Millroy the Magician by Paul Theroux
I shut the door. I could not stand hearing him tell lies. And who was we?
He mumbled all night in the dark cupboard on the shelf he called his bed, and he was gone in the morning.
That was my homecoming.
‘We’re working the phones,’ Shonelle said. ‘He hates that old telephone.’
‘Some dude’s been giving out Big Guy’s private number,’ T. Van said. ‘He’s getting nuisance traffic is what he calls it.’
‘They trying to sweat him real bad,’ Troy said.
‘Makes him get in his car and go rollin,’ Peaches said, meaning driving fast, listening to gospel tapes or any music.
Two nights after I arrived back at the diner from the Cape, Millroy woke up and spoke to me in the darkness, one of those sudden conversations – a voice without a face – that spooked me.
‘You heard me talking to you on TV?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I knew it,’ he said.
‘I was listening.’
‘I saw you. Sitting there with your face in front of the TV screen, and that doubtful Vera woman just behind you, warning you against me.’
So I had been right about his speaking directly to me, even when Vera was talking about mind control and Who are you talkun to?
‘Only two of you. I didn’t see your Dada.’
I began to cry, sniffling, and trying to swallow my sobs.
‘Never mind, muffin. You’re home.’
Pretty soon I was back at work – the Day One Diner had never been so busy – but Millroy seemed disconnected and often absent. And then, just when you had assumed he was in another city or at a taping of the program, he would show up – but more sudden and complete than ‘show up,’ he would burst whole out of the air. One moment empty space, the next moment Millroy – ‘tangibilized,’ he would have called it.
One day he tangibilized himself so fast in the kitchen he blocked my way and I almost tripped over him.
‘Where are you going, buddy?’
He looked pale and nervous, and there was pleading in his voice. He touched my shoulder lightly but even so I could feel the trembles in his fingers.
‘Just mopping,’ I said. ‘Getting some work done.’
Millroy always said hard work was a form of prayer, because it gave you an appetite for Day One food, and the eating experience centered you in reflection.
‘This place is getting gross.’
Which was unusual, too, its looking neglected. But Millroy only winced, he did not deny it. He looked panicky, as though he thought I was going to run away again on the bus. He opened his mouth, and it seemed as though he was going to apologize, but that was not the sound I heard.
A burst of shrill barking came out of his body, as though he was replying to me. The sound was in his pants pocket, an electronic beeper.
‘If anyone asks, I’m in Baltimore.’
He locked himself in his cubicle, and all afternoon I imagined that he had made himself small, about the size of an Ezekiel loaf, hiding on his shelf.
People said he was amazing and they believed he was rich. Even Vera regarded him as a celebrity and a powerful man. And here he was, interrupting my mopping, then getting nervous, and finally lying about going to Baltimore and scuttling into a hot little corner of the diner. No one, especially an eater, would have believed that. No one knew him but me.
Mopping the floor I thought about the way he had confronted me and said, Where are you going, buddy? He had seemed desperate. He had even touched me – just grazed my shoulder, but I felt it. What was the problem? He had money. He had power. Day One was a success. Millroy was famous all over America.
‘Yo. Rusty.’ It was T. Van.
He was helping me mop.
‘We sure are glad to see you, man.’
‘I am specially down to that,’ Troy said. ‘I am tripping out.’
I told them that I was happy to be back at the diner, and I meant it, because now I knew I had no other home.
‘We were getting real worried about the Big Guy,’ T. Van said.
Peaches heard us and came over. She said, ‘He just stands there being bald and watching us sometimes with his mouth open and I was thinking, “What’s he good for?” ’
‘You could show a movie on his big old head,’ Troy said, and went keck-keck-keck, and seemed surprised when I didn’t laugh with him.
T. Van made a rotation with his head that seemed to mean that he had something on his mind.
‘Tell Little Alex about the electric razor,’ Peaches said.
T. Van said, ‘This is straight up. I seen the Big Guy shaving the telephone, running his unit over it.’
‘He doesn’t believe you,’ Peaches said, meaning me.
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘He was pretending to be on an airplane. That razor was just background noise. I already figured it out.’
‘Yo. That makes a whole lot more sense,’ T. Van said. And he widened his eyes. ‘That is just so normal, to have his old Remington going upside his telephone.’
Then he turned his back and screeched, laughing hard, the same keck-keck-keck as Troy’s.
‘On an airaplane!’
‘But we real glad to have you back, Little Guy,’ Tomarra said. ‘This is like before.’
‘You mean it was different while I was away?’ Because I could not imagine the diner any other way.
‘It was madness,’ Tomarra said.
‘Funky?’ I asked. It was one of her own words.
‘No. It was a zoo.’
‘First he starts that beeper,’ Shonelle said. ‘There’s people after him, he says. I’m thinking, “Which people – are they, like, real?” ’
‘If he thinks so, that’s all that matters,’ I said.
‘But the thing is, who’s beeping him? We never figured that out.’
The way we were whispering now frightened me, because we had never tried to hide from Millroy before, and had always spoken up when we thought something was wrong. And anyway Millroy could hear the smallest whisper, so what was the point?
‘Then he starts locking himself in the office,’ Troy said. ‘And he only comes out to do the program, and that’s once a week.’
‘Didn’t he talk to you?’
‘All he ever did was go, “Anyone see Alex?” and when he came back, he’s, like, “Anyone call?” meaning you, guy.’
That night while we were whispering again among ourselves, Millroy went into the kitchen and with his back turned to us, he started slapping dough, crushing onions, parching lentils, pouring green broth, carving melons and making wheat-balls.
As it was evening in the diner, I thought this food was for tomorrow, but no.
‘In here, buddy,’ he said, opening the door to the back room.
He glanced up at T. Van and Peaches who were on their way back to the kitchen after serving customers. They stared at him with white eyes and smooth serious faces, compressing their lips, looking back at him like people looking at a stranger who might at any moment lose it.
Millroy shut the door on them and locked it with a snap like two teeth sinking into the door frame.
He said, ‘Millroy’s got something for you.’
The way he said it made me cover my face – I pretended that I needed to rub my eyes. But with my eyes shut I smelled bread and fish and figs and sweet melons. It was what I had missed, living with Vera in Dada’s trailer. It was the smell of home, of life and health.
And it was magical. I had not seen the food but I knew that he had prepared it himself and transported it from the kitchen to the back room by tangibilizing it. The table was set – one plate, with covered dishes and earthenware crocks, and a glass of grape wine.
‘Sit down, angel,’ he said, and when I hesitated, he said, ‘please.’
A kind of sorrow in his begging tone touched me and I obeyed.
‘Go on, eat,’ he said. ‘Please.’
That same almost cringing tone. I picked up the dusty floury bread loaf and broke it into three pieces the way he had taught us, and I venerated the food.
‘This is Day One, all this you have given us, the gift of life. Amen,’ I said.
‘The bread’s fresh-baked.’
I nibbled the crust.
Millroy said, ‘We’re opening diners in three more cities. I’ve got the leases. The program’s in about twenty more markets. There are repeats most nights. The simulcasts are really popular.’
But he looked furtive as he spoke.
‘You can do better than that, angel.’
‘I’m not very hungry.’
‘Who’s been feeding you?’ He sounded sad.
‘I’ve been feeding myself,’ I said. ‘And I had a whole bunch of figs a little while ago. And some wheat-balls.’
‘My wheat-balls?’
‘Troy’s,’ I said.
Millroy blinked, his mind was whirring, and he still seemed to be thinking about something else as he began to speak again.
‘We are making an unbelievable impact. We’ve had acceptance in the major markets. I get testimonials every day. “You made me strong.” “I am reborn.” “I am cured of bowel cancer.” Muffin, I’ve got doctors on my side. I’m thinking of starting an Executive Club – Day One Doctors.’
He went on talking, yet he still seemed uncertain.
‘Eat that,’ he said, holding out a finger of fruit.
‘I can’t.’
‘You have to.’ But his voice had grown fainter since he’d locked us in the room, and it was strange, his voice seeming to match the shadows, all this food, one plate, one glass, no windows, just the two of us.
Now I could hear him breathing hard and snorting down his nose hairs.
‘I’ll be sick if I do,’ I said.
‘Put it in your mouth.’
The melon finger dripped and gleamed as he held it against my lips and prodded them. The syrupy juice of it dribbled down Millroy’s fingers as he held it, but the fruit squashed like poor weak flesh as he tried to probe with it. I resisted, and then I tasted it, licked it a little. Tears came to my eyes. I began to choke.
‘No.’
He tried again, urging it against my mouth.
‘I’m not hungry,’ I said.
I was mumbling with my mouth shut, because I knew that if I opened it he’d stick it in and gag me.
The wordless noise that came out of his neck was a twisted sound, like a whimper. He just stood there, sorrowing, as he watched me, and he went on making sounds – they came out of his body. Did I know this man? Perhaps he was the other Millroy, that my Millroy had mentioned.
‘You didn’t tell me you were planning to leave,’ he said.
‘I didn’t plan it.’
‘But you left,’ he said. ‘It was all a surprise. I was in shock.’
He paused to let me say something, but I kept quiet.
‘There was a gaping hole where you had been. I missed you. The hole was within me. I wandered through space and time in America and found myself with strange food in my hands and had to put it down.’
Now I was staring at him.
‘You sound like yourself on a program,’ I said.
He ignored my remark. He said, ‘There were so many things I almost ate.’
What was that supposed to mean?
‘In many ways we have been triumphant. We’ve been written up in all the papers. I don’t mind the persecution. What messenger wasn’t mocked and vilified? Some days we do two or three hundred lunches at this location. But all the diners are flourishing.’
I knew this was probably true, yet he was doubtful and did not seem to believe it.
‘What was it like for you,’ he said, ‘as a runaway?’
As soon as he said this I felt myself about to cry, just like the other night. I tried to hold back, because sobbing is like vomiting.
‘Dada’s gone,’ I said.
Millroy sized me up with glassy eyes, as though if he blinked he could make me disappear.
‘My father.’ I swallowed and started again. ‘He died.’
‘It was written on his face. I could smell it in his trailer – his decaying lungs, his laboring heart. I didn’t want to tell you.’
He was looking at his hands as though reading fine print at a distance.
‘How did you feel when you found out?’
‘Bummed.’
‘“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” ’
‘I guess.’
Now the tears were rolling down my cheeks and I was trying to keep the sound of my sobbing inside my mouth.
‘I’m crying for you,’ I said, because grief was not a Day One feeling.
Millroy nodded, then picked up my spoon and used it like a dipper in the beans, scooping and stirring.
‘You need this bad,’ he said.
But I shut my mouth and turned my head and he poked my cheek with the wet spoon.
‘You know how bad you want it,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, half defying him for dead Dada’s sake.
‘Do it for me,’ he said. ‘Don’t refuse.’
‘I’ll throw up.’
He winced. His face went soft and sagged. He looked so weak. He put the spoon down.
When I saw his fingers release that spoon, I felt safe, I felt strong – not so strong that I could overpower him but as though I could protect him.
Millroy shook his head, and when he said, ‘It’s been terrible here,’ I knew he was only thinking of himself. But when he repeated, ‘It’s been terrible here,’ in that dry defeated voice, I felt sorry for him and tried not to think about Dada.
I knew he would wake me up that night, or the next, or soon. And so it happened, just that way, a day later.
‘They’re after Millroy, muffin.’
But he was not dreaming, he was thinking, he was wide awake.
‘Millroy’s getting threats. They want to destroy him.’
This thought made him feel important, and from the way he spoke I knew he was smiling that crooked Millroy-thinking-of-Millroy smile.
‘Why would anyone want to do that?’
Now his smile seemed almost audible, like the hum of something electric, an appliance, warming up.
‘It’s a strange story, because it’s also a success story.’
Believing it would cheer him up more, I said, ‘Hey, they know all about you in Mashpee and Marston’s Mills. And I saw your picture in the paper on the bus.’
Another kind of silence told me that he had become sad again.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I have enemies.’
‘Enemies can make you strong,’ I said. It was one of his own sayings.
‘If your soul is right.’
‘Just be cool.’
‘Millroy is much too big to hide. All these telephone calls.’
‘You were always good at vanishing.’
There was another silence, the darkness humming.
‘If I turned myself into milk, would you drink me?’ he said.
For a moment I froze. Then I said, ‘If you’re really worried I could work the phones again.’
‘The Liquor Commission? The tax office? Social Security? The Board of Health?’ His laughter sounded like sobs. ‘Someone’s paying them off, muffin. But they’re officials. I can’t ignore them. I’ve been making money. Millroy is a classic American success story.’
Even though we were separated by darkness I knew that his hands were on his face, pulling at his cheeks, snagging his mouth – another hab
‘They claimed my toilets weren’t up to code. That hurt the most. They cited my restrooms. I never imagined that anyone would cite my restrooms.’
‘What was wrong?’
‘The lettering on the sign Employees Are Required to Wash Their Hands was too small,’ he said. ‘A clear example of persecution. They blamed Millroy.’
He seemed so helpless and ignorant saying this, sorrowing for that man Millroy.
‘We had a disputed liquor violation. We carded a BU freshman and let him drink, but he had a fake ID. Who’s wrong? They blamed Millroy.’
There was a rumbling from Millroy’s cubicle, as though he had made up his mind and was settling in for the night. There was nothing I could do except wake up when he wanted me to, and listen to what he said.
‘The ultimate fame is being supermarket famous,’ he said. ‘Millroy is huge. He has visibility. You saw it yourself on the Cape – those newspapers, those magazines. They wanted to put Millroy on the label of fruit juice cartons. They wanted Millroy on a bread wrapper. The biggest weight-loss company in America wanted Millroy in their commercials.’
He drew a breath, and I could sense air in my cubicle moving towards his.
‘Millroy said no. Millroy is serving Day One food in six US cities, with three more facilities in development. Almost two hundred TV stations carry the program. The re-broadcasts give Day One time slots all around the clock, and we have simulcasts on almost a third of them. You do the arithmetic.’
Then he was asleep.
In the morning, in sunshine – which was always worse for its misleading warmth and its blinding light – he said again, ‘They’re after Millroy. They lie in wait. They talk behind his back. They pester the Sons and Daughters. Sometimes they scare me.’
I was glad he was saying this before the Sons and Daughters had arrived. It was after sunrise, but on these summer mornings it was light at five o’clock, and by that time Millroy was on his fourth baking sequence.
‘They’ll be pestering you, angel.’
‘I won’t let them.’
‘They don’t take no for an answer, and they’re not interested in eating. They are cynical and manipulative. They are trying to bring Millroy down.’