Calamity (30 page)
Tyler appreciated the contents of the mortar; he had filled it almost an inch deep. Paul was just being a smart ass but he was right: in a week’s time, he had deteriorated into a thief and drug-pusher who was about to cross all kinds of moral boundaries.
One hell of a week
, he thought.
“I’m not a father.”
“Not for long if you are.”
After Paul ground a few more pills into the mix, he dumped the contents into the plastic container. Then he returned to the diminishing lines of pills and started grinding again. After he finished this time, using far fewer pills, there were only eighteen pills remaining. He wasn’t sure what they were or which ones he had already used. In the end, it wouldn’t really matter.
“Now what?” Paul asked.
Tyler took out Delaney’s cellphone. “I make the call.”
11
The guard working the main gate called the house. The ring of the phone, still in Anthony’s hand, startled him out of a reverie in which he and Chloe were happy. He wasn’t sure what they were doing in this daydream, only that they were smiling and laughing. It felt like fantasy: there might have been knights and dragons and wizards, too.
The guard said that two men had arrived and were requesting entrance to visit him. Anthony told the guard to let them in and then went outside. He left Brendan in the bedroom with his drugged mother and aunt, and the corpse, of course. That had the making for ot Bmaking ne of those exploitative headlines: FATHER SLAYS FAMILY DOC, MAKES SON GUARD BODY.
A black Lincoln stopped in front of Anthony’s driveway. A large black van with the emblem of a cross on the side parked behind it. The cross appeared to float above a black nothingness. It was like that Dali painting of Christ on the cross where the savior hovered above Hell.
Ellis and Dwayne, both wearing their Sunday Best, got out of the Lincoln. Whoever was in the van remained there, the engine idling. Anthony saw part of a large arm and a section of a barrel chest. Even preacher men needed a security detail.
Not security
, the Logical Voice interrupted,
it’s the clean up crew
.
“We’re so glad you called,” Ellis said. He took Anthony’s hand in a friendly shake and then held it while he continued talking. Anthony wanted to pull his hand away but there was something reassuring about holding this man’s hand. Comfort could be found in his smile. “I know this seems like a horrible tragedy, just one more black mark against you in a long list of horrible events, but it’s not. We’re here to show you that what happened, whatever you had to do, is the first great step toward your empowerment in God’s eyes.”
“Sounds like a cover up,” Anthony said.
“If there is justice to be paid it will be--God will see to that--but it is only your guilty conscience that insists this is a negative event.”
The thwank of metal against bone . . .
The hollow clank of bone against the headboard . . .
“I’m not sure you understand.”
“We do, Anthony,” Ellis said. “We really do. You see, if you were truly guilty, you wouldn’t have called us, or at least we wouldn’t be receptive. You would have tried to hide the mess yourself. Or you might have even confessed.”
Which is what I should do
. It hadn’t dawned on him completely yet that he had indeed killed a man, but Anthony was starting to sense the grave seriousness of the shit that happened in his bedroom. If he ever fully realized what had happened (
This is called shock
, the Logical Voice said), he might use the tire iron on his own head or take a handful of Chloe’s pills and curl up with her. That might not be so bad. When the police finally discovered the bodies, they might even think it sweet: a lover’s suicide, practically a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.
“We will handle the mess,” Ellis said with a slight nod to the waiting van. “
I
will handle the more serious mess.”
“Which is?”
“Your soul.”
Ellis squeezed Anthony’s hand and leaned toward him, eyes wide. The knot of his black tie was askew and for some reason it kept pulling Anthony’s focus. He wanted to reach out and fix it, straighten the tie and--
ta da!
--the world would be right again.
“Focus, Anthony. This is no time for diversions. We have serious soul-excavating to do.”
“That sounds painful,” Anthony said in barely a whisper. Why was the stupid tie pulling his attention?
He’s not who he says he is.
The thought was clear and came without argument. It could have come from the Logical Voice or the This is Dangerous Voice, but instead it simply bubbled out of his subconscious as a pure Anthony Williams thought.
“Let’s go to my car. While the team works, so onym worksshall we.”
Anthony shook off his thoughts. Suspicion was a great thing to have if it benefited you; this time, suspicion would only lead Anthony to a stiff mattress in a cold prison cell. “My son is up there. . . . I left him alone.”
“Dwayne will take care of your son. He’s a very special boy, that Brendan. Of course you know that, don’t you?”
He did (didn’t all parents believe their kids were special, at least in some way?), but the real question was why Ellis did.
You will need this
, Ellis had said last week when he held out the Jesus flyer,
trust me
.
* * *
In the car, the seats smelling of old leather oil, Anthony went on the offensive. “You made my son lie to me. Why?”
“You can’t jump into the deep end of the pool without learning to tread water in the shallow end first.”
“What is that, some kind of empty cliche?”
“You can’t know everything before you’re ready. If you are allowed to know everything, there is too high a risk you will turn back, afraid, unwilling to go where you must.”
“That sounds exactly like why I
should
know.”
Behind them, two people dressed in identical black suits to the ones Ellis and Dwayne wore jumped out of the back of the van. They each carried a duffel bag big enough to conceal a large dog. Or body parts. They hurried up the driveway to the front steps and let themselves into Anthony’s home. He should be in there supervising. What was Brendan doing? Watching?
The big guy in the van’s driver’s seat remained.
“Brendan has undergone a traumatic religious awakening. His conversion is one of the most wrenching and powerful I’ve ever seen. I can’t tell you more except that before you punched my partner, we were talking with your son and were left completely awestruck. That boy
understands
. Perhaps it is the purity of youth. You will forever be clouded with doubts, but not Brendan. He is very special.”
A middle-aged woman in spandex pants and a blue hooded sweatshirt power-walked toward them, arms snapping up and down at her sides, head rigid and focused forward. Wires from earbuds stretched from her ears to the iPod on her belt. Anthony should know this woman, she was his neighbor, but he had never seen her before. Would she notice the black van with the giant floating cross painted on it? And if she did, would she care?
“I thought you wanted to discuss my soul, not my son’s.”
The woman passed without a glance. New Jesus Clan in the neighborhood? None of her business.
“Do you know what today is?”
“Is this a trick?”
“It’s Good Friday. The day Jesus was nailed to the cross. He had to carry his own cross; he was beaten, whipped, tortured, humiliated. He bore this brunt with a heavy heart but a steady back and solid feet. He may have fallen on his way to the delight of hecklers, but he always got back up again. He marched to Golgotha, the place of the skull, and was nailed to the cross. You have heard this?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry it happened but--”
“Do not weep for him. He was crucified for us, Anthony. We should rejoice. On that cross, he agonized with the final dying breaths of life. It is believed he was nailed to the cross at noon and was dead at three. Do you know what heg bknow wh said before he died?”
“Of course. He said, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“No,” Ellis said. “He said, ‘It is finished.’ Do you know why that’s important?”
Anthony kept quiet.
“Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew of Judas’s betrayal; he knew of Pilate’s washing of his hands; he knew of the torture; he knew of his death. He knew of all of this long before it ever happened. He was an emissary from God; his mission was to show man the path to empowerment.”
“His death did that?”
“When he died, an earthquake rumbled throughout the land, tumbling buildings, cracking open tombs. That was the sign.”
“That Man fucked up again? First Eve in the Garden and now a pack of bloodthirsty Jews?”
“No. It was the sign that man could finally find the righteous path and harness the unequal might of God’s empowerment. Jesus was sent to show us the way and he did, if we are willing to look and not fear the suffering that may come along the journey.”
“What do you want me to do?” Anthony wanted to fall asleep or die or something.
“Today is a holy day. The power is out there waiting. Do you see the time?”
Ellis gestured to the digital car clock: 3:00.
“Good timing,” Anthony said, hoping it would be much more flippant than it came out.
“There are no coincidences, Anthony, only curious things we can’t explain along the path God has set for us, if we choose to take it.”
One of the men exited Anthony’s house. He rolled the duffel bag on its tiny wheels down the driveway. The bag was stretched so tightly that one of the side zippers hadn’t made it all the way shut. A piece of bloody sheet stuck out like a mottled ghost-white tongue.
“There’s something you need to do,” Ellis said.
“Get new sheets?”
“Kill your wife.”
12
The bruise on the doc’s face was still spreading. Brendan wondered how far it would go before all the internal workings of the body realized the main system had crashed. He didn’t waste time wondering if this man’s death was part of God’s plan or not; Brendan believed with all of himself that it was and that left no room for doubt.
“Didn’t expect to see you until later.” The voice was Dwayne’s; he was standing in the bedroom doorway. He was wearing his funeral suit and his hair was plastered with gel.
Brendan had an urge to run to the man, hug him. He wasn’t sure why but there was something about him, perhaps his larger size in comparison to Dad’s that suggested more manliness and that, ironically, made Brendan want to be even closer to him. Those broad shoulders and wide arms could protect him better than Dad’s thin frame and spindly arms. The world was a dangerous place; it would be nice to have a strong protector.
He was protecting you--he killed Dr. Carroll for you
.
Or had that been God acting through Dad?
Dwayne stood in an immaculate suit with no wrinkles ruining the smoothness of his look and no hairs out of place on his head. Dwayne was a symbol of God’s perfection, of the Master Plan, of the Path to Empowerment.
“It’s all happening, isn’t it?” Brendan asked.
Dwayne smiled. “It certainly is.”
* * *
They stood off to the side while two men, also in black suits with the addition of latex gloves, stripped Dr. Carroll to his white boxers and stuffed his clothes in a duffel bag. The men then placed Mom and Aunt Steph on the carpet, removed all the bed sheets and squeezed the sheets into the same duffel bag. Aunt Steph mumbled something in her sleep but Mom didn’t stir.
One man sprayed something on a large, pink splotch on the mattress where the blood had seeped through the sheets. He scrubbed at the stain with a hard-bristled brush until the pink was almost gone. From another duffel bag came a set of fresh bed linens, cream colored. The bed was made in a few seconds.
“They’re fast,” Brendan said.
“Necessity of the job,” Dwayne said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. To talk.”
Glancing into the family room and the big, blank TV in there before entering the kitchen, Brendan thought about Bobo and BooBoo Bunny. The show seemed so impossibly silly right now, something meant for five-year-olds. He’d probably never watch that show again, nor any cartoon. For a moment he felt something he could have labeled sadness but it fled too quickly to really register. There were more important things to worry about.
They sat at the table where, up until a week ago, the family (minus Mom, of course) had enjoyed the weekly ritual of bacon and eggs.
“These are dark times,” Dwayne said. He sat with his big arms on the table and stared at the wall ahead, a painting set in the middle of the wall: a little kid sitting at the counter in some diner with a bulky cop next to him and the cook or waiter leaning over the counter from the opposite side. The painting was one of Mom’s favorites. It always seemed a bit creepy to Brendan. The way the cook, dressed all in white, was staring at the little kid, cigarette in the corner of his mouth; Brendan could picture the next frame--the kid strapped to a chair, tears gushing from his eyes, screams of pain echoing out of him. The cop might even be watching from the shadows.
Like the Darkman
.
“It is difficult sometimes to see God’s hands in everything. There is so much pain in the world that it makes you wonder.”
“What?”
“Does
He
even exist?”
Was this some kind of test? “God?”
Dwayne smiled, turned to him. “They say the purest believers are always children.”
He was leaning toward Brendan just the way the cop in the painting was leaning toward that boy. In fact, the two had the same broad back and wide nose, same short, neat haircuts. Was Ellis the other guy then, the one with the strange smile?
“I found God many years ago,” Dwayne said. “I was lost, so lost that it is even a wonder I was able to find my way. I was a bad person, did some horrible things. All because I hated myself so much. I abused my wife. Beat her viciously many, many times.”
Brendan couldn’t say anything. What was Dwayne’s point?
“Ellis saved me. He walked right into my house one night while I was throwing my wife around and he stopped me. I had a kitchen chair, like one of these, held over my head. I was going to crush her with it, her and our unborn baby.
“Ellis told me that God had other plans for meer plans f. I told him to go fuck himself. And you know what he did? He walked right up to me, put his hands on my arm and said, ‘God loves you so much that even if you kill this woman, He will still accept you with open arms.’ That just took out all the aggression. I went limp, dropped the chair, almost collapsed. Ellis told me that one day I’d be glad that a child existed somewhere with my DNA.”
Dwayne’s eyes drifted back to the painting. “I knew he was right. So, I went with him and that’s been how it is ever since. Ellis took me to God and now I am His servant. It took something so horrible and dark to get me to see where I needed to go. It wasn’t easy, don’t mistake that. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever endured. Taking your father’s beating was a slap on the wrist in comparison to the self-flagellation of my soul. Finding God is not rainbows and lollipops--it’s anguish and brutality.”
Brendan swallowed something hard, steeled himself. “I am ready. I want to serve God.”
Dwayne nodded slowly. “I’ve done some terrible things since Ellis found me. But I’ve done them all in God’s name. Can you understand that?”
The bowling ball slipping from his fingers . . . “Yes,” he said.
A smile crept up at the corners of his mouth. “You are such a special boy. I’ve told you all this not to scare you, but to reassure you. I learned, son, that in the darkest corners of our minds there is a gateway to the illumination of the soul. Don’t fear the darkness; it can lead you to wonderful places.”
Something in Brendan’s mind popped. His brain flooded with the screaming, warning sirens of coursing blood. He should run, get to Dad, and they should both run and never look back. Something wrong was happening here, something possibly very,
terribly
wrong. Blaring in his mind--
Trouble! Danger!
--but the specifics of the message were unclear. What had triggered the panic? He sensed the answer but it was blocked, hidden behind a foggy veil. Then, from somewhere--a dark corner, perhaps--the veil lifted and the answer came.
“That’s exactly what Dr. Carroll said to me,” Brendan said very slowly as if expecting his words to cause an explosion. “About the darkest corners of our minds.”
Nodding again, Ellis said, “The doc is fond of that saying. I think it’s originally Ellis’s, though. Dr. Carroll was a troubled man, but not without his usefulness.”
Dwayne paused. Seconds passed slowly.
“If you are ready and sure,” Dwayne said, “there is much I have to share with you. It starts with Dr. Carroll and it ends with Debra Karras.”
As Dwayne spoke, Brendan could hardly believe his ears. God really did work in mysterious ways.
13
Sasha was more receptive than Tyler dared hope. Of course, he concealed his real motivation, but as long as he got into her house, the rest would take care of itself. Paul drove him to Trailer Trash Town. Tyler told Paul to be ready for his text message, which would signal his part in this plan, and then Tyler took his grocery bag of supplies and walked up Sasha’s driveway, past her mangled car, and onto her vandalized front steps.
She opened the door before he could knock. She had managed to scrub off much, though not all, of the spray paint. Black blotches speckled her face like cancerous freckles. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and dark with moisture. Her hands were hidden in the sleeves of the sweaHer of thetshirt.
“I don’t know what to say . . .” That wasn’t true, of course; he had thought for a while about what to say and decided that saying he didn’t know what to say was, in fact, the best thing to say.
“Let’s go for a drive,” she said.
* * *
They returned to the scene of the crime. The sun was still a few hours off from its dive behind the mountain across the lake on which houses sprouted like warts. The giant monster was sleeping now, waiting for nightfall before it would awake and open all of its hundreds of glowing eyes. It had seen what happened here last week. With all those eyes, it had bore witness to a crime that had, in turn, led to events that brought him right back to this gravel pull-off area by the lake. Life sometimes had a cyclical quality to it. Maybe it was karma or Fate, but it didn’t matter. He was here again and again he was staring at her breasts. The sweatshirt was loose, which gave little indication of her figure, but the way she slumped back in the driver’s seat pulled the sweatshirt just snug enough to reveal some of her feminine figure.
Tyler kicked the bag he had brought and glass bottles clattered against each other. Sasha glanced toward his feet but said nothing. She was waiting for him to make the first move. He wanted to yell at her and call her a crazy cunt-trap of a bitch, but he had to stay calm. The success of his plan depended on it.
Most of her windshield had been destroyed with one swing of a bat in Tyler’s hands. Small pieces of the breakaway glass lay between the seats in the cup holder or in the footwells, but Sasha had cleared away most of the debris. A few jagged pieces like shark teeth jutted up from the bottom of the windshield frame. He could reach out and impale his hand on one of them. Or Sasha’s throat.
“I’m sorry about your sister. Everyone says she was really cool.”
“Thanks.”
Sasha pulled her hands inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt, pushed her arms between her legs. She tucked her face into the crook of one boney shoulder. “This has been such a fucked-up week.”
“I know.”
“How’s your hand?”
Tyler hadn’t forgotten the seared arrowhead imprint on his hand but he had pushed it to the back of his mind. He appreciated it anew and it began to throb with a dull, hot heat. “I’ll be okay.” He should apologize for her face but he couldn’t push himself over that cliff. Paul had gone way overboard but still, this whole mess could be traced back to Sasha.
Or her breasts.
Or your dick
.
“My mother’s gone really nuts this time. She’s . . . scary.”
“You’re not safe.”
Her wide eyes peered over her shoulder at him like the eyes of a fawn into the barrel of a shotgun. “It’s not her fault.”
“You don’t have to put up with her. She sliced her wrists once, what if she does it again? Tries to cut you?”
She said nothing, only stared with those owl eyes.
“I told you about my mother, how she’s drugged all the time. It’s not the best thing for her but it keeps her from crying all the time, talking to nothing, or hitting herself, like she did after the baby died. She may be drugged up but she is alive and safe.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You can do tp>
“I’m not drugging her.”
“She’s already drugged with that witchcraft shit.”
After a pause, Sasha asked if he no longer believed a curse had been cast on his family.
He shook his head. Part of him
did
believe that Sasha’s mother had, whether intentionally or simply by lucky accident, cast some dark spell on him and his family for raping her daughter. Could Delaney simply be a coincidence? The other part of him knew that it probably was a chance event and that the timing of his sister’s death was an anomaly. Witches didn’t exist and evil spells were for horror movies.
“My mother’s just trying to find a way to be happy.”
“By torturing her daughter?”
“She’s protecting me. At least she thinks she is.”
Tyler waited a moment and asked the question he had wanted to several days ago: “What happened to your father?”
14
The proper response to the command to kill your wife was probably something like
“What?!,”
some visceral response oozing with incredulity. Perhaps even a punch to the guy’s face who said it, something besides the silence Anthony offered Ellis. He stared so long that Ellis asked if Anthony had heard him.
“Maybe I didn’t,” he said. His ears could be playing tricks on him. The stress after killing someone could probably do that to you.
“I’m not being flippant when I say it, either,” Ellis said. His hands traced the steering wheel, one after the other. “Killing your wife is no easy task, but God does not ask of us anything He knows we cannot handle. The only question is will you answer His call?”
Anthony stumbled for words. “The only question is why. Why do you want me to do this? Why should I? Why does she deserve that?”
“You might as well ask God why we exist? Why is there cruelty in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people?”
Anthony tried to regain a mental grip. “You’re comparing existential questions that have plagued philosophers since time began with killing my wife. That’s a ridiculous comparison.”
“It’s not. You just have to look at it the right way.”
“You say, ‘Kill your wife,’ and I shouldn’t ask questions?”
Ellis thought for a moment. “I’m beginning to question your commitment to His will.”
“How do I know it really is what God wants? You have a direct line to Him,
is that it?
”
“Calm down.”
“
Calm down?
You tell me to kill the woman I love and I should be
calm about it?
” He balled his hands into fists. They ached with the low groan of a gator scoping out prey.
“Anger isn’t going to help anything.”
“God doesn’t want this. I refuse to believe that.”
“Then we’re done.”
“I can’t believe I was ever taken in by you. All your Jesus shit is just a front. You like manipulating people, deceiving them. You’re a monster.” He knocked open the passenger door, started to get out, paused. “Stay away from my son. You can’t have him.”
“We already do,” Ellis said with the faintest hint of victory.
“He’s in my house right now and if you or your partner try to keep me from my child, you will be very sorry.”
“You’ll fight off the men in the van behind us, too?”
The large guy in the driver’s seat was tapping his fingers on the wheel to an unheard beat.
“You’re threatening me?”
“It can be tough to accept what God has for us. It is easier, safer, to turn away, but when you turn from His glory, you end up in eternal darkness.”
“Stop spouting your shit.”
“Tell me now that there isn’t a part of you that wants to kill your wife. You’ve wanted to for a while. She’s practically dead anyway. Sleeps all day. Drugged to the gills. She’s no longer the woman you love. She’s a hindrance to your ascension.”
Anthony wanted to tell Ellis that he could shove his psychological Jesus games up his ass, but there
was
part of him that wanted to kill his wife, part of him that prayed quietly every time she took more of her pills that this time she would slip into her coma and never come out, part of him that imagined how easily he could suffocate her with a pillow. He would never admit that, of course, but it was true and its veracity would forever mark his soul. Given the right circumstance, maybe he would kill his wife. Not now, no, never. He was done with all this shit. The clouds had parted. He’d stopped digging that pit of grief deeper--it was time to climb out. It was time to take back his family. If they tried to stop him, beat him, threatened him, he’d just run to the police. Even if they abducted Brendan, the police wouldn’t take long to find him. “Stay away from me and my family.” The words rang with the certainty of a father’s commitment to do whatever was necessary to protect his family.
Ellis did not miss a beat. “I can just as easily have those men place Dr. Carroll back in your bedroom and you can discuss his death with the police. Dwayne and I, the whole Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered, none of it would be relevant. You hated Dr. Carroll for keeping your wife drugged up all the time, maybe even suspected him of having his way with her. It’s a very open and shut case.”
This threat gave Anthony only a moment’s pause. He had killed Dr. Carroll and he would have to face the consequences. He could claim temporary insanity, which was probably true anyway.
“So be it. I deserve to be punished for what I did.”
Ellis nodded, perhaps in appreciation of this statement, like a chess player admiring the bold move of his opponent. “That’s very noble of you and fine with me. You go to jail, Brendan goes with us.”
Anthony settled slowly back into the car seat. He stopped climbing: the hole was too deep. Streaks of sunlight slashed across Ellis’s face like prison bars.
“If I kill my wife?”
“You and Brendan and Tyler will be perfectly content and happy and, most importantly, helping us on our mission from God.”
The lines of sun on his face were not bars but gashes in a facade, exposing the sinister creature beneath. Anthony saw that creature now but was helpless to fight it or run from it.
15
Dwayne spoke quickly but with the determined beat of a storyteller who wished to give each part of his tale the attention it deserved. Brithdeserveendan sat enraptured while Dwayne told him about Dr. Carroll and how, one day several years ago, Dwayne killed Sasha Karras’s father.
“Ellis had told me that one day I would be glad to know that someone with my DNA was walking around. That, more than anything else, stopped me from beating my wife and turned me to God. He was right. I wanted to have a child, a son, someone I could love unconditionally without all the bullshit that goes with marriages and Hallmark love.
“I walked out the door of my own house with Ellis and didn’t look back. Ellis saved me. I will be grateful for that until I die. I owe him everything. Without him, I’d be in jail right now. I don’t know how he found me, if God really led him to me or not, but I don’t really care. He brought me into the glory.
“Last fall, I contacted my wife. She wasn’t hard to find, hadn’t even moved. She’s divorced me, found some way to get it done because she claimed I ‘abandoned her.’ Really, I saved her--her life, anyway.
“I asked about our child, of course. I wasn’t going to assume any right to the kid, wasn’t even going to ask for any pictures. When God says it’s time, then it’s time. Instead, she told me the child was never born. After I walked out the door, she had a miscarriage. Couldn’t even reach the phone to call 9-1-1. My child, my son, slipped out of her and died on the kitchen floor while I was in a car with Ellis driving off to my calling.
“I beat her so viciously that I killed my son.”
Brendan thought of the woman hanging off Dwayne’s arm at the church. “You could have another.”
Dwayne was in another world, his voice drifting. “I spent all those years dreaming about a son I never even had. A son I walked away from to save. And by walking away, I killed him. You have any idea what that does to your mind?”
Was it any easier to kill a sister?
“He’d be almost thirteen now.” Dwayne’s eyes came out of the fog and landed on Brendan. They were piercing searchlights that left Brendan feeling naked.
“My woman now is wonderful. She’s helped me a great deal. She helped me see the bright side after I spoke to my wife. But we can’t have kids. She had uterine cancer when she was twenty, had a hysterectomy. She can’t ever get pregnant. God has His ways, that’s for sure.”
“What was the bright side?” Brendan asked.
“Well,
you
, of course.”
That didn’t make any sense. Dwayne said he had spoken to his wife last fall. He hadn’t even met Brendan until a day ago. This was one of those convenient lies adults concocted to create a sense of believability without exposing some nasty truth. Brendan had gotten good at constructing those lies, too.
“I see you don’t believe that, sounds like so much mushy, feel-good crap, right? I told you this started with Dr. Carroll and that’s where you come in.”
Brendan listened to the rest of Dwayne’s story without speaking. His hands grew hot and his throat dry, but he didn’t get any water. He wanted to stay perfectly still while Dwayne unveiled a truth that made him queasy.
“Ellis introduced me to Dr. Carroll, said he could help me. Doc wanted to give me a whole cocktail of meds, things to take the edge off and such. I told him I didn’t want to become some vegetable. I needed to stay strong and focused to do God’s will.
“He convinced me that without a littl anhout a e something I would end up being no help at all. He was afraid I was going to slip into depression and so, I agreed to take these little, yellow pills. It’s funny to think how obstinate I was about taking those things because once I started I felt so much better. Things became clearer. My pain about my son faded. That pain can never completely vanish, of course, but the pills did wonders.
“Dr. Carroll is--
was
--a believer. He and Ellis had met up a long time ago at one of Ellis’s old churches and together they spearheaded a new approach to Christianity, a whole new mentality to summon people into His flock.
“They turned, as Jesus did, to those who needed the most help. Dr. Carroll had been running a very successful practice for years and when he dedicated his life to carrying out God’s will, his practice grew exponentially. People suffering all forms of emotional trauma sought him out and he helped them first with the magic pills he carries and second by opening wide the gates to His Holy Empire. Dr. Carroll found the people and Ellis helped them find God.
“The two of them are responsible for saving hundreds of souls. They helped empower people who were on the cusp of complete despair. And in return, those people gave back to the church and that is why it is so strong today. We have over three hundred parishioners who are, as we speak, carrying out His will.
“Dr. Carroll led us to you. We have many young worshippers, but the doc convinced us that you were something special. Instead of intervening, however, Ellis believed we should wait for God’s intervention. The doc kept tabs on you and we went about our business of saving souls.”
Brendan thought of the myth book--had it been some sort of test? Why not give him the Bible?
“After your infant brother died, we knew your time would be soon. We came here last week because we knew your mother was getting worse, more and more dependent on drugs. She needed to be saved. To do that, however, we needed to first save your father.
“He didn’t want to hear anything from us. At first, almost everyone is resistant. Ellis told your father he would need our help and, as it has turned out, Ellis was right. He told me that God had only started working through your family, that the real miracles were yet to happen.
“Dr. Carroll spoke of your wondrous potential. He said you were going to be something remarkable--all you needed was a little guidance. As with most children who are not reared correctly, you were confused, trying to find meaning but lost in a tangle of barbaric ideas.
“You only wanted to protect your family, I know. God has worked through you, made you suffer like Job, because He has great things in mind for you. You see, we thought the death of your infant brother was the sign from God, but that was only the beginning. It was your sister’s death that has led us to this moment.
“You confessed your part in her death and for that we are forever grateful. You will carry that pain in your heart always, but we will help you manage it, funnel it, and direct it into the positive works He demands from us.”
Dwayne cracked his knuckles, one by one, as he spoke.
“Jacob Karras came to Dr. Carroll concerned about his wife. She was always weird, he said, but she was getting worse. She had an unnatural interest in the black arts--witchcraft. Dr. Carroll tried to help but she wouldn’t budge.
“Sometimes drastic measures need to be taken. The doc gave Jacob what he needed to help his wife. There are unfortunate turns of events, things that ctakhings tannot be explained logically or sanely because we are not privy to God’s reasons.
“The drugs Jacob slipped his wife nearly killed her. She suffered a mild stroke, fell into a coma. Ellis and I assumed this was our moment to act, to help save the Karras family. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”
16
The moment Sasha said “Jesus Men,” Tyler felt the invisible weight of something still concealed begin to crush him.
“They wore suits and spoke about Jesus empowering you or some stupid shit. Whatever. I was going to tell them to try some other house, we weren’t the religious type, but my father came storming out of the house, started screaming at them.
“He told them to go away and stay the hell away for good if they were smart. My father wasn’t the type to get so pissed so easily, but there were other things . . .”
“What?” Tyler asked.
“I told you my mom went nuts after my father died, but that’s not all of it. She was a little nuts to begin with. She almost died.”
Sasha’s mother had had a stroke, fallen to a coma, and almost passed away. This psychiatrist her father knew tried to help but her father kicked him off the front steps, too.
“What was his name, the doctor?”
“Carroll something.”
“No.” That invisible weight grew heavier. “Dr. Carroll?”
She blinked. “Maybe, I don’t know.”
“What’d he look like?”
“I never met him,” she said. “Why?”
Tyler almost confessed to everything but stopped himself. There was a coincidence here too large to ignore, but it had no effect on the current problem. He still had to stick to the plan and he could sort out the oddities later. “Just asking,” he said. “So, your father?”
“The night after the Jesus Men left, they called the house. My father screamed at them again, and threatened to expose who they were. Said he would go to the papers, the TV, anyone who would listen. He told them the police would be coming their way soon.
“He slammed the phone so hard it fell off the wall. We still haven’t put it back up.” She wiped her face with one sleeve. It was a preemptive swipe at any tears preparing to fall. “The next morning he was dead.”
“Wait--
how?
”
Her voice choked with pain. “I found him at the bottom of the driveway. He had been shot twice, once in the chest, once in the head. I remember falling to the ground and screaming, screaming for hours until the neighbor came over. I’m sure it wasn’t hours, but it felt like it, you know?”
“When did all this happen?”
“I was twelve.”
“Jesus. I’m really sorry, Sasha, I didn’t know.”
“I told you it wasn’t important. My mother survived her stroke but she just came unhinged after that.”
That word again:
unhinged
.
“She started with all the witch crap and I went along with it. I tried to keep it from the kids at school, but you can never keep everything quiet. No one knows my dad was shot in my driveway. Even the guidance counselors think it was a heart attack. I was never asked to talk about it, so I nevrivit, so er corrected them. They seemed pretty sure of their information.
“My mom’s not a bad person. She’s been through a lot, so I can’t be too critical, you know?”
“She needs help,” Tyler said. He was amazed he could move forward with his plan after her soul-purging. This last week had been one self-discovery after another.
“I’m not forcing her to take drugs.”
Tyler took a long, slow breath. He really had to sell this line. “I care about you, Sasha, I do. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I . . . want you to be safe.”
“You mean that?” She lifted her head like a deer checking to see if the path was clear.
“Of course. I know things have been fucked up lately, but I want to make everything better.”
“Do you love me?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, and that’s why we need to do something about your mother.”
“What?”
He reached into the bag at his feet and removed the bottle of Snapple.
