The Night Listener and Others

by Chet Williamson

  “Your ground, huh?”

  I turned back and looked at him. “Pardon?”

  He gave a quick shake of his head. “Nothing.”

  My office is small but comfortable, much more modern in appearance than the library in the parsonage where I do most of my work. The office is for counseling, conferences, and phone calls. It’s my public headquarters, while the library is my private one. Keith sat in one of the two armchairs without being asked, and I sat down behind my desk, facing him. “Don’t you want to close the door?” he said.

  “Why would I do that?”

  He shrugged, crossed his legs, and waited.

  “I wanted to talk to you, Keith, about some of the things that have been happening here at the church in the past couple of weeks.” I didn’t know where I was going, or precisely what I was going to say. I hoped to draw him out, and thought that seeming mild and ineffectual might be the best way. The weaker he thought I was, the closer he might come to bragging about his exploits, or at least giving me enough of a hint that I would know without his admission of guilt.

  “Like what? Bake sale? Choir practice?”

  “No. Not good things like that. Not things that serve God. Bad things.”

  “If you don’t like pies and singing, those are bad things.”

  “I’m not talking about pies and singing. I’m talking about vandalized graves, about the defilement of the altar.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He grinned. “I read about that in the papers.”

  “And what did you think of it?”

  “I thought it might be pretty rad.”

  The phrasing was odd. “You thought it might be…”

  “For whoever did it.”

  “You thought it might be a…pleasurable thing to do?”

  “Pleasure.” He made the word last a long time. “Yeah, I guess it would give a person…pleasure.”

  “Are you wondering,” I went on, “why I’m asking you about this?”

  “I guess because you maybe think I did it.”

  “You are the only person I know,” I said, “who has expressed an interest in Satanism.”

  “Boy,” he said, shaking his head. “See where my big mouth gets me? I mean, that’s the thing about churches—you guys always tell us to say what we think, that we got freedom of speech and all, and when we do it, it comes right back to us.” He cocked his head at me. “You say anything to the cops about me?”

  “No.”

  “How about my folks?”

  “No”

  “And why not?” He went on before I could answer. “You didn’t go to the cops because you don’t have any evidence, and if you go to my folks and tell them, they won’t really give a damn. Excuse me. A darn.”

  “You don’t think they would care about something like this?”

  “They wouldn’t believe you because they wouldn’t want to. Besides, they know what I am, and they don’t care.”

  “What you are? Do you mean a Satanist?”

  “Ye say that I am,” he quoted.

  It was what Christ said when the council asked if he was the Son of God. “You know the Scriptures,” I said, surprised.

  “Hey, I go to church, and some of it rubs off. Besides, it’s important to know how the enemy thinks.”

  “And Christ is the enemy?”

  “Seems dumb, doesn’t it? I mean, how can a mealy-mouthed wimp like that be the enemy? No offense.”

  There was a painful tightness in my stomach. I sat for a moment, watching him, but he seemed to have nothing more to say. “What did you do with the skull?” I asked quietly.

  “What did I do with it? Well, I can tell you what another Satanist might do with it, and that’s to use it in a Black Mass. You ever hear of those? You go in a church, flip the crosses, crap on the Bible, say the Lord’s Prayer backwards, sacrifice a virgin on the altar—”

  “A virgin?”

  His eyes narrowed. “They’re harder to find these days, so sometimes you have to use an animal.”

  “Like a cat,” I said.

  He nodded. “A cat’ll do fine. For starters.”

  We sat there looking at each other for a long time. I knew what he was doing—it was a staredown—and I knew that the longer I looked at him, the longer I went along with this childish contest, the worse I would feel when I finally looked away. And eventually I would have to look away, for this was no fight between good and evil, but simply a deluded boy trying to prove his strength, to prove to himself that he did have some power. Let him win, then, I thought, but act as if you don’t care.

  So I pushed back my chair, interlocked my hands behind my head, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Will your parents be picking you up after Youth Fellowship tonight?”

  Finally he answered. “Yeah. That’s right.”

  There was triumph in his voice, satisfaction that he had held the gaze while I had looked away. “Will they both be here?” I asked, still not looking at him.

  “Yeah. They visited some friends. Kimberly’s with them too. Think you’d like to discuss me with her?”

  “No. I don’t think that will be necessary.” I stood up. “Suppose you go back to the others now, Keith.” It was on my lips to thank him for talking to me, but I realized that I need thank him for nothing. He had done more, I felt, than he could ever atone for, if not in God’s eyes, then in mine. But he, I learned, was far more gracious, even in mockery, than I.

  “Well, Pastor,” he said as he stood up, “thanks for this little chat. I feel a whole lot better now knowing that a man of God is looking out for my welfare. And I’m sure my folks will be interested in whatever it is you have to tell them. And hey, if you want me to do up a batch of cookies for the next bake sale, you can count on me. Okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer, merely turned his back on me and walked out the door.

  I sat down again and thought for a long time about the boy, praying to the Lord to show me a way to touch him, to make him understand that what he was doing and thinking was sin, was abomination, that a change must be made. But God gave me no answer. The boy was no boy, but a monster, implacable and adamant. In earlier times, a word from me and he would have been burned for heresy, and, God help me, I think I would have turned him over to the Inquisition. For he was foul. That is the most brief as well as the most accurate word I can use to describe him. Foul.

  My office does not command a view of the parking lot, so I went across the hall to the adult Sunday school room and sat there in the dark, waiting for the Holts to come pick up their son. Just before 7:30 I saw their car, a new Saab, pull in the lot. I went outside, walked up to it, and waved. Mr. Holt lowered the window, and I told him that I would like to have a word with him and his wife in my office. They got out and were about to come into the church with their little girl, when Keith and some of the other students came outside. The boy cast a twisted smile at me.

  “Hey Mom, Dad. Leave Kimberly out here with me, it’s cool.”

  His mother gave him a peck on the cheek, and I remember thinking that even monsters have mothers. Then I turned and led the way into the church.

  As we sat down in my office, they seemed utterly calm and comfortable, as though they had not the slightest idea of the things their son was doing. Perhaps, I thought, the impression was an honest one. Perhaps this busy, upwardly mobile, double-income family truly didn’t know.

  “I wanted to talk to you today,” I began, “about Keith.”

  They smiled and nodded, as if the thought that I could say anything negative about their son had never crossed their minds.

  “Are you aware,” I went on, “of his interest in…certain cults?”

  Mr. Holt looked at me with a cocked head, for all the world like a bird examining a rather sad example of worm. “Cults?”

  “Yes. In particular, Satanism.”

  Both of them chuckled. “Oh, that,” said Mrs. Holt with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He’s been interested in that silly stuff for years.”

&nb
sp; I felt a hard, cold lump deep in my throat and swallowed, but it remained. “Silly stuff,” I repeated.

  “He gets bored so easily,” Mr. Holt explained. “Keith is very, very bright.”

  “Ninety-ninth percentile on all his achievement tests, always gets straight A’s, and his I.Q., well…” She shrugged as if any further detailing of the boy’s genius would be embarrassingly unnecessary.

  “So whenever he finds any subjects outside of school that interest him,” Mr. Holt said, “we try to support that. He was into computers for a while, but got bored. I think it got too simple for him. But he’s always had a fascination for this horror stuff.” The man smiled and shook his head. “A lot of these rock groups now are into that. That’s where he first got interested, I guess. Then he started reading the books. He’s told us a lot about it, and it seems harmless enough.”

  “Harmless?” I said. “Satanism?”

  “Well, it’s not like he’s practicing it,” Mrs. Holt said. “It’s just a…a study, an interest of his.”

  “You really don’t know?” I said.

  “Know what?” Keith’s father asked. There was a hint of irritation in his voice.

  “Your son is practicing it,” I said, as calmly as I knew how. “At least he believes it. He as much as admitted it to me.”

  “Oh, come on, Pastor,” Mr. Holt said. “You must have misunderstood him or something.”

  “I don’t think so. He truly believes in the goodness of Satan, and considers God the enemy. He told me that not an hour ago.”

  “Well, he may have told you that,” Mrs. Holt said, “but I’m sure he doesn’t really believe it.”

  “Then why would he tell me?”

  Mr. Holt gave a great sigh, as if about to explain something to a dull child. “Pastor St. James, when you were growing up, didn’t you ever want to do something to go against authority? It’s only natural for kids to want to question and even shock their parents or teachers…or pastors, shake them up a little, rattle the cage. We don’t see what’s so terrible about that, and after all we are Keith’s parents. And I can assure you that despite what he might say, or the things he has in his room, that it’s only a—”

  “Things he has?” I interrupted. “What things?”

  Mrs. Holt chuckled. “Oh, just things, you know. Crazy things kids collect.”

  “Like…what in particular?”

  Mr. Holt sighed again. “All right. Pastor, read into it what you want to, I know you will anyway. Keith collects a lot of…weird things. Like bones, and, and things in bottles…”

  “What kind of bones?” I asked. “And what’s in the bottles?”

  “Animal bones,” Mr. Holt answered. “Things he finds in the woods, in the fields. He makes little patterns out of them, stars and designs.”

  “Pentagrams?”

  “I don’t know, I guess that’s what he calls them, but it doesn’t mean anything—”

  “And the bottles?”

  “Specimens,” Mr. Holt said. “Just natural specimens, that’s all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You know,” Mrs. Holt said. “Things in alcohol.”

  “Formaldehyde,” Mr. Holt corrected.

  “Whatever.” She giggled. “They give me the creeps, I can tell you.”

  “What things?”

  Mr. Holt tossed his hands in the air. “Things. Like, uh, dead baby birds he found, or sometimes he finds a dead animal and dissects it and keeps parts. That’s because of a biology project he’s planning for next year’s science fair, Pastor. He’s not going to eat the damn things, pardon my French.” The phrase, eat the damn things, shot ice into my heart. “It’s just the natural curiosity of a bright boy, that’s all.”

  I shook my head slowly. “I’m not sure. But I think you’re wrong. I think there’s far more to it than a science fair project, or whatever else he might be telling you.”

  “I know what you’re telling us,” Mr. Holt said, and his voice was cold and angry. “You’re telling us that we’re not good parents, that’s basically what you’re saying.”

  “Listen, please, I don’t mean to—”

  “You think we don’t pay attention to our son? You don’t think we give him quality time?”

  “It’s hard with both of us working,” said Mrs. Holt, “but we do very well with Keith. He knows he can talk to us. But we feel it’s best to let him get these things out of his system, so we try not to be too judgmental, and if you don’t think that’s the proper way to raise children, well, I’m just sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be defensive,” I said. “I’m not criticizing you, I’m just trying to help.”

  “Well, I don’t think we need your help,” Mrs. Holt said. “And I certainly don’t think we asked you for it, or for your opinion on how to raise children. Now being from this area you may see things differently than we do, but—”

  “Yes,” I said, with more force than I wanted to use, but I had to stop them somehow. They had interpreted my concern about Keith as a criticism of their behavior as parents, proving themselves, in their own selfish way, to be just as evil as their son. “Yes,” I repeated. “I do see it differently. I don’t think you’re willing to admit what’s happening.”

  Like a malignant and living thing, a cruel smile twisted its way across Mr. Holt’s face, seemed to pass through the air between the couple, and crossed the countenance of his wife as well. I knew then the source of Keith’s evil grin, and suspected the source of so much else as well. “And you do, huh?” Mr. Holt said. “You in your God-given wisdom think our boy is a…a devil-worshipper.”

  It was time to tell them. “He was the one who robbed the grave. And he also defiled the sanctuary.”

  Mr. Holt’s face turned red. His wife’s turned white.

  “It was a Black Mass,” I went on. “A Satanist ritual.”

  “Damn you!” The force of Holt’s words threw me back physically. “If I find that you’ve told anyone that—anyone!— I’m going to take you to court! That’s slander, Pastor, and I’m not going to put up with that for a second!”

  “Your son needs help—”

  “He doesn’t need any help! There’s not a damn thing wrong with him! You’re the one who needs help!” He shot to his feet, and his wife did the same. I have never seen such raw hate on faces in my life.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, fearing them, yet wanting them desperately to stay. “I only want—”

  “Goodbye, Pastor,” Mrs. Holt said. “You won’t be seeing us in your church anymore.” As they swept out of my office, I could almost see steam in their wake.

  I walked over to the Sunday school room to watch them make their way to their car. Their backs were set tautly, their limbs stiff. When Mr. Holt threw open his car door, I heard a wail from inside, saw him freeze for a moment, then heard him saying something I couldn’t make out, while what I took to be Kimberly’s crying continued. What had happened while the little girl was in the car alone with her brother? I thought I knew, but I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think about the Holts at all. I did not even have the goodness to pray for them, and may God forgive me for that, as he has for so many other things.

  One week, then two went by with no further disturbances at Dunbarton Methodist. The Holts, true to their savage word, did not return to the church, nor did Keith come to Youth Fellowship on Sunday evenings. Slowly the thought of the Holts began to leave me, and I turned my attention to my private and solemn communions once more. In the furor over the break-in, I had actually missed one of my opportunities for my biweekly services when Mrs. Bunn went to Baltimore. Now she was off to see her relatives again, and Tuesday evening after choir practice the church and parsonage would be abandoned by all but myself.

  Two months had passed since the last cremation, and I had seven pieces of the host remaining. It would be more than enough to see me through until the next one, which, I felt sadly certain, would be that of Mrs. Jackson Ginder, a t
hirty-eight-year-old mother of two who was wasting away of cancer. Mr. Ginder had, just a week before, preplanned the disposition with Jim Meinhart, specifying cremation (his wife’s choice) at the Dunbarton Methodist crematory. I am not the only one whose heart is wrenched by Cynthia Ginder’s oncoming death. She sang in the choir and was also a Sunday school teacher, her marriage had been ideal and blessed with two charming children, now twelve and ten, and leukemia is feasting on her. She is in the final stages now, and I go to see her twice a week on my visits to St. Joseph’s Hospital. In her case I have prayed only for God’s will to be done, because she seems to suffer more every day. Still, she bears it with good grace, and her faith is strong.

  Once again I digress. Cindy’s strength and faith are so overwhelming that it is impossible not to think about her and marvel at her. That some people, so put upon by life, should be so good, while others, like the Holts, who have everything that is wanted should be sunk in a swamp of selfishness and evil…it is inexplicable. Only God can understand, and it is good that he does.

  I dreaded making Cynthia Ginder the next source of the Communion host, though I knew that, were she to understand, she would not begrudge it of me. The ecstasy of nearness to God, the sweet sensation of Him filling all one’s senses—after one experiences these things, they can only be marvelled at, not condemned.

  It was on the day of my mother’s cremation, of course, that my plan was set, and I have never altered from it. It had to be not merely eaten in an attitude of worship, but in an atmosphere of worship, consecrated, blessed, sacred. And I knew why past communions, though they satisfied my intellect, had never truly satisfied my soul. The pale, white, flavorless bread could never be Christ’s body. It was a symbol, nothing more, and even the Catholics, try as they would to claim transubstantiation of their flat wafer, their dark and muddy wine, could never overcome the certainty that bread is bread, wine is wine.

  But flesh is flesh, and the flesh of man is as close as one can come to the flesh of the Son of Man; the flesh of a Christian who has become one with Christ has become, in a miraculous way, the flesh of Christ Himself.

  That day my mother was cremated, that was the day this knowledge came to me. Tuesday night, when Mrs. Bunn was absent, I took a small piece of the chilled flesh into the sanctuary, locking the door of the church behind me. Nothing would be visible through the translucent windows. I set up the communion table, placed the piece of flesh upon the paten, and filled the chalice with wine, a fine French bordeaux, not the grape juice we usually use. Then I dressed in my vestments, lit the candles (my heart pounding all the while), and began to pray a prayer of consecration.