High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel (16 page)

Or what felt like love. Who knows what it is when you’re young? I mean, real love has a long-burning fuse, but those first flares burn like hell. And they hurt, and snuff out all too soon. She would have nothing to do with me at all, I assumed. For years. But it didn’t really matter. Because everything else fell away. School. Bullies. Issy. Even cancer. Love is a lot like faith, because you surrender yourself, fully, and with no expectations. There is hope, yes, but never expectation.

It was years before I finally opened my mouth and said hello back. This was in high school, and I found her smoking in the lower stairwells with the Goth girls and the metal girls, all lips painted black but hers. Christian Death and Slayer band patches on their denim jackets and backpacks. I was entranced. They all seemed so evil and romantic. I was fifteen.

Inspired, I said: “Hello.”

She started laughing, and said, “Took you so long. He lives on my block!” she said to the girls. They could barely stop giggling.

One of the girls high-fived her, and said, “Isn’t he that freak? Aren’t you, like, a preacher?”

Another girl said, “No, he’s the one with the mother. His mother has, like, cancer.”

Bhanu said: “Shut up.”

I sat with her at lunch that day. And we talked. This may have been the first time I actually talked with someone at lunch, or at least talked without worrying for my life, that some metalhead, or some jock, or some other misanthrope in hopes of scoring points with normals would trip me on the way to my table, or hit me with an empty milk carton, or ask me what I was looking at. It was glorious. In the fast-working ecosystem that is high school, here I was, a boy sitting with girl, a pretty girl, and having lunch. I wasn’t such a freak after all. Things would get better. We walked home that day, and she said Goth was stupid, but Slayer was cool, and the girls were mostly smart and she liked them okay. We shared from a 25-cent bag of potato chips, and I tried to place her particular and lovely smell—and then one day, a long time later, this was years and years later, I was offered a coconut milk to drink, and I smelled it, and time caught me up like a trap. Here was Bhanu.

A few weeks on, my father spotted us walking home from school. He later asked me if I’d made a proper witness for the Lord. Did I tell her what I believed, and say why she should believe it, too? I must’ve betrayed myself and instead showed how it had never occurred to me once, not once, and I expected him to show some disappointment in me at the very least, say I should be ashamed, et cetera—but, surprise: grinning, my father said, “My little man is in love. Promise you won’t tell your mother. Enough on her plate as it is.”

He was all of a sudden full of surprises.

That same year, I’m guessing this was 1983, when there were commercials everywhere for what was being billed as a “Historic Television Event.” A made-for-TV movie called
The Day After,
coming soon, and it would air on a Sunday. A Sunday! American audiences would finally see what a real Armageddon will look like—a nuclear one, yes, and man-made, but who says God’s above using such weapons? Why waste all that effort? There were stockpiles.

The whole congregation was in a tizzy.

We talked about it at home, over dinner, in the morning, for weeks before the movie ever started. What do you think it will look like? Do you think this is a sign of the times? Do you think the actors are aware that God is actually watching? And how could a young boy in love with
Star Wars
not want to see a movie like this? Special effects! Those two words echoed like a chant for me and every boy my age. The movie has special effects! My mother talked about the movie, but she stayed mostly quiet. It was Dad who said things like “This is ridiculous” and “We all know it’s not coming for twenty years more, because of Josiah’s vision.” I would say nothing, and he would say, “The movie’s bound to be wrong.” But he also couldn’t hide how excited he was. Taking my cereal box away from in front of me—I used to read every line of the ingredients list—he would eat dry Froot Loops with his hands, and said to the kitchen wall: “I wonder how much is actually based on scripture?”

Sunday at church, one week before, an announcement was made from the stage.

Announcements were a big deal, and hardly ever good news, more like “So-and-So has been excommunicated and asked to leave the congregation,” or “So-and-So is dead,” or something foreboding and starting with “It has recently come to our attention…” But this was about the movie. One of the elder brothers said to the hundred or so of us there: “There has been talk of a television film, I believe we all know what I’m referring to.
The Day After
promises to be not only an important film, but a relevant one, especially to our work here. Preparing ourselves for God’s Holy War. And after much serious thought, we’ve decided to incorporate the film into our ministry. So we’ll be viewing the film as a congregation. Next Sunday. In lieu of a sermon. And we’ll talk afterward, as a congregation. Please feel free to invite your friends and neighbors. This will be a rare opportunity to make witness. And regarding the children, the film will be quite realistic from what I understand. And so children will not attend alone but with parents. Let us pray.…”

Dad didn’t talk much on the way home.

That next day, a Monday morning, the mailman brought a letter regarding the kids of New York City’s public schools, suggesting parents not let their kids see a certain upcoming television movie. That it would be age-inappropriate.

That next Sunday, church was packed. Extended family members, curious neighbors dressed in weekend shorts, and borderline stragglers who hadn’t attended in years. Standing room only. I’d almost invited Bhanu, but, in the end, was so glad I didn’t.

Four TVs had been brought in and set up for all of us to watch. We got there early, and sat up front by a TV as big as a sofa, encased in wood, with a turntable on top. A hefty thing, a real piece of furniture, it must’ve weighed a ton. I wondered how they ever got it in there.

The lights went low.

The microphones set up by the TV speakers crackled.

There was chatter, and shuffling in the seats.

I looked around and saw the faces of people I knew from the neighborhood, and the faces of strangers. Which was both exciting and upsetting. They had entered a place they didn’t belong. They were dressed wrong. Talking, mumbling, when they should have been quiet. I saw the black man from the convenience store around the corner from church. He didn’t seem to be with anyone standing in the back, by himself. He wore jeans, and a T-shirt, his usual white apron rolled up and tied around his waist. He wasn’t looking at the TV, though. He was looking at the people in the room, the brothers and sisters. His face looked thoughtful, and bewildered. I realized he wasn’t there for the service, as such, or for spiritual reasons of any kind. He was curious: What do they
do
in there? I watched him scan the room, until he looked at me. He gave me a neutral sort of acknowledgment, Yes, I have sold you Pop Rocks, given you change for Donkey Kong.

I looked away from him and toward the TV, the opening credits and then …

I’ve watched it at least one more time, some parts twice more, even read about it, and still I can’t remember the plot; what was the plot? I remember the attack. A five-minute collage of mass death in Technicolor, the apocalyptic footage, fiery rain, the buildings blown to quick rubble and ashy voids, the rolling thunderheads of nuclear fire wiping out forests, livestock, and people, entire cities laid waste—and so much of this footage was real! Actual stock film clips of war and early atomic testing. All of this coupled with—how can I say it?—a cartoonish X-ray obliteration of people. A mother and her baby turn to the sky and
zizzzzzz—
dark bones in a flash, and they’re gone … The infant’s tiny skull … A man runs from his car for his life and
zizzzzzz
—his skeleton shows in a bloodred splash on electric white, and he’s dust … A large group together and what are they doing? Walking? Standing? Sitting in church?
zizzzzzz
—X-ray fried, now invisible, and gone … I have to say, watching this again as a grown man froze my insides. It’s too artful. Armageddon respects no bones. Only dust, instant dust … But to a boy, the scary stock footage within that film looked like news. I half expected to find the world outside our church destroyed when the movie was over. This was the End, factory manufactured, and yet the imagery was the same. This was not a biblical vindication, or God’s fire raining down. This was man versus man. All the fault of bloodlust and earthly dispute. This strikes me as a great and disturbing irony.

Lights up.

There was some muttering. No applause.

How did we feel? How many different kinds of response? Was I the only one so frightened by what I saw?

An elder took the stage and calmly asked, “Any questions? Comments?” There were a few, but not many before the real event took place.

My father stood up and started speaking.

*   *   *

Dad never spoke in church. He said it wasn’t his calling. So when this happened, Mom and I, we were dumbfounded. He stood, and stayed where he was, right beside his family, and said to the elder in a voice not quite loud enough: “I want to be a true believer, it’s all I’ve ever wanted out of life.” He turned and talked to the whole room now: “This means more like the Apostle Paul. More like our original first-century Christian brothers and sisters. Just a few decades from when our Savior walked this earth. Only miles from the places we read of. Galilee. Gethsemane.”

I looked around and there were people nodding their heads, like usual, Yes, brother, say it.

A microphone came passed down the aisle, its rubber cabling falling on our feet. I looked at the mic, and wondered how many eyes were on me. Will he stand, too? Will the boy speak? Or maybe they weren’t thinking of me at all. Dad looked at me. I couldn’t read his face. I gave him the microphone.

“Thank you, son.” Loud now, he was filling the room.

“Why such speculation?” he said. “Why doubt? We have living proof. Here. In the flesh, here, my son, who stood before you filled with God and gave a number. It’s not for us to know how it’ll look.” He spoke to the back of the room. I turned with him. Mom kept looking straight ahead. She squeezed my hand. “But our Savior comes at the New Millennium. And
this
”—he gestured to the TV—“this
movie
has no place in here. All lies…”

“Brother Laudermilk,” said the elder from the stage.

My father quieted him, his hands saying Now now now …

“Look at my boy,” he said. “Josiah, stand up.”

Mom squeezed my hand again. I didn’t move.

“He’s in shock. You see? You doubt him? A child? You doubt the Lord’s Holy Spirit.”

I still didn’t move.

“And my wife. She wears a hat so you don’t have to see her shining head. For you! You think this is sickness? This is God’s work! All of it God’s work! All of them signs we are living in the End Days, and you won’t even see it. Look to the book of Matthew. In the Last Days. The Apostle Matthew says in the End Days one shall be taken, but the other left behind—”

“Gill.” The elder was beside him now, his hand on my father’s shoulder.

“You want to silence me? Make my wife an outcast? My son cast down like some false prophet for a TV show? In
here
? You bring
this
”—again the TV—“this Wild Beast. Mammon! Babylon the Great in here? Why not bring money changers? It’s blasphemy!”

“Gill—” He tried taking the mic, but Dad wouldn’t let him.

“Stop looking forward! It is here! In our presence! And we have to go back for it. Back! And return to original worship, to authentic faith. Have faith in the Word of God, in what God grants, a vision for his son, my son. A healing for my wife…” He fell back against the chair behind him. The brother sitting there caught him, held him up. “For my wife,” Dad said. He seemed dazed.

I was heartbroken, for him. Confused.

“Thank you, Brother Laudermilk.” The elder took the mic from Dad’s hand. “Okay. So obviously—”

My father stood back up and shook his head, looked around the room. He wildly made for the stage, for the TV, and then he stopped himself. He turned back, and took my hand. He took my mother’s hand and pushed his way along the aisle toward the exit. Some of the assistant servants followed, in case of a scene.

We went home.

That’s when as a family we stopped going to the Brothers in the Lord. Or any church, really. Unexpectedly, I found myself actually going to church more, a weird rebellion against him. I sat there alone like Issy used to. Dad’s display had sufficiently sullied what reputation I had, and whatever capacity I had for sermonizing or for visions had been supplanted by fears that I might have an unwelcome outburst onstage, like my father. I was now the son of the man who made a scene at church, and nothing more. That went on for about a month. And then it just stopped. Partly because I didn’t know why I was doing it, and I would sit there for the duration of the service, hardly listening at all, trying to understand why I was there, and partly because I realized that not a soul there cared to speak to me.

I started telling Mom and Dad that I was going to church, but then I would go straight to Bhanu’s house and watch weekend morning TV. We held hands under throw pillows. Mom hardly paid attention, anyway. Seems like Mom slept for years, all the while getting better according to the doctors, but sleeping away her every last earthly hour. She just slept and slept and slept. I became hungry for even more freedom.

Bhanu and I started cutting school together that fall. We hid deep in the woods of Forest Park, and watched truancy vans roam along the park roads. We kissed sometimes, and I wondered if God would one day open up the earth and drop me in for loving a pagan. While I knew Bhanu wasn’t a Christian, I didn’t really know what that meant. I didn’t want to think about it, what it meant for her, or me, us, or for my family, and so I decided it was easier to not think about it at all. We only talked about it once, and I asked if she thought it was weird. We were trying cigarettes for the first time, stretched out on the cement floor of the Forest Park band shell.