Millroy the Magician by Paul Theroux
‘How am I supposed to do that?’
‘Aim at releasing two pounds of waste every morning,’ Millroy said.
He looked up and realized that the rest of us had overheard him: we were watching from the kitchen, from the diner, where we were baking, sweeping, washing windows, prepping the diner for the breakfast rush.
‘After that, you’re saved.’
28
‘Better see Rusty about that,’ Millroy had said to the Day One Sons and Daughters when they wanted to talk about moving into the trailer at Wompatuck. And I arranged it. I listened. I passed it on, and I felt useful. I was someone again.
‘Rusty will fill you in,’ he told customers when they asked for Day One information. By now we had pamphlets. Food for Thought. The Day One Program Fact Sheet. Millroy had not written them – he did not have the time to write, he said. They had been compiled by volunteers at the TV station. But Millroy talked about dictating a major book to me, called This Is My Body – about his life, and how he became a messenger.
Day One life these days was full of volunteers, many of whom were plain desperate pleading women with big agitated and misshapen bodies, who came to him and tried to introduce themselves. Millroy clutched his Day One apron and said, ‘Have you met Rusty?’ and they were flummoxed.
‘It’s some foofy designer, wants to give us new decor, for nothing,’ he said one day. And he dropped the phone. ‘Claims I changed his life.’
He began to hate answering the phone.
‘You get it, buddy.’
And later, on the days when men in suits showed up unannounced and said they wanted to talk about merchandising or franchises or endorsements – tee-shirts, jars of sauce, diners in other cities, Millroy’s face on food products (‘Look at Paul Newman’) – his answer was, ‘See Rusty –’
‘We need his participation in an infomercial,’ one man said to me.
Another said, ‘We want Doctor Millroy to consider an advertorial.’
Millroy did not say no. He said, ‘I hate those words.’
I had no special talent for dealing with these strangers, but Millroy refused to see them himself. So, after a while, doing it for him, I developed a knack for negotiation, the art and science, Millroy called it, of being stubborn and looking patient.
‘You’re learning,’ he said.
Was he making me do this on purpose?
‘And it’s easy to be stubborn if you’re not hungry,’ he said. ‘If you’re strong. If you’re regular.’
As a result of Better see Rusty I was more important than I wanted to be, and there were revelations. Everything that went on in the Day One Diner was revealed to me, even things that Millroy himself did not know, because many of the people I saw did not get nearer to Millroy’s office than table three. Most of these people he did not meet, never spoke to, never wanted to see – the tee-shirt people, the food-sellers, the media lawyers, the TV station executives, the syndicators, the agents. Creepers, he called them, fish without scales or fins, snakes, lizards, and either they chewed a cud and were not cloven-footed, or the other way round, and in any case prohibited. Keep them away, he said. They are unclean.
‘Tell them I can’t be bought,’ he said.
I told them but they did not believe me. Millroy said that was insulting, and they made him so angry he stayed in his office, refusing to come out.
‘This is not me at all,’ he protested. ‘I like people. Isn’t that the whole point of being a messenger?’
But he was afraid of what he might do if these people angered him more – possibly a re-run of Ed Veazie, whom he had flung bodily into Park Square, frightening the pigeons.
‘Yet some of these folks frankly worry me.’
That was like a prophecy, because the very next day the Reverend Baby Huber entered the diner looking fat in a tight green velvet tracksuit with two of his stewards – they still wore green gowns – and his son Todd, in a leather bomber jacket. I had not seen Todd since Buzzards Bay. He was fatter, with a short haircut that exposed pale folds on his fleshy scalp. He was a smaller version of his father, with his father’s huge head and short stubby arms and that same fat-person’s knee-knocking walk.
‘He has breasts,’ Millroy said to us in the kitchen as he watched Huber walking over to LaRayne. ‘His waist is around his armpits, his thighs chafe audibly as he walks, his bum won’t quit, and he thinks he’s saved?’
We were listening, Stacy, and the new Daughter Jaleen and the new Sons Tuppy and Troy, and me, peering over the kitchen counter into the diner.
‘Table for four,’ Huber was saying to LaRayne.
‘Got no snap in his muscles,’ Millroy said. ‘No tonus anywhere. And his colon’s putting out pouches.’
LaRayne welcomed the group and said it was open seating.
‘Better back her up, buddy,’ Millroy said to me, seeing Huber look around with a doubting face.
‘There’s your friend, Todd,’ Huber said, when I appeared.
Reverend Huber wore a gloating smile of indigestion as he approached me, and I knew he was trying to think of something sarcastic to say to me. As he came close his eyes hardened and went mean and lost their light.
‘I can never remember whether your name is Gary or Mary,’ he said.
‘It’s Alex,’ I said. Did he know something – that I was Jilly Farina from Marston’s Mills? ‘But you can call me Rusty.’
‘I was very pleased to see you and the others at our Prayer Fair at the Armory. But so sad when you did not come forward.’
‘We were cooking that night,’ I said.
Just behind him, Todd said, ‘I saw this guy on TV. I’m, like, hey. I goes, “It’s the bald guy from the Airstream – Alex’s dad.” ’
‘That sapsucker’s sure not his dad,’ Huber said, chuckling and still gloating, and flexing his chubby fingers.
His tight tracksuit clung to his odd-shaped body, giving him the look of a stuffed toy and making him seem fatter. His body was revealed in swags and bags and bulges of fat lumped all over him, swelling on his hips and clapped on his thighs, and even the back of his neck had a chunk of pork on it.
The assertiveness of fat, Millroy would have called it, using fat as armor and making a blunt statement with your body.
‘But where is he anyway?’ Huber said, after he sat down. The stewards plucked at their gowns and sat, too. Todd was still staring at me. ‘I remember when he ran that kids’ show in the morning – the big scandal. They told him to take a hike, because it was so gross. All that toilet talk.’
‘Gross, huh, like “wanna see the train crash”? Or like your big mashed potato factory?’
Wanna see the train crash? Todd had said to me at Pilgrim Pines, as he opened his mouth wide and showed me all his half-chewed hamburger. Look at my mashed potato factory was him pretending to wind a crank on his cheek as he squeezed a whole mouthful of mashed potatoes through his teeth onto his plate.
One of Huber’s stewards lit a cigarette, and almost at once another customer said, ‘Hey!’
‘I’m going to have to ask you not to smoke in here,’ LaRayne said, repeating the formula we had taught her. ‘Will you please put that out for me?’
The man stubbed it out in order to look defiant and tough.
Normally the diner was quiet, people talking softly, there was no music – and yet the mingled aromas (Millroy said) were like music in the air. Huber and his group seemed to bring commotion into the room. Although it was one of his rehearsal days, Millroy sensed this, and wanting to quiet the place he came over to the table and welcomed them.
‘We’re hungry from all our fasting and praying,’ Huber said. ‘Too bad you didn’t come forward and declare yourself for God.’
Millroy said, ‘One of the obvious benefits of being omniscient is that you don’t need people to inform you of anything.’
‘Didn’t I tell you he lacked hu
‘I was speaking of God,’ Millroy said, ‘or as I think of him, Good.’
‘How about some good food,’ Huber said impatiently, and he began selecting on his fingers. ‘I’ll have a large fries, a vanilla shake, and a cheeseburger, with a white coffee. Todd?’
Before Todd could answer, Millroy said, ‘You better see a menu,’ and he took them from LaRayne and handed them around.
‘Fart food,’ Huber said, punching the menu.
‘Day One food,’ Millroy said, smiling.
‘I want a burger. And a cup of coffee.’
‘We can’t help you there.’
‘Chicken sandwich,’ a steward said.
‘We don’t eat dead hens,’ Millroy said.
‘I smell meat,’ the man replied.
‘Lamb,’ Millroy said. ‘But I am waiting for guidance on it.’
‘Jesus ate meat,’ Huber said, looking mean. ‘“A certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him, and he went in and sat down to meat.” Luke, eleven.’
‘That’s a mistranslation,’ Millroy said. ‘Throughout the Book, “meat” is interchangeable with “food” or “dinner.” There is no evidence in the Book that Jesus ever ate flesh. Oh, sure, the Lord was Day One.’
‘I just want a snack,’ the other steward said. ‘A fishwich.’
‘We serve no such thing,’ Millroy said, his smile pasted flat on his face.
‘You got anything like a Slurpee?’ Todd asked.
‘Sorry.’
‘Ring Dings? YooHoos? Moon pies?’
Millroy said, ‘Perhaps you recognize some of the items on our menu. Jacob’s pottage. Daniel lentils. Ezekiel bread.’
‘It’s a mockery,’ Huber said.
‘Some people might think that using a prayer meeting as a way of taking people’s money is a mockery.’
‘Even the Catholic church in Boston has denounced you,’ Huber said. ‘The cardinal came out against you.’
‘High blood pressure,’ Millroy said. ‘The cardinal does not realize that eating right is a form of worship. So is exercise. So is being clean and healthful, and’ – he winked – ‘bowel transit-time.’
‘I remember you,’ Huber said.
Millroy went on smiling his flat smile.
‘I remember you from way back,’ Huber said. ‘See, I’ve still got the trailer park. You’ve had visitors – I’m not saying who, but they weren’t too happy. They didn’t know that you’d moved on. But I knew where you were hiding.’
‘A man who owns a successful restaurant and is on television once a week is not hiding, my friend,’ Millroy said, looking around.
That shut Huber up, which was odd, because Millroy was still uncertain, and when had he ever seemed awkward?
‘You wangled yourself a slot on TV,’ Huber said, ‘and you are perverting the word of God. You’re not making the devil mad!’
‘This food restored my powers and gave me life,’ Millroy said. ‘It might do the same for you.’
‘Just give us some burgers,’ Huber said. ‘What we asked for.’
‘You insist.’
Millroy’s eyes went black and his smile was ferocious. He reached to the counter and picked up a basket, which he held chest-high in both hands and whimpered over it for a moment. Then he spun it and, with a sob, removed a hamburger bun, and plucked off its top to show a bleeding piece of meat with sticky hair and broken teeth.
‘Road kill,’ Millroy said. ‘You asked for it!’
There was more in the basket – Millroy’s hand was large and alive with a knot of black snakes tangled in his fingers. He turned the snakes into knives and stabbed them into the table.
Huber stood up and held his buttocks in fear as Millroy produced first a weasel, then a piglet with a suffering face and mottled skin.
‘Swine-flesh,’ Millroy said, and opened his hand and showed Todd a quivering fistful of wet booger gobs. ‘Slurpee!’
The stewards had risen, gathering their gowns and sheltering Todd as they began to lead him away – he was hiccupping in terror.
Taking Huber by the ears, Millroy lifted the struggling man until he was level with his eyes, and then pulled a black dripping rat from his mouth, as Huber drooled.
‘Unclean,’ Millroy said, and released him.
We watched them all leave. They did not look back. There was a vibration of approval in the diner. But Millroy was exhausted. He went straight to bed and the program rehearsal was canceled. But we had all seen Millroy’s magic, and the new Sons and Daughters were so thrilled they hung around after work hoping that Millroy would wake up so that they could see him and talk to him.
He did not wake up, so they talked to me instead.
‘I goes, “He’s not going to pull out another one,” ’ Troy said.
‘And he’s, like, “Here’s another rat for you, dude,” ’ Shonelle said.
‘Big Guy is awesome. I’m, like, “Go for it,” ’ Berry said.
Daylon said, ‘What it is down to is, this man is so righteous he can diss them all.’
‘I was, like, so scared,’ LaRayne said, ‘and then I’m, “Check it out!” ’
‘He find a rat upside the guy’s fat head,’ Willie said, ‘I almost dropped a log.’
This went on for a while.
‘What he did then was nothing,’ I said at last. ‘I saw Millroy pull wicked big rats out of a guy’s ears, nose and mouth – all at once practically. His name was Floyd Fewox. It was a psychic duel. Guess who won?’
‘He is outstanding,’ Dedrick said. ‘He is special.’
Bervia said, ‘I was in shock.’
‘He is the Boss of Diss,’ Willie Webb said.
Millroy did not wake up until after dawn the following morning. He was very quiet. He stroked his mustache and ran his fingertips across his head – they were tapered fingers, useful for a hypnotist.
‘I was a little sketchy yesterday,’ he said.
There were other people – outsiders, non-eaters – who worried him and made him hide. They saw me instead. They wanted to reveal to Millroy schemes for making him famous, for making themselves rich, for turning Day One into a nationwide weight-loss operation. They were always in a hurry. Can we meet with your lawyer? But we had no lawyer. Can we meet your people? There was only me. They said, Who are you?
Jilly Farina from Marston’s Mills.
‘You can call me Rusty.’
They said, ‘We’d like an opportunity to make a presentation, Rusty,’ and explained what they had in mind – the weight-loss program, on the lines of Weight-Watchers or Optifast or Nutri-Systems, but with huge tax benefits.
Millroy said, ‘Tell them not to bother,’ and he hid.
‘We’d like to take the doctor out to lunch,’ one said.
‘That’s like offering to take Jesus to church,’ Millroy said, when I told him.
They wanted him to start a cooking school.
‘I can do these things myself.’
They wanted to do business. Were we registered as a charity? Did we realize that a church was a perfect tax shelter – look at Scientology. There were enormous financial incentives in the religious angle. Had we declared ourselves non-profit?
Millroy said, ‘I am an American. I pay my taxes.’
But before I left the room where he was hiding he raged again.
‘I am not selling anything – I am sharing this secret, which is not mine alone, but stated in the Book. It is not for sale – it belongs to everyone. Tell them I don’t want money.’
And when they asked Who is Millroy? I now knew enough to say, ‘He is a messenger, delivering his message to America.’
At times like this I realized why I liked him so much. He was generous, he was kind, he protected us, he was strong. And because he was a magician he could have anything he wanted, he could do anything he liked. I prete
A high-level management delegation came to the diner.
‘See Rusty.’
I met them at a corner table. ‘Pitching,’ they called it.
‘We want to market Millroy’s Day One to yuppies who are obsessed with the aging process.’
Millroy said to me, ‘Don’t these people realize that I am doing them a favor by ignoring them? They would be so sorry if I took them seriously and dealt with them accordingly. I could blind them, enslave them, render them harmless. I could take control of all their bodily functions and send them drooling and drizzling into next week.’
Some recent college graduates begged Millroy for jobs and said they would do anything to join the diner.
Millroy asked them: What is it about Day One that attracts you?
That Day One retards the aging process, they said.
So he sent them away, for having no spirit and no faith, and no amount of money could change Millroy’s thinking.
‘I have all the money I will ever need,’ he said. The diner was profitable, and recently – with broadcasts in other cities – he had made more. Surplus money was one of the reasons he had recruited more Sons and Daughters, and more people meant that he could expand – more cities, more syndication. He had to expand and reinvest. It was either that or deposit the money in the bank, and all banks in his eyes were sources of corruption.
‘Usurers. Loan sharks. Money-changers. Pharisees. I don’t need banks or financial institutions.’
His plan was to train enough Sons and Daughters to go into target cities where The Day One Program was broadcast, and they would staff Day One Diners. The new Sons and Daughters – LaRayne, Peaches, Bervia, Tuppy, Ike and the others – were perfect, Millroy said. School dropouts, runaways, throwaways, from unhappy families, and young – fifteen or sixteen, most of them (though they looked much older) and young enough to have most of the magic within them unspoiled.
They loved to sit and listen to Millroy tell them that they would live for two hundred years.