Artie the Pearl and Priscilla Angel

Cars from outer space, Madonnas, and money

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

7/3/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Humor/artieII.htm

I traced a finger in the dust on my desk, writing my name, and tried to remember who my last client had been. I fancied I could hear the faint plops of mice, dropping from starvation in the walls of my office. I hate the off-season.

Still, summer was coming. I checked the calendar for the ninth time that day. Yes, summer was scheduled to begin on Wednesday this year, which meant we should see at least one nice weekend before winter closed back in. Summer meant tourists, dozens of them, and not just the kind that get lost in the storm, have a flat tire, and struggle up to the nearest inhabited structure seeking help. Those rarely live long enough to spend any money anyway.

I heard a tapping sound, and glared at the radiator. The landlord had promised to fix that.

Then I recalled that the heat had been turned off three months earlier. It was probably why all my office plants had died and why I was wearing a parka. The noise was coming from somewhere else. I glanced around.

The door. Someone was tapping on the outside of my door. I stopped to remember. That probably meant they wanted to come in and speak to me.

I picked up the baseball bat and tried to make it look like it was just a coincidence that I had it slung over my shoulder. I would never dream of hitting anyone with it, but bill collectors tend to be a bit more polite when they see that big old Louisville Slugger.

I opened the door.

Artie the Pearl blinked up at me.

"Hey, Artie." I hadn’t seen him for a few months. That usually meant he was either writing a book, or a guest of the county up in Yreka, or both. I’ve seen his work when he’s in the slammer for vagrancy. They let him use crayons, and it’s usually his best writing. Him, Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevski, I dunno.

"May I come in?"

"Huh? Oh, sure, sure!" I realized I was blocking the door and stepped back. Artie stepped through and sniffed the air.

"It’s a bit brisk in here. I like that." Opinions varied. Personally, I was getting tired of drilling holes in the ice in the toilet in order to use it.

"So how the hell are you, Artie?"

"I am..." he paused to consider his mental state, "living in harmony, and joy and unconditional forgiving love. I am free of grievance, and I am determined to be a lightworker."

"Good, good." I nodded sagely, although I’m damned if I know why. I always ask him the same question, he always considers, and then gives the same answer. Near as I can tell, it’s a fairly accurate summation of his general emotional state. It certainly explains his unfailing good mood. I know a lot of miserable fundies who could learn a thing or two from Artie.

"I have come to pay my bill."

That right there would cut the bill collection notices in half and maybe get the heat turned back on. Not that I really need it on these fine spring days when it gets up to 25 above. But I could stop having to go to the restaurant across the street and buy coffee so I could have an excuse to use their john when my biological needs involved sitting.

Artie reached into a pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. About an inch high, and, as usual, mint-condition, sequentially numbered two dollar bills, dated 1963. My bank is always unamused by this, and checks the bills carefully to make sure they aren’t counterfeit. To the pile he carefully added a Eisenhower dollar, two quarters, one dime, a nickel and three cents. I didn’t need to count the bills; the total would be exactly $323.68, which was exactly what he owed me.

I swept the cash into my main drawer and jotted a receipt for Artie. "So I take it you had good luck with that talking fish thing you had going?"

The thing is that Artie heard a story about a couple of fishcutters back east someplace who had a dead mackerel suddenly start yammering at them in Hebrew. I always thought of it as the Holy Mackerel Incident. It inspired Artie, who took up lugging a big old dead salmon around with him for a few weeks until the dead salmon did what dead salmon do, and decomposed. Having decided he had been tricked by a false piscine prophet, he set up a non-profit religious organization, "In Cod We Trust." He had me lay out the fundraising letters, which involved deistic affinity toward fish (backed by 43 carefully selected quotes from the bible) and a strange unrelated theory in which he stated that the Cromwells of 16^th century England were secretly Roman Catholics, carrying out the evil designs of extraterrestrial lizards who ran the Church. It had something to do with why Catholics weren’t allowed to eat fish on Fridays before Vatican II (he had his theories about THAT, too), but the details are hazy.

"I was blessed by the number of people who decided to live in unconditional forgiving love and accept the promise of Yeshua ben Josef that he made at the Sea of Galillee."

Translated: a few dotty old ladies sent in a few bucks, and he got fan mail from people who read Spectrum Magazine.

"Well, that’s good. So do you want me to work up another letter for you?"

"Yes, but I’m doing something different now."

"Oh?"

"I was advised by Saint Germain that the fish was a false prophet, one which used soothing and deceitful words to spread disinformation and disharmony."

I knew there was something fishy about that talking mackerel, but maintained a tactful silence.

"I returned much of the money that was sent in to me with an explanation that I had been deceived and had no wish to take their money under false premises." Artie sighed and looked regretful. "Unfortunately, nearly half the money came in the form of cash with no return address on the envelope." I reflected that if I was crazy enough to send money to support a talking fish that was preaching the gospel, I would hope I was crazy in a discreet kind of way; discreet enough to send my contribution anonymously. I wouldn’t want that sort of word getting out. I’ve seen my mailman stop in the street and stare at some of the mail I get now. "So I used the remainder – except for the money I owed you and five hundred dollars for rent – to buy myself a car."

I always found it vaguely alarming that Artie, who often received unexpected visitations from various deities, had a valid drivers’ license. On the other hand, they appeared to be considerate deities who never bothered Artie while he was handling heavy machinery or sitting on the pot.

"So you did pretty good, huh? How much did you end up with?"

Artie gave me a sharp glance. He always found my interest in money distasteful. I admit it: I’m a tacky person with poor spiritual skills. "I had about seventeen thousand dollars left over before I bought the car."

"Suh. Suh. Suh." My tongue kept trying to climb out through my teeth and hang straight down. You could buy one or more of our neighboring townships for seventeen grand.

"Do you want to see my car?"

"Huh? Sure!" We walked over to my window, and I used a flannel sleeve to wipe away some of the frost. I peered down. There was an almost new Saturn directly below. "A Saturn, eh? Not bad! Those are good cars."

"Which one’s the Saturn?"

"The white o...oh. Not the Saturn, then." There was a Bronco across the street. Those are pretty common up here, where driving often involves chains, winches, and hiking 5 miles for help. But I had trouble picturing the environmentally sensitive Artie in one of those gas-guzzlers. Still... "The red truck?"

"No. The one that looks like a space ship."

There was only one other car on the entire boulevard. I stared. "The, um, 1972 AMC Pacer?"

"Yeah! That’s what he called it! I prefer to think of it as the mother ship. Isn’t it truly a wondrous sight?"

I rubbed the glass again while thinking of an answer to that one. The car – which did look like a flying saucer – was a discouraged oxidized lime green, leprous with rust. It looked like there was cardboard over the rear window. It stood oddly, and I realized that the front passenger tire was one of those mini spare emergency jobs.

"The interior needs a bit of work, but isn’t it a beautiful car? Spirit was orchestrating!"

It looked to me like Spirit was off on a three day drunk when Artie bought this thing. It looked like it was designed solely for the purpose of putting carbon monoxide into the air.

"I’m planning to take it to Santa Barbara."

I wondered if Santa Barbara had a fancy cemetery for cars. It would be a Southern California sort of thing to have. I couldn’t imagine taking that car anywhere except to bury it. For that matter, I couldn’t imagine taking it anywhere.

I gave Artie a sideways glance. "Make sure you have a mechanic look at it before you leave. Seven hundred miles is a long way with a car that . . . ah, you’re not familiar with."

"I can’t afford a mechanic."

"Artie, didn’t you just tell me you had seventeen thousand dollars?"

"Well, yes. But you and my rent took nearly one thousand, and Priscilla Angel – that’s what I’ve named her – took the rest."

"You spent sixteen thousand dollars on that car?" I felt a sense of numbness growing between my ears that usually requires about six ounces of Johnny Walker straight to alleviate.

Artie must have divined something from the expression on my face, because he looked hurt and defensive. "They are very rare."

"With good reason. Artie, if you really want a car like that, I can find you one in better condition for about three hundred bucks!" I could, too. I knew a musician who moved to New Mexico and wisely left his Pacer in storage here. It was even the same sort-of-color. He would grovel at my feet if I took it off his hands for two hundred and fifty. Failing that, I could mention casually to Paulie Five Fingers that his cooking smelled like a 1972 Pacer and wait to see what turned up in my driveway the next day.

"Well, let me talk to the guy. I copied down his address and phone number wrong, though. I called yesterday to find out how the rear window rolled up, and the people there had never heard of him."

Oh, oh. "What’s his name?"

Artie consulted a scrap of paper. "Ruby. Ruby Begonia"

Somehow I doubted ‘Ruby’ was anywhere to be found. "Artie, I think you ought to hold off on going south until you’ve got things squared away with that car. Either get your money back, or take time to make sure it’s going to be roadworthy." With a slight sense of regret for Artie, I concluded that either possibility was right up there with the Washington Senators winning the world series.

"Let’s go down and take a closer look."

Artie’s mention that it needed interior work was on the mark. There was no ceiling liner. There was no dome light–the entire assembly was gone. The radio was gone. So was the carpeting. So were the seats. Someone had sawed off the bottom of an easy chair and stuck it in where the driver’s seat had been. I didn’t bother looking for seatbelts or a cigarette lighter.

I stepped around to the back of the car pushed the cardboard in. I could see where Artie would have problems figuring out how to roll up the window, even if there had been glass to roll up. Even the chrome lining was gone.

"Artie, this damn thing has been stripped. Does it even have an ENGINE?"

"I have to put my faith in Priscilla Angel. I’m sure she’ll look after me and guide me safely to my destination."

I shook my head. Artie had a kind of fools-drunks-and-Englishmen sort of luck, but this was pushing it. "Artie, don’t try driving this thing anywhere. It isn’t road worthy."

Artie gave me a sympathetic look. "I appreciate your concern, but I must be in Santa Barbara next week."

"What’s in Santa Barbara?" Besides million dollar homes and machines in the house to keep food cold, that is.

"The second annual Pleiadean Conference will be at Earl Warren Showgrounds."

Ah. Well, certainly can’t miss the second Pleiadean Conference, I thought. "Artie, that car doesn’t look roadworthy. Can’t you just have someone channel up to you from there or something?"

Artie gave me a condescending look. "It doesn’t work that way. You have to be receptive to..."

"Artie, do you have to be at this conference?"

"Yes."

Hell, he was probably the featured speaker. I pushed a hip against the rear corner – or where a corner would be on a square car, and watched thoughtfully as it rocked back and forth for a couple of minutes. "OK, why don’t you start it up?"

Artie obligingly sat in the easy chair, which promptly enveloped him. The car wasn’t the only thing with shot springs. Arnie weighs 90 pounds on days when gravity is particularly heavy.

He turned the key and the car moaned. I couldn’t blame it. After a few seconds of ever more discouraged moaning, the engine caught with a flatulent roar. A gust of blue smoke dashed from the tailpipe, which quickly settled down to a steady stream of black-and-brown effluvium. There are times when I resent that it’s twenty degrees and windy. This wasn’t one of them.

I listened to the engine whine and knock like a grounded adolescent for a minute, and signaled Artie to shut it down. That Pacer was about the deadest car I ever saw outside of a wrecking yard. How did it pass smog?

"Artie, this thing is smogged, right?"

"Not yet. Ruby told me a couple of places right here in town where I could have it done."

I guessed that Artie and Priscilla Angel were doomed to a short relationship. "Artie, you can’t try to take this thing to Santa Barbara. I don’t think you’ll make it to Dunsmuir." And it’s all downhill to Dunsmuir.

"But I’ve got to go."

"What is so all fired important about this conference?"

"I have a bona fide miracle to present to them."

I didn’t want to follow this conversation. But I had to. "A miracle."

Artie pulled his backpack around and rummaged in it. He held up what looked like a small tray. "Presenting . . . The Madonna!"

I took it from his trembling hands and regarded it. It was a plate with an image on it. Madonna, all right. No disputing that.

Not the Virgin Mary. The Material Girl. OUR Madonna, if you will. I moved it slightly, and discovered it was a hologram. Madonna’s clothing promptly vanished.

I turned it over. Made in Mexico. I doubted this was a licensed product of Material Girl, Incorporated. I flipped it back. Even for Artie, this seemed a particularly ersatz miracle. Something flickered, and I gently eased the tray back to that angle.

Madonna vanished, and was replaced by THE Madonna. Only instead of a cheap hologram, it was richly colored, looked a lot more three-dimensional than most, and was as sharp and clear as a new plasma screen TV. Her robe seemed to be rippling. I frowned, squinted. She was facing three quarters away. From her shoulder, a baby’s arm appeared, waved in a random baby motion, and she reached up and gently put the arm back. I nearly dropped the plate.

"How’d they do that?"

"It’s a miracle."

It’s damned good technology, I thought, but knew better than to argue the point. "Where’d you get this?"

"I found it in Priscilla Angel’s glove compartment."

I couldn’t think of a more unlikely place to find something like this. I studied the object closely. No factory label, and it was heavier than I would expect. The juxtaposition of the images; the materialistic, the tawdry, and the holy, had to be some sort of joke, but its point escaped me. I couldn’t imagine how such a device was made, nor could I imagine why it was made.

Well, it would definitely wow the woos, and I certainly wasn’t about to deny Artie his moment in the sun. If I found something like this, I would want to show it off to an appreciative crowd, too. Not that ego gratification was a big thing with Artie...

I blew out my breath. No way this heap was going to make it past Redding. But I could make it legal and somewhat safe for Artie to try. "When do you have to be in Santa Barbara?"

"The twenty sixth."

Two weeks. Good. I could jack a front seat out of my musician buddy’s car, and a rear window. Get the tires fixed, and make sure the lights and horn worked. That way, Artie wouldn’t get arrested when Priscilla Angel bit the big blown rod of death, and I could just come down, slip him money for a train ticket, and put him on the Amtrak. Hopefully by then, summer business would have made me flush for a while.

Simple stuff first. "Artie, get in and flip on the lights." He did, and I walked around front. To my surprise, both headlights worked. I pantomimed flipping the turn signal, and after a moment of looking confused, Artie complied. They worked. Wonder of wonders.

I walked around back, and noted the passenger light was out. So were the brake and turn signal on that side. I pulled my micro-screwdriver kit out of my pocket and twisted off the red plastic cowling, marveling that those were intact. I pulled out the bulbs and held them to the light. The filaments were intact, although of course, that didn’t necessarily mean they were any good. Swap ‘em out anyway is my rule. I started to work on the bracket assembly, and after a few moments, twisted it around and withdrew it. Ah. No wires attached to the bottom of the lamp assemble. That would be the problem. I reached in to see if the wires were still there, and was surprised to encounter cloth. I pulled my hand back and peered in. Burlap. Someone stashed something there.

"Artie, I just found something."

"What is it?"

"I don’t know. But I’m guessing drugs."

"In Priscilla Angel?" I guessed that some of "Priscilla’s" previous owners hadn’t had as tender and sublime a relationship with her as Artie did. Artie would never defile her in such a way.

"Well, if it’s drugs, it’s a matter for the police" I said, grunting. That bag was really jammed in there. I pulled harder, and felt it start to move. Pulling with one hand, I used the fingers of the other to lever portions of bag over the lip at the end of the cowling. It wasn’t jammed; it was HEAVY. Finally, I had about a foot of bag in my hand, and my fingers encountered hard objects in the bag. I continued massaging it up, and finally pulled it out. I dropped it to the ground and blew my cheeks out. Whatever it was weighed at least twenty pounds. Not much normally, but a lot when you are trying to wriggle it out of a cramped space the way I was.

I regarded the outline of the bag. I had stopped thinking about drugs, and was getting an excited suspicion.

"Artie, the guy who sold you this car stipulated ‘as is’, right?"

"How did you know that?"

"Lucky guess. But you know that this means that unless otherwise stipulated, when you bought this car, you bought everything that was IN the car, right?"

Artie looked distressed. "I don’t want any drugs."

I grinned. "This is a different type of drug, Artie. But this one’s legal." I took the bottom of the bag and pulled it up. A bunch of gold coins promptly scattered on the ground. I picked one up and looked at it. Double gold eagle, 1920. Looked brand new. I guessed it covered the cost of Priscilla Angel by itself. There was a fat roll among the coins. It read "$500" on its side.

"Artie, you’re rich."

Artie blinked at the coins. "Are you sure?"

"Let’s get these gathered up, counted, and you can stuff them in my safe for now. Put we’ll take this one..." I held up the 1920 coin, "...over to yon jewelers and see how much he’ll give you for it. I would guess you’ll have enough to fly to Santa Barbara and back and get a new car just from this one coin."

Artie looked impressed and pleased. "You know, Zepp, I don’t understand why people pay so much for bags of these coins. They seem pretty common."

"Huh?"

"Well, this is the third time I’ve found something like this."

"You’ve found bags of gold coins in beat up old cars before?"

"Well, no. I found one bag in the attic of my house when I bought it, and the other in a sofa I bought for $3 at a garage sale."

"You sure don’t act like you’ve got a ton of money."

"Oh, the money went to good causes."

I decided not to ask.

We got the last of the coins into the bag, and I handed it to Artie. He needed both hands to lift it.

"Want me to carry that up the stairs for you?"

"No, that’s ok. I’ll just lighten my load a bit." He set the bag down, reached in, and handed me five of the coins. "Get your heat turned back on."

I thought about refusing, and then realized that Artie could certainly afford it. "Thanks!" I stuffed the coins in my pocket. "So what are you going to do with your money?

Artie considered. "I found the Madonna in Priscilla Angel, and you found the mundane means by which I might spread the good word. I shall put the money into this new way of attaining enlightenment."

I blinked. "Um, how’s that, Artie?"

"Well, this car produced a bona fide miracle, and a way of spreading the word about the miracle.

"I think I’ll start a movement urging people to buy cars just like Priscilla Angel."