A Luminous-Numinous Life

By Judie Gerber

Evading the authorities and a mobster-showman, a dying town secretly rallies together to help a whale-human hybrid communicate a message to the world about personhood that will free their aquatic kin who have been wrongly imprisoned on land by humankind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Judie Gerber
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9780978788131

Book preview

Chapter One

A Luminous New Friend

Ahumid 1966 summer night on the Jersey Shore, the heavy air is full of mystery and promise, and an occasional tang of wayward sewage.

Closed for the evening, the hushed Fun-Fair Amusement Park sleeps. In pajamas and slippers, bright-eyed Rex Blade runs as fast as his four-year-old legs can go ahead of limping Grandpa, then past the glint of the vintage carousel to the workshop door’s warning sign : FUN FAIR STAFF ONLY. NO TRESPASSERS. The boy bounces giddily.

Despite his skull indented strangely on the left side and a misshapen ear, Grandpa’s smiling eyes light up his face with humble beauty and deep love. He unlocks the workshop door, opens it, then reaches in to switch on the light.

Rex races in front of Grandpa into the carousel animal workshop, a well-swept space filled with tools and lumber scraps. On the walls, work-aprons hang on pegs; drawings of full-size carousel animals in various poses; and a JERSEY SHORE 1966 calendar marked with red deadlines. Rex points down the long, wide corridor — divided into four distinct work stations — to the storage room door at the far end. Is that where the magic is? he asks.

Yes, Grandpa grins. She’s at the very end in the storage room.

His enchanted gaze forward, Rex clasps Grandpa’s hand and they amble together to the carving station section full of work benches, assorted carving tools and saws, and blocks of basswood stacked against the wall. Unfinished heads and body pieces of not only horses, but a menagerie of animals, are arranged on one side, while the semi-finished creatures are on the other.

Grandpa and Rex pass on through to the gluing station section where Rex hurries them past the creepy glued silhouettes of elephant, gorilla, and wolf heads in clamps on racks.

Next is the painting station. Sand-papered animals and others coated in white paint stand eighteen inches above the floor, each on a solid post with a short pole inserted into their belly hole. Surveying a regal camel awaiting the completion of its true-to-life body coloring, Rex’s foot is just about to step into a small paint puddle, but Grandpa lifts the boy to the other side of it and sets him down in the last section — the finished carousel animal room.

Rex scampers to greet all the extraordinary carousel animal masterpieces lined up in varnished rows. He whispers in the tiger’s ear, strokes the llama’s cheeks, pats all the rabbits’ foreheads, and tickles the fat tomcat’s belly.

Ready to meet her, Rex? Grandpa inquires.

Rex nods eagerly.

Grandpa pushes open the storage room door, exposing the darkness beyond, but there’s a dim luminescence to one side. He turns to Rex and winks. I’ll let you name her.

Rex clings to Grandpa’s pant-leg as they step into the large, shadowy storage room. He inhales sharply at the sight of the magnificent, three-hundred-pound beluga whale carousel animal suspended in mid-air so that she looks exactly like a real whale swimming in the depths of the sea. Her robust, glowing, white globular head seems to smile contentedly atop her tapered, seven-foot-long body. A lovely seaweed garland entwining shells, colorful sea-glass, and starfish is draped loosely around her neck and trails along her side.

I told you she was luminous, Grandpa remarks.

Luminous-Numinous, Rex babbles.

Grinning, Grandpa nods in approval. That’s a great name for her, he chuckles.

Rex waves to the beluga. Hi, Luminous-Numinous. I’m Rex. Letting go of Grandpa’s trousers, the boy cautiously approaches the stunning animal. He admires her short beak and melon, and gently touches her pectoral flippers and tail flukes. The dorsal ridge along her mid-spine is notched to form a seat.

I used the last of the expensive glass eyes from Europe so they’d have that authentic expression, Grandpa comments.

Rex peers up at the beluga’s disturbing human-like eyes. I love you, Numin.

Grandpa lifts Rex onto the whale’s back and stands close so the boy doesn’t fall off. You two have the same birthday, he states.

You began her when I was born, Rex submits.

Grandpa’s eyes glisten with pride. You re-ignited my dream to make the largest carousel of sea creatures in the world. Long before you were born, your Grandma wanted me to do it for her and your dad. Now I’m doing it for all of you.

I’ll help, Rex offers, studying the sea-glass in the beluga’s seaweed garland.

It’ll be magic, Grandpa promises. As soon as the ride starts up, the rider will feel the freedom and weightlessness of life in the sea, even though they’re only just riding in circles. He smiles mischievously. Then just when the rider thinks the ride is winding down and the fun is dissipating, they are awed to discover that the deepest wish in their heart has come true. Grandpa holds out his arms to Rex and hoists the boy down.

Sorry I’m late, a man’s gruff voice grumbles as the ceiling light flickers on to reveal drunken, twenty-six-year-old Scotty Blade with a beer in hand. He unsteadily toasts them.

Fully illuminated, the marvelous beluga is clearly the masterwork of a great carver. Grandpa and Rex stand protectively in front of her.

Here’s the thing I got to say about dreams and magic, Pops — reality, Scotty drawls. Because my son, you see, is going to go to college and be anything but an amusement park owner or carousel doctor because you can’t make a living at it anymore, especially since the new park downtown is taking away all of our business. Isn’t that right, Rexie?

Holding his breath, Rex watches the men nervously.

But a carousel is living art, Grandpa retorts defensively. There’s carving, painting, music, motion, lights, and each ride is its own show—

Maybe if you put a pinch of your magic fairy dust in my beer, Pops, I’ll understand you better, Scotty scoffs.

"Adults tend to forget about magic and its power, which is unfortunate, because that’s when people need it most,’ Grandpa comments.

Is it magic that pays the bills every month? Scotty rails. Is it magic when your wife still can’t cook a decent meal after four years of marriage? Is it magic when your mother dies before you even meet her?

Please stop this now, Grandpa utters.

Scotty chugs his beer with his narrowed eyes on Grandpa. I’m just saying that building and maintaining the largest carousel in the world is an expensive proposition and I don’t want you filling my kid’s head with this airy-fairy, impractical bullshit—

Scotty! Enough! Grandpa commands.

Scotty belches, then sees that his beer is empty. He sighs and sniffles with great exaggeration. Why does it always stink so freakin’ bad in here? he gripes, looking to Rex with a drunken smile, shrugs, and leaves.

Grandpa hangs his head in an it-never-gets-easier kind of way.

Rex hugs the trembling old man. I’m glad you’re not like him, Grandpa, the boy confides.

I’m glad you’re not like him either, Grandpa affirms.

It doesn’t stink in here, Rex disputes.

Your father never liked the smell of grease and integrity.

He just wishes he’d had a mother, Rex relates.

I’m always grieving what was lost too, but I hold it inside better than your father.

Rex turns to the beluga and hugs her fin. You’ll have a wonderful home with us, Lum-Num. I promise you.

The beluga carousel animal’s eyes shine like she may actually be alive inside that wood.

FIFTY-SIX YEARS LATER in 2022, living across the country on the opposite coast in Utterance, California, scruffy Rex is lean and fit with long hair. He walks through the abandoned Miracle Lake Amusement Park on a well-worn path around the toppled roller coaster and Ferris wheel; other derelict rides overgrown with trees and weeds; decayed ticket booths; rusted fences;  and buckled pavement, to a ruined barn-like building.

Rex makes his way through the skeletal remains of the old building to the scorched Fun-Fair carousel from the Jersey Shore. All the animals are charred beyond recognition — except one. Rex goes over to the far side of the machine and stands before the burnt remains of the beluga carousel animal.

Poor Luminous-Numinous has lost all of her paint, but her eyes and a single piece of sea-glass in her garland still remain, and she is still beautiful and majestic in her own scorched way.

How ya doin’, Numin? Rex smiles as he sits down in the nearby lawn chair and pulls a can of beer from his pocket. He raises it in a toast to the beluga, then takes a long sip.

Chapter Two

A Truth-Twisting Raven

Enclosed on three sides by steep mountain walls, Utterance Valley contains the neglected amusement park and an odd town which both flank the dried-up circular lakebed of once-famous Miracle Lake, now reduced to a heart-shaped marshy puddle in its center.

The one access road off the Pacific Coast