by Steve Alten
The rabbi places the wide-eyed child into the incubator as instructed. He mutters a prayer in Hebrew, watching as the warmth of the semienclosed chamber turns the infant’s skin a healthy pink.
Incredibly, the newborn seems to be watching him.
The rabbi shakes the ridiculous thought away, returning his attention to Dominique as her second son is birthed.
Belle Glade, Florida 1:32 a.m.
Forty-seven miles to the north, seventeen-year-old Madelina Aurelia thrashes naked beneath a sweat-soaked bedsheet as she cries out to her foster father. ‘Get this goddam baby outta me!’
Quenton Morehead, Baptist Minister, squeezes the girl’s hand, his dark eyes lingering on the girl’s exposed pelvis. ‘Don’t blaspheme, child, the midwife’s on her way.’
‘Fuck you!’ Madelina claws his arms, drawing streaks of blood. ‘Where’s Virgil?’
‘I don’t know—’
‘Find him!’
The minister cringes as the girl’s high-pitched screech penetrates his brain like a tuning fork. He hears the front door open and sighs a quick Amen.
‘Virge?’ Madelina stops thrashing. ‘Virgil, honey? That you—you cheatin’, whorin’ sonuva bitch!’
A heavyset black woman enters. ‘Calm down, baby, everthin’ gonna be just fine.’
Madelina tears at the mattress as another contraction grips her torso. ‘Vir … gil!’
The midwife turns to the minister. ‘Go on and find him. I can handle things here.’
Quenton backs out of the bedroom, then hurries out the front door of the sweltering stucco home and into the night.
Madelina Aurelia, only child of Miguel and Cecilia Aurelia, was born in the small Mexican town of Morelos. Cecilia’s marriage to Miguel had been arranged by his uncle, Don Rafelo, a man feared by all as an Ojo mak (evil man), who had learned the girl’s maternal lineage was full-blooded Aztec, her ancestors dating back to the reign of Montezuma.
Bad luck seemed to follow the young couple since Madelina’s birth. Cecilia had nearly died in labor, and Miguel suffered a debilitating stroke a month after his daughter was born. Relatives whispered that Don Rafelo had cast his evil eye on the Aurelias in hopes of obtaining their daughter. Secretly, they advised the young couple to move away from Morelos and the Ojo mak as soon as possible.
The Aurelias held out until Madelina turned four, then joined a group of crop pickers bound for the United States. For the next two years, the illegal aliens would migrate from Florida to Texas, following the growing seasons.
For the Aurelias, life in the States seemed just as bewitched as it had been in Morelos. Cecilia lost sight in her right eye because of a bee sting, and Miguel suffered a second stroke. When the Aurelias’ shanty burned to the ground, the superstitious couple departed Belle Glade, abandoning their daughter on the doorstep of the town’s Family Services office.
A month later, six-year-old Madelina was placed in the foster home of the Reverend Quenton Morehead and his wife, Rachel.
It soon became apparent that something was seriously wrong with the young Mexican immigrant. Bizarre infantile behavior, including public masturbation and finger painting with her feces led the God-fearing Quenton to declare the girl possessed. His wife, being more grounded, suspected a chemical imbalance and made an appointment with a child psychiatrist.
After two visits and a battery of tests, doctors diagnosed Madelina’s problem as a form of disorganized schizophrenia, probably inherited from one of the girl’s biological parents. Drugs were prescribed, therapy recommended.
Two weeks later, Rachel Morehead found a lump on her left breast. She would not last the year.
Deeply depressed over his wife’s death, Quenton was forced to endure the additional burden of Madelina’s illness alone. Unable to accept the doctor’s psychiatric ‘mumbo jumbo,’ the minister decided the best course of action was simply to exorcise the girl’s demons himself.
Prayer, empowered by Quenton’s fire-and-brimstone delivery, would cleanse Madelina’s soul. Daily Bible readings and nightly services would fill her idle time after school, preventing her mind from wandering back toward Satan. Jesus would shine His guiding light into the girl’s valley of darkness.
It was a long, exhausting ‘road to salvation,’ complicated by Quenton’s own disease: alcoholism.
After staggering home drunk, the ordained minister would often strip naked and crawl into bed with his frightened nine-year-old foster child. On good nights, Quenton simply passed out.
On a few terrible nights … he stayed awake.
Weeks after the first episode, the girl began carrying on conversations with imaginary friends. The voices ‘stopped’ with Quenton’s beatings.
By the time she turned sixteen, Madelina had been molested by her foster parent dozens of times. Meanwhile, the adolescent’s girl’s schizophrenia had grown worse, and the minister feared he might be stuck caring for his foster daughter the rest of his days.
What he needed was a son-in-law to relieve him of his burden.
Prior to the introduction of Lake Ockeechobee’s legalized ‘river boat gambling’ in 2009, Belle Glade had predominantly been a seasonal farming town, most of its worker force minorities, primarily African-American and Hispanic. The big sugar companies recruited strong backs, having little use for brains, a fact that reflected poorly upon the school district, which boasted the worst standardized test scores in the county. For most high-school males growing up in the area, college was not an option. In Belle Glade, you either labored in the fields, sold drugs, or played sports.
Seventeen-year-old Virgil Robinson could play sports, especially football. After three years of high-school ball, he had earned the coveted title, ‘Nastiest Linebacker in the State.’ While Glades Central High might have had a bad reputation for standardized test scores, they were tops in the nation when it came to sports, producing more professional athletes than any other school in the country. Virgil was the cream of the football class of 2011, a 257-pound man-child standing an imposing six-foot-five, who could cover forty yards in just under 4.4 seconds and had a fifty-two-inch vertical leap. What’s more, the speedy junior middle linebacker loved delivering bone-jarring hits, the more savage, the better. ‘Don’t wanna just hit the dude, I wanna bleed him from the inside out.’
Running backs trembled. College recruiters salivated.
Young Virgil’s parents had died when he was six, leaving him to toil in his uncle’s fields ever since. He could barely read and write, and admittedly didn’t know ‘much about nothing,’ but what he did know was that football was his ticket out of Belle Glade. Now in his senior year, he was finally enjoying the first whiffs of success. The recruiting ritual had begun, the Division I-A college assistants luring him with promises of wealth, fancy cars, and beautiful undergrads. Virgil Robinson was the type of athlete who could turn around a losing program and bring home a national championship. Every coach knew about his inflated 2.13 grade point average and his third-grade reading level, but none seemed to care. Tutors were easier to find than All-Americans, and grades could be spoon-fed. At the very worst, the kid from Belle Glade would redshirt his freshman year.
Of course, Virgil had no more interest in earning a degree than he did cracking open a book. A year or two of exposure in a top-ranked football program and he’d turn pro. A year or two and the money would be there. Shoe deals, sports drink endorsements, it was all part of the game. Millionaires didn’t need an education. As long as he maintained his appetite for violence, success both on and off the gridiron would follow.
Unfortunately, Virgil also had an appetite for women and drugs, the latter amplifying his propensity for violence. On the eve of signing a letter of intent with the University of Florida, the high-school star decided to spend the night on the town partying with a few friends and teammates. After getting high, the boys headed to nearby Clewiston, intent on crashing their rival’s homecoming dance. One of the Clewiston cheerleaders had caught Virgil’s eye during
their last game, and the star linebacker’s loins ached at the thought of seeing her again.
The girl was there, dancing with her boyfriend, the team’s starting tailback. Virgil approached the couple, grinning his gold-capped smile. ‘Yo, hoochie, why don’tch ya’ll shake dat thing over here—I’ll show you how a real man handles it.’
The tailback threw first, his punch impacting Virgil’s nose, drawing blood. Virgil never flinched, only his expression changed, morphing into an insane leer his defensive coordinator had dubbed ‘the Robinson Rage.’ In one motion the All-State linebacker grabbed the smaller teen by his neck and head-butted him twice, the latter blow knocking him senseless. A swift knee to the mouth finished the job.
As the crowd backed away, Virgil turned his attention to the girl. Grabbing her by the wrist, he tossed her over his shoulder, carrying her out to the parking lot like a Neanderthal choosing his mate.
Back in his truck, Virgil had to slap the girl twice before he could tear off her panties. By that time a small crowd had gathered around the vehicle, including Wes Hobart, the school’s wrestling coach. Hobart yanked open the door, only to have Virgil leap out and grab him by the hair, smashing him headfirst through another car’s windshield. Then he spun around to face his next assailant, the girl’s father, an English teacher—
—who was carrying a shotgun.
The load of buckshot struck Virgil in his left knee, shattering the patella, blowing out most of the supporting cruciate ligaments and muscle. Six hours of surgery later, Virgil Robinson awoke in a hospital bed, his dream of playing professional football gone forever, the nightmare of adulthood about to begin.
The former star left the hospital a week later and was sent to jail to await trial. The judge sentenced him to three years.
When the Reverend Morehead read about Virgil’s fall from grace, he approached the judge and offered to take the youth in as part of the church’s work-release program. In the former high-school star Quenton saw yet another downtrodden youth whose soul needed to be saved … and a potential son-in-law in the making.
And so Virgil Robinson moved in with Reverend Morehead and his foster-daughter, Madelina. Encouraged by their ‘matchmaker,’ the two began dating. After three weeks, the reverend promised Virgil he would use his influence to have the rest of his prison sentence commuted, but only if he agreed to marry Madelina.
Faced with another two years of incarceration, Virgil wholeheartedly accepted.
A quick Sunday ceremony and the deed was done. As a wedding gift, Quenton gave the young couple use of a dilapidated stucco home the church owned, but could find no one to rent. Before anyone could say ‘early parole’ the newlyweds headed off to begin their lives together, blessed with all the hardships poverty and a lack of formal education could offer.
For a short while things seemed fine. With Quenton’s help, Virgil landed an assistant manager’s position with one of the big sugar companies. By day, he supervised sugarcane workers, by night, he would return home from the fields to find comfort in his young bride’s loins. As for Madelina, with Quenton out of her life, the girl finally felt safe. Medication kept the ‘voices’ at bay, and she began saving money to purchase a nicer home. There was even talk of starting a family.
And then Virgil’s drugging resurfaced.
It started innocently enough—a few missed NA meetings here, a few hits of coke there. But drug addiction is a disease only abstinence can contain, and before Madelina realized what was happening, her husband had spent their savings on his all-night binges.
Madelina was forced to dip into her medication money just to afford groceries. Depression set in, and with it, all of the girl’s old fears. ‘Remember girl,’ Quenton always said, ‘the Devil will take your soul if you’re not strong …’
To make matters worse, the college football season was upon them, the time of year that stoked Virgil’s anger to its fullest. Watching the University of Florida’s games on TV, his internal rage would build until he had to lash out at something … or somebody.
Madelina told Quenton she had broken her arm while mending the roof. The punctured lung—that had come from a nasty fall on her bike. She told the intern at the clinic that she broke her nose slipping in the bathtub.
The beatings subsided briefly in late January of 2013 when Virgil learned his wife was pregnant. The news seemed to calm the former football star. A son could be put to work in the fields. A son could be taught how to play football. Virgil Jr. would live the life denied his father—he would return glory to his old man by making it in the NFL. Twenty years from now, old Virgil Robinson would be able to retire in wealth, living off the fortunes of his prodigal son.
Life in the Robinson home stabilized … for the moment.
And then the world seemed to lose its equilibrium, and sobriety was not an option.
Reverend Morehead enters the strip club, his senses immediately seized by the smell of alcohol and smoke and sex. It takes him several minutes to find his son-in-law, who is in a back room, receiving a lap dance.
‘Virgil! Get your heathen butt home, your son’s on the way!’
‘Aww shit, Quenton, give me two more minutes.’
‘Now boy!’
‘Sumbitch!’ Virgil climbs out from beneath the stripper, squeezes an exposed breast, whispers, ‘Call you later, baby,’ then follows Quenton into the parking lot.
Boca Raton, Florida 2:13 a.m.
The parking lot is quiet, the National Guard having cleared the hospital and its grounds. Only authorized personnel are allowed entry, no one permitted on the third-floor maternity ward without President Chaney’s personal approval.
Dominique sits up in bed, gazing through heavy lids at her new family. Edith beams like a proud grandmother as she coddles the dark-haired twin. Ennis Chaney sits back in an easy chair holding the fair-haired infant, the gruffness gone from the old man’s weathered face.
Rabbi Steinberg sits on the edge of Dominique’s bed, taking everything in. ‘So? Have you decided on names? You know, it’s Jewish custom to use the first initial of a deceased loved one to honor the dead.’
‘I’m going to name the dark-haired twin Immanuel, after Isadore.’
Edie looks up, the mention of her late husband, causing her eyes to moisten. ‘Your father would be honored.’
‘We’ll call him Manny for short. He has Hispanic blood running through him, you can see it in his eyes.’
‘And what about this blue-eyed fellow,’ Chaney asks. ‘How about an ‘M’ name, after the father?’
‘The father’s not dead!’ Dominique blurts out the words, the unexpected burst of anger exploding from her mouth.
‘Doll, take it easy.’ Edie hands Immanuel to the rabbi, then takes Dominique’s hand.
‘Sorry … I’m just tired. It’s been a long night, a long pregnancy.’
‘It’s okay.’
Dominique looks at the infant sleeping in the crook of Chaney’s arm. ‘Mick’s father, his name was Julius. I thought I’d name the baby Jacob.’
The rabbi smiles his approval. ‘A wonderful choice. Jacob is Hebrew for “he will prevent.”’
‘I also want Mick’s last name. Rabbi, can you marry us in absentia?’
Steinberg nods. ‘I think we can do that. Dominique Gabriel it is.’
‘And Ennis, I’d like you to be the boys’ godfather.’
‘An old fart like me?’ He smiles. ‘Be my honor. Now you listen,’ he rasps. ‘I’ve made arrangements to move your family to a private compound on the Gulf Coast, someplace you can live without being under the constant watch of the media. Gated grounds, your own personal chef, housekeepers, and a twenty-four-hour-a-day security team. The twins’ll have private tutors when they get older, and starting today, I’m assigning my own personal bodyguards to your family. You and yours will never want for anything. That was my promise to Mick.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiles through tears of relief. ‘There’s just one other thing I need from you. J
ulius Gabriel had a journal. It was confiscated after Mick … disappeared. I want the twins to have it. I want them to be … prepared.’
Belle Glade, Florida 2:13 a.m.
Reverend Morehead hears the sounds of a baby crying as he reenters the sweltering stucco home. ‘Madelina?’
The heavyset midwife is in the kitchen, an infant in her arms. ‘Look. There’s your grandpa. Say hi, Grandpa!’
‘My Lord, will you look at his eyes, I’ve never seen eyes so blue.’
‘Silly, it’s not a he, she’s a little girl.’
‘A girl?’ Quenton feels the hairs rise along the back of his neck.
‘Where’s the father?’
‘Puking his guts up outside. Quickly, take the child and—’
The screen door slams open and Virgil approaches, a line of spittle running from his lower lip to his stained tee shirt, a ring of white powder visible in his left nostril. ‘Okay, le’ me see my boy.’