Now he knew. Not in the accident, not in the rolling and battering descent down the hill, but in the fire. They had died in the fire. Their pitiable images were like photographs taken at the moment of death. If the flesh would have been smooth and untouched save by the kinder cruelties of jagged glass and sharp metal, Jim Callendar could have walked away. But the sad little ghost before him had been touched with flame, blackened by the fire before death came.
There must have been screams. Why can't I remember the screams?
And he thought that perhaps he had been in the air all that time that the children had been screaming, locked in the middle of that leap from which he was not certain he had as yet descended.
He closed the ten yard gap then, walking dreamlike to the banquet table to gorge himself on the physical evidence of his guilt. The guilt opened now, like a bloom fully mature, its five blue petals gleaming in the sun: Bobby Miller, his hair charred to a pale ashy fluff, as easy to blow away as a dandelion gone to seed, his eyes hollow, abraded, the blood from the cavities frozen in tiny bubbles on his blackened cheeks, as though about to boil. . . .
Tracy Gianelli, her burned hands out in front of her as if warding off more flame, her black changeling eyes ruptured by the heat, mouth wrenched open in a silent scream. . . .
Jennifer Raber, in a more peaceful position than the others, lying fetally curled, her flesh only darkened, not burned, as though she had died more quickly than the rest. Perhaps, then, Terry had not suffered for long either. . . .
Frank Meyers, his fingers like burned sticks clutched to his throat, trying to rip out the searing pain that had lined his nose, mouth, windpipe, lungs, his body blackened and wrinkled far more than the others, proof that he had taken far longer to die. . .
Finally he saw Terry, apart from the others. He was lying as Jim had seen him lie a million times, facedown, arms bent so that his hands were next to his face, his head turned to the left. His naked skin was clear and untouched by the fire. His eyes were partly open, his mouth a small "O" of surprise.
He didn't burn. The crash killed him. He didn't burn.
At that second guilt dropped from him to let the wide expanse of relief flow in, not for himself, not from any sense of vindication, but solely from the knowledge that his boy had not suffered too much. Jim Callendar cried in that relief, and lay on the cold bare ground next to Terry's still shade, his face only inches from the boy's, as he had years before, sharing the closeness of father and son, grabbing the moment in a wish that it would stay forever and the boy would never go away.
But the hollow, he learned quickly, was no cozy bed; the vision beside him, no living son whose breath puffed in and out with a reassuring metronomic precision. This was his dead boy, now truly ash, just the impression in sand of a seashell whose inhabitant is long dissolved in the waters. He took one more look at the small face and stood up, again aware of the other blue forms nearby, again allowing the guilt to settle on him with crushing weight. Then he heard the voice: "This must be visiting day."
Jim whirled, staggered, righted himself, looked twenty yards up the slope to where a man was standing. He was of medium height, stocky, in an old fatigue jacket. Long hair and a beard nearly hid his face. At first Jim didn't recognize him.
"Startled you? I'm sorry." The man walked down the slope toward Jim with a feline grace. As he came closer Jim remembered the close-set eyes, the straight white teeth in the wide mouth that now grinned at him without humor.
"Meyers? Bradley Meyers?"
"Brad's fine. For my friends. And we ought to be friends. After all, we've got a lot in common, huh?" He jerked his head at the tableau of dead children. "Each lost a son, right?"
Jim nodded.
"What's that?"
"Yes."
"Ah." Brad looked around with slight interest, as though he were in a singles bar checking what was available. "So. This is your first time?"
"What?"
"Out here. First time you came out here? Since the bang-up, I mean."
"Yes."
"Really something, isn't it? You know, if it hadn't been for this weird thing that's happened, why, we really wouldn't've known how our kids died. I mean really died, not just what the coroner says." He shook his head back and forth. "I think there's a reason why things like this happen—oh, not the accident, but these, uh, ghosts. What do you think?"
"I don't know." Jim felt sick, but unable to walk away from Brad Meyers.
"Do you believe in God?"
Jim nodded.
"Sorry, I didn't get that."
"Yes. I do."
"That's good. I do too. Maybe not, uh, God exactly, but in something. That divinity that shapes our ends. I think there's a reason for everything. Even the smallest thing that happens. The way the leaves fall off the trees. Where they land. It all affects other things." Brad crouched, resting his buttocks on his heels. "Haven't you ever thought that when some things happen, they happen just for you?"
"I guess so."
"You guess so. You think that maybe what happened here in Merridale, these ghoulies and ghosties, that maybe that happened just for you?" Jim didn't answer. "Well?"
"I don't really know." If Brad Meyers had sounded stupid, if he'd slurred his words, Jim wouldn't have felt as uncomfortable as he did. But Brad's words were slow, studied, his delivery, if not the ideas themselves, smooth and intelligent.
"I think it did. For you. And maybe for me too. For us, Jim. May I call you Jim?" Jim nodded again. "That's good. And I'm Brad, Jim. Jim and Brad. Brad and Jim." Brad's face didn't change as he went on. The thin smile stayed in place. "Do you know you killed my son?"
Jim didn't, couldn't, answer. His throat was thick with sickness.
"That's all right. You don't have to say anything. I'm certain you've been feeling pretty badly about it ever since it happened. That's why I never did anything about it, never said anything to you. That, and also the fact that I didn't know what the truth was. My guess is that you didn't either. Not until today." He straightened up and took a deep breath of the cool fall air. "But now, well, seeing what I can see and remembering what you said at the hearing, I think I can figure out what happened. Postulate a bit.
"When the bus caught on fire, I mean really caught so that the underside was in flames, you jumped, just like you said. No big deal. I might've done the same thing. Something like that happens, and self-preservation takes over. Understandable.
"But now, and here's where the problem comes in, I don't think that fire could've killed those kids right away. In fact, I think that maybe, just maybe, there would've been time to get them out. And the reason I think that is that if there hadn't been time, you would've remembered. The reason you forgot, the reason your story is so fuzzy, is that you blotted it out, because you did something that you had to blot it out. Am I making sense, Jim? Or am I full of shit?"
After what seemed like minutes, Jim made himself answer. "It . . . it makes sense. Yes."
"Good. Thank you. Now would you like to know what you blotted out? What you did while the fire spread? I think you did nothing. I think you sat where you landed, maybe even got farther away, and then you watched. I think you heard the kids screaming, I think you saw the fire engulf the bus, I think maybe you even saw my son go up in flames. And I think you didn't do anything, and when it was too late . . . then . . . then you remembered."
"Then I landed," whispered Jim.
"What?'
"Nothing. Nothing."
Brad Meyers sucked his lower lip and looked at Jim appraisingly. "You notice I preface everything I said with `I think.' Conjectures only. No certainties. But with some things we have to react as though our conjectures are true. We have to trust our feelings, do you agree?"
"Yes. "
"Good." He turned in the direction of the road. "Will you come with me a minute? I'd like you to see something. Oh, don't worry, they'll still be here when you come back. I think they'll always be here. For us anyway." He started walking, but
Jim did not follow. Brad turned back. "Ahab beckons. Are you afraid to come with me?" Jim followed, his eyes on Brad Meyers's boot heels as they crushed down the dying weeds.
They walked up the slope to the road, then turned left and went to the curve where Henry Martin's truck had wrecked. Brad climbed over a cable barrier and started to disappear from view. "Come on, Jim," he called, and Jim followed obediently, digging the sides of his shoes into the loose dirt that covered the steep grade.
"Here we are," Brad said, pointing to another dim blue shade half covered by very high weeds. He pushed the weeds back so that Jim could see what was left of Henry Martin. The gaunt bony frame was savagely twisted, the head attached by only a scrap of flesh. "Meet Henry Martin, Jim, whose carelessness in mechanical details has condemned him—or his shade—to hover here for . . . eternity?" Brad released the weeds, which closed over most of Henry Martin's revenant. "There's your son's killer, Jim. I can tell from seeing your boy that he bought it in the crash, not the fire. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then you know too about the others. You saw my boy." Brad jammed his hands into his deep pockets, the smile gone from his face. He sighed deeply. "If Henry Martin were here right now—I don't mean that, I mean Henry Martin alive, healthy, untouched—what do you think you'd do?”
“I . . . don't know, I—"
"Come on. It's all right. You can tell me. Just you and him. The man who killed your son. Nobody else. What would you do? To him."
Jim's jaw clenched. "Nothing."
"I should have known. You're good at that. Doing nothing.”
“What do you think I should do? Kill him?"
"He caused your boy's death."
"It was an accident!"
"Ah!" Brad's right hand leaped from his pocket, his index finger pointed upward. "Precisely. An accident. Something unavoidable. And you're right. In that case I should do nothing either. As I have not to my son's killer." The smile returned. "That's you," he said gently. "Not him. You." It was a whisper. "And it wasn't the accident that killed Frank. It was an error of omission. A sin, if you will. A betrayal of duty. Cowardice. Those are the things that turned my boy into ashes, that sent fire through him while he was still alive."
Brad turned his back to. Jim, as though he were unable to look at him any longer. When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter. "There are worse things than that. There are worse ways to die . . . and worse things than death." He stood, looking up toward the higher ground.
Jim was shivering, even though the air was only cool. He didn't know what Brad Meyers intended doing. He didn't care. If he would kill him then and there, maybe the pain would stop. His head felt filled to bursting, his stomach crawled as though furies inhabited it. He wished either to die or to go home to the warmth of his bed, where sleep would blind him to what he felt and what he was. "I'm going to leave now," he said, but did not move.
Brad turned around, his smile becoming nearly jovial. "All right. We'll see each other again, I'm sure." He held out his hand, and Jim took it. "It wasn't a coincidence, our meeting out here. It was the hand of fate, don't you think?"
Jim didn't answer. "And fate will bring us together again, Jim."
Brad relaxed the gentle grip with which he'd been holding Jim's hand. Then he climbed back up the slope, got in his car, and drove away.
CHAPTER 13
"George? . . . Hi, Bob Craven here. I just wanted to call and invite you and Gladys to attend service tomorrow. . . . Oh, sure, I thought you'd come, George, but I'm calling everyone today. I think it's pretty important that the congregation sticks together in the face of something like this. . . . Well, I hope to. I don't quite know what I'm going to say about it yet. . . . All right, George, see you tomorrow."
Craven hung up the phone, looked at the church directory, and sighed. George Langdon. Only at the L's, and it was nearly four o'clock. But he would keep calling, all the way through to Michael Zerphey.
"Bob?" Joan opened his study door. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Thanks, that'd be nice."
She smiled and disappeared, and Craven turned back to the directory. Nearly a third of those he called did not answer, having left the town, or gathered at the square, or perhaps visiting relatives or friends so as not to feel so alone. Those that were home were predictably obliging, as if they were anxious to meet once again in a large group, believing there was sanity in numbers.
It was up to Pastor Craven to supply that sanity. All was chaos in Merridale. The dead should not appear on the earth, yet they had. Why? He had asked himself a hundred times since speaking with Dotty Sanders, since seeing Pastor Dunson behind the pulpit he had preached from in life. And still the only answer he could give was the tired, old, crusty "God's will."
All right, then. If that was the only answer he could come up with, then that was the answer he would give, and give with all the force he could summon. He was not used to preaching with power. The Jim Bakkers and Jerry Falwells embarrassed him as much by their studied theatrics as by any political or social stands they took. But he could not deny that the style worked, gathered believers, harvested converts. To everything there is a season, he thought to himself, and smiled when he realized it was the old Byrds song and not the biblical verse itself that he heard in his mind. Nevertheless it was applicable. Maybe it was time to change the way he approached his congregation, time to get . . . ballsy? The word would do as well as any. If ever the town needed to be led, it was now, and if he felt worry, concern, a crumbling in the wall of faith he had built around himself over the years, he would keep it to himself.
"Here we go," Joan said, reentering the room with a steaming mug of coffee. He sipped it thankfully and put an arm around his wife.
"You're a good lady."
"How's it coming?"
"To the L's."
She picked up the directory. "Let me do it. You can work on your sermon."
He shook his head. "I'd rather the calls came from me.”
“You'll never get it written."
"I can do just an outline."
Joan frowned. "Bob, you hate outlines. You always work from a full text."
"This one's different," he answered. "I want to try to get a feeling of . . . of spontaneity tomorrow. Like I'm really talking to each one of them, and not just reading a sermon."
"Honey, no one can ever tell you're reading—"
"Joan," Craven interrupted. "This goes beyond good eye contact, you see? Tomorrow morning I'm going to have four, maybe five, hundred frightened people in that church, and if I can't touch them, can't calm them somehow, then I might as well give up." He took her hand. "Don't you see? The only thing that can get people through something like this is faith. They've got to believe me and believe in me."
"All right," she said, cradling his head against her. "I do understand. But let me know if you need anything."
“I will," he said, and she left him alone, needing things that she could not give. He dialed the next number.
~*~
Bob Rankin was sleeping at last, exhausted after what seemed days without rest. Kay and Alice sat in the living room finishing the remainder of the coffee. Their conversation, never ceasing except between four and five, when Alice took a short nap, had been only of surface things. There had been no probing and no confessing. They had simply told each other what had happened in their lives since they'd last met. Alice's narrative had predictably been more eventful than Kay's. The Broadway tryout the previous spring (the show closed in previews), the four-month stint on the soap, the two small film roles, the off-Broadway review that had run for a year (she'd sent Kay the cast album) . . . Kay nodded, smiled, asked the expected questions, and felt inexplicably sad, though whether for Alice or because of her she could not say. She told Alice then of her life, her church bazaar, her volunteer work at Lansford General Hospital, the little side business she had selling Tupperware. She didn't mention the abortion until the coffee was long gone and the
town was dark.
"We just couldn't afford a baby," she said. "I wanted it, but it scared me. The money. Bob does all right, but we're only comfortable, you know? Just comfortable. And with a baby, well . . ."
"I understand. Really, Kay."
"I thought you would. You're the only one I thought would understand."
"When was this?"
"Six years ago. And I haven't told anybody about it. Just Bob and I know, that's all. How could the people here understand something like that?"
"Six years," said Alice. "That's when you stopped coming to New York, isn't it?"
Kay nodded. "Maybe I wanted to punish myself, I don't know." Her mouth twisted in an attempted smile. "I've been punished anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"About two years ago Bob and I thought the time and the money were right. For a baby. And we couldn't." She laughed hollowly. "Can't, I guess I should say. It's not Bob's fault, it's mine. I can't seem to get pregnant." She sighed heavily.
Alice took her hand. "Ain't life a kick in the ass," she said.
Kay gave a sharp, little laugh. "My God, I haven't heard that for—"
"For a dozen years? I was the only girl in our class low enough to say it."
"Worldly enough, you mean. Besides, once you set it loose, everyone was saying it. 'Ain't life a kick in the ass?' " she repeated. "You remember when my mom heard me say that?"
Alice laughed. "I remember. She went red. I was surprised she didn't wash out your mouth with soap."
They laughed again, then sat back, looking at the ceiling, their heads resting on the sofa's high back. Finally Kay spoke. "What made you come back, Alice?"
Alice didn't answer.
"Is it what I think?"
Ash Wednesday Page 17