Roscoe

Roscoe Among the Saints

When Elisha stepped off the train and stood alone on the platform, Roscoe called to him through the train window. But Elisha only tapped his right foot as the train pulled away. Now Roscoe entered the barn where the Communion of Saints was sponsoring its perennial flea market. Crowds moved from stall to stall, buying St. Teresa’s eyelashes, chips off St. Peter’s shinbone, St. Sebastian’s arrowheads, and, new this year, the curly toenails of St. Anthony’s demon temptress. Roscoe asked to see Elisha.

“We have no one by that name,” the Registrar said.

“He got off the train here.”

“Has he performed any posthumous miracles?”

“He’s working on that.”

“Many are called, sir, but even the holiest of men rarely qualify, because of the severe demands of the moral law.”

“Elisha wasn’t up on the moral law. He wasn’t even a Catholic.”

“Ignorance of the moral law is no excuse.”

“No, but it’s a living.”

Roscoe wanted to tell this fellow that not morality but fraudulence is the necessary modality for human existence. Nothing is, or ever was, what it seems. Thou shalt not commit honesty. Elisha died a martyr to this creed.

“Those thoughts,” the Registrar said, “are unacceptable here.”

“I’m glad we agree on something,” Roscoe said.