Odd Hours

world.
    The given world dazzles with wonder, poetry, and purpose. The man-made world, on the other hand, is a perverse realm of ego and envy, where power-mad cynics make false idols of themselves and where the meek have no inheritance because they have gladly surrendered it to their idols in return not for lasting glory but for an occasional parade, not for bread but for the promise of bread.
    A species that can blind itself to truth, that can plunge so enthusiastically along roads that lead nowhere but to tragedy, is sometimes amusing in its recklessness, as amusing as the great movie comedians like Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and the many others who knew that a foot stuck in a bucket is funny, that a head stuck in a bucket is funnier, and that trying stubbornly to move a grand piano up a set of stairs obviously too steep and narrow to allow success is the hilarious distillation of the human experience.
    I laugh with humanity, not at it, because I am as big a fool as anyone, and bigger than most. I style myself as a paladin for both the living and for the lingering dead, but I have been stuck in more than my share of buckets.
    At that moment in the church with the dog, recalling the dead bodies in the bungalow bathroom, worrying about the meaning of the premonition of total destruction, I could not work up a smile.
    I might have fallen into depression; but experience had taught me that another foot-and-bucket moment would come along soon.
    When after a few minutes the dog continued panting, I told him to stay, and I went in search of water.
    A glance toward the back of the nave confirmed that no holy-water font stood at the entrance.
    Behind the altar hung a big abstract sculpture that might have been a winged spirit soaring, but only if you cocked your head to the left, squinted, and thought about Big Bird from Sesame Street .
    I opened the gate in the chancel railing and stepped into the sanctuary.
    To the right stood a plain marble baptismal font. It was dry.
    On reflection, I realized that appropriating ceremonial water for a thirsty dog might be disrespectful if not even sacrilegious.
    I moved deeper into the sanctuary, toward a door that I assumed opened into the sacristy, where the vestments were kept and where the minister prepared before a service. In St. Bartholomew’s Church in Pico Mundo, where Stormy Llewellyn’s uncle had been the priest, the sanctuary had included a small lavatory with a sink.
    When I opened the door, I surprised a fiftyish man who seemed to be ordering the contents of a closet. Chubby but not fat, well barbered but not in an affected way, possessed of quick reactions but not of good balance, he startled backward at the sight of me, stepped on his own foot, and fell on his rump.
    I apologized for frightening him, and he apologized for using foul language, but he must only have cursed me in his mind because he had said nothing in his startlement except ook .
    By the time I had helped him to his feet and he had twice nearly pulled me off mine, I explained that I was seeking water for my dog, and he identified himself as Reverend Charles Moran. His eyes were merry, and when he assured me that his fall had not been as terrible as Satan’s, I saw that he amused himself, and I liked him for that.
    From a mini-refrigerator, he withdrew a bottle of water and from the closet a shallow dish. Together we went to the golden retriever, where he lay obediently in front of the chancel railing.
    Reverend Moran did not suggest that I had been wrong to bring the dog into the church, but only asked his name. I didn’t know the name and didn’t want to explain how the retriever and I had come to be together, so I said his name was Raphael.
    For an instant, I did not understand why I had chosen Raphael instead of Fido. Later, I would realize what had inspired the name.
    When asked my name, I said it was Todd.
    This was not exactly a lie. My parents insisted that they meant to name me Todd but a mistake had been made on my birth certificate—which did not explain why they had called me Odd forever thereafter.
    Besides, when I say that my name is Odd, a series of tiresome misunderstandings and explanations ensues. After my adventures since late afternoon, I did not have the patience to thread the needle of my true name for the minister.
    We knelt by the dog as he drank, and Reverend Moran asked if I was new in town.
    I said that I had been there about a month, and he asked if I was looking for a