It is years before I fully accept Asam Cifezzo for the visionary that he really is, years before I can no longer pass off my séance with the sun as a heat stricken hallucination. I am married to a beautiful young woman whom I eventually persuade myself is as beautiful as the girl who I had watched die next to me in her cot in South America, with her eyes bulging and her veins inflating with the green venom that had worked its way into her lungs. In fact, after a year with her, I have almost forgotten about that dead girl. Only in the quietest nights does her soft chirruping voice sing out to me through my bedroom window as a loon call, singing amo-o meu doce, como a lua ama o sol, para sempre a parte meu doce, e sempre em busca. I love you my sweet, as the moon loves the sun, forever apart my sweet, and always in pursuit. The song she would sing to me with a voice sweetened with coconut milk and banana leaves.
We marry (I and my wife, not I and the dead girl of my youth), and we are happy, and she becomes pregnant. The night I fully embrace the philosophies of Asam Cifezzo, she is lying prone amidst a sea of moths and faceless doctors, while I sit twiddling in the waiting room. I remember being transfixed by the clock face on the other side of the room. I watch its second hand tick off years, watch its face transform from a grin to a sneer to a cry. Grin sneer cry. There is an old woman across the aisle with a translucent red boil on her cheek. You can see the blood flow under the skin. What I would give to be here for a boil. Or that little boy with the rash on his neck. What I would give to be sitting here suppurating. For all I know, at that moment I am already a father. I see her, my lovely wife, two hours earlier, bleached in the white fluorescent light, strapped like an experiment to her stirrups, I watch her begin to slowly, casually, split down the middle. The cracked skin of her feet, the sagging plumpness of her breasts. The pits swallowing her eyes. How stark a contrast, since it all began.
It seems only days earlier, her mauve silk skin laying repose on the sheets. The moonlight dulled wine through the curtains. There is no music playing, we have never listened to music during. But the city sounds, a flutter flap of pigeon wings. A swarm of electrons buzzing in the tubes of a neon sign. A car horn and the muted shout of an irate driver. The ticking of her clock. But what we really listen to is the hiss of ruffled sheets. The paper smooth scuttle of skin sliding across itself. The gentle cooing, the creaking of convulsing muscles, the sound of a distant brook running over mossy rocks. We are only half human that night. Our bodies are half shadow, fading in and out with the random lines of light that lay randomly tossed about the room. Her voice trying to make itself heard. Those are the noises of love.
I still love her that day at the hospital, as she lies helpless in labor. But I will always resent her for her part in all of this. I’d had my chance to mention abortion, adoption, but I am too afraid of what she might think of me for suggesting them. I resent her for not mentioning it. Now she is prying it from herself, for us. And I, I just have to leave. I don’t want to watch it happen. I don’t want to see it at all. So I come to this waiting room to “get some air,” I tell her, just for a moment. But knowing they will come for me as it gets closer, I make my way out of the ICU to the family clinic here in the next building over. It isn’t that I don’t want children, because I do. We had planned it, we had talked about it. I go through all the logistics, algorithms, calculations, on my own just to make sure. And yes, I do want children. I want to look down and see a precious lump of my watered-down DNA looking back up at me, holding my hand with its little paw, asking for guidance. For my guidance.
I just didn’t want this one. This particular combination of genes. I have seen something in it, something that repulses me, maybe a latent memory of the ambiguous fragments stolen from the sun after learning about Cifezzo. And I’ve already sworn I will allow no room in my life for this child. It is my wife’s. She wants it, she can have it. We can share the next one, I decide. I watch the clock tick off another hour; its grin becomes a sidelong sneer. It is time to go back. I figure, if it hasn’t yet been born, it never will be, at that point. And if it has been, well there is not much I can do about it.
In hindsight, the only thing I regret is that by missing my daughter’s birth, I have unwittingly missed my wife’s death. When I arrive, her body is laying stained, some unnatural pallor of ashen gray from the lights of the morgue they lead me to. She looks unlike she does in mauve or in white. Ghoulish, but lovely nonetheless. The doctor gives me my moment to mourn, a nurse spits on me with her eyes. “Where were you?” her pupils dilate out in Morse. “It’s a girl,” they say to me. The nurse holds the bundle of undeveloped bones and fatty tissues out over my wife’s pea-split carcass.
And that is when it happens. “Not mine,” I say. “Give it away.” I hold onto my wife’s hand, give her a quick kiss on the cheek, and leave the hospital. And yet, somehow, at the same time, I don’t say it. My body splits, like an amoeba or a cell in mitosis. At the same time that I give my child away and turn my back on it, I watch in wonder as a duplicate of myself takes the child in its arms and, upon seeing my wife’s dead body, instantly forgives all the ill will he has for the thing. He cries into its bald little body while I simply leave. From that moment on, I live with the uncomfortable knowledge that I simultaneously exist someplace else, making separate decisions, living a separate life. It is excruciating, frustrating. But, at least I know that something in the world is provable, Asam Cifezzo is right. And so the world must be ending.
* * *
The phone wakes me from where I lay, back from the edge of the bed with my legs hanging off and still planted to the floor. I go to the hall where the phone hangs on the wall and answer it. It is Mr. Henrik. I tell him I will be there as soon as I can. I never made it to the shower. I smell myself. Far from ideal, but excusable. Particularly in the company of a shut-in. I go back to the kitchen, pausing in front of the basement door where I hold my breath and listen for the rats. They must be asleep. I sit at the table and strap my boots on, heavy-duty things that get me through the rough-hewn desert ground without threat of callous or corn.
Mr. Adolphus Henrik is the only man in town who still regards me as Preacher Johns. And he does it because, when his wife dies years earlier, he dedicates himself to whittling his life down to splinters alone in his home. And because of that, he has completely missed the fact that I have been banished from the church and deposed on the altar by Reverend William Wiley. In fact, I’m sure he doesn’t even know that Reverend Wiley exists. He calls me on occasion in need of groceries, supplies, or religious support, which I always give gladly. Since my dismissal, I’ve come to believe more and more strongly that my losses are karmic effects of the choice I made to leave my dead wife and my living child with an exoskeleton of a father. Perhaps he is somewhere living a blessed life now, and I, having made the choice that I made, am living a damned one. Mr. Henrik’s hovel is the only sphere that offers me any peace still, where I feel as though I might still be whole. Rather than slowly siphoning my atoms and molecules to my other self, the one who makes the right choices, the other pole on this capsizing axis. Mr. Henrik’s is the one place left where I’m awash with the reminder of what little I have made of myself.
The only downside to visiting the old man, who often smells of haggis and fish liver oil but whose genial demeanor is constant and rather addictive, is that to get to his place from mine, I have to walk past the church. Which always puts me in a quiet rage by the time I arrive. I am still a young man when I come to town, fresh from leaving my wife and my daughter and half of myself behind in a suburban world as different from this one as Reverend Wiley is different from myself. Still young enough to make amends, still young enough to do something of worth. I had completed seminary school years earlier, before meeting my wife, back when I am still devastated over the loss of the little South American beauty and think I will never want to know another woman intimately and can dedicate myself to the pursuit of cosmic truth and universal knowledge. Though my studies of Asam Cifezzo provid
e me with much of that, I still want to contribute to society, and figure that by doing so through a more orthodox belief system, I can subliminally implant my own true beliefs—those of Cifezzo and the sun god—into my sermons. The fact is that other than his views on the state of things as the universe begins to approach its close, Cifezzo does not speak much of love and beauty and peace and eternity, and so rarely are the two theologies at odds with each other. I give up my calling as a priest upon meeting Allyson, the blonde dancer who I first meet prancing gracefully in a dark alley because the mood strikes her suddenly and she is too embarrassed to pirouette in the streets. But upon hearing of her death, of course leaving out the part about my two reproductions, the one sexually and the other asexually, my daughter and her father, the archdiocese accepts that I have regained my true calling, that I have heard the word and am ready to commit myself fully to their cause once again.
They appoint me to this small town. “It’s about as close to the edge of the world as a place can get,” the bishop tells me before I board the bus that will take me down the highway, through the desert, and right to the doors of the church with only a suitcase in each hand and a large traveler’s backpack strapped to my shoulders. “But they need you. In a place like that, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there are grander things going on in the world.”
It is a designation I take to heart, and suddenly, with those words, the uneasiness I feel in abandoning my daughter vanishes. I feel as though the archdiocese has seen something unique in me, something specially fitted for the task. I spend a good part of thirty years here, getting to know the town and its people. They are good people, and they listen intently as I speak of things I only half know about, and which I believe in even less than that. But it is fulfilling, and slowly, the burden of what I had done, my one and only true regret in life, is forgotten. After all, I’m sure he, the other me, the one that knows how to make selfless decisions, is taking care of my little girl better than I would have been capable of.
The day Reverend Wiley comes to my church, he stands against the back wall with his black felt hat clutched in both hands in front of his waist, submissively, obediently. I first notice him as the last of the townsfolk take their seats and only he is left standing there with a grin that, in hindsight, is malicious and hungry. For the duration of my sermon, I don’t believe he moves once, he remains transfixed on me, and there is a point when the thought that this man is the devil come to claim me for my sins passes through my mind. I decide I am being paranoid and even chuckle audibly into the microphone before waving it off and continuing to the amusement of the audience. But as they file out at the end of the mass, as I sit in the rectory wiping the sweat from my forehead, nipping at an apple and slowly removing my robes, there comes a knock at the open door. When I turn, he is standing there, still with the hat clutched in his hands, though now he holds them in the small of his back, revealing a shining golden belt buckle above the neatly-ironed black polo shirt tucked into the iridescent black slacks.
“Can I help you, Son?” I ask, retightening my collar and fastening the robe. I place the apple on the counter and stand to meet him.
His smile gleams, and I don’t think he ever moves his lips when he speaks. The words are smoke that seeps through the thin cracks between his teeth. “Father Johns, my name is William Wiley.” He has the odd way of enunciating his words so that the stresses are everywhere they shouldn’t be. “Father Johns, my name is William Wiley.” But he still somehow makes it sound natural.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wiley, what can I do for you?” From behind his back, possibly from tucked inside his hat, he holds out a folded sheet of paper. I take it, my smile still there for him to see but no longer genuine. “What is this?” I ask as I take it from his oily hands.
“I’m from the archdiocese, Mr. Johns.”
“Father Johns,” I correct, unfolding it. I read the sheet of paper, fold it up again and hold it out for him to take back. “This is bullshit,” I say. “What is this?”
“That is my appointment to this church, and your dismissal, Father.”
“Yes, it is. And I see whose name is on the bottom. General Anselmo doesn’t speak for the archdiocese.”
“No, sir, he does not. But he does influence them. And so I’m sure you’ll find that more and more often, it’s the archdiocese speaking for the General.”
“You’re a son of a bitch.” I mold a fist around the sheet of paper and throw it at his feet. “We all know what’s going on up there. Does he really think sending you in here to take my place is going to change what people think about him?”
“They will, Father, when I tell them that it’s what God wants of them. And you know that’s true.”
“They’re not stupid.” I tear my collar off and throw it at his feet with the letter. I imagine setting a bonfire beneath him, one straight from the devil’s lips.
“No,” he concedes. “But they are afraid. You know they are. You’ve set the stage for that with all your talk of the end of the world. And religion is nothing if not a teat for the fearful to suck. God is milk, Father. Don’t pretend that’s not true. The General knows all about you and your hobbies. And your past. And he knows that you aren’t about to go crying to the archdiocese about it because it might all come out. And what would your people think if they knew about Mr. Cifezzo? What good would everything you’ve done here do anyone, if you were to have it all undone?”
I unclasp the robe and slide my arms from it. It goes with the smoothness, the readiness, of water off a cleansed body. I hold it out to him and he takes it, drapes it over his shoulder like a rag.
“Even if I’m on the corner side preaching like a madman, they’ll be right there listening to me before they come here to you.”
“We’ll see, Father. Good luck.”
He walks past me to the vanity, taps the apple with the back of his hand so that it rolls off the table into a wastebasket. And he watches me in the mirror as I leave and shut the rectory door. I imagine his smile is wide and toothy.
When I get to Adolphus Henrik’s home, I let myself in. He’s lying in bed upstairs. I go into the kitchen and put down the bag of groceries I picked up for him on my way over, and then I make a sandwich. The bread here is soft, plush, the meat and cheese is fresh. It should be, because I just bought it a few days ago. I bring it up to him along with a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade and I sit on the bed as he props himself up against the headboard to eat it. He tells me that he’s having a bad day. His joints ache, he feels dizzy, there’s a boding pinch deep in his stomach someplace. I tell him he should have called me sooner, and he says, “Father, I didn’t want to bother you. It’s Sunday.”
I realize that it is Sunday, and something inside of me snaps just a little bit further. I feel a fresh torrent of molecules drift off of my body like dust in a wind and fly someplace far away where there is a version of me still whole and functional, still with a purpose, still with a daughter whose years have tallied fast. He apologizes for making me leave the church so early on a Sunday and I make up an excuse that it’s been a slow day and he needs God’s attention more than most these days. I pity the old man for not being able to die faster. If I were a few molecules short of what I still am, I might be willing or able to help him quicker along that path.
As that thought crosses my mind, I think of the car. I think of the way I grind my palm into the horn to get them to pull over. I think of the way I run my headlights into their bumper after they come to a stop so that I can spin it nose-first into the ditch, and how easy it had all been.
I get up urgently, not able to face him right then, this poor old sack of what was once a person. How much longer until it’s me? I doubt that when it is my turn I’ll have someone to come make me a sandwich when I need one. I could have had a daughter. I tell Mr. Henrik that I am going to tidy up a bit for him. Not that he needs it. I doubt that he’s been out of bed to so much as piss on the seat since the la
st time I’ve been here. But I go anyway. I make my way to the bathroom and I slide the door shut. I go to the window and slide it open. The heat seems to be dying down a bit, but the cool breeze might just be because I’m up high above the low skyline of the city. Across the alley I can see right into Mrs. Fasch’s bathroom. I stand there for a moment trying to discern the shadows I see shifting behind the lace curtain. It’s not her, probably her deadbeat beast of a husband.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of going back to South America, back to where I used to vacation with my parents. It’s nice to think that there might be something keeping me here, but if I sit down to figure out what that something might be, I can never quite come up with anything substantial. It would be nice, I think, living in the jungle. Mr. Henrik is calling for me so I shut the window and go back to his bedside. He has finished his sandwich and teeters the plate delicately on the edge of his table. I kneel on the floor and take his hand in mine, bow and hold our meshed fingers up to my forehead. I deliver the sermon I would have delivered that morning if there had been anyone left to listen. I still prepare them each week, tuck the rehearsed scripts away in an old dresser drawer where they rot in peace. When I’m done, we pray in unison, mumbling incoherently the same things we mumble together every Sunday.
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