Crucifax

by Ray Garton

  Nikki looked as if she was trying to ignore him, but as he talked to her, smiling all the while, he seemed to capture her attention. She slowly turned her face toward him as he leaned closer to her ear.

  "I wonder what he's…" Lily began, then she put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, Jesus, I wonder if that guy's the father? No, no, she wouldn't… not with…"

  Mace's arm moved slowly, and he placed his palm over Nikki's belly, saying something. She nodded jerkily.

  Bainbridge was gesturing emphatically as he continued his attempts to get the attention of pedestrians, but he stopped when he spotted Mace and his hand on Nikki's belly. He moved toward them and said something. Mace replied, patting Nikki's belly. Bainbridge took a step back, as if shocked, and Mace threw back his head and laughed, putting a hand on top of Nikki's head. Bainbridge waved an arm at him, as if he was telling him to go away.

  "What the hell is going on?" Lily wondered aloud.

  Bainbridge spoke again, and Nikki shook her head, looking as if she was about to burst into tears. Mace smiled at her, gently touching her face, and Bainbridge pushed his arm away.

  "Something's wrong," Lily said. "I'm going out there."

  "Hold on a sec." Jeff went behind the register and got his coat, calling, "Lydia?"

  "Yo!"

  "I've gotta step out a minute, okay?"

  "Gonna be gone long?" she shouted from the back room.

  "Just a couple minutes." He slipped on his coat as he pulled the door open for Lily. She opened her umbrella and shared it with Jeff.

  By the time they got outside, Mace was starting across the street, and Bainbridge was standing close to Nikki, speaking rapidly; Nikki's face was in her hands, her shoulders hitching with sobs as she turned away from him.

  "Wait," Jeff said, taking Lily's arm and holding her back. Mace passed through the busy traffic with startling ease, whistling a tune as he walked, his eyes front, his arms swinging in long arcs at his sides. He stepped onto the sidewalk and strode down Grayce Street, disappearing behind the flower shop on the corner.

  Jeff waited a couple seconds, then headed for the corner.

  "What're you doing?" Lily asked.

  "I want to see where he goes."

  "Oh. Okay." She followed him.

  With Lily right behind him, Jeff peered around the corner. Mace passed the RTD bus stop bench, the parking lot behind the bookstore and flower shop, then turned left down an alley that cut through to Woodman.

  They followed his path down the sidewalk, pausing at the corner of the building to make sure he couldn't see them, and caught a glimpse of Mace going down the alley, out of sight behind a garage.

  When they got to the corner of the garage, he was gone.

  "Where the hell did he—" Jeff began.

  "Look!" Lily pointed toward the ground.

  Mace's head was sinking into a manhole, facing away from them, his hands pulling the cover over him as he disappeared. The round, flat, thick piece of metal made a heavy clank as it fell into place.

  "What's he doing?" Lily hissed.

  Jeff hurried across the parking lot and down the alley to the manhole, hunkering over it and squinting through one of the three holes in the cover.

  Mace's platinum hair stood out in the darkness below; Jeff watched his head bob as he went lower and lower, whistling all the way. When he reached the bottom, he headed toward Grayce Street, disappearing from sight, his cheerful whistle fading.

  "I don't like this, Jeff," Lily said nervously, touching his shoulder. "I'm gonna see if Nikki's okay."

  Jeff went with her. As they waited for a break in traffic so they could safely cross Ventura Jeff saw Bainbridge huddled close to Nikki, his umbrella collapsed and leaning against the van, his light hair soaked and strung over his forehead. As they crossed the street his words became intelligible through the sounds of traffic and rain.

  "… wrong, Nikki, he's wrong… could he possibly know about…"

  Nikki was crying.

  "Come on, Nikki," Lily said, her back stiff.

  Bainbridge turned to them, tried to compose himself, and smiled. "Excuse me, but I have to talk to her about—"

  "I'm her ride home, and I can't wait." She took Nikki's arm.

  Jeff didn't know if they'd ever met before, but it was immediately obvious that there was no love lost between Lily and Reverend Bainbridge.

  "I'll talk to you later," Nikki said to Bainbridge without looking at him.

  "Are you coming tonight?" he asked, somewhat urgently.

  "I don't know."

  Lily led her away without waiting for Jeff.

  Bainbridge watched Nikki go with a lost, almost pathetic look on his face.

  "Excuse me," Jeff said.

  The reverend blinked, looked at Jeff, and muttered, "Hm?"

  "Who was that guy who was just here? The guy with the long hair."

  Bainbridge's face darkened. "I've never seen him before."

  "Well, did he say—"

  "I'm sorry, but we have to be going now." He turned away and began gathering the teenagers around the van.

  Jeff caught up with Lily and Nikki. They were getting into Lily's maroon Honda Civic parked behind the bookstore. He told Lily he'd call her that night.

  In the store, Lydia was putting several books in a bag for the two boys. She was a small woman, pixieish, with short auburn hair.

  "Something wrong?" she asked. "You look like you're about to throw up."

  "No, I'm… fine." Jeff took off his wet coat. "Lydia, have you ever seen a tall guy hanging around, with long platinum hair, spiky on top? His name's Mace."

  "No, uh-uh. Why?"

  "Just wondering."

  "You back to stay now?" When he said yes, she returned to her work in the back room.

  Jeff opened the Weekly again but could not focus his attention. He stared out at the wet boulevard, watching the cars stir up clouds of mist from the wet pavement. He had told no one of his encounter with Mace in the Galleria. What was there to tell? That a man approached him and persistently made a few vague, cryptic remarks that could've been interpreted a dozen different ways? Yet Jeff knew—sensed, at least—that those cryptic remarks had only one meaning, that Mace knew things about him that he shouldn't, couldn't, know.

  Seeing Mace crawl down into the sewer only increased Jeff's uneasiness.

  He had the unnerving feeling that he was caught in the middle of something he could not yet see, something that swirled around him violently and yet remained hidden.

  For now…

  J.R. and Faye went to The Depot, a small neighborhood bar in North Hollywood. They left Faye's car at school, and J.R. drove.

  The place was quiet, and there were only three people at the bar, the booths and tables were empty. They took a booth in the rear; Faye bought J.R. a beer and ordered bourbon with a twist for herself. J.R. was surprised but said nothing.

  "You may have to drive me home, Junior," she said with a smirk as she lifted her first drink. "I had a bad day, too."

  When he asked her what had happened, she avoided his question and talked about the weather. But by the time she started on her third drink she was more relaxed, although her mood seemed to darken.

  "I should have gotten my degree and set up a practice," she said after a brief pause.

  "Pardon me?"

  She shrugged, sipping her bourbon. "I was going to be a psychiatrist. Work with kids. But I realized something. I'd be working with kids whose parents could afford it. Whose parents were paying me to listen to their kids' problems. So I went into education. Taught sciences for a while. Shifted to counseling. Don't get me wrong. I think the work I'm doing now is more, oh, effective. I'm closer to the kids, you know what I'm saying? But there are days when the other … psychiatry?" She shook her head as she took another sip. "My own office, my own hours… good pay… it looks good sometimes. A little more… I don't know, distant, perhaps. Padded. Safer."

  J.R. wasn't sure what she was talking about, but s
he was frowning, her voice was low, and she seemed troubled, so he let her go on.

  "As it is," she said, "I'm so close. Every day I'm around them, five days a week; even when they don't have an appointment, I see them around campus. I can see changes in them, and I know what's causing those changes, what's going on at home, and the troubles they're having, but I can't… do… a thing. Not a thing. I feel so helpless." Another sip. "Not all the problems are at home, of course; some are at school, with the law, pregnancy, depression— do you know how many of those kids are walking around campus like zombies, deeply depressed, hating themselves for reasons that really have nothing to do with them? But most of those problems start at home. Of course, as you said, parents don't see it that way."

  "And as you said, Faye, you can't let it eat you."

  "Ah, I know that up here." She touched a finger to her temple. "But here"—she put a hand on her chest—"it feels different. Don't do as I do, Junior, do as I say," she said with a smile, patting his hand; she ordered another drink.

  In the brief pause that followed, J.R. wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction, but he felt that Faye needed to go on talking.

  "Remember the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Junior?" she asked.

  "Vaguely."

  "Little town in Germany was infested with rats. Thick with them. A stranger arrives one day, a very tall man with piercing eyes and bright attractive clothes. And a flute. A magic flute, he claimed, that could cast—" She fluttered her fingers dramatically. "—I don't know, hypnotic spells. He used the flute, he said, to help people get rid of pests and was known throughout the country as the Pied Piper. He offered to get rid of the town's rats and asked only one thousand guilders as payment, not a lot considering the circumstances. The town officials were thrilled and eager to pay him if he could do what he said. So the piper marched down the street playing his flute—" Her drink came, she paid, took a sip, and went on without missing a beat. "—and the rats followed him! Right down the street and out of the town, they followed him. A little later, the piper came back for his one thousand guilders. The town officials postured and chortled and said, 'Oh, we were just joking about the thousand guilders. We'll pay you fifty.' The piper reminded them that an agreement had been made and he asked them to pay as promised. They refused. The piper told them that if they didn't pay, they would be sorry. The officials got a big kick out of that and said, 'What are you going to do, blow your flute some more? Go ahead, blow it till you're blue!'"

  She took another sip and J.R. began to feel some concern; he hadn't the slightest idea what a fairy tale had to do with Faye's kids at school and wondered if she'd had one too many drinks.

  "So he went back into the street," she continued, "and began playing his flute again. But this time, the children followed him. All the way through the town, down the street, right. In front. Of their parents. They watched while this stranger led their children out of town. 'Oh, they'll come back,' the parents said, 'they'll come back.' But they didn't. Neither did the piper. One hundred and thirty children. Gone." She lifted her glass in a halfhearted toast. "June twenty-six, twelve hundred and eighty-four."

  "A date?" J.R. asked, surprised. "That's a true story? I thought it was just an old folktale."

  "It's in the history books. A hundred and thirty children never seen again, taken away while their families watched. While everybody watched. Right under their noses." An angry edge was creeping into her voice and she fidgeted in her chair.

  "Faye, something's wrong. What is it, what's happened that's upset you?"

  "Oh, nothing in particular, J.R. Everything in general."

  "Which everything?"

  "Well, it's still going on," she said quietly. "They just… they don't pay the piper."

  "Who?"

  "The parents." She touched the drink to her lips and held the liquor in her mouth for a long moment, swallowed, and dabbed her lips with a knuckle. "They have their babies, nurse them along for a while, maybe watch them grow, like an azalea or something. They don't realize the commitment required to raise that person. They seem to think it's something that just happens, this growth, on its own, like the azalea. You water it, sun it, and it grows. They don't realize the toll that extra life is going to take on their lives. Not a bad toll, really; I think it would be quite wonderful…." She looked away for a moment, then nodded slowly, chewing on her lower lip. "Yes, quite wonderful. But not easy. They don't realize that. They just seem to want to watch it grow. Then after a time they just glance at it once in a while. Pretty soon they don't even notice it. Then one day something comes along and takes that child away, and they wonder why! Start throwing blame around like… like Frisbees! It's the rock lyrics! Violence on TV! Sex in the movies! Let's clean up this country and save our kids!" With a disgusted wave of her hand and a shake of her head, she finished her drink and nodded to the waitress for another.

  J.R. was stunned by the fervor with which she spoke, the fiery anger and conviction in her eyes. Mixed with all of it was a sadness that seemed deeply rooted.

  He pushed his beer aside and leaned toward her, saying, "Tell me what's wrong, Faye. Please."

  She smiled, chuckled quietly. "Oh, Junior, you're a good person for listening to a drunken old Jamaican mumble into her bourbon. But we came here to talk about you. Don't let me ramble like that. Speak up, boy."

  "Not if you want to keep talking. Something's on your mind."

  The waitress brought her another drink, and J.R. paid for it. She lifted it with a flourish and said, "Whatever's on my mind can be taken care of by whatever's in my hand."

  He didn't want her to stop and thought he should pry a bit to keep her talking.

  "Do you have any children, Faye?"

  "No. So who am I to talk, right?"

  "Oh, that's not what I'm—"

  "I was pregnant once," she interrupted. "I was going to have it, too, even though I wasn't married. I was twenty-two years old, and how I wanted that baby, Junior. I wanted so much to be a mother, to have a little person to love. I suppose I see my reasons were selfish. I wanted it for me. Not a terribly good way of thinking if you're going to be raising another human being, no? But I wanted that baby so. I was like a little girl at Christmas." She smiled fondly, took another drink, then stared at the table for a moment as her smile disappeared. "I fell out of a moving car. Freak accident. The door just flew open and out I went, rolling under the car behind us. I lost the baby and was unable to have any more."

  "I'm sorry."

  "No, no. It was probably for the best. I believe there's a reason for everything. Perhaps I would not have been a good mother. Perhaps I serve the young ones better this way." Another sip.

  "I think you would've been a great mother, Faye."

  She tilted her head and lifted a cautionary finger. "Ah-ah, don't say that, Junior. Everyone says that. Thinks that. Then, one day, the piper comes. And he seldom leaves empty-handed…."

  Seventeen

  By six-thirty that evening the rain had diminished to a weak drizzle, but the wind continued to blow.

  Bainbridge carefully steered the van around the narrow curves of Beverly Glen until he got to Mulholland Drive, where he took a left.

  Three years ago Bainbridge had come across a spot just off of Mulholland that provided a beautiful view of the San Fernando Valley. Whenever he was under a great deal of pressure, or when there was an especially difficult problem in the group, Bainbridge left the house and drove up to that spot, where he silently prayed as he looked out over the sparkling lights of the Valley.

  He pulled the van off the road, got out with his umbrella, and crossed over to the ledge.

  The view was not as clear as usual because of the weather, but the lights still twinkled through the mist, like glitter spilled by God.

  Bainbridge had been a useless, scattered wreck since his conversation with Nikki at the house, but what had happened in front of the care center had doubled his anxiety.

  He had never felt such i
nexplicable fear, such crystal-pure dread as he had in the presence of the man with those strange golden eyes.

  Almost the color of whiskey, he thought.

  They had glinted with a kind of corrupt joy, almost winking as the man patted Nikki's belly and said, "Just admiring your work, Reverend."

  Worse yet was the peaceful look on Nikki's face as she watched the man with rapt interest, as if she knew him well and was thrilled to see him, although she claimed they'd never met before.

  Bainbridge's encounter with the stranger had been so deeply disturbing that by the time he got back to the house he was trembling and perspiring despite the cold; the activity around him made him feel claustrophobic, so he'd left, to get away from the others and to escape the haunting-ly familiar taste that was lingering in his mouth, a taste he hadn't known in years, decades, and was craving like never before.

  As the drizzle spattered his umbrella he felt the burn of unfallen tears in his throat, and when he closed his eyes he saw Nikki's pain-wrenched face, heard her sobbed words….

  You said God would be understanding, forgiving….

  You said…

  You said!

  He lowered his umbrella and lifted his eyes, letting the rain fall on his face.

  "Oh, Lord, forgive me for failing You," he said, his voice cracking. "And for failing those precious young souls." His words were swallowed by the wind. Tears fell from his eyes and mingled with the raindrops.

  In failing Nikki, he felt he'd failed all of his kids. If one of them could not depend upon him, how could the others?

  Trying to lift his spirits, Bainbridge thought of the successes he'd had so far with some of the kids, and the successes that were sure to come if he held onto his faith in God and himself, if he did not allow one mistake, however dreadful, to defeat him.

  Jim, for example. He'd been arrested a couple times for possession of marijuana, and his parents brought him to Bainbridge, insisting that he live at the Calvary Youth House for a while. During summer school his grades had improved, and as far as Bainbridge knew, he'd been off the grass for over a month. But he was still very quiet and withdrawn, almost brooding. Jim had very dark interests and was an avid reader as well as an aspiring writer. He spent most of his time reading novels that were pornographic in their depiction of sex and violence and dealt almost exclusively with the occult. Bainbridge had thrown them all out—horrible things with garish, bloody covers and titles like Evilspawn and Blood Curse—and had confiscated his writing—equally dreadful stuff, obviously influenced by the paperbacks. Then he had tried to aim Jim's writing talents and reading interests in more positive directions. Whenever Jim threatened to run away, which he did frequently, Bainbridge reminded him that he would not only be in danger of imprisonment, but he would also be in danger of losing his soul.