One lazy afternoon, while perusing an illuminating illuminated manuscript, Plucky's reverie is shattered by an earthquake. As he's hurrying towards an exit, he notices that a catacomb door has been jarred open. How the fates hinge on such little things as deciding to look through an open doorway. Laid out like anybody's mummy, and wrapped in the usual mummy swathes of cloth, is the body of a person around 5'4".
What compelled Plucky, and what inner sense told him who this was, only the cosmos can answer; but Plucky picked up body, knowing full well that he had the bones of Jesus Christ slung over his shoulder. Stopping to remove an unconscious nun's habit and cowl, which he proceeded to disguise his companion with, he raced from the scene yelling for help - to all the world looking like a distraught priest looking to bring succour to one of the sisters.
It was probably the confusion that allowed the fact that Plucky had the body flung over one shoulder escape notice, and let him run right by all the medical help streaming on to the scene. Only upon reaching his apartment and laying down his burden, did the full implications of what he had done sink in. Having no idea how long it would take them to discover who was missing from both the living and dead, he decided to move fast. A casket and a dead aunt got him a flight back to America and a trip to a roadside zoo.
So Jesus came to America for the first time, second if you believe the Mormons, in the cargo hold of an airplane. He crossed the country and eventually became the latest inhabitant of a hot dog stand and roadside zoo.
The unfortunate thing about having an attraction is that sometimes you attract the wrong sort of attention. It didn't take long for the powers that be to put two and two together, put out a missing person's report, which featured Plucky and his unspecified cargo and begin to descend on the diner. So Plucky, John Paul, and Mon Cul decided it was best to disappear with their guest. So they boarded a hot air balloon and quite literally vanished
Article comments
1 - Nik
I had been thinking about this book a lot myself with all the Da Vinci hoopla. Infinitely better take on a similar idea, isn't it?
2 - Che
I enjoyed the hell out of this book when I first read it. Maybe its time to dust it off for a re-read and give myself a break from all the da Vinci Crud.
3 - Scott Butki
This was my introduction to Robbins and I've liked
him ever since.
4 - Bruce Hoppe
I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who made this connection. Until I read this piece. Well done. As a 20 something in the 60's who was somewhat active (civil rights issues, singer/song writer)I grapple with the question inherent in Richard's closing remarks. Were those times really so innocent? Or were we really on to something that, at some level, we sensed we weren't quite ready for?
There are a couple of lines in my new novel up for review here(a shameless plug)that touch on this issue. The character reflects on the dismissal of the 60's as a mildly charming, if naive experiment and wonders, "A crafty ploy, playing this shell game with the past. It has always been the need of the timid to prove passion fatally flawed." Though who "the timid" are can lead to a whole other train of thought, (Not just Nixon's "silent majority." The good guys flinched too.I'm grappling with that one also.) there is a connection here in the character's comment.
And Richard's concluding point hits the nail on the head when he observes there was once a time when people passionately embraced change as an opportunity to grow--not something that preciptates a Prozac binge. And, for me, that's enough. No follow up dislaimers about naivete are required. Though, it certainly is aggravating that, given our collective prevailing pulses, it seems to be a prerequisite, lest we be dismissed as a candidate for May Day soapbox orations in Haymarket Square.