The Crooked God Machine (7 page)

We found Ezekiel in the center of town, standing on the top of a guillotine platform with one of the senior prophets of the Edgewater Prophet Headquarters. Ezekiel pulled speech notes out of his pocket and looked toward the senior prophet, who was leaned up against the guillotine scratching the rusted blade with his fingernails. The man nodded to Ezekiel.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ezekiel said, holding his speech notes up in front of his face, “Welcome to the Edgewater resurrection. We are gathered here today to witness a rare miracle, the pinnacle of our human condition. To join the indestructible army of God is to be made immortal, the greatest honor that any human can ever hope to have bestowed upon them...”

He paused. He lowered the notes from his face and looked out across the nearly empty courtyard.

“Where did everyone go?” he asked.

“Wrap this up for me, will you?” the senior prophet said.

“But I still have six more pages to read,” Ezekiel said.

“I don’t want to hear it. I’m going home,” the prophet said.

After the senior prophet left Ezekiel stuffed the rest of his speech into his jacket pocket.

"They're still chasing those things," Jeanine said, in way of explanation, "pretty pathetic."

He jumped down from the guillotine platform.

"Whatever. I don’t care,” he said, "I’m bored of this.”

Ezekiel left us alone once more in the stark, empty street.

Jeanine turned to me. Her hair her come undone and now lay across her face in uneven streaks. She picked up a dead man's face from the pavement. When she looked at me her eyes were white and wide enough to walk through.

"This is exactly why I'm getting out of this damned town," she said, holding the face out toward me, her thumbs through the empty places where its eyes used to be.

Chapter Eight

I woke one night to Sissy hanging a kitchen knife by a thread directly above my head.

"What are you doing?" I asked, with Sissy's knees pressed into my shoulders and her body stretched over my headboard as she tied the threat knot on the ceiling.

"How come we never see that girl you’re dating?" she asked, "how come you never take her over here?"

"you mean Jeanine?" I asked

"I want to meet her."

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said.

“Why?” Sissy asked as she finished tying the knot.

She lowered her hands to her sides and the knife floated in suspension above our heads.

“You’re digging into my shoulders,” I said.

Sissy hovered on top of me for a long moment after that without speaking. Her eyes fixed to the space directly above my head where the knife hung suspended. Her nails scraped into the headboard of my bed. She’d grown thin in the last months, skin like a noose, bones like cream.

“Okay, fine,” I said, “I’ll bring her over.”

“Great,” Sissy said, and leaped off the bed, suddenly animated, “I’ll make dinner.”

I took the knife down from the ceiling after Sissy left the room and the next day at school invited Jeanine over for Sunday dinner. Jeanine arrived at our house on the edge of the swamp the next Sunday evening dressed in spring colors and a face painted with dark blue eye shadow and meat colored lipstick she stole from her mother.

I met her out on the porch.

“Watch where you step,” I said, “Theresa likes to set traps everywhere. And bake needles into the rations. Oh, and don’t sit down on the couch or stick your hand into anything. She likes to hide stuffed squirrels everywhere. And avoid Momma’s eyes if she ever smiles at you like she’s got a secret.”

“You worry too much,” Jeanine said.

She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. I hesitated to touch her in return. I didn’t recognize her dressed up all in colors. She even smelled differently, like freesia and fake rain instead of meat and grit and hair dye.

“It’ll be fine,” she said, “look at you, you’re more nervous than I am.”

We went inside. Sissy waited for us at the kitchen doorway across the great divide of the living room. She too, was dressed foreign, in one of Momma’s lace corsets from her teenage days, and a ruffle skirt that swallowed up her legs. She hid her face behind a mask of plasticine powder.

Even though nobody was on the couch, the television continued to play loud enough to bust the ceiling. I took Jeanine by the shoulder and guided her across that seemingly vast, infinite space toward the kitchen. Sissy lit a cigarette and leaned against the door frame.

“Your girlfriend looks like a whore,” Sissy said. When she smiled the dried makeup cracked on her face.

“Please don’t hate me for this,” I whispered to Jeanine.

We followed Sissy into the kitchen where she’d arranged at the kitchen table the government rations onto the special occasion silverware. In the dark green light I could almost imagine our monthly bread and meat paste was a real Sunday dinner. One from our childhood, before the factory shut down and Daddy left.

Momma sat in the corner of the kitchen next to a dead stuffed deer, her chair propped up against the wall.

"Sit down Jeanine," Sissy said, stabbing her cigarette against the edge of her plate, "sit next to Momma."

"I want to watch the Teddy and Delilah show," Momma said.

"Shut up Momma," Sissy said, "we're having dinner. Don’t embarrass me."

Jeanine and I sat down and Sissy played host, cutting the meat paste and fried bread into delicate, bite-sized portions. Then she served them to Jeanine and me one square at a time on the tip of her silver fork. Her bones shook with the strain. Jeanine and I waited in silence for Sissy to finish, and when she did, we picked up our silverware in tandem and ate in silence. Momma didn’t eat at all.

"Well then, do you like my deer?” Sissy said, indicating the stuffed deer with hollow green eyes propped up in the corner, "my father made it. His best one he took with him. But he left this one with us."

Jeanine and I exchanged glances. I felt cut off from her, like we were separated by a pane of glacier glass. I wanted to push my hands through the crystallized air and touch her, but I thought we might both break.

After a moment, Jeanine turned back to Sissy. The fork in Jeanine’s hand quivered.

"I like it," Jeanine said.

“No you don’t,” Sissy said, “but that’s okay. Nobody does.”

"You know,” Jeanine said, “you remind me of this friend I used to have. She used to collect butterflies. Preserve them and pin them up, put them in these little shadow boxes all over her room. Only the black butterflies though. She's dead now."

"I'm thinking of becoming a taxidermist myself," Sissy said, “I've always wanted to strangle and stuff a bear. Jump on its back and throw my arms around its neck and squeeze until it stops kicking. "

“Don’t suppose there are many bears around here,” Jeanine said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Sissy said, “it’s just a silly idea. Why don’t you tell me more about yourself? What are you going to be?”

"An archaeologist,” Jeanine said.

"Oh, nobody's doing that anymore," Sissy said.

“I am,” Jeanine said.

Sissy laughed. Raw flakes of makeup cracked and peeled off of her face and fell into her food. Her skin underneath was terracotta colored, quivering. At the sight of it, Jeanine set down her fork and felt her own face.

“What’s wrong?” Sissy asked, “aren’t you hungry?”

“Ravenous,” Jeanine said. She swallowed and started examining her hands.

Sissy touched my arm. Sniffed.

"Charles. You smell like him. Are you wearing Daddy's jacket?"

"What does it matter?” I said.

"That's funny," Sissy said, "you wearing his jacket. You're nothing like Daddy. Would anyone like some whiskey?”

Without waiting for a response, Sissy got up and retrieved Daddy’s whiskey handle from the cabinet. She poured herself a shot and threw it back in one gulp.

“Anyone else?” she asked, “No? Well I’m sure Momma could use a shot.”

Sissy poured another shot and slid it over the table toward Momma. Momma’s slip implant scuttled inside her skull, as if trying to peel itself out of her nerve endings. Her arms shot across the table. She knocked the shot glass over and it shattered onto the floor.

“Momma! That’s good whiskey,” Sissy said, “you know that’s the last we’ll ever have.”

She rubbed her forehead, leaving a smudge of pink behind on the back of her hand, and then knelt down to clean the glass shattered onto the floor. When she went underneath the table she bumped her chair with her shoulder, knocking it to the floor with a crack. I pulled Jeanine out of the way.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Jeanine.

Jolene started to scratch on the windows outside. A fourteen year old fear crawled into my spine. I tried to set down my knife and fork but instead of reaching the table they clattered onto the floor. I couldn’t bend down to pick them up. Jolene continued to scratch and scratch, that familiar black noise.

"What's that?" Jeanine asked.

"Oh, that's just Jolene," Sissy said.

"Cunt!" Jolene screamed from outside, shaking the foundation of the house.

"Cock sucker!" Sissy yelled back.

Sissy turned to Jeanine.

"Don't worry, Jolene only eats children. She just likes Charles for some reason."

Momma sat upright in her chair and touched the hot wire spider in her head, making it jump and clutch at her fingers. Then the hot wire spider turned its clicking mandibles toward me, and Momma’s face appeared to drip down her face, right through the sieve of her bones.

"When are you two kids going to get married?" Momma asked.

"I know why Jolene wants to eat Charles. It’s because of that baby face, don’t you think?” Sissy said, and reached over to pinch my cheeks, "Look at this cute face. Delicious monster food."

"I don't know, Momma," I said, pushing Sissy's fingers away from my face.

"No son of mine is going to be a bachelor for the rest of his life."

"Okay, Momma," I said.

"Bitch!" Jolene said.

"Crazy motherfucker!" Sissy called back in response.

Momma stumbled up out of her chair, knocked over the dead deer, and then went into the living room to watch television.

“Momma!” Sissy screamed.

Sissy threw her silverware down on the floor and followed Momma into the living room. From the living room, I heard a crash. Then Momma howled. I jumped up from the table and chased after Sissy, to find the coffee table knocked over and Sissy dragging Momma across the floor by the hair. Momma squirmed and twisted and dug her fingernails into the carpet so hard that they broke. Teddy’s stretched, salesman’s face pressed itself against the television screen, trying to break the glass with a hot wire spider.

I tried to keep my teeth from shattering in my mouth. I could barely swallow, or think, or breathe. Not with Momma’s rabbit howls, with Teddy singing an aria over Delilah's gray bed, Jolene from the swamp screaming and screaming.

“Let her go, Theresa,” I said, “she hasn’t done anything to you.”

“You’re not here!” Sissy said, gathering another fistful of Momma’s hair so that Momma’s head snapped back and her, “You’re not here all the time taking care of her! Having to keep her from burning herself on old cigarettes and forcing food down her throat because she won’t eat!”

“Let her go,” I repeated.

I laid my hand on Sissy’s wrist. She jerked it away.

“No! I won’t! You don’t know! You don’t have to tell her every half hour that Daddy’s not coming back. That the baby isn’t crying because he died fourteen years ago. You’re always out with that girl. You’ve left us all behind.”

“Theresa, don’t make me get your father,” Momma said.

Sissy backhanded Momma across the face. Blood spurted from Momma’s nose, dark blood tinged with gray, the only color I thought I’d ever see again. Momma’s blood spattered the walls, the television, more blood than I ever thought was inside of Momma’s veins.

I pushed Sissy off of Momma and slammed her into the wall. The moose head above unhinged itself from the wallpaper and crashed down at our feet.. Sissy’s eyes went wide and her hands uncurled to drop fistfuls of Momma’s ripped hair out onto the ground. Jolene stopped screaming. The house stopped rattling. Even the television with its constant babble had slowed down to an indistinguishable hum.

“Charles?” Jeanine called from behind me.

“Bubba,” Sissy whispered.

“Don’t touch Momma like that ever again,” I said.

I released Sissy and went over to Momma. She still lay on the floor, trying to escape with her legs kicking and kicking out from underneath her. She squealed when I touched her.

“Momma,” I said, “let’s go to bed.”

I guided Momma to the stairs. Jeanine rushed over to help me. Momma stuttered and drooled blood.

At the top of the stairs I looked back down at Sissy. She peeled herself off the wall, brushing her hair back with her bloodstained hand, and gathered up the moose head in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” Jeanine said.

“Fuck you,” she said, trembling, “fuck the both of you.”

Jeanine and I took Momma down the hallway.

“Your girlfriend’s a cunt!” Sissy screamed after us, “You should’ve died instead of your brother! I hate you! I hate you!”

We took Momma into her bedroom and guided her onto the mattress. She rolled onto her stomach and twitched.

“You don’t feel a thing,” she said, her voice muffled by her pillow, “write your novel. Fall in love. Get your slip implant today.”

Downstairs, Sissy continued to scream.

“If I ever see that girl around here again I’m going to kill her! I’ll kill both of you!”

“Come on,” I said to Jeanine, “Stay close to me. I’ll take you home.”

Jeanine and I went down the hallway, back down the stairs.

As we walked past her Sissy stood tall and pressed the moose head close to her stomach. Its antlers reached up to pierce her cheeks. The gray sea of her face fell down into her arms. She’d become the house, angry as the house, emanating the house. Its dark creak hallways and dead thing wallpaper bleached into her skin. Soon, I thought, I wouldn’t recognize her at all.