Jesus Saves

by Darcey Steinke

  At the end, just after Mulhoffer proposed buying TV time on the local channel and hiring a small, three-piece band, he praised her father for his devoted service to Good Shepherd. Mulhoffer winked at the congregation as he joked about her father's intelligence, his love of reading. “I can't even pronounce the names of the guys he studies, let alone get through a page of their books.” Her father, Mulhoffer said, had done a fine job at Good Shepherd, had an obvious love for God's word, but he was clearly overworked and needed a helpmate, a CO-pastor.

  * * *

  The teakettle rang out on the little hot plate her father set up on the edge of his desk, next to the Lutheran seal paperweight and a pile of church-supply catalogues. He turned off the heat and poured water into his mug, stirred the instant coffee crystals until each one dissolved, added a packet of creamer. Now that they were alone in the office, waiting for the congregation to vote, the wind dropped out of her father, left him exhausted and spaced out. A blanket from home lay folded neatly next to the desk and he brought a pillow from his bed. She realized, watching him pick through his mail, that he'd been sleeping here not because of his obsession with God's word and its connection to the salvation of Sandy Patrick, but because he thought that if he kept vigil he could somehow heal the rift between himself and his church.

  Her mother always claimed that her father was singularly unsuited for the ministry. Because he was so sensitive, so easily able to cry, sad situations made him act stiff and officious, which alienated him from the very people he was meant to comfort. Most ministers, worn out by the perpetual worries of others, created a cheerful persona and spoke in coded clichés about God's will, but her father was still uncomfortable with his position as God's representative, thought it slightly embarrassing and somewhat absurd.

  Ginger swung her legs over the edge of the wingback chair and her father glanced up at her as if he'd forgotten she was there.

  “You know I'll have to quit,” he said.

  Ginger nodded. But what would he do? At the end her mother had laughed in his face, said he was unfit not just for the ministry but for every other job too. He was a dreamer. “The world,” she'd said, “has no room for men who believe in angels.”

  “But it's not the end of the world,” her father said, trying to sound parental and reassuring. Maybe it was in the pestiferous nature of the ministry, maybe the lack of imperatives in the spiritual life, but even as a little girl, he never made her feel safe.

  There was a knock on the door and he said, “That'll be Mulhoffer. You should go.”

  “Let me stay with you, Dad,” she said. Fear and dread nibbled at her heels. She was always terrified of his vulnerability and wanted now to protect him any way she could.

  “No,” he shook his head, “you—”

  The door opened and Klass hobbled inside. “Excuse me, Pastor.”

  “It's okay, Klass. It's just my daughter. Please come in.”

  “It's a shame, Pastor,” he said, leaning heavily on his cane, his face filled with nostalgia, “it's enough to drive me over to the Catholics.”

  “Oh, Klass,” her father said, laughing, “anything but that.”

  Ginger didn't feel like going home and reading over the employment ads in the newspaper, as her father suggested. She wanted to check on the girl who'd called last night and read her horoscope and an article from her mother's fashion magazine about spring sandals and the importance of proper accessories. There was an edge of terror in her voice when Ginger said she needed to get some sleep. She asked a flurry of questions: Did she believe in love at first sight? Were rich people happier than poor? If God existed, why would he let planes fall out of the sky and cars crash on the highway? Why would he allow people to get married who weren't really in love? When Ginger insisted she had to get off the phone, the girl said she heard a noise, something rattling the window, somebody creeping around in the basement.

  Ginger rang the doorbell. “I'm giving myself a beauty treatment,” the girl said as she opened the door, mud dried chalky on her cheeks, wetter around the ridges of her nose. The girl's eyes were as bright as green crocus knobs pushing up under a cover of dead leaves. She explained how she'd walked over to Revco and bought a facial pack, a hot oil treatment, shaving cream, special lotion. She'd tried on all the sunglasses on the display rack but none were glamorous enough. And did Ginger know about the place in the mall where they gave you a makeover, changed you into a winter queen or a butterfly princess, and then took your picture like a model?

  She gripped Ginger's hand and pulled her toward the bathroom, telling how she'd called the boy she liked, the one who was teaching his dog hand signals.

  “At first he was shy, acted like he wanted to get off the phone,” the girl said, “but then we started talking about dogs, how we both like big dogs and hate little yappy dogs, like poodles and Chihuahuas. I told him I wanted to live on a farm and have a lot of Labradors and golden retrievers.” The girl spoke fast, as if talking was as fundamental to her survival as breathing. Ginger heard these endless monologues from older women at the church who lived alone—they were so afraid of self-reflection that they chatted endlessly—but never from such a young girl.

  “How's your mother?” Ginger asked.

  “Oh, she's a mess, turns out the dentist got involved with somebody while at a conference down in Florida. She came by with groceries, left me twenty dollars for lunch money, and said she'd be at his condo until further notice. They have to talk things out and they need, according to my mother, to hold each other at night.” The girl stuck her finger down her throat in a gagging motion and shook her head. “Why anyone would want to kiss that bald-headed monster is beyond me. The guy reeks of fluoride and whenever I see him I hear the whir of the drill and see blood spinning around in that little porcelain sink.”

  She pulled Ginger through the doorway into the bathroom, where a beauty altar was set up on a peach towel next to the tub. Spread out evenly on the terry cloth, like instruments for an operation, were the spent tube of hair conditioner, a jar of purifying mud, a pink plastic disposable razor, and a small travel-size can of shaving cream. “I'm going to shave my legs.”

  “Don't do it,” Ginger advised. “You'll be a slave to that razor forever.”

  “I don't care,” the girl said, looking away, giving her neck a defiant twist. “My mother got me some cotton bra-and-panty sets.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “And I already have my period,” she said, kneeling next to the towel, as if that cemented the inevitability of this ritual. The girl looked over the beauty lotions as if they were wine and wafer.

  “Do you want a beauty treatment too? I know a recipe for hair conditioner. You use half a can of beer and two raw eggs.”

  Ginger shook her head.

  “Then you'll be the beautician?”

  It was hard not to get caught up in the girl's goofy web of excitement. And besides, Ginger remembered when she was this age, how she'd heard that in the sixties women burned their bras. She was shocked and appalled. Bras, lipsticks, rouge, compacts, lacy nightgowns, and high-heel shoes, these were objects to wish for and revere. Ginger knelt down beside the towel.

  The girl took off her quilted robe and sat up on the edge of the tub, spread her bare legs out in front of Ginger. She wore a tank top smattered with tiny red hearts and matching underwear. When she arched back, ribs striped her chest.

  “Do it like the magazine says,” the girl said, pointing at the lotion, “first a layer of this and then the shaving cream.”

  Ginger pumped the rose-scented lotion into her hand and spread it thickly over the girl's warm leg.

  “Now the foam,” she said, pointing at the can. “Don't you just love that stuff?” the girl said as foam piled up in Ginger's palm and she spread it over the cream, making sure every bit of skin was thoroughly covered. The pink razor pulled easily over the girl's skin. Ginger turned the tub water on and rinsed the blade. Greasy foam mixed with ti
ny blonde hairs splayed around the silver drain that reflected back a pockmarked picture of Ginger's face.

  “Have you ever worn false eyelashes?” the girl asked as Ginger pulled the blade up again, careful around the nuance of ankle bone. ‘'I'm a summer, don't you think?” her fingers stretched the skin over her cheek bones, “a summer with an oval face.”

  Ginger rinsed the blade again, glanced at the back of the girl's neck where a stork's bite splattered pink and the chain of her birthstone necklace lay delicately on her neck bone. She flexed her toes so Ginger could slide the razor around the tendon at the back of her foot. The dense foam, the rose-petal lotion, the double blades, and the cool pink skin put them both into a trance. Ginger threw her body forward as if experiencing a tiny electrical shock. The girl gave a puppy yelp and said accusingly, “You nicked me!”

  “Shush,” Ginger said, “I heard something.” And there it was again, a passionate thump on the sliding glass doors downstairs.

  “I told you this place was haunted,” the girl said flatly as she examined the cut on the back of her foot, then pressed toilet paper over the wound.

  It was alarming how much time lapsed between the thuds, enough time to run down a vagrant memory, to take a quick shower, or pour yourself a drink. Then the muffled thump happened again and the girl lifted her foot, blood gently soaking through the blue tissue paper.

  “You better go down there and check it out.” She said this so casually that Ginger thought for a moment that the girl had gotten a friend to pound intermittently on the window. She'd seen movies where the hero's mother, father, even sisters and brothers were all secret Satan worshipers, or cyborgs, or unfeeling aliens hatched out of space pods.

  Up the hall and down the stairs, she started. The beige carpet had gray spots as if paper plates tipped and greasy hamburgers had flopped onto the synthetic shag. The mammalian scent of middle-class families floated in the hallway—over boiled broccoli, fabric softener, and the accumulated sweat of sleeping children. She stood in the middle of the rec room, a dark subterranean landscape populated with a Lazy Boy, vinyl dry bar, and the smelly couch where family members laid around like dogs in a cardboard box.

  She waited, eyeing the framed poster of Monet's lily pads, the insipid colors and pretty flowers no different than Hallmark Easter cards. Nothing was down here, though as she turned, she saw a spot of red, a candy wrapper caught on a branch. Animated by the wind, it rose and sped directly toward her face. Like a shooting star with a mind of its own, like a lie come back to torment. Then the familiar thump and Ginger saw the cardinal, crazy eyed, hair stuck up on its head in tufts like a punk rocker.

  The girl came down the stairs limping. Using scotch tape, she adhered a wad of Kleenex to her ankle. A thread of blood trickled over the pink arch of her foot.

  “What was it?” She flopped her thin, ever-lengthening limbs onto the smelly couch.

  “A bird,” Ginger said.

  The girl raised her eyebrows, her features rearranged to look incredulous. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Ginger watched the girl lose interest.

  “Let's pluck our eyebrows.” She leaned forward. “I've read how if you use an ice cube to numb them it doesn't even hurt.”

  Her father's car was parked in Sandy Patrick's driveway, the light green Chrysler with the tiny Bibles in back, the box of Sunday school supplies, pipe cleaners and construction paper, Elmer's glue and Popsicle sticks. His clergy emergency sign was tucked up under the visor. He used it whenever he parked illegally. Thick gray cloud cover made the sky feel too close and there was a pathetic splattering of rain, drops so cold they reminded Ginger of the tin notes of a music box.

  She crouched below the bay window, stood in the wood chips beside a boxwood bush, and spied inside. Her father sat with Mrs. Patrick on the couch. Spread over the coffee table was a jelly glass glazed with Coke mist, an empty yogurt cup, and a Styrofoam take-out tray. Her father looked calm as he arranged the communion implements, and Ginger realized for weeks he'd probably stopped here on Mondays as part of his sick calls and hospital visits. Nearest Ginger's eye on the floor, a box overflowed with baby things, corduroy jumpers and little sweaters, a zip-lock bag of yellow hair and tiny baby teeth.

  Wearing the traveling stole around his neck, her father raised the wafer, stamped with a dove, and Sandy's mother's head flopped forward in complete capitulation. He moved the wafer to her lips and her tongue darted out and took the wafer. Ginger's father tipped the tiny communion goblet to Sandy's mother's mouth, her throat shifting as she swallowed the wine. Her father's lips moved again, as he raised his hand up to his forehead, down past his chin, from shoulders, right to left, in the sad sign of the cross.

  Sixteen: SANDY

  “Stand still, if you want to look gorgeous,” the butterfly said, as he applied mascara to the unicorn's long lashes, glittery purple eye shadow to his lids and pink nail polish to his marbled hoofs. The troll's mouth moved but no sound came out. He sat on the cellar steps and ate from a paper plate of hash browns drenched in ketchup.

  “There's some for you,” he said with his mouth full. “Don't you want it?” She smelled the onions, saw the lumps of potatoes he dumped onto the paper. She reached her hand out and brought the warm mush to her mouth. The food went down her sore throat like gravel. Pain laid on the newspapers like cold black stones. She was there only to contain and connect these sensations. When she looked over at the stairs, the troll was gone and the ridges of the brown cardboard gave off a little light. Had he been there at all? Or was that yesterday? She heard lead snakes racing over the wooden floor above her head and realized the troll was moving the furniture, pushing all the chairs and tables to the front of the house. The floorboards strained with the added weight and she imagined the house staggering forward, then sinking deeper into the mud.

  When the unicorn came on stage he wore white bell-bottoms, his silk shirt unbuttoned to the navel, a gold chain dangling around his neck; the strobe lights went crazy as he sang a wild song about loneliness and love. In the closet, Sandy decided to let the boy put his hand up under her shirt. Dresses dangled above their heads as the boy slid his fingers over the skin of her stomach. Because he smelled like a zillion school lunches, she was afraid to touch him, instead bracing herself, one hand around the toe of a high heel, the other gripping the sole of a tennis shoe. The closet door swung open and the light let her see the expanse of newspapers spread over the basement floor and the pruning shears hung on a nail against the far wall.

  “Keep it down,” the troll said, then shut the door again. She pulled her knees closer to her chest and coughed so hard she choked up some bitter-smelling gunk. The troll opened the door again and rushed down the stairs, stood in the wedge of light, and glared at her. His eyes magnified by his glasses, his white beard made him look like the God of hash browns and cold pancakes.

  The boy said he liked the drawing on her notebook of the unicorn and the butterfly with big doe eyes. She heard the TV going and opened her eyes to see the troll in a different shirt bending over in the far recesses of the basement. But by the time she opened her mouth, he disappeared. She heard him upstairs moving the furniture again; stone snakes raced across the ceiling. And something was in her mouth, mealy and sweet. It took a minute to recognize the flavor, narrow it down to a fruit, then land on the letters, arrange them, APPLE. The seeds and the stem were like bark against her teeth. But she swallowed these bits and let pee drizzle against her thigh, run down the crack of her rear. And then the poke of a bone against her cheek and she winced. The troll offered her a pork-chop bone with a bit of meat on the end. She grabbed it quick and ran across the floor, squatted in the corner and gnawed the fat. He sat on the stairs laughing, calling her his little monkey. Cute little monkey girl.

  As the van paused at a red light, she glanced through the black curtains. Angels were strapped to every light post. Angels made of white shredded plastic, gold halos hovered above their flesh-tone heads. Their gowns were cov
ered with car exhaust. Sandy recognized them from the highway in front of the mall. The van turned. Its tires wobbled like wagon wheels along an unpaved road. She was thrown up against something warm, something soft. The cat, she thought, and flipped her head to see the last bit of streetlight shine on a mess of shiny brown hair. It was Sandy Patrick dressed in footed pajamas with teddy bears on them. She was the little monkey, skinny as a pencil and covered with black and blues, and here was Sandy, ruddy-cheeked and almost chubby, her eyelids showing the spastic flicks that signaled REM sleep.

  The van stopped and the troll turned off the engine. All she could hear was his breath coming from deep down in his murky lungs, and then he hacked some mucus out the window. Cars rushed down the highway and she heard the soft sound of snow gathering on the windshield.

  The girl gave off a dry and comforting warmth like an electric blanket turned to the lowest setting. Wind hissed through the motorboat tarps, got caught in the ice-covered boards of the dock. Deep inside the green ice, a half-dead fish moved like a muscle spasm in the slushy body of water and the unicorn slipped as he landed on the man-made lake.

  “Who will be with me?” she asked, but he pretended not to hear her, saying he'd just come by to give a quick hello, that he must hurry off as he was keynote speaker at the self-empowerment conference and already he'd missed the free baked chicken.

  When he was as tiny as a bit of paper blown up into the sky, she watched the moon rise over the water. The skeleton baby waited inside. That bone baby would stay inside the moon forever. Only the dandelions kept changing from suns to moons, then back again.