In these kinds of situations I think the brain gets caught in a repetitive pattern impossible to control, and here with Sparky, scared shitless, I kept shaking him and Sparky, being shaken, bawled and screamed, which only scared me further and made me shake him all the more, until:
“STOP IT! STOP IT! LEAVE HIM ALONE!”
The wife, resurrected, was standing next to me, shaking off the last vestiges of what looked a lot like Sleepy Face. Turns out she had not been stricken dead by creepy whispers after all, but had been taking a nap. Later on, she would claim she had been in deep communion with God and it had only looked like she was asleep, something I did not for a second believe.
I knew Sleepy Face when I saw it. I also knew Harpy Face, which was what Sleepy Face had become. Typically speaking, this ill-boding transformation would reduce me to dust, but this time it had no effect on me or my shaking of the boy. Not even the wife’s shrill, harpy voice could make me stop. It took the game returning from commercial to break the pattern.
At which point the wife took Sparky by the hand, sat him on the couch, and shot one helluva nasty look at me before catching sight of the score on the screen.
“Oh, for Chrissake!” she said, and took off up the stairs.
Within seconds I heard this: “Beeka-reeka-heeka-peeka!”
I heard out-and-out stomps and singing that sounded like the tortured screams of the Gulag put to melody. Worried all over again, I ventured back upstairs to the war closet to check on her, if for no other reason than to make sure she hadn’t stepped on a nail.
When I arrived, I found the door was open and the wife was not, as I had pictured, hopping around on one foot with the other gushing blood, but totally naked.
Evidently, she felt that if she were to rend her clothes as Old Testament believers had done (though she was not so much into the sackcloth and ashes) and dance around with her breasts flapping and her ass wiggling, Jesus would do whatever she wanted.
After all, it had worked with every other man she’d known, especially me.
And considering how the wife cavorting about in the altogether was not a common occurrence these days, I would have stayed and enjoyed the show, but with mankind’s future at so much risk, I reluctantly decided to leave her to her luscious nudity and return to the game.
It was now the top of the eighth inning. The Marlins were at bat. There was one out and nobody on base. Sparky had his trademark chilling smile going again and was clapping and laughing. For a moment, I wondered if he had somehow sustained some kind of irreparable head trauma from being shaken, but this proved to be wishful thinking.
“Sorry about the shakes there, son.” I said. I did feel bad about what I had done despite the small hope that he had become a little bit brain damaged.
“Eh,” Sparky said, demonstrating full control over his faculties with a wave of his hand. “We’re gonna win,” he said. “She can’t stop ’em.”
He was right. The Chicago Cubs were about to win their first pennant since 1945 and move on to the World Series. Everything I had hoped to accomplish by forcing this execrable baseball team down my son’s throat was swirling around the drain.
In a flash I saw the future. Perhaps it was a vision from the Lord; perhaps it was merely my own febrile imagination. Whatever its genesis, I saw a flash, and it was of the future.
I saw Sparky defeat all our attempts to ruin him. I saw him thriving at school: beefy, athletic, excellent grades, starting on the varsity baseball team, thundering away in a debate meet. Yeah, he still looked like an old man, but he looked like a brash, blustery, cocksure, muscular old man. Like Ernest Borgnine. Or Sean Connery.
I saw him accepted to Harvard. Yale. I saw him playing lacrosse, wearing preppy sweaters, dating leggy cheerleaders.
I heard his teachers marvel at the genius, cunning, and leadership that were in such preternatural supply in him. How he was destined for great things, to lead, to govern.
“Politics,” they said to me. “He was born to run.”
To rule.
The fact that he was barely twenty-one yet looked like Nixon at his resignation? Meaningless.
“That face has character,” they said to me.
I saw him delivering his class commencement speech from a podium. I saw the eye and ear of every student, parent, and professor enraptured, dazzled by every felicitous inflection, every exquisite turn of phrase.
I saw him surrounded afterwards. Those same students, parents, and professors. Not friends or mentors, but admirers. Worshipers.
I saw his eyes rise above the throng pressing in around him, begging to be healed, and find me, his father. I saw him lift his thumb and forefinger at me. I heard myself call out for him to stop all this, to come down and spend the rest of his life under his old man designing silverware. “Knives, Sparky!” I pleaded. “We’re going to start inventing new, neat kinds of knives!”
But my cries were in vain. Sparky smirked and peered through the space between his thumb and forefinger like you would through the sight of a gun.
“Thanks for all the help, Dad,” he said.
Then he pinched his fingers together and everybody’s head exploded.
The vision at an end, I duly panicked and ran back upstairs to join the wife in her war closet. Shamefully, I admit to rending my own garments—destroying a favorite shirt in the process—and dancing around very un-clothed with her. Jerking, spazzing around, I became aware of my own ass fat and the bit of stomach I had reacquired within the last couple of years, as well as my weenie slapping up and down like a wild garden hose and my testicles colliding with the inside of my legs, sending tendrils of white-hot pain through the rest of my body.
Quickly ascertaining the need to take my mind off my increasing discomfort, I looked back to the wife, and, for the first time it seemed, I became fully aware of just how incredibly naked she was (she was now prostrate on the floor, kissing the ground, her hindquarters in the air). Fully aware and fully appreciative.
And yet, somehow, I managed to pray with all my might that the Chicago Cubs would not win the pennant, even though it was pointless. Had I learned nothing from the Creons and the Herods? All the wife and I could do was help Sparky along the path we were trying to keep him from. All we could do was help pave the way to the end of the world. The fervency of our prayers notwithstanding, I knew this was all a token gesture, the proverbial “here goes nothing,”— and yet I prayed so hard anyway.
How brave I can be sometimes!
Despite the loss of all dignity and decency when it comes to spiritual warfare (I have yet to find anything in Pentecostal theology that approves of lusting over a woman’s nakedness—even if it is your wife’s—while you yourself are doing battle, naked, in the heavenly realm), despite the wife and I giving up after a few more minutes to collapse in each other’s arms and engage in tragic, All-Is-Lost Despair Sex, in our earnestness, the Almighty looked down at our revolting manner of appeal, took pity on us, and once more gave us what we wanted.
Another miracle! Another coincidence!
As the wife and I were making love, crying, grieving, the Cubs were adding quite possibly the most humiliating chapter yet to their long, wretched history.
Here’s how it went down:
With the score still 3-0 in favor of the Cubs in the eighth inning—a mere five outs away from the World Series—the Marlins center fielder doubled.
Then, right at the moment my wife’s body united with mine (or so I would like to think), the Marlins second baseman hit a catchable foul ball that a fan got in the way of, knocking it out of reach of the Cubs left fielder.
Ask any Cubs fan worth their salt about that moment, and they will tell you, right then, they knew it was over.
After the second baseman drew a walk, the Marlins catcher rapped a single to left (“Aaaaaahhhhh!” went the wife, but gloomily—don’t forget this
is still Despair Sex; “Ooogh!” went me). The Marlins center fielder scored. The Cubs lead was cut by a third.
The Marlins right fielder came to bat and hit what should have been an inning-ending double play grounder to the Cubs shortstop—but he biffed it (“Ohyahohyahohyah!” went the wife, weeping; “Ooogh!” went me). Everybody was safe. Every Cubs fan in the world groaned in anguish. The wife groaned with mournful pleasure. Bases loaded.
The first baseman then knocked a fat pitch down the left field line. (“Mmmmmm!” went the wife, bleakly; “Ooogh!” went me). Two Marlins scored. Tie game.
Desperate to stop the bleeding, the Cubs brought in a new pitcher. No, not Six-Fingered Second Rate Middle Reliever, but a regular chap. Ten fingers and toes. This new pitcher intentionally walked the Marlins third baseman to set up another double play (“Eeeeheeeheee!” went the wife, desolately; “Ooogh!” went me), but the next batter spoiled it by hitting a sacrifice fly (“Uhhhhuhhuhhuhhuh!” went the wife, forlornly, “Ooogh!” went me), giving the Marlins a one run lead. Add another intentional walk to this, and then, with two outs, the bases full of Fish, and the hearts of every Cubs fan at the point of bursting, the floodgates opened.
Launching another meatball high into the night, the Marlins shortstop doubled (“YOOOOEEEEAAAAH!” went the wife, inconsolably; “OOOOGH!” went me), clearing the bases. The Marlins were now up by four. Ballgame.
A few minutes later, the wife and I emerged from the war/sex closet, haphazardly clothed, arms wrapped around each other. Yes, we still believed we had failed in pretty spectacular fashion, but we’d also just had some pretty spectacular sex, and that can make whatever it is you think you’ve messed up seem like no big thing.
I was even of a mind that there was something that could be done down the road to counteract all this. I mean, this couldn’t be that important, right? With the expulsion of seed came a modicum of perspective and a realization of how illogical this all was to begin with. That dumb vision, with Sparky squishing his fingers together and heads popping, would that really happen?
I felt the cobwebs, the clouds, the haze, lift. So what if the Cubs won? There were plenty of other ways to hamstring Sparky’s progress down the road, and so long as I could have spectacular sex now and again, I knew I’d be able to find one.
Having made our peace with everything, the wife and I entered the living room.
Sparky was less than a foot from the television. His little old man fists were clenched and shaking. He was hissing.
On the television the announcer was gushing about how incredible the game had been, how heartbreaking for the Cubs and their fans, about the poor sap who had knocked away the foul ball, how this had been one of the greatest playoff games in baseball history, yaddity-bladdity and…holy shit!
The wife and I looked at each other and screamed. We resumed our dancing: a dosey-doe one beat, Happy Feet Snoopy the next. Suddenly, my plan was a masterwork. Suddenly, I had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. In my own smallish way, I felt like Hannibal after the Battle of Cannae, King Charles after the Battle of Vienna, Churchill after the Battle of Britain (translation: I was pretty happy), and this feeling was heightened further by the look on my son’s face as he struggled to come to grips with the worst kind of failure: defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. He must have felt like Xerxes after Thermopylae. Napoleon after Waterloo. Hitler after Stalingrad.
I wanted to stick my tongue out at him—you know: nyah nyah nyah—but decided to let him stew in it alone. As well I knew, this brand of loss soaked in best without anyone to help it along.
So I wisely let it soak.
Life sucks, little old man.
Of course, there was still one more game to go.
Sparky sat down for game seven with Smiley Face much like he had for game six; he said “Go Cubbies” like always, but the strain had begun to show. Fear was etched around the borders of his smile. His voice trembled. He looked (and sounded and smelled) gassy with stress.
In contrast, the wife and I didn’t even bother with long prayers, fasting, dancing, or even All-Is-Lost-Despair Sex. The clarity we achieved in afterglow from the previous game carried over, and we opted for a quick and simple, “We trust you, Lord,” before the first pitch instead. Call it overconfidence, call it foolhardy, but we knew this was a done deal.
The game was a see-saw affair early on, with both teams trading leads, but the shock of having blown the previous game in the manner in which they had was too much for the Cubs to bear (no pun intended), they wilted by the fifth inning and ended up losing big.
The second the final out was made, Sparky asked me to change the channel to Japanese cartoons. He then went into the kitchen and emerged a minute later with a big bag of chips, a box of Oreos, a large glass of half-and-half, and a can of Coke.
An hour later, he shit his pants and sat in it.
16
We’re here. On the sixth floor. We made it out of the elevator.
How did we get out?
The elevator started up again, that’s how.
A shade on the anticlimactic side, I agree, but that’s the way most stopped elevator stories end. What’s important is that we’re here. On the sixth floor.
Not that it should come as a surprise at this point, but this floor is as unexceptional as the rest of the Lawrence P. Fenwick Building. I’m guessing the architect saw no need to spruce this level up and I can’t say I blame him. Why start here?
I have yet to see the other floors, so maybe they look better. I sincerely hope they aren’t all this dismal gray.
As though Sherwin-Williams gave the interior designer a super deal on the color Inner-City Trash Can.
Besides the Church of Epistemological Emendation there are other offices here on the sixth floor.
One appears to be home to some sort of mail-order service for quilts, as I can see, through a sliver of window, stacks and stacks of what look like quilts.
There’s a sign on the front of the door that looks like whoever designed it thought they could do calligraphy while fleeing on horseback. The sign says something to the effect that quilts are behind this door, but considering the illegibility of the writing, the view of actual quilts is necessary for corroboration.
I suppose it might not be a mail-order service, but if it isn’t, then whoever is in charge of this quilt shop hasn’t bothered to awaken whatever beast lurks in the subconscious that has an insatiable desire for quilts. It certainly does not awaken the quilt-loving beast within me.
The next office on the floor is empty. Just a number on the door: 647.
At the end of the hall is the last door and office. I’m betting you were expecting a number of a certain satanic significance, yes? So was I, but it is not to be. Instead: 687.
On a sign next to the door, written neatly, is this:
The Church of
Epistemological Emendation
What I fear beyond this door:
A big mess, for starters. Empty pizza boxes everywhere. A couple of grimy couches littered with crumbs and crushed beer cans. A large, blinking, inverted, red neon cross (as in, Take that Jesus, your cross is so lame we turned it upside down!). A strung-out, long-haired, leather-clad couple fondling each other on one of the grimy couches. One of these two people will be Danica. She’ll have nose rings and lip rings and tongue rings and cheek rings and nipple rings.
Yeah, she’ll be topless.
On the other grimy couch littered with potato chip crumbs and empty vodka bottles I expect someone prepping a heroin needle, maybe taking a bong hit.
Music? Something grunty, shrieky. Lots of clashing guitars and pissy screams.
Finally, foosball. I expect a foosball table. And nobody playing foosball.
(Why? Because nobody ever plays foosball.)
But keeping in mind Danica’s excellent phone etiquette, the neat, clea
n sign, and how I’m not hearing anything pissy through the door at all, but what sounds like opera, the unappealing picture I have in my head can’t be true.
Still, I hold on to it for good luck. I don’t want to jinx things. Shooting a bunch of grungy, flipped-out, half-naked crankjobs crowing about the Prince of Darkness (“Satan rocks, man!”) before they take a hit, screw, and pass out isn’t what I’m here for. If that’s what I’m dealing with, the boy and I are going home. But if what I’m hearing is right, then what’s waiting for me beyond this door—I reckon, I yearn, I ache—will be the great crucible of my life, the aforementioned fight to the death against the real deal Other Side in a spiritual war that has been raging since before the foundations of the world.
So here we go.
I take a deep breath, put my hand to the doorknob, and flash a smile at Sparky (a smile he does not reciprocate).
This is it! Surely, truly. My becoming. My moment. Greatness.
You’re invited to join us if you like. Or you can be a big bummer and wait out here. Go buy a quilt or something.
Either way, we’re going in.
* * *
* Named after the silent film star known for his Tarzan pictures. Born in Rochester (which, strangely enough, is not a part of Kokomo County), Indiana, in 1889.
PART FOUR
Which reminds me of a line from one of Rev. Phipps’s sermons:
His Judgment Cometh and That Right Soon.
Take that, Billy Slider.
1
After my pride had recovered from the blow of that ignominious Thanksgiving Day Parade birthday, I vowed to spend the remaining years under my old man’s roof proving the bastard wrong.
The Antichrist of Kokomo County Page 9