The Bastard Hand

by Heath Lowrance

“Is it?”

  “Don’t you remember what today is, Charlie? It’s the one-year anniversary. A year ago today. Jathed Garrity disappeared from Cuba Landing, Memphis, and the world.”

  A year ago today. Elise told me, but I’d forgotten.

  I said, “So, what? A eulogy today? A walk down memory lane?”

  “No, Charlie, no eulogy,” he said. “A revelation.”

  I didn’t argue with him about the Bible after that because I wasn’t even sure I cared anymore. Not just about the Bible, but anything. Even the fact that he knew something more about Jathed’s disappearance didn’t shake me—I’d known for some time that he held more secrets than he revealed.

  So when the girl at the organ started playing and the congregation stopped socializing and settled into their seats, when the Reverend turned away from me and started toward the podium, I followed him up, took a seat in the first row near Belinda Ishy, and bided my time.

  The mayor wasn’t present. Neither was Captain Forrey or Oldfield or even Jeannie Angel. They were damn near the only people in town who weren’t there. On the other side of the church, I spotted Gloria the Catholic waitress and a man I assumed to be her husband. She smiled sheepishly and waggled her fingers at me. I guess she’d converted to Southern Baptist, praise God.

  The Reverend approached the podium and the organist let the last notes of her song drift off. He said, “Please turn to page eighteen in your hymnals.” A shuffling of pages all around, the organist played two bars, and the congregation sang “Shall We Gather By The River”. It had been three weeks since we did that one. It was a favorite.

  The usual pause when the hymn ended, cleared throats, shuffling feet, the sound of hymnals being placed clumsily in their racks. Then the Reverend asked everyone to remain standing (only the newcomers had bothered to sit down) and he led the church in prayer.

  His closing “Amen” caught fire, spread around the church quickly, and died out. Everyone sat. Excitement and expectation buzzed in the air and on everyone’s faces. Most of them knew, I realized, that today was important, and they wondered what their magnificent and charismatic Reverend would have to say about it.

  He stood at the podium, doing his usual dramatic routine, his big hands resting on either side of the podium, eyes fixed on the Bible open before him. A lock of hair hung down over his forehead and he casually but dramatically pushed it back. Of course, it fell back into place over his forehead right away.

  Finally, he spoke, his voice deep and level. Somber, but not heavy, not yet. “Good morning, and God bless you all for coming this day.” He sighed, looked down again at his Bible. Then he shook his head. “It’s been a harder week than usual, friends. I reckon you all know what today is. And for those of you who don’t, well . . . it was a year ago today that we here in Cuba Landing last laid eyes on the Right Reverend Jathed Garrity.”

  A moment of respectful silence. I couldn’t help but note the Reverend’s use of “we”—as if he’d been one of the people here that day, a year ago.

  “As the new pastor here at the Cuba Landing Freewill Baptist Church, I knew it fell to me to say a few words about our dear departed friend. And I’ll be honest with you, good people. It’s a responsibility I shoulder reluctantly. Who among us has the words? Who among us is eloquent enough to voice the love Brother Jathed has inspired within our hearts? Not me, friends. I’ve been told that God has given me the gift of easy talking, but no gift is equal to that challenge.”

  A few amens went round, and behind me several people sniffled and blew their noses.

  “So it was a year ago today,” he said, “that Reverend Jathed Garrity, the heart and soul of this town, went on up to Memphis, Tennessee, for a religious convention. Went up there to meet other reverends and blessed people to praise Jesus and do God’s work. Went up there . . . and never came back.”

  Pause for effect. A grave eye cast around the congregation, almost admonishing. Why are all you sinners still alive, when a good, God-fearing man like Jathed Garrity is dead?

  “He went up there,” he said. “He went up there and checked into a hotel just off Union Avenue. He went to the convention, met some old acquaintances, made some brand new friends, even. Had dinner afterwards, no doubt, prob’ly with one of those brand new friends. Then he went back to his hotel room for the night.”

  Most of the congregation nodded, teary-eyed, listening as he spelled it out for them. I felt cold in the pit of my stomach. Everyone—every man and woman and child in that church—thought he was speculating, playing out a possible scenario. Only I knew the truth. Only I knew that the Reverend was telling it exactly like it happened.

  “But sometime that night, the unthinkable happened. Someone came to Brother Jathed in his room. Someone came there with murder in his heart, someone consumed by wickedness and evil. And that someone took the life of our beloved brother.”

  “Bless his soul,” someone said, with passion, and the sentiment rippled through the still hearts of the congregation.

  I stared at the Reverend, feeling the hatred burning in my gut. He glanced at me once, looked away. I wondered if he could see it now, the difference in me.

  “As you all know, the murderer was never found. Why, no one can even say for sure that Brother Jathed was murdered at all. But I ask you, friends . . . does anyone here really believe that’s not the case?” He looked around for a dissenting voice, but of course there was none. He nodded. “No, of course not. You knew Jathed too well, didn’t you? You knew he wouldn’t just abandon you. So yes, kind friends, our Jathed was murdered, taken from us, and the villain who stole him away walks free, even today.”

  It was getting too intense, I could feel it. He was pushing it too far, losing them. The congregation was confused and disturbed and the atmosphere began to weigh heavy over our heads. My heart beat erratically and my mouth tasted strange, like metal.

  If the Reverend noticed the shifting mood, he gave no sign. He pushed on, moving out from behind the podium now, his fists clenched. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead, right at the hairline, and I knew this was it, this was the end of the world.

  He said, “I was there.”

  No sound from the congregation.

  “I was there,” he said again. “At the convention. I met Jathed Garrity that night. I had supper with him, afterwards.”

  Just then the church doors were thrown open and everyone in the church jumped out of their seats and panic nearly erupted. Heads turned, straining, to the doors, voices a confused jumble.

  Captain Forrey and Officer Oldfield stood in the open doorway, the morning sun making them into tall silhouettes. Between them, on a dolly, was a large screen television.

  I glanced at the Reverend. He stood next to the podium, his brow furrowed, obviously thrown off at being interrupted in the middle of his grand revelation. He looked at me and I only stared back at him blankly until he turned his attention back to Forrey and Oldfield. I did the same.

  The lawmen came up the aisle, pushing the dolly between them. The Reverend started to say something, but apparently the right words didn’t present themselves so he shut up and waited. When they’d reached the front of the church, Forrey faced the congregation and said, “I’d like to ask that anyone under twenty-one years of age please leave the church right now.”

  The congregation only looked at him. No one moved.

  Forrey said, “Right now, people!” and Oldfield began herding them up, clapping his palms together, saying, “You heard the man, folks, get all the kids outta here right this second! Everyone under twenty-one years old, get out now!”

  Like confused, panicked cows, the congregation started moving, too stunned to even protest. Mothers escorted their children out or told them to go themselves. Fathers nodded at their sons sternly and the sons stood up and walked out. Some of the children were crying and the atmosphere was less like a church and more like a circus, right after the elephant escapes and tramples eight people.

  I sat th
ere in the front pew while all this went on, staring straight ahead and examining the dead pieces that remained of my heart. I was a corpse now, my personality wiped clean, my right to feel anything at all forfeit. The hate I felt before gone, but so was everything else. Like a reed, with the wind blowing through me. I didn’t look up at the Reverend, had no idea what he was doing, how he was reacting. It didn’t matter.

  After a few minutes, the under-agers were out and Oldfield closed the doors and came back to where the television sat, in front of the congregation. I made myself look around—the church was still full by most standards, maybe about eighty people. It would be enough.

  Without another word, Forrey unplugged the unused microphone from in front of the podium and replaced it with the television plug. He turned on the television, then pressed the play button on the built-in VCR.

  I only half-watched the tape. Didn’t need to, obviously. But my eyes were the only ones not peeled constantly to that big screen, high definition television. It started right away with the Reverend yanking off his shirt, grinning wickedly, unbuckling his pants and pulling Elise Garrity to him. The entire church gasped as one when they saw her. Unmistakable, that gold-blonde hair and those fine, sharp features.

  I glanced around at the congregation. Confusion on every face as the couple on the TV locked themselves together and the Reverend tore her blouse off and grabbed her breasts with rough hands. The picture came out good, I had to admit. Clear and steady. Better than some professional work I’d seen. I could make a career out of it, probably.

  They fell into bed and by now Elise Garrity was naked under him and the confusion on the faces of the church people began to give way to understanding. Understanding, and horror. The volume was up as high as it would go, and the walls of the church and the wood of the pews vibrated with the sounds of ecstasy. Elise Garrity moaning, crying out. The Reverend talking dirty, grunting. Flesh slapping rhythmically against flesh, and all the beautiful and sacred sinfulness of man played out in color and Jesus still on the cross above the Reverend’s head, as impassive and limp as ever, but the Reverend wasn’t limp, was he? Hell, no, and how about one more amen for the road?

  The Reverend’s face blanched and his hands shook. My Father, why hast thou forsaken me? I stood up, took a step onto the stage. He looked at me with dead, stunned eyes. I reached into his pocket and took the Bible from it and put it in my own jacket pocket and he didn’t even try to stop me. The entire congregation in front of us, but I didn’t care—probably, most of them didn’t even see it, their eyes were glued to the masterpiece I’d filmed for them.

  I stepped into the aisle, past the television set, past Forrey and Oldfield, and walked to the doors. Elise was saying, “Yes, yes. . . . Oh God, yes. . . .”

  In the open doorway, I looked back and he was looking right at me. The stunned expression slowly dying away, something else growing in its place. A realization. I turned away from him and started out and was on the porch steps before I heard it—a low, almost plaintive wailing, obscured by the soundtrack of he and Elise. It built up, becoming an animal roar of hatred and anger, the sound of Lucifer, at last realizing what he was, until it was louder than the television and I couldn’t hear anything else.

  Even half way up the street, I imagined I could still hear it.

  Reverend Childe, roaring, “CHARLIE! YOU SONOFABITCH, I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!”

  One October day at the Institute, I sat in the rec room reading Huckleberry Finn for the eighth time when the doctor came in and called my name.

  I looked up at him, surprised. The doctor almost never came into the patient’s living areas; when it was time to see him, orderlies escorted you into the doctor’s office. I put down my book and he said, “Charles. Do you have a moment, son? I’d like to talk to you.”

  I stood up and followed him. He led me down the hall toward the room I shared with two other men. He talked quietly the whole time. “How’ve you been feeling lately? We’re very pleased with your progress, if you didn’t know. Is group working for you? Are you getting enough to eat?”

  I gave him the answers I thought he wanted, but was distracted. Two orderlies had fallen into line behind us, following at a short distance. In my room, he asked me to sit on the bed. The orderlies came in and one of them closed the door behind us. The doctor pulled the only chair up near where I sat. He turned it around and straddled it like a horse and looked at me with a concerned eye. Something bad was coming.

  “Charles,” he said. “You’re expecting a visitor tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. My brother, Kyle.”

  He nodded. “Are you close to your brother?”

  I glanced at the orderlies. They fixed their gazes on the far side of the room.

  I said, “Well. We never used to be, when we were growing up. He’s a couple years older than me, you know. I guess I was like the annoying kid who always hung around.”

  “But now?”

  “Now it’s different, I guess. We’ve gotten closer. Since I . . . since I’ve been here. He visits every month and it’s different now.”

  “Your brother loves you.”

  “Sure, I guess so.”

  “And you love your brother.”

  I said, “What’s going on? Why are you asking me about Kyle?”

  The doctor let out a deep, steadying sigh, glanced once at the orderlies, and put a hand on my shoulder. “Charles, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  My gut twisted.

  “There was an accident, Charles. A car accident, yesterday.”

  • • •

  I can’t remember anything else about that day. Just a sudden, violent grief, lashing out. A flash of my fingers around the doctor’s throat and the orderlies falling on me and the sharp sting of a needle in my neck.

  But I thought about it as I left the church, thought about Kyle and grief, and wondered why love always seemed to equal pain. If I’d never killed the young policeman in Seattle, if I’d never gone to the Institute, I’d never have had a good relationship with Kyle. I’d never have known a brother’s love and I’d never have felt the pain his absence caused in me, everyday.

  I could see it all so clearly now, the threads of continuity that led me to this point, led me from love to love. I loved the Reverend, too, didn’t I? Despite everything, I loved him, because he occupied the space that Kyle used to occupy, a space I needed to fill. Kyle’s space was round and warm and the Reverend filled it with something sharp and angular, but it wasn’t empty anymore, that was the point.

  I would never have met the Reverend if I hadn’t lost Kyle, and I would never have lost Kyle if I hadn’t loved him, and I would never have loved him if I hadn’t . . .

  If I hadn’t killed the young policeman.

  All I’d known before killing him was fear. He died so that I could know love and pain. He was my John the Baptist. He saved me.

  This new understanding didn’t make me feel better. In fact, it made everything seem that much worse—the idea that massive forces were behind it all, behind everything, an enormous conspiracy of grief that I couldn’t buck against no matter what. I couldn’t change anything.

  I walked, and my hand strayed to the Bible in my pocket, Jathed’s Bible. He died for someone, too. He died so someone could know pain. He died for the sins of Cuba Landing.

  I stopped walking and looked around. The parking lot of the bar. Where the hell was I going? The bar was closed, a steel gate lowered over the entrance, and I didn’t really have time for a drink just then anyway. Things to do. But I had driven, hadn’t I? I’d been driving Elise Garrity’s Rover.

  I looked around, laughed to myself. “I’ll be damned,” I said aloud. I couldn’t remember where I’d left the Rover.

  I stood there trying to remember where I’d parked it and even though I was actually looking around, I had completely dropped my guard. Not the smartest thing to do, when gangsters are looking to kill you.

  Someone moved behind me.
I started to turn, caught quick movement from the corner of my eye, three of them. The nearest one swung at me and his fist caught me in the jaw and I reeled backward into the steel gate.

  Only part of my brain snapped to awareness, and that part immediately knew I was in big trouble. The rest of my brain, though, was still reeling and completely unprepared.

  Another punch, in the kidney, and I started to go down but he yanked me up by the collar and slammed me again in the stomach.

  The other two grabbed my arms, twisted them behind me, forced me around and pushed my face against the gate. The third one took a fistful of my hair, pulled my head back, and slammed it forward again. It broke my nose.

  I struggled and kicked against them, but my eyes had gone all watery and I couldn’t see or think. I tasted blood. The one behind me pulled my head back, hissed in my ear, “You thought you could hide?”

  He rammed my head against the gate one more time, then jerked me backward and threw me onto the pavement.

  I lay on my back, trying desperately to find the strength to get up, but couldn’t. Three of them, three Bad Luck Inc. boys, their faces set and hard and looking forward to taking care of some unfinished business.

  This was going to be bad, it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. One of the gangsters kicked me in the side and I curled up into a ball. Another kick, to the back of the head, and then all three of them started kicking. Big, steel-toed boots connecting at the back of my head, my spine, my ass and legs and arms. It was happening too fast, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t gather my wits long enough to fight back.

  Then they relented for a moment. One of them, a slim black guy wearing a doo-rag, squatted down next to me, lifted my head up by my hair, and said, “You ain’t all that, are you? Hobby said you was a bad-ass, but you ain’t nothin’.”

  I could barely breathe, let alone answer him. He put his face in mine and showed me his teeth. A lot of gold in that mouth.

  “Where’s the bitch, punk? You tell me where she is, I see ’bout letting you live, know what I’m saying?”

  I gritted my teeth, fought to keep down the pain.