When We Join Jesus in Hell

Acknowledgements

     I am nothing as a writer without my publisher, readers, and book reviewers, so a massive thanks to all of you!

One

His old friends called him Fist because when he was younger he’d been a hell of a bruiser, winning fifteen of seventeen semi-professional fights via knockout. He’d quit when the going was good, determined not to let himself fall beyond his peak and plummet down the other side with no dignity left. His wife Karen had something to do with it. Back then she’d been supportive, as passionate as him, but also practical. If she was going to have a family she didn’t want it with a man who took too many blows to his head. The part of him that dreamed of being a father realized he’d be a better one if he quit, long before his brain became mush. And he was in the projects then, where he’d grown up, always feeling like an alien because his Irish blood and temperament stuck out like a sore thumb. He’d been starving then. For what he didn’t know. He had respect. He had passion. He had everything he wanted it seemed.

But that was nearly a decade ago. He’s not that man anymore. He doesn’t know that he has a single friend left.

He came home late this night, his stomach hurting, the stench of booze clinging to him like stale flowers. The only light burning was in their upstairs bedroom, while outside a quiet street shrouded with elms sighed, surrounded by so many similar houses bearing so many similar mundane lives. He’d been searching for a way out of it, to find something more, but he didn’t tell anyone because to search for any kind of meaning seemed unmanly, un-American. And he hated thinking he had to hide it from his wife because they used to share everything; they used to be best friends.

That broke his heart most of all and he had no idea how to get back to the way things once were.

He shut the door quietly. He took off his coat and hung it on the rack in the corner. Floorboards creaked upstairs. He didn’t know if it was his little girl, Bethany. She was eight, yellow-headed, bright blue eyes full of questions, thin as a reed; or if it was his Karen. Not the Karen he’d married—this vibrant and compassionate and understanding creature that had amazed him more than anything he’d ever experienced—but someone else. Ill-bred of temper, bored, more plump than she used to be, and always ready to blame him for that. He thought, and said, occasionally, that he did his best. And he meant it. And he wondered how much longer they could hold on for Bethany’s sake. The plan had been until she graduated high school, but that was still a long way off. Karen wasn’t all that bad, just had her days, and they felt like they flayed him, and sometimes, when he had some clarity, he hurt for her because he knew the pain and frustration she felt probably trumped his by a great deal. On the days he didn’t resent her, he wanted to ask her what frustrated her so much, how he could help fix it, and hope she would offer him the same like she used to. He missed their closeness, the way they used to support each other, and their honesty more and more each day. He didn’t know where their faith in each other or themselves went.

He wiped his eyes and sighed.

In the living room he went to Bianca’s terrarium and pulled a couple of crickets from a cup. He pulled the leopard gecko out and stared into her dark eyes. She’d been blind and skinny as a rail when somebody had brought her into the local animal shelter where Karen worked part-time. His wife had always had a soft spot for all kinds of creatures, and it was one of the things he loved most about her. Bianca was only about five inches long, the expression on her face showing more emotion and intelligence than Fist had seen from most people. He bumped a cricket against her snout and she licked it, then bit into it and gobbled it down. She licked her eyes to moisten them and he fed her another cricket, then placed her back in her little home inside his little home and smiled. He stayed with her a while, just watching her, thinking about how cruel life was sometimes, how quickly chaos pounced, never the discriminator. And also how easy it was for the little lizard to love without expectations. So easy to please. So true about her motives. He wanted that back.

Fist put one foot in front of the other, up the stairs, his buzz winding down and nerves rattled because he didn’t want another fight with Karen. He knew she didn’t like him drinking because it brought out his sharp edges, made his kindness evaporate, made him more like his father. But he wasn’t feeling it tonight. He only wanted to sleep, go to work in the morning, pretend for a little while longer that it all mattered.

The bedroom door was shut. For a moment he considered sleeping on the couch, then decided against it, thinking,
I pay the bills. I bought the goddamn bed
.

He stepped inside, the light so bright it flashed around in his skull, bouncing between his eyes and he heard someone grunting and someone whimpering and it took a moment to get his bearings. He glanced at the bed where two bodies moved, intimate, close, and for a moment he thought he’d stepped into the Twilight Zone, walked back in time to find himself making love to his wife, both of them enjoying it, but no, that wasn’t right. The man in the bed was black and he kept saying, “Say my name. Jesus. Say it.” And Karen tried but a hand held her mouth shut and those hips kept pounding into her and Fist thought,
Here we go. This ain’t so mundane, is it?

But deep inside he was hurting. He loved her, always had, and knew he always would. She wasn’t the problem. He was. He was too normal now, too plain, too
tired
. So she was fucking a dude on the side. So he’d caught them. He didn’t really blame her though he’d wished she would have done it somewhere else. That would have made it a little easier to swallow.

He watched them for a minute more, let his sorrow roar inside him, not sure if he should just leave them to it or go down stairs and grab a butcher knife, the whole time the black guy saying, “Say my name. Jesus. Say it.”

Karen whimpered and that wasn’t something she did when she was enjoying it. At least she hadn’t ever done it with Fist. He approached the bed, wanting to tell the guy to ease up on her, let her have some fun too and quit demanding so much because it was getting old, even for him, an innocent bystander.

Jesus must have heard a floorboard creak. He whipped his head around, met Fist’s gaze, and Fist saw the knife the kid held, the blade pressed up just beneath Karen’s chin. He stopped moving. They all did. Karen had tears in her eyes. He felt them gather in his own. Fist said, “Get out of my bed.”

“What?”

“Get off of my wife, you stupid motherfucker.”

“You know who you’re talking to?” He pulled the blade up, as if to say,
See, I got a knife. I could kill this bitch, kill you too, if I want and there ain’t nothing your rich ass can do about it.

But Fist was done talking. He knew this moment was burned into their lives, there was no erasing it, there was only time to step up to the plate and right what he could for his wife’s sake, and he knew it was impossible to make things better for her, nothing could fix this, and it tore him up. And he just wanted to hold her, tell her that everything would be all right, if the lies helped.

He stepped to the closet. He slid the door open. The kid jumped out of bed, said, “What you doing, man?” The urgency in his voice suggesting that Fist was going for a gun, maybe a nice Benali 12 gauge, something he used to hunt ducks on trips with high-dollar clients.

Jesus grabbed a handful of Karen’s hair and jerked her from the bed, digging the knife into the side of her neck. She trembled, pale and a bit flabby, and though Fist couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her naked, he thought she could easily be a looker in no time if she just went for a walk three times a week. He shook his head and pulled a baseball bat from the closet. He said, “I’m going to crack your skull open no matter what you do, understand? Your brains are going to leak out all over the carpet as we sit on the end of the bed and watch you die.”

Karen sobbed, her eyes clenched shut. She said, “Bethany…”

The rapist licked his lips. He tried menace but it hadn’t done what he’d hoped.

Karen said, “Fist, our daughter…”

He couldn’t hear her, didn’t want to hear her, his heart saying,
No. Not yet. One thing at a time. I’m going to get you away from him then I’ll check on Beth. She’ll be okay. He didn’t hurt her. No one is going to hurt either of you
.

Jesus said, “Put that fucking bat down or I will cut her goddamn head off, you hear me?”

“I can’t stop you,” Fist said, taking two steps toward the bed. He figured he’d have to jump over it to get at him, which was okay, it seemed like he enjoyed that when he was a kid, the propulsion you could get from a mattress. He wondered what his parents would say about him killing Jesus. If they’d hate him, think it damned his soul. He shrugged, figured it didn’t matter since nothing he did ever earned their respect.

Blood slicked Karen’s thighs. Fist wiped his tears away. Something primal grew in a dark patch behind his eyes. He saw blood. A lot of blood. He heard Jesus plea. A lot of pleas. Fist said, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” to Jesus, nodding at him, encouraging him to join in, “I will fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Though men bludgeon me. Though the wind rips at my skin and the heater in the car is broke and the blizzard came in suddenly, right? I’m not scared. You’re my guide. You guide my rock hard hand…”

“Shut up,” Jesus said. “Stop moving!”

But Fist couldn’t stop moving, even though he saw the knife digging deeper into Karen’s neck, disappearing inside her flesh, inch by awful inch, and the tears in his eyes were powerful, they were truth that he could feel, and he wanted to embrace everyone, say,
See this is it. This is what we have to live by
.

And a part of him hated himself because he thought this was better for her, to die here and now, than have to learn to live again because there was no way she’d feel safe, no way she’d be able to trust anyone no matter how much he was there for her.

He said, “The shadow at the door only lingers so long.”

Jesus glanced at the door, confused, the corded muscles in his forearm shiny with sweat. He said, “You’re making me kill her. You’re doing it. Stop, man. Back off.”

“There is no backing off,” Fist said. “It’s too late for that.”

He leapt on the mattress, sprang forward, watched the knife pull free and he dove through a spray of hot arterial blood that nearly blinded him, swinging the bat, thinking he had to connect with something, crush his pain, Karen’s pain, the pain of the world.

His spine hurt as he landed, twisted on his side, the wind knocked out of him. Jesus’ bare ass was halfway out the window, and Karen tried to hold her hand over the wound in her neck but her eyelids fluttered, lips moved soundlessly, and he crawled to her, said, “It’s okay, babe. I got you,” moving her hand and holding his palm flat to her neck.

He glanced at the phone on the nightstand but couldn’t hold her and reach it too. He yelled, “Bethany,” waited for her to come running in, knowing that she should never have to see this, no one, especially not a little eight-year-old girl who has no idea how hard life can be, should have to see this, but he needs her to dial 911, needs her to help save her mommy…

But she doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t come.

Karen shudders in his arms.

He holds her and cries until the warmth she once possessed has nearly vanished.

He lays her on the bed and looks at the open window, then the open door, then the phone. Somehow they’re all connected but he can’t figure out why. He looks at the bed again. He pulls a sheet over his wife.

Somewhere in the house a clock is ticking.

He takes a deep breath, tries not to imagine his baby’s room covered in blood.

He wants to look out the window and see Jesus down there, smiling up at him, so that he can drive his hand through that horrible face, but he knows the man is long gone.

The clock keeps ticking.

He opens the closet, puts the baseball bat away. There is a gun on the top shelf. He was afraid he wouldn’t have had time to get it before, but he pulls it down now, fingers fumbling the keys until he has the case unlocked. He looks at Karen again. He kisses her forehead, sobs, “I’m sorry,” then walks into the hall. His daughter’s room is down on the right. The door is open. The room is dark. She never needed a nightlight. He can’t hear her breathing. He stands at the threshold and tries to pierce the gloom with the light of a good father, but it’s not enough. He thinks he should hit the light switch, but doesn’t have the strength. He’s not that tough anymore.

Squeezing the pistol he steps inside. He sits on her bed, whispers, “Honey,” as he reaches out. She still doesn’t answer, and she always answers her daddy. He sobs again, thinks,
Why?

When he finds the strength to flip on the light by the door, the first things he sees are her open eyes, her pajama pants pulled around her ankles, the bruises on her throat.

He turns quickly and vomits in the hall. He sits shaking in the threshold. He wants to cradle Bethany but all he can manage to do is pull her pants up and close her eyes, find some of Karen’s foundation in her purse and try to hide the bruises on her neck. But they’re not hidden.

When he returns to the room he thinks he sees Jesus jumping naked out the window again but it’s only a phantom mocking him. He wipes his eyes. The clock ticks. He’s never felt this hollow or this much rage. He sees crumpled clothing by the foot of the bed. A pair of black jeans. A black T-shirt. He cocks his head. Fist lifts the pants from the floor, rifles through the pockets, his wife’s corpse watching him from the bed. His fingers close over a wallet. He withdraws it and looks at Jesus’ face, at his address, letting them burn into his memory. He pulls the loose cash out and stuffs it in his pocket, thinking that Jesus owes him that at least. He can pay for the gas Fist will use to hunt him down. He realizes he still has his tie on, that he is covered in blood, that in the last ten minutes he’s touched both Karen and Bethany’s cold bodies. He brushes his wife’s hair back from her forehead and kisses her. After he pulls her robe on her, he picks her up, and says, “It’s going to be okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you guys. I won’t. I won’t.”