Revelation

by Wilson, Carter;

  “But it is a scam.”

  He wagged a finger at me. “But not the way you’ve written about it. You’ve been presenting it the way he wants it. Flowery but unbiased. Supportive. Believable. Your notes give credence to what he wants the rest of the world to believe. He needs you, Harden. You are in a position of power here.”

  I wanted to feel used, but I didn’t. This was just another layer of brilliance I had to credit Coyote with. Then something occurred to me.

  “Does any of this make me culpable?”

  Barrillo arched his eyebrows. “Thought it would be a while before your mind jumped there. But, short answer: not really. If I were a real prick, I would tell you yes and hold it over you, knowing you couldn’t afford any lawyer who would tell you I was full of shit.” I noticed that Barrillo had loosened up considerably since he started drinking, and I wondered what another three or four beers would do to the man.

  “But you still need my help?”

  “I do. We do.”

  “And you want me to tape our conversations?”

  He nodded. “How often do you see him?”

  As little as I could. “Hardly ever anymore.”

  “Maybe start paying him a few visits—use that time to record your conversations with him.”

  That’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. “My tape recorder is a little big. He might see it.”

  “No. Not with that. I’ll leave you with something a lot smaller—harder to find. I want you to get him to say something, anything, about his father.”

  This was going from bad to worse. “How the hell am I going to do that?”

  “We’ve compiled some talking points—I’ll give those to you. Probably won’t work,” he admitted, “so don’t push too hard. Our case doesn’t hang around you, but since you’re already close with him, there’s a small chance he’ll say something wildly incriminating, and we can move things along much faster.”

  I felt my body slouch in the booth. “This whole thing seems . . . I don’t know. Not what I would have expected from the FBI.”

  Barrillo smiled. “You mean it seems like we’re flying by the seat of our pants?”

  “Exactly.”

  Barrillo shrugged. “I will admit this is a little unconventional, but we also know when to take risks. This is a risk, but a calculated one. Like I said, probably nothing will come from it, but if you’re game, you could make a real difference here, Harden.”

  Then something occurred to me.

  “Do you think Coyote’s father loves him?”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Now it was my turn to chug the rest of my beer. The bubbles filled my throat, almost making me gag. I set the empty bottle down and said, “What if I was able to get Coyote to talk about a crime he committed a long time ago? It’s something he’s already told me before, so it would be easier to get him to recount it rather than me suddenly asking him about his father for no reason.” I shifted in my seat. “Could that get Coyote arrested?”

  “What crime?”

  I ignored his question. “If his father loves him, wouldn’t he do anything to get those charges dropped? Like plea to the crimes you suspect him of ?”

  Barrillo thought for a moment. “You watch too much TV, Harden. Yes, I suppose that’s all possible, but the crime would have to be significant.”

  “It is.”

  “What’s the crime, Harden?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll keep at least something to myself for now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  JUNE 1990

  I graduated. It was a humid, rainy day in early June, and those of us receiving our $60,000 pieces of paper wore black gowns that, after mere minutes of soaking up rain, bled purple tears onto our clothes underneath. As I stood between Derek and Emma, I looked into the crowd and saw my father watching me. It was the first time in three years he’d come to the school to see me, but any bitterness I might have felt over that was erased the moment he shook my hand after the ceremony and told me he was proud of me. I think he was telling me the truth, and, though I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with an English degree, I was damn proud of myself, too.

  At the reception following the ceremony, Derek’s mother—whom I’d met on other occasions—pulled me aside to ask what was up with Jacob and that other roommate. What is his name? Wolf? I corrected her on Coyote’s name and assured her that, while I saw Jacob from time to time, I had no idea what was going on inside his mind. She assuredly had received the same information from Derek, but she still gripped at her chest and told me in a performance worthy of at least a Daytime Emmy how she was so relieved Derek and I didn’t get caught up in all that weirdness.

  I agreed, gave her a half-hug, and then turned to Emma. She was standing next me, waiting to introduce my father and me to her parents.

  Weird moment. Emma and I weren’t exactly hiding our relationship, but we weren’t shouting it from the rooftops, either. Derek knew, as did a few of Emma’s friends, but there was still this weird fear of Coyote. We never even saw him anymore, but just knowing he was close somehow kept us from being as free as perhaps we would otherwise be. Graduation was what we needed to finally move on with our lives, and Emma and I were planning to go far away from Tillman.

  Apparently Emma hadn’t told much to her parents about either Coyote or what he was doing, but Derek’s mother was quick to fill them in. Emma’s father, a raspy-voiced man with a small paunch and rimless glasses, turned to his daughter.

  “This is the man you dated?”

  “Just for a little while, Dad.”

  Emma’s mother, who, should the old maxim hold true, had looks that boded well for Emma’s middle age, was equally distressed.

  “How come you haven’t told us about all this?”

  “It’s not important,” Emma said.

  “So they’re trying to start a religion? As a joke?”

  “I don’t think it’s a joke anymore,” I said.

  “Clearly not,” Derek’s mother said. “They dropped out of school for this. I’ve known Jacob since he was a freshman with Derek, and it just breaks my heart to see him throw his life away like that. God, to think it could have been Derek . . .”

  My father, not one usually to join a conversation, broke his silence and said, “I spent a few hours with Coyote earlier this year, just as he was itching to start this whole plan of his. I didn’t get a good feeling from that boy at all. Not a bit.”

  Emma’s mother turned her attention from my father back to Emma. “But you’re not involved with him anymore, are you, dear?”

  Clearly Emma hadn’t told them about me. This would have to change soon, considering our plans.

  “No, Mom, I’m not.”

  “Well, thank goodness. You certainly don’t need that right now.”

  Everyone collectively nodded and mmm-hmmmed, and in the following silence it suddenly struck me that everything was good.

  I don’t know why that sense washed over me, but it did. Perhaps it was how easily this group of people churned and discarded the stories about Coyote, but everything that I had been consumed with and scared of suddenly seemed insignificant. There was nothing to fear, and Coyote was merely one of those eccentric people you meet in your life that warrants the occasional stories to your friends when you’re older.

  I felt a weight slowly lift from my chest, as if waking from a bad dream and realizing it was, in fact, just a dream.

  Everything was going to be fine. Derek would spend a few more weeks on campus before going home to work with his father. Emma and I were planning to go to San Francisco. She had a management-trainee job lined up with some fancy Hyatt out there, and I’d find work. It wouldn’t pay much, but we’d be happy. And Coyote and Jacob would become interesting, albeit pathetic, footnotes to our lives’ histories.

  That would be that. I was certain of it.

  I lightly put my hand on Emma’s back, keeping it there even under
the weight of her father’s gaze.

  All was good.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I turned twenty-one a week after graduation, and the next day Emma was going to leave for San Francisco. I had just bought my plane ticket and was planning to join her a week later.

  I finished my last shift of my last day at the library, and as I walked away from the stacks I realized it was the most steady job I had ever held. I was glad to see I had it in me. I could commit to something for a long time, see it though.

  One last trip to Benny’s. It was just after nine o’clock, and the moon was hiding behind clouds that had choked the sky all day. The air was thick and meaty with summer, as it always was in June, and I breathed it in, wondering what the air in San Francisco tasted like. Salty, I imagined.

  I had this life in front of me I could only see in bright, momentary glimpses, these flashes of colorful bursts like fireworks exploding behind the tops of trees. I couldn’t see much, but I was excited by what was out there. And I liked that I really didn’t know what was going to happen next. Soon it would all start.

  I reached down and tapped the front of my jeans, feeling for the recorder Barrillo had given me. He was right—it was small. The microphone taped easily to my chest and ran down to a control unit I had chosen to place inside my underwear. Not very comfortable, but surely much more so than strapping that damn Walkman to me.

  Coyote was going to be there tonight, at my invitation. I needed him alone for enough time to get him to say something that would help Barrillo out.

  I pulled out my ID—my real one—as I approached the bar, wielding it as proudly as had I been holding Excalibur herself. The bouncer, whom I suspected of letting me slide with the fake ID all this time, smiled and nodded his head as he checked my card. “Happy birthday,” he said, letting me by. It seems weird that I never knew his name, and he had always known me as William Green from Minnesota. But tonight, I was me.

  The air in Benny’s was slightly less stifling than the air outside, but the smell was much worse. This, of course, I had grown accustomed to over the years, but it always seemed to me that Benny’s was a deep cleaning shy of being a moderately decent place. But I guess not making the effort was also part of the bar’s charm.

  Derek and Emma were sitting at a table waiting for me. I got a happy birthday from both, a handshake from Derek—who was wearing his trademark ANOTHER SHITTY DAY IN PARADISE t-shirt—and a deep hug with a squeeze from Emma. There was a pitcher of beer already on the table and three shot glasses filled with, I guessed, tequila.

  After we settled in, I dropped the news.

  “Coyote’s coming tonight.”

  They both looked at me as if I told them I just set fire to a day-care center.

  “Why is he coming?” Derek asked.

  “Because I invited him.” And because I need him here, I didn’t add. No one knew about my relationship with Barrillo, and I intended to keep it that way for the time being.

  “Does he know we’ll be here?” Emma asked.

  I nodded. “Look, if it’s awkward . . .”

  She shot me a look that conveyed more words than she could have spoken, and I knew exactly what she was feeling.

  They hadn’t spoken since they broke up. Emma wanted nothing more to do with him, and I don’t blame her. But there was a reason I wanted all of us together in that bar.

  I needed to see Coyote and Emma together. I needed to see her reaction to him. I needed to remember what he did to her and how he made her feel, because I needed to hate him again. That sounds terrible. It’s immature and selfish, but I’m not trying to justify it.

  My hate had been wearing off, slowly but not without notice, and I was starting to feel my resolve to destroy him weaken. I was leaving for a new life with Emma in a week, so I had only a limited time to make a last push to put an end to what he was doing. Once I was gone, I was gone, and I knew I wouldn’t look back.

  “Yeah, Harden,” Emma said. “It’s awkward.” Her look wasn’t hateful, but rather questioning, as if saying, Why would you do this to me? God, that made me feel shitty.

  “Is Jacob coming?” Derek asked. I couldn’t tell by his expression if he wanted him to come or not.

  “I don’t know,” I said, which was the truth. “But I would doubt it.”

  “Harden . . .” Emma said.

  I held my hand up. “Look, it’s my birthday, okay?” I tried to give her a look that said I’ll explain later, but I don’t think it worked. Barrillo swore me to secrecy, but once I told him I was moving, he said I could tell Emma when we had left the state. In a week I could explain everything to her, but for now she had to love me enough to do what I asked of her.

  “Fine,” she said, not quite pouting but clearly not pleased. I had to stay focused. Using the cover of the tabletop, I reached under my shirt and put two fingers down the front of my jeans, a move I had practiced many times in the last few weeks. I turned the recorder on and hoped the ambient noise from the bar wouldn’t wash out the audio.

  Seconds later, Coyote walked in the door. Alone.

  He looked like the same old Coyote from our early days together, from when he robbed me of my tooth, but I knew better than to judge anyone, especially Coyote, on the kind of clothes or expression they wore.

  I saw Emma flash Coyote a look of disgust, and that alone was enough to make me hate him all over again.

  “A reunion of sorts,” Coyote said, standing next to our booth. Derek and Emma sat across from me, and I saw them both look up at Coyote. Neither of them wore a welcoming expression.

  “Hey, Coyote,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

  He shook my hand. “Harden, wouldn’t miss it for the world. Happy birthday, man.” As I shook his hand, he pulled me up and gave me a hug, which was strong and sincere. I don’t remember ever having hugged him before.

  He released me and turned to the table.

  “Look,” he said. “I know this is uncomfortable, okay? I mean, here I am with the girl who broke my heart and the guy who nearly broke my jaw.” His smile was gentle and welcoming. “I want to apologize. I know things have been weird with me. I know I’m an intense person. My ambitions . . . well, sometimes they take me over. I know I have lost your friendships.” He was looking directly at Derek and Emma now. “And I don’t expect to make up for everything over a drink. But I just want to sit in peace with everyone here, just for a little while, okay?”

  My gaze went to Emma. Her look of anger had changed to something else. Did she miss him? My stomach turned as I considered that possibility.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Derek said nothing.

  “Good,” Coyote said. He waved to the waitress, whom I recognized from the last time Coyote and I were here together. I wondered if she remembered him levitating, or if she had discarded that memory as quickly as it took for the next night’s worth of drunken idiots to fill her bar.

  The conversation idled until the waitress returned and set Coyote’s shot in front of him. He pulled out a hundred and handed it to her.

  “Bring the bottle, will ya?”

  Another nod. “Keep your feet on the floor this time, Dumbo.”

  Coyote ignored her as I smiled. Then he raised his glass, prompting us all to do the same.

  “To Harden,” he said. “A truly selfless friend.”

  My shot glass hovered for a moment. I stole a glance at Emma, who didn’t look back at me. We all downed our tequila and, as the liquid slid down my throat much easier than it had four years ago, I wondered what this night had in store for us.

  “When are you going to get a job, Harden?” Derek asked me with a thin smile.

  I shrugged.

  “You’ll find something,” Emma said, then winked.

  “I have no doubt,” I said, smiling at her.

  “We’re growing,” Coyote said. “We could use your help. It won’t be much longer before we need to organize with a full-time staff. I think we could pay you a competit
ive wage.”

  That almost made me laugh. “What kind of job would you want me for?”

  “I’m going to need a chief operating officer,” he said. “Someone to keep track of members, dues, bills, that sort of thing. You’re organized, you’re creative, and you know me better than anyone. You have no other plans. Seems like a perfect opportunity.”

  Derek leaned in. “You’re charging dues now?”

  “Fifty dollars a month.”

  “For what?” Emma asked.

  Coyote shifted his gaze to her and quickly scanned her face. Assessing her. “I know you guys think what I’m doing is bullshit. And maybe at some point it was. Maybe . . . maybe that’s how I always presented it. But what I’m doing is real. Legitimate. I need to collect dues to provide that legitimacy, at least to those on the outside looking in.”

  “How are you legitimate?” Derek asked. He squinted, which he always did when he started to get pissed off.

  The waitress dropped the bottle off and Coyote refreshed everyone’s glasses before he answered.

  “Six months from now you won’t even recognize the Revelation,” he said. “We’ll have over a thousand members. We’ll have official government recognition in the form of tax-exempt status.”

  That wasn’t even close to answering the question, I noticed.

  Derek’s mood started to change. He wanted to engage Coyote.

  “But what does your . . . whatever the hell it is . . . even do?”

  “Church of the Revelation. And what we do is give people hope.”

  “Hope?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hope of what? Learning how to uproot trees?”

  Coyote barked a short laugh and looked at the table.

  “That’s not how it works, Derek.”

  Derek dismissed his comment. “Because none of it’s real.”

  “Oh, it’s very real.”

  “How? How is it possibly real?” Derek straightened in his chair. “Explain it to me. Explain to me how you can perform a couple of parlor tricks and call it a religion. Explain to me how you can take someone like Jacob and derail his life so easily.”