Consumption

by Heather Herrman

  The answer was, nothing. Riley was going to do absolutely nothing about it. Not if he could help it.

  And just like that, the tiredness hit him. Like a wave, it rolled over him, almost pulling his eyelids shut right there on the road. He needed to get home. Home was a warm bed and a final bowl of ice cream, if he could stay awake long enough to eat it. Home was pictures of Izzy and plans for their summer and sweet dreams of times gone by. Home.

  Riley cranked the engine higher and watched the speedometer creep up to fifty, then sixty, as he left the factory behind.

  2

  He made it two blocks when his radio squawked on. “Sheriff?”

  “Yes?”

  “I went out to the Williams place, like you asked.”

  Riley had asked Sam to go out to Thad Williams’s house and collect his work car, something that should have been done a long time ago. Apparently, the man was still driving it, despite having quit his job.

  “And, was he home?” It was awfully quick for Sam to be getting back to him.

  “No, Sheriff, he weren’t.”

  “That’s all right, Sam. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  A pause. Dead air.

  “Sam? I said we’ll—”

  “I think you’d better come on out here tonight, Sheriff.”

  “What do you mean? I thought he wasn’t home.”

  “He ain’t.”

  “Then why would I—”

  “There’s a girl, Sheriff. A dead girl. Sitting right at Thad’s kitchen table.”

  “A dead girl?”

  “A body, Sheriff.”

  Sam’s voice was shaking. Riley had already slowed the car, turned it around. At the same time, he felt the murmur of protest well up inside him. This was not why he’d come back to Cavus, goddammit. Cavus was supposed to be quiet. Safe.

  Riley took a deep breath and tried to calm his deputy. “Relax. Tell me exactly what you saw. Was it an accident?” Despite himself, his cop mind was already hard at work trying to figure out who the girl might be. Thad had a daughter, he knew. A teenager named Star whom he’d seen a few times around town. Could be her. If it was, he hoped it wasn’t anything to make Thad’s life harder, a drug overdose or…

  “It weren’t an accident,” Sam said.

  “There’s no way you can be sure, Sam.”

  “I can. It wasn’t no accident, Sheriff. Her face, it’s…God, it’s bad, Sheriff. And when I went out to the barn to look for Thad, he wasn’t there, but there was…” He let out a large, gaping yawp.

  “Calm down, Sam. Tell it to me slow.”

  “There was a lot of blood. Right there in the middle of the floor. And on the workbench there was a dress. It was all torn up.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “No, I…I waited. I thought that’s what you would want me to do.”

  “You did right, Sam. You did just right. Now, stay there. And keep your gun out. You do that, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Riley had already taken his finger off the radio’s talk button, but just the same, he spoke the next words aloud.

  “I’m coming just as fast as I can, Sam. You hold on.”

  3

  After everyone else had left the factory, after the cleaning crew was gone and all the lights were off, after the furnaces were silent and the chimneys were shut down, another figure emerged. Pushing open the doors, he walked into the night. Stretched to his full height, he was nearly seven feet tall.

  He walked alone and not alone. He walked with the song of his children in his mind and the wrath of his father in his ear. He walked with the curse of his sister at his back. He walked the walk of the fallen.

  He walked with a smile.

  The yellow of the slicker squeaked against itself as he raised his arms to the sky and danced a perverted jig, undulating hips toward the sky.

  It was just so goddamn good to be back.

  Interlude

  Father James Makes a Deal

  CAVUS, MAY 2009

  Mayday: a commonly used distress signal. From the phrase “venez m’aider,” meaning “come (and) help me.”

  Father James Timothy Johnson was in a wonderful mood. Not even the family sitting just outside his office could dampen it. The reason for his good mood had to do with the man on the other end of his phone line. A Mr. Grady Anderson from SweetHeart Industries, who was just about ready to make Father James the deal of a lifetime.

  “So it’s something you’d be interested in, then, Father?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Father James, nodding his head as if the man were actually in the room with him. “I think the Black Squirrel Festival would be a perfect unveiling for the partnership. The community likes to be proud of one of its own, Mr. Anderson, and now that you’ve settled, that means you. You are one of Cavus’s own.”

  “Thank you, Father.” The man on the other end sounded humbled, and Father James smiled. He liked this man, Father James decided. He liked him a lot.

  “As to the matter of cost, Father James…”

  “Well, we are, as I’m sure you know, a rather poor parish.” Perhaps he’d made his character evaluation too soon.

  “Of course, of course,” Grady cut in. “Which is precisely why I would not think of charging you a thing. You must consider the order a gift, Father.” There was a pause during which the sound of squeaking, like rubber against rubber came through the line. “Please, Father,” Grady finished.

  There was that “Father” again. It rolled so nicely off of Grady Anderson’s tongue. So naturally. Father James hadn’t even had to instruct him in the proper title, Grady’d known it right off. Not like the people around here. He’d drilled the community of Cavus plenty good in what it meant to have respect, and what a priest (yes, priest, not pastor, another common mistake) of the Lutheran faith should be called. None of this “Mr. James,” or “Mr. Johnson” that the newer, more lax branches of the faith were allowing. Nor, worse yet, “Pastor J.” Ungrateful. Disrespectful. Gauche. He wouldn’t have it.

  “Thank you, Mr. Anderson. I’ll send some of my parish over to collect the order from you. When might it be ready?”

  “Not before the Festival, I’m afraid, Father James. But you needn’t have any of your flock come to the factory…”

  “A good many of them work there,” said Father James, chuckling. “Another reason to be thankful to you.”

  “I’m thankful to have such dedicated workers. They are like family to me.”

  “And you to Cavus. You are a…a most magnanimous benefactor, Mr. Anderson.” The words stuck in the priest’s throat, but he knew how and when to play his flattery.

  “Which is precisely why I shall deliver the wafers myself,” said Anderson. “I hope you’ll let me partake of them with you.”

  “You’re coming to the Service?” asked Father James. And now he could hardly contain the glee in his voice.

  “Why, yes. I hear it’s not to be missed.”

  “It most assuredly isn’t,” said Father James. “Especially with your offering of the sacrament. It will be a new beginning for our church.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Grady. “Goodbye, Mr. Johnson.”

  “It’s F—” But the line was already dead.

  Well, he supposed he could excuse the lapse. It had only been once after all. More importantly, Grady Anderson had agreed to come to the Festival church service. A real coup indeed! It all but assured his church a swift and victorious win over the small Baptist congregation that was trying to crawl up from beneath the belly of the town, meeting in the basement of the Quick Pick. He, along with the backing of Anderson’s name, would crush the faction quickly and mercilessly at the Festival.

  The wafers would make sure of that.

  Some people might think it was a silly idea, but Father James was not “some people.” He was a businessman. It was how he got to where he was today. And as a businessman he knew that the Lutheran Church was losing numbers, and it was losing
them quickly. Something had to be done.

  He didn’t believe in “modernizing” the Church. That, along with people calling him “pastor,” was unacceptable. Fads came and went. But (and this was what one must ask oneself), what didn’t come and go? What stayed just as it should, always and forever the same?

  The answer was simple. Addiction—and Jesus, of course, but the two went hand in hand in his mind. Addiction. Yes indeedy-do. People needed to become addicted to his church. It was why he preached the way that he did. With anger and rants of sin, like a beating he gave his congregation every Sunday. But just as quickly, just as easily, he would pull back. At the right time he would pull back, and like the beaten lover, the Church would lift its head and then…then he would let just the smallest drop of praise fall. Just the smallest, so that they would always be coming back for more, always begging for more. Never satiated, they’d lift their lips, like thirsty men in hell, toward the priest, and wait for his sparing words of redemption to fall upon them. And now, with those words, he’d add a sweet. Just a small one.

  To others it might not seem like much, but he knew. Oh, yes, he knew. Just as Grady Anderson knew how smart it was to add a touch of beet sugar to the dry-as-dust communion wafers, to make them sweet, and delicious, and…unforgettable. Yes. Unforgettable. Like a kiss after a fight. A smoothed brow after a sickness. Unforgettable and necessary. Addictive. A craving. A need.

  Silly? No. How many of those fat-bodied boys sitting with hair forced into submission in the front of his church, fat toes squashed into Sunday shoes, how many of them thought of the next hit of cheese-powdered chips, of sugar-spun mango taffy, of the burger from the place with clowns and toys? How many Spanx-garbed wives dreamed of their Sunday pies, how many husbands of their game-day beer and brats? He’d bet his collar that it was more than a few.

  It was a proven fact, addiction to food. Other companies were taking advantage of it. He’d read somewhere just the other day that scientists were adding chemicals to food that shut the brain’s “full” receptors off, just so consumers would eat more. Half of America was now considered overweight. All of this was factual. It came down to science, pure and simple. Science and good business.

  And it was time for the Church to start making money off of it. He was just the man to help them do it. He and Grady Anderson. Grady could provide the supplies and Father James the…desire. The connections.

  From the waiting room outside his office, Father James heard a cough—a polite cough, the kind someone makes when they are waiting to be noticed, are reminding another of their presence.

  The family in the other room. He’d all but forgotten them. The Mexican woman with her little girl and the surly-looking teenager. “Beaners,” that’s what his playmates in school would have called them, what he would have called them, too, if he’d had anyone to gossip with.

  Father James stepped from behind the door and folded his arms together, pressing his palms into prayer posture to assume the regal, yet beneficent walk with which he liked to greet all new possible parishioners.

  Part III

  Festival Morning

  Chapter 7

  1

  Even before the sun rose, one could tell simply by the air that Festival Day 2009 in Cavus was going to be a beauty. Javier Martinez woke that June morning while it was still dark. He was in a fine mood.

  He was off work from the factory today and only had his paper route, and then nothing but time on his hands. He’d be able to finally spend some of his hard-earned money on his mom and sister. He’d make his pops proud, he knew. Even back in Oaxaca, when they’d been saving up for the move, scrimping to get the family to the States, Javier’s dad made a point of treating the women once a week to some small gift. A mango on a stick from the market for his mother, a dulce de leche sucker for Gabriela.

  Now his dad wasn’t here, but Javier was gonna do the treating. Finally. He’d worked his ass off to get to the point where he could. He might even get a little something for himself, a funnel cake, maybe—but what he was really hoping was that he’d see the girl from his dream last night.

  Mabel. He knew her name because he once heard one of her friends say it to her as they walked by him in their tightly knit group. She was something truly special, with her red curls and pretty, freckled skin. She was beautiful, but Javier had an idea that she didn’t know it. From what he could tell, Mabel seemed a shy girl, always walking with her head down and never speaking loud enough for him to hear what she was saying in return to her friends. But he knew she was gorgeous, and he’d had one heck of a dream featuring the redhead last night. The aftereffects of it still buzzed around his head like a caffeine high.

  “Morning, reinita,” he whispered to Gabby, who was pretending to be still asleep in her crib. The crib was a piece of junk, an old wooden heap his mom had gotten from Goodwill and painted white, but Gabby looked pretty as a picture in it. Gabby slept in the front porch just off Javier’s mom’s room. Javier slept on the ratty brown couch in the hallway. He could have shared the room with his mother, but it just didn’t seem right.

  “Havee!” Gabby popped up from the crib, toddling to stand on her chubby legs. “Havee!” Her voice grew louder, threatening to wake their mother. “Up! Up!” she demanded, holding her hands out for him to pick her up.

  “Shh! Quiet, Gabby. Back to sleep!” he whispered.

  “Up! Up!” She was giggling now. It was a great game to her.

  Javier bent and picked her up, dragging the graying yellow sheet with pink flowers up with her. He jiggled her on his hip, pretending anger. “I’m going to be late, corazoncita, and it’s all your fault.” He shook his finger at her. “Naughty girl, Gabby! You’re a very naughty niña.” Then he pressed his face into her neck and gave her a raspberry, sending her into squeals of laughter.

  Javier put her down with promises of the Festival, but only if she was good and went back to sleep. Though he always pretended she was making him late, Javier had started waking up fifteen minutes early just to make sure he didn’t miss out on their ritual. It was, truth be told, the highlight of his day.

  In the next room, Javier heard a sheet rustle, and he knew his mother would be up within the half hour to start her sewing. He always tried to convince her to sleep in, but his moms was his moms, and she didn’t know how to not be busy. He thought the business might help her in forgetting about his dad, so Javier didn’t press her too much. Gently, Javier closed the door behind him and stepped out into the still-cool air of predawn Cavus.

  “Javier.”

  He jumped, spinning to find the voice. “Rosie!”

  A woman, short with curly gray hair and a face like a dried apple, stood inches from him, her chin tipped to stare into his eyes. “Buenas noches,” she said, beaming.

  “Buenas noches, Rosie,” Javier said, not bothering to correct her. Rosie Yubanks was their landlord, a perfectly decent woman, if a little nosy. But she’d been the one Father James had called when Javier and his mother had asked the man for a place to stay.

  Her bright little eyes glowed at him from the darkness. He noticed that Rosie already had her hair set and her ever-present lipstick fully applied. Javier wondered if it had ever looked good on her, if that smear of color had ever caused anyone to want to bend down and kiss those lips, the way the shiny lip gloss Mabel Joyce put on made Javier want to do. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “Why, it’s Festival Day!” said Rosie, as if that explained everything. “I’ve got to get the laundry out on the line. Don’t want to waste Festival Day with chores, do I, now?”

  “I guess not,” Javier said, stepping past. He didn’t point out that she didn’t have any laundry with her. “Well, see you, Rosie. I’ve got to get to work.”

  Rosie, very casually, stepped back in front of him. “Are you going to the Festival, Javier?”

  “I…” He hesitated. The last thing he wanted was to get stuck taking this woman along with them to the events. Today was a day for h
is family. No one else. “I am. I’m taking Gabby and Mom with me as soon as I get back,” he said. “It’s been a while since we had any time together, just the three of us.”

  “That’s nice, then.” He saw that the old woman had one of her arms tucked behind her back. She was a weird one, the old lady, watching telenovelas and always trying out her flawed Spanish with Javier and his mom. Still, she gave them a good rate on rent, mostly because she was a member of the Lutheran church and thought of it as her duty, especially since Father James had asked her personally. Javier had a sneaking suspicion that Rosie mostly viewed him and his family like the third-world kids the church had pictures of hanging up over their collection buckets. The congregation collected money for those kids and their families to help buy them goats, or seeds to plant, or any number of other things; there was a whole list, complete with pictures, of where the money went.

  “Javier,” Rosie pulled her wrinkled arm out from behind her back to reveal a white lump in her hand. “I thought you might want this. It’s just a little something for the road. A growing boy, he needs his food.”

  “Thanks,” Javier said, taking the thing, a folded paper napkin hiding its content, and pushing by her. “See you later,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Rosie, and some trick of the wind made her voice sound very near his ear, almost as if she was right behind him. He turned, startled, but Rosie was steps away, still standing on the porch. He waved and then turned back around.

  The poor thing. He almost felt sorry for her. She was all the time trying to draw him or his mom into conversation, trying to cook for them, one of her horrible meatloafs or dried-out roasts. Javier unwrapped the napkin, sniffing at the contents. It was warm, heating his palm, and when he poked his nose closer, he smelled blueberries. A muffin, and it didn’t smell all that bad. He lifted a piece to his mouth, but as he did so, he stepped under one of the tall Cavus streetlights, and its pre-dawn glow revealed the bite he’d been about to pop into his mouth.