Where does your momma keep the hot sauce, boy? Quaid asked Pan.
A stretched shirt hung from Quaid’s shoulders. His slender frame was emphasized by his huge elbows and the swollen balls of knuckles he popped on his hands. A chain necklace with a copper cross was fastened just above his jugular notch. Something frightened Max about the way he fiddled with it like he might snap it off. The kitchen didn’t feel big enough for the three of them.
Beats me, Pan said. I’m not a chef. Zip me up, Max.
Max moved the metal tab to the base of Pan’s neck. He could almost see the orange-edged aura vibrating off Pan’s body. He felt Quaid’s stare and looked up to meet it.
Y’all cute for faggots, said Quaid. Pan, give your uncle a ciggy. My head’s about to burst open, and you’re fixing to see my brain ooze right out my ears if you don’t share.
Max lifted his chin at the word faggot. He felt like he’d been spit on. Shame, his mother had told him once, was something done to you. No one was born with it. Did Pan not feel it? Max wondered. Was Pan somehow immune to the shame?
This is my last one, Pan said to Quaid. He tapped the cigarette perched behind his ear. We’re fixing to get more. So, you’ll have to wait. Want me to get you some Twizzlers or something while I’m out?
I’m off the sugar, sugar. Doc’s orders.
The stippled bacon hissed in the skillet.
But I’m so damn famished I could eat a hog alive, said Quaid. I’d eat a damn brain raw from the skull. Swear to heaven.
Murderer, Pan said to him. He clucked his tongue.
Don’t ever call me that again, you little shit, said Quaid, kicking out his hip and standing with a balled-up fist shoved against his heart. I am not a murderer and you know it.
Don’t twist your panties, said Pan.
Sweat leaked down Quaid’s temples. He raised his hand to wipe his brow and left a skid of bacon grease to glow on his forehead. As Max watched Quaid sweat, he began to sweat, too.
Max wanted to leave. He stuck his hands deep into the pockets of his khaki pants and tried to make his chest bigger. What was he afraid of anyway? Max wasn’t sure. After all, he was bigger than Quaid, inches taller, many centimeters thicker in the biceps, though something inside Quaid seemed enormous and unpredictable. Pan took his time moving around the kitchen.
I’m trying to find my truth stone before we go, said Pan, as he searched for the leather clutch that held his crystals and charms.
Pan finally opened the drawer to the kitchen knives and discovered his clutch.
Almost ready, Sarah, Pan said.
Max walked toward the door.
Saw you at church, boy, said Quaid.
What, Max said.
Church. You were there. I saw. You like the music? Nice isn’t it? Like a big ole hug right for your heart. Like a rock show. That’s how they get you. Feels like pop, don’t it?
Well, Lordy, continued Quaid. Speak up now.
I liked the music, yes, said Max.
He speaks, Quaid said. He speaks.
This cracked Quaid up, and he bent over in a fit of hysterics. Then he righted himself and smoothed down his hair with the fingers he had. Each nail bed was lined in a black grit.
That Judge sure has a thing for faggots, said Quaid. Pardon my français. He’s my baby Pan’s sugar daddy, isn’t that right? You can thank your Uncle Quaid for that, son. You are so welcome.
The word faggot made Max shift again. His fists balled without meaning to.
Quaid picked up a white cowboy hat from the table and placed it on his head. The hat infused him with a kind of nobility. It looked like the one the Judge wore. Their sudden similarity struck Max, as if Quaid could be the Judge on another road, in another life.
Pan finished tying his clutch of charms around his neck.
Let’s go, he said.
He wants to show you the light, boy, said Quaid. And the light, let me tell you, it can be beautiful. It can shine brighter than anything you’ve ever seen. I’ve seen the light, and the light is glorious. You been out to camp yet? Have you given it up to God?
Camp? Max said. You mean campaign rallies?
Oh, sure, son, a campaign rally. That’ll set you free. That’ll unshackle you.
The way he said son felt familiar.
C’mon, said Pan.
Bacon, bacon, bringinghometheback, Quaid muttered to the skillet.
Outside, Max could breathe again. The tied-up dog slept in the neighbor’s yard under the nailed-up flag. Its legs moved like it was running in its dream.
You went to church? said Pan. You’re a piece of work. You’re keeping that from me? Why?
Pan rubbed at his arms.
Yes, Max said. I did go. I wanted to see.
Pan scoffed, but Max knew there was nothing he would do.
What does Quaid mean sugar daddy? said Max.
He means that the Judge pays my tuition at God’s Way.
Max stopped walking.
He what? Why would he do that?
The red road unthreaded before them. It would soon turn into a gray road, parched and dusty, pebbles strewn along the loose top of it. October had brought most of the foliage to the ground, but some leaves still clung onto the branches and stayed there. Beneath the branches, kudzu climbed the trees as if to strangle them. The unmowed field to their right butted up against a scrawny, unkempt forest and its scrim of endless woods. To the left, wheat stalks shuddered amid pale grass and bushes grew round waxy leaves.
He would do that, said Pan, because he cares about Quaid, and Quaid is my uncle so he has to, in some twisted way, care about me. Or that’s how the story goes. For the real story, you must dig deeper.
I would like the real story, said Max.
Pan started to walk again. Max hoped Pan would reach for his hand.
No shit, said Pan.
Will you tell me?
The Judge thinks that if he can keep Quaid subdued, keep his nephew—that’s moi—in school, that Quaid will keep his secrets and protect him.
Pan cupped his hand around his last Virginia Slim and lit it.
That’s where you’ll end up if you stay with the Judge, said Pan. Blackmailed and brain-dead.
I am not follow, said Max.
They were headed for a gas station a mile away that was owned by a man named Josef who let Pan buy cigarettes and wine coolers. Max wished he could enjoy this rare moment of being able to walk anywhere, but he couldn’t. An eeriness had settled in the silence around them. Behind the silence was the ambient crick of crickets. The occasional rustle of a rodent. The cry of a frog in a creek. A pinecone plummeting into a nest of needles. Pan’s hand hung by his hip. Max reached out to hold it. Pan squeezed him and then pulled away.
Not here, honey, he said.
Max nodded, Yeah. Of course.
Quaid’s drunk poison for years, said Pan. But he drank too much finally. Now his brain is gone, and the Judge can’t trust him. He is no longer stable or sane. The Judge thinks he needs to be monitored.
What is poison having to do with this? asked Max.
Max worried his tongue over a rough chap on his lip. He didn’t want Quaid to know a thing about him.
I have to tell you something now, said Pan.
You haven’t told Quaid about my powers? interrupted Max. The thought seeded in his stomach. He felt sick. He might vomit. Have you? Please, if you have, tell me.
Don’t worry, said Pan. No. I haven’t. What I need to tell you has nothing to do with you. But I do need you to listen. I need to tell you something. I need to tell you about the plan.
Pan took a crystal from the satchel around his neck and heaved it out in front of him. He froze in place with his arms out like that, like he’d been turned to stone, and for a moment, in Max’s mind, they were sealed together like that in the woods, becoming stone statues that stood side by side forever while the forest lived and died with the seasons.
Syndricadaba, Pan said. His face scrunched when he hissed
his word. That’s for the truth, he said. This is the stone of truth.
Pan thrust the pink rock to Max’s face. A deep groove ran through its center like it was meant to be two.
Hold it while I tell you.
You are scaring me out, Max said. You’re scaring me a little.
Kiss it, said Pan. Kiss the truth stone. Kiss and know the truth.
Pan pressed the cold object against Max’s lips. It was the size of an egg. He shoved it into Max’s mouth with such force that it knocked against his teeth. He thought for a moment Pan might push it down his throat.
Ouch, said Max, and he spit the stone into his hands.
I hope you’re going to trust me. Because this here is real doozy woo, said Pan, and though he tried to sound lighthearted, Max could sense Pan’s fear. I always knew the Judge was wicked. Tying up Lorne like that. Speaking hate on whatever stage you give him. But now I have the certainty to bring the wrath upon him. Now I know he’s killed.
Maybe Max could have said don’t tell me. He only wanted to walk to the gas station where the overhead lights buzzed like mosquitoes, and the wall of freezers hummed their cool blue breath onto the slick tiles. He wanted to sit on the curb outside and eat ranch-flavored chips while Pan smoked with his LIFE hand and talked about outer space. He wanted to share a Styrofoam cup of diet cola. He wanted Josef to walk out and stand in front of them, his jeans slung low on his hips, and his mouth moving a mile a minute while the television inside flickered. Josef would tell them how his brother just got a job as a trucker and had seen the entire Southeast, had driven a rig filled with safety pins for seventy-two hours without stopping, living solely on the meat of cashew nuts, candied peppermint, and the hydrating elixir of a vitamin water called IQ.
But Max could not say no. It was the look in Pan’s eye. Scared. Pan looked more unguarded than Max had seen him. His eyes wide and scattering. The rawness of his expression drew an ache in Max. Whatever Pan said was going to put them on a new course. He felt defenseless. He would not leave Pan alone in his feeling. Any wall that had stood between them had been chipped away. Pan could step right into him. He put his index finger to Max’s lips.
I’m talking, said Pan. Mind be still. Quiet your Ping-Pong balls.
Pan tapped his forehead, as if telling Max’s mind to listen.
It sounds crazy, I know, said Pan. But the Judge is making people drink poison to prove they believe in Jesus. And he is watching them die. Letting them die. They’re dying.
A stick snapped in the way back. Max fought the urge to look over his shoulder. They rounded a bend in the road, and Max half expected the Judge to be there. Grand cowboy hat atop his head, arms crossed, conjured from thin air by the invocation of his name. But no Judge stood in the woods anticipating them. There was only a garden snake, whipping across the path far up in front, almost invisible in the night.
Why would he do that? asked Max. Rat magic, said his mind. The shine of the moon. He saw Knox crawling in the grass of the field. Thought of the flask passed around at the river. Not yours yet, Germany.
So he knows he can trust them, said Pan. That’s why he gets them to drink. It’s all about his origin story. He drank poison and saw God. Now he thinks it’s a test. If you have God inside and drink poison, then you get stronger and enlightened. If you don’t have him in you, when you drink, you die.
I cannot even fathom this to be true, said Max.
Now the snake was gone. Now the path held no memory of it. It might never have been there at all.
The Judge is testing people. Seeing if the Holy Spirit is living in them. If they pick up a copperhead and get bitten and die or drink the poison and die, then he knows they aren’t right with God. If they live, they can join his Christian army.
You are nonsense, Max said.
I wish I was, said Pan. But nonsense I am not.
Pan was acting strange. His breath was short and shallow. Pan bent over, hands on his knees, spine arched and tried to catch air. He stood again. He swayed as if he were light-headed. Max placed a hand on Pan’s chest to ground and center him. A trick his mom had done when he was having his nerve attacks in Germany. But Pan stepped away from his hand.
If you can drink poison and not die, Pan said. He pointed at Max. Poked him with each word, smacking the emphasis. REAL. LIFE. That means the Holy Spirit is in you. It’s an old trick. Comes from the Bible. It’s a way of testing one’s faith in the Lord.
Pan looked at Max as though he wanted to extract something from within him. Pan started to speak again, slow and even. The voice of an expert in control of the facts.
The Judge only surrounds himself with people who have the Holy Spirit in them. And he’s a paranoid. Won’t trust anyone. So, he tests them first. Plain as that.
With poison? asked Max.
Where do you think Quaid’s fingers went? I told you. Taken off by the mouth of copperhead.
Stop, said Max, forcing himself to laugh. This is crazy talking.
But Pan wouldn’t stop.
Max thought, Some kind of rat magic.
Pan told Max how the Judge and Quaid had grown up together. Quaid had been with the Judge the night he went missing and fell from the cliff. The others had given up and gone home, but Quaid had searched for the Judge all night and for days after. He didn’t stop searching until the Judge had driven back to town, safe and sound. Quaid’s love and loyalty had moved the Judge. That kind of loyalty was not something he would ever forget. The Judge had always been open about his conversion story. He told it when he ran for district attorney and later for his judicial position. What he did not tell people was that he still drank poison. He had with him a small circle of men. Their secret congregation was built on the idea that you had to radically trust in the love of God and give yourself over to him entirely or else perish with the sin of the world. You had to test yourself and others by walking to the edge of death. If God kept you safe, it was because you trusted him. It was because you really believed. If he did not keep you safe, it was a sign that you had let the devil in.
Are you listening to me? said Pan. He looked scared. His shoulders were up by his ears, making his body seem smaller. Are you listening?
Yes, said Max.
The wages of sin is death.
Pan said he and Lorne used to go with the Judge and Quaid to the services—not normal Sunday services like Max had attended but nighttime ones behind the Judge’s lake house. Lorne and Pan would sit in the back and play Pogs. They were too young to drink the poison then, but they had been baptized in the black water and saved and one day they would be asked to drink, too. They would watch the men lift the jugs to their lips, dance with water moccasins on their shoulders. When the Judge began to run for office, they had to become careful about those meetings because they knew it could scare people. And then Quaid began to lose his mind, slowly at first and then fast, and the Judge took it as a sign of his moral deterioration and began to distance himself. The distance nearly killed Quaid. Sent him further into madness. Then the Judge had his vision of Pan and Lorne and banned them from seeing each other, but still the Judge paid for Pan’s education as a gesture of his love for Quaid. Though Quaid could no longer be trusted, he could still be loved.
You have lost it, said Max. Sounds like you are the one who has lost it.
Max saw a tantrum gathering speed. But Pan remained calm, a reed blowing gently in the wind. He breathed in his Virginia Slim. Smoke swirled around his yellow crooked teeth as he talked.
I am not allowed to go to the services anymore, and neither is Quaid on account of his deterioration. But he snuck out to one of the gatherings recently, and he told me something.
You are not very right in your head, said Max. That’s what you aren’t.
Pan flinched when Max said that, and Max told himself, Be nicer.
Last month, when Quaid went, he said the lake house was filled with doctors, lawyers, business owners, all these powerful people, said Pan. People who would have never com
e to join the lake before, not before the Judge became someone with power. Quaid said some of the men were wearing masks or hoods over their faces. It was three times larger than he’d ever seen it. The man who owns the biggest used car lot in town walked to the front of the barn and drank a whole bottle of rat poison. Quaid said the man just froze and his muscles went stiff. They dragged him away to the corner and the Judge prayed over him. He raised up his hands, spoke in Judge-tongue, set crosses on his body. Then he proclaimed that the man was not a believer and dead.
Serious? said Max.
And guess what? said Pan. The next day the TV said that this same man died of a brain aneurysm. You know what this means? The Judge is poisoning people, and it’s covered up for him. Doctors are covering it up. Doctors are on his side. The whole damn state. You get poison! You get poison! You get poison!
Pan pointed to the trees around them, shrieking off his proclamation.
Yougetpoison!
Then go tell the police, said Max. If it’s real like you say.
I mean people used to die once in a blue moon, but now Quaid says they’re dropping like flies.
Max pushed back the memory of the man falling over in the aisle talking nonsense with his eyes rolled back in his skull. Mouth froth. Quaid had drifted through the Sunday crowd. Quaid had fit in so well Max couldn’t find him. The cowboy hat and the cross. Max didn’t know what to believe.
Fear was what he should feel, but fear toward what, he didn’t know. Fear toward Pan who understood so much about him, who might even love him, and who seemed like a broken door slamming against its own hinges? Fear toward the powerful Judge his mother hated but whose presence could captivate a room, a city, a state? Fear at the God in the sky who might be there, might not? Fear at the sin inside of him?
Pan touched Max’s forearm.
Will you help me? Please.
Max wanted to say no. He would not help because there was nothing to help, because Pan had made up a story and the story was not real. There it was pulsing two-lettered in his brain. N-O. But how could he not help him? Pan had set up this choice and made it impossible to turn away. He did it on purpose. He wanted to make him choose.
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