by Martin Clark
“Joel, I’m so, so sorry about this,” Julie announced, still at arm’s length.
“Thanks. I appreciate your saying that.”
“So very sorry,” she repeated.
“Most things happen for a reason. You and Howard have been fine friends.” He felt Julie tighten her grip. “I’m disappointed to be going. I’ll miss everyone.”
“And I don’t care who hears it, I’ll say it right here in front of the Lord and everyone else, but I know you didn’t lay a hand on that girl. You did not touch her, and I’ll say to anyone and everyone that she’s a damn tramp and her father’s a rich fool and you’re being railroaded. So there.” She twisted around to face the people standing behind her. “Railroaded,” she said loudly.
“Julie, listen, I appreciate the support, but this is not the place or—”
She lunged forward and seized him, circled her bony arms around his ribs and patted his back. “You keep your chin up, Joel King. You’re always welcome in our house.” She pulled away, transferred a kiss from her fingertips to Joel’s cheek, then jingled and sparkled down the front stairs, headed to a fine car and three or four afternoon white wines.
Beyond the rest of the people waiting, anxious to say goodbye or thank him for a generous visit to a sickbed, he caught sight of Martha, his wife, leaning against the end of a pew. She wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t give an inch, kept a lifeless, tight smile cut into her face and avoided as many people as she could. She wasn’t going to run out or leave early or be brought low in her own sanctuary, but she darn sure wasn’t about to stand at Joel’s elbow or hold his hand when they left and walked to the van to drive away. She was as enigmatic as he about what had happened, albeit with a little more cool edge in the way she said her few farewells and accepted a needlepoint verse from her ladies’ Bible study group. Joel watched her suffer in her inexpensive minister’s wife’s dress, saw her tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
Cathy Reynolds was a dependable, practical woman, a schoolteacher with two mannerly children, and she was next in line, behind Julie. She stood erect and wiped her eyes with a balled-up tissue. “Good luck, Joel.”
“Thank you. Thanks.”
“I can be at the trial if you like. To speak for you.”
He half-smiled. “There’s no need. And it wouldn’t be right to drag this church into court.”
Cathy opened her purse and stuffed the damp knot of tissue inside. “We believe in you, Joel. We really do. And no matter what happened, that doesn’t change the good and decent man you are. All the fine things you’ve done, the time you’ve given, the families you’ve helped—we won’t forget.”
Joel hung his head, blocked almost the entire church from his view. He saw his wingtip shoes on the carpet, his own legs, Cathy Reynolds’s ankles and shins, and a stray bulletin someone had dropped near the door. He surrendered, finally starting to cry, kept his face angled down and his body upright so the first tears never touched skin but just fell straight onto the rug, three or four sprinkles that turned the red a fuller, darker hue. Joel stayed bent and thanked Cathy a second time in a voice sad and dismal. He was moved because he understood her affirmation, her pledge to him, was really much more than that. If he was a fraud and a cad, then this was about her and her worship and where she prayed and the fundamental things holding her faith together. If her minister was a liar, then what of his gospel? If she couldn’t believe in his innocence and divine goodness, then she was merely another gullible chump, no better than some penniless, misguided freak standing atop a western mountain on the seventh day of the seventh year since the seventieth whatever, expecting the clouds to crack open and heaven’s steps to unfold like attic stairs out of a ceiling.
Cathy ducked and slanted her head, trying to see Joel’s face. “Things happen for a reason, Joel. The Lord always has a plan.”
Joel didn’t answer, and Cathy walked away. He glanced at the rest of the line, saw a family standing in front of him—the Wilsons—one of the kids holding something she’d made in Sunday school, the parents clutching Bibles. Suddenly Joel couldn’t think of any reason to finish what he was doing, standing inches inside his church to shake hands with people he’d bruised and disappointed. He risked another peek at his wife. “You have ruined us,” she’d told him last night. “I cannot forgive you for this.” He lifted his hand above his head and gave a quick, stiff-wristed wave, a subdued version of his customary ending for the service, the benediction blessing, where he held both hands high and boomed good words, an entreaty to the Lord to be with him and his church “now and forever-more.” As he pivoted and turned his back on the remnants of his congregation, he realized he had neglected the benediction today, had simply taken a numbed walk down the aisle when the final song was finished.
Joel stepped through the door into a pretty November afternoon, brisk and windless, the tail end of chimney smoke from the house down the street playing out in the air, the Blue Ridge Mountains tumbling and rising behind the parking lot. “You have ruined us, Joel.” Dopers and drinkers can climb back into the ministry, often with a roguish flair and charisma that come from hitting bottom and wallowing in filth, then pulling free with a hard-knocks faith and a clean start. Adolescents listen whenever the heroin addict rolls up his sleeves and shows the needle scars; people find frankness and redemption in a prodigal evangelist’s story of a fortune handed over to liquor and limousines; and sin and tribulation—as long as they’re several years past—are the standbys in any preacher’s bag of tricks. But a sex scandal involving a teenage girl is simply a getting-off point to nowhere, a fall from grace so abhorrent that it would only draw rebukes and frigid stares if offered as evidence of a minister’s devil-wrestling credentials.
Joel began walking faster, considered looking back but didn’t. He thought someone might call out his name or chase after him, but no one did. He never ran, though, no sir. While he hadn’t been bold with his theology or a barn burner in the pulpit, he had been a steadfast pillar for his church, a tall, strapping, honest man whose acts were full of diligence and reflection and whose thoughtful sermons went directly to the point. He had won his congregation’s trust and affection because of his rapturous dedication to even the most distasteful aspects of his duties: He’d journeyed to Haiti with his tools and carpenter’s belt to help transform a shanty into a sturdy schoolhouse; he’d comforted the AIDS-rotted hand of a forty-year-old First Baptist electrician named Joe Barbour while the emaciated man’s boyfriend wept and declared there was no God, no Heaven and no fairness for mankind; and he’d honored his denomination’s dogma without becoming hidebound, had installed a woman as youth minister, allowed the NA addicts to smoke in the fellowship hall during their meetings, and often yielded discreetly to his wife’s superior judgment in matters of ecclesiastical significance.
He left swiftly, embarrassed and contrite and tarnished, but he was not afraid and didn’t run.
Christina Agnes Norway Darden’s mother carried her to term without the slightest hint of distress, showed only a whispery sway along her abdomen at six months and never got sick or swollen or achy in her joints. When Christy was born, she seemed too clearly perfect, almost monstrously so, as if she were a fairy’s hoax or a changeling wrought by hands overqualified for the task. She slept and ate and burped on an exact schedule, rarely cried, and spoke and toddled sooner than normal and all at once, with scant warning or transition. Her eyes, though, her eyes were the giveaway and the riddle: for several years after her birth, she blinked slowly . . . cautiously . . . infrequently, and when people tried to study her closely or discover what was inside, they got nowhere, zero, found themselves stymied by a warren of baffles and trapdoors just behind her pure blue gaze.
Not long after her twelfth birthday, the first glitches came, the unmistakable warnings—stealing cigarettes, calling a social studies teacher a bitch, shoplifting a tube of drugstore lipstick—but her parents treated the misdeeds like a lug in a car engine or a hesitation in a
n electrical switch, buried their heads and pretended the delinquency was a fluke or hiccup, all the while realizing Christy would probably grow worse, that they were witnessing starts and not a conclusion. And they simply didn’t know what to do, because they’d done everything already—loved her and coddled her and bought her the best, spoiled her in fact. “Who the hell can get a handle on kids?” Big Bill Darden had snapped at his wife after they’d received another call from the grocery store, informing them that their fourteen-year-old daughter had been apprehended at the dairy case again, sniffing the tops of whipped cream, glassy-eyed and buzzed from the pops of nitrous oxide.
At sixteen there was a brief lull. Christy became withdrawn and introverted and happy to be let alone, spent a lot of time talking on the phone to friends and reading about animals, especially tigers, elephants and giraffes, even said she might want to study veterinary science, travel to Africa. Her parents purchased a new BMW for her, and she squealed and leapt with delight, hugged them both, shocked by how beautiful the car was and how expensive it smelled, like leather boots straight from the box.
The free fall began near the middle of her senior year at Cave Spring High School. Christy read a Cosmopolitan piece about Oscar Wilde— “Men We Love to Like”—discovered an old copy of Bright Lights, Big City and finally found her view of the world, decided there was far more joy in archness and revelry than in girls’ soccer and prom committee. She and her two best friends became the “know-betters.” The cute name was a puerile takeoff on the gracious atom bomb often dropped by a set of Roanokers who still did things a certain way, still had teas and cotillions and black-tie doings to raise money for the local theater troupe. Christy couldn’t count the times her mother had complained over a whiskey sour that so-and-so down the avenue or some philistine at the club “surely should know better.” The phrase was also a hoary Virginia reprimand, usually coupled with a full recitation of the offender’s given names and spoken with practiced astonishment: “Chistina Agnes Norway Darden—you know better than that.”
Inasmuch as self-awareness appeared to be the bedrock of correct living, the know-betters’ credo was simple: you could do whatever you wanted, no matter how decadent, bad or bitchy, so long as you recognized that the pissy deed or tacky earrings were beneath accepted standards. Knowledge was the power to act as you pleased, a philosophy that quickly became too sloppy to be ironic and far too hands-on to be mistaken for aloofness. Not surprisingly, Christy’s final summer before college turned into an unbroken stretch of wild, self-indulgent tumults and carte blanche partying, and no one really called her on it, especially when word got around about what had been happening over at Roanoke First Baptist.
Christy heard about Preacher Joel’s sorry departure two days after he’d fled the church. She was sitting in a Charlottesville restaurant, spacing on the ting-ting-ting sounds in the background of the Chinese music, eating the crunchy noodles served with the wonton soup and letting the rest of her meal go cold, when a friend from Roanoke stopped by her table and shared the news, then congratulated her for being so strong. Her parents had probably called, too, but she hadn’t checked her messages since Friday, didn’t feel like dealing with all that. “What’s the sound I’m hearing in the music?” she asked the friend. “A flute or something? It kinda inhabits your skull, huh?” Christy and her date, a grubby Roman—as in numeral; he was a IV—had been drinking bourbon and vacuuming crank since ten that morning, and it was now dusk.
“Enchanting,” the walleyed Roman declared, and he and Christy fell into a laughing jag, ignored the kind girl standing beside them and lost track of where she went and what she said as she left.
It was maybe a week later—Christy didn’t really keep up with days and dates—when she decided to call Joel. She was sitting on the sofa at her condominium, dressed in a sweatshirt, panties and a pair of men’s silk stockings that fit poorly, too loose in the calves, the heels climbing the rear of her legs. She couldn’t recall where she’d come across the socks, but she did remember spending the last three days with a stockbroker named Josh, having sex and taking showers and eating Häagen-Dazs with her hands. She knew better, of course. Josh had dropped her next to Scott Stadium because she was winding down from some methamphetamine and gin and starting to freak a little, and for some reason she didn’t want him to know her address even though he was severely gorgeous and drove a superb Porsche.
Her hands were shaking, the burning in her nose was poking toward her brain, and her elbow had been skinned, leaving a patch of torn red flesh that was just starting to scab. Things were slipping away . . . slipping away. Slipping away. She’d been to maybe ten classes all year, and here it was almost Christmas. She’d decided on the University of Virginia because it was close to home and seemed to have its fair share of weekday parties and Roman layabouts with guaranteed incomes, but she’d not figured on the place being so damn hard. The professors were old bastards full of bile and departmental grudges who heaped on work and had no interest in the short-skirt treats she obliquely offered. Her advisor was constantly hounding her, some counselor kept phoning and leaving shit on her door, and this self-important boy in a blazer from the student something-or-other came by to let her know he “was there” for her. Great.
What also was there for Christy was a problem so daunting—one of her favorite words—that all her father’s considerable money and all her considerable allure might not be able to make it vanish. A vile crone who taught her horrible English class had charged her with an honor violation, which meant she could get kicked out of school. Christy had purchased her first research paper from the Rolling Stone classifieds, typed a cover sheet with a new title and her name, and turned in the fine work on Edgar Allan Poe a day before the deadline. It was early in the semester when some good parties were popping up, so she was anxious to get her nails done and shop for new shoes and find an afternoon bash. The first couple pages she’d skimmed seemed like okay stuff, so who could’ve guessed there’d be a stupid disclaimer at the end of the paper, warning everybody that the essay was written by a professor and should be used only as a research tool? So she submitted Professor Holt of Stanford’s Poe discussion with the telltale message still attached, looked like a cheat and a dumbass.
She probably could ride this thing with Joel a tad longer though, and that might, just might, win her some sympathy in the honor hearing, if she could remember when she was supposed to show up for that kangaroo court. She’d written it down somewhere but hadn’t even told her parents yet. She’d have to work herself into a good bawl for the confession, say over and over she had no idea how this had happened, and let them suggest it was because of the stress and trauma. After all, she’d had no problems with her grades in high school, just a few brushes with the law and some community service hours the judge made her do and a totally unfair DUI on graduation night.
Her hands wouldn’t stay still and she really was going to call Joel, but first she needed to find Thomas and have him bring by some Valium to level her mood. This meant she’d have to screw him, and even worse, he’d want to hang around after they were done and play his ratty guitar. Perhaps he’d settle for something quicker. She felt bad about everything with Joel, but no way was she backing out of this now. Everyone would kill her, especially her father, and—duh—there’d be no payoff, no fat, liberating check from the church to compensate her for her suffering. It would be cool if she and Joel could somehow hook up, not forever, but just for a while. She really liked him, that’s what she wanted to say. She should call and say hello and let him know how miserable and guilty she was about what was happening. And say something slutty right before she got off the line, like how hot his kisses made her, unroll the flypaper a little bit more.
Even after three calls, Thomas was taking a decade to get there, so she punched in Joel’s number and listened to it ring and ring and ring. At the restaurant, her dopey friend had told her Joel didn’t have to go to jail until after Christmas, so he ought to be aroun
d, and he probably wasn’t doing anything important. But his wife answered the phone—a hazard she hadn’t even considered in her addled state—and the whole idea got far too daunting. Christy didn’t say a word. Her hand had this twitchy, mercurial palsy, and she could barely keep the receiver next to her ear. Her tongue was dead and useless, a giant, fossilized slug filling the space in her mouth.
“Christy, is that you? Christy?”
Fucking caller ID. Busted.
She hung up and looked out the window. No sign of Thomas. She remembered there was some champagne in the fridge, but it had been there for a long time, without a cork or stopper. She wondered whether the alcohol evaporates or only the fizz. She and Josh the stockbroker had done away with a fifth that evening, and she wanted some more booze to keep her buzz marching. When she checked, the bottle was still in the refrigerator, although she could tell from picking it up there wasn’t much left to drink. She started gulping the flat dregs without a glass; the taste was stale and toothless, like cold water with a trace of something poisonous mixed in.
Thomas finally arrived at her condo, and he wanted to sing to her, but she was ready to get down to business, really wanted the Valium. So she put her hand in his pants, and she made him give her five pills. She took them all, washed into her gullet with the last of the spent champagne.
Before too long, he was on top of her, working like a busy bee, saying things that bounced off her ears and didn’t sink in. The drugs did their job right away, put the kibosh on her tremors, and she started to feel loose and warm. The heat began at her toes, then filled in below her knees, felt like a gentle quilt being pulled across her. She looked past Thomas’s jackhammering butt to see what was happening, discovered that both socks were missing and her legs were naked. The feeling crept into her stomach, and she reminded herself to breathe because her lungs were next, then her heart. She lost herself for a few minutes, and when she picked up again the cozy sensation had broken out in her wrists and hands.