Ivan moved James aside when a man, reduced to tears at the bier, fled past them up the aisle.
“Reminds me of the priest my father hated when I was just a boy. Same heavy, colorless face. We’d pass him on Fordham Road, and he’d shift his eyes from us, on account of my father, and this one time when he went to confess. That’s where I’ve seen that face before, that horrible look—from the priest on Fordham Road.
“My father had gone to confession one day out of the blue. He hadn’t been to church in years . . . but he sits in this confession booth and he says all that Forgive me, Father, I haven’t been to confession in six years, or whatever it was. He confesses to the priest that he made it with his wife, my mother, before they were married, which is supposed to be a sin. So, first the priest asks him: How many times did you make it with her? And my father starts to get annoyed. But he answers anyway. Then the priest asks: What kind of things did your wife do for you before you were married? My father bangs on the side of the confession, gets out of the booth, goes around to the other side, and tries to reach into the curtain to yank the priest out. Took six guys waiting on line to pull him away. They ask questions they don’t want to know. Or shouldn’t know.” Ivan nodded to a man as he passed him. The guy’s face looked like a wilted hydrangea. “My dad never stepped foot in a church again, and I never did either.” They stopped short behind a crowd of mourners blocking the aisle.
Janet had stopped crying and rejoined Ivan at the front of the chapel. He looked at her and pulled her into his side with his left arm. Kevin leaned against the wall and peered around. In the back of the room, there was a sudden disturbance as the crowd made way for Mr. and Mrs. Darwin. Rebecca walked in front of her husband; her face the color of wax paper. Ivan saw Michael and shook his head slightly. Michael lagged behind, his eyes bloodshot. He used the shoulders of some seated people to guide himself along.
“Will you look at this poor gentleman, good Lord,” Ivan whispered.
The people gazed up with saddened surprise, and helped Michael Darwin along by patting his hand as it pressed against their shoulders. He made it to the front, locked eyes with Ivan Illworth, and was pulled to an empty chair next to Rebecca. He rocked slowly from side to side. It was the same condition Ivan had seen him in when he’d sat in the Darwins’ living room on the day of Dallas’s murder.
Someone from the church had stopped at the house and given Michael something to calm his nerves. He had taken it, and chased it down with scotch. It seemed as if Michael’s state of mind had not changed since then. He looked as if he were about to fall flat on his face, but for his wife holding him up with her arm hooked under his. Ivan watched with pitying eyes, and rubbed his son’s shoulders.
Simon and Anne Cassidy arrived, but stood in the back with Felix and their other son, Bob. Anne was holding a tissue to her nose, and clutching Felix by the shoulder as if she would never let go of him again. Felix stared around the room dumbly, and when he saw his friend standing there looking back at him, he made an odd face, and looked away.
More people filed in. They stared at each other, with nothing to say. Finally Minister Roberts cleared his throat and approached the podium. He dropped his Bible on the spine and let it flop open, a third of the way. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up at Dallas’s parents. He grimaced.
“Family. Friends. When we read the account of Job, it brings many things to mind. Thoughts of suffering. Interminable suffering and hardship—but also of strength,” he began nervously—his voice soft and quivering, seeming to melt under the fluorescent bulbs above him.
Ivan watched the minister look mournfully upon the Darwins. He wanted a drink.
Minister Roberts cleared his throat and resumed: “Job asked his Lord the Father why the wicked of his day go about earning money and having wives, gaining in health, and living happily, while they practice wrongdoing? And we too, we often question why so many good things happen to bad people.” The minister cleared his throat again and coughed, as though to expel the whisper from his voice. “Rich people gain riches through unjust means, and show their wealth in all sorts of flashy ways. Men and women in Job’s day acted similar, and yet here was Job, a faithful servant of God, suffering immeasurably, as we all suffer on this day. In this parlor.”
Ivan’s ears perked up. He tightened his grip on his son’s shoulders. It was the first time in his life he’d felt included in any group. If suffering were collective, then others suffered with him. The hairs on his neck and arms stood on end. Minister Roberts took a deep breath. He wiped sweat from his face with a folded handkerchief he had tucked into the side pocket of his suit jacket. Ivan could see his hands were vibrating at the podium.
“Job asked God: Why is it that the wicked themselves keep living? Have grown old? Have become superior in wealth? And their offspring are firmly established with them in their sight, and their descendants before their eyes? They keep sending out their young boys just like a flock. They spend their days in good times.”
By the time Minister Roberts finished his passage, the strength in his voice had returned. Not the sonic boom of his reprimanding sermons, but at least the shaking in his chest had steadied.
“Job had everything taken from him in an instant, when God allowed Satan to remove all protection. His livestock were killed. His belongings sacked by neighboring tribes and barbarians. All ten of his children—yes, seven sons and three daughters—were killed in a sudden windstorm.” Minister Roberts risked a glance at his audience. Many had begun to cry, but they were all still watching him. He looked back down and wiped away more sweat. “But Satan wasn’t done. He then struck Job’s very body, from head to toe with malignant boils. Painful to the touch,” he added, and paused. He closed his eyes. “Job spent days sitting in ashes to soothe his pain, scraping the boils with pieces of broken earthenware. But Job endured. He never wavered in his faith.”
The minister opened his eyes again and stared out at a rapt audience.
“With all that had gone terrible for him, he never turned his faith from God, even when his wicked wife said to him: Curse God and die!”
At these words, Ivan’s mouth dropped slightly. He absorbed every syllable. Every pause.
“Curse God and die, his very own wife told him,” the minister boomed. “Adding to that, three of his companions began to convince him that God was doing a wicked thing. Yes, they began to blame God for this great tragedy.” He shook his fist in the air, as if to emphasize the rage of Job’s companions. “And many of you may be doing the same thing, blaming God for this awful, awful tragedy,” he said, now gesturing with an open hand toward the casket behind him. “This sweet child, taken before his time. What a wicked thing has happened here, to our beloved Darwin family.”
Sobs became audible among the crowd, and Ivan looked at them. He reached up for his tie, as if checking to see if the knot had found its way inside his own throat, for it certainly felt like it had. The minister filled his lungs and gripped the sides of the podium. He was getting bolder.
“Job understood so little about what was happening, but he knew one thing: wisdom is hidden from among all men. Who in this room can question the doings and the allowances of Almighty God? Mortal man has not come to know the value of wisdom. Job believed this. And none of us will ever find it by land, or by sea, or by riches. Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for wisdom. It cannot be paid for with gold, or Ophir, or the rare onyx stone, or with sapphire. Gold and glass cannot be compared to it. A bag full of wisdom is worth more than one full of pearls.”
Ivan nodded and pulled his boy in tighter. The audience took a collective breath, as though relieved from the burden of wisdom.
“Let’s not question God’s motives. Let’s have faith that our little brother who lies here will be remembered by God, and that God will someday call upon Dallas Darwin.”
Minister Roberts twisted his large body and extended his open hand out toward the casket. “God will say: Dallas. Wake up from your sle
ep, little one, and return to your parents. We all look forward to that day.”
Rebecca sobbed upon the first syllable of her son’s name, the hard D like a trumpet call in the distance. Her husband stared off into oblivion.
“So let us contemplate our suffering, and know that this world is not in His power, but the power of the wicked one, who first stripped Job of his children, and now has stripped the Darwins of little Dallas.” The minister moved his grip from the sides of the podium to the top. “Do not get caught up in anger,” he warned loudly. “And don’t call for violence against that young, violent man now sitting in prison, for God has a place for all sinners.
“Job understood that all wrongdoing was going to be punished in God’s due time. Job says: At daylight the murderer gets up. He proceeds to slay the afflicted and the poor one. And during the night he becomes a regular thief. They do not know daylight.”
He wiped the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief and deepened the lines in his soft face.
“But let it be known,” he continued, “that Dallas will be in our midst again, because the last book of God’s word promises at Revelation, where we read . . .” He flipped to the back of his book while the audience nodded. Rebecca’s face was buried in her hands. “And God will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
His voice broke, and he straightened his tie. Ivan’s own eyes watered as the minister looked up.
“Take comfort, all you mourners here. Let this boy’s life, and tragic death, be a symbol not of God’s disappearance, but of His very existence. What a wonderful God—that He’s allowed us to love this big.”
These last words weren’t in his notes. Somehow they poured from him. He was staring back at the room. Their eyes filled. He felt it. He almost seemed trapped inside that instant, feeling his own transformation. To love was not a commandment, suddenly, but a gift!
“You’ve got to believe this,” he said, pounding on the podium. “I know, I know, it always seems like we don’t count, but we do. He speaks to us through his word, he cries like us!”
He didn’t really know what he was saying, but each idea that dripped from his mind burned to be released by his tongue. He wiped sweat from his head. “He gives us defeat, so we can learn to know victory; He gives us darkness so we can love the light. Our hearts break so the better when they mend. I’m telling you, He’s real, and He sees us, and He knows. You’ve got to believe me!”
Myriad eyes, wet in the dim light, flickered back at him. He couldn’t tell if they understood. Their faces were like cornstalks. He felt like he could wade into them and they’d simply bend to the side without resistance. Then he remembered himself.
“For Job’s endurance,” he said, clearing his throat, “he received all the things he’d lost in double amount. He was awarded ten more children, and he will be reunited with the ten he lost. Consider all of this, and find comfort.”
Ivan’s mouth had dropped completely open.
The minister stepped down and received Dallas’s parents into his arms. Michael staggered when he wasn’t being held, looked disinterested when he was.
Ivan pulled on his son’s shoulder, but James yanked away and headed for the casket. Ivan watched his son run his hands over it. Ivan wiped his eyes, looked at the preacher, wiped his eyes again, and began to shake. His wife put her hand on his back.
“I’ll be in the car,” he said in a trembling voice, and ran from the parlor, hiding his face with his hand.
* * *
That night, Michael and Rebecca Darwin sat in their living room holding each other while members of their church made coffee in the kitchen. Minister Roberts rubbed his mouth. He sat on the couch across from them, his eyes occasionally darting to the people in the room, then lowering solemnly to the floor. Rebecca’s best friend in the congregation, Mrs. Waring, sat down beside her, massaging her back. Immediately, as if her touch had granted some sort of permission, Rebecca began to cry. Mrs. Waring helped her to her feet and guided her out of the living room while Mrs. Waring’s husband drifted in with two glasses of scotch; the ice cubes clinked softly in the dim living room. He handed one to Michael, who took it as if by rote and immediately began sipping.
“Brother Waring, I’d like to take one myself, if that’s okay,” Minister Roberts said. Mr. Waring quietly handed him the glass. “If this is okay with the congregation . . .” the minister added.
“Under the circumstances,” Mr. Waring answered. He turned back to the cabinet to make himself another drink. Michael was already finished with his scotch, and was waving the empty glass in circles.
Another man from the congregation wandered in and took the glass. “I’ll get you a refill,” he said.
Minister Roberts bit his bottom lip and glanced up at Michael, whose eyes were red. He looked as if he’d aged fifteen years.
“We know,” began Minister Roberts, “that alcohol can temporarily lighten one’s spirit. But the word is temporarily.”
Michael received the refilled glass of scotch.
“You go ahead and have your fill,” the minister encouraged. “Get good and drunk. Then, in the morning . . . Remember the beautiful morning, and bend your will to the purpose of doing good in the world. Live with the memory of Dallas as a young, inquisitive boy, who passed into God’s keeping with full knowledge of your love for him,” he said, as if he were finishing his sermon from earlier.
Michael was only half-listening, staring into his glass. “I was mad at him,” he said softly.
The minister shifted forward on the couch, so that he was barely seated on the edge of it. He took a nip off his drink and leaned his large head forward. “What’s that, Michael?”
“I was angry with him. While he was dying, I was angry, and I was planning to beat him. He was taken from me because I was angry at him.” His last word strangled in the small space between the two men.
Minister Roberts shook his head gently. “You know that God doesn’t work like that, Brother Darwin. God blesses us with offspring. He doesn’t punish us by taking them.”
“I don’t know how God works,” replied Michael, and he emptied his glass into his mouth.
“Remember Job,” Minister Roberts said, and he set his glass down on the table.
Michael looked up at Mr. Waring and held up his own empty glass. Without hesitation, Mr. Waring took it and headed to the cabinet. Michael nodded to his minister with a faint smile. Remember Job, he thought.
After a short while, the friends filed out of the house. The Warings were the last to leave. Mrs. Waring turned on her way out the door and hugged Rebecca. She kissed her on her tears, and wiped her hair back away from her face. Then they stepped out of the house, and the Darwins closed the door tightly and locked it.
When Rebecca fell asleep, after taking two sleeping pills with a glass of warm milk, her husband rose from the bed and headed down the dark, silent hallway. He went to the cabinet and poured himself another scotch. He hated sleeping now, for every time he or his wife would wake, the first thing that came to their mind was Dallas, and they would immediately begin to cry. He hated to sleep because he hated to wake. He took a sip of his drink, looked down the hallway to hear if his wife had stirred, and then stepped into Dallas’s bedroom for the first time since the day he’d left the house with his friends.
Michael turned on the light, and immediately noticed the bare walls where all his music records were once stacked. The sight of it choked him up, and he regretted entering the room. On the bed lay the Ouija board. The crude thing seemed to mock him from its place on top of the small quilt. He reached down and picked it up, then sat down on the bed where it had been lying. He ran his hand across the letters. He couldn’t tell if the letters and numbers were in his son’s handwriting, but he knew somehow that Dallas had helped create it, and therefore, it was a part of who he was. Michael took another sip. Stared down at the boa
rd for a long time.
I can’t believe I was so angry with him, he thought. That I waited for him to come home so I could beat him. I was going to use the belt.
At this thought, he began to weep, and his sobs made his shoulders shake violently. He tried to remember all the good things he knew about his son, and all the things he had taught him. He hoped that Dallas knew to pray to his God. He dropped the board and the scotch glass, and covered his face with both hands. Somehow he knew that his son didn’t pray, and it occurred to him that over this entire course of days, he hadn’t prayed either, and the idea that his faith, at this most crucial time, seemed to have flown from him, made the sorrow deep and unending. There really is no hope, he thought to himself as he wept. My son is really gone from here, and I’ll never see him, and I believe that, and so I believe in nothing. Oh God, I believe nothing happens after death, but rotting and decomposition, and then eventually . . . yes . . . eventually everyone will forget. And when I die, and she dies, everybody will forget. In a hundred years, the Darwins will be nothing, like a family of trees fallen in the forest. Yes, we existed, but what good is being alive? It’s all emptiness. It’s all absurd. My God, I can’t believe it. In the end, Dallas has taught me. He has become the teacher.
“This is too much, too much,” he cried out softly, and buried his face in his hands once again. His chest ached. He lay on the bed sobbing like a newborn, curled into a fetal position, until he fell asleep on his son’s pillow, clutching at the quilt. He slept on the edge of the bed, worried that sometime during the night, Dallas would return and want to slip in beside him.
The Ouija board lay on the floor alongside the empty scotch glass, until he awoke in the morning and started over. Not by bending his will to the purpose of doing good in this world, as the minister had suggested, but by going to his bank and withdrawing the three thousand dollars he’d saved, in order to help pay for his son’s burial.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Little Beasts Page 17