The Orchid Eater

by Marc Laidlaw

  Behind him, a presence announced itself with silence. The crashing of waves snuffed out, and he knew they had caught up with him.

  Lupe turned slowly, keeping his knife in plain sight.

  The entrance to the drain looked no bigger or brighter than a dime held out at the end of his arm. What little light it gave was eclipsed by his boys.

  Seven of them. Same as last time. They stood in their usual poses, some looking tough and defiant, others pretending not to notice him. The Hopi and the Virginian leaned against the curved walls of the tunnel, sharing a cigarette that smelled like burning meat. The Musician, a lean and sullen black boy, carried a silent battered guitar slung over his shoulder on a homemade strap. The one he called the Marine had been shaved nearly to the scalp, and his blank face was rigid beneath stubble that never grew. The Cherokee had hair to his shoulders, hair that fell across his dark eyes like a veil of mourning. The Junkie picked at his chancred lips and ragged fingernails, refusing to meet Lupe’s eyes. The littlest one, Miguel, always looked as though he’d been caught crying.

  Seeing them, he sheathed the switchblade and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “I missed you,” he said. “I been lonely.”

  They didn’t say a thing. A few didn’t even look up, though he knew they heard him. He didn’t expect affection, didn’t ask for their respect, though he had won it long ago. It was good to know they were still with him. He had spent too many nights in bright bus terminals, in fluorescent stations, in the homes of people he barely knew. His boys were shy. He feared they might have gone away. Sometimes he thought he saw them, but he was almost never sure. Once he had been able to summon or send them away at will, but that ability had weakened with time, as the gang grew in number. At first they had shown themselves only when he willed it, calling them up as an act of concentrated need; but things had gone beyond that point. He couldn’t help but see them when they chose to appear; and if they decided to leave, it was their decision and not his own.

  Not that they had anywhere to go. They needed him for guidance, that was why they hung around and clung to him, waiting with bored infinite patience. They were his forever, never to change—no more than he would change.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” he told them, as if they needed reassurance. “There’s something we have to do together. Someone to find.”

  That caught their interest. The Virginian’s cigarette fell to the tunnel floor, drowning without a sizzle. He still couldn’t hear the surf. The boys closed in around him, cutting off all light from the beach. Even the rays from the manhole cover dimmed, though that might have been a car idling overhead. For a moment he felt suffocating panic. He was in the dark again, in the First Cave, surrounded.

  He shook it off.

  No. They’re mine this time. I’ve got my gang. I never have to be alone again.

  When he felt calm, he dried his palms on his jacket and reached into his pocket for the torn phone book page.

  “Did I ever tell you about my brother?”

  2

  “This morning I’m going to talk about the life of the Fightin’ Jesus,” Hawk told his congregation.

  “Any relation to the Rootin’-Tootin’ Jesus?” someone said. There was scattered coarse laughter.

  Hawk shut the Bible and looked down at his boys. They sat in a semicircle on log stumps he’d arranged on a flattened part of the hill behind his trailer. He stood above them on the slope, behind a crude-hewn pulpit, so they had to look up at him. Most of the boys he knew fairly well, but they were encouraged to bring friends along to the Saturday Sermons, and today there were a few he didn’t recognize. The one who’d spoken was a tall, muscular kid with downy jaws and the fixed expression of a born smartass. Hawk held him with his eyes until the kid looked down.

  “As a matter of fact,” Hawk said, “they are one and the same. Our Savior goes by many names. Some of you might even laugh at some of them.”

  That silenced the other boys.

  “Now, the thing is, this Fightin’ Jesus, he had a reputation as the Fastest Gun in the Middle East. Carried a pair of silver six-shooters, he did, though these guns of his didn’t shoot real bullets. They fired something much more powerful.”

  “Hollow-point parables!” the fuzz-face said.

  Hawk stamped down the hillside, raising swirls of dust. He walked right up to the smartass, grabbed him by the collar of his T-shirt, and hauled him to his feet.

  “What is your name, son?” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Scott.”

  “Scott? Who brought you here today, Scott?”

  The kid seemed unwilling to say, as if it would have been a betrayal. Hawk looked around at the other boys until finally Edgar Goncourt raised his hand. “I did, Hawk.”

  “Why?”

  Edgar, long-faced and bony-nosed, with shoulder-length thin brown hair, shrugged. “He’s cool.”

  “Did you force him to come here, Edgar?” Hawk looked at Scott. “Did Edgar force you?”

  Scott shook his head.

  “You came of your own free will? So you’re really a guest here, aren’t you? We didn’t abduct you, nobody forced you to listen to me, nobody even asked your opinion. So why are you making such a pain of yourself?”

  “Sorry,” Scott said.

  “Do you want to leave or listen?”

  “I’ll listen.”

  “Maybe you have something you want to say before you listen? Any important information I might not have heard about the Fightin’ Jesus? Anything me and my friends can’t live without?”

  Scott shook his head.

  “Okay, then.” Hawk let go of him, and the boy sank back down.

  Hawk hiked back to his stump, wondering what the hell he’d been meaning to say. A good preacher should be able to hold on to his thoughts even in the face of interruptions. He should be able to reach out to these boys on their own terms, which included plenty of insecure backtalk disguising legitimate questions. But somehow he couldn’t stand the feeling of things getting out of control. There had to be something in his fucking life he could keep a grip on. These boys were his project. He couldn’t fail them.

  They were watching Hawk with fading interest, picking their teeth, scuffing at the dirt, whispering. He had wanted to improvise something they could relate to around the Fightin’ Jesus image he was so proud of, but the thoughts were no longer flowing.

  He cracked open the Bible at random. “Thou shalt by no means come out hence until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” Now, what the hell did that mean? A farthing was some kind of old-fashioned English coin, wasn’t it? How could they have farthings in the Bible lands? The kids wouldn’t understand that kind of time travel.

  He looked at the sky, blazing blue between the shifting eucalyptus leaves, and allowed his mind to wander. They wouldn’t know the difference.

  “The Fightin’Jesus . . . he used to say . . . ‘You can’t get out of jail, until you’ve paid your bail.’ ”

  That’s more like it, Hawk thought. See, you hang in there, take a chance, it comes to you. Lord’s work, Lord’s words.

  “Now, a few of us have been there, haven’t we? We know what Jesus was talking about. You have just that one phone call to make—and who’s it gonna be? Your parents? You expect them to come pick you up? Hell, it’s ’cause of your parents you’re in jail in the first place. If they’d loved you, let you be yourself, everything mighta turned out better. No, you can’t call your parents. What about a lawyer, then? A gold-toothed, shiny-suited, briefcase-carrying lawyer. Hell, you’d have to rob a bank just to pay his fees. Forget about lawyers. You got one call, now. You gonna waste it? You think you can scrape up bail all by yourself? Think your friends can get it for you, when they’re just as lost and unlucky as you? Man, they’d just end up in the cell next to yours, tossed in for robbing a gas station trying to get your bail. Nope. The best call you can make right then, your best bondsman, the guy who’s gonna pay up and get you back on the st
reet, back on your feet—is Jesus. Jesus said, ‘Dial my number and I shall pick up the phone. Call and I will answer.’ When you call Jesus, you won’t get a secretary saying, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Christ is out to lunch right now, you’ll have to leave a message.’”

  They were laughing now, even Scott.

  “And I’ll tell you this. Jesus will not only pay up your bail, right to the last penny, but he’ll also represent you in court. He will file the necessary papers, bargain with the cops who busted you, and stand at your side on the Judgment Day. He’ll do everything he can to save your ass. He will not forsake you. He may reduce your sentence, or get it commuted completely, or maybe even get your whole case thrown out of court. You might have to do some community service, but that’s okay. For Jesus is the Great Public Defender.”

  “Is he the Great Parole Officer, too?” Scott said daringly, though without such a smartass tone this time, making it easy for Hawk to smile.

  “That he is. I see you do understand.”

  “Sure. I watch ‘Perry Mason’ like everybody else.”

  ***

  Afterward, most of the boys scattered, but a core remained in Hawk’s gravel yard alongside Old Creek Road, working on their bikes among the heavy black crosses he had mounted at the edges of the lot. They’d had to learn not to dangle greasy rags or chains from the arms of the crucifixes, but otherwise Hawk let them do what they wanted. Sometimes they asked his advice and he gave a few pointers, though he refrained from actually working on the bikes. He didn’t ride them anymore, so repairing them was out of the question. Once he started, did a bit of work, he’d just have to sit astride the hog and kick the starter, listen to the roar and feel the throb; and then he’d just have to take off for a spin, only a little test drive to make sure everything was running smooth . . . and the next thing you knew, he’d be back in some sweaty lodge, snorting rails, picking fights, grabbing the first heavy tool that came to hand and wailing down on somebody’s skull or kneecaps, caught up in a drugged and drunken battle over meaningless bullshit like whose bike was a piece of shit, whose colors were allowed in that particular bar.

  No . . . no, he’d never get caught in those gears again. And the best way he knew to avoid the trap was to swear off bikes forever. Two-homed steeds of the Devil, that’s what they were. Of course, not everyone saw them that way, and they made a nice contrast, parked in his lot. What was right for him, was right for him; he couldn’t speak for others. And the constant temptation of bikes around the place was good for his soul; it made him strong in his struggle, forever vigilant.

  The Saturday traffic was up to its afternoon peak, a steady whoosh of cars heading toward the beach. Occasionally the revving of motorcycle engines drowned out everything.

  Hawk sat on the trailer hook in a narrow band of shade and leafed through the Saturday paper, holding its edges down with the toes of his boots while sipping a Mountain Dew. He had just reached a troubling headline when a shadow fell over the paper.

  “Hey, Hawk,” Edgar said. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce him before. This is Scott Gillette.”

  Hawk glanced up, holding out a hand dyed dark with grease and oil, which Scott clasped firmly after a moment’s hesitation. “You’re all right, Scott.”

  “Thanks. You make those Old Testaments sparkle like new.”

  Hawk wasn’t sure if Scott was ridiculing him specifically, or simply in the grip of an unfocused, uncontrollable sarcasm. He decided on the latter. There didn’t seem to be much malice in him; his face betrayed the usual stew of adolescent gripes.

  Edgar, on the other hand, looked decidedly nervous about something. His eyes kept flickering toward the ground and away again. Hawk picked up the paper and held it out to him.

  “You in the news again, Edgar?” he said. “Is this you?”

  “‘Rash of break-ins . . .’” Edgar started to recite. Then he backed off, shaking his head without looking any further at the page.

  “Shangri-La,” Hawk said. “That’s your neighborhood.”

  “Lots of shady people live up there, Hawk,” Edgar said edgily. “Hell, Sal and his buttboys are right down the street from me.

  Hawk stared at Edgar, hoping to unnerve the truth out of him, but Edgar, sadly, had learned some new defenses. Scrutiny merely toughened him, made his excuses more casual.

  “I don’t know anybody doing that shit,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  It’s him, Hawk thought.

  “I hope you’re not that stupid, Edgar.”

  “I’m smart, Hawk. I’m smart!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Scott said.

  “Keep an eye on him for me, would you, Scott? See he stays out of trouble?”

  A look flickered between the boys. Scott’s smirk returned.

  “You ever been to jail, Scott?” Hawk said.

  Slowly the smirk vanished. Hawk spied an involuntary surge of surprise and fear, but it was quickly shrugged off.

  “You think that was all just poetry, what I said about posting bail, that one phone call? I speak from experience, friend. I’ve been in jail more than once, and so has Edgar here. Now, sometimes when your friends go places, it can be pretty hard not to follow. You understand me?”

  Scott nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing, no comeback at the ready. But he didn’t look fearful anymore; he looked exquisitely bored.

  “And you, Edgar. Keep your nose clean.”

  Edgar sniffed and toed the dirt, fingering the flexible gold band of a wristwatch Hawk had never seen him wear before. One that was several sizes too big.

  3

  “Mike, where are you?”

  The woman’s voice startled him, coming from right outside the supply closet. Mike James nearly dropped his clipboard. He’d been drawing a dragon with a dripping torso hanging from its fangs. He made sure that the vacuum bag inventory list completely covered his sketch, then he stuck his head out of the closet.

  “Right here,” he said. She was standing several feet away, with her back to the closet. When he spoke, she jumped visibly.

  “Goodness,” she said, turning a startled face toward him.

  It was the middle sister, plump, pale and sort of pretty. She looked around the store, flustered and embarrassed, then moved closer.

  Is this it? he wondered. Finally? Is she going to push me back in the closet and do it to me here and now, with her sisters and all the customers right outside, and her father in the back room? I guess she’s okay looking enough—I mean, she’s a woman!

  She came very close and lowered her voice. It was sweet and almost husky:

  “Mike . . . could you go count the floods in overstock and see if there’s anything we need to put on order?”

  “Okay, Miss Glantz.” He tried to keep his disappointment from showing as he saluted her with his ballpoint pen and headed toward the back of Glantz Appliances, past rows of blenders, clocks and toasters, under racks of swinging mock-Tiffany lamps, past the counter where the other two Glantz sisters stood arguing over the week’s receipts. They were all “Miss Glantz” to him; he knew their first names but didn’t use them, couldn’t even keep them straight.

  The door at the rear of the store opened into a dark region of handmade shelves crammed with junction boxes, lead pipes, Bakelite sockets, spools of coaxial cable. Old Mr. Glantz, father of the women out front, stood at his workbench in a pool of light, dissecting a toaster, mumbling to himself, oblivious to Mike’s presence. A wooden ramp led up between the shelves to the delivery entrance at the rear. He paused at the door, looking out at the parking lot and alley behind the building, where the asphalt seemed to seethe and simmer, soft as wax. He was almost glad to be indoors on such a day. Almost.

  Mike went into a storage area near the top of the ramp and started rummaging through boxes so light they felt empty, counting indoor floods and outdoor floods in various wattages, in shades of amber and green. He noted the totals on a clipboard. Someday, if he worked here long enough, he could look forward
to keeping all the different kinds of lightbulb straight in his head, like Mr. Glantz, who could instantly name the order number of any replacement part, like some Houdini of household appliances.

  He calculated he could spend a good ten minutes back here before anyone disturbed him; so, resting his clipboard on a dusty wooden shelf, he peeled back the inventory lists and returned to filling in bloodstains on the dragon’s teeth with a red pen, drawing big splashing pools of it on the ground below the victim. He used a little red to touch up the victim’s nipples as well.

  Scarcely any light came through the delivery door into the storage area, and while he was drawing even this went dim. Two guys blocked the door, in silhouette. The tallest one was his best friend, Scott Gillette. The other was lanky Edgar Goncourt, whom Mike scarcely knew except by reputation. Mike could smell a faint whiff of incenselike musk coming off him—a weird cologne he associated with the Alt-School crowd.

  They peered down the ramp toward the front of the store, not seeing Mike in the shadows. Scott said, “This is where he works.”

  “Old Glantz’s place? Man, that sucks. Imagine that hardass for your boss.”

  “Hey,” Mike said. “Over here.”

  Scott blundered into a case of three-way bulbs and knocked it over. Little packages pattered down the ramp.

  “Watch what you’re doing!” Mike hurried to prevent further disaster, gathering the boxes.

  “You get off soon?” Scott said.

  “Pretty soon. Why, what’re you guys doing?”

  “Edgar lives up in Shangri-La, right where you’re moving. We were going to head up there. You want us to wait for you?”

  “It won’t be till like a quarter after five,” Mike said. “I have to sweep up and stuff.”

  “That’s cool,” Edgar said.

  “Mike?” called a perpetually hoarse voice. “Who’s up there?”