“You’re not from here,” he says, shuffling through fives and tens. Money that could have been snapped shut into the G-string of a stripper or traded for drugs. It’ll be used for gasoline, food, and lodging so Pastor Burke can keep going, keep spreading the gospel. He pockets the money, standing and taking me in. “You’re quite a ways from home, if I had to guess.”
“As are you,” I say. The shed is clear now. It’s easier to read him, the intangibles.
“I have no home,” the pastor says. “I travel and the Lord travels with me. That is my path.”
“And where does that path lead next?” I ask.
“Not sure just yet.” He gives a non-committal shrug, scratching the side of his neck. A nervous habit, if I didn’t know any better. Like me, this man travels alone and prefers not to have his future whereabouts questioned. I’m making him uneasy.
“You ever been to a place called Pratt?”
The pastor’s blood goes cold. Billy spikes so hard the hair raises on my arms and the back of my neck. I can feel him in my teeth, my chest. A static, a charge, something I’ve never experienced with the other men of the cloth.
He pulls a pistol from the back of his waistline, cocking it. Billy points the gun at me, saying, “You’ve got about ten seconds.”
My head tilts, reading him. “You’re from there,” I say. “And you have…a history.”
“Seven,” he says.
“It’s why you’re here…on the road…alone.”
“Five,” he says, aiming the barrel at my heart.
“They did that to you.” I point at his wrinkled neck then draw down to his torso. Skin itches, aches of bad memory. It haunts his dreams.
“Two.” Billy’s arm shakes.
“I can help,” I say, arm extended.
“No. You can’t,” he says. “Zero.”
Billy pulls the trigger.
* * *
At Hog Trough on South Main St., Pastor Billy Burke feasts upon pork ribs, BBQ baked beans, and neon-yellow potato salad that I’m afraid might upset his stomach if he has too much. He swathes a piece of sandwich bread through the sauce, indulging in yet another hunk of slow-cooked pig’s flesh. He chews, swallows, picking up a foggy gray tumbler of root beer and washes it down.
“No one ever knew much about Josephine Paige,” he says. “Kept to herself mostly. Not exactly a social butterfly, if you know what I mean.”
“The majority of my kind isn’t,” I tell him. I’ve told him more than I’ve ever told anyone and yet he remains seated, calm, unafraid. I don’t conflict with his faith or ideals—I improve upon them. “Josephine was never particularly talkative.”
Billy licks the sauce off his fingers, nodding, “Hiding in plain sight, as you say.” He grabs a small stack of tan napkins from the tin dispenser, cleaning off his fingers and the corners of his mouth. “Been doing a little of that myself.”
“I know,” I say.
“And what else do you know, Mr. Pollux?” he asks, smiling. “Besides how to stop a slug mid-air?”
Billy fired the gun and I reacted. Nothing more. This, however, illustrated to the both of us exactly what’s possible when we’re together. We can accomplish far more as a pair than we ever could separately; I explained this the best way I could, by example.
“I know that if you come back with me, you’ll never have to be afraid of anything ever again. You’ll never be alone,” I tell him. Billy nods, scratching at an area on his chest. “I can even get rid of that, if you’d like.” My finger motions to his chest, the scar tissue.
“No. That stays,” he says, giving a shake of the head, sighing. “It’s important to know where you came from.”
I smile, nodding. “I happen to agree, Mr. Burke.”
“Mason,” he says. “Call me Mason.”
* * *
“Don’t you find it odd?” Mason asks, sometime later.
We are on the road. We have an accord, he and I: that we will help each other get what the other man wants. That is, after all, what a partnership is based upon. It’s harmony. Balance.
“I believe, as you do, that the gods work in mysterious—sometimes coincidental—ways,” I answer. “You call it fate, I believe.”
Mason and I, we have business in Pratt. A great task lies ahead of us, and we have much to learn if this is to be a successful venture. Our first order of business, of course, is Josephine Paige. She will be our lure, our beacon for Madeline to follow. I imagine she’ll jump at the chance to call somewhere home again, especially if she receives the added incentive of the Feri’s collection. Prior attempts to hunt her down have resulted in disaster. This time, she will come to us, and we’ll remain at a safe distance until the time is right.
“Tell me more about this Father Johnstone,” I say.
“You wish to use him?” A twinge of jealously courses through Mason’s veins.
“I wish to take him out of play,” I explain. “Do you know what happens when a town like that becomes leaderless and without God?”
“I know exactly what happens,” Mason says, letting his shoulders ease back into the seat. He smiles, saying, “It tears itself apart.”
“So what do you know about Father Johnstone, then?”
“He’s alone. He’s unloved. He’s afraid of his past,” Mason says. “In his own little way, he’s also hiding in plain sight.”
“How would you break him, Mason?” I ask, curious as to what his thoughts are on the matter. Although he’s yet to learn about Craft and its numerous capabilities, I do enjoy hearing the pedestrian side of warfare.
“I would show him that part of himself he doesn’t want to see,” Mason says. He scratches his neck again, plotting, planning, scheming. “I’d show him the worst…turn him. Make him compromise. Let him walk with the Devil and see how he likes it.”
The Reunion
“It’s good to see you again, Jairy,” Mason says.
Years have passed since he last saw him, the pastor thinks, and it wasn’t at the abduction. He wasn’t there for that, although he’s often heard of others claiming they were (and lying about it) for the sake of invoking credibility into their campfire tale. Father Johnstone never testified to be present when Sheriff Morgan and his mob pulled Mason Hollis from his home, clawing at his own lawn before he was stuffed into the back of a police cruiser. Most people agree the last they saw of him was his own fist beating against a bulletproof window, face bloodied up courtesy of Shelby. What happened after that, only God knows. That still falls into the category of urban legend. The scars, Father Johnstone realizes, are quite real. They make his neck look like it’s coated in old candle wax, folding unevenly at odd angles whenever he speaks.
Mason refers to the pastor as Jairy. No one has called him that in over three decades.
“I was in the church,” Mason says. “The day the town showed up ready to beat you bloody and drag you out into the streets. Mr. Pollux has taught me quite a bit about hiding in plain sight. Everyone was so intent on hurting you it’s like I was invisible. Or perhaps I’ve changed that much.”
He is no longer pale or lanky, no longer easy prey. The Mason Hollis that stands before the pastor is someone else now, a stronger version resembling a young Danger Durphy, the same poise and build. Those dainty little fingers that caressed the nude body of Betty Graybel are chapped and tan, well worn from life on the road. He’s been getting his hands dirty.
“How did it feel, Jairy?” he asks. “What was it like to have them turn on you so quickly for something that wasn’t even your fault?”
“You’re comparing the two of us,” Father Johnstone says. “Even for you, that’s a stretch.”
“It’s a sickness, Jairy. I think you know the feeling,” Mason says. “I think you know what it’s like to have someone so deeply ingrained in yourself that you’re compelled to act.” He scratches the side of his neck. Folded scar tissue goes taut, almost appearing normal except for the varying skin tones. “I’ve faced my past. You, on
the other hand, continue to run from it. You deny yourself, Jairy.”
Father Johnstone is spiking. When he looks over at Madeline the hair on her forearms is raised off the skin. Miniscule bolts of static shock mingle above the tissue, and he prays. The pastor prays for her to break free of the spell, prays the Lord release these restraints and deliver them from evil.
“We’re not so different,” Mason says, but this offends the pastor to such a degree he forgets his fear. He forgets he’s bound to a chair and completely helpless.
“We’re completely different,” Father Johntone says. “You’re a degenerate, Mason. You dishonor that uniform.”
“He’s angry,” Pollux observes with an amused grin. “He wants to hurt you…wants to take another pass at you with that shotgun, I suspect.”
“You think you know pain, Jairy?” Mason leans forward, placing his mouth to the pastor’s ear. He licks the side of his face and Father Johnstone cringes, groans, twists within the tape trying to shake loose. “I’ll educate you,” he says, standing upright. Mason’s fingers unfasten the top four buttons of his shirt, revealing cooked skin behind the black curtain. Large pits and craters populate his chest from burns that never healed right, never received the proper care Dr. Keller could have given them.
“In the front of your parietal lobe…right about here,” Mason sticks his pointer finger into the flesh of pastor’s forehead, “that’s where your sensory cortex lies. So when I touch you, Jairy—that’s the part of your brain that lets you feel me. That’s the part that let little Betty Graybel feel me…my fingers…moving deeper inside of her until I was practically in her guts.” Mason closes his eyes, sighing deeply. He relishes the memory. “I’ll be seein’ her again later. Her and my ol’ pal, Sheriff Morgan. I’m going to make him watch while I finish the job. See, that’s real pain. That’s the kind of pain that can’t be dished out with a blade or a gun.” Mason smiles. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ll set his body on fire like he did me. No mistaking that, but real pain…the worst, the absolute—it happens when you break a man’s soul. Break his spirit.”
Father Johnstone spikes harder, and Madeline starts to convulse in her chair, back arching. Blood leaks from her ears, mouth, and nose, but none see it. Pollux and Mason are too busy playing with their food, and the pastor prays. Through seething anger, he prays to the Lord he won’t break under torment, won’t have his spirit shattered.
“Does it disgust you, Jairy? Does it twist your stomach?” Mason slaps the pastor across the face. He grabs him by the jaw, giving him a little shake to get his attention. “I am as God made me, yes? How did He make you?”
Mason smiles at him. He’s enjoying the control, the power. Father Johnstone doesn’t need to feel the intangibles to confirm this. It’s written all over Mason’s face.
“Your father left while you were still in the womb, and your mother was a drunken illiterate who couldn’t even spell the name right on the birth certificate,” Mason speaks low. “And then she abandoned you…which was probably for the best.”
It’s an old wound. Not many people in Pratt even know about it, and those that do respect Father Johnstone enough not to bring it up, because it’s not gossip. It’s a bereaved reminder of where their pastor came from: a boy that never knew his father, that can’t remember his mother. Both their whereabouts unknown. Considering his genesis, to throw himself under the Lord and His teachings wasn’t just logical, it was easy. It was the escape from himself, a path to greener pastures where a devout life bloomed from shame.
“Absentee father, drunken dumb whore of a mother,” Mason says. “No wonder you hid behind the cloth.”
“As you hide now?” the pastor says.
“Exactly,” Mason says, giving an affirming nod. “Because we’re the same. We seek sanctuary from ourselves.”
Father Johnstone shakes his head. “I’m not like you.”
“I disagree. I’ve seen what you’re capable of…seen you fuck Miss Paige there.” Mason gives his temple a couple taps, winking. “Been inside your head a little. You’re confused, too. Don’t know if you want to bounce that girl on your knee or fuck her brains out, so you can drop the pious act.” Mason paces over to Madeline, still convulsing in the chair. She’s moaning, bleeding out dark fluid from every orifice. “She is beautiful.” He swabs some of the blood away with his thumb, tasting it. Mason spits. “You could have her, y’know. We don’t mind sharing. It’s only the Graybel girl and the sheriff I want for myself. That’s all. I ain’t greedy.”
If Father Johnstone knows anything about Pratt, Betty is holed up at home with her parents, breathing soured air while the debate ensues on whether or not to get the hell out of Dodge. Either that, or it’s as Pollux said: like the rest of the town, they too wait for another one of the pastor’s miracles. They wait to be delivered from evil.
“Miss Paige is needed for a certain ritual at the behest of my associate,” Mason says.
“You can play with the leftovers after we’re done, Johnstone,” Pollux chimes in. “Won’t be much left though.”
“We’ll leave it up to you as to whether or not to put her out of her misery. You can be the one to decide if this brain-dead little cunt is worth holding on to,” Mason says. “That’ll be your pain. That, and being exposed to the town for the fraud that you are. ‘A false prophet,’ I believe you call it. That’ll sit nicely with them.”
“Unless you’d care to join us,” Pollux offers. “But I sense otherwise. That pride of yours…it compromises your logic.”
“That’s fixable.” Mason positions himself so that he’s standing right beside the pastor, his burn wounds at eye-level. He says, “Make him see.”
Pollux places his left hand on Mason’s forehead; his right hand is place on that of Father Johnstone’s. A channel. A conduit. He is the wire that connects the two of them.
…it’s cool. The air is clean and breathable again. Father Johnstone is lying upon a bed of lush grass, cowering under the figures standing above him: Sheriff Morgan, Tuck Graybel, and Travis Durphy. He’s done something wrong, something that he couldn’t control—but wrong, just the same. His body aches. He’s got an eye nearly swollen shut, and there are multiple gashes on his face from Sheriff Morgan pummeling him with that damn gun of his. Shelby, as he refers to her. She’s got blood all over her grip, more blood seeping into the bullet chamber. Father Johnstone hopes it causes a misfire. He begs for mercy. The sheriff chuckles, laughs. Tuck Graybel tells him he doesn’t want a dead body on his conscience. He says that the fun has gone on long enough to which Travis nods meekly in the middle distance. There’s no blood on his hands, no malice in his gaze. He’s a reluctant spectator at best. Ol’ Travis is about to lose his supper in the dirt, Tuck says, attempting to dissuade Morgan from going too far. No surprise there, the sheriff replies. Not half the man his father was. Doesn’t have it in ’em to get his hands a little dirty. Danger Durphy would have killed this man twice over by now. Travis, the sheriff says, why don’t you make yourself useful and grab my pack in the front seat? He follows the order. Travis stalks off through the high grass, heading towards a couple of red taillights of the parked cruiser. Tuck’s rig has its high beams shining on the patch of grass Father Johnstone sits upon, still cowering. Shaking. He doesn’t know if they’ll hang him, beat him, or worse. He doesn’t know, and that uncertainty scares the hell out of him. Scares him like the trip over. Sheriff Morgan dragged him kicking and screaming out of his own home and stuffed him into the back of the cruiser, but they didn’t go to the station. Law’s too good for you, Morgan said. You won’t learn nothin’ in a cell. He drove right by it and kept on, out into the unknown, the fields. Father Johnstone knows the only thing out there is crop and dirt with the occasional machine doing its diligence. I ain’t the law out here, the sheriff told him. I’m much worse. I’ll teach you a thing or two about touching little girls.
Travis comes back from the cruiser, a small pack in-hand. Clevenger’s moonshine, the sheriff
says. Take it out. And Travis does. The liquor and bottle are clear, reflecting off the truck’s high beams. Sheriff Morgan pops the cork for him, placing it inside his pocket. He says, have a swig of that…settle them nerves down a touch. It inspires hope for Father Johnstone. He hopes—prays, actually—that maybe these men will gentle down, see the error of their ways. Or maybe they’ll all get tanked and forget about him. Moonshine sneaks up on you. Old man Clevenger’s moonshine smashes your head in with a hammer, and he’d do anything to have a taste of it right about now. Numb the pain. Numb it so much that he wouldn’t feel the next series of boot kicks and pistol whips. He watches the Durphy boy drink. Then Tuck Graybel, who downs three times as much as Travis.
Sheriff Morgan, however, doesn’t drink. He takes the bottle and begins pouring the contents on Father Johnstone’s torso and neck. Booze immediately begins eating the wounds and strawberry welts on his body, stinging, making his body coil. He’s like a salted slug twisting around on the grass, balling up tight and hoping that bottle goes empty quick. Sheriff Morgan taunts him. He spits on Father Johnstone and says that ain’t nothing compared to what’s coming up next. To Travis he says, you’ll do the honors. Sheriff Morgan hands him a box of wooden matches, the same ones you use to get the coals going on the grill. Travis accepts them in his hand, staring down at the little box. Terrified. Strike and drop, the sheriff says. That’s all you need to do…then this all will be over. We walk away and never speak of it again.
I can’t, Travis says.
Your father could, the sheriff says. He chucks the moonshine bottle out into the distance. They can hear it bounce off the soft ground about twenty yards out. A little girl got hurt…hurt in a way that can’t be mended, Sheriff Morgan says. And Danger knows when someone hurts you or your kin, the fix ain’t sticking them in a little cage. You let the hellfire eat ’em. So strike and drop, boy…for your pop. He loved this town and he’d never tolerate a child-fucker living among us.
Good Sex, Great Prayers Page 37