The Unspeakable Read Free Page B

movie on the television. They could stay as per Marbury’s rule for as long as necessary, a rule that quickly became the noose around his own neck. For families grew, demanding more beds, larger kitchens to feed them, more showers, more clothes, et cetera, until a small community began to crop up, hundreds, plus the attendant cooks, volunteers, and social workers. With more bodies came added costs, the constant need for funds, always more money. And Marbury found himself working around the clock until there were no more hours left.
    Nathan Stone, Marbury’s assistant at the shelter, a man with the stress of his job etched on his face, said that the persistent pressures of constantly battling for money, not to mention the flood of more people, was getting to his boss. Every cot, every pillow and blanket, every morsel of food had to be accounted for, fought for, a war unto itself. Marbury grew erratic. He could no longer sleep,and often Stone would see him walking through the empty kitchens at night, just looking around, like a general surveying the landscape before the big battle.
    But it was a losing battle. Increasingly, Marbury spent more and more time asking for money. He spoke with anyone who would listen. Wealthy individuals, corporations, fiefdoms if he could find any. The sound of him crunching numbers could be heard at all hours, creating the backbone of graphs and charts that he used to lure people in to the solvency, or perhaps the insolvency, of his vision. A vision that included more expansion. More bodies. Battered women. Runaway children. Hospice care. Home care. Day care.
    â€œWe were spread so thin,” Father Stone later confided in me, “that we could barely serve the folks we had already committed to. And Marbury still wanted more, always willing to load up his bag with more. Looking back, I wonder if he was really just trying to sink us.”
    When I relayed this quote that I had from Father Stone to Marbury, he took it in stride, as though he had heard it all before.
    Marbury said, “If anyone was trying to sink us, it was God. We just kept getting more. What could I do, turn these poor people away? I already walked away once.”
    I just shook my head. “You can’t blame yourself for someone dying in the streets, Marbury.”
    â€œI’m not. I’m talking about Pennsylvania.”
    What I myself have heard about the trip, beyond the fact that Marbury was discovered wandering on the side of a mountain road near Altoona, Pennsylvania, half naked, his voice lost, missing for an entire week, would be enough to fill the blank side of a match-book. I knew, or rather suspected, only the following:
    On Friday, November 30, 1990, Marbury confirms his travel plans with the Reverend José Manuel of Philadelphia, ostensibly to discuss ideas about resource sharing. But he never made it, andManuel, assuming that Marbury was necessarily delayed or even had canceled without notice, failed to report his absence to conference authorities for another three days. Add to that the missing travel time and Marbury was unaccounted for almost a week, the time in question.
    A few of these days I can vouch for myself. On Sunday, December 2, Marbury checks the weather and gases up his car at a local Fina, for which purchase I have a copy of the credit receipt. He drives 1-94 east through Wisconsin and Illinois, and I have another receipt from a Super 8 motel, right outside of Elkhart, Indiana, where he spends the night. Monday, December 3, after a breakfast of cereal, danish, and coffee, Marbury prepares for the long day’s journey across the rest of Indiana and Ohio, then into Pennsylvania. He is warned, at least according to a waitress that I interviewed by phone, who remembers Marbury because of his generous tip, of an impending storm, one centered around the Great Lakes, with all the moisture associated with these lake storms, and it was moving rapidly. But Marbury ignores this