Crucifax (36 page)

Rats?
J.R. thought. He remembered the confident look in Kevin's eyes as he'd walked away from J.R. at the center on Monday. Rats… Then he muttered, "Jesus Christ, Jeff wasn't imagining it…."

Once he got to the Calvary Youth House, he moved with an urgency he had not felt before hearing the report on the radio. J.R. rang the doorbell; then, receiving no response, he knocked on the door. Not only was the door unlocked, it was not completely closed; it opened a few inches under the impact of his knock. There was no one in the living room, but it was not empty. Looking in, he saw a chair tipped over and four empty Jim Beam bottles lined up on the floor before the sofa. There was a pile of clothes on the floor at the entrance to the hall. J.R.'s nose wrinkled at the smell of liquor, body odor, and vomit as he took off his coat and tossed it on a chair.

"Hello?" he called.

There was a clatter from the kitchen, and glass broke. J.R. found Reverend Bainbridge lying on the floor in his bathrobe beside a shattered fifth of whiskey. He wore only one slipper, and his fair hair was dark from grease and stuck up in unkempt spikes.

"Oh, God," J.R. breathed, going to his side and hunkering down. "Reverend? Are you all right?"

"Who… what… who is it?"

"J.R. Haskell."

"J.R. Has… I'm sorry, I…"

"From Valley High School. We spoke last week."

"Last week," the reverend muttered, rolling onto his side and squinting up at J.R. "Last week was a hundred years ago." His eyes were red and watery; his face glowed with a sheen of perspiration and was puffy around his eyes and mouth.

"I need to talk to you, Reverend."

"Talk… oh, yes," he said, nodding with vague recognition. His breath reeked of whiskey. "Yes, I remember you. Talk? About what?"

"Mace."

"Mace, Mace… oh-ho, yes, Mace, you want to talk about Mace." He tried to sit up but couldn't, so J.R. lifted him into a chair at the kitchen table. "What about him?"

J.R. looked around the kitchen. Empty Jim Beam bottles were everywhere; there was a lumpy yellowish puddle on the floor by the sink where the reverend had apparently vomited. "My God, what's happened?" he asked Bainbridge softly.

"Happened?" The reverend looked around and smirked, then scrubbed his face. "Yes. Well. You haven't caught me at, um, my best, I'm afraid. It's been… a bad week."

"Where's the coffee?"

"Fridge. Help yourself."

"It's for you," J.R. said, opening the refrigerator.

"Oh, no-no-no, I don't want any, thank you."

"I need you sober." He hurried around the kitchen, looking for coffee filters, rinsing out the pot, trying to avoid the mess on the floor.

"Oh? Now, what could you possibly need me for?"

"I need your help. Mace and his group are performing at Fantazm tonight."

"And?"

Once J.R. was finished and the coffee was brewing, he sat across from Bainbridge.

"How long have you been like this, Reverend?"

"Uuhhh, I'm not sure. What day is it?"

He doesn't know,
J.R. thought. He was about to tell him of Nikki's suicide gently, ease into it, but he thought the shock might be good for him. "Nikki Astin killed herself yesterday."

Bainbridge ran a hand slowly through his unwashed hair, staring at J.R. as if he'd spoken in an unfamiliar tongue. He lowered his hand and was still for a moment, then began to tremble, clutched the table, and groaned as he slipped out of the chair. "Dear God, wh-what have I
done…?
"
He sounded heavier than he looked when he hit the floor.

J.R. knelt beside him and said, "Another girl killed herself, too, Reverend, and there may be others. And all of them have been spending time with him."

Bainbridge seemed unconscious for a moment, and J.R. shook him, saying, "Reverend, can you hear me?"

His head began to move back and forth. "… my fault …my fault… Mace… was right…."

"Right about what?"

"Doesn't matter. Go… away. Leave me alone."

"Look, a lot of these kids know you, Reverend, respect you. I think you can help me. Before any more die."

He propped himself up and looked into J.R.'s eyes. "Respect?" he asked as tears rolled down his face. "No. No, I let them down. Failed them."

"But you can still help them."

Bainbridge rubbed a temple with his thumb as he smacked his dry lips. "The… the parents… what about the parents?"

"I've been calling parents all day. Most of them—nearly all of them—are at work, and a lot of them won't be coming home very soon. The freeways are a mess. Of those I talked to, some are concerned and said they would try to keep their kids away from Fantazm tonight; others resented being told how to raise their kids. Two of them hung up on me. I'm going to keep calling, but I don't know how much good it'll do. That's why I want your help. I need it."

"What could I do?"

"Come with me tonight to the concert. Talk to them, to the ones you know. Convince them they're making a mistake. I think that's what they need, Reverend—someone they know and trust, or once trusted, to show that he cares, to let the kids know they have an option, that Mace is dangerous and whatever he's telling them is a lie." He helped Bainbridge into a sitting position and leaned him against the wall. "Please."

The reverend scrubbed his face hard with both hands, groaning into his palms.

"I've failed them," he said, his voice raspy. "I thought I was doing the right thing—I—I meant well, I did, but… Mace was right. I was changing them, fitting them into— into little boxes, trying to—to make them into something they weren't. That was wrong. It… I think it nearly destroyed some of those kids. It seemed to work for some, but… but I wonder…." He slowly shook his unsteady head. "… I wonder what kind of effect it had on some of them as they grew older, as—as they realized they couldn't fit into those boxes I made for them forever. Because no… nobody can, you know." He turned his bleary eyes to J.R. and whispered, "I couldn't." He coughed and held his stomach, as if suddenly nauseated. "Just—just leave me alone, I can't help you, I can't expect those kids to—to listen to me ever again, not after the way I let them down, let… let Nikki down." His lips pulled back over his teeth as if he were in pain; his eyes clenched, and J.R. could hear his teeth grinding. "Nikki," the reverend hissed, "I'm… so sorry."

J.R. went to the coffee maker and poured a cup, put it on the table, then helped the reverend back into his chair.

"Here," he said, handing the cup to Bainbridge, making sure it was firmly held between his trembling hands, "drink this."

"I'll drink," he said, putting the cup down, "but not this."

"Reverend, I'm not a religious man, but isn't a person in your position supposed to have faith, supposed to believe that God forgives and—"

"Believed, Mr. Haskell, I
believed
those things, past tense. If there is a God, He has no reason to forgive me, but I'm not so sure there is a God. I'm not sure what I believe anymore, because everything I've lived for, the work I've done, seems to have been a… a mistake!"

"It wasn't a mistake if it worked, if it did some good. And you can make it work again if you'll just sober up. I don't necessarily approve of some of your methods, but I—"

The reverend stood cautiously and looked around the kitchen at the bottles, slowly rubbing his eyes one at a time; then he tightened the buckle of his bathrobe, mumbling. Moving slowly, he reached for the cupboard above the sink, opened it, and removed one of his last two Jim Beams.

"What're you doing?" J.R. asked.

He took another coffee cup from its hook over the counter and sat down, saying, "I am trying to prevent myself from sobering up."

"Reverend…"

Bainbridge smiled up at him as he slowly removed the cap from the Jim Beam and said, "Mr. Haskell, I took my first drink of alcohol when I was nine years old and for the next nine years was seldom sober. When I found the Lord and took up the ministry, I believed that God ended my craving for alcohol, took the bottle out of my hand. But I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Thinking and drinking," he laughed, pouring some whiskey into the coffee cup. "That craving never went away. I stopped drinking. I put the bottle down. I stopped. Ah, but to a preacher, everything comes from God. All this"—he waved his arm toward the ceiling—"the house, the low rent, the furniture. All provided by the Lord for… the work. But you know what? I worked
hard
for this.
I
did. I've put my whole
life
into this, into those kids." His hand shook as he lifted the cup, and a shudder passed through him as he drank the whiskey. His voice was wet and throaty as he continued. "I told them that everything they'd learned, everything they were, was wrong, and they had to become what He—what I—wanted them to be. I did it for
Him,
because I thought that's what He wanted. But last week, Mr. Haskell, I saw something." He poured again. "Something… hellish. I saw Mace kill—did you hear me?—kill my unborn baby." Another pour, another swallow. "I don't know what Mace is, or where he's from, but the God I worshipped, the God I thought I was serving, would never… ever… let that happen. Especially to a soul as kind and caring… as simple… as Nikki Astin. But I
saw
it." He drank again. "If there
is
a God, it's not the God I thought I was serving. If… there is a God. And
that,
Mr. Haskell, means that my whole life has been a waste. It means that at the age of eighteen I changed my way of thinking, living, my personality—
me,
I changed me—for nothing, because some other ignorant, misguided man of God told me to. Because I saw in that man someone who cared for me, respected me as my parents never did. I could never seem to please my parents. No matter what I did. But Mortimer Bigley
wanted
me… as long as I became what
he
wanted. So I did. Oh, I liked him, he was a dear man, and I had all the signs, all the religious fire and fervor. But I wanted it. Because I wanted so very much to be wanted."

J.R. sat down across from the reverend, listening attentively, but frowning; the pain in Bainbridge's eyes and voice made it difficult, but he seemed to be working his way to a point and not just rambling drunkenly.

"I've thought about all that a lot these last few days, Mr. Haskell"—another drink—"and I've realized that I have been doing the same thing to them. The kids. Changing them. Because they're not good enough for a God who's going to let them suffer anyway. And they allow me to do this because they want… to be wanted. They have parents who don't care or don't notice, who are too drunk or too caught up in their marriages, their divorces, their affairs, their jobs… too caught up in their lives to be parents. They have children, but they just don't… they don't…"

J.R. cleared his throat and said quietly, "Pay the piper?"

"Yes, yes, you could say that. So. These kids turn to me. Or, God help us"—another drink, this time followed by a ragged cough that turned his face red—"to Mace. Or drugs. Maybe sex. Even suicide. Whatever's there to fill the holes or numb the pain. Like this." He giggled drunkenly as he held up his drink, then finished it off.

"And you're not gonna
do
anything about it?" J.R. asked. "You're just gonna sit here and drink? You're scared, right? What, you think I'm
enjoying
this? I'm scared shitless, I feel helpless. And I'm putting my fucking job on the line here. I'm trying to stop something I don't understand, and I haven't the slightest idea how I'm gonna do it, and you're just gonna sit here, you and Jim Beam, and not do a goddamned thing to help?"

Bainbridge smiled at J.R. again, but tears rolled down his puffy cheeks and his lips trembled.

"I can't help
myself
right now," he whispered. "I'm not sure I want to. I'm mourning a death, Mr. Haskell. The death of my faith. My belief. Everything I've worked for. So." He stood with his bottle in one hand and his cup in the other. "If you don't mind, I'd like to be left alone in my sorrow." He began to shuffle out of the kitchen, scattering bits of glass with his feet. "I'd show you the door, but—hah, I'm not sure I could find it myself." He went into the living room and fell onto the sofa, nearly dropping the bottle.

J.R. decided to give up; he knew he was going to get no help out of James Bainbridge. As he slipped into his coat on his way to the door he heard the reverend mutter, "Good luck, Mr. Haskell." Then, with a chuckle, Bainbridge added, "I'll pray for you…."

An hour after J.R. Haskell left, the reverend awoke to an ominous stirring in his gut. He gulped as he clambered off the sofa and staggered down the hall, careening from wall to wall, trying to hold down the contents of his stomach. Two doors from the bathroom, the stirring became a rush, and he fell to his knees vomiting.

It covered the front of his robe and slopped to the carpet, spattering his arms and hands, dribbling down his chin. Kneeling on the floor, he waited for some of his strength to return, then limped into the bathroom, hugging the wall for support. He removed his robe, threw it in the tub, and washed up.

Reverend Bainbridge stared at the filthy, trembling, unshaven stranger in the mirror. Naked except for a pair of stiff, soiled briefs—
When did I change them last?
he wondered—his body looked bony and frail. There was a massive dark purple bruise on his right thigh; he had no idea how he'd gotten it.

Splashing more cold water on his face, he sputtered in a weak voice, "What'm I
doing?
"

He cautiously took a hot shower, and as he stood beneath the hot spray he went over his conversation with J.R. Haskell, remembering what he'd said about giving up the bottle and working hard to build Calvary Youth. He lifted his face to the water and grumbled to himself, "If I can do that, I can do this."

After he dried, he walked naked to his bedroom and began sorting through his closet for some clean clothes. He was putting on a shirt when he heard the familiar scraping sound in the wall over his bed. He spun around and stared at the wall for a moment, afraid for only an instant, then hot with anger as he growled, "Keeping an eye on me, huh? Like what you see?"