The Bayside Apparitions

For more than five years now, two or three times a month, the Virgin Mary has been visiting Mrs. Veronica Lueken. That’s pretty good: I don’t even have friends who visit me that often. The Holy Mother has been booked in advance for feast day eves, 9 p.m. sharp to midnight. She appears, at treetop level, over 56th Avenue in Bayside, Queens, with Jesus, St. Michael, Bernadette, all the really big names. Mary and Jesus over Bayside: it makes you think. Everybody’s getting out of the inner city these days.

It’s Ascension eve and a lovely night. Dusk blue-blackens around Venus. Police sawhorses form a cattle pen around one mall in the middle of 56th Avenue. “Mall” seems rather euphemistic: this is a traffic island with high opinions of itself, maybe five trees and three forsythia bushes, the place where suburban poodles leave cryptic love notes to each other. About four hundred locals have gathered with their placards and their paramilitary walkie-talkies. “BAYSIDERS WORK 6 DAYS, ON THE 7th THERE IS LUEKEN.” “VERONICA USED TO HAVE HER VISIONS IN CREEDMORE INSANE asylum.” (Later the used to is x’ed out and should replaces it: are there libel laws that cover poster writing?)

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.

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For more than five years now, two or three times a month, the Virgin Mary has been visiting Mrs. Veronica Lueken. That’s pretty good: I don’t even have friends who visit me that often. The Holy Mother has been booked in advance for feast day eves, 9 p.m. sharp to midnight. She appears, at treetop level, over 56th Avenue in Bayside, Queens, with Jesus, St. Michael, Bernadette, all the really big names. Mary and Jesus over Bayside: it makes you think. Everybody’s getting out of the inner city these days.

It’s Ascension eve and a lovely night. Dusk blue-blackens around Venus. Police sawhorses form a cattle pen around one mall in the middle of 56th Avenue. “Mall” seems rather euphemistic: this is a traffic island with high opinions of itself, maybe five trees and three forsythia bushes, the place where suburban poodles leave cryptic love notes to each other. About four hundred locals have gathered with their placards and their paramilitary walkie-talkies. “BAYSIDERS WORK 6 DAYS, ON THE 7th THERE IS LUEKEN.” “VERONICA USED TO HAVE HER VISIONS IN CREEDMORE INSANE asylum.” (Later the used to is x’ed out and should replaces it: are there libel laws that cover poster writing?)

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.