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Edward ors, on assig for Folks, set out to interview nine people who had been struck by lightning. "Nine?" he said to his editor, Penfield. "en," said Penfield, "doesnt matter, but it has to be more tha." "Why?" asked ors, and Penfield said that the layout was scheduled for five pages and they wa least two people who had been struck by lightning per page plus somebody pretty sensational for the opening page. "Slightly wonderful," said Penfield, "nice body, I dont have to tell you, somebody with a special face. Also, struck by lightning."ors advertised in the Village Voice for people who had been struck by lightning and would be willing to talk for publication about the experiend in no time at all was getting phone calls. A number of the callers, it appeared, had great-grandfathers randmothers who had also been struck by lightning, usually knocked from the fro of a buck-board on a try road in 1910. ors took down names and addresses and made appois for interviews, trying to dis from the voices if any of the women callers might be, in the magazierms, wonderful.
ors had been a reporter for ten years and a freelancer for five, with six years iween as a PR man for Topsy Oil in Midland-Odessa. As a reporter he had beeed, solid, underpaid, in love with his work, a specialist in business news, a scholar of the regulatencies and their eternal gavotte with the Seven Sisters, a man who knew what should be doh natural gas, with nuclear power, who knew blocks and monkey boards and Austin chalk, who kept his own personal hard hat ("Welltech") on top of a filing et in his office. When his wife pointed out, eventually, that he wasnt making enough money (absolutely true!) he had goh Topsy, whose PR chief had been dropping handkerchiefs in his viity for several years. Signing on with Topsy, he had tripled his salary, bought four moderately expensive suits, enjoyed (briefly) the esteem of his wife, and spent his time writiher incredibly dreary releases about corporate doings or speeches in praise of free enterprise for the panys C.E.O., E. H. ("Bug") Ludwig, a round, amiable, anding man of whom he was very fond. When ors wife left him for a racquetball pro attached to the Big Spring try Club he decided he could afford to be pain aed Topsy, renting a dismal rear apartment on Lafayette Street in New York and patg an iogether by writing for a wide variety of publications, classical record reviews fh Fidelity, Times Travel pieces ("Pals Fabulous Beaches"), exposes for Penthouse ("Ihe Trilateral ission"). To each assig he brought a good brain, a good eye, a tenacious thhness, gusto. He was forty-five, making a thin living, curious about people who had been struck by lightning.
The first maerviewed was a thirty-eight-year-old tile setter named Burch who had been struck by lightning in February 1978 and had immediately bee a Jehovahs Witness. "It was the best thing that ever happeo me," said Burch, "in a way." He was a calm, rather handsome man with pale blond hair cut short, military style, and aly spare (deep grays and browns) apartment in the West Twenties which looked, to ors, as if a decorator had been involved. "I was ing back from a job in New Rochelle," said Burch, "and I had a flat. It was clouding up pretty good and I wao get the tire ged before the rain started. I had the tire off and was just about to put the spare ohere was this just terrific crash and I was flat on my ba the middle of the road. Khe tire tool bout a hundred feet, I found it later in a field. Guy in a Vulled up right in front of me, jumped out and told me Id been struck. I couldnt hear what he was saying, I was deafened, but he made signs. Took me to a hospital and they checked me over, they were amazed -- no burns, nothing, just the deafness, which lasted about forty-eight hours. I figured I owed the Lord something, and I became a Witness. A me tell you my life sihat day has been --" He paused, searg for the right word. "Sereruly serene." Burch had had a great-grandfather who had also been struck by lightning, knocked from the fro of a buck-board on a try road in Pennsylvania in 1910, but no version had resulted in that case, as far as he knew. ors arrao have a Folks photographer shoot Bur the following Wednesday and, much impressed -- rarely had he entered serenity on this scale -- left the apartment with his pockets full of Witness literature.
ors alked to a woman named MacGregor who had been struck by lightning while sitting on a ben the Cold Spring, New York, railroad platform and had suffered third-degree burns on her arms and legs -- she had been wearing a rubberized raincoat which had, she felt, protected her somewhat, but maybe not, she couldnt be sure. Her experience, while lag a religious dimension per se, had made her think very hard about her life, she said, and there had been some important ges (Lightning ges things, ors wrote in his notebook). She had married the man she had been seeing for two years but had been slightly dubious about, and on the whole, this had been the right thing to do. She and Marty had a house in Garrison, New York, where Marty was in real estate, and shed quit her job with Estée Lauder because the ute, which shed been making since 1975, was just to. ade a date for the photographer. Mrs. MacGregor leasant and attractive (fawn-colored suit, black clocked stogs) but, ors thought, too old to start the layout with.
The day he got a call from someone who sounded young. Her name was Edwina Rawson, she said, and she had been struck by lightning on New Years Day 1980 while walking in th<bdo></bdo>e woods with her husband, Marty. (Two Martys in the same piece? thought ors, scowling.) Curiously enough, she said, her great-grandmother had also been struck by lightning, knocked from the fro of a buggy on a try road outside Iowa City in 1911. "But I dont want to be in the magazine," she said. "I mean, with all those rock stars and movie stars. Olivia on-John Im not. If you were writing a book or something --"
ors was fasated. He had never e across anyone who did not want to appear in Folks before. He was also slightly irritated. He had seen perfectly det colleagues turn amazingly ugly when refused a request for an interview. "Well," he said, "co9９ｌib.uld we at least talk? I promise I wont take up much of your time, and, you know, this is a pretty important experience, being struck by lightning -- not many people have had it. Also you might be ied in how the others felt. . ." "Okay," she said, "but off the record unless I decide otherwise." "Done," said ors. My God, she thinks shes the State Department.
Edwina was not only slightly wonderful but also mildly superb, worth a double-page spread in anybodys book, Vogue, Life, Elle, Ms., To; try, you . Oh Lord, thought ors, there are ways and ways to be struck by lightning. She was wearing jeans and a parka and she was beautifully, beautifully black -- a siderable plus, ors noted automatically, the magazine stiously tried to avoid lily-white stories. She was carrying a copy of Variety (not an actress, he thought, please not an actress) and was not an actress but doing a paper on Variety for a class in media studies at NYU. "God, I love Variety," she said. "The stately march of the grosses through the middle pages." ors decided that "Shall we get married?" was an inappropriate sed remark to make to one newly met, but it was a very tough decision.
They were in a bar called Bradleys on Uy Pla the Village, a bar ors sometimes used for interviews because of its warmth, geniality. Edwina was drinking a Becks and ors, struck by lightning, had a feeble paed around a vodka-tonic. Relax, he told himself, go slow, we have half the afternoon. There was a kid, she said, two-year-old boy, Martys, Marty had split for California and a job as a systems analyst with Warner unications, good riddao bad rubbish. ors had no idea what a systems analyst did: go with the flow? The trouble with Marty, she said, was that he was immature, a systems analyst, and white. She ceded that when the lightning hit he had given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, perhaps saved her life; he had taken a course in CPR at the New School, which was entirely sistent with his cautious, be-prepared, white-folks attitude toward life. She had nothing against white folks, Edwina said with a warm smile, or rabbits, as black folks sometimes termed them, but you had to admit that, qua folks, they sucked. Look at the Trilateral ission, she said, a perfect example. ors weighed in with some knowledgeable words about the issious from his Penthouse piece, managing to hold her ihrough a sed Becks.
"Did it ge your life, being struck?" asked ors. She frowned, sidered. "Yes and no," she said. "Got rid of Marty, that . Why I married him Ill never know. Why he married me Ill never know. A minute of bravery, o be repeated." ors saw that she was much aware of her owy, her hauteur about appearing in the magazine ropriate -- who ? People would dig slant wells for this woman, go out into a produg field with a tank tru the dead of night and take off two thousand gallons of somebody elses crude, write fanciful checks, establish Pyramid Clubs with tony marble-and-gold headquarters on Zurichs Bahnhofstrasse. What did he have to offer?
" you tell me a little bit more about how you felt when it actually hit you?" he asked, trying to keep his mind on business. "Yes," Edwina said. "We were taking a walk -- we were at his mothers pla ecticut, near Madison -- and Marty was talking about whether or not he should take a SmokeEnders course at the Y, he smoked Kents, miles and miles of Kents. I was saying, yes, yes, do it! and whammo! the lightning. When I came to, I felt like I was burning inside, inside my chest, draeen glasses of water, chug-a-lugged them, thought I was going to bust. Also, my eyebrows were gone. I looked at myself in the mirror and I had zip eyebrows. Looked really funny, maybe improved me.&quarding her closely ors saw that her eyebrows were in fact dark dramatic slashes of eyebrow pencil. "Ever been a model?" he asked, suddenly inspired. "Thats how I make it," Edwina said, "thats how I keep little Zachary in britches, look in the Sunday Times Magazine, I do Altmans, Macys, youll see me and three white chicks, usually, lingerie ads. . ."
The soul burns, ors thought, having been struck by lightning. Without musiietzsche said, the world would be a mistake. Do I have that right? ors, no musi (although a scholar of fiddle musi Pinchas Zuckerman to Eddie South, "dark angel of the violin," 1904-1962), agreed wholeheartedly. Lightning an attempt at musi the part of God? Does get your attention, ors thought, attempt wrong by definition because God is perfect by definition. . . Lightning at once a coup de théatre and career seling? ors wondered if he had a song to sing, ohat would signify to the burned beautiful creature before him.
"The armadillo is the only animal other than man known to tract leprosy," ors said. "The slow, friendly armadillo. I picture a leper armadillo, white as snow, with a little bell around its neck, making its draggy scamper across Texas from El Paso to Big Spring. My heart breaks."
Edeered into his chest where the cracked heart bumped around in its cage of bone. "Man, you are oimental taxpayer."
ors sighe waiter for more drinks. "It was about 1880 that the saintly armadillo crossed the Rio Grande aered Texas," he said, "seeking to carry its message to that great state. Its message was, squash me on yhways. Make my nine-banded shell into beautiful lacquered baskets for your patios, decks and mobile homes. Watch me hayfoot-strawfoot across your vast savannas enrig same with my best-quality excreta. In some parts of South America armadillos grow to almost five feet ih and are allowed to teach at the junior-college level. In Argentina --"
"Youre crazy, baby," Edwina said, patting him on the arm.
"Yes," ors said, "would you like to go to a movie?"
The movie was "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears," a nifty item. ors, Edwina inhabiting both the right a sides of his brai interviewed a man upple who had been struck by lightning in April 1970 and had in sequence joihe Ameriazi Party, specifically the Horst Wessel Post #66 in Newark, which had (ting Stupple) three members. t use him, thought ors, wasting time, heless faithfully inscribing in his notebook pages of viciousness having to do with the Protocols of Zion and the alleged geiferiority of blacks. Marvelous, dont these guys ever e up with anything new? ors remembered having heard the same routine, almost word for wordbbr>.9９lｉｂ.</abbr>, from an Assistant Grand Dragon of the Shreveport (La.) Klan, a man somewhat dumber than a bathtub, in 1957 at the Dew Drop Inn in Shreveport, where the ribs in red sauce were not bad. Stupple, who had put on a Nazi armband over his checked flannel shirt for the interview, which was ducted in a two-room apartment over a failing four-lane bowling alley in Newark, served ors Danish aquavit frozen into a block of ice with a very good Japanese beer, Kirin, as a chaser. "Wont you need a picture?" Stupple asked at length, and ors said, evasively, "Well, you know, lots of people have been struck by lightning. . ."
Telephoning Edwina from a phone booth outside the Port Authority Terminal, he learhat she was not available for dinner. "How do you feel?" he asked her, aware that the question was imprecise -- he really wao know whether having been struck by lightning was an ongoing state or, rather, a oime illumination -- and vexed by his inability to get a handle oory. "Tired," she said, "Zachs been yelling a lot, call me tomorrow, maybe we do something. . ."
Penfield, the Folks editor, had a call on ors service whe back to Lafayette Street. "Hows it ing?" Penfield asked. "I dont uand it yet," ors said, "how it works. It ges people." "Whats to uand?" said Penfield, "wham-bam-thank you maam, you got anybody I use for the opening? Weve got these terrific shots of individual bolts, I see a four-way bleed with the text reversed out of this saturated purple sky and this tiny but absolutely wonderful face looking up at the bolt -- " "Shes black," said ors, "yoing to have trouble with the purple, not enough trast." "So itll be subtle," said Penfield excitedly, "rid subtle. The bolt will give it enough snap. Itll be nice."
hought ors, what a word for being struck by lightning.
ors, trying to get at the core of the experience -- did being struck exalt or exacerbate pre-existing tendencies, states of mind, and what was the relevance of electro-shock therapy, if it was a therapy? -- talked to a Trappist monk who had been struck by lightning in 1975 while w in the fields at the orders Piffard, New York, abbey. Having been given permission by his superior to speak to ors, the small, bald monk ositively loquacious. He told ors that the one deprivation he had felt keenly, as a member of a monastic order, was the absence of rock music. "Why?" he asked rhetorically. "Im too old for this music, its for kids, I know it, you know it, makes no se all. But I love it, I simply love it. And after I was struck the unity bought me this Sony Walkman." Proudly he showed ors the small device with its delicate earphones. "A special dispensation. I guess they figured I was o-dead, therefore it was all right to bend the Rule a bit. I simply love it. Have you heard the Cars?" Standing in a beet field with the brown-habited monk ors felt the depth of the mans happiness and wondered if he himself ought to re-think his attitude toward Christianity. It would not be so bad to spend ones days pullis in the warm sun while listening to the Cars and theire to ones cell at night to read St. Augustine and catch up on Rod Stewart and the B-52s.
"The thing is," ors said to Edwina that night at dinner, "I dont uand precisely what effects the ge. Is it pure fright? Gratitude at having survived?" They were sitting in an Italiaaurant called Da Silvano on Sixth near Houstoing tortellini in a white sauce. Little Zachary, a good-looking two-year-old, sat in a high chair and accepted bits of cut-up pasta. Edwina had had a shoot that afternoon and was not in a good mood. "The same damn thing," she said, "me and three white chicks, youd think somebodyd turn it around just once." She needed a Vogue cover and a fragrance campaign, she said, and then she would be sitting pretty. She had been sidered for Hashish some time back but did and there was a question in her mind as to whether her agency (Jerry Francisco) had been solidly behind her. "e along," said Edwina, "I want to give you a back rub, you look a tiny bit peaked."
ors subsequently interviewed five more people who had been struck by lightning, unc some unusual cases, including a fellow dumb from birth who, upon being struck, began speaking quite admirable French; his great-grandfather, as it happened, had also been struck by lightning, blasted from t<bdo></bdo>he seat of a farm wagon in Brittany in 1909. In his piece ors described the experience as "ineffable," using a word he had loathed and despised his whole life long, spoke of lightning-as-grad went so far as to mention the dest of the Dove. Penfield, without a moments hesitation, cut the whole paragraph, saying (correctly) that the Folks reader didnt like "funny stuff and pointing out that the story was running long anyway because of the extra page given to Edening layout, in which she wore a Mary McFaddeed tube and looked, in Penfields phrase, approximately fantastic.
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