Innocent Little Crimes (23 page)

When Delilah was born, Darla suffered
complications and had to have an emergency hysterectomy. George
grew bitter; his hopes for fathering a son were dashed. He knew God
was punishing him somehow, testing his faith like Job. He bucked up
under the trial, determined to make Delilah a shining example of
his own faith. Even Darla’s insistence on that heretical name drove
home God’s will that he suffer.

“We can’t name our daughter after that
woman.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” Darla said, stroking
the infant’s red curls.

“Delilah betrayed Sampson. Sold him to the
Philistines for one thousand pieces of silver.”

“We’ll call her Lila.”

“She was a traitor to Israel. Sampson was
blinded and kept a prisoner because of her sin.”

“Come now, Father, look at this little angel.
How could she cause anyone harm or heartache? Little Lila.”

George acquiesced. For some reason he bowed
to this lone instance of Darla’s strength of will, but he knew he
was cursed. Lila became his cross to bear, and like Jepthah and his
vow, he consecrated her to God, without asking Lila her opinion on
the matter.

Ten-year-old Lila clasped her hands before
her. The smell from the roast beef and mashed potatoes made her
stomach churn, but she kept her head down and waited for her father
to finish.

“Thank you, oh Lord, for the food of which we
are about to partake. Please forgive us our sins and look with
compassion upon our unrepentant daughter. For, although she is lazy
and stubborn, we know you can soften her heart, oh Lord. In the
name of Jesus, amen.”

Lila looked up, avoiding her father’s glare.
She was painfully skinny and already starting to develop breasts.
Her mother dressed her in loose, dark smocks that fell to her
ankles; dresses that her mother had worn as a child and which
caused Lila great embarrassment in school, but she knew better than
to ask for something stylish and colorful. Her red, frizzy hair,
tightly braided and pinned up on her head, gave her constant
headaches.

This was to be her first meal of the day. Her
punishment for disobedience and poor study habits was enforced
fasting. That morning she’d had to recite the twelve tribes of
Israel and she got confused. Her father screamed at her over the
porridge.

“How many times do I have to tell you? There
is no tribe for Joseph. Yes, he was a son of Israel, but God took
his two sons and made them into two tribes. Now, tell me, who are
Joseph’s sons?”

“Ephraim and Manasseh,” Lila muttered, taking
the protective tone she learned early to use with her father. Her
mother sat silently across the table, her head covered with a scarf
as always. Waiting.

Lila looked at her father, careful to form
her words just right. “Now, may I eat my breakfast?”

Reverend Carmichael removed her bowl with a
brisk sweep of his hand and set it on the counter. “Maybe tomorrow
you’ll remember.”

It didn’t serve Lila to cry even though her
hunger was ferocious. Once, on a similar occasion, George caught
Darla slipping her daughter a piece of fruit. He wailed into his
wife with a string of curses that made her cringe. Lila watched her
mother cower before his anger. Darla never betrayed her husband
again, even though it pained her to see her own daughter go hungry.
The equation became fixed in Darla’s mind. She would pay for her
sins with unwanted sex, her daughter with unappeased hunger.

So, for Lila, sneaking food became a polished
skill—digging through the cupboards or the trash can for an almost
empty box of crackers or discarded scraps when no one was looking.
She didn’t dare touch anything else. Her father counted every can
and jar in the house. She plunged headlong through her guilt,
knowing that God’s eyes were riveted on her; yet, if she didn’t
eat, she was sure she’d faint or die.

At school Lila lied, saying she forgot her
lunch sack. How could she tell her classmates her parents refused
to feed her? When other children discarded the detritus of their
lunches, she would surreptitiously dig the leftovers out of the
trash barrels. Sometimes kids shared bites of sandwiches and fruit.
She had no real friends. They smelled a pariah and kept away. No
one ever wanted to come to her house to play, though every school
year, she found some other loser like herself, and took a chance
once again. The result was always the same. The Reverend was almost
always home, sitting hunched over his desk preparing sermons. Lila
would tiptoe past him, a potential friend in hand, but invariably
he’d give them both a verbal lashing for one reason or another. Or
hover over them and talk gospel at them. Her friends never came
back.

In later years, on that rare occasion, she
was allowed to go to someone’s house to play. Lila was astonished.
She found homes filled with warmth. Kittens sleeping on a rug,
brothers and sisters singing, playing games—even climbing trees.
She felt delightfully sinful when she joined the other children,
but when she returned home she pasted on her serious expression and
hid the fact that she had a good time. Her father would grill her
about each family, although he knew them all from church. His
questions searched for unspiritual attitudes or behavior. If found,
he banished Lila from playing there again.

That particular evening, Lila was reprieved.
Her father’s sermon finished, without another word the plates
heaped with food were passed to her. She waited for punishment, but
her parents’ heads were bowed with eating, and her plate stayed in
front of her. She stuffed herself, not knowing whether this stroke
of luck would ever be repeated, but her shrunken stomach prevented
her from eating much.

Lila didn’t understand why most of her
prayers went ignored. She feared her father was right—she was a
disobedient, sinful child, and God turned a deaf ear on her. And
yet, all her friends were nowhere near as disciplined and studious
as she, and they went through life happy and unpunished. Maybe
because her father was a preacher, Lila had to be better, work
harder. It was all so confusing, as if happiness was out there,
just within reach, but denied her.

Where school was a chore and prison for most
children, it became Lila’s escape. She earned excellent grades,
despite her father’s criticisms, and immersed herself in crafts
projects and math workbooks. Her saving grace was her wry sense of
humor; she turned every bad experience into a joke. Even if she
wasn’t invited over to her classmates’ homes, as time went on, the
children played with her in the school yard because she laughed
with them at her own expense. She was an anomaly, and she kept them
entertained. So, Lila’s humor grew from desperation, a desperation
to be liked and accepted. Her humor became her salvation.

In fifth grade, a miracle occurred. Her
teacher asked if she’d like to play Mary in the Christmas play, to
perform on stage, in front of the school and all the parents. Each
year the fifth and sixth grades put on the holiday show, but Lila
never imagined she might be chosen. And not for such an important
part.

That night, she heard her parents arguing in
the den. Her mother insisted it would be a wonderful opportunity
for Lila. Her father refused. Lila would make a laughing stock of
herself. Did Jesus participate in the theater? Did the apostles act
on stage? But, this was a show to glorify the birth of Jesus, a
holy purpose, Darla argued. You know Mrs. Harding. She’s a
wonderful, devoted Christian. She’ll make sure the children do a
fine job. If you’d only gone to the other performances, you would
see . . .

George acquiesced, and Lila was allowed to
play Mary. She remembered the experience as the best thing, maybe
the only good thing that happened in her entire childhood. Of
course, her father wouldn’t deign to attend. But her mother sat in
the front row and applauded loudly, along with an auditorium full
of other parents. Lila took her bows and never forgot the
feeling—the giddy, proud feeling—that welled up inside her.
Standing on the rickety wooden stage, under a weak spotlight, she
secretly yearned to be an actress, a yearning that, from that day
forward, never left her.

Throughout her teenage years, when she could
slip away, Lila sneaked into the matinees at the local movie house.
The dilapidated building was an old, smelly place that played an
odd assortment of musicals, comedies, foreign films, and
experimental animated movies during the day. At night, the current
movie releases were shown, which Lila was never allowed to attend.
Her father warned that at dark, Satan and his cohorts came out and
tempted young men and women. Lila became a movie buff, seeing the
early shows over and over, quietly mouthing the lines. A whiz at
memorization, she learned entire scenarios by heart. When the kids
at school realized she could flawlessly reenact the famous “Who’s
on first?” routine by Abbott and Costello, catching all the nuances
and expressions of the actors, they begged her to do it again and
again. In her desperation for friendship, she discovered her ticket
to meager popularity. So, Lila built a huge repertoire of comedy
routines, her favorites drawn from old Lucille Ball shows, who she
could imitate with her matching red hair and expressive facial
contortions.

As years went by, making jokes came easier
than holding a “normal” conversation with someone. She and her
parents provided the fodder for her humor, and she hardly needed
exaggerate to get a laugh. Gradually, her view of life changed, so
that by the time she neared high school graduation, her fantasy
world seemed more real than the one at home.

She had rewritten her past and present, now
all she needed was the strength to write her own future.

Chapter 23

Davis edged his way down the face of granite
rock. His fingers, caked with mud, ached from the cold. Why the
hell hadn’t he brought his gloves?

His gut wrenched in pain. As he trudged
through the woods working up a sweat, visions plagued his mind—of
Lila taking over his firm, his money. He wanted to believe she was
bluffing, but he smelled the truth. Lila had ruined him. Or, at
least, she planned to. She was one obsessed, sick broad. If he
could just get away and distance himself he’d be better armed. A
cool head and his lawyer at his side—that’s what he needed.

That was the one thought that kept him going.
Find a way out. Get off the island. Make some distance. Maybe he
was so drunk he hadn’t heard Lila right.

He replayed his last year in college in his
mind. Lila, a naïve, love-struck teenager. She was crazy over him,
but wasn’t half the school? Was that his responsibility? Her
delusions were her own problem, not his fault. And, for crissakes,
it was fifteen frigging years ago.

Davis scrambled down the other side of the
butte and strained his eyes to see. Sure enough, a small house sat
backed up against a grove of pines, but the windows were dark and
boarded up. Still, there might be a boat around, or a radio.

He made for the house at a fast jog, ignoring
his footing. He tripped with a lurch and landed face down in the
wet sand. A jolt shot from his ankle up his spine. Biting his lip,
he rolled over and grasped his foot. The pain was severe, but the
bone didn’t feel like broken. He chastised himself for being so
stupid; he had safely maneuvered the rocks only to wrench his ankle
on some tree root.

Upon standing, his leg gave way.
Great
,
just
great
.

Wind and rain flailed him as he crawled on
his knees, finally reaching the wood-slat door of the cabin. He
banged his fist and yelled, then pulled himself to standing. He
peered in through the glass window set into the door. The darkness
revealed nothing. He tried the doorknob and banged again, this time
hitting the window. Glass shattered and fell in shards, leaving a
jagged hole. He felt badly about the break, but, hey, this was an
emergency. He’d pay for any damage. He’d return the boat, too, if
he found one.

Behind him, the waves roared. Davis didn’t
want to turn and see what the ocean looked like. If he found some
small boat, even a row boat, couldn’t he just follow the tide,
whichever way it went, and row close to shore? Maybe that way he
could maneuver to a sheltered area between islands and head for
civilization. He wished he had paid more attention to the map of
the San Juans. There were hundreds of islands around, but which way
would he need to go to find one inhabited? Which way was north? And
how could he be sure he wouldn’t head for open sea? Well, he’d
worry about all that later. First things first—find a boat.

Davis reached his hand though the broken
glass and grabbed the inside handle. The door swung open and he
stepped into blackness. He felt around for a light switch. In the
dark, he fingered the furniture, hoping for a CB or radio, a
flashlight. All he found was a desk, a chair, a cot, and
wood-planked walls that smelled musty. His ankle screamed with pain
as he dragged his foot behind him. A wave of exhaustion overtook
him. His head was slowly clearing from all the alcohol, and
sleepiness replaced stupor. He lowered himself onto the cot and lay
back on the pillow. Just a few minutes’ rest, he told himself. And
then he would find some light, a key, something.

Davis shivered and climbed under a heavy wool
blanket. His head felt hot and his skin clammy. The last thing he
saw before falling asleep was Lila in her flowing garish dress,
laughing like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz and saying,
“I’ll get you, my pretty, I’ll get you!”

George Carmichael finally received his
mission: anointed by God to save the lost and depraved youth of
America. The unrest and rebellion spreading like wildfire across
the nation was the sign he had been waiting for. With his flowing
black coat, he preached the imminence of the Great Tribulation and
God’s holy war—Armageddon—to the crowds of young people loitering
in Seattle’s parks. It so angered him to see the young strung out
and filthy that he intensified his teaching of Lila. He pounded
Scriptures at her, warning her not to be caught sleeping because
the “master” would soon arrive. Armageddon was finally here. He
commanded her to watch for the signs of Jesus’ coming. “Then we
shall flee to the mountains, when the sign of the Son of Man
appears in the heavens and all of the tribes of the earth will beat
themselves in lamentation. He will send forth his angels with a
great trumpet sound, and they will gather his faithful together
from the four winds, from one extremity of the heavens to the other
extremity.”