The Kingdom of Heaven

by 19

  He stiffened, dragging hard at Lucretia's hand. –Wait. I don't know about this, he hissed at her, urgent and frantic. –I didn't know there would be so many people.

  She turned back to him, with the kind of expression that would have been called a prom queen look fifty years earlier, a sharp mixture of amusement and scorn. –What are you, afraid of crowds or something?

  Not crowds. This crowd.

  It was too late. It was already happening.

  For as long as he could remember, he had been afraid of something. Cops. The local dealer. Tornadoes. Ticks, for fuck’s sake. All kinds of irrelevant things. This was the one fear that disguised itself in all the other little terrors: he had always been afraid he was some kind of impostor.

  It was insane, he knew that. He had given up trying to explain it to anyone after several bad experiences with laughter or disbelief. He didn't really blame anyone for their reactions. He could only imagine how he looked, gesturing wildly, repeating over and over, not me, another me. Don't you get it?

  He was afraid he would walk into a room one day, and find himself already there. Another him, talking to his friends, wearing his clothes, saying all the right things, never coughing after a drag, and he himself would become as irrelevant as he'd always known he was. He would cease to exist because he never truly had. He would disappear. No one would miss him, because the real him had finally arrived.

  He was afraid that doppelgangers did exist, and that he was one.

  He was afraid he would find his replacement in this crowd.

  Lucretia was not at all the kind of person he could tell any of that to, even if he'd had time.

  Please, he thought, or said. Lucretia dragged him up to the truck, to a skinny freak trio whose leader was already holding out a pipe. It was Ministry blaring out of the stereo.

  –I'm Kether, the guy yelled over the music. He had stringy dyed-green hair, a safety pin through his septum. –This is Christine, and Raleigh. He gestured at the girls beside him.

  –Hi, he mumbled, and took the pipe. He tasted weed, cocaine, something like a ground-up dandelion. It was horrible. Something blue flashed in front of his eyes.

  Lucretia took it from his stumbling hand. –He's new in Haven, she said, as if he

  (wasn't really there at all)

  wasn't capable of speaking for himself. Which he wasn't really, he had to admit. He tried not to notice Christine making eyes at him, thought longingly of his one battered room, his mattress and crooked columns of books. He wanted to go home. He tried to remember how he had gotten screwed into coming here.

  The pipe went around too fast for him to catch his breath between hits. He was sure Christine and Raleigh were just passing it, but he couldn't catch them doing it. Lucretia and Kether–there was something wrong with both of those names, come to think of it–were having some kind of discussion about whether or not somebody had found anybody for tonight.

  –I need to sit down, he said, to no one in particular, which was fine, because no one paid any attention to him anyway. He stumbled past Raleigh and sat on the tailgate. He could feel the vibrations from the speakers pounding into his back. The metal underneath him was wet with dew, soaking through his dirty jeans. He shivered.

  He looked around, past this little group at the rest of the party. He didn't see himself. Not yet. The only other person with long black hair was a girl in a sleeveless leather jacket who probably outweighed him by fifty pounds. Maybe I'm not here yet, he thought.

  –Hey. You all right? You're just staring off into space, Lucretia said, her hand high on his leg. He wanted to squirm away from her. He wanted to walk back across town, out onto the highway where Jordan was camped, sit there safe and listen to the bullshit on the CB and play I Spy. Anything but this.

  –I'm fine.

  –Come with me. I've got a surprise for you, she said, pulling him to his feet again.

  Great. She'll probably try to blow me. Or worse. I don't want this. I don't want her.

  She led him into the edge of the woods, behind a tangled clump of scruffy palm trees where the shadows were thick. She pulled a Vaseline jar out of the pocket of her heavy coat. –Take your shirt off.

  The drugs had left him illogical and dizzy. The Vaseline gave him all kinds of confusion. Did she want him to fuck her? Already? Like...that? He pulled his black t-shirt over his head. He already knew enough of Lucretia to realize that argument was pointless. He only said, –What do you need that for?

  –It isn't Vaseline, she told him, amused, unscrewing the lid. holding it out for him to smell. –It's to put on your skin.

  The scent was bitter and strange, a blue-violet sharp poisonous smell that he felt he should have recognized. He turned around to let her start on his back, pulled his hair up with one hand.

  This was the weirdest seduction he had ever seen. The odd thing was that she didn't seem to be trying to seduce him at all. She smeared it on him with clipped efficiency, not roughly, but with none of the unnecessary teasing he expected. He only stood, holding his shirt in his free hand. Whatever it was, it freezing cold on his skin, in a menthol kind of way, making his teeth chatter and his skin crawl. By the time she turned him around to work on his chest his back had warmed, the stuff becoming almost hot.

  The smell was blinding.

  –What happened? she asked, about the scars, but she didn't pause. She dabbed her fingers in the jar again, started at his collarbone and worked her way down.

  –Nothing. I was a kid, he said. Two lies in one night.

  She shrugged.

  She doesn't care, he thought. It didn't really bother him. He didn't care about her, either. Her fingertips brushed his nipple. He gritted his teeth. He wasn't aroused. Not at all. What he really wanted was to shove her away from him, as hard as he could, or worse, hit her, maybe.

  Flash, incoherent this time: the sound of a belt clearing belt loops, breaking glass, a siren, the taste of lemonade.

  He closed his eyes tight, opened them again, blinked quickly. She left her hand low on his stomach for too long. He looked down at her, saw that mocking smile again.

  –Sorry, she offered, not really sorry at all. She took off the coat, dropped it on the ground, unzipped the shapeless black dress. –Will you do me?

  The idea of this gave him a memory of putting his hand into a dead possum while hiding from the cops.

  –Do it yourself.

  He pulled his shirt on again. It stuck to his skin. He tugged at it, irritated.

  She did. He tried to breathe around the deadflower smell, tried not to look at her. He was tingling, now, everywhere she had put that stuff, under his skin, muscle deep. Something was wrong with his heartbeat. Strange colors moved across his vision.

  –What was that? he asked her, suddenly frightened.

  –It's nothing. Just gets you high. It's harmless.

  He could hear that she was lying. Could smell it, see it, taste it in the air between them.

  He pressed his hands to the sides of his head, shaking, pressed hard against his chest, left of his sternum. Pressure. Something that was not exactly pain–more like a sensation of choking. –My heart...chest...it doesn't feel harmless.

  She laughed. When he grabbed her she made a little startled cry, the first time he had seen her drop the act. The Vaseline jar fell from her hand, rolled twice, picking up dirt, twigs.

  He shook her once, hard, staring down at her. He was almost shouting now. –I said it doesn't fucking feel harmless, now tell me what the fuck it was!

  The mask dropped back over her face. She gave him a whore's smile, hanging limp and complacent in his hands. –It makes it so that you can fly. Don't you want to? Fly?

  He let her go. There was pain, now, deep in the left side of his chest. –Poison. You poisoned me...

  –Oh, quit it, she said, in disgust, retrieving her precious jar and wiping off the dirt with her sleeve. She zipped her dress again, picked up her coat, tucked the jar back into the pocket. –You just saw me
put it all over myself, too. You're fine.

  Yes, I said so myself, didn't I?

  The trees were spinning around him. The ground was spinning too. His eyes were stinging.

  Lucretia turned and left him there.

  For a minute or so, he thought she was just stepping away, to breathe, or to see if he would go over to her, try to apologize. She didn't stop. She kept walking, back towards the party.

  He followed her, desperate suddenly, almost running, sure that if she left him he would never know which direction to go. He stumbled, the ground striking at his knees, merciless. He gasped out, –Lucretia.

  She made some frustrated sound, turned back to him. She didn't move to help him, only stood over him until he pulled himself swaying onto his feet. –Come on, she said, impatient. –They're waiting. It'll start any minute now.

  The Ministry had stopped. It was replaced by drums too immediate and crisp to be the product of any speakers. –I'm not stupid, he snapped at her, suddenly furious. –I know what this is.

  She stared at him, daring him to say it.

  –It's a Black Mass. He was accusing her, laughing just as abruptly as he'd been shouting. –You dragged me out here to watch the local rejects try to summon Satan. And Lucretia is not your fucking name, he added, just to spite her. –The Sisters of Mercy? Really?

  Lucretia gave him a tight thin smile. –I thought you were one of us. Maybe I've made a mistake.

  –I'm not one of anything, he told her. He could see the clearing now, blurry, crooked. He walked past her. The drums were getting louder.

  She was right.

  It was starting.

  (4)

  He sat with his back against the tire of Kether's truck. He watched them build a bonfire, watched the revels grow less careful, more ugly. Christine and Raleigh were kissing a few feet away from him, moaning hungrily. He glanced towards them. Raleigh raised her hand to touch Christine's neck and he saw the tracks on the inside of her arm like the lines of an infected wound. Her eyes were open. She saw him looking and lowered her eyelashes. Come over here. There's room for one more.

  He looked back at the fire again, ignoring her offer. Lucretia was there, naked now, spinning, laughing. Her nipples were dark brown. There were faint stretchmarks on her stomach.

  Flash: a handful of bruised meat wrapped in towels, tied in a garbage bag, buried in these woods about a hundred yards away.

  He shook his head violently. It did not leave him. It only settled back into the sludge at the bottom of his consciousness. He could not forget it. He knew it was not a hallucination.

  That was all he had ever been good at. The truth. Especially the truths that no one wanted to know about.

  He thought he saw himself, across the clearing, sitting against the wheel of another red truck, except that Christine and Raleigh were curled close to him, swarming over him like snakes, drowning him in a tangle of heroin limbs. His nerves went into a cold fusion deadlock. He stared hard. He saw that it was that girl again, the one with long dark hair. He knew it wasn't him, because both of her eyes were the same color. And the figures in her lap were both male.

  It's not you. See? Not you.

  He tried to relax. His skin ached, his muscles knotting and relaxing spasmodically. He didn't feel like he could fly. He didn't even think he could walk. They were chanting a silly bastard-Latin invocation that sounded like the soundtrack for a bad Italian horror movie. There were large winged things swooping and diving above the crowd that he knew were group hallucinations. They could have been bats or demons or mutant insects. He wasn't sure. He didn't bother to look too closely.

  This was uncomfortable, unpleasant, a waste of his time. He felt vaguely embarrassed for them, these idiot participants in this mindless rebellion. He couldn't decide whether what he felt for Christine and Raleigh was pity, scorn, or a strange envy.

  He was jealous of their ignorance.

  He wished something this inane had the ability to make him happy.

  He wished he felt like a part of it, like he belonged to this, to anything, even something as pathetic as this.

  His mind kept spinning these random things, over and over, emotions chasing images chasing sensations. He closed his eyes. That made it worse, but he kept them closed. He wrapped his arms around his knees, laid his forehead on his arms, stared at the backs of his eyelids. There were glyphs written there. One was his own face, painted like an Egyptian god. Another was a cross with yellow feathers nailed to it.

  Fuck this. I'm going home, he decided. He stood up and fell badly this time, striking the back of his head on the tailgate of the truck. When he pushed himself up onto his elbows they were bringing out the boy.

  Kether was watching, appreciatively, smoking a joint. The boy couldn't have been a day over sixteen. Two men were dragging him, almost carrying him. He was bound hand and foot, gagged with a strip of cloth, another scrap tied over his eyes. The boy was breathing hard, sweating, shaking violently enough to make his captors hold him with white knuckles and gritted teeth. He was resisting, refusing to pick up his feet, trying to pull his arms tight against his chest, moving his head convulsively in what might have been an attempt to shake off the blindfold.

  –Hey, Jordan whispered. –You okay?

  He didn't answer for a very long time. Then, he whispered, –No, and ground out the awful rest of it.

  He called out, Hey.

  Even as he said it he realized that even if he was really there, none of them could hear him over the drums, over the strange chaos noise of their own indulgence.

  He said it again, louder this time. –Hey!

  No one heard him.

  He realized he was lying on the ground, half-propped up on his elbows, with his hair hanging dirty and possibly bloody in his face. He also realized that he was extremely chemically altered, that the words were pushing themselves oblong and difficult past his lips. The entire scene of victim-party-bonfire was printed in a skewed diagonal slideshow on his retinas. Maybe the entire thing was a hallucination.

  He could not let this happen in front of his eyes, hallucination or not.

  He screamed out something that was not a word. None of them moved. He had known they wouldn't. He screamed again anyway, tried to push himself up onto his hands and knees. He couldn't.

  He couldn't.

  It was only a boy.

  He could not push himself up. Could not even really move, except a vague pathetic flailing of his one free hand. He was still lying on his stomach, one trembling elbow pushing his head and shoulders up.

  Heavy cold dread snapped closed around him like a noose.

  He hadn't really been trying before. That was it. He was still six-foot-three, he was still not afraid, not of a punch in the face, not of a crowd of doped-up rednecks. He could stand up and save this frightened child, he just hadn't tried hard enough yet.

  He tried, now.

  He fought with every agonized inch of knotted muscle and aching bone, fought against the numbing tendrils of the concoction Lucretia had paralyzed him with, fought against the fear of nonexistence, fought against the grating longing to lie in the dust and hurt and wait for dawn.

  He had to stand up. He had to. He could take this boy, strike down the evil bastards holding him, pull him away into the woods, hide deep and low in the weeds and brush until the drunken lunatics had given up searching for them. He could...

  He couldn't.

  He couldn't move, except for an epileptic quivering of his free hand, tracing mysteries in the dust, and his mouth, shaping silent words.

  Drugs, it's just drugs, I've had drugs, I can move if I really fucking want to...I always could before, I have to, just a boy, I have to move, MOVE...

  His eyes were caught on the boy, and the boy's kidnappers were dragging him into the center, the very center of the clearing, and the silly chanting was louder and more scary than ridiculous.

  He tried as hard as he could, his teeth gritted, dragging at every deadweight inch of his
body with every last ounce of his will. He managed a weak moveless trembling, and then his arms gave out. He was lying on his side, his face in the dirt, still looking at the boy. His mouth shaped wait and don't and don't do this and finally you can't. And that was all he could do. Even his lips were numb. He was horribly conscious, so aware that he could smell the sweat from the mad witches ten feet away, could smell last week's rain in the ground, could smell the boy, the acrid orange scent of his terror, and the drugs they had given him.

  I don't want to see this, he thought. He knew it was cowardice. He couldn't help the boy. He didn't want to see whatever would come next.

  They were forcing the boy down on his knees, Lucretia and another faceless woman spinning around him in a spastic wild dance, and he didn't want to SEE what would come next and his fucking EYES would not close.

  If he saw this, he would see it forever, in acid tunnels, in dreams, inside his eyelids. He did not want to carry those pictures around, did not want the weight of them in his brain. His thoughts were heavy enough without the burden of this abomination.

  They were closing in on the boy. Kether was one of the first, laughing with crooked teeth, naked and aroused.

  It wasn't their fault. They were rebelling against an unbearable world. They were becoming their own casualties, and this sexual victim could have been any one of them, probably would be on some other unholy night.

  He hated them anyway.

  He watched until the blood came. He fell over onto his back with one convulsive struggle, staring up into the sky, at the stars watching all of it, sterile.

  He could hear it, over the drums, over the sounds that might have been grief or ecstasy. A liquid obscene sound. Rape.

  He stared at Orion and cried, hopeless, horrified. The tears stung in his eyes like acid. His limbs were heavy, burning with unknown drugs.

  It went on for hours.

  His mouth was paralyzed, useless meat. He could only speak inside the space of his skull. He thought the same litany over and over.