the swami says. "Now let's try the love cheer. Repeat Love a hundred times. You don't really have to count. Just say Love, Love, Love until you get tired of saying it. We'll do it together."

"Love, Love, Love, Love, Love…"

"That was fine," the swami says. "That was very good. I could tell that you meant it. Let's see if you can sit up."

"It's crazy," Tony says, "I know it's crazy but I do feel much better. I'd like to try another prayer."

When Nailles hears them chanting HOPE, HOPE, HOPE, he has another whiskey. Was he a voodoo priest? Would he put a spell over Tony? Since Nailles claimed not to believe in magic why should magic have the power to frighten him? Out of the window he can see his lawns in the starlight, HOPE, HOPE, HOPE, HOPE. Their voices sound like drums. His lawns and the incantations came from different kingdoms. Nothing made any sense.

"Now try and sit up," the swami tells Tony. "Sit up and see if you can put your feet on the floor?"

Tony stands. He has lost all weight and muscle. His ribcage shows. His buttocks are wasted and there are red sores on his back.

"Take a few steps," the swami says. "Not many. Just two or three."

Tony does. Then he begins to laugh. "Oh I feel like myself," he says. "I feel like myself again. I'm weak of course but I'm not sad any more. That terrible feeling has gone."

"Well why don't you put on some clothes and we'll go down and see your parents," the swami says.

Tony dresses and they go down together. "I'm all better, Daddy," Tony says. "I'm still weak but that terrible sadness has gone. I don't feel sad any more and the house doesn't seem to be made of cards. I feel as though I'd been dead and now I'm alive."

Nellie comes down the stairs in a wrapper and stands in the hall. She is crying.

"How can we thank you," Nailles asks. "Can we get you a drink?"

"Oh no thank you," says the swami in his thin singsong voice. "I have something within me that is much more stimulating than alcohol."

"You must let me pay you."

"Oh no thank you," the swami says. "You see whatever I have is a gift and I must give it away. You can however drive me home. It is sometimes most difficult to get a taxicab."

So that was it. Tony went back to school ten days later and everything was as wonderful as it had been, although Nailles, each Monday morning, continued to meet his pusher in the supermarket parking lot, the public toilet, the laundromat, and a variety of cemeteries.

PART 2

My first knowledge of Nailles (Hammer wrote) was in a dentist's anteroom in Ashburnham. There was a photograph and a brief article about his promotion to head of the Mouthwash Division at Saffron. The article mentioned his years in Rome and that he was a member of the Bullet Park Volunteer Fire Department and the Gorey Brook Country Club. I didn't know then and I don't know now why I singled him out for my attentions. There was the coincidence of our names and I liked his looks. It wasn't until some months later that I made my decision. I was sitting on a beach. I had been swimming and was reading a book.

I was alone and it was at a time when the regard for domesticity had gotten so intense that the natural condition of singleness had become a sore point of suspicion. One appeared on the beach perforce with one's wife, one's children, sometimes one's parents or a brace of house guests. One seldom saw a lonely man. It was a beautiful beach and I remember it clearly. We traditionally associate nakedness with judgments and eternity and so on those beaches where we are mostly naked the scene seems apocalyptic. Standing at the surf line we seem, quite i