Revelation

by Wilson, Carter;

  When a parent tells you they wanted to have you aborted, it flips your stomach enough to push a wad of bile up toward your throat. I forced it back down, but it left a hot burn inside.

  “About three weeks after I found out about you,” he said, “I went out drinking one night. Especially hard. Small place in another town our band was playing at. Little bar mostly full of steel workers and tramps.”

  This was the longest conversation we’d had in some time; my dad usually preferred his body language to do the speaking for him. But watching him made me realize he needed to tell me this. He needed to tell me how he found Jesus. Maybe he was holding out hope I would find him too.

  “Your mother and I weren’t engaged yet, but we were talking about it. We were going to get married and have a baby, and that scared me more than anything. Anyway . . .” There was a long silence as he picked up his unused fork and starting rapping the tines against the tabletop. “I went home with another woman that night. I don’t even remember her name. She was filthy, and I went home with her. I . . . I sinned that night. Sinned against what God wanted for us, but I just didn’t know it at the time. The moment I . . . you know . . .”

  “Moment you what?”

  He cleared his throat, decades of regret coming up with his phlegm. “Moment I was finished with her, I saw everything. Who I was. What I was doing. My future in hell. Everything.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  “Know you don’t mean it like that, Son, but it was Jesus. Jesus came to me and told me I had chosen the wrong path in life, but it wasn’t too late to change. As I laid on top of that fallen woman, I knew I was under the devil’s thumb. And that was a fear more terrifying than any I’ve ever known. Scared me straight, is what that was. From that moment on, I changed everything. Quit drinking, joined a church, confessed my sins.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “You tell Mom about the other woman?”

  “Had to, Son. You can’t be a Christian without confession. You can’t be absolved of any sins you won’t admit to.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She was plenty mad, but I suspect she was sinning as well. She kept sinning long after I stopped, as you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Still got married. Still was there to watch you be born.” He pushed his chair back a couple of inches. “Sometimes you have to be in crisis to find Jesus, though sometimes you just have to be lost.”

  I could hear the old wooden clock on the wall ticking behind me, its measured beats counting the seconds of silence between us.

  “I think you’re a little lost, Harden.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to find Jesus yet, Dad.”

  He smiled, which surprised me. I never went to church much until Mom left, and then it was every Sunday with Dad. He knew I was never interested, and I hadn’t been to church once since leaving for college. I knew I disappointed him, and I expected to hear that lecture again now.

  Instead, he said, “That’s the beauty of Jesus, Son. Sometimes he just decides to find you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  JULY 1990

  “Jesus. Emma.”

  A gag covered her mouth—a blue bandana wadded up with one end dangling out like the tail of a creature she’d eaten. Hands tied behind her back with a thin nylon rope. Harden desperately worked the knot of the bandana first, and once he freed her mouth he focused on her wrists, trying his best to not bump against the bandaged stump where her finger used to be. When the rope fell to the floor, Emma wrapped her arms around Harden’s chest and buried her face just beneath his chin. Her body rattled against his as she sobbed.

  Harden didn’t know why they brought her to him, but he thought were it all to end this way, at least he would be with her.

  Holding her, Harden scanned the floor and said, “There’s a black widow in here. She was just on me, and I’m not sure where she went. Keep a look out.”

  Emma pulled back, and there was almost a smile on her face.

  “She?”

  “Yeah. Her name is Charlotte. It’s been pretty lonely in here.”

  Now a real smile came, only to be replaced by more tears. Harden himself felt a choke of sadness, but he just didn’t have the energy to cry.

  “How’s your finger?” he said.

  Emma wiped her cheek with her healthy hand and allowed herself a long, deep breath.

  “It hurts,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s infected, at least not yet.” She raised her hand, and Harden studied the gauze and tape circled around the stump where the index finger had once been. He didn’t know what he was looking for, and he didn’t want to look under the tape, so all he said was, “That’s good. We’ll get out soon and then go straight to the hospital and get you cared for.”

  “But they can’t save my finger. It’s gone forever.”

  Harden nodded.

  “Where are we?” Emma asked.

  “I have no idea. I was hoping you knew.”

  “I don’t . . . he . . . I met with Coyote. Said he wanted to tell me something. The night after your birthday. Someone grabbed me from behind. I don’t really remember.” Her eyes welled again. “I woke up in that cell. It seems so long ago.”

  Harden kept looking at her bandage. “Who did that to you?”

  “The men with the masks. They said it would make me obey. Said Coyote had ordered it. They . . . they held me down.” She closed her eyes, and with a voice so controlled Harden marveled at her strength said, “They used a bolt cutter, Harden.”

  Harden tried not to imagine that scene, but the more he tried the clearer the vision became. Baby Face #1 holding her down, pinning her arm to the ground. Baby Face #2 leaning in with the bolt cutters, pincers open wide like a massive crab, going in for the prey.

  “Emma, I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head, not quite saying it’s nothing, but rather to stop thinking about her situation altogether.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

  He shook his head and felt guilty they hadn’t dismembered him, too. “Nothing like you. They have a plan for me, so they need to keep me somewhat healthy, I suspect.”

  “What plan?” She nodded at the broken typewriter on the ground. “Does it have to do with that?”

  “Yes. But listen, Emma, there’s something I have to tell you. You might already know.” He reached up and put his hand on her shoulder, craving her warmth.

  “What?”

  “Derek,” Harden said. “They killed him.”

  “What? Oh, no. Oh, Harden.”

  “He—his body—was in this room when I first woke up. They took him away after a little while.”

  Emma sat on the floor, pulled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them, pulling herself into as small a ball as possible. Harden sat next to her and put his hand on her back. As he did, he caught a brief scent, so ephemeral he wondered if it was just his imagination. But, above the stench of the cell and their two slowly rotting bodies, he smelled the Emma he remembered. Fresh, like a meadow of flowers just washed by rain. It was the aroma of Emma on the day she sat across from him in the dining hall. And, in seconds, it was gone.

  “I don’t understand this,” she said. “This can’t be real. Poor . . . poor Derek.”

  And that was all she said about Derek, not asking how he died, or if Harden knew who had done the act. Maybe she didn’t want to know because the more she asked questions, the less of a bad dream this became. Maybe she could still convince herself she would wake from this. Harden had given up on that fantasy some time ago.

  “What do they want from us?” she asked.

  Harden shook his head. “I thought I was free. I hurt one of them—hit him in the face with the typewriter. I almost made it.”

  “You should have kept going. You stopped for me, and that’s why you’re still here.”

  “No,” he said. “We leave here together o
r not at all. Do you recognize any of their voices?”

  “No.”

  “One of them seems familiar to me. The smaller one. They want us alive, at least I think. They hurt you, but they treated the wound. Kept you from getting worse. As for me . . .”

  “What?”

  Harden turned and looked at the typewriter on the floor. He guessed it was broken, but he hadn’t tried it. He wondered if breaking the machine had sealed his fate.

  “Coyote wants me to write,” he said. “He didn’t tell me what to write, but each day they come and take out the pages I’ve finished. I’ve been writing about how all this started, from the moment I first met him. But maybe that’s not what he wants.”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “I think . . . “ Harden lowered his voice. He didn’t believe there were any cameras or microphones in the cell after all his searching, but he sure as hell didn’t want to be heard. “I think Coyote wants to know what I know. See it from my perspective, as a follower. It’s like the New Testament, how all the disciples wrote about their experiences with Jesus. That’s what I think he wants. He wants the Book of Harden.”

  “But you’re not even a follower,” Emma said. “You’re not even a believer.”

  Harden thought he saw the slightest of movements out of the corner of his eye, and turned his head. He looked for Charlotte, but all he saw was a bare dirt floor leading to a wall behind which she was likely hiding.

  “I don’t think that matters at all,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  DECEMBER 1989

  Christmas came and went with little fanfare. Snow fell, but it hardly seems a white Christmas when the only things the snow clings to are wisps of dead front-yard grass and rows of rusted chain-link fencing. Dad put out a plastic Nativity scene in the front yard, and on the day after Christmas someone stole Mary and the donkey. Dad prayed for the thief.

  On the morning of New Year’s Eve I got my first call in a week; few people knew my home number.

  “Hey, Harden.”

  “Coyote.”

  “You gotta come back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Wyland.”

  “You’re back at school?”

  “I am. And I need you.”

  We still had two weeks of break left.

  “Why did you go back so early?”

  His voice became more excited. “Your story. We can make it happen.”

  I straightened and held the receiver against my ear. The knotted plastic cord twisted around itself like a DNA’s double helix.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your short story. ‘Revelation.’ I read it yesterday, and now I’m back on campus. We can do this, Harden. We can start it all here at Wyland.”

  I wanted to pretend not to know what he meant when he said we can make it happen, but I knew better. I knew Coyote.

  “Coyote, it was just a short story for my class. It’s fiction.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. The concept is perfect.”

  I won’t say his compliment fell on deaf ears, but I parried it with my usual self-doubt.

  “It’s nothing original,” I said. “It’s as old as any idea out there.”

  “No,” Coyote said, “not really. Not the idea of starting it on a campus. Hell, it’s the perfect nesting ground. Now get your ass back here and let’s figure out how to do this. I can’t do this alone.” A brief pause, then, “Actually, I could do this all alone. I just don’t want to. Harden, come on. I’m bored as hell. This is the perfect challenge.”

  A perfect challenge. That’s how he saw this. “Let me make sure I understand you,” I said. “We have one semester left of college, and in that time, in addition to all your coursework, you want to start a religion. Is that right? Because that’s what I wrote about, Coyote. I wrote about starting a religion from scratch. A complete, personality-based religion. A following from nothing.”

  “I know.” I could visualize the thousand-yard stare in his eyes. “And I’m the perfect fucking messiah.”

  He knew it. I knew it. In fact, there was a part of me that believed this was possible.

  He added, “Let’s look at it another way. You having fun with your pop down there?”

  I didn’t lie. “Not exactly.”

  “Then come back up and enjoy the peace and quiet. No one’s here. It’s cold as bones. It’s beautiful.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Okay, listen. Give me your address.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m coming to get you. That way you don’t even have to take that awful bus back up here. At least you’ll get a comfortable ride.”

  “It’s a six-hour drive.”

  “Then I’ll spend the night.”

  I felt myself on the edge of Coyote’s event horizon. He was a black hole pulling me, and I circled right at the invisible edge between drifting into space or plunging deep into his inescapable darkness. I had to admit, there was something alluring about giving in to his gravity, because having direction is something I struggled so hard with on my own. There was really nothing left for me in Owen. It’s not like I was spending my days bonding with my dad. He worked ten-hour shifts, and while our dinners together weren’t unpleasant, they weren’t exactly riveting either. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I went back a couple weeks early.

  “Okay,” I said. “You give me a ride, then I’ll do it.” I gave him my address.

  “Great,” he said. “See you tonight.”

  “You’re coming tonight?”

  “I was planning to. Why, what’s the problem?”

  “It’s just . . . New Year’s Eve.”

  “Oh, yeah. You have plans?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Me neither. We’ll celebrate in Owen.”

  Five and a half hours later, Coyote edged his BMW against the curb outside, and as he walked up the sidewalk to my childhood home, I had a strange flash of memory. It was of my mother and how quickly she was walking as she passed for the very last time through our front door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Coyote walked into the house with a jackal’s smile and a bottle of champagne. I tracked his eyes as he met my father. Not a single wayward glance at the sparse surroundings or my father’s rough exterior. Coyote simply didn’t give a shit if you were rich or poor. It was your soul Coyote wanted to judge, not your wallet.

  As my father gave Coyote’s hand a firm pump, Dad gave him the icy stare of a man who had spent many years learning hard lessons about trust. The quickest flick of his eyes and he took all of Coyote in, the perfect hair, the cashmere overcoat, slacks creased to a razor’s edge. A second flick to the BMW outside, which beamed in the dirty sunshine. My dad never liked many of my friends, but never because they were too rich; this was a new situation entirely. For all of my father’s reestablished faith, he didn’t even offer Coyote as much as a glass of water. I think my father saw Coyote for what he was, knowing in ten seconds what I had failed to see after months spent with Coyote.

  My father was an exceptional man.

  Coyote turned to me.

  “We’re good to go tomorrow, right?”

  “We are.”

  My father said, “Not sure why you want to leave so early, Harden. You barely even saw your friends here.”

  It was true, but mostly because I had so few friends here to begin with. My best friend growing up, Tim Johanson, enlisted in the Army the day after graduation and was currently stationed at Fort Hood. I envied his conviction, as much as I disagreed with his choice. Still, he’d have college paid for when he was done with his service, and he had some grand notions of helping to stop the Communist threat, though the world was already letting that fizzle out on its own.

  “I’ve got a project I need Harden’s help with,” Coyote said. “It’s actually based on something he wrote.” He gave me a little nod, as if he was doing me a favor by saying any of this to my father. “He’s a
pretty talented writer, you know.”

  My father shoved a hand in his pocket and looked me over. “So was Hemingway,” he said after a few seconds. “But some cleaning lady still had to mop his brains off the kitchen floor.”

  * * *

  Nothing was more predictable than an eventual clash between Coyote and my father, which is why I suggested Coyote and I eat out for dinner, but my father would have nothing of it. It was New Year’s Eve and my last night at home, and I was expected to eat at the house. It had all the elements of a perfect storm, and I counseled Coyote before we went into the kitchen.

  “You know, I’m not sure my dad is all that crazy about you.”

  Coyote opened his eyes in mock disbelief. “Ya think?”

  Okay, maybe he had noticed after all. “I think it’s just . . . you know.” I almost said it was because he was rich, but that wasn’t really it. My father didn’t like him because Coyote was a predator.

  Coyote held a hand up, not needing any further clarification. “Harden, it’s fine. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t need people to like me.”

  “Just don’t do anything to egg him on, that’s all I’m asking.”

  “Like what?”

  I exhaled. “Put the champagne back in your car. He doesn’t drink. He’s a born-again Christian. That might come up.”

  “No kidding? That’s perfect.”

  “Perfect? For what?”

  “For our project. We could bounce some ideas off him.”

  Oh, hell no. “Are you crazy? I don’t even want to discuss whatever crazy shit you’re scheming until we’re in the car tomorrow morning.”

  “Harden, it’s such an opportun—”

  “Promise me.”

  Coyote narrowed his eyes for just a moment, and in that flash I felt the briefest stab of fear. It was barely a mosquito bite, but it was real. “Fine. I won’t bring it up.”

  “Good,” I said. “That’s all I’m asking.”