The Ends of the Earth

by Lucius Shepard

  “Wonderful sermon, Reverend,” she says, parroting her dad, and I am forced to restrain a laugh, amused not by the incongruity of the compliment in relation to her thoughts, but by the fact of the compliment itself. My sermons are mild and cautionary nothings, annotated with announcements of bake sales and raffles, and do not attempt salvation. For what purpose should I save them? Heaven? That curdled fantasy has long since fled my brain, and God’s absence is everywhere…although I have sensed a scrap of His divinity floating in the belfry, as flat and black as a shadow, and know that He only waits the proper summons to return transformed into a God suitable to the times. That, you see, is the core principle of the divine, that we must pour It full of sins—as, indeed, I have been filled during the six years of my ministry—and kill It, and then resurrect It in new form, a vessel suitable for the shapes of contemporary wrongdoing.

  Purse clasped to her belly, Emily strolls off ’twixt Bess and Robert into the myth of her virginity, and I am confronted by the banker, Miles Elbee, a sapless twig of a sinner gone gray at forty, weathered and wrinkled as a man half-again his age. From his perfunctory shake I have a glistening of leather, a whipcrack, and an exultant scream. He always withdraws his hand so quickly. I wonder if he knows I see his passion for submissiveness and is ashamed. “Fine morning,” he says, and with a tailored smile, he joins the menfolk on the walk to discuss the NFL. And here, Marge Trombley extends her white-gloved hand. Auburn hair and a pale face so delicately engraved with thirty years of suffering, it seems as exquisitely wrought as a cameo. Ah, Marge! Your sin is the sweetest fellow to my own. From the pressure of your fingertips I am blessed with the sight of you and me coupling in the choir stall. And something else beneath that sight, a dark knurl of more-than-secret sin (Have I mentioned that locked in every heart is the knotty shape of the last and greatest evil of which we are capable?). I return the pressure, letting it linger a moment too long for propriety, infusing those lovely features with a blush.

  “I am hoping to see Jeffrey one Sunday,” I say. This initiates a litany between us. Jeffrey is the ne’erest of ne’er-do-wells, given to weekend binges and wife-beating; he has never set foot in St. Mary’s, and our exchanges concerning him rarely vary.

  “He’s been sick,” she says. “And he’s depressed about his job.” A smile breaks the lock of suffering. “I’ll try to bring him along next week.” Then, leaning close, a whisper. “I must talk to you, Reverend.”

  I respond that unfortunately I’m off to a church conference for the week—a lie—but that the Saturday evening after my return will be free. If she would care to stop by around sevenish…? She would, indeed. Marge, Marge. Is this to be our flowering?

  And so it goes, one Episcopal life after another: neatly decked-out shells enfolding a chaos of frustrations.

  Once they have all made their way homeward or to lunch or tennis, I sit in the back pew, drinking the last of the Communion wine and staring at the animals in their light-stained, grape-bordered universe. They stare back from the windows, trembling with life. They are alive. I mean this not in the ordinary mystical sense, but in one common to a grander age, the age of Jeremy Calder and his witches, who knew the truth that life is an idea. Every bubbled imperfection in the glass holds a germ of principle, the lead mullions flow with the conception of rivers, and as I watch, the bear lifts his snout from a golden honeycomb and grumbles a prayer for my salvation; he is the holiest of the lot, a gentle monster whose last red meal was so long ago that he has forgotten the call of the blood and now passes the hours in monastic contemplation. The owl, a persnickety old darkness, nods judgmentally; the lamb gambols, beckoning me to sin with flirtatious wags of its bobbed tail. They each have some comment to make on my performance, my life…all, that is, except the lion. He has never moved or spoken in these six years, and because he is the most beautiful of them, the noblest, he withholds much commentary that I long to hear. I wonder for what stimulus he is waiting. I’ve heard that Jeremy Calder often carried out private interrogations of the witches beneath this particular window, and that at times the cries of pain issuing from the church were indistinguishable from cries of womanly pleasure. Could this have silenced my lion? And did Jeremy go probing after Satan, risking the very extent of his manhood in scouring those vessels clean, or like me, was he merely lustful? The intent once mattered, I suppose. But no more. This age suppresses the importance of intent, and what is valued is effect, result, profit.

  I swallow the dregs of the wine, and pulp catches between my teeth. I’m pleased, seeing in this an omen, because it’s the pulp of life I’m always seeking in the thin wine of existence. The palpable, the chewable. Difficult to minister without some knowledge of those wilds, for we live in a universe of black rules and rudderless stars, and how can one navigate without grounding oneself in the depths of that medium? Thus it is I must indulge my needs from time to time…though in truth I need no excuse for indulgence. I’m a hale man in my early forties, my wife is dead, and I have met no suitable replacement, unless good Marge Trombley were to unshackle from her Jeffrey. Sigh. Would that it were so! I gaze at my warped reflection in the bottle glass. Its emptiness is my own. But not for long. A sense of purpose has lately begun stealing over me, less an emotion than a physical condition, yet embodying qualities of both. Perhaps it will come clear at the “church conference.”

  Two hundred and eight miles from Fallon, where St. Mary’s bides in whiteness, lies the town of Corn River, and on its southern outskirts stands an old brick house, home to the beautiful Serena de Miron (née Carla DiLuca), a purveyor of Greek, French, and various Third World nationalities so exotic in character that not even the Bible was sufficiently wise to warn against them. Other girls live in the house, but it is Serena I fancy…Serena who knows well the muscular analogues of my spiritual requirements. Black hair, pale unblemished skin, the face of an angel by Degas, and as fine a set of warheads as these eyes have ever seen. All coupled with a gum-chewing, airhead mentality. The perfect tour guide to the pulp of contemporary life. She is waiting for me in a room whose walls show as veins of a cream-colored mineral seaming a bedrock of posters, most depicting depraved-looking men with guitars. “Frankie!” she squeals, coming to her knees and bouncing on the bed. “Where you been?”

  “Sales trip,” I say, shrugging off my jacket. Franklyn is, indeed, my Christian name, but I have told Serena that I’m a traveler in costume jewelry, and on each visit I present her with some bit of gaud as proof. From my trouser pocket I remove a pair of long rhinestone earrings that twist and twinkle like gemmy worms. Serena snatches them, holds them to her ears, pulling back her hair to let me judge the effect…a witchily beautiful effect. Good thing for you, Serena, that old Jeremy has not come in my stead.

  Some hours later, lying face to face, still joined, I mention my problematic attraction to Marge Trombley. “Ya like her, huh?” she says.

  “Like?” I mull over the quality of my feelings. “Let’s say I’m drawn to something in her, something I can’t quite fathom.”

  Serena gives me a chummy internal squeeze. “You’re so sensitive, Frankie. I wish you was a younger guy.”

  This inspires me to prove that age has not entirely drained my vitality, and we do not continue the conversation for another hour.

  “I don’t know what to tell ya,” she says. “What’s she alla ’bout?”

  I have little more than intuition to draw on as regards Marge’s character, but I make a stab at analysis. “Quiet, conservative,” I say. “On the surface, at least. Repressed. And that’s the thing I want to know in her. Whatever’s buried under those years of repression.”

  “And her husband beats her?”

  “Habitually.”

  “Y’know,” Serena says, “sounds to me she ain’t sure what she wants. I mean she is sure, but she might need convincin’. Like maybe gettin’ beat up alla time…well, she probably don’t enjoy it or nothin’. But she’s probably used to bein’ forced.”

  �
�I don’t understand.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Serena squirms, and I respond. She giggles. “Ooh, I like that!”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “’Bout what?”

  “Marge…convincing her.”

  “See”—a crease mars Serena’s brow, and her tone grows earnest, knowing—“she’s gonna go right to the edge with ya, and then she’s gonna need a push, y’know. To make her fall.”

  “A push?”

  Serena laughs. “Y’gotta be masterful, Frankie. Y’know how to be masterful, don’tcha?”

  On cue, I become masterful.

  Between bouts with Serena, I wander the brothel. It, too, is a place of worship, one with a more comprehensible god than that scrap of darkness who inhabits St. Mary’s, and as such, I find its lessons apt. Standing in the gloomy corridor, listening to cries of pleasure both fraudulent and unfeigned, I remember my wife’s cries of pain as the thing that ate her from within gnawed closer and closer to the quick. How I loved her, yet at the same time how I resented her unsightly dying. Sometimes I could scarcely determine whether my urge to put her out of her misery was funded by mercy or by an irrational murderous impulse. Those months of watching her die, of trying to soothe her agony, unhinged me, set me on a canted course from which I have not yet and perhaps never will recover…Does it surprise you that I’m aware of my deviant sensibilities? Perhaps it is surprising; however, I’ve lived too long within my own cracked shell to be confounded by the eerie slants of light that penetrate and color thought. In any case, to be mad in this age is a form of wisdom, a lens through which one can view its oblique truths and gain knowledge by which to apply what is learned. So, though madder than most, I am also wiser, more capable of action, and the action, or rather the confluence of actions, that occurs to me while standing in the hallway strikes me as being the zenith of my mad wisdom. Why haven’t I seen it before? It should have been obvious! Marge and our Saturday evening tryst, the compatible congregation of sin, Serena’s advice, the traditions of the church, and on and on. Everything points to the fact that like any good shepherd I shall have to lead my flock by example, steer them onto the path of righteous wickedness, and bring forth the fire of a new god from the embers of the old. By example…and by the word that will spring from that example. Yes, yes! Finally a fit topic for a sermon, a fit occasion to commemorate. Smiling, my clouded sense of purpose in focus at last, I fling open the door to Serena’s room, startling her. She rolls onto her back, her Naughty Girl nightie riding up over her thighs.

  “Geez, Frankie,” she says. “You look…” She tips her head to the side, searching apparently for an appropriate term or word. “Different or something.”

  Could my illumination have worked a physical change? Anything is possible, I suppose. I study my reflection in the mirror backing the door, but see nothing out of the ordinary…except in the measure of my self-regard. I realize now that for months I have avoided mirrors, not wanting to view the hapless soul shriveling in my flesh. But that soul is not in evidence. In my mirror image I perceive confidence, a lion’s-worth of confidence. And intent. Oh, I am ripe to bursting with intent.

  “What you see before you,” I say, turning to Serena, “is a man grown suddenly great with conviction.”

  Serena giggles and pats the mattress beside her. “Well, don’t waste it, Frankie. Come on over ’fore it shrinks back to normal.”

  Saturday night, the last pallid light of an ashen day illuminating the stained-glass windows, and candles burning steadily on the altar, flanking a silver cross of a size suitable for the crucifixion of a small child. Separated from Serena and the Church of Fleshly Delights, my conviction—as Serena playfully intimated—has shrunk. I am nervous, full of doubt. Yet my intent remains firm. Doubt-ridden or not, I will do the deed. And as Marge enters through the front door, I slip the bolt into place, securing us within an unknown country, one whose boundaries we are soon to define. The snick of the bolt makes her jump, but I smile reassuringly. “Burglars,” I say. “Or mischievous choirboys.” She smiles in return, relaxing.

  With a sly wink toward the lion, I lead her back into the rectory, which is attached by a corridor to the choir’s dressing room, and I sit her down on the red velvet sofa. Her hair is sewn with glints by the dim track lighting, her lips are redder than the velvet gleaming curves, and in the cleavage of her frock I spot an inch of lace. One button more than usual undone. The final signal, Marge. I will not fail you.

  I offer wine; she demurs; I insist. The wine is the same pale red of her hair, and as she sips, I enjoy the conceit that she is tasting her own substance. I sit beside her, not too close, not too far. A seductive distance, yet I disguise a tempter’s propinquity with sincere concern, listening to complaints about her Jeffrey.

  “He’s been gone almost two weeks this time,” she says. “And he swore he wouldn’t be back.”

  Thank you, Jeffrey.

  “He’ll be back,” I say, stroking her arm. “Don’t worry.” Not a flinch from Marge, only a shy glance.

  “I know you’re right,” she says. “But…”

  “Yes?”

  “This will sound awful, Reverend, but…”

  “Franklyn,” I say. “Please call me Franklyn.”

  “All right.” Wan smile. “Franklyn.” She sighs, and a curve of white flesh swells above the lace. “As I was saying, this will sound awful, but I’m not sure I want him back.”

  I pretend to be in a deep study. “It’s not awful in the least,” I say. “You’ve endured too much from him already.”

  She stares into her wine glass as if seeking an oracle. “I don’t know.”

  “Marge,” I begin.

  She looks at me, startled.

  “Forgive my familiarity,” I say, drinking in those delicate features. “It’s just I feel close to you, in your confidence.”

  “No, no. It’s all right.”

  “Marge,” I continue. “You’ve been married how long…almost ten years, isn’t it?”

  A nod.

  “To stay and suffer more abuse would be foolhardy.”

  “I suppose, but it’s not so simple a question. I’m afraid I might be leaving him for the wrong reason.” This last accompanied by a flush.

  “I see.” And I do see: Marge is close to an admission. I pretend awkwardness. “I…uh.” Clear my throat. “May I ask if there’s someone else?”

  She lowers her head, and this time the nod is almost imperceptible.

  “You have strong feelings for this other man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Love is nothing to be ashamed of, Marge. Not in your case, not given the loveless circumstance of your house. You have to seize what joy you can, you have to obey the imperatives of your heart.”

  I have planned a long drawn-out seduction, but fired by my own words I shift closer, our thighs nearly touching, and lean to her. “Marge,” I say. “I know, I know.”

  She tries to harden her face, but melts. “I can’t,” she says. “I’m not sure.” But her mouth opens to me. I undo a button, and she arches beneath my hands. Inch by inch the frock divides, and my palms glory in the weight of her breasts. I whisper, telling her of my long desire. I slide one strap of her slip off her shoulder, bury my face in softness. Feel her tense.

  “No!” she says, pushing my head away. “No, please.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” I tell her, and burrow in again.

  “No!” She yanks at my hair, beats a fist against my shoulder, and I realize that we have reached the point that Serena in her wisdom predicted. Now is the proof of conviction, the honing of intent into action. I rip away the last buttons, and Marge screams, tries to claw me. But I beat her hands aside, and drag her from the sofa and into the bedroom.

  “Go ahead,” I say, panting. “Scream. No one will hear. You’re going to get what you came for, witch!”

  The venom in my voice astounds me, as does the epithet. It hardly seems that it was I who spoke. But I put it from
mind and address her in a gentler fashion.

  “It’ll be sweet, Marge. You’ll see. After tonight there’ll be no regrets, no recriminations.” All the while, I’m lashing her wrists and legs to the bedposts with four lengths of rope. Odd…I don’t recall having cut them. Ah, well. In some fugue I must have foreseen the determination underlying her recalcitrance. “Witch,” I realize, is a most fitting term. For though I have seen her form by day, humble and gentle, sightly to the moral eye, even then I glimpsed the hidden form that now confronts me: a voluptuous figure that might adorn a Tarot card, with hair and rags blown to cover her nakedness by a wind that none but she can feel. She looks at you—as Marge is looking at me this moment—with terror and anxiety, and you know her name is Woman, frail and sweet, demanding guidance. Yet penetrating that glaze of fear, you make out another eye, blue and calm, regarding you with measured appraisal, and you understand that the name of this interior self is Reason. Oh, she has many names, and none are wholesome, for all are funded by that last interior creature, that fuming golden thing with eyes as blank as suns, who stands in the scorched circle of the Devil’s gaze, exposing to him the charms with which she seeks to govern all men, and it is she who is the Great Lie, the embodiment of intoxicating and corrupting principle, and her name, the men speak with awe and longing, unaware of its enervating effects, her name is Love…

  I feel a touch of dizziness and pinch the bridge of my nose in an attempt to stem it. The tenor of my thoughts disturbs me, yet I chalk them up to the extreme nature of my actions, the conflict between their necessity and the disciplines instilled in me at the seminary; it would be surprising if I were not somewhat disoriented. I stare down at Marge. Lashed tightly in the remnants of her clothing, heaving up from the bed, she is a pretty sight, and while I undress, I talk to her.

  …No, I make purring, rumbling comments that are less speech than animal promises. Then, kneeling between her legs, I find that despite her protestations, reduced now to whimpers, the witch is ready for our consummation.