The Acolyte (3 page)

In the hallway, I radioed in a Fire Team. Pie-eyed tenants occurred in doorways. One of them asked what was the rumpus.

“Gather whatever’s precious to you and clear out,” I told all of them.

Doe’s shotgun barked. I poked my head back into the room. Doe had blown a hole in L. Ron’s face.

The landlord wore a gigantic crucifix on a chain round his neck.

“This isn’t Christian,” he said. “My livelihood. All I’ve got.”

“Same as cockroaches,” I told him. “Harbour them, you pay the extermination fee.”

“How could I know they were philistines?” Jesus Christ dangled and swayed from the landlord’s neck. The guy was sweating like a hog; that cheap metal crucifix would oxidize. Our Saviour would turn green before long.

I shrugged. “Conducive environment. Screen your renters more closely.”

The Fire Team arrived. They donned flame retardant suits, shouldered their flame-throwers and double-timed it up the stairs.

“I go to high mass three times a week!” the landlord shrieked. “When the collection plate passes, I give more than my share—I support The Prophet with my entire soul!”

Fire ripped through the suite. The window trembled, warped, blew outwards. There was a sound like fine linen tearing as air vacuumed through the breach. The Fire Team’s tanks were filled with a jellied gasoline/holy water mix: scourging and sacramental. We all watched. The fire mesmerized. Perpetual motion, twisting and ravenous. There are some shapes that live only in flame. Oily black smoke poured from the window. The landlord was on his knees on the sidewalk, howling, beating his breas
t
. We cleared out.

Old black magic

Station house.

Incident report. I’m team leader—i.e.: head paper pusher. Doe will never make team leader; as a woman, she’d already hit her mandated ceiling. Our pay scale was based on Leviticus 27:
And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver. And if it be a female, thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.

I typed up the incident report and dropped the carbons in Deacon Hollis’s mail slot. I crossed the bullpen and scanned the Ongoing Investigations corkboard:

Unlawful Worship/Animal Sacrifice. Wiccans operating in East Seraphim Park and environs. 20 to 25 fugitives, Caucasian M/F 16–50 yrs. Threat: low. Priority: low. Investigating Acolytes: Henchel/Brewster.

Unlawful Worship/Conspiracy/Danger to Public Peace. Muslim cell loosely centred in Hollis Heights/Kiketown adjacent. 6 known fugitives, Islamic M 15–35 yrs. Possible Hasidic sympathizers at Demsky’s Kosher Meat Mart. Threat: high. Priority: high. Investigating Acolytes: Applewhite/Mathers/Palmer.

I tuned in the local feed of Republic Public Radio. The news was out over the wire:

“. . . A daring police sting netted seven faith criminals this evening. The fugitive Scientologists were practising in a condominium complex in the Underdocks neighbourhood. Though heavily armed, they quickly surrendered and were taken into custody without incident. Blessed are those who walk with the Lord. Blessed are those who follow His Prophet. At the tone, RPR news time eleven o’clock.”

The shop front was tall and narrow, wedged between a soup kitchen and a blood bank. A large wooden ram’s head hung on two chains above the door. The windows were darkened but a neon sign blinked
24
HRS
.

A single aisle split the shop. Animals were penned in chicken-wire enclosures on either side: lambs, goats, hares. Caged birds hung on the walls.

“Officer Murtag. So good to see you again.”

The shopkeeper: tall and narrow, like his shop. He smelled of alfalfa.

I said, “I need an offering.”

“Whole offering or blood offering?” Then, in answer to his own question: “I suppose that depends on the nature of the offence, does it not?”

I thought about Purple Angora. Her stomach blown out. Tatters of purple wool. I pointed to the nearest goat. “How about that one?”

“That’s a good goat,” the proprietor said without much conviction. “Yes, that one would make a fine whole offering. But—”

He grabbed a wooden pole and slid its hooked tip through the eyelet of a wicker birdcage.

“Luzon Bleeding Heart doves,” he said, bringing the cage down to eye-level. “Beautiful creatures. Your soul will leave without a smirch upon it.”

“It wasn’t really a
dove
offence.”

“Understood.” The proprietor rubbed his jaw, considering. “Well, if you’re dead set on a goat, may I suggest this younger one instead?”

“How much?”

“Seven shekels, thirteen gerahs.”

The proprietor clipped a collar around the goat’s neck. Its horns had been sanded down to nubs.

“This way,” he said, beckoning toward a curtained aperture at the back of the shop. “The priest will be waiting.”

The altar was the size of a supply closet. Portraits: one of Jesus Christ, another of The Prophet. The priest was snoring behind the dais. The goat chewed on my trouser cuff.

“All apologies, my son,” the priest said, waking. “Quiet night.”

The priest was haggard in the way a lot of these old shrine-tenders could be. Years ago he probably had his own church, his own diocese, his own admiring flock. He donned a vulcanized rubber apron and a leather belt strung with glittering knives. He rinsed out the tossing bowl and set it beside the sluice grate.

The goat flicked its ears. The goat chewed the priest’s robe.

“Your name, my son?”

“Murtag.”

“What is the nature of your offence, my son?”

“Deliberate injury.” A beat. “Resulting in death.”

The priest nodded. “Did you attempt it in anger?”

“Yes.”

“Was it out of duty?”

“Yes.”

“In service to our Lord and our Prophet?”

“Yes.”

The priest looped a noose around the goat’s hind legs. He pushed a button on a control box, winching the animal into the air. The goat thrashed and bleated.

“Lord, behold this offering from thy humble servant.”

The priest removed a long-bladed knife from its leather sheath.

“Accept this gift, O Lord, given freely and with open heart, that it may cleanse the stain of sin from his soul. We ask this in thy name, amen.”

The priest set a hand upon the goat’s chin, below the tufted beard. The goat’s eyes were bulging black bulbs. The priest drew his knife across its neck in a practiced slice.

The animal made a breathless noise. The priest gripped its muzzle, collecting blood in the bowl. He flung blood upon the wall. He spoke the words.

The priest again filled the bowl. He flung blood upon the wall. He spoke the words. Next he unkinked a hose and began to spray down the wall.

“You may go now, my son. Your sins have been expiated.”

On my way out, the proprietor asked what I’d like done with the animal.

“The priest is a licenced butcher,” he told me. “Five shekels to have it drawn and quartered, wrapped in waxed paper and delivered to your door.”

I told him no. My freezer was already full of goat.

The view out my apartment window was beatific.

Lit crosses topped every building, every condo complex, every factory, every house whose owners could afford the expense. Neon crosses, Plexiglas crosses, huge wooden crucifixes bound in blinking Christmas tree lights.

A blackout hit the east side. The crosses all went dead, blackness like a wave rolling across the city. My fridge motor cut off. The red numerals on my bedside clock winked out. I sat in the sweltering dark. Every night a blackout: energy must be conserved. Yet the halo of spotlights ringing the Stadium SuperChurch still burned.

I lay in bed and tried to fall asleep. No luck. How many goats over the years? How many doves, rabbits, sheep? I felt like an alcoholic who’s got to the point his cells crave the sauce so bad there’s no enjoyment in drinking anymore; he boozes to keep himself on an even keel.

Make an offering. Purge thyself. Eat of my body. Drink my blood.

Repeat after me:
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died to absolve the sins of mankind.

As a child, one morning I’d come downstairs to find a man in a white suit talking to my mother in our kitchen. He told her that our church had been closed but there was a new church, a
better
church. The man in the white suit said he would be positively delighted if she and I would consider attending.

I remember other things, little things, but this is essentially where my memories begin: the man in the clean white suit.

I am just one man. I am just one woman.

People used to say that all the time. One man cannot stand in the path of tomorrow. And so tomorrow came. Tomorrow became today. Tomorrow just kind of . . .
happened
.

The man in the white suit. The Republic. The Prophet. The Immaculate Mother. The One Child. The Quints. Crucifixes hanging in the night sky. The Acolytes.

That old black magic.

Squad Room Shakeup

The first thing I heard when I walked into the squad room the next morning was Garvey, thronged by his fellow Acolytes, recounting the shakedown.