“What I want to know is why we’re here but the kids who assaulted our son are not,” Caleb’s mom said. “Why is Caleb being punished when they are not? Why aren’t their parents being questioned? Accused of something? I know who they are. I’ve known them for years. Even have their phone numbers if you don’t. Why aren’t they here, Mr. Owen? That is the question that needs to be answered.”
“We will be talking to their parents as well, Mrs. Gunter. We’ll get to the bottom of all of this, I can assure you.”
“Assured I am not.”
“‘Assured I am not?’ Who talks like that, Evelyn? Are you Yoda now? Do you not hear just how bat-shit crazy you sound?”
“I think everyone just needs to calm down,” Mr. Owen said.
“Calm down? Calm down?”
“Why don’t we call Caleb in here?” Evelyn said.
“Sure! Fine! Grand!”
“Earl, you’re causing a scene.”
“Shut up, Evelyn.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mr. Owen said. “Not until everyone agrees to calm down.”
The door opened. Caleb’s mother stood there with eyes that told him to get up, and Caleb felt he was on one of those amusement-park rides that used centrifugal force to pin him against the wall, spinning around and around and around right before the floor gave way beneath him. His vision narrowed. He had the sudden urge to run. But he had no idea where. Home? To the bus station? Hitch a ride south to Tulsa, find some place safe where he could start anew? A church or fire station. God, he wanted to, but he knew he didn’t have that type of courage.
“Caleb,” his mother said. “will you join us?”
It was the first time Caleb had ever been inside the principal’s office. He’d always imagined it a mysterious place, a bunker in which Mr. Owen hid, pulling levers and ropes like the Wizard of Oz, controlling the mechanisms of the school through some intricate contraption Caleb could never understand. Instead, though, it was bland. Simple upholstered chairs. Plain, gray carpet. Undecorated cinderblock walls. Pictures of the principal’s wife, of a pet lizard, of a ranch at dusk awash in orange and purple light. The fluorescent bulbs buzzing overhead gave the place a hospital-like quality, and all of a sudden Caleb felt like he was visiting Papa again, wheezing upon his deathbed.
Mr. Owen looked uncomfortable. He sat behind his desk with his palms on the table, hunched forward. He had the look of someone about to deliver bad news. “First of all,” Mr. Owen said to Caleb, “I want you to know you’re not in trouble. Do you understand that?”
Caleb’s parents stared at him, his father with a laser focus Caleb had grown accustomed to when he’d scuffed a wall in the house or broken a chair while mimicking the wrestlers he’d seen on TV. Caleb’s mother, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to say something to him without actually uttering a word—she looked like a spy, signaling from across the room that he was in danger.
“Can you tell us where you got the idea that you’re Jesus Christ?” Mr. Owen asked.
Caleb didn’t know what he was expected to say. Should he lie? Should he tell the truth? For one, he didn’t believe Mr. Owen. Whatever he said, he was sure he was going to be in trouble. If he told the truth, his father would be angry at his mother. His mother would be mad at him. If he lied, Mr. Owen would be angry, and he was sure he’d get detention, or, worse yet, suspended.
“I didn’t say I was. The other kids did.”
“So where did the other kids hear it?”
Caleb shrugged.
“You don’t know?”
Shrugged again.
“There’s no right or wrong answer here. We just want the truth. That’s all.”
“And I won’t get in trouble?”
“Just answer the goddamn question, son,” Caleb’s father said.
Mr. Owen raised his hand to quiet Caleb’s father and peered down at Caleb with the softest gaze Caleb had ever seen. “I promise. You won’t be in any trouble,” he said. Though Caleb didn’t believe him, he wanted to. He did, and so he did the only thing he could think of. He pointed at his mother.
Later, on the drive home, everyone was quiet. His father driving the Bronco, his mother in the passenger seat, smoking. Caleb sat in the back, his school stuff on the seat next to him. When he got home, he’d do his English and math homework, learning vocabulary words like “sever” and “oasis,” solving for x in simple algebraic expressions. When they parked in the garage at home, Caleb’s mother opened the door and got out, and Caleb followed, his backpack perched high on his shoulders, his chin buried in his chest. Before Caleb made it into the house, however, his mother grabbed him by the shirt.
“Don’t you ever,” she said, “do that to me again.”
THINGS TURNED COLD AFTER THAT. Not physically. Outside, it started to warm. A little anyway. Spring thunderstorms hadn’t quite started yet, nor the humidity, the landscape still brown and brittle, trees not yet bloomed, but the temperatures were slowly rising, promising the beginning of spring. When not in school, kids stayed inside to play video games, and if they did venture outside, it was to play pickup games of football, their winter coats serving as their pads. Except for Caleb. He was no longer invited to play with his neighbors. They didn’t invite him to ride bikes or head up to Braum’s for a milkshake. Instead, they acted like he didn’t exist, avoiding eye contact if they happened to see him outside helping his mother unclog the gutters of fallen leaves. They’d ride on by, quiet as if in church, acting like they didn’t even know him, and then, as soon as they thought they were out of earshot, they’d start laughing, their demeanor changing quickly, like spring’s first thaw after winter.
Despite this, Caleb tried to return to normalcy. Once his wounds healed some, he went to Clifton’s house to see if he wanted to play Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! or maybe go rent Nightmare on Elm Street, but when Clifton’s mother answered, she told him Clifton wasn’t able to play. Same with Garrett. Same with Russell. Same with Ankit. No one was allowed to see him. At first Caleb tried to rationalize it. It was an anomaly—all of the kids just had prior engagements, dinner with family members, a trip to the movies, a punishment for some unnamed crime. But then it continued to happen. The next day and the next day and the next. A pattern formed. When he rang the doorbell, a parent peeked through the curtains or blinds to the front porch, and when they noticed it was Caleb, they told him the same story: their child was busy. Every single time Caleb asked if one of his friends could come out, they were inexplicably unavailable.
He still saw them, though. He saw them at school, of course, and although the taunting and beatings had stopped after their meeting with Mr. Owen, Caleb continued to be marginalized. He couldn’t eat at their lunch table or join their reading groups, and he was the last to be picked for teams in gym class. At home he thought it might be different. He could play with them one at a time, away from the judgmental aspersions cast by the mob that was elementary school. But it wasn’t. He’d look out his window to find Garrett and Russell riding past on their bikes twenty minutes after he’d been told they had chores to do, and, excited, Caleb would grab his bike out of the garage and pedal after them. When he caught up with them, though, they told him they weren’t allowed to hang out with him anymore, and that they didn’t want to anyway.
“Their parents won’t let them play with you,” Jonah said when Caleb asked his older brother. He was playing Legend of Zelda on their Nintendo. Jonah had declined when Caleb asked if they could play a multi-player game like Double Dribble or Super Mario Brothers 3, and so he sat there watching his brother navigate his way through the digital world, the screen reflecting in his brother’s glasses.
“But why?”
“You don’t know?”
Caleb did know. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. He and his family hadn’t really talked about it after the meeting in Mr. Owen’s office, instead letting it fester until the whole subject turned sour, their mother and father ignoring each other,
even so far as going into the other room when the other entered. Jonah just seemed angry all the time. Angry at their mother, at their father, and especially at Caleb. Before, it hadn’t been like they were best friends, but at least he acknowledged Caleb. He’d pick on Caleb mostly, smacking him in the back of the head when he was eating his dinner or crumpling up his homework into a folded, crinkled mess. Other times he was nice. He’d invite him to play a pickup game of basketball if they needed one more player or take him out to shoot off some extra Black Cats after July 4th, but now he just glared at Caleb. He glared at him in the morning before school, as soon as they got home afterward, or when they were forced to do their chores together, taking out the trash or folding the laundry. He hated Caleb, couldn’t stand his very presence, and Caleb had to admit this hurt even worse than the kids at school taunting him or beating him up—Jonah was his older brother, after all.
“I don’t understand, though. They all go to church. They believe in the Bible.”
“You’re not this stupid, Caleb. Think about it.”
“They believe in good and evil and sin and prayer.”
“That’s not the point, Caleb, and you know it. Just say it.”
“They believe in heaven and hell. They believe in God.”
“Believing in God is one thing. Believing the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is the neighbor kid is something totally different.”
“But you believe it. Don’t you?”
Jonah didn’t answer. He maneuvered Link into a cave where a couple of blinking goblins waited for him. They shot orbs of light at Link, but Jonah was able to dodge them, get into position, and stab them to death with his sword.
“Answer me, Jonah. You believe Mom, don’t you?”
“I’m trying to play a game here.”
“I’m serious, Jonah.”
“I am, too. Just drop it, okay?”
Caleb reached for the controller, but Jonah was too quick for him. He jerked the controller out of the way, paused the game, and pushed Caleb over in one swift movement.
“What the hell’s your problem?” Jonah stood over him, and though he was only a few years older than Caleb, for the first time in his life, Jonah looked like a grown man, towering over his brother. “You want to know the truth? Do you? You really want to know?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “Yes.”
“Mom’s crazy!” Jonah sat back down and un-paused his game, and he navigated Link to the back of the cave where he opened a treasure chest that yielded a shiny, golden shield. “And you’re crazy too, if you believe her.”
CHAPTER 6
FOR A WHILE, CALEB’S FATHER TRIED TO GET things to return to normal. He took Jonah and Caleb to get donuts before school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, saved a little cash during the weekday by bringing his lunch from home so that he could take the family out to the movies on Saturday night, careful to keep his head high and his eyes straight ahead so as to avoid the sideways glances from their neighbors, coworkers, and fellow members of their congregation. It was difficult, though. Caleb could feel them crawling all over him like ants, itching around the hemline of his shirt as he waited in line for popcorn, and he was thankful when the lights dimmed and the previews started so he could sink low into his chair and return to the relief of anonymity. On Sundays his father had them attend church again, finding a place in the back, near the aisle just in case they needed to leave in a hurry. But it wasn’t the same. Even Caleb could tell that much. The air in the church felt different. It was heavier. It vibrated. It was like walking underwater, Caleb having to will his legs to move forward amid the leering gazes and whispers when he and his family entered.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t expected it. “Keep your heads held high,” his mother had told them before they exited their car. “Remember, they can’t judge you. Only God can.”
Jonah had rolled his eyes.
His father had no reaction.
But once inside, their reactions were hard to miss. Jonah kept his eyes on the floor, dragging along his feet, hands stuffed into his pockets. His father turned the color of a stop sign, his brow beaded in sweat, a vein protruding from his forehead in some mixture of shame and anger. But his mother looked proud. She smiled a smile that comes only when a person knows something others don’t, awash in certitude and strength. Caleb found hope in this. He found courage, and so he tried to do the same, making eye contact with the very people who judged them and shunned them and called them crazy behind their backs. He wanted them to see the still-healing black eye that their sons had caused, the way he still walked with a limp from their kicks when he was helpless on the ground. He wanted them to see what they had done and have to face their own failings and transgressions. He felt bad about this impulse—for judge not lest ye be judged—but he couldn’t help but garner a little pleasure from it as well.
It wasn’t long after they found a seat near the back that Minister Bly took the pulpit. A small man, Caleb had known him his entire life. He’d baptized Caleb. He’d counseled Caleb. He’d attended birthday parties and basketball games and school functions. He was ever-present, there during Caleb’s triumphs and during his failures, commending him and consoling him like his own father, his own mother. Caleb had even grown to love Minister Bly over the years. He’d been a mainstay his entire life, but he now knew this to have been a ruse. The man was a pawn of the devil, purveying the false and wicked teachings of the Antichrist, claiming Revelation to be a mere metaphor, not the direct and incontrovertible teachings of the Lord, and if he were not to repent, he’d spend eternity in hell.
“I want to thank all of you for showing up this morning,” Minister Bly began. “I know you lead busy lives. Fulfilling lives. Stressful lives. It’s no small thing to come here every Sunday, during some of the only free time you may have available. This very act shows your devotion to God and to your community. And that’s important. It is.”
Minister Bly was a quiet man by nature, soft-spoken and gentle. He seemed to touch everything with only his fingertips. The pages of his sermon, the Bible, even an ice cream cone enjoyed in the church’s gymnasium, cheering on a volleyball match after service, and Caleb had always felt comforted by this, like he was wrapped in a warm blanket, his cheek resting against its soft cotton.
“That’s really what I want to focus on this morning: community. It’s a strange word, isn’t it? Community. It could mean any number of things, really. It could mean the physical neighborhood in which you live. The square grid mile of houses. The kids who play together, and the parents who raise them. It could mean a group of people who are committed to a common endeavor: a workplace, say, or even a book club. And then there is, of course, the church community.”
Several of the other congregants nodded their heads—the women mostly, their hair coiffed and sprayed into place. The men stared straight ahead, heads slightly tilted upwards, eying the world down their long noses. It was weird for Caleb, not being able to see their faces, their expressions. Being in the back of the church, he could only guess, but he imagined they carried expressions of affirmation, dutifully accepting all that their minister told them, just like a congregation should.
“As you’re all aware, I’m sure, communities often come with peculiar characteristics. They don’t form through happenstance. They are molded. Groomed. Selected and excised through constant and immaculate precision. Not by just one person either, but by the entire group. Their collective choices form the community, bind it together, keep it strong and healthy.”
The children, on the other hand, seemed to be in their own little worlds. They drummed on the pews in front of them or twirled their hair in their fingers, popping gum and yawning audibly. It wasn’t that they weren’t hearing what the minister was preaching; it was just that they were incapable of holding only one thing in their heads at a time. It had to be full, jumping and rolling and plodding along in a jumbled and chaotic mess.
“Community is something to protect. It’s precious. Valuable
. Immensely so. You have to fight for it. Love it. Cherish it. And when something comes along that threatens that community,” the minister said, motioning in the air like he wielded an imaginary knife, “you have to cut it out.”
He didn’t make eye contact with Caleb and his family, but Caleb was aware he was talking about them. Everyone was: the women with their hair, the men with their long gazes, even the children, their minds torn between the cherished lyrics of their favorite song and their spiritual leader, telling them to estrange one of their own.
“We don’t do this with carelessness or capriciousness. No, it is with grave forethought we have to make this choice. It is with compassion and empathy we make this choice, because think about it—we could take the approach to be more accepting of their behavior. Turn the other cheek. Write their behavior off as eccentric and politely discuss our differing views. But what does that accomplish?”
Minister Bly paused to have the congregation answer him, and a few did, shouting out that they’d be condoning sin, blasphemy, heresy, and Minister Bly nodded and pointed and smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. We’d be condoning it. Encouraging it. Normalizing it. And we can’t have that, can we? We are to shepherd people to the light, not excuse sacrilege. We are to save souls, not accept the workings of evil.”
Caleb’s mother stood. As soon as she did, Caleb’s father reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. She didn’t say anything. She stood on her tiptoes like she wished to propel herself up into the air, and she shook. She shook with anger. She shook with hatred. She shook with all the might God granted her, and the minister stopped his sermon. He looked right at her, and soon the congregation followed suit, turning in their pews to find Evelyn Gunter standing near the back.
“‘I know your reputation as a live and active church, but you are dead. Now wake up. Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is at the point of death. Your deeds are far from right in the sight of God. Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly and turn to me again. Unless you do, I will come suddenly upon you, unexpected as a thief, and punish you.’”
Into Captivity They Will Go Page 6