The Gods of Orillia
“I hate to interrupt your conversation but could you give me a hand for a moment?” Gabriel looked up from his telephone and saw the fluorescent green of Larry Hegelman’s teeth in the black light of the apartment.
“Sure, no problem Larry,” Gabriel said to his landlord. “Listen Purity I have to go. I’ll call you back. We have a lot of straightening out to do. One of us has got her story all wrong. When I call you back, I want to hear what you thought happened during our vacation.”
“Only after you tell me what you think happened,” Purity replied. “Good bye Gabriel. Do your penance!” She hung up the phone before Gabriel could say his farewell.
“Do my penance?” he mumbled to himself. Penance for what? He was miffed at that comment of hers that was so typically female. What penance did he have to do? He was the one who met the Lord and would be forever pure. It wasn’t her, but just like a woman she had turned everything around and made him feel like he had done something wrong. If she would have just accepted her appearance and gone to meet the Lord when they were supposed to then none of this would have happened. After all, it’s not like Jesus didn’t know what she looked like. He’s God, after all!
“Have a little rile with the old lady?” Larry asked as the two of them walked up the stairs to the main living quarters of the Hegelman household.
“Yeah, you know how it is,” Gabriel tried to make man talk.
The dog, Tabitha, growled at Gabriel as he stepped upon the main landing. The blue-eyed mongrel had a very docile disposition towards everybody except the basement tenant. She wanted to bury Gabriel like a bone in the backyard.
“Shut up Tabitha!” Larry said incidentally while hoofing the animal in the jaw and sending her whimpering to mother Hegelman.
“All I need you to do Gabriel is vacuum clean the dust as it falls from the saw. The stuff would get all over the place if you don’t nip it in the bud.” Larry handed his tenant the nuzzle of his shop vac.
“Yeah, no problem Larry,” Gabriel answered, taking the nuzzle and gandering at the huge canister at the other end. “It looks like a mechanical elephant!” he joked to Larry.
Not paying attention to the little attempt at humor, Larry began bandying about with all the levers and pulleys of his radial arm saw.
“I must thank you Larry for suggesting a vacation in God’s country.” Gabriel tried to start a conversation.
“I told you that there’s no place like it, didn’t I? The old lady like it too?” Larry had brought up a bundle of spindles from the floor and set them on the table saw.
“I thought she did,” Gabriel replied, watching Larry fiddle about. He started thinking about Jesus being a carpenter and he imagined the bliss someone would feel if they owned a piece of furniture made by Jesus Christ.
“You thought she did? Why? Is she saying something different now?” Larry was only making conversation. He wasn’t really listening because his mind was carefully tuned to all the minor details that needed to be done in order to craft the pieces of finished wood he needed.
“Well, she isn’t saying anything different about having a good time or whatever. I’m sure she would thank you herself if she were here. It’s just that her memory of the vacation seems to be completely different from mine. You see, God was home in his country and I got to meet him but what Purity is saying is that she met him and I didn’t and I know for a fact that I met him and she didn’t.”
“Okay, turn on the shop vac,” Larry said while he turned on the radial arm saw. Gabriel realized that Larry had not listened to a word he said.
He turned on the behemoth vacuum cleaner and started hosing the area while the sawdust was beginning to fall. There wasn’t very much sawdust and what he was doing felt like using a Zamboni to clean an ice-cube tray.
Larry turned off the saw and began farting around with his tape measure trying to nail down his spindle to the nearest nanometer. “You can shut off the shop vac Gabe,” he said.
Gabriel went to hit the switch but before he could reach it he had accidentally pointed the nozzle to his shirt. The power of the suction tore the nicely pressed garment right from his back and sucked it right into the vacuum cleaner.
Larry looked at him and started to laugh. “You lost your shirt Gabe and you didn’t even go to Vegas for your holidays!”
“No, I went to visit God for my vacation,” Gabriel answered. He tried to cover his nipples so that Larry would not see them. He hated being called Gabe. His name was Gabriel.
“You’re not a girl, Gabe, you can show those things!” Larry continued to smile.
Very tentatively did Gabriel move his hands from his chest. “That’s a powerful vacuum cleaner you have got there,” he said somewhat uncomfortably.
“Yeah if Jesus had one of these babies, he’s be able to suck all the souls to heaven!”
“Like I was saying, I met Jesus on my vacation and Purity didn’t. But she …”
“How is my little sweetheart?” Larry asked, obviously he wasn’t listening and had placed his attention back to his project.
“She’s good but I think there is something wrong with her. Her memory just doesn’t seem right. She …”
“Turn off the vac Gabe.” Larry once again turned on his saw and made the minutest shavings to his piece of wood. Most naked eyes would not be able to see the difference.
Gabriel stopped talking again. His landlord was a good guy but when it came right down to it Gabriel knew that Larry couldn’t care less about the problems of his fellow man.
“Okay, shut it off. At least you won’t have a shirt to lose this time, eh Gabe?” Larry laughed. The man liked to make you think that he was having a great time with you.
This time Gabriel made sure that the nozzle wasn’t pointing towards his chest and in doing so he inadvertently aimed it at where his underpants slightly protruded from the back of his trousers. The vacuum cleaner grabbed at the stretch of cloth with the same devilish eagerness of ten-year old boys pulling roonies on each other. Within a second his underwear was buried so deep in his crack that it felt like it pushed part of his intestine out into the open air.
When Larry noticed the predicament his helper was in he slapped his knee in laughter. “I thought a good, church-going boy like you would wear plain white underwear!” He reached over and shut the shop vac off.
Immediately the tension was released and the color came back in Gabriel’s face.
“Who would have imagined that you would have little hearts on your underwear! Maybe your holidays made a loverboy out of you after all!”
Gabriel’s face changed color again. He was so embarrassed that somebody saw his underwear.
“Listen Larry,” Gabriel said. “I have to get back on the phone with Purity. We have a lot we have to get settled. I’ll help you when I’m finished.”
The expression on Larry’s face was one that most humans reserve for the truly awful occasions in life like the death of a loved one and not one for trivial disappointments. But there was no doubt that Larry was experiencing the same depths of pain. If he didn’t get his way with others he became seriously hurt. He was counting on Gabriel’s help and now with its withdrawal, he was in the throes of extreme rejection and deep agony.
When Gabriel saw Larry in pain, his kind heart dictated that he had to overcome his own humility and lend that helping hand. “I guess I can put it off for a while. How much longer do you think it would be?”
Lightning couldn’t have changed Larry’s disposition faster. He once again donned his happy, boyish demeanor and told Gabriel that it shouldn’t take too long.
The truth was that it lasted another four hours – four long dreary hours for Gabriel. He had made many attempts to gain Larry’s ear about his woman problems but could never get past a few courteous comments from his landlord that told him that Larry wasn’t listening at all.
Finally, Larry was done. “Can I fix you some lunch?” he asked, his face and hands covered in sweat and sawdust. Gabriel had never truly mastered the shop vac and in reality had made more of a mess than there would have been had he done nothing at all. That didn’t matter to Larry. All that he needed was somebody to torture while he piddled around with his work.
“No thanks Larry. I’ve got to make that phone call,” Gabriel said, relieved that he could finally get away.
“Nonsense! You helped me this morning. It’s the least that I can do for you. I hope you like grilled cheese. It’s my specialty!” Larry said while putting away his errant tools. “What phone call do you have to make Gabe?”
Gabriel had only told Larry a dozen times about the phone call. Maybe this time he would listen! “To Purity,” he answered.
“How’s my little girl?” Larry said with enthusiasm as he walked towards the fridge and pulled out the margarine and a dozen slices of cheese. “Did she like her vacation?”
“I thought she did,” Gabriel said for the hundredth time. “But from talking to her this morning I’m beginning to wonder. What she remembers about it is entirely different from what I remember.”
“Men and women remember different things, Gabe,” Larry replied.
Gabriel was genuinely surprised. It seemed like Larry was really listening. “But we’re recalling the exact same incidents except her interpretation is completely at odds with what I remember. Like I told you, we met Jesus on our vacation. Or I mean, one of us did. She says that it was her while in fact I know that it was me who met the Lord.”
“Yeah?” Larry said. “I can eat grilled cheese every day.” He had finished buttering the bread and had accidentally smeared some margarine on the tip of his nose. He made no attempt to clean it off although he did wipe the eye gook from the corner of his lids and rubbed the bubbly phlegm build-up from the sides of his mouth. Not wanting to dirty a spatula, he flipped the grill cheese with his hands.
Gabriel watched all of this but it did not get his gall as much as Larry’s failure to listen again. What was the point in trying to talk to the man?
“Do you want a Pepsi? I think I have one can left. We can split it.” Larry dug into the fridge and pulled out the deeply cold pop. He cracked it open and took a big swig and then offered the can to Gabriel. “No point in getting any dishes dirty,” he said. Then he added, “Don’t worry. I don’t have AIDS or anything. I like to keep clean.” He rubbed his hands through his thinning hair pulling the oily strands overtop of his bald center. He ended up looking like Christopher Lloyd playing a mad scientist. “Of course, you know that I like to stay clean. You’ve seen me spiffed up for work. Your grilled chesses are ready, Gabe. Sit at the table and I’ll bring it to you. You can’t beat this at any restaurant, can you? Service with a smile to boot”
The sandwich was almost black and the corners were soggy with the melted margarine. It was the feeblest excuse for a grilled cheese sandwich that any man had ever laid eyes on. Yet even though the sandwich was in terrible shape and he had seen the disgustingly unsanitary method of its production, Gabriel ate it as fast as he could. The sooner he was done it the sooner he could get away from here.
Just when he was finishing Kathleen, Larry’s wife, stepped into the kitchen. The tiny woman with the squirrelly looks smiled at Gabriel and asked him how his vacation went.
“It was good,” Gabriel answered. Maybe she would listen to what he had to say. She wasn’t her husband after all. “I met Jesus and my life will never be the same. It’s the most awesome experience anybody could ever have!”
“That’s nice,” Kathleen replied. “Larry, are you going to varnish the cupboards this afternoon?”
Larry, smacking his lips with the remains of his sandwich, said, “I wasn’t planning to do that. I wanted to give them another sanding first. Which reminds me, Gabe, do you have any extra fine sandpaper in your apartment? All I need is a few inches to finish the corners of the cupboards?”
“Then will you varnish them?” Kathleen inquired.
“I’m not sure if I have any varnish, Kathy. Gabe, do you have a small tin of varnish? It doesn’t matter the color it is because all that I need it for is to dab the corners. It keeps them nice and sealed and prevents them from drying out and cracking.”
“I don’t think that you have a brush small enough to do that job, Larry,” Kathleen said as she started to tidy up the stove. The burner was still on and the bread crumbs and sawdust were beginning to produce a burning odor.
“Gabe might have one. Do you Gabe?”
“Well, I’m going to do some grocery shopping now,” Kathleen said as she put away the J-cloth.
“What are you picking up?” her husband asked.
“Just some milk, bread and cheese slices for supper.”
“I don’t like you driving out there by yourself for just a few things. Gabe, is it all right that we borrow some milk, bread and cheese? There’s no point for Kathy to go out if we got the stuff right here under the roof.”
“Well if I’m not going shopping I guess I’ll just read a magazine or something.” Kathleen stretched her arms.
“You’re going to read those same magazines again?” Larry cried. “You’ve read every article in them a dozen times or more. Gabe, do you have any magazines down there that Kathy could read?”
Fearful that he was going to be hit for another favor, Gabriel said, “I’ll go downstairs and see if I have those things for you.”
“Can you remember everything? Sandpaper, varnish, brush, milk, bread, cheese and magazines. Here, I’ll write it down for you.” Larry started to go through the drawers. “Better add writing paper to that list too Gabe.”
“I got it all in my head,” Gabriel answered. This was his perfect chance to go downstairs and make his phone call. He will have to remember to lend Larry all those things that he asked for. Larry had a perfect memory for what he needed in favors. That memory failed miraculously when it came time to pay them back.
As Gabriel disappeared down the stairwell, Kathleen commented to her husband, “I think there’s something troubling that boy.”
Larry had returned to his radial arm saw. “Ah, it’s nothing Kathy. I’ve seen it before. The Power Squadron has been screwing around with his head, that’s all.”
“Does the Power Squadron have the right to do that?” Kathleen asked with a small semblance of concern for her tenant. She was actually more concerned about the color of varnish Gabe was going to come back with.
“Damn right they do!” Larry said with pride. “After all, they are the gods of Orillia!”
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