Sweet Jesus

by Christine Pountney

  But then Hannah felt oppressed by her own cynicism and noticed that she was feeling moved, somewhere within her rib cage, high up in her chest, underneath the clavicle. There was a definite feeling of shelter in this room. They could be survivors from a plane crash and the Red Cross had just arrived. The raw, unspoken intimacy of being in a room with twenty strangers in various states of exposure or breakdown or joy. She experienced a similar, affecting intimacy during her cool-down exercises at the Y. She would drape her body backwards over a large rubber ball and stretch her stomach and a feeling would rise from her belly, and maybe it was muscle memory, but it was the same kind of grief or sadness that accompanies vulnerability, and she’d lie there without self-consciousness, surrounded by people she didn’t know, listening to their soft grunts, and the half-nakedness of being in a t-shirt and shorts, and the exhaustion of having pushed herself, and knowing she was safe and had a common goal, often gave her a feeling of being spiritually at one with those people, and filled her with a melancholy peace.

  The man lowered his head for a moment, his Bible closed on the floor. Then he looked up again with his bright brown-green eyes and said, I also see where you had to paddle upriver and fight upstream and you were every single day just getting to be like, no way am I waking up and having to fight again. But there’s going to be a grace, there’s going to be a grace to just go with what God has brought you and you’re, you’re a leader. You’re going to learn to prophesy life into people. You’re going to learn to prophesy grace into situations. And he says this, I’m going to bring young ones to you. And I’m going to let the young generation come to you. Because you’re safe. You’re very, very safe.

  Young ones, Hannah thought. Because I’m safe. An overcomer. She liked that, who wouldn’t be drawn to this reality? It was self-aggrandizing. It reminded her of Caiden Brock. His important life. All that significance. The handsome man with the golden voice was standing up. Thank you, Hannah said, but he was already distracted, gathering himself for the next encounter, as if they hadn’t made a connection. Some of the excitement that had been ticking over inside her began, already, to peter out. Hard sell, all right. Time to pack your bags, girl, and move on. So Hannah turned back to what it was she knew without a doubt existed and belonged to her, things that made her happy, were reason enough, her sister over there, her brother, Zeus, hanging around somewhere outside the building where she’d left him, half drunk on beer, the wind in the trees, the sun on her hands through the windshield of a rented truck. And Norm. She would tell him it was okay. She didn’t need that much reassurance. Reassurance was deceptive.

  Hannah left the prophetic ministries and went downstairs and out the main doors and stood in the fresh air and there was Zeus, on the other side of the parking lot, following close behind some kids who were crossing the street and heading towards the church.

  When they’d got back from the bar, Zeus had wandered into the big hall and gotten drawn into that crowded intimacy once again. More stirring music in a minor key. The air seemed to rumble. The Lord is building Jerusalem! Great, great is the Lord! Greatly to be praised! Over the noise, a brassy boom. At one end of the stage, a man was blowing into a tapered horn, it must have been about fourteen feet long. It was a call to prayer. The congregation went quiet and Zeus suddenly realized he didn’t want to be there anymore. Sorry, he said. Sorry.

  A man in a yellow sweater said, Are you all right, son? Where’s your seat?

  I need to get out of here, Zeus said and pushed past him. He rushed out the main doors and stood outside, the light silvery, a misty quality in the distance. It was getting colder, he could feel the damp. Two women sat on a bench drinking coffee. They didn’t know he was there, but Zeus could hear them talking.

  Yes, but what experience do you have of death?

  I knew a guy who was killed in a motorcycle accident. And all my grandparents are dead.

  But have you ever suffered the death of a child?

  No.

  Because that’s the worst.

  So they say.

  Who does?

  The death experts, of whom you must be one, you wear it so well, the trophy of it.

  The breeze was picking up. Zeus tightened his red scarf and buttoned up his coat and walked the length of the building. He turned the corner and already it was quieter. A shock of lawn. The overcrowded parking lot behind him. He continued to follow the building, tracing the wall with his fingertips, close enough to hear a faint voice preaching on the other side of the aluminum. A cricket in a cage. Behind the building was a low stone wall, a wooded lot, overgrown with weeds and the stalks of something gold, now broken and bent into triangles, then a screen of young trees, pinkish grey and nearly leafless. Bordering the lot, a mechanic’s garage, open for business, a service road, and more of what looked like industrial warehouses.

  He was ready to move on. He’d had enough of this Kingdom of Salvation place. What was he doing here anyway? He was a day or two away from possibly reuniting with his parents, if that’s what he wanted, but he wasn’t even sure of that anymore. Seeing Rose had been kind of upsetting. Would it be the same with his own parents, only on a more devastating scale? If he did go see them, he didn’t want them to know he was coming, he wanted to catch them by surprise. Maybe that was cruel, but he had to see what he’d missed, or what it was that he’d been spared. He felt his skin shiver, as if the air was full of static electricity. A gust of wind blew up as he came around the back of the building and his knees went soft and he buckled just a little.

  There was Fenton.

  Standing with his back to Zeus, his dark red hair on fire, balanced on the low stone wall, looking out over the wooded lot, with his arms held wide like he was flying, or crucified.

  Fenton! Zeus yelled, but his voice got lodged in his throat. He raced towards him, did a handspring off the wall, and landed on one knee in front of him. Fenton leapt backwards and fell over. Jesus Christ! What the hell’s your problem!

  Zeus stood up. Sorry, he said. He felt like his heart was exploding with every beat. I thought you were someone else. Zeus looked away and stared into the distance, then sat down on the little wall and put his head in his hands. He wanted to cry.

  The boy was recovering from the shock, brushing the dirt and dead leaves off his jeans. After a while he sat down too, facing the other way.

  You look a lot like, Zeus said by way of an explanation but couldn’t finish his sentence. Now that he had a closer look, the boy didn’t resemble Fenton at all. His hair was brown and he was wearing a grey sweatshirt and jeans. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, fifteen. What had he been thinking? You here for the service? Zeus said, his voice unnaturally high.

  The boy shook his head.

  You live around here?

  No.

  Just hanging out?

  I guess so.

  By yourself?

  I’m here with my dad, he said. He’s across the street right now, in this ugly little room at the back of the church. It’s where I’m supposed to be right now too, getting purified, but I don’t know. The boy looked over his shoulder at the trees. I’d rather be out here, looking for birds. There are tons of birds this year. Their migratory paths are all off because of the weather. I heard a whippoorwill yesterday. I’ve never heard a whippoorwill around here before. And a woodpecker. There’s lots of starlings, and red-winged black birds. I saw a falcon last week. It was either a peregrine falcon or a red-tailed hawk, I couldn’t tell for sure at the time.

  Sounds like you know a lot about birds.

  It’s just stuff you know when you live in the country.

  So you’re not from the city?

  The boy shook his head. I’d rather go hunting and fishing than go to a mall. I like being outdoors. I used to set rabbit snares all the time, but I’d only do that now if I really had to, like if I needed the food to survive. The boy reached down and picked up a thin stalk of something dry and put it in his mouth. I still go fishing, though
.

  I’ve never killed an animal, Zeus said. I don’t know if I’d be able to do it.

  Last winter, the boy said, me and my dad set a whole bunch of rabbit snares. The next day I went out to check on them, and even from far away I could tell there’d been this big commotion. All the snow had been brushed away in a wide circle around one of the trees we’d put a snare on. It wasn’t until I got close that I saw the bird. We’d caught a grouse by mistake and the copper wire was this perfect straight line away from the tree, it was so tight, and the bird was lying just beyond the circle. The wire had cut through its neck, right down to the bone. You could see from how the snow had been swept away and the flecks of blood what a terrible struggle that bird had had before it died. After that, I didn’t want to set another snare, which is kind of sad because it was, like, one of the only things my dad and I really enjoyed doing together. We ate the grouse, but I didn’t like the way it died. My dad said, that’s life. But I don’t know anymore.

  A squirrel rustled through the dead leaves on the ground. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know anymore, the boy said and let out a frustrated growl and kicked the wall with his heel. The squirrel scurried away. Someone’s probably out looking for me right now.

  Who’s out looking for you? Zeus said. He was still feeling the warm sluggishness of the beers he’d had in town with Hannah.

  It doesn’t matter, the boy said.

  Zeus was thinking the boy seemed older than he looked, or maybe this was an effect of growing up in the country.

  That was a pretty impressive flip you did, by the way.

  Thank you, Zeus said.

  Where did you learn to do that?

  Oh, I used to do a little acrobatics, but I’m totally out of practice. Fenton would have liked it, though – that guy I thought you looked like, who’s not even alive anymore.

  You thought I looked like a dead guy?

  Yep. Zeus adjusted his coat.

  A friend of yours?

  He was more than a friend, Zeus said and brought his feet up and sat cross-legged on the low wall. I really miss him.

  The boy looked confused. Are you gay?

  What is it with you people around here?

  The Bible says –

  Fuck the Bible, Zeus suddenly said. He wanted to be back in a place where being gay wasn’t a big deal. Not in the country, but in a city – a big city. And yes, he said, Fenton was my boyfriend, so I guess that makes me gay. But there was nothing sinful about it. He was my best friend. And he also happened to be very beautiful to me. We just really seemed to satisfy a need in each other.

  What, to get bum-fucked?

  Zeus dropped his head, then stood up to leave.

  Sorry, the boy said. I don’t know why I said that. Sometimes people wonder if I’m gay too.

  Well, are you?

  The boy shrugged and Zeus sat down again. It’s okay if you are, Zeus said, I won’t tell anyone.

  Even if I was, it’s not like I could do anything about it.

  Why did it have to be so hard? Zeus thought. Couldn’t it be easy for just one kid?

  A dark blue van came out of the mechanic’s garage and drove away. I got into bed with my boyfriend once, Zeus said, at the hospital before he died. I curled up beside him and realized I’d always felt safe with him. He always made me feel at home. And for someone who’s never really had a home, well, that meant a lot. And now that he’s gone, I don’t really know where I belong anymore.

  You don’t have a family?

  I’ve had two families so far, Zeus said. But it didn’t really work out with either of them. I was adopted when I was eight years old, but I left that home when I was fifteen.

  That’s how old I am, the boy said. Sometimes I think about running away.

  What’s your name? Zeus said.

  Enoch.

  Well, Enoch, you might look back one day and realize your parents aren’t doing such a bad job.

  How do you know that? You sound just like everybody else.

  Why? What have they done that’s so bad?

  They can’t think for themselves, Enoch said. All they do is what they’re told. They’ve got no feeling, or intelligence, beyond what they think they’re supposed to do.

  Zeus dragged his hands over his stubbly head. He was a smart kid.

  And now they want this woman over at the Global Kingdom, Enoch said, to perform this stupid exorcism on me.

  What? Zeus couldn’t believe it. He looked out at the trees and a little black bird dropped off a branch and spread its wings and it appeared to be wearing a bright red cape on its shoulders. It swooped past them and off over the big hall. Look! he said, but the boy ignored the bird. Zeus felt sorry for him. I wish I had some advice for you, kid. Honestly, sometimes I think I’m the most clueless person.

  There’s nothing wrong with being clueless, Enoch said, flicking his hair back as if it was wet. How’s anybody supposed to know anything these days?

  They sat in silence for a while. The sound of a plane flying overhead seemed to match the brief brightening of things as the sun came out, then hid again. Zeus said, Have you ever – I mean, have you ever even kissed a boy?

  Enoch shook his head.

  Zeus could remember what that was like. All the fear of getting over that first kiss, the thing that would make it all real. Do you want me to kiss you? he said, and the boy baulked, but only for a moment, then seemed to grow smaller.

  Zeus held his breath and squeezed his hands together in his lap. He understood that the proposition was a little risky, maybe even wrong – and yet the small bud of a desire was growing inside his belly, pushing up from some bleak place, an adolescent place, somewhere half rotten and forbidden but satisfying in the way revenge, or anger, can be satisfying.

  Okay, the boy said slowly. His voice was quiet. Kiss me then.

  Zeus inched his way along the wall and sat very close. The boy was warm. A ripe, syrupy smell. He had a nervous look on his face that Zeus didn’t want to see, so he closed his eyes and thought about Fenton and felt Enoch’s rough, slightly chapped lips touch his own, and a sweet, heartbreaking sensation bloomed inside him.

  There he is! It was a girl’s bossy voice.

  Zeus leaned back again. A boy and a girl, Enoch’s age, were running towards them. Zeus couldn’t hear them, just the roar of dry leaves as another gust of wind swept across the ground. They were teenagers, and wore teenagers’ clothes. The girl had her hair up in a bouncy ponytail. Enoch had stood up and was now giving off a terrible blank passivity.

  We’ve been looking for you all over the place, the girl said. What are you doing back here?

  Who’re you? the boy asked Zeus.

  I’m nobody, Zeus said. I’m Jésus Ortega.

  Come on, Enoch, the girl said. Let’s go back to the church.

  Everybody’s waiting, the boy said.

  Don’t pressure him, the girl said, then she turned back to Enoch. Delilah told us to come and get you.

  So let’s go, Enoch said and led them away.

  Zeus watched him go. He wanted to stop him, tell Enoch that whatever they were going to do to him in there would only make things worse. Trust me, he thought, you’ll end up hating yourself.

  Hannah was standing at the edge of the parking lot. Somewhere in the distance a muted boom went off, like a dynamite blast, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. She swung around and there was Connie, her face beaming.

  Well, Connie said, I just got what I came here for.

  Great, Hannah said.

  Maybe we should go check up on Mom. Where’s Zeus?

  He just followed some kids into the church over there.

  Really?

  He looked like he was on some kind of mission.

  So let’s go get the truck, Connie said. We can drive over there and wait for him.

  There was something about the way he was heading in there, Hannah said. Looked like he was about to break something.

  What, like a window? Connie
said lightly and recalled how Harlan had thrown that garbage can through the store window not so long ago. She told Hannah about it now, and it shocked her. At the time, Connie said, it had shocked me too. It was a side to him I’d never seen before.

  They had arrived at the truck and Connie was waiting for Hannah to get in and unlock her door. They got inside and Hannah said, So what did Harlan’s letter say? Is everything all right?

  He wants us to go back to the way we were, Connie said and gave her sister a helpless shrug.

  Hannah started the truck. Remember that time at camp, she said, when we were kids and you broke that window? They’d been in a cabin after dark. It was at a family camp, and their parents were in the dining hall with all the other parents, having an evening worship service. There was only one babysitter, walking between the cabins, checking up on all the kids. Dad overstuffed the woodstove, Hannah said. The lid blew off and flames shot out, remember?

  That’s right, Connie said. I forgot about that.

  How old were we? Hannah said.

  Five or six?

  Remember how terrified we were?

  Well, I was terrified. I thought we were going to die. It seemed like the whole cabin was on fire. I couldn’t get the door open, Connie said, so I ran straight to the window.

  And put your fist through it, Hannah said. Somehow you managed not to cut yourself, but you shattered the whole pane of glass.

  And you just walked calmly to the door and opened it, Connie said.

  Well, it was a tricky knob and I had a knack for it.

  I was your big sister, Connie said. I felt so responsible.

  You’ve always felt responsible for me, Hannah said.

  Yeah, and a whole lot of good that’s ever done.

  Well, you’re brave. And you have the courage of your convictions, Hannah said, parking the truck in front of the church. Remember how convinced we were that God was watching over us? Because we ran all the way to the dining hall in our bare feet, without even getting a single scratch. We didn’t trip or fall, and there were lots of tree roots across that path.