Freedom's Child: A Novel

by Jax Miller

  TWO DAYS AGO

  Peter feels the gusts of people rushing by. Loudspeakers announce inaudible messages about departure times and platform numbers. He zips his electric wheelchair through Penn Station in Manhattan; his coat hanging on the back to hide the lewd stickers his brothers have stuck on there over the years. Below him in the chair’s compartment are the essentials: underwear, soap, a toothbrush, two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, deodorant, the rest of Matthew’s welcome-home cake in Tupperware, his laptop with its accessories, and a cell phone he lifted from his mother while she slept, her head practically inside a bucket of chicken bones. She was in a foul mood after this month’s disability check from social welfare was late. Of course the government does this to her on purpose, and only her, those spiteful bastards. One big giant fucking conspiracy from the White House against Lynn Delaney. But Peter didn’t mind, as long as he was able to lift what money she had from the drawer next to her underwear and sex toys. He’ll do his best to forget he ever saw them. And as long as she forgot to put the lock on the refrigerator.

  “I n-n-need uh Amtrak ticket to Loo-Loo-Louisville, Kent-t-tucky.” Peter can barely see over the window; his cheekbones twitch and eyes squint with every consonant that doesn’t want to come out.

  “I’m gonna need a driver’s license for ID.”

  “Does it luh-look like I can fucking jer-jer-drive?” He reaches in his pocket and slides his New York state-issued ID through the window.

  An hour later, when the train just finishes boarding, Peter reaches for his mother’s cell. She must have been high as a kite if she forgot to lock the refrigerator and left the phone out of her reach. He takes a few minutes, struggling to keep his hands still enough to scroll through the contacts. He scrolls to Matthew’s number and sends him a text, phrasing it the way his mother would:

  Matty, do me a favor and give me that cunt’s phone number.

  Minutes later, the phone buzzes and the number comes through. Peter calls her right away.

  “Yeah? Yellow? Hello? It was the wrong number. Those good-for-nothing salesmen or something.” Peter hears one other voice: “Your face says otherwise, Free-free.” Peter hears her sneak off. “I gotta shower. Please be gone by the time I’m out.”

  —

  Lynn Delaney chews on her last Xanax, drinks the all-purpose wine right from the box, and wipes the cabernet from her chin onto the blouse closest within her reach. She glides down the hall on her scooter and kisses her hand and slaps Mark’s photo as habit would have it. She finds this rage toward Peter within her that helps her, for the first time in several years, stand on her own two feet, but not without much difficulty. How could Peter do this to her? After all the years she’s taken care of him? She has to lean on the counter to slam the refrigerator door that was left open before she grabs the nearest kitchen knife. The TV blares a Chia Pet commercial, ceramic Obamas and poodles with sprouts for hair. With a shriek that makes the pit bulls bark out back, she stabs the TV. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia. The jingle makes her eardrums want to shatter. The blade of the knife breaks in half, no damage to the television. She pulls the TV from the entertainment center in hopes that the screen will smash into a million pieces, a swift pull fueled by grade-A adrenaline. Instead, the cords hooked up to the wall keep it inches from the ground. It’s like her heart pumps gravel as she falls to the ground when her weight can’t find some harmonious balance. She wails, and now the neighbors’ dogs yap at the sounds. She doesn’t know how she’ll get up and starts to scream for help from her neighbors as the tears trickle down to her temples. My babies, my boys, my Peter. How could you do this to me? After Mark, after my daughters, after the grandson I haven’t seen in years and the granddaughter I’ve never met, how could you do this to me? You’re a fucking monster, Peter. A fucking monster!

  From the floor, she chews her fingernails off and spits each one to her side. The Xanax shuts her tear ducts down and the sobs are reduced to childlike whimpers. The blood comes back to her, slow currents that feel good to her nerves.

  Her laughter ricochets against the halls and doors, her abdomen contracts with the cackles. Above her is a photo of Peter, back when she sent him to that camp for retarded kids when he was eight. Lynn talks out loud to the picture: “It should have been you instead of Mark.” Her eyelids become heavy with the pills, her laughs still present but subdued. “I should have aborted you when I had the chance.”

  The Mercedes pulls into the dirt lot; a whirl of dust follows. The polished black paint job that Mason was so proud of sticks out like a sore thumb against the rust of the pickup trucks left here overnight. Eighteen-wheelers stand cold in rows, mechanic stations abandoned in light of the storm that’s expected to hit any minute, like something out of an old Western. In the car, Mason has his phone on speaker while he calls Sheriff Don Mannix’s office. He recognizes Don’s voice when he answers.

  “Hiya, Don. It’s Mason.” He puts the car in park.

  “Who?”

  “Mason—Mason Paul.”

  “I apologize, mister; I never met no Mason Paul a’fore.”

  Mason looks over at Violet in the passenger’s seat. He feels the heat of his blood flood his face. “Cut the shit, Don, I need to talk to you.” Mason knows sure as hell that Don knows who he is. “Goddamn it…”

  “Sorry, but I don’t know you. An’ I don’t appreciate you callin’ me and using the Lord’s name in vain.” Don hangs up. A chill runs up Mason’s spine; his shoulders shake.

  “What the hell is going on, Mason?” Violet asks.

  He stares off. “I guess that’s what happens when you’re shunned.”

  “What kind of church is your father running?”

  Thunder cracks overhead; a cloud of purple inflates. The radio tuned low warns of a sudden storm, a tornado warning. As if God answers her question, a downpour beats down on the car. Ahead of him, Mason sees a “closed” sign on the window of the Bluegrass’s front door. “Wait here. I’ll be just a minute,” he tells Violet. Before she can stop him, he runs for the front door and stands under the awning to stay dry. Think, Mason. Think. He cups his hands and peers inside: dark except the neon-lit jukebox. He looks around. No cameras, not that he expected the security on the outside of the seedy bar.

  He wonders what in hell’s name would bring Rebekah to a rundown, redneck place like this. The doors are locked. He looks back to Violet, who waves her arms to hurry him back to the car. Mason ignores her. Hailstones the size of Ping-Pong balls begin to crash to the ground, Mason uses his blazer to cover his face. Across the parking lot, steel garbage cans and debris fly around. There are always tornado warnings in Kentucky.

  He gets an idea.

  With his coat over his head, he runs from under the awning, takes a garbage can, and brings it back with him. No one would think twice about a broken window during a storm like this. If there are cameras inside, I can take the tapes. A witness? I’m just a passerby trying to get out of the storm for my own safety, right? Show me some of that southern hospitality of yours, ma’am. Violet honks the horn at him as he raises the can up and beats on one of the windows. He cracks it and a large shard of glass falls inside. He wraps his coat around his fist and breaks it the rest of the way. He uses the anger he harbors against his parents and Sheriff Don Mannix for pretending not to know who he is behind each punch to force his way in.

  Inside, the place is eerily devoid of life. The winds of the storm whistle through the cracks of the wooden building; the drumming of hailstones on the floor follow him inside, the neon lights of the jukebox drone across the bar. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. He only hopes to recognize something once he sees it. Staticky music plays upstairs, where he assumes there must be an apartment or an office. Johnny Cash, muffled behind closed doors. Mason goes behind the bar to find something to protect himself with. Leaning near the cash register is a baseball bat. He lets it rest on the palms of his hands and his stomach turns at the notion that it could have been used to beat Gabriel within in
ches of his life. He inspects it for blood: none that he can see.

  Thoughts of his sister being beaten in the way Gabriel was mangled consume him. He imagines the photos of the rape victim from his court case being Rebekah. He feels sick and slaps his own face as hard as he can. He looks around before grabbing the first bottle of alcohol he sees from the cheap, rail rack and takes a swig. The door upstairs opens; the Johnny Cash record becomes clearer, a background to men’s voices heading for the steps. Mason takes the bat and hides under the stairs.

  The hurried paces of about half a dozen men scrape above him. Mason clenches the wood and holds his breath. “Get in the cellar,” one says. A window breaks. Rubble from the outside slams on the doors and windows. The power goes out. Mason pokes his head out to see the men. Skinheads. Neo-Nazis, whatever you call them. Swastikas inked on their arms and skulls, wifebeaters and red suspenders, a way of saying that they’ve shed blood for what they believe. Mason knows this only from a case he had a couple years ago. They run behind the bar and open a trap door to a cellar under the pub. As soon as the last one disappears, Mason hears the sirens for the first time. Tornado warnings. Violet!

  He runs to one of the broken windows to look at the car. She isn’t there. Fuck. The window beside him breaks, a slice to his ear that starts to bleed down his face. And against his better judgment, he runs upstairs. A small hallway is dark as night. To his left, he sees a room with a large Confederate flag hanging above a table, scattered coffee cups and papers swirling about with the drafts from outside. On the other wall, a flag with a large swastika on it. Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” still plays on a battery-operated record player.

  Out the window, the skies resemble shifting leather on the back of some god rolling in excitement. He has to hurry up. From one of the seats, Mason grabs a pile of unlabeled CDs in hopes that one of them might be security footage, though he realizes it’s unlikely. The bar shakes under his feet. He runs downstairs and avoids the windows. He darts for the kitchen and kneels near the stove when he sees Violet ducked down on the other side. He goes to her and covers her. She squeezes him as hard as she can, covering her ears from the deafening blows of the storm.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Mason yells to her, remembering the gang of neo-Nazis below them in the cellar.

  He holds her tight, uses his coat to cover her skin, until minutes later, the storm passes. Above them, sand flies from the cooking vents. The whistling dies down. The rain settles. The calm of the storm is a presence, something heavy on a person’s bones. “I’ll explain later, just stay quiet,” he says as he motions for the back exit. Something stuck tings in the kitchen vent; it sounds like change in the clothes dryer. He doesn’t mention the Fascist party downstairs and guides Violet toward the Dumpsters, baseball bat still glued in his fists. But the rattling in the vent from the corners of his ears irks him. Something tells him to go back.

  “Start the car, I’m right behind you.” Mason goes back inside the kitchen and to the vent.

  The daylight that breaks from the clouds and down to the alleyway reflects off of the object. It’s just out of Mason’s reach. He holds the baseball bat between his thighs and grabs a kitchen knife from a magnetic strip on the wall to shimmy the shiny object closer to him from the vent. He hears the men from below return to the bar. Beads of sweat form at Mason’s temples and trickle down his face, mixed with the blood from his ear. He hurries. He slides the object closer to him but loses his hold on it. I’m probably doing all this for a fucking nickel stuck in a vent. But it becomes a vendetta; something in his head won’t let him give up. He tries once more, with success. He pulls a black string attached to the object. It gets caught. The voices of the neo-Nazis seem to get louder. Mason gives the string one firm yank and pulls it free.

  He doesn’t look at it right away, just runs out to the alleyway, where, unbeknownst to him, Rebekah was making a memory with Gabriel three days ago. Rebekah had experienced her first buzz of beer. She’d met a boy, for the first time in her twenty years, who gave her butterflies in her stomach. Mason’s phone vibrates in his pocket. A voice mail. A doctor. Gabriel did not survive.

  Mason opens his palm to see what the tornado swept up into the vent. He looks at the cross. He holds it next to his. They’re identical.

  Only Rebekah’s is spattered with blood.

  My name is Freedom and if this bitch doesn’t get that needle away from me, I’m going to shove it through her retina, I swear it. I rip an IV from my arm and toss it on the floor of the ambulance. Never mind the blood dripping down. “Everyone, out of my way.” Around me are two paramedics, Passion, and about half a dozen bikers. One of the paramedics tries to get me to sit back in the ambulance, but I spit on him. “Don’t you fucking touch me,” I yell. Passion tries to calm the guys down. I look back to the bikers. “We’ll open in fifteen, boys.”

  No one tries to dissuade me. It was just a panic attack. Not my first. Won’t be my last. They’re terrible. Imagine falling through the ice and not being able to find your way back up. The terror kicks you so hard that you don’t have anything in you to tell you it’s freezing. You know you’re supposed to hold your breath, but a racing heart won’t let you. You flail your arms, trying to break through the belly of a thick sheet of ice, hopelessly. Only now you’ve lost the ice, you don’t know where it is. Up is somewhere, down is somewhere, but you can’t grasp onto where. You gasp for air, only there’s no air to gasp for. Drowning. Panic. Panic, in its rawest form. And as for these attacks? Exactly the fucking same.

  I hear Passion’s heels scuff on the gravel as she tries to keep up with me back into work. I wouldn’t want to try to run in those harpoons.

  The Rolling Stones play low around us, the lights still off. Strips of light whip across the wooden bar, beams of dust. I sit on the patrons’ side of the bar, reach over and grab the first bottle I can feel. Tequila will do. Passion drapes her fur coat over one of the stools. She smacks that gold tooth. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “Just going through some shit,” I say as I take a swig. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  I think about the letter I wrote reaching Rebekah, reaching the Pauls. Suddenly, the horrifying notion that my letter is the reason for my daughter’s disappearance hits me. I take another sip, an attempt to settle my heartbeat to a more bearable level.

  Passion reaches into her purse and pulls out an orange prescription bottle. “This’ll help.” She shakes a pill out.

  “I don’t take pills.”

  “A low dosage of Xanax.” She presses it into the palm of my hand. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “I don’t drink water.” I take half of one and put the other half in my pocket for later. I’ll add it to my suicide jar. “Fish fuck in it.” Passion rubs my arm, but neither one of us say a word. There’s no need to. Words mean nothing now. I think about Rebekah once more. I start to cry. But I don’t want Passion seeing.

  “It’s OK.” Her blue claws stroke my arm. She is comforting, a calm presence to my fucked soul. “Tell me what’s going on. Maybe there’s something I can do.” I have the urge to tell her of my biological children, about Rebekah gone missing. But I don’t.

  “Passion,” I start. I look up to her eyes, deep with concern, dark with interest. “What’s your real name?”

  She rolls those eyes, sighs, and smiles. I’m surprised she takes the Jose Cuervo from me and takes a sip of her own. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her drink alcohol. “Ann.”

  “Ann?” I spin on my stool and wipe my tears while my back’s to her. “That was the last thing I ever expected you to be named.”

  “Tell me about it.” Passion hands the liquor back. “What’s yours?”

  “My name?” I exhale something long and controlled. “Vanessa. But everyone just called me Nessa.”

  “A good white girl’s name.” She smiles.

  “If you say so, Ann.” I return the tequila to the rail and pat Passion�
�s back before I head to the office. “I’ll be out in just a minute. Gotta take care of something.”

  I lock the door behind me as I power up the computer with a twitch of the mouse. Rebekah’s photo is still on the screen. I click on the contact page and pull out my cell.

  “Thank you for calling Church of the Third-Day Adventists. This is Naomi. How can I direct your call?”

  “This is FreedomInJesus from Oregon. I’m calling to speak with Reverend Virgil Paul, please.”

  “One moment.” Naomi transfers my call.

  “This is Reverend Virgil Paul,” says the deep southern drawl. I already hate him.

  “Reverend Paul, this is Freedom Oliver, FreedomInJesus from Oregon, we’ve spoken before.”

  “Of course, yes, Freedom.” He doesn’t sound like a man whose daughter’s just gone missing. He’s cheerful. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “Well.” I sit back down and let the Xanax swim its way through my blood. “You might think this sounds crazy, but I’ve been praying, praying hard. God spoke to me. He told me to go to Goshen. Am I crazy?” I have to seem like an amateur. I have to let him believe he’s superior to me to avoid the chance of him thinking of me as a threat. I’m just a naive zealot. I need someone divine, such as yourself, to guide me down the righteous path.

  “No, Freedom. That doesn’t sound crazy at all. Sounds like God has a plan.”

  “Is that right?” I absentmindedly write on a stack of neon Post-its: Find Rebekah.

  Virgil Paul lifts his head from prayer to look down to the four hundred–plus parishioners. The women’s eyes stare up to him from blue headscarves, the men are in pale yellow ties: the liturgical blue signifies heaven; the yellow represents divinity. Virgil’s armpits and ribs itch with drops of sweat as his clammy hands close a red leather Bible. The congregation smiles. The congregation nods. The congregation faces forward, their backs to a camera on a tripod at the end of the aisle near the church’s front doors.