by K M Stross
“‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’re going to go down to the border, and you’re going to capture two illegals crossing over. You’re going to wait all night if you have to. All week if necessary. You’re going to take those illegals to the hotel and set them up for a week. And you’re going to find them a job on one of the ranches.’”
“I couldn’t believe it. I was dumbfounded. I told him all right, and the first night, I didn’t do it. I was a little pissed off, to be honest. I ain’t never been punished like that before, not by a priest at least. My pops would give me some pretty harsh punishments when I was a kid, though. I got busted swiping candy from Mrs. Flagg’s shop once, and he put me to work in her store for a full day. Had me clean the entire place for her, including the storeroom. I didn’t even think about stealing any more candy while I was doing it, either, because I was so fucking sick of cleaning at that point.”
“So one night that week, I took my truck and parked it near the border, where the golf course is now. I waited, and no one showed up. I went back the next night. I saw a group of five and let them go on their way. There was no way I was bunking up five people in a hotel for a week. I went back again the next night. It was about three in the morning when I saw two shadows climbing out of the gulley. I started the car, and they ran for a bit, then finally they gave up. I asked them if they needed a ride into town. They were pretty suspicious, and I didn’t let on that I was gonna put them up in the motel. That woulda scared them even more.”
“We drove back to town. They were dirty and tired, and they both looked about thirty years old, with these scraggly black beards that I can still picture. They looked straight ahead, watching Purgatory come into view. I turned to them and saw in the moonlight that they had this look on their faces. Excitement. Anticipation. Fear. Worry.”
“I told Father Aaron the next Sunday and he told me what I saw was God working through all three of us. God led them to me because He wanted those two men to work on one of Purgatory’s ranches. They were going to help save the town.”
CHAPTER 16
Sheriff Taylor stared out at Abaddon Drive. His large stomach expanded as he took a deep breath. “I hope this was of some help to you.”
Cross opened the door, letting one foot hang out. “I can assure you it was, sheriff. Now, I’m a complete believer.”
“Then it was worth it,” Taylor said quietly, staring ahead.
Cross stepped out and shut the door, watching the sheriff drive back toward the center of town. Inside his motel room, he took a long, lukewarm shower to wash the day’s sweat off. He let the water run across his closed eyes, the droplets bouncing off his eyelids and causing them to flinch. It felt so good that he pressed his hands against the tile wall and just stood there for a while.
Soon, this would be what it was always like, suffocated every moment of every day by darkness. Waking up in the morning to night with no stars. Feeling the eyeballs move from side to side at unseen sounds, desperate to find something in the darkness.
He’d never gotten rid of that nightlight in his room. Never turned it off, not even when he was older. He’d never been afraid of what was lurking in the darkness like other kids—he’d been afraid of the darkness itself as if he knew that some day it might come for him.
The pills were still strewn across the sink countertop. They all looked in the same place.
Nothing looked tampered. He examined them more closely and became vaguely aware of the pressure in his left eye. The dark tunnel in his vision was worse and getting worse without the medication, and it had only been a day.
He’d hallucinated in the church. That’s all it had been. A vision produced by chemicals.
“What about the blood on your knife,” he whispered, walking back to his bed. The dry, hot climate had sapped his energy. He lay on his bed, thinking about his knife, which he had purchased to plunge the blade deep into Morrissey’s heart. The more he thought, the more he became aware of the pressure in his eye. He tried to close his eyes as gently as possible, to cover the delicate tissue like a soft blanket. The more his eye throbbed, the more he wanted to sleep to escape from the pain. It would be worse in the morning. If he didn’t take a pill, it would get worse.
But if he took a pill…
He took off his jeans and shirt and boxers, tossing them in the bathtub and running hot water. He scrubbed the clothes with liquid soap, let them sit for an hour while he listened to the audio tapes again. Sheriff Taylor’s story wasn’t anything like the hallucination Cross had seen at the church. More evidence it had all been in Cross’s mind, showing him what he wanted to see.
But the body had been real.
He rinsed off the clothes and hung them from the shower rod, then walked naked into the bedroom and grabbed the piece of folded paper sitting on the table. He turned on the light next to the bed and laid next to it, reading through the unfinished suicide letter he’d found inside the church. There was a name and address at the top of the letter. A friend of Father Aaron’s from the seminary named Michael Washington.
He dialed the number for the USCCB, a number he still knew from heart. A woman answered after the second ring.
“Hello,” Cross said pleasantly, “I’m hoping you can help me find the phone number of an old classmate of mine who was in the seminary, oh, about three years ago? His name was Michael Washington.”
“I can certainly try for you. What is your name?”
“Chandler Cross. I’m a deacon on an extended sabbatical.”
There was silence for a moment. “I have a Father Michael Washington out in San Diego. Does that sound right?”
“It does,” Cross said, pulling the letter closer to verify the address. “Can you give me his number?”
“I’ll give you the number of his church,” she said. “That’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you.” Cross took down the number, thanked her again, and hung up. He dialed the number she’d given him. His fingers seemed to instinctively hover over the buttons on the phone, trying to get a feel for them so his eyes wouldn’t have to do the work.
“Saint Patrick’s Cathedral,” a man answered.
“Is this Michael Washington?” Cross asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“Father Michael, my name is Deacon Chandler Cross. I’m writing a book on the miracles of Father Aaron Abaddon in Arizona.”
“I have a little time,” Michael said. “Not much, but a little. What can I do to help?”
Cross took a deep breath. “I was hoping you could tell me about him. You know, his philosophy on religion, his favorite sermons, things like that.”
“Well, he loved the New Testament,” Michael said. “He always liked the idea of unconditional forgiveness. Love. He liked the idea of God loving everyone. He had a doctorate, you know.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“His thesis was on Luke, chapter fifteen, verse twenty-one: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son.’ It was a wonderful thesis. I helped proofread it for him. A dozen pages were focused on just a single word in that sentence: sight.”
“Sounds extremely interesting,” Cross said.
“Does any of this help?” Michael asked. “I really do need to go soon. Did you say you were writing a book?”
“Yes,” Cross said, “for… the Vatican.”
“Ah. I’m surprised. I would think they’d want to complete the canonization process before undertaking something like that.”
Cross hung up the phone, immediately regretted the call. The lie had just come to him, and it had been a mistake. If Father Washington called anyone of importance, there would be more questions.
But exhaustion was beginning to overtake him again. It was hard to think straight. He lay on the bed and played through all of the interviews on the tape recorder, then pulled out his book, The Principles of Flight, and started a new entry. He picked up where he’d left off and read slowly, close to the lamp, pa
using when his vision began to blur. He wanted to have the entire book recorded before the curse overtook his vision entirely. So he would always have a copy he could listen to.
Time was running out.
He slept and dreamed he was flying.
The next morning, he took his pills, then rearranged them into three summer constellations—Hercules, Scorpius, and Sagittarius. He walked outside, crossing the parking lot on hesitant feet that didn’t trust his tunneled vision. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lit it, standing on the sidewalk and blinking away the morning spots from his vision.
“Those things are gonna kill you before the townsfolk can.”
Cross turned and closed his left eye. Cantrell was sitting on the bench outside of the café. Cross walked over slowly, away from the shadows of the building so he could watch both feet landing with his good eye. “I don’t know if you’re joking or serious anymore.”
Cantrell cackled. “Gimme one of those, and I’ll tell you.”
Cross reached into his pocket and gave Cantrell a cigarette, lighting it for him.
Cantrell took a deep drag and leaned back on the bench. He kept his head low so the brim of his hat could shield his face from the morning sun. “Damned if they don’t taste great.”
“Most sins do,” Cross muttered. “Enjoying the late morning?”
“I don’t remember. I woke up here.”
Cross laughed. “Then a cigarette is the least of your worries.”
“Old people around here don’t exactly last too long in this town, anyway. I figure a heat wave will kill me before any cancer can. One of the benefits of living without air conditioning.”
Cross took another drag. They sat in silence, watching the occasional pickup truck pass along on the road at a low speed, kicking up clouds of dust that had blown in during the night.
“You know about the woman who received the miracle of the plaque?” Cross asked.
Cantrell spits a wad of saliva onto the concrete. “Which one.”
“The famous one. Does that help?”
“Yes and no,” Cantrell said. “I was pretty burnt out on all the so-called miracles happening by that point. Lots of people were running around trying to get a slice of the publicity pie.”
Cross took a drag of his cigarette, imagining a faceless woman with dark skin, wearing a colorful dress over her hefty frame, standing under the shade of a tall tree with neon green leaves. Looking at the plaque and thinking of nothing else but to kiss it.
“What do you see?” he asked Cantrell, who was looking down Abaddon Drive, toward the center of town.
Cantrell took a shaky breath. “I see a confused town. Doesn’t know what it wants to be. Abaddon Drive’s a crossroad, I think. Pretty soon, Purgatory’s gonna have to decide if it wants to accept the way things are, or try to go back to the way things were.” He took a drag of his cigarette, leaving the smoke in his lungs while he watched an ancient Ford roll by. “I don’t think it can go back.”
Cross nodded, staring at one of the buildings across the street. Anne’s Tailoring. There was a sign in the window with letters too small to make out, but the picture was obvious: a security camera.
“Hard to let it all go,” Cantrell murmured.
“No one here’s lost anything,” Cross said, rubbing his left eye with his palm. “Not a single thing. Any of these people who don’t like it here can pack up and move out and start all over. When you lose something, it’s gone forever. No one here knows what that’s like.”
“What’s it like, then?” Cantrell asked.
Cross rubbed his eye again. “It’s like… living on a different plane of existence. Having something wrenched out of your grasp. Knowing that somewhere out there, it still exists, but you’ll never have it again.”
“Mmmm,” was all Cantrell replied.
Cross tossed the spent cigarette on the ground by his feet and stood up. “I need to see the memorial. Care to join me?”
Cantrell shook his head and laid back down on the bench. “I’m still too drunk for that shit.”
Cross nodded and gave a wave as he began walking to the center of town. He stopped at the park, cutting through to the north end where a small dark red marble pillar sat next to the gravel path. The path snaked its way around the artificially watered maple trees whose broad canopies of leaves seemed to know how little water came from above and had instead begun pointing downward.
Cross bent down to read the markings on the bronze plaque:
Father Aaron, beloved priest of Saint Joseph’s Church and honored citizen of Purgatory.
Padre Aaron, amado sacerdote de la Iglesia de San José y ciudadano honrado del Purgatorio
He pressed a finger to the plaque, then pulled away when he heard women’s voices behind him. He stepped aside and watched two elderly Mexican women kneel in front of the plaque. They looked like the woman he had imagined, with large colorful dresses hanging loosely over their heavy chests and pronounced stomachs, their dark hair pulled back from their faces. Under their breaths, they said a quiet prayer. Cross turned to leave when suddenly his ears picked something up, a whisper that was barely audible and yet the word was so familiar. A word in the prayer, something he had heard before in another circumstance:
“Enterrado.”
Cross watched the two women pray. They both said it again in unison.
“Enterrado.”
He waited for them to finish and stand up before he approached them. “Excuse me,” he said, holding out one awkward hand. When they spotted his white collar, their faces immediately lit up. “Can you speak English?” he asked.
“Yes, Padre. A little,” said the older woman. Her hair was curly, lined with streaks of gray. Her dress had pictures of vibrant flowers, red and dark brown and orange, spread across her body and connected by dark green vines.
“Enterrado,” Cross said, trying his best to repeat the word. It felt clumsy on his tongue, stumbling out of his mouth. “What does that mean?”
The woman thought about it for a moment. “Buried,” she finally said.
Cross’s eyes unfocused. Yolanda had said that word numerous times. That’s where he’d heard it. She’d said it again and again and then the sheriff had told Cross Yolanda’s sister was cremated. “Thank you, ladies.”
“De nada,” the woman said. “Are you the new Padre in town? Did you know Father Aaron?”
“No.” Cross turned and walked as quickly as he could back to the motel, passing a sleeping Cantrell on the bench outside the café. He sat on his bed and dialed the number for the sheriff. His call was transferred to the radio system, and after a moment the sheriff answered with a gruff “Taylor.”
“Mister Taylor,” Cross said. “I was wondering if it might be possible to speak again with Yolanda. I’d like to put together a profile of her for my final report and need to know a few more things about her childhood.” But he didn’t need the sheriff’s help. He would take Cantrell, see if the old bastard could do a more accurate translating. “I, ah… I just need directions to her house.”
The sheriff didn’t immediately respond. Cross imagined him sitting in his squad car, breathing slowly while his stomach slowly moved up and down. “Yolanda’s gone, Father.”
“What do you mean?” Cross asked.
“She was deported this morning.”
Cross felt his heart sink. “She was an illegal?”
“Yup. The bastard vigilante boys tipped off the Border Patrol. No one even dropped me a line until it was good and done with.”
Cross held the phone in his hand, feeling his eyes gloss over. “Okay. Thank you, Sheriff.”
“No prob—”
He hung up the phone, grabbed his pack of cigarettes and left the room.
CHAPTER 17
Maria answered the door after the third knock. She was dressed in a loose red bathrobe cinched tightly around her waist, her hair wet from a long day’s work, a shower, or both. She smiled.
“Padre,” sh
e said. “Always a pleasure.”
Cross, despite the urge to glance down, kept his gaze on her light brown eyes. “I have a favor to ask if you have a moment.”
“Yes,” she said, opening the door further. “Come in.”
Cross followed her up the staircase, trying not to stare at her round bare calves, the way her smooth skin wrapped around the muscles. They walked into the small kitchen where another much younger woman was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. She glanced at Cross when he stepped inside, and he noticed that one of her eyes was slightly lazy, not quite looking at him and yet still keeping him in sight. She had a small thin face and big brown eyes and looked too small to be sitting at the table. Her short stature, the bowl of Cheerios sitting in front of her, the way she was watching him with a wary gaze, all of it together reminded him of a little child. He looked away, pretending to admire the countertop that had been cleared of dishes.
“Sit down, Father,” Maria said.
He took a seat across from the young woman, gladly taking the glass of water Maria offered. When she moved, her hips swayed rhythmically, hypnotically, and Cross caught himself staring a few seconds too long. The young woman across the table noticed, raising an eyebrow.
“This is Luone,” Maria said.
Cross gave her a nod, guessing she wasn’t the type to shake hands. “Nice to meet you.”
Luone returned to eating her cereal.
“Ignore her,” Maria said. “She is being a brat today. Tell me about this favor.”
Cross leaned forward in his chair. “I understand a woman named Yolanda...”
“…Was deported?” Maria nodded, unsurprised. “We heard. We always hear who gets deported.”
“Where will they take her?” Cross asked.
Maria thought about it. “They have probably already transported her to Cielo, her hometown. When The People in the Hills find someone in town to hassle, they turn them over to Border Patrol and the government uses a bus to send them back. Sometimes they use a taxi to take them to the border if the sheriff can arrange it.”