Butler Wren and the Sign From God
by Anthony Lukas
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Butler Wren looked up from his desk as a cigar walked in. His intercom buzzed and his receptionist Sandra Bowes’s voice said, “Arlo Roman is coming back to see you.”
“And I see him,” said Wren. “Hi, Arlo. Won’t you and your cigar have a seat?”
Arlo sat. He had stopped smoking cigars years ago when his doctor had told him to stop smoking cigars. Arlo had taken him literally and stopped smoking them. He chewed agitatedly the unlit cigar and said, “Butler you’ve got to stop them!”
“Stop whom from doing what?”
“Worshiping my wall.”
“Your what?”
“My wall.”
Butler leaned forward and studied the beefy, round-faced man who was a little younger than he.
“Arlo, we have known each other for a very long time. I need you to be coherent. From the beginning, please.”
“They’re trying to stop me from painting my place! Man’s got a right to paint his business.” A pause for vigorous cigar chewing. “Don’t you think so?”
“I do, and who is ‘they’?”
“Bunch of religious fruitcakes,” scoffed Arlo. He removed the cigar and took a breath. “I was goin’ to paint the outside wall, you know, the one that runs along the alley next to my restaurant, ’cause it hadn’t been done in I don’t know how long.”
“Sure.”
“So I hire this guy to sandblast it clean, and he does, and the next thing I know I start seeing flowers being left at the bottom of the wall.”
“Flowers?”
“Yeah, little bouquets and roses and I don’t know what. I think, ‘This is weird,’ you know? Then, one afternoon, I walk back there and here’s these three women kneeling and praying! So I ask ’em what the hell, but you know, real polite.”
“I’m sure.”
“Yeah. So one of them points at a place on the wall and says they see Jesus there. So I turn and look at the wall.”
“And?” said Wren.
“’And what?” said Arlo.
“Was He there?”
“Oh for creek’s sake! Of course there was nothing there! Anyway all of them are pointing and saying ‘Jesus and Mary,’ and I look and I still see nothing but a sandblasted wall. I turn back around and now there’s like six of ’em! I step back, I look at the wall and I still don’t see nothin’. I say, ‘Ladies, I’m sorry, but there is nothing there. I gotta get this wall painted.’
“Well, they start wailing and crossing themselves and I don’t know what. I think this is quickly getting outa hand. So I tell them to calm down and go and get the painter from where he is working, prepping part of the front. I bring him back and ask him if he sees anything. So he, Garibaldi is his name, takes his time looking from this side and that side and he says, ‘Huh.’ I say ‘Huh’ what?’” Then the moke says, ‘Oh yeah! Looks like that painting, you know, Madonna and Child.’ I coulda killed him!”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“Butler, be serious, I got a problem here!”
“Sorry, go on.”
Cigar back in mouth and furious chewing. “Every time I go back there, there are more piles of flowers, crucifixes and other stuff and people praying and chanting like they’re in church, for creek’s sake!”
“Apparently, they think they are.”
“I try to talk to them, but they’re sure they are seeing a vision and they start crying if I even mention the word ‘paint.’ Some of them are getting a little ugly about it, too, which is kinda weird given what they say they are seeing.”
“Religion can bring out the worst in people,” said Wren.
“I suppose. Anyway, a couple a days ago, there was this reporter, taking pictures and talking to people. If this hits the papers, I’m sunk! You gotta help me, get me an injunction or somethin’!”
Offhand, Wren couldn’t think what that “somethin’” could be. “Arlo, day after tomorrow I will be generally out in your neighborhood to see a client. When I’m done, I’ll come by and have a look.”
After Wren had escorted Arlo to Sandra’s reception desk, asked her to open a new case file for Arlo, patted him on the back with a “We’ll think of something,” Wren headed down the hallway to Crystal McMahon’s office, his talented and trusted paralegal.
Approaching her office, he heard her talking on her phone. “Okay, Mom.” Wren paused, recalling that Crystal’s father was apparently quite ill. He tarried in the hall until he heard her say, “Goodbye, see you tonight,” before he eased into her doorway.
Crystal looked up: “Hi, boss.”
Wren liked her saying “boss,” an old-fashioned term, and she usually said with a bit of flair. But now she said it in a rather tired voice.
“Can I help with anything?” asked Wren.
Crystal waved her hand. “Not unless you can cure old age.”
“Would I look like this if I could?” said Wren.
Crystal smiled and said, “Oh, you’re not that bad.”
“Ah... thanks?”
“So, what’s up?”
“After we meet with the Diegos, we’re going to drop by Arlo’s.” To her puzzled expression, “You’ve never been to Arlo’s Dog House? Well, you are in for a treat, in fact it will be my treat.”
“What’s going on there?”
“That, my dear Crystal, is exactly what we shall find out.”
* * *
The morning after the next, they left the venerable Flynn Building and descended nearby stairs into the light rail station beneath Market Street, the main street of the city. They waited just a bit then boarded a car headed up Market.
Wren looked at his reflection in the window and was not entirely displeased. Grey hair and a few wrinkles brought on by life and more than three decades in the practice of law. This as opposed to the blonde, blue-eyed Crystal sitting next to him and was his seat perhaps beginning to take a little too much of the whole seat? His wife Rose had made a few oblique comments about his becoming a little too well upholstered “back there.”
A couple of stations and a few minutes later, the car rose out of the subway and onto street level, leaving the city’s main street and heading out into one of its older neighborhoods. Wren gazed out the window at the passing Victorian houses and small businesses that lined the street, picking out a couple of restaurants that he knew; Mo’s Vegan Diner, Scanlon’s Irish Cafe and Ciernick’s Polish Pagoda: He thought not for the first time how glad he was to live in the city.
He glanced at Crystal and saw a worried frown. “You all right, Crystal?” he asked, already knowing the answer but being unable to think of anything other than that banal question. He just wasn’t good in these situations, never had been. Rose would know what to say, what words of encouragement or comfort to offer. But not me, thought Wren. Irony there for a person who makes his living talking.
He was saved when Crystal smiled and said, “Yeah, thanks. Did you say the Diegos are regular clients?”
“Well,” said Butler, “not regular really. I’ve done work for them before, setting up their business and a couple of simple collection cases.”
“What’s their business?”
“He’s a painting contractor.”
“Really. A little irony there,” said Crystal, “he paints buildings and his teenage son paints graffiti on buildings.”
Two ironies in as many minutes, thought Wren.
They rode through a couple of different neighborhoods, similar but distinct, and through a park before alighting at a stop.
* * *
A short walk later, they were sitting around the dining room table in the tidy Diego home. The sober Mister, the nervous Missus., young James, little sister Daisy and an elder aunt with whom Wren was growing increasingly impatient. Wren was explaining the nature of the coming juvenile court proceedings.
“He’s a good boy,” said Mrs. Diego. “Never any trouble, good grades at school.”
“You’ve seen test papers, graded reports, report cards?” asked Wren.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “and we go to the parent nights and talk to his teachers, so we know how he is doing.”
Wren nodded, impressed. The Diegos were clearly caring parents, very upset that their son had been arrested and must now appear in juvenile court. Not that it was all that serious a matter, as the meddling aunt kept repeating.
“Cops coming to the door as if he had robbed somebody,” she had scoffed. “It’s just graffiti, for heaven’s sake. No big deal,” the aunt said, not for the first time.
“No one is calling it the crime of the century, but we must prepare our case,” said Wren with much more patience than he was feeling. “Crystal has some permission forms for you to sign so that we can obtain copies of James’s school records to submit to the court. We want the judge to know what kind of young man James is.
“The juvenile probation officer will be preparing a report for the judge, which will include James’s information as well as a recommendation for disposition. We want to give him or her as as much favorable information as possible to ensure a good recommendation. James, do you have any schoolwork we might supply to the officer? Some essays you wrote, projects done, perhaps, to show your abilities?”
“Well, I don’t know. Probably.”
Mr. Diego got up and went to a desk in the front room, returning with a large file folder. “I’ve kept some of his stuff,” ignoring his son’s surprised look. Wren opened it and found schoolwork going all the way back to grammar school. Crayon pictures drawn with little kid messiness, old grammar school report cards, compositions, each getting more refined as the years went by.
“I can’t believe you kept all this,” said James.
His father just shrugged. Wren and Crystal sorted through the file and selected some things to take with them.
“Well,” said Wren after a time, “I’d like to see his masterpiece.”
They walked a few blocks to an alley and James stopped, hung his head a bit and pointed. On a lower corner of a wall and extending along the bottom of it was a splash of color. Wren had been expecting just the usual dimwitted scrawls and tags, but this was the beginnings of a scene of some kind. There were the beginnings of people and a background. A street?
“See,” said Aunt Annoyance, “it’s art.”
“The issue is not whether it is art, the issue is the canvas,” Wren said. “The wall and building belong to someone. They are not yours, James, to do with what you want. Capisce?”
James nodded.
“How do intend to make amends to the owner?”
“Dad took me over to meet him. He agreed to let us paint it over.”
“I have done a lot of work in the neighborhood, so Mr. Patel trusts us to do a good job,” said Mr. Diego.
Wren’s respect for him grew. “Very good, I will leave that to you gentlemen. Now, I wonder if I could ask you adults a favor. I would like young James here to show us a bit of the neighborhood. Could we borrow him for a while? Perhaps get a bite to eat and chat. Do you like hot dogs, James? Crystal has never been to Arlo’s.”
“I love Arlo’s!” said James.
“Well, there’s hope for you yet, young man.”
* * *
As they watched Mr. Diego and the meddlesome aunt leave, she talking and gesturing, Wren said, “You father loves you very much, kiddo.” Wren noticed Crystal’s face set when he mentioned “father.”
“That’s why he kept all that work of yours, you know,” Wren continued, “so he wouldn’t forget the things you’ve done as time passed and you grew up. He seems angry, but it’s really disappointment.
“A man like your father respects other people and what’s theirs. He would never harm someone else’s property, and it saddens him that his son doesn’t have that same respect.”
James’s eyes started to tear up as he listened.
A little guilt is a good thing, mused Wren, but then he noticed Crystal’s damp eyes.
“I wanted to talk to you of things outside your father’s earshot. I take it you were interrupted in your artistic endeavors here, but I can see a certain level of skill in what you did finish.” James looked a little proud and guilty at the same time. “But you don’t show that skill right out of the box, young fellow. How would you like to show us one of your other completed works?”
James looked a little surprised, guilty and down at the street all at the same time. “Uh...”
“Come on, James,” said Crystal. “We’re your lawyers. We need to know everything. Time to come clean, and for now it can remain between us.” She cast an inquiring look at Wren, who nodded. James wavered, and Crystal put her hand on his shoulder. “Show us some more of your work, please” He nodded, and Wren thanked the affect a pretty blonde, blue-eyed young lady could have on young men.
James led them not too far away to another alley, one much more cluttered than the first, to the back wall of what looked to be an empty warehouse, to a corner of a wall bursting with color. It was a street scene filled with people talking, shopping, dancing. “The street fair,” said James.
And then down other streets and alleys, to a boy riding on his bike painted on an old wood fence: “My friend Daniel.” To another wall tucked away at the end of blind alley and a women playing with a little girl: “My mom and Daisy.” To another wall of an old, empty garage and a man painting a scene on a canvas on an easel: “My dad.”
“Does your dad paint?”asked Crystal.
“I think he used to, but he says he’s too busy now.”
Wren stared at the wall for a while and then said, “Okay, James, thank you. Let’s go get something to eat.”
* * *
A fifteen-minute walk down into the old Mission district brought them to Arlo’s Dog House. Wren waved to Arlo through the front window, then he, James and Crystal walked around into the side alley. “Now let’s just see what all the fuss and muss is about,” said Wren.
A small crowd was gathered at a part of the wall down the alley, some kneeling others standing all their attention focused on Arlo’s wall. Wren and company approached them and then stood for a moment and looked at the wall, themselves.
“Uh-oh,” said Crystal.
As she often had, Crystal had summed the legal and practical quite succinctly. Wren gazed at the wall and could rather clearly see a kind of ghostly rendition of Giovanni Salvi’s Madonna with Child. They stood for a few minutes among the people praying at the wall, but then Arlo walked out his back door and said, “See, there’s nothing there.”
“Well...” said Wren.
“Oh no, not you, too!”
“Look, Old Dog, the shadows or whatever do look a lot like the Madonna and Child. See, the Jesus figure here, the Madonna there. Crystal?”
She nodded, and so did James.
“Well I don’ t care if it’s a picture of God himself, I want to paint my building! Oh, for heaven’s sake, get a life!” He snapped at the murmurs that that arose with the mention of the word ‘paint.’ “Butler, I’ll see you inside.” And he huffed off.
“These are things that are tricks of the mind, shadows or some such,” murmured Butler, moving this way and that. But the image remained ghostly clear from all directions. He stepped closer and examined the faint image more closely, and the murmur behind grew, the closer he got. He stepped back, and it subsided; closer, it rose. “For heaven”s sake,” he muttered and stepped up and ran his hand along the wall, ignoring the mutters. “Hmm.”
“It is truly the Lord’s work,” said a deep voice behind Wren.
Wren turned and saw a tall, thin, very well-dressed man standing behind him, nodding: “Yes, the Lord’s work,” the man repeated.
“You think so?”
“There can be no doubt. It is a reminder to this city of God’s glory and a sign to repent its sins.” A small group of people stood about the man like grapes on a stem. Some seemed mini-clones of him, while others stood out a bit more. One man was in full camo. They were all nodding in unison at his words.
“Really?”said Wren. “Any sin in particular?”
“Many in this city,” the man chuckled. “The drugs, the liberal lives, but certainly the gravest is the abomination of homosexuality. To God, such people are condemned sinners.”
“Then why did God make them that way?”
There was a rumble from the group, but the man laughed. “Scoff if you will, but there is no denying what is before your eyes.”
“No, indeed not,” said Wren eyeing the bejeweled gold crucifix on a gold chain hanging about the man’s neck between the lapels of a very expensive suit. “In any event, paint will soon render it all moot.”
“Perhaps,” smiled the man, “and perhaps not.” He returned his gaze to the wall.
Dunderhead, thought Wren, but he had a feeling of unease as he led his party to the front of and into Arlo’s. Wren chose stools at the counter.
Copyright © 2024 by Anthony Lukas
