Shhh, said Max. He flung a glance over his shoulder. Don’t talk about that here.
No one’s even listening, said Pan. Don’t be a paranoid.
It was true. The cafeteria contained few others. After prayer, most students had taken their lunch outside to the swings or front steps or dugouts or into the beds of their trucks. But they were not wholly alone. A cluster of girls still crowded the vending machine. Diet Sprite Diet Dr Pepper Diet Cola? Girls hear all things, thought Max. A boy hunched over a textbook at the far end of the table furiously dipping his bitten burger into BBQ sauce, out of earshot—or was he?
Pan should not test the line. Walk back away from the line.
It’s hypocritical, said Pan. Meat is murderous.
It’s not that he’d never thought of it. Sometimes biting into a chicken thigh felt exactly how it sounded, and he’d have a tough time swallowing. He visualized the animal turning into life between his teeth.
The flesh.
I need to get enough protein, he said. I am an athlete.
Protein, said Pan. Human beans baffle me. It’s just crazy considering how much you care about dead things and tiny animals.
Can you please stop talking about this? Max asked. Please.
Pan stuck two fries under his upper lip and made them into fangs with which he hissed.
I bet Jesus wouldn’t eat meat. He was a pacifist, you know, said Pan. Not a murderer. Stick that in your Christian pipe and smoke it.
Billie entered through the same double doors Pan just had, but her arrival exuded a calmness that Pan did not possess. She walked up to Pan and put an arm around his waist. She rested her purple hair on his shoulder and nuzzled him like she was an actual cat. Or maybe Pan was the cat. The makeup on her face made the makeup on his look strange. Her tasteful touch of mascara. Her barest hint of blush. The thinnest layer of gloss across her bottom lip. Next to her, Pan’s features were a right angle, obvious and hard.
Ready? she said.
Totes, said Pan.
Hey, she said to Max, throwing him a peace sign.
Don’t worry, Germany. We’ll get you a girl, too.
Where you guys going? Max asked. His hands sat limp and awkward on the table. He couldn’t think of a single thing to do with them. Open, close. Slide off the table onto the lap.
None of your biz-nasty, said Pan.
We’re working on book reports, said Billie. In the library. Want to come?
Girl, said Pan. He busy.
Lunch plans. Max shrugged. Knox will be joining me any minute. But have fun.
Doesn’t he sound like a Nazi? said Pan to Billie.
Pan, she said. She laughed. Quit it. You’re mean.
Doesn’t he!
HELLO, SIR, THIS IS MAX calling from the Judge’s headquarters in Delilah. How are you doing this day? Is this a good time to call, sir?
Who is it?
My name is Max, sir.
Why do you sound like that? Funny like that. You from around here?
No, sir. I come out of Germany. But I do live here—
Why are you calling me from Germany?
I’m calling for the Judge, sir. His campaign. How are you today?
I been better. My doc’s telling me the arteries in the left side of my neck are all clogged out. They’re going to operate. And my daughter’s late to change my shit bag. Everyone’s late these days. Can’t count on no one. World’s going to all hell.
I’m sorry to hear that, sir.
Damn right you’re sorry.
Are you planning to vote in the upcoming election, sir? We hope you will consider voting for—
Dial tone.
YOU CANNOT SPEAK OPEN AND in public about my power at school, said Max.
No one heard, said Pan.
That’s not the point. They could have heard. That is the point I make.
Okay, said Pan. I get it. You’re like a broken record.
A what?
Scout’s honor, said Pan. He held up two fingers. No more slippage on the subject.
Pan parked the car at the edge of the old downtown strip. The crumbling façade of an abandoned brick building loomed before them. Kudzu crawled up its side. Moss covered the skeleton of a once used train track. The slabs of a burned-down boarding school sat squat in the grass.
They walked beneath a bridge grown over with wildflowers. The flowers smelled like semen. Pan was leading Max toward the rundown shed he’d dubbed the Witch’s House, where he planned to conduct his next psychic experiment. Max reached out for Pan’s hand. He placed his thumb over the word LIFE.
Lorne’s grandma had a house there, said Pan. He pointed their entwined hands to a road that curved toward a quaint, out-of-place strip with a pottery shop and a café called Shakespeare.
We used to explore around here when we were young, Pan said. One day we found this old shed. It looked like someone had been living in it. Every time we went to look at it, something was different. Like maybe there’d be a table set on the floor or a candle burning on the sill. Once the word hello had been written in hot pink paint on the side. The paint was still wet, like someone had done it just for us. Known we were coming. Lorne and I just took off running. We never went back after that.
Max rolled his shoulders at the mention of Lorne’s name. Pan shrugged, lit a cigarette, and Max let his hand be drawn toward Pan’s lips.
Ten minutes of walking took them to the shed. It was small and house-shaped. A person probably slept there at night.
There’s still ghosts here, said Pan. I’m shivering. It’s like there’s a cold spot right here. You feel that?
Max shook his head. He didn’t. It was hot as hell. October had arrived but still, it was hot as hell.
Pan opened the door to the shed and a mouse shot out. Pan shrieked and grabbed the green door to steady himself. Max peered over Pan’s shoulder. A lace of a cobweb had strung itself from ceiling to side window. Dust collected on the floor. A few ancient, molded newspapers, a rake. A cracked open can of Coors Light.
Max stepped back while Pan prepared for his psychic reading in front of the door. Songbirds watched from the pines. Smoke left a chimney in the distance and disappeared. Clouds assembled. The wind moved the branches. The sun was at a mean, straight-at-you angle.
Pan raised his arms. The dry hinges of his elbows faced Max. Pan flung his head back and opened his chest like he wanted something to enter it.
A group of women were killed here, he said.
Really? Max asked. How do you know?
Shh, he said. There’s a lot of them and they’re speaking to me.
You’re hearing something? Max asked him, not believing but finding it fun to pretend. Like they talk to you or something?
Shh, Pan said. His voice stretched out. I’m asking the energy to imprint on me, so I can read its vibrations psychically. I want it to enter through the tingling at the crown of my head.
Max walked toward the clearing and stood in the middle of it. He couldn’t watch Pan fail at this. Pan had no power, and Max knew it.
Every town got a witch.
That up there is ours.
Wait, Pan said. Now I do hear something. He cupped his ear. A voice. A singing. There was a fight here. Yep. A bad brawl. I hear the screaming. The women were scared. Oh no. Oh, were they scared.
Max tried to feel it, too, the energy that people left behind. But he didn’t feel it. He watched the auburn light soften into the red dirt around him. Now, here was beauty. A sweetness was in the air. The center of a flower. The trees thrummed up from the earth like they wanted to be climbed. It would feel good to let his legs loose and go somewhere.
Damnit, Pan screamed. Pan’s boot hit the side of the shed. Again. Boot to shed. Boot to shed. Bootshed. Splintered into hole. Pan took the Coors Light can and punted it.
Max froze. He’d never seen Pan so upset—or anyone, for that matter. Pan ripped at his own shirt, tore the collar with his teeth. He took his hand and slapped his own face. Then
hurled himself onto the ground and went limp. His back heaved.
Max approached him. Bent over.
You okay?
Fuck, Pan whispered into the crook of his elbow. He turned onto his back and flung an arm over his eyes. Can’t you use your powers and try to bring those women back to life? Then we can ask them what happened here?
I don’t think that is how it can work, said Max.
Fuck! said Pan. You’re not willing to try anything.
Pan kicked his leg up and brought his heel down into the dirt. He cursed again, and Max stepped back.
After a few moments, Pan’s breathing calmed.
I suck at this, said Pan. I got nothing. I didn’t see anything really. I read it all on the internet. They said there was a shed in the woods that had been built over the site of a massacre. I have no idea if this is the place or not. I don’t know anything.
Maybe you need juice or something? For the blood sugar?
I’m okay. I’m fine. It’s over.
The tantrum had mellowed his eyes.
You don’t look okay, said Max.
Max rubbed his back. The small bones rose and fell with his breathing. Max wanted to take care of him. Pan needed him, and Max liked how being needed felt.
Why don’t you use your power for anything? asked Pan. If I had your power, I’d try to change the world. I’d use it for good. If I could do only five percent of what you can, I’d start a cult and move to the rain forest. I’d make my own police force and patrol the streets. I’d alter the course of science. There are a million things I would do with it. But you aren’t doing anything! You’re just sitting around eating stupid chicken wings and drowning yourself in sugar and playing stupid football.
I don’t want it, said Max, trying to sound gentle.
Pan was quiet for a moment.
If I could give it to you, I would give it, said Max. I hate it. I never asked for it.
You’re ungrateful, said Pan.
He thinks he’s a princess.
It is too much. I wish I could go back to before I had it and never touch the mouse. I want only to feel normal. I am the wrong person for this maybe.
You could do so much good, said Pan. I would do so much good. Good is better than normal.
After I use it, it’s like everything drains straight out of me. My happiness plummets and I feel like I want to die. Then I have to do it again to feel normal. The cycle does not ever end. It exhausts me. It makes me feel I have no control.
Pan shook his head.
You could make everything right, said Pan. You’re a waste.
He brushed Max’s hand from his back. Then he stood on his knees and let himself face-plant right into the ground.
Mouth to the dirt, he said: I surrender.
They made out in the shed before leaving. Max held Pan’s shoulders against the plywood, and they covered their noses with their shirts because of the smell, and they blinked into the particles that floated toward them from the busted window. This was when Max felt most alive, when there was nothing between them, when they breathed in and out of each other.
Max tried to forget the look in Pan’s eyes as they walked back to the car. A soft tantrum blue. The anger left as quick as it came.
You’re a waste.
You’reawaste.
CHURCH: MAX WOULD FINALLY EXPERIENCE IT. He wanted to feel like he had that day in the Judge’s car with the man’s holy hand hovering over him. The electricity of the language they had spoken had made his forehead vibrate. Max longed to steep in the vibration again.
He woke early on the day of his first service. He rinsed his hair under the sink, slapped his cheeks with lotion that smelled like chemical pine trees. He unhung a clean polo shirt and positioned it on the bed above a pair of khakis. There was the shape of him, clothes with no body in them. Max turned to the full-length mirror behind his door. He was tanner than he’d ever been, and he admired what the sun had done. It burned him until he glowed. Football had changed him. Left eye puffy. His chest had thickened with new bulk, arms notched now. He loved the new weight. He liked what hung between his legs, too, and he cupped it in his own hand just how Pan had done. He humped at the air and made a face at himself, hands behind his head with his elbow wings out.
I’m a statue, he muttered. A statue and you like it.
His mother and father slid glances across the kitchen table when he emerged from the living room in his church uniform. His father picked up his coffee and blew at it. His mother cleared her throat and asked Max if he wanted toast.
I hardly recognize you, son, his father said.
Yes, sir, said Max. I feel good.
Don’t call him, sir, said his mother. That’s your father, not an army general.
Just think about this church thing like anthropology, his father said. Like exploring how other people live.
Of course, that’s how he will think about it, said his mother.
Why are you worried about me trying to fit in? said Max. We’re here because it’s what you wanted.
I’m not worried, said his father. I’m not the one who’s worried.
Maybe you should get a little more worried, his mother said.
In Germany, his family had visited churches during summer holidays. His father wanted to stand gob-smacked before the fact of history. It was what tourists did. The architecture was a work of art: something to admire, a thing to encounter, a monument to walk through. Max had seen catacombs in Italy, cathedrals on the coast of Spain, altarpieces in Bruges. He had stepped through marble interiors with his voice dialed low. He had observed light linger on dyed red windows and people on their knees in the silence, in a world carved from copper and stone. He had taken leaflets laid out by the entries and held them in his hands as he moved. He had touched a knob of incense to candles and meditated on a thought. He had run his eyes over the crosses carved into granite interiors but never had he tried to talk to God. His father would point out the details like how the feet of Jesus had been rubbed away; how his toes had been eroded to shiny nubs by something as simple as a repeated touch. His mother had said: Do you feel the energy? This is the power of thought. They want God to be here so badly they make it so.
The football boys worshipped in modern palaces, nothing like the European basilicas with their spires, clerestory windows, and engraved façades.
It’s not like I’m going to some cult, Max said. I’m going to church.
When you say it like that, said his mother, it sounds like you’re joining a cult.
His father turned his face to his toast and began to butter it.
He said: I’m not saying it’s a cult. I’m saying be careful.
Ha, his mother said.
Max sipped his orange juice. Acid from the fruit sizzled in his stomach. Davis rang the bell.
CHURCH TOOK place in an old movie theater. The seats ascended and a thick velvet red curtain suspended in a scroll above the stage. A kind of kinetic spark kicked around the walls. Max felt it, a buzz gathering force and moving through the aisles like a flame collecting power as it goes. On the stage, a live band played rock music. The lead singer held his guitar in front of his cowboy shirt and baggy Wrangler jeans. He placed beautiful sounds into the microphone. Everyone knew the words to his songs by heart. They were catchy as pop songs, but they were about God’s love. They made Max want to pump his hips forward and back. Side to side. They made him want to arch his back. The people in the row in front of him lifted their hands to the ceiling. The music moved through them. So good. So catchy. So nothing like anything he’d heard. It made him want to raise his arms, too. In the aisle the boys swayed. Beside him, Davis beat his chest.
Max stared at the back of the Judge’s head a few pews up. Hatless for once and exposing his white hair, a puff of snow. Lorne sulked beside him. The Judge whispered in his wife’s ear, then glanced over his shoulder. He looked right at Max as if he had known he was there all along. Max shifted in his seat and flinched his mouth into som
ething he hoped didn’t look scared. He waved. Pan was wrong, Max thought. I can be two things at once. I can be everything I ever wanted.
In the middle of the next song, a man burst from the pew and fell into the aisle. He began to shake while he sung. He lay his face in the carpet and began to drag himself toward the altar. The sounds that came from the man’s mouth were familiar. Max recognized it as a prayer language like the one spoken in the Judge’s car. Max watched the man stop crawling and go still. He turned over to his back. He convulsed on the floor right there. Having a seizure, Max thought. The Judge rose and walked into the aisle and bent down beside him.
It is all right, Davis told Max. He’s all right. Everyone’s fine. Just listen to the music. Just dance. Just let God do his work.
The spectacle of the man shaking on the floor disturbed Max, but he couldn’t stop looking. The Judge swirled his hands in circles above the man’s rib cage as if he could shine something from his body, polish him. Then the man stopped shaking. The Judge helped him up, and they rocked together in a half-standing, half-bent position. The Judge pulled a flask from his jacket pocket, water maybe, and the man lifted it to his lips. After drinking, the man’s knees buckled. The Judge caught him. The man’s mouth frothed.
Lorne stood beside his father with his head bent. The music played. People still sang. The man hugged the Judge and buried his face in the Judge’s shoulder. When he stepped back, the man seemed better. The song ended.
During the sermon, the preacher stood at the pulpit and gripped its edges. The words he said didn’t mean much to Max. He used a salt metaphor. Called the congregation the salt of the earth. He asked them what would happen if they lost their saltiness. How could they be made salty again?
The preacher asked if anyone wanted to come forward to get saved. All they had to do was accept the Lord Jesus. The boys of the congregation were already saved. Davis’s gaze moved to Max. Warm eyes on his neck. Warm eyes on his chest. Max remained seated. Maybe if it was the Judge and not the preacher who had asked, his answer would have been different. Out of the corner of his eye, Max spotted Quaid walking the edge of the theater. He wore that same leather jacket. The same lustrous hair hung from his head. Quaid looked out of place and perfectly at home. Was Quaid walking up to get saved? No. He sat down in the pew.
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