I held them for a long time, marveling at the whole idea of it—this was my skin, my actual flesh. It was almost as though I was a soldier wounded in battle, and these thin strips—not strips, really, more like soft, tiny coins— were evidence of my courage under fire. Then I examined them in the dim light of the luminously painted ceramic moon over my bed. It glowed for hours after the bulb was turned off, and gave just enough radiance so that I could look through the epidermal discs and see the lines that the motion of my hands over the years had impressed in my flesh. I sniffed at the pieces, but they gave off no smell but the scent of the soap I had used to wash with that evening. Then I put one of the tiny fragments on my tongue.
At first it was tasteless, but slowly I became aware of the most delicate flavor I had ever known, a sweetness that was almost not to be borne. It was then that I had my first erection, and it so alarmed me that I pressed down on it immediately, and spat the piece of flesh from my mouth into the darkness.
I lay there trembling for a long time as the tumescence subsided, and finally felt over the sheets for the two other bits of skin that had been lost when I panicked in my prepubescent terror. In a few moments I located them both. The temptation was strong to taste them as well, but instead I rose from my bed, tiptoed to the other side of the room, brushed them off my sweating fingers into the waste basket, and returned to bed, where, that night, I had my first nocturnal emission, the result of a dream, which I remember even today, about my mother’s breasts.
That was the beginning, and even then I felt the presence of something holy in the partaking of flesh. Perhaps I equated it with the communion service in which my parents would not allow me to share. The grape juice was never what tempted me in those services. It was rather the bits of bread that were chewed so slowly and solemnly. The body of Jesus! How I wanted to taste that bread! When I learned, a few years before my experience with the blisters, that it was nothing but white Holsum Bread, the same kind we ate at home, I immediately cut a slice into squares, and placed the pieces, one at a time, in my mouth, whispering Take, eat, this is my body. It was a huge disappointment. There was no sense of spiritual fulfillment, none of the sacred sense of purpose I always saw in the gently masticating jaws of the recipients of communion. It was nothing but Holsum Bread in cubes, the same as Aunt Lily used in her Christmas stuffing, but without the added gustatory inducements of saffron and celery. I did not play at communion again.
It was that desire, however, to share in communion that first made me think of life in religious service, and that sensation of exaltation upon tasting my own flesh that night in my room that gave me the idea that man could, in some distant and unfathomable way, commune with God. On such small things are our futures determined. On such things was forged my link to God.
I wonder, and have wondered long, on what things was Keith Holt’s link forged to that other.
He was the one who chose my church, I think, probably because it was old, it was isolated, and it had a graveyard. The crematory, I believe, had little or nothing to do with his choice. It was not ashes he was after. When did his obsession with darkness begin? At the same age as my own with light? Or before? Did he, as a mere toddler, ignorant of speech, read the evil in his father’s words, his mother’s glances? And did he let them fester inside of him, grow into that malignancy with which he hoped to blight everyone he met?
Perhaps I imagine too much. It may be that he was merely a thrill-seeking child who went too far. It may be that, but I think not. How could anyone with any amount of goodness in them do what Keith Holt did? And at Dunbarton Church, that was the worm that gnawed as much as anything. It was selfish, I know, but I cannot help but admit that a great deal of my initial wrath came from the defilement of what I think of, with hubris of which I am ashamed even as I am powerless to dismiss it, as my church.
God’s, of course. First and always God’s. But mine as well. It was mine from the moment I lay eyes on it. I have been here for many years and hope to remain for many more. It was my first church and will be, I trust, my last. So many young pastors see a rural church as merely a stepping stone to some massive pink-bricked suburban edifice, or a wealthy and imposing Gothic church in the city, but for me Dunbarton United Methodist was perfect. I realized that from the first, but could not know at the time just how perfect it would prove to be.
The nearest village, Hempstead, is two miles to the east. Dunbarton Church, founded in 1829, sits in its own verdant grove, an oasis of green amidst the farms. The grounds comprise four acres, an eighth of that occupied by the cemetery. The church itself stands, as it has for over a century and a half, on the long north side of the cemetery wall. The exterior is plaster, and always bears a fresh coat of whitewash. It is not a large church. The sanctuary, which might seat five hundred parishioners should all choose to come at once, naturally takes up the greater part of the building. It is painted white, with dark brown trim on the timbers and the ornaments and hard wooden seats of the pews. The windows are white and translucent, with borders of colored glass around the edges. Pulpits stand on either side of the altar, all as old as the church itself. Two pews are behind the righthand pulpit, for the choir to occupy, and the organ is behind the lefthand pulpit. The ceiling is lower than that in most modern churches, and there is no balcony nor choir loft. A small wing adjacent to the sanctuary holds the pastor’s office, two Sunday school rooms, rest rooms, and robing rooms for the choir. A social hall and kitchen were added in the 1930s by excavating underneath the sanctuary. A horse’s skull was discovered buried there. No explanation was ever found, and it was reinterred beneath the basement floor.
The thing that impresses visitors most about Dunbarton Methodist is its cleanliness. The whiteness of its spartan and colonial interior makes it appear Bauhausian, and it is always a pleasant and fresh surprise for those used to dark, Gothic arches, or the soft pastels of surburban churches.
This lightness, however, is undercut by the presence of the cemetery, although adjoining cemeteries are quite common, indeed the norm, in churches of this area. The cemetery is noted more for its history than its practicality, for the last interment took place here several years before my tenure began. The family plots are all filled, and no new burials will occur, due to lack of space.
But what people find more oppressive than the cemetery is the small crematory that crouches at the cemetery’s western wall. Needless to say, crematories are not the norm in this area. The crematory was built in 1912, when Pastor Fletcher came into residence. He was British, part of an exchange program between the American Methodists and the Brits. Cremation was all the rage in England just then, and Fletcher brought this pet to America, persuaded the congregation that the church should have its own crematory (a motion that passed by the narrowest of margins, some say due to the hypnotic effect the young, single, and goodlooking Fletcher had over the distaff members of the congregation), and supervised the building himself. A local undertaker, who was also a member of the congregation, was trained to run the operation along with his more cosmetic duties in Hempstead, a state of affairs that still exists today, though the undertaker is now known as the funeral director.
There were several dozen cremations from 1912 through 1915, a tribute to Pastor Fletcher’s persuasive powers. But when he returned to England at the advent of the Great War, the craze died down and the crematory went totally unused for forty years. From time to time the suggestion was made by the lay committee to dismantle the building (for no one wanted to renovate it into a meeting place), but, since no profit nor good could come of its razing, it remained, a monument to Pastor Fletcher, who had died a chaplain at Mons. Then, in the late 60’s, cremation once more became a viable and rather trendy method of disposal, and the Dunbarton Methodist crematory began to hum once more. Th unattractive and conspicuous oil tank at the side of the building was removed, and the furnace was converted to electricity. As the only crematory at that time in the county, it got a great deal of use, and until another
and larger crematory was finally built in 1974 at the Peace Haven Memorial Park in the southern end of the county, scarcely a week went by without a cremation. At present, our crematory averages from six to eight cremations a year. It is enough.
The crematory’s external design is similar to that of the church, though the whitewashing of the smaller building occurs far more frequently, since even the hint of soot is disquieting when one is aware of the building’s purpose. Fortunately the system is arranged so that the smoke is recirculated through heat chambers, so that hardly any is visible coming from the chimney. The building is surprisingly small, but it needs to be no larger. Within is a tiny chapel capable of seating only twenty people, for crowds are never great at cremations. In fact, most of the time none of the bereaved are there at all. There are only Jim Meinhart, the funeral director, and the witness appointed by the family, generally me, which makes it very convenient.
Jim is an excellent funeral director, one of the many with whom I have come into contact who takes his job very seriously. I have always felt that death really does sadden Jim, that he sees every one of his charges as a rose cut down in the prime of youth, be they two weeks or ninety years old. Some funeral directors wear a mask of piety around me, but I can see through it easily enough. If their look could speak it would say, “Enough meditating, pastor, let’s shut that lid and get on with it.” But not Jim Meinhart. I think that’s why he does such a good business—people believe him.
He does, however, find cremation somewhat distasteful. It springs not from religious beliefs, however, but from an aesthetic sense. For all his piety, Jim takes great satisfaction in a cosmetic job well done. He loves to create what funeral directors call a memory portrait, which is simply putting the best face possible on the deceased. Cremations are done most often as not with closed caskets, which gives Jim no possible opportunity for his makeup miracles, and, even in the few cases where the body is viewed beforehand, his handiwork is reduced to ash before the day is through. For Jim, who takes deep delight in knowing that his work will last, unseen, for many years, this is as hard as a child watching the sand castle that has taken all day to build be destroyed by the tide in minutes.
That image makes me think of him again, of Keith Holt, that child who was not a child, but something older than even Amos Goss, who sits in the back row every early service, singing or not depending on whether he remembered to put in his teeth that morning. Keith Holt, older even than Christ. But not older than God. And certainly not stronger.
I began to truly realize what Keith Holt was that first Sunday evening when he came to Youth Fellowship in the social hall beneath the church. I don’t usually attend YF, leaving that to Randy Kornhauser, the director of Youth Ministries, but it was September, the beginning of the school year, and I knew that there would be a number of first-timers there that evening, sons and daughters of some of the new people who had as yet made no new church affiliation, and some, like Keith Holt, who had attended services with his parents for several weeks, and I thought my presence might warm even further the welcome they were sure to get from Randy and the other students.
After the opening prayer. Randy started a discussion with the previous attendees, while I took the six new children into a corner, told them a little bit about the church, and asked if they had any questions before they rejoined the group. As is the way of teenagers, they shrugged or shook their heads gently, except for Keith Holt, who narrowed his reptilian eyes, and asked me, “And what’s the church’s position on cults?”
“Cults?” I said. “What kind? There are a lot of them”
The boy shrugged. “How about Satanism, for instance?”
What I should have done was answered politely, reasonably, gone off on a speech about the church’s disapproval of anything that detracted from or stood in opposition to God and his works, talked about youthful follies and the importance of returning to the company of believers when questing indiscretions had ended. But I did not. I felt something from the boy, something evil, and I looked at him sharply, as an Inquisition judge would no doubt have eyed an heretic, and said, “What do you think?”
He looked back with undisguised hatred. “I think the church is probably as narrowminded when it comes to that as it is to everything else.”
The reaction from the other students was not unexpected. It was one of embarrassed amusement, as if they were pleased to see the quaint country parson squelched, but were afraid to laugh out loud at him.
“You believe the church is narrowminded then?” I asked, trying to keep the anger buried. It was not that I objected to difficult questions, for I have been answering them ever since I entered the seminary (indeed, the theological questions that I proposed to myself were far more perplexing than any asked by my parishioners). It was rather the boy’s attitude of smug superiority, the feeling that whatever I might reply, even to the point of giving actual physical proof of the existence of God and the divinity of Christ, his words and looks would mock me—and God, and Christ—just the same. And in that moment, and long after, I hated him with a fiery and implacable hate that I prayed the Lord to banish from my soul, but to no avail.
The further conversation was chilling to me. He said that yes, he thought the church, most churches, were narrowminded, and that do what you want to should be everyone’s creed. To which I added, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else, thinking of that tired old humanist saw. But he said not necessarily, and that made me think of Crowley, that pitiful, fraudulent, English wizard, and I said, recalling the words from a workshop on cults I had participated in, Do what thou wilt, that shall be the whole of the law. Is that what you mean?
From the smile of recognition he gave, I knew that he was no stranger to the quotation, and I remember thinking, Oh God (asking Him, not giving an oath), what kind of world is this in which children read and accept the work of self-deluded devil-worshippers rather than the Scriptures? But God did not answer me. Not then.
Keith Holt answered, though. He said yes, that the world in which we live today is not the world of desert-wandering tribes nor Galilean shepherds and fishermen. And carpenters, he added dryly. And that the first law of Satanism—do what thou wilt—made much more sense for this world and this time. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the boy went on, “is only going to get you f…” The foul word was nearly out of his mouth, but he pulled it back in time, in counterfeited consideration of his surroundings. “… messed over,” he finished. “Today’s world is built on greed, Reverend. You know the saying about the guy who has the most stuff when he dies wins? That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s what you think,” I said. “But you may not always think that way. There’s more to life than money.”
“Sure there is. Power’s nice too.”
“Power,” I said, trying to smile. “How old are you, Keith?”
“Fifteen.”
“And what would a fifteen-year-old young man want with power?”
“The same thing anyone else would. Reverend. It’s a rush. It makes you feel good. Feel strong.”
“There are other ways to feel good.”
“What, you mean sex?” One of the boys snickered, and the sole girl giggled, averting her eyes. “Or drugs?”
“I mean by doing good.”
“That’s just your way of getting off. Hey, the only reason people do good things is that it makes them feel good, you just said so yourself. But most of the time they won’t admit that’s why they do it. And that’s hypocritical. At least satanists are honest about what they want.”
“Honest? Then why is Satan called the Father of Lies?”
“Don’t ask me—I never called him that. That’s the name the Christians give him.” He said Christians as though he was saying cockroaches.
Now when most children ask questions like these, it is born out of natural curiosity, the desire to question authority. I have answered, time and again, such queries as where did Cain’s wife come from,
and how did the sun stand still in the heavens without wrecking the earth, and isn’t it possible that Jesus wasn’t really dead when they took him off of the cross, and dozens more. But Keith did not have the almost apologetic tone the others had, the sense of, “Gee, Pastor, I’m sorry to destroy the faith you’ve followed for so many years, but did you ever realize that…” He was savage. He wanted to destroy not only my faith, but me personally.
I won’t go on any further. I think that anyone can see by reading this that Keith Holt was sick, troubled, even evil. I had met his parents, so I wasn’t surprised. I think the only thing that would have saved the boy is if he had been taken away from his parents when he was his sister Kimberly’s age, or perhaps even earlier. This is terribly ironic coming from me, for all my life I have endeavored to keep families together. Indeed, that was one of my prime motivations in entering the ministry—to keep families together.
It was the breakup of my own family, I suppose, that caused my concern with the families of others. I saw what it did to my father, and of course I know firsthand the effects it had on me, being a bachelor to this day, and being something even more—what word shall I use? Alien? Enigmatic? Diff rent? All of those, certainly. Ghoulish? Fiendish? Bestial? I most assuredly pray not, for I do not feel as if I am those things, and after I explain all, I pray that whoever reads this will no longer feel that way as well.
My mother then. Back to my mother, back to my family, back to the communion of flesh. I should have explained this all before, pages back when I talked about the blisters on my hands. But one thing leads into another, and I stray. That is a major flaw of my sermons, I fear. I have my outline, rigorously gone over several times before Sunday morning, but once I begin to speak, to actually address my congregation, I think of other things that I must tell them, that are essential for them to know, and I extrapolate, expound, until I have wandered so far from my starting place that I must strike some sort of verbal bell, be it gold or brass, and hope for the resonances to vibrate long enough to let me retrace my steps, lead myself, blindered, down my previous path, and finally race ahead on it so that my listeners may arrive home before their roasts and chickens burn.
The Night Listener and Others Page 9