Tears of the Virgin

Douglas Jamiel

Description

Wealthy Denver businessman and politician Ramon del Fuego has two obsessions: possessing the storied golden religious icon, the Madonna d'Oro, for himself, and becoming Denver's mayor. Though the statue's existence is in doubt, del Fuego hires Gulf War Veteran Paul Worthing to follow Karl Lieber, the one man, he is convinced, who knows where the Madonna d'Oro can be found. When del Fuego is led to what he discovers is instead a wooden copy, he is enraged. However, the faux Madonna appears to have its own "miraculous" powers, setting in motion a course of events that shines a light on the effect and persistence of religious myth in the modern world and its often-destructive consequences for politics and women's rights.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645367147
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tears of the Virgin
Douglas Jamiel
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-07-31
Tears of the Virgin About the Author Dedication Copyright Information Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31
About the Author
Author and musician Douglas Jamiel is an expat presently residing with his wife, Bonny, in Hauptstuhl, Germany. Douglas’s writing has appeared in numerous publications including Truthout.org, Colorado Labor Advocate, and the Denver Rocky Mountain News. Tears of the Virgin is Douglas’s first novel.
Dedication
To Bonny, my rock; and my sister, Madelaine,
who helped me.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Douglas Jamiel (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Jamiel, Douglas
Tears of the Virgin
ISBN 9781643781914 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643781921 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645367147 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control number: 2019907830
The main category of the book — Fiction / Historical
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28 th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
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Chapter 1

I
Seen through the whiskey, the barrel of the gun was contorted, bent up, and asymmetrical through the golden prism of the half-drunk bottle. Dormant and menacing, the revolver struck Marvin as just another element of the life he’d stitched together: a Picasso-like pastiche of twisted bodies that haunted him night after night. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long swig, revealing the clean black lines of the pistol in its stark reality. He wished these bodies he saw each night were Pablo’s harmless bodies instead, their eyes on the side of their heads, and their big, blob-like hands. But these bodies were real – or had been, at least – until he’d killed them. But the crumpled, lifeless figures that haunted him had been sanctified by a flag and a uniform. Marvin picked up the gun with his right hand and teased at the trigger. In his left, he held the phone.
“They found me, Paul. The bastards found me,” Marvin muttered, his words a little slurred.
“Who, Marv? Who found you?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone.
“Ratley! Friggin’ Ratley, that murderer!” He calmed down a little. “Don’t worry, Paul, I didn’t tell them where you live.”
“Just take it easy, Marv. Don’t do anything. I’m comin’ over,” pleaded the voice.
“Why, Paul. What difference?”
“’Cause I wanna talk. Let’s talk, Marv.”
“I’m done talkin’. And I’m sure not gonna do time while those bastards get off scott free.”
“You won’t, man, you won’t,” Paul urged. He thought for a moment. “Look, Marv. I’ll turn myself in too. We’ll fight it. You know, get a good lawyer and take the bastards on, eh? Hey, they’re the ones who gave the orders.”
Marv listened and even considered it for a moment. He watched as a small spider worked its way across the table in front of him, its spindly legs pulling it past the saltshaker, the glass of whiskey, and the three bullets lined up neatly in a row. He could have killed it easily enough, but he had no more stomach for killing – for God, country, or anything else. He opened the chamber and, cradling the phone against his shoulder, slid the bullets into the pistol.
“I’m not draggin’ you into this, Paul. This is my shit.”
“Okay, okay,” Paul conceded, trying to think of something else to say. “Hey, I know. We’ll pack it in and go somewhere. Jamaica, maybe. Yeah, how about Jamaica, Marv?”
“I don’t need a damned vacation, Paul. I need to stay in a job more than six months. I need a place I can come home to. I need to walk down the street and not wonder if someone’s following me. I need a night’s sleep without seeing those poor fuckers’ faces.”
Marvin closed the chamber, took off the gun safety, and carefully placed it in front of him. He surveyed the table for the little spider, but it had gone.
“I went into this little Mediterranean place today, Paul, for lunch.”
“Yeah. Was it good?”
“Sure. It was okay,” Marvin answered. “I grabbed a menu and I’m sittin’ there deciding what to get when I hear this voice over me with a thick Arabic accent saying, ‘May I help you, sir?’ I look up, and I swear to God it was him, Paul.”
“Who, Marvin? Who’s that?”
“The doctor. The Iraqi doctor. The guy at the hospital bus?” Marvin waited for a reply, but Paul said nothing. “I’m telling you, the hair, the eyes, the mustache – he could have been this guy’s twin. My hands started shaking. I guess my voice was too. I don’t know. Anyway, I ordered falafel or some shit like that, and I swear to God, Paul, I was back there in the desert. And there he was, on the ground handing me one of those worthless damned surrender leaflets we dropped from the planes. You remember?”
“Yeah, Marv. I do.”
“Anyway, the guy brings my food and I just stare at it. I can’t eat. He, of course, starts to wonder if there’s something wrong with the food. He asks me like three times and finally I get pissed and yell at him. You know, telling him to back off and shit like that.”
“What’d he do?”
“What could he do, Paul? He just stood there.”
“So what happened, Marv?”
“I started crying, sobbing like a fucking baby. So what does this guy do? He puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me it’s okay.”
Paul didn’t know what to say, so there was an awkward silence.
“He’s right, Marv. It is okay. Come on, man, we’ll take ’em on, buddy. Whadda ya say?”
“Naw. I’m done, Paul. I’m tired.”
“Marv… Marv. Talk to me, Marv.”
There was a long silence – about two minutes. Paul had heard the sound of guns many times. But the gunshot had an eerie sound through the phone, as though it came from some other world. Paul buried his eyes in his arms for a moment and allowed himself to weep. Then he called the police from a pay phone and wished he could see his friend Marvin one more time. But that was impossible since he couldn’t risk being captured himself.
Chapter 2
No, it wasn’t a mortar. It wasn’t an M-16. Paul was sure it wasn’t anything meant to kill. After all, no one screamed. No one shouted, “Man down!” It was a goddamned car backfiring, and he knew the difference. Yes, his body recoiled and his pulse raced, those muscle-memories still encoded after myriad firefights. But over the years, he’d learned to squelch those feelings, to herd them farther up into his brain where he could smother them in the cold grip of reason and circumspection. He’d never taken refuge in a bottle or a pill, and you’d never hear him blaming some imaginary protestors who spat on him: that was crap, too. Fact is: it was a needless war we lost. Period. But that war – ’Nam – and the ugly parade of broken souls and bodies it churned out was somehow more palatable than the turkey shoot he’d walked away from in the Gulf.
For most of his career in the military, Paul had been a good soldier, born too late for the two Good Wars. While he’d weathered the absence of some nobler conflagration with as much optimism as possible (Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf were, after all, jokes), civilian life seemed disappointing. He hoped the wave of prosperity ushered in with the new president from Hope Arkansas would somehow find its way to him. For too long he’d been a warrior in search of a war. And though he attacked each job with enthusiasm, he felt a quiver of self-contempt that he, a former soldier, had now been reduced to following a crippled old man through downtown Denver. He thought about Marv, but Marv was gone now. He couldn’t even go to his funeral. Paul had a job to do, and he couldn’t risk losing this one.
“What’s he doing now?” said the voice over Paul’s cell phone. “Where are you?”
Paul fought his way up the crowded mall like a trout swimming upstream, never losing sight of the old man.
“He’s turning onto Curtis.”
“Good,” the voice replied. “Maybe we’ll see what the old bastard’s up to. That statue is mine. He knows where it is, and I’m going to get it.”
Paul shook his head. Not only did he question the usefulness of the whole undertaking, but it bothered him that the old man reminded him of his father.
“I think we’re wasting our time. This guy’s missing a gear. He’s…”
“Look, do you want this job or not?” the voice interrupted. “If you like, you can go ask Uncle Sam for your old job back. Maybe some time in Leavenworth would suit you.”
Paul pulled the phone from his ear before he could say something he’d regret. He looked at it and scrunched his face into a contemptuous expression, imagining he was about to speak to the face belonging to the voice. He said nothing, however. The specter of unemployment tied his tongue. This was his fourth job in a year-and-a-half. Somehow, they always caught up with him. He slipped the rather heavy phone into his shirt pocket and quickened his pace, coming to within twenty feet or so of the old man who, with the aid of a wooden cane, supported a crippled left leg with remarkable agility. He – Karl