by Auster, Paul
“Why not?” she answered. “Why the goddamn fucking not?”
“Watch your tongue,” Minor reprimanded her. “We don’t talk like that in this house.”
“Oh, we don’t, do we?” she said. “Then maybe it’s time for me to leave this goddamn fucking house. Maybe it’s time for the vermin to clear out so you can be left alone with your pure thoughts and your pure tongue and your silent fucking God. This is it, Mr. Holy. The goddamn moment of truth. My lucky day has finally come, and now Uncle Nat is going to get me out of here. Isn’t that right, Uncle Nat? We’re going to drive away in your car, and before the sun comes up tomorrow morning, I’ll be with my Lucy again.”
“Just say the word,” I answered, “and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“I’m saying it, Uncle Nat. I’m saying it now.”
Minor was so flabbergasted, he didn’t know what to do. I was expecting him to make a lunge for her, to do everything he could to stop us from walking out of there, but the confrontation had erupted so quickly, so fiercely, that he didn’t even say a word. I put my arm around Aurora, and before her husband knew what had hit him, we were already in my car, backing out of the driveway and leaving Hawthorne Street behind us for good.
FLYING NORTH
Aurora was in no condition to travel, but when I suggested that we check into a hotel somewhere and wait for her fever to come down, she shook her head and insisted that we get on the next plane to New York.
“David’s smart,” she said. “If we hang around here for just a few hours, he’s bound to find us. Just pump me full of Advil or something, and I’ll be okay.”
So I bought her the Advil, wrapped her in my overcoat, turned up the heat in the car, and drove straight to the airport. I had landed in Greensboro that morning, but since Minor would surely go looking for us there, Rory thought our best bet was to leave by way of Raleigh-Durham. It was a hundred-mile drive, and she slept for the full two hours we were on the road. After four Advils and the long nap, she woke up feeling better. Still wan, still a bit drained, but the fever had apparently broken, and after another dose of pills and two glasses of orange juice at the airport, she was strong enough to talk – which was precisely what we did for the next several hours: from the moment we took our seats at the departure gate to the moment we stepped out of a yellow cab in front of my house in Brooklyn that night.
“It’s all my fault,” she said. “I saw it coming a long time ago, but I was too weak to stand up for myself, too nervous to fight back. That’s what happens when you think the other person is better than you are. You stop thinking for yourself, and pretty soon you don’t own your own life anymore. You don’t even realize it, Uncle Nat, but you’re fucked. You’re absolutely fucked …
“The first mistake was turning my back on Tom. After I got out of rehab, David and I left California and came east with Lucy. We lived with his mother in Philadelphia for six months, and things were good, about as good as any time I can remember. I was crazy in love with him. No man had ever been so nice to me, and I walked around with this incredible feeling that I was protected, that this smart, decent person actually knew who I was. We were both survivors. The two of us had been through so much, and there we were after all our ups and downs, standing on our feet together, about to get married …
“One day, I went to New York to see Tom, and I have to admit I found it a little depressing. He’d put on all this weight, he’d quit school and was driving a cab, and he was kind of testy with me, at least in the beginning. Not that I blamed him. I’d been out of touch for so long, why shouldn’t he have resented me for it? There was no excuse. I’d been running around California all that time, slowly going to the dogs, and I just couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and call. I tried to explain, but it didn’t do much good. But Tom was still my big brother, and now that I was getting married, I wanted him to walk me down the aisle and give me away – just like what you did with Mom when she got married. He said he’d be glad to do it, and all of a sudden it was like old times again, and I really started feeling happy. I had my brother back. I was marrying David, and Lucy, my amazing little Lucy, was living with her mother again – her dumb kid mother who was finally beginning to grow up. What else could I ask for? I had everything I wanted, Uncle Nat. Everything …
“Then I took the bus back to Philadelphia, and when I told David about inviting Tom to the wedding, he said it was impossible, out of the question. He’d been thinking about it the whole time I was in New York, and he’d decided that my brother was a bad influence on me. If I wanted to go ahead with the marriage, I would have to cut all ties to my past. Not just friends, but everyone in my family too. What are you talking about? I asked him. I love my brother. He’s the best person in the world. But David didn’t want to discuss it. We were starting a new life together, he said, and unless I made a clean break with everything that had corrupted me in the past, I would eventually slip back into my old ways. I had to choose. It was all or nothing, he said. An act of faith or an act of rebellion. Life with God or life without God. Marriage or no marriage. Husband or brother. David or Tom. A hopeful future or a miserable return to the past …
“I should have put my foot down. I should have told him I wasn’t swallowing that horseshit, and if he thought he could marry me without inviting Tom to the wedding, there wasn’t going to be any wedding – period. But I didn’t do that. I didn’t fight back, and when I let him have his way like that, it was already the beginning of the end. You can’t give up power over yourself, not even when you believe in the other person, not even when you think the other person knows what’s best. That’s what did me in. It was more than just being scared of losing David. The really scary thing was that I thought he was probably right. I loved Tommy, but what had I ever done for him except cause a lot of trouble and heartache? Maybe it would be better if I cut the tie and left him alone. Maybe he would be better off if he never saw me again …
“No, David never hit me. He never hit Lucy, and he never hit me. He’s not a violent person. His game is talk. Talk, talk, talk. And then more talk. He wears you down with his arguments, and because his voice is so kind and reasonable, because he expresses himself so well, he sort of sucks you into his brain – almost as if he’s hypnotizing you. That’s what saved me at the rehab clinic in Berkeley. The way he kept on talking to me, looking into my eyes with that caring expression on his face and that soft, steady voice of his. It’s hard to resist him, Uncle Nat. He gets inside your head, and after a while you start to think he can never be wrong about anything …
“I know Tom was worried. He was afraid I was going to turn into one of those born-again holy rollers, but I’m not cut out for that kind of stuff. David kept working on me, but I only pretended to go along. If he wants to believe in that crap – fine, I don’t care. It makes him happy, and I’m never going to be against anything that makes a person happy. I heard him talking to you in the house before, and what he said was true. He isn’t into all that fundamentalist ranting and raving. He believes in Jesus and the afterlife, but compared to some of the things other people believe in, it isn’t too heavy. His problem is that he thinks he can be a saint. He wants to be perfect …
“So yeah, I went to church with him every Sunday. I didn’t have much choice, did I? But it wasn’t all bad, at least not when we were in Philadelphia. I sang in the choir there, and you know how much I love to sing. Those hymns are some of the sappiest tunes ever written, but at least I got a chance to exercise my lungs once a week, and as long as David didn’t push too hard on shoving Jesus down my throat, I wasn’t what you’d call an unhappy camper. I sometimes think that if we hadn’t left Philadelphia, everything would have worked out. But we both had trouble finding decent jobs. I had a part-time gig as a waitress in some sleazoid diner, and the best David could do after months of looking was night watchman in an office building on Market Street. We went to our N.A. meetings; we kept ourselves sober; Lucy liked her school; David’s
mom was a little nuts but basically all right – but we just couldn’t earn enough money in that town. Then an opening turned up in North Carolina, and David jumped at the chance. True Value Hardware. Things got better after that, and then, about a year and a half ago, David met the Reverend Bob, and all of a sudden they got a whole lot worse …
“David was only seven when his father died. I’m not saying it’s his fault, but I think he’s been looking for a substitute father ever since. An authority figure. Someone strong enough to take him under his wing and guide him through life. That’s probably why he joined the marines after high school instead of going to college. You know, take your orders from Big Daddy America, and Big Daddy will take care of you. Big Daddy took care of him all right. Shipped him out to Desert Storm and did a major number on his head. Fucked him up bad. David goes downhill for a bunch of years and ends up on horse. You already know that. I heard him tell you about it today, but the interesting thing to me is how he finally kicked it. Not with that A.A. line about trusting in a higher power – but with real religion. He goes all the way to the top and gets the biggest father of them all. Mr. God. Mr. goddamn God, the ruler of the universe. But still, maybe that isn’t enough. You can talk to your God and hope he listens to you, but unless your brain is tuned to the twenty-four-hour Schizophrenia Network, he isn’t going to talk back. Pray all you want, but you won’t hear a peep from Dad. You can study his words in the Bible, but the Bible is just a book, and books don’t talk, do they? But the Reverend Bob talks, and once you start listening to him, you know you’ve found your man. He’s the father you’ve been looking for, an actual flesh-and-blood human father, and every time he opens his mouth, you’re convinced he’s getting it straight from the big boss himself. God talks through this guy, and whenever he tells you to do something, you’d better do it or else …
“He’s fifty-something years old, I guess. Tall and skinny, with a long nose and a fat cow of a wife named Darlene. I don’t know when he started the Temple of the Holy Word, but it isn’t a normal church like the one we went to in Philadelphia. The reverend calls himself a Christian, but he never says what kind, and I’m not even sure he gives a rat’s ass about religion. It’s all about controlling other people, about getting them to do weird, self-destructive things and make them believe they’re serving the will of God. I think he’s a fraud, a scam artist from the word go, but he has his followers in the palm of his hand, and they love him, they all love him, and David more than anyone else. What gets them so excited is the way he keeps coming up with new ideas, keeps changing his message. One Sunday it’s about the evils of materialism and how we should shun worldly possessions and live in sacred poverty like the son of our dear Lord. The next Sunday it’s about hard work and how we should earn as much money as we can. I told David I thought he was nuts and didn’t want to expose Lucy to any more of that drivel. But David was a true convert by then, and he wouldn’t listen to me. Two or three months later, the Reverend Bob suddenly decides that singing should be banned from the Sunday services. It’s an offense against the ears of God, he says, and from now on we should worship him in silence. As far as I was concerned, that was the last straw. I told David that Lucy and I were quitting the church. He could keep on going as long as he liked, but we were never setting foot inside that place again. It was the first time I’d spoken up for myself since we were married – and it didn’t do me an ounce of good. He pretended to be sympathetic, but the rules were that all families of the congregation had to attend services together every Sunday. If I dropped out, he would be excommunicated. Well, I said, just tell them that Lucy and I are sick, that we have a fatal disease and can’t get out of bed. David gave me one of his sad, patronizing smiles. Prevarication is a sin, he said. If we don’t speak the truth at all times, our souls will be barred at the gates of heaven and cast down into the jaws of hell …
“So we kept on going every week, and about a month after that the Reverend Bob came up with his next big idea. Secular culture was destroying America, he said, and the only way we could undo the damage was to reject everything it offered us. That was when he started issuing his so-called Sunday Edicts. First, everyone had to get rid of their television sets. Then it was radios. Then it was books – every book in the house except the Bible. Then it was telephones. Then it was computers. Then it was CDs, tapes, and records. Can you imagine? No more music, Uncle Nat, no more novels, no more poems. Then we had to cancel our magazine subscriptions. Then it was newspapers. Then we weren’t allowed to go to the movies anymore. The idiot was on a rampage, but the more sacrifices he demanded of the congregation, the more they seemed to like it. As far as I know, not one family left …
“Finally, there weren’t any more things to get rid of. The reverend stopped his attacks on the culture and media business and started hammering away at what he called ‘the gut issues.’ Every time we talked, we drowned out the voice of God. Every time we listened to the words of men, we neglected the words of God. From now on, he said, every member of the church above the age of fourteen would spend one day a week in total silence. In that way, we would be able to restore our connection with God, to hear him speaking within our souls. After all the other stunts he’d pulled on us, this seemed like a pretty mild demand …
“David works from Monday to Friday, so he chose Saturday as his day of silence. Mine was Thursday, but since no one was around until Lucy came home from school, I could do whatever I damn pleased. I sang songs, I talked to myself, I shouted curses at the almighty Reverend Bob. But once Lucy and David walked through the door, I had to put on an act. I served them dinner in silence, I tucked Lucy into bed in silence, I kissed David good-night in silence. No big deal. Then, after about a month of this routine, Lucy got it into her head to follow my example. She was just nine years old. Not even the Reverend Bob was asking children to join in, but my little girl loved me so much, she wanted to do everything I did. For three Saturdays in a row, she didn’t say a word. No matter how much I begged her not to do it, she refused to stop. She’s such a smart kid, Uncle Nat, but you know how stubborn she can be. You’ve had the same treatment yourself, and once she makes up her mind, it’s like trying to push over a building to get her to back down. Incredibly enough, David took my side, but I think a part of him was so proud of her for acting like an adult, he wasn’t very forceful or convincing. Anyway, it had nothing to do with him. It was about me. About me and her. I told David that I had to talk to the Reverend Bob. If he would release me from my Thursday silences, it would take the burden off Lucy, and then she’d start acting like herself again …
“David wanted to come to the meeting with me, but I said no, I had to see the reverend alone. To make sure he wouldn’t butt in, I set up the appointment for a Saturday, the day when David wasn’t allowed to talk. Just drive me to the house, I said, and wait outside in the car. It shouldn’t take too long …
“The Reverend Bob was sitting at the desk in his study, putting the final touches on the sermon he was supposed to deliver the next morning. Sit down, my child, he said, and tell me what the problem is. I explained about Lucy and why I thought he would be doing us a great service if he released me from my Thursday silences. Hmmm, he said. Hmmm. I have to think it over. I’ll give you my decision by the end of next week. He was looking straight at me, and every time he spoke, his bushy eyebrows did this funny little twitching thing. Thank you, I said. I believe you’re a wise man, and I know you’ll see it in your heart to bend the rules in order to help a young child. I wasn’t going to tell him what I really thought. Like it or not, I was a member of his fucking congregation, and I had to play along as if I meant what I was saying. I figured our business was over then, but when I stood up to go, he stretched out his right arm and waved me back into my seat. I’ve been watching you, woman, he said, and I want you to know that you get high marks on all fronts. You and Brother Minor are among the pillars of our community, and I’m certain I can depend on you to follow me in all matters, both sacred
and profane. Profane? I said. What do you mean by profane? As you probably know, the reverend said, my wife Darlene was unable to bear children. Now that I’ve reached a certain age, I’ve begun to think about my legacy, and I find it tragic to contemplate leaving this earth without having produced an heir. You could always adopt, I said. No, he said, that’s not good enough. I have to make a child out of my own flesh, a descendant of my own blood to carry on with the work I’ve started here. I’ve been watching you, woman, and of all the souls in my flock, you’re the only one worthy to carry my seed. What are you talking about? I said. I’m married to someone else. I love my husband. Yes, I know that, he said, but for the sake of the Temple of the Holy Word, I’m asking you to divorce him and marry me. But you have a wife, I said. No one’s allowed to have two wives, Reverend Bob, not even you. No, of course not, he said. Needless to say, I’ll file for divorce as well. Let me think it over, I said. Everything’s happening so fast, I don’t know what to say. My head’s spinning, my hands are shaking, and I’m completely confused. Don’t worry, my child, the reverend said. Take all the time you need. But just so you understand the sorts of pleasures that await you, there’s something I want you to see. The reverend stood up from his chair, came around to the front of the desk, and unzipped his fly. He was standing right in front of me, and that unzipped fly wasn’t two feet from my face. Look at this, he said, and then he pulled out his cock and showed it to me. To be honest, it was a fairly huge cock – much bigger than what you’d expect to find hanging between the legs of a scrawny guy like that. I’ve seen a lot of naked men in my time, and for sheer length and girth, I’d have to put the reverend’s unit up there in the top ten percent. A porn-sized cock, if you know what I mean, but not the least bit attractive to my eyes. It was stiff and purplish red, but the hard-on made it all veiny, and at full extension it also curved to the left. A big cock, but also a disgusting one, and the man it belonged to disgusted me even more. I suppose I could have jumped up and run out of the house, but somewhere way off in the back of my mind I knew this asshole was offering me a priceless opportunity, and in exchange for a few repulsive moments, I could free us all from the morons of that church …