The wall was cold and firm; solid and real. Maybe it could bear some of the heavy regrets and lingering pain that were overwhelming him. He pressed into the plaster even harder, feeling the uneven pattern and ridges imprinting themselves on his skin. The pain, like the hard wall, was real...tangible.
When the wall didn’t seem strong enough and with nowhere else to lean, he tried to turn inside. He tried to find the strength of his faith. He saw a string of pastors and Holy Fathers from his past and even managed to remember some of their voices. But from them, all he could hear were words and no power. They could well have been speaking Aramaic for all he knew. It didn’t matter because the words were as empty as politicians’ promises; they said them because they were paid to do it.
He squeezed his temples to the point of pain in search of some buttressing strength. When he sought strength and faith and power from his past or his mind, the faces he saw and the voices he heard were those of his mother and his grandmother.
It was to them that he clung when the violence began, aimed first at them and then later at him. Despite the anger and the betrayal and the bruises and cuts, his mother’s smile was ever present in his memory. Sometimes, he wrapped himself in the red warmth of her smile where no hands, no words, and no thoughts could harm him. It was a sanctuary he had always carried with him, but one that was becoming increasingly more difficult to find in the tangle of memories and torment that was his mind.
“You know she didn’t even want you don’tcha?” the voice asked. “At first all she could think about was seein’ someone and makin’ you go away. And then she tried to give you away, but no one wanted you. Even when you was a baby, people could see that you were going to be a bad boy. Even as a baby....”
With desperate, pleading tears and a trembling face, he forced out of himself with a shudder, “You’re not real. You’re not real. Just go away. You’re not real.”
“Oh, I’m real, Mal. I’m as real as you...cuz I am you. Don’t you get it?”
Malachi swung around as deftly as he could in the minuscule space. The candle’s flame leapt into the air as if it was trying to make a run for it, but in the end elected to stay on the comfort and security of the wick. The cast shadows followed the flame’s lead, trying to flee from the foul smelling box of a room, but they too retreated when the candle decided to cancel its emigration, shadows being only as brave as the light that leads them.
Nothing. The room was empty, save for him and his lone companion: the candle. He sat back down and nearly squealed when his father’s unshaven face was suddenly just inches away from his own. “You were a mistake, Mal...an unwanted mistake. That’s why all those things happened to you. No one wanted you; not even your own mother.”
Malachi shot up from his toilet seat and flung open the door. He very nearly fell forward through the door but caught his balance at the last moment. He backed away from the open bathroom door and the little flame that seemed so distant and alone, his eyes darting left and then right to make sure that he wasn’t being pursued.
He was at least maintaining a better sense of where he was and not confusing the present and the past. The voices and the faces were as real as those of the people upstairs, though. If he tried, he just knew that he could reach out and touch them if he wanted. Maybe that was what he needed to do. Maybe it was up to him to push them away and punish them the way they had done to him all those years ago.
He could feel all the fear becoming anger. Then, at the height of his anger’s boil, he remembered his past’s evangelists and their fiery sermons. He remembered the sense of righteous understanding and that there were absolutes in life. There was a simple yet powerful comfort in knowing that there were rights and wrongs on which one could count, as well as good and evil from which one could be damned.
And then it hit him. He knew what he needed to do. Every house should have one and hopefully this house would be no exception. He ascended the stairs and found a small bookshelf that had more knickknacks than books but didn’t find it. He went to the coffee table that had been moved into a corner of the living room and dug through the magazines and picture books and still no luck. Of all the books he might find, he couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t come across this one. He stopped in the middle of the room and thought about it for a moment, while everyone in the dining room stopped eating and stared at him. He was utterly oblivious to their gazes.
Where could it be? He spent several seconds thinking and considering and then he remembered seeing them in people’s bathrooms in the past. With urgency in his step, he made his way down the narrow hall on the main floor and stopped at the entrance to the bathroom. Although this room was larger and was lit with several candles, he couldn’t help but feel the tenuous hold of fear from his encounter in the other privy downstairs only moments before. He held his breath and waded in, hoping that his search would yield success quickly.
He looked in drawers, in the basket next to the toilet, and in the small linen closet and still found nothing. He finally looked in the least likely of places, the cabinet doors under the sink where one typically finds personal hygiene items, cleaning products, and extra toilet paper. He used his small pen sized flashlight from his belt to be able to see. At first, there was only what he expected, but behind the stack of toilet paper rolls he caught sight of a dark covered book. He pulled the tower of paper down as if he was Godzilla on a rant in a toilet paper roll version of Tokyo and there it was, waiting for him.
He hugged the book to his chest and breathed much easier. He opened the cover and began to read quietly but aloud, “In the beginning there was only darkness....”
Chapter 41
Jerry tried peeking through the long narrow window next to the large double doors but couldn’t see anything. Between the darkness on the other side and the opaque cloudiness of the treated glass, it was no use. He wasn’t able to see anything. He tried the handle but already knew that it would be locked. Why would this door be any different than the majority of doors they’d encountered?
“Why the hell are we stopping here?” demanded Art.
Meghan admonished him with, “Irreverent much?”
Neither pausing nor softening his tone, Art continued, “You in the mood for prayer?”
Thinking to himself that he liked Art less and less, Jerry was able, after considerable effort, to avert launching into the rant that was threatening to leap into the fray, a rant that was something of a constant for him in his past.
The past tirades were typically characterized more by humor than by aggression, but they usually surfaced as a response to someone else’s aggressive posturing. He found that when someone else was already provoked and on edge, it became that much easier to poke fun and taunt the person. His mouth got him into altercations, both physical and vocal, on numerous occasions, but he never seemed to learn from his past dealings and then had to accept the consequences which often included bruises, several suspensions from school, and lost jobs.
He was likely considered by most of the adults in his life to be a smart-assed slacker who was better at picking apart others’ problems than he was in solving his own or making anything of himself. And the thing was, they were right. He was all that and more...or would that be less? No matter. There was a line from an Everclear song that summed him up nicely: “I am a loser geek, crazy with an evil streak.” Yeah, that was him alright.
All that changed, and all at once. No one, not even he, saw it coming or would have predicted that he would ever have chosen the path that he was traveling. Maybe it was his friends from college, home for the summer, bragging about their exploits and living the life that he wanted for himself. Maybe it was that he was sick of always being broke and having nothing to call his own. Maybe he was sick of living under his parents’ roof and living by their rules and standards. Maybe it was just all about timing and he was due. It didn’t really matter.
He enrolled in a school out in the Valley where the training was good and the staff was g
reat. He was able to see a different option for himself that wasn’t easy but at the very least it would be his own. A lot of what he was taught was stuff he already knew, but hearing it again at that moment just seemed to help him remember and understand.
Not since he was a little kid had he sincerely applied himself to any endeavor. He had never known how it felt to work and accomplish something worth doing. It was a feeling that was as intoxicating as any drug he’d taken. The difference was that he was paid for this feeling and there wasn’t any nasty next day hangover. He found that he was good at providing care for people and that getting paid to do that was a hell of a lot more satisfying than cleaning car interiors, or bussing tables, or anything else he’d ever done. The other thing that he learned was that when he didn’t run his mouth every time he felt the urge, people were more inclined to listen to him when he did speak.
And it was all because of these realizations that when he turned around, he said to Art, “Some churches kept food pantries. Give me a little credit. I’m trying to think like Neil.”
“I’m in,” Meghan proclaimed. “Maybe we’ll find a clean toilet for a quick pit stop.”
Jerry joked about her seeming obsession with toilets, and she shot back her own jocular parry.
Art interjected on the heels of the exchange, “Funny and beautiful. Definitely a keeper.”
Meghan rolled her eyes and blushed. Jerry thought to himself that he really didn’t like this guy. They got into the church only to find the only doors leading away from the main hall were also locked. Using his rifle’s butt as the universal door opener, Jerry forced each of the other doors starting with the one displaying a bathroom sign. The third door led to a shiny tiled hallway and a set of stairs that went both up and down.
Art suggested, “Split up and cover twice as much ground at once?”
Jerry immediately shook his head and asked, with the irritation in his voice far from masked, “Have you never watched a monster movie? Christ man! That’s the first rule. You never split up! A single person is easier to kill than a pair or a group. How have you survived for so long being such a novice?”
“I was just thinking and—”
“Well stop, you dill hole. Not knowing what you’re doin’ can get you killed and I’m okay with that. But it can get her killed and me too and that just isn’t gonna fly.”
“I just figured....”
Jerry shook his head and said bluntly, “Don’t. The figurin’s already been done.”
Art started to open his mouth and then stopped when he caught Jerry’s glare. Jerry’s demeanor surprised Meghan as well. She’d never seen him act like that before and it was catching her off guard.
In Art’s defense she said, “Jerry, we all should have a say in this. His ass is just as on the line as yours. What if you’re wrong?”
“If I’m wrong, you can tell me you told me so. But if he’s wrong, ain’t none of us going to be telling anyone anything.”
“He’s just trying to help.”
“Well he’s not. Let’s go.” Jerry started walking down the hallway toward the stairs. He turned back around and said, “You want to have input? Fine. We goin’ upstairs or down first?”
Trying to play the victim and possibly garner a little more sympathy from Meghan, Art said half-dejectedly, “You’ve made all the decisions so far. Why would you stop and ask us our opinions now? It’s only our lives you’re directing.”
Not willing to bite, Jerry simply answered, “Fine. Upstairs it is.”
They checked the offices, small meeting rooms, and closets upstairs and found nothing. The place was still mostly orderly and neat, as if the rooms were still expecting their normal activity to resume at any moment.
Standing in the empty upstairs hallway, Art snidely commented to no one in particular, “Well that was time well spent...for all of us.” He walked back toward the stairs and started to make his way slowly back down to the main floor.
Jerry stopped dead in his tracks and balled his fists at his sides. He closed his eyes and let go a deep, animated breath while he sought to calm the anger that was starting to boil and displace any coping mechanisms that he’d developed in the past couple of years. Meghan touched his shoulder and said softly, “Let it go. It’s just his way.”
Jerry thought to himself so loudly that he was afraid Meghan could hear that Art’s way was going to get Jerry’s foot planted in Art’s ass. It had been a long time since Jerry had hit anyone in anger or frustration, but he could feel those old instincts threatening to surface again.
They stood on the brink of descending into the dark unknown of the church basement. Moving halfway down the stairs, Jerry peered into the darkness trying to discern anything that might be down there. It was no use. Jerry had never seen such darkness in his life. He pulled his flashlight from his pack and tried to cut the darkness with its beam.
There was another hallway and some more rooms behind closed doors. On the walls were Sunday School pictures colored and hung proudly by the children who used to come there on the weekends while their mothers and fathers attended services upstairs. The temperature downstairs was decidedly cooler and damper, like a cave. Jerry thought to himself that he hoped they didn’t disturb whatever bear might be hibernating down there.
He whispered, “Get your flashlights.”
Meghan took hers out and added its illumination to that of Jerry’s. Art was quiet for a moment and then admitted, “I don’t have mine with me.”
Both Jerry and Meghan looked over at him with their mouths opened questioningly. Meghan asked for both of them, “What?”
“I didn’t know that we’d need them. I thought we were just going to be looking in houses. Captain Jerry didn’t let on what his intentions were.”
Jerry had had enough. “You lazy, self-righteous, self-centered, cowardly sack of shit!!! You do nothing but whine and complain about everything and set yourself up as some wayward victim who doesn’t have any say about anything and when you get the opportunity to contribute and to do something for yourself and everyone else you drop the ball.” Jerry turned to face Art and started to ascend the stairs in his direction. As he did so, he handed his flashlight to Meghan.
“What was it that you were thinking? Was it that you were just being selfish again and a heavy flashlight might slow you down too much if you had to run? Doesn’t it make you feel like less of a man to know that Meghan brought hers or that the punk kid brought his? Or do you not have any self respect at all?”
Meghan tried to intervene, “Jerry, this isn’t going to accomp—”
Jerry stopped her short, “No, Meghan, not this time. Art, I’ve known people like you all my life. I think I might even have been on the road to being you at one point and then I discovered something that I was missing and that I can see you’re missing too: dignity. You go through life doing just enough to get by and then hope that those around you will pick up the slack. You don’t necessarily do anything wrong, but you only do enough right so as to stay above reproach. People like you make me sick.”
Art crossed his arms defiantly across his chest and then asked without a hint of emotion in his voice, “You done now?”
Jerry stepped right up into his face and said coolly, “I’m just gettin’ started so you’d better watch your ass.”
Meghan finally successfully intervened, “Okay, Jerry. This isn’t accomplishing anything. Let’s go check out downstairs and then get back to the house. We’re losing daylight standing here arguing. Let’s get moving.”
Jerry turned around and joined Meghan on the stairs. Art too started to come back down the stairs, but Jerry spun around and demanded, “Not you. You stay nice and safe up here. Fucking coward!”
“You better watch what you say to me,” Art admonished.
“I’ll say anything I want to you and however I want to say it. Got it? When you’re man enough to pull your own weight....never mind, that’ll never happen, will it? Fucking worthless sack.”
&nbs
p; With that, Jerry spun around and stomped down the stairs. The first thing he realized when he got to the bottom of the stairs was that he was inwardly envious of Art’s position still in the light. It was the kind of dark where light seemed to be an intruder of sorts. Whether from the teasing darkness or the cool air Jerry didn’t know, but the hair on his arms and neck all stood on end as he walked deeper into the gloom. Their footsteps on the tiled floor made faint, clicking echoes that preceded their progress.
The darkness was so complete, so overwhelming, that even the cones of light emanating from their flashlights seemed useless, like cutting water with a knife. The air, too, seemed unfriendly, stale, and cool as it touched their skin and filled their lungs.
Mostly, the doors opened into lonely classrooms, begging for the voices of children. Hanging on one wall was a construction paper cut out of Noah’s Ark and on it were pasted pictures of animals cut from magazines.
Meghan wondered aloud, “I wonder if Noah was told to grab any humans on this go ‘round?”
Trying to sound resolved and steady despite his quick, shallow breathing, Jerry said with a bit of a swagger, “Well, Noah had better stay the fuck outta my way. ‘Cause I’m comin’ aboard.”
“This church got you a little riled or something?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use language like that or get so…aggressive with someone before. And here, all of a sudden, you seem…unstoppable.”
They were, by then, looking in the last room, which was a janitor’s closet. If they were looking for cleaning supplies, they’d just hit the mother lode. As it was, the church was proving to be a bit of a bust.
Jerry answered her as they started to get back into the pale light peeking its reluctant head down into the blackness. “I guess I’ve always had kind of a weird relationship with church and God. I guess I believe in God, or at least a God. At one point, I really got into church and studying the Bible and all. That was right after I discovered death and how permanent and real it was. I think God helped me find meaning, in a way, but it was all rooted in fear. And after awhile, the fear wasn’t enough so I drifted away.
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