by J. T. Warren
“You can’t jump into the deep end of the pool without learning to tread water in the shallow end first.”
“What is that, some kind of empty cliche?”
“You can’t know everything before you’re ready. If you are allowed to know everything, there is too high a risk you will turn back, afraid, unwilling to go where you must.”
“That sounds exactly like why I should know.”
Behind them, two people dressed in identical black suits to the ones Ellis and Dwayne wore jumped out of the back of the van. They each carried a duffel bag big enough to conceal a large dog. Or body parts. They hurried up the driveway to the front steps and let themselves into Anthony’s home. He should be in there supervising. What was Brendan doing? Watching?
The big guy in the van’s driver’s seat remained.
“Brendan has undergone a traumatic religious awakening. His conversion is one of the most wrenching and powerful I’ve ever seen. I can’t tell you more except that before you punched my partner, we were talking with your son and were left completely awestruck. That boy understands. Perhaps it is the purity of youth. You will forever be clouded with doubts, but not Brendan. He is very special.”
A middle-aged woman in spandex pants and a blue hooded sweatshirt power-walked toward them, arms snapping up and down at her sides, head rigid and focused forward. Wires from earbuds stretched from her ears to the iPod on her belt. Anthony should know this woman, she was his neighbor, but he had never seen her before. Would she notice the black van with the giant floating cross painted on it? And if she did, would she care?
“I thought you wanted to discuss my soul, not my son’s.”
The woman passed without a glance. New Jesus Clan in the neighborhood? None of her business.
“Do you know what today is?”
“Is this a trick?”
“It’s Good Friday. The day Jesus was nailed to the cross. He had to carry his own cross; he was beaten, whipped, tortured, humiliated. He bore this brunt with a heavy heart but a steady back and solid feet. He may have fallen on his way to the delight of hecklers, but he always got back up again. He marched to Golgotha, the place of the skull, and was nailed to the cross. You have heard this?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry it happened but—”
“Do not weep for him. He was crucified for us, Anthony. We should rejoice. On that cross, he agonized with the final dying breaths of life. It is believed he was nailed to the cross at noon and was dead at three. Do you know what he said before he died?”
“Of course. He said, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“No,” Ellis said. “He said, ‘It is finished.’ Do you know why that’s important?”
Anthony kept quiet.
“Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew of Judas’s betrayal; he knew of Pilate’s washing of his hands; he knew of the torture; he knew of his death. He knew of all of this long before it ever happened. He was an emissary from God; his mission was to show man the path to empowerment.”
“His death did that?”
“When he died, an earthquake rumbled throughout the land, tumbling buildings, cracking open tombs. That was the sign.”
“That Man fucked up again? First Eve in the Garden and now a pack of bloodthirsty Jews?”
“No. It was the sign that man could finally find the righteous path and harness the unequal might of God’s empowerment. Jesus was sent to show us the way and he did, if we are willing to look and not fear the suffering that may come along the journey.”
“What do you want me to do?” Anthony wanted to fall asleep or die or something.
“Today is a holy day. The power is out there waiting. Do you see the time?”
Ellis gestured to the digital car clock: 3:00.
“Good timing,” Anthony said, hoping it would be much more flippant than it came out.
“There are no coincidences, Anthony, only curious things we can’t explain along the path God has set for us, if we choose to take it.”
One of the men exited Anthony’s house. He rolled the duffel bag on its tiny wheels down the driveway. The bag was stretched so tightly that one of the side zippers hadn’t made it all the way shut. A piece of bloody sheet stuck out like a mottled ghost-white tongue.
“There’s something you need to do,” Ellis said.
“Get new sheets?”
“Kill your wife.”
12
The bruise on the doc’s face was still spreading. Brendan wondered how far it would go before all the internal workings of the body realized the main system had crashed. He didn’t waste time wondering if this man’s death was part of God’s plan or not; Brendan believed with all of himself that it was and that left no room for doubt.
“Didn’t expect to see you until later.” The voice was Dwayne’s; he was standing in the bedroom doorway. He was wearing his funeral suit and his hair was plastered with gel.
Brendan had an urge to run to the man, hug him. He wasn’t sure why but there was something about him, perhaps his larger size in comparison to Dad’s that suggested more manliness and that, ironically, made Brendan want to be even closer to him. Those broad shoulders and wide arms could protect him better than Dad’s thin frame and spindly arms. The world was a dangerous place; it would be nice to have a strong protector.
He was protecting you—he killed Dr. Carroll for you.
Or had that been God acting through Dad?
Dwayne stood in an immaculate suit with no wrinkles ruining the smoothness of his look and no hairs out of place on his head. Dwayne was a symbol of God’s perfection, of the Master Plan, of the Path to Empowerment.
“It’s all happening, isn’t it?” Brendan asked.
Dwayne smiled. “It certainly is.”
* * *
They stood off to the side while two men, also in black suits with the addition of latex gloves, stripped Dr. Carroll to his white boxers and stuffed his clothes in a duffel bag. The men then placed Mom and Aunt Steph on the carpet, removed all the bed sheets and squeezed the sheets into the same duffel bag. Aunt Steph mumbled something in her sleep but Mom didn’t stir.
One man sprayed something on a large, pink splotch on the mattress where the blood had seeped through the sheets. He scrubbed at the stain with a hard-bristled brush until the pink was almost gone. From another duffel bag came a set of fresh bed linens, cream colored. The bed was made in a few seconds.
“They’re fast,” Brendan said.
“Necessity of the job,” Dwayne said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. To talk.”
Glancing into the family room and the big, blank TV in there before entering the kitchen, Brendan thought about Bobo and BooBoo Bunny. The show seemed so impossibly silly right now, something meant for five-year-olds. He’d probably never watch that show again, nor any cartoon. For a moment he felt something he could have labeled sadness but it fled too quickly to really register. There were more important things to worry about.
They sat at the table where, up until a week ago, the family (minus Mom, of course) had enjoyed the weekly ritual of bacon and eggs.
“These are dark times,” Dwayne said. He sat with his big arms on the table and stared at the wall ahead, a painting set in the middle of the wall: a little kid sitting at the counter in some diner with a bulky cop next to him and the cook or waiter leaning over the counter from the opposite side. The painting was one of Mom’s favorites. It always seemed a bit creepy to Brendan. The way the cook, dressed all in white, was staring at the little kid, cigarette in the corner of his mouth; Brendan could picture the next frame—the kid strapped to a chair, tears gushing from his eyes, screams of pain echoing out of him. The cop might even be watching from the shadows. Like the Darkman.
“It is difficult sometimes to see God’s hands in everything. There is so much pain in the world that it makes you wonder.”
“What?”
“Does He even exist?”
Was this some kind of test? “God?”
&n
bsp; Dwayne smiled, turned to him. “They say the purest believers are always children.”
He was leaning toward Brendan just the way the cop in the painting was leaning toward that boy. In fact, the two had the same broad back and wide nose, same short, neat haircuts. Was Ellis the other guy then, the one with the strange smile?
“I found God many years ago,” Dwayne said. “I was lost, so lost that it is even a wonder I was able to find my way. I was a bad person, did some horrible things. All because I hated myself so much. I abused my wife. Beat her viciously many, many times.”
Brendan couldn’t say anything. What was Dwayne’s point?
“Ellis saved me. He walked right into my house one night while I was throwing my wife around and he stopped me. I had a kitchen chair, like one of these, held over my head. I was going to crush her with it, her and our unborn baby.
“Ellis told me that God had other plans for me. I told him to go fuck himself. And you know what he did? He walked right up to me, put his hands on my arm and said, ‘God loves you so much that even if you kill this woman, He will still accept you with open arms.’ That just took out all the aggression. I went limp, dropped the chair, almost collapsed. Ellis told me that one day I’d be glad that a child existed somewhere with my DNA.”
Dwayne’s eyes drifted back to the painting. “I knew he was right. So, I went with him and that’s been how it is ever since. Ellis took me to God and now I am His servant. It took something so horrible and dark to get me to see where I needed to go. It wasn’t easy, don’t mistake that. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever endured. Taking your father’s beating was a slap on the wrist in comparison to the self-flagellation of my soul. Finding God is not rainbows and lollipops—it’s anguish and brutality.”
Brendan swallowed something hard, steeled himself. “I am ready. I want to serve God.”
Dwayne nodded slowly. “I’ve done some terrible things since Ellis found me. But I’ve done them all in God’s name. Can you understand that?”
The bowling ball slipping from his fingers … “Yes,” he said.
A smile crept up at the corners of his mouth. “You are such a special boy. I’ve told you all this not to scare you, but to reassure you. I learned, son, that in the darkest corners of our minds there is a gateway to the illumination of the soul. Don’t fear the darkness; it can lead you to wonderful places.”
Something in Brendan’s mind popped. His brain flooded with the screaming, warning sirens of coursing blood. He should run, get to Dad, and they should both run and never look back. Something wrong was happening here, something possibly very, terribly wrong. Blaring in his mind—Trouble! Danger!—but the specifics of the message were unclear. What had triggered the panic? He sensed the answer but it was blocked, hidden behind a foggy veil. Then, from somewhere—a dark corner, perhaps—the veil lifted and the answer came.
“That’s exactly what Dr. Carroll said to me,” Brendan said very slowly as if expecting his words to cause an explosion. “About the darkest corners of our minds.”
Nodding again, Ellis said, “The doc is fond of that saying. I think it’s originally Ellis’s, though. Dr. Carroll was a troubled man, but not without his usefulness.”
Dwayne paused. Seconds passed slowly.
“If you are ready and sure,” Dwayne said, “there is much I have to share with you. It starts with Dr. Carroll and it ends with Debra Karras.”
As Dwayne spoke, Brendan could hardly believe his ears. God really did work in mysterious ways.
13
Sasha was more receptive than Tyler dared hope. Of course, he concealed his real motivation, but as long as he got into her house, the rest would take care of itself. Paul drove him to Trailer Trash Town. Tyler told Paul to be ready for his text message, which would signal his part in this plan, and then Tyler took his grocery bag of supplies and walked up Sasha’s driveway, past her mangled car, and onto her vandalized front steps.
She opened the door before he could knock. She had managed to scrub off much, though not all, of the spray paint. Black blotches speckled her face like cancerous freckles. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and dark with moisture. Her hands were hidden in the sleeves of the sweatshirt.
“I don’t know what to say …” That wasn’t true, of course; he had thought for a while about what to say and decided that saying he didn’t know what to say was, in fact, the best thing to say.
“Let’s go for a drive,” she said.
* * *
They returned to the scene of the crime. The sun was still a few hours off from its dive behind the mountain across the lake on which houses sprouted like warts. The giant monster was sleeping now, waiting for nightfall before it would awake and open all of its hundreds of glowing eyes. It had seen what happened here last week. With all those eyes, it had bore witness to a crime that had, in turn, led to events that brought him right back to this gravel pull-off area by the lake. Life sometimes had a cyclical quality to it. Maybe it was karma or Fate, but it didn’t matter. He was here again and again he was staring at her breasts. The sweatshirt was loose, which gave little indication of her figure, but the way she slumped back in the driver’s seat pulled the sweatshirt just snug enough to reveal some of her feminine figure.
Tyler kicked the bag he had brought and glass bottles clattered against each other. Sasha glanced toward his feet but said nothing. She was waiting for him to make the first move. He wanted to yell at her and call her a crazy cunt-trap of a bitch, but he had to stay calm. The success of his plan depended on it.
Most of her windshield had been destroyed with one swing of a bat in Tyler’s hands. Small pieces of the breakaway glass lay between the seats in the cup holder or in the footwells, but Sasha had cleared away most of the debris. A few jagged pieces like shark teeth jutted up from the bottom of the windshield frame. He could reach out and impale his hand on one of them. Or Sasha’s throat.
“I’m sorry about your sister. Everyone says she was really cool.”
“Thanks.”
Sasha pulled her hands inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt, pushed her arms between her legs. She tucked her face into the crook of one boney shoulder. “This has been such a fucked-up week.”
“I know.”
“How’s your hand?”
Tyler hadn’t forgotten the seared arrowhead imprint on his hand but he had pushed it to the back of his mind. He appreciated it anew and it began to throb with a dull, hot heat. “I’ll be okay.” He should apologize for her face but he couldn’t push himself over that cliff. Paul had gone way overboard but still, this whole mess could be traced back to Sasha.
Or her breasts.
Or your dick.
“My mother’s gone really nuts this time. She’s … scary.”
“You’re not safe.”
Her wide eyes peered over her shoulder at him like the eyes of a fawn into the barrel of a shotgun. “It’s not her fault.”
“You don’t have to put up with her. She sliced her wrists once, what if she does it again? Tries to cut you?”
She said nothing, only stared with those owl eyes.
“I told you about my mother, how she’s drugged all the time. It’s not the best thing for her but it keeps her from crying all the time, talking to nothing, or hitting herself, like she did after the baby died. She may be drugged up but she is alive and safe.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You can do the same for your mother.”
“I’m not drugging her.”
“She’s already drugged with that witchcraft shit.”
After a pause, Sasha asked if he no longer believed a curse had been cast on his family.
He shook his head. Part of him did believe that Sasha’s mother had, whether intentionally or simply by lucky accident, cast some dark spell on him and his family for raping her daughter. Could Delaney simply be a coincidence? The other part of him knew that it probably was a chance event and that the timing of his s
ister’s death was an anomaly. Witches didn’t exist and evil spells were for horror movies.
“My mother’s just trying to find a way to be happy.”
“By torturing her daughter?”
“She’s protecting me. At least she thinks she is.”
Tyler waited a moment and asked the question he had wanted to several days ago: “What happened to your father?”
14
The proper response to the command to kill your wife was probably something like “What?!,” some visceral response oozing with incredulity. Perhaps even a punch to the guy’s face who said it, something besides the silence Anthony offered Ellis. He stared so long that Ellis asked if Anthony had heard him.
“Maybe I didn’t,” he said. His ears could be playing tricks on him. The stress after killing someone could probably do that to you.
“I’m not being flippant when I say it, either,” Ellis said. His hands traced the steering wheel, one after the other. “Killing your wife is no easy task, but God does not ask of us anything He knows we cannot handle. The only question is will you answer His call?”
Anthony stumbled for words. “The only question is why. Why do you want me to do this? Why should I? Why does she deserve that?”
“You might as well ask God why we exist? Why is there cruelty in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people?”
Anthony tried to regain a mental grip. “You’re comparing existential questions that have plagued philosophers since time began with killing my wife. That’s a ridiculous comparison.”
“It’s not. You just have to look at it the right way.”
“You say, ‘Kill your wife,’ and I shouldn’t ask questions?”
Ellis thought for a moment. “I’m beginning to question your commitment to His will.”
“How do I know it really is what God wants? You have a direct line to Him, is that it?”
“Calm down.”
“ Calm down? You tell me to kill the woman I love and I should be calm about it?” He balled his hands into fists. They ached with the low groan of a gator scoping out prey.