The hobo bobs his head in rhythm with the music in the jeep.
“Turn that shit up!” the hobo shouts.
We laugh and cheer and then crank up the music, and for a moment an awesome, pure hope pumps through me, that the wedding is actually going to be saved. Jenna sent me a selfie of her pouting in a bathtub, asking if we’ve found a sponsor yet. I send her back a bouquet of heart emojis, promising we’ll have a new sponsor locked by midnight.
Dusk is falling as the jeep coasts into Simon’s neighborhood, a block of urban palaces whose stoops are flanked by soaring pillars. We all go quiet. The stereo is off. Stars glimmer above his driveway as his gate swings apart to let the jeep pass. Water burbles from a tiled fountain. The willow trees are becoming silhouettes. His convertible is sponsored by Rolex® and Chanel®. His mansion is sponsored by Facebook® and Google®.
“Shit, man, he didn’t tell me he was living like this,” Alejandro says, glancing from the convertible to the mansion with a look of awe.
Ty rings the doorbell as we cluster around each other nervously on the porch.
Simon’s wife is a cadaverous brunette with a foreign accent, hauling apart the doors wearing nothing but a cucumber mask and a silk kimono. She must have known we were coming, because she never asks who we are, just greets us and leads us past a grand carpeted staircase into a wallpapered hallway lit only by the moonlight streaming through the latticed windowpanes. Music like a meditation soundtrack plays over hidden speakers. A bamboo flute. Some ringing gongs. On the walls hang monstrous landscape paintings, each caked so thick with oil that the surface has a visible texture. Between the windows stand figurative marble sculptures, each contorted into a posture so grotesque that the stones have palpable emotions. The rugs are as plush as sod. I feel out of place in a tank top and khaki shorts, flip-flops flapping on the floor.
She drops us at the doorway to a wood-paneled office where a Tiffany® lamp smolders next to an Apple® laptop glowing on a desk. Simon sits in a claw-footed chair, drinking wine from a crystal goblet, wearing a black tunic over black slacks. He cut the floppy ponytail that he always had when we were younger and now has wavy moussed hair parted at the side, but aside from that and some crow’s-feet wrinkles, he looks exactly the same as he looked as a kid, pale and gaunt with light gray eyes and a freakishly weak chin. Above the desk colorful video clips from his life stream across a screen in a golden frame. He graduated from both Microsoft® Harvard and Amazon® Princeton. He’s gambled at Bellagio presented by Mastercard®, skied at Vail presented by Swarovski®, and glamped in the Best Buy® Grand Canyon, the ConocoPhillips® Smokies, and the ExxonMobil® Everglades. His wedding was sponsored by Disney®, with hot-air balloons, horse-drawn carriages, and complimentary stained-glass slippers presented by The Magic Kingdom™. Seeing images from his wedding, him and his wife exchanging vows under blooming wisteria in a grove of blinking fireflies, him and his wife feeding each other dollops of frosting from a towering gold-leaf cake, immediately makes me think of Jenna. She’s counting on me. This has to work.
“Simon, bro, it’s great to see you,” says Ty, who always loves everybody, especially anybody from the block, and sounds genuinely excited. “What a place. I’m lovin’ it. So you sponsor weddings at Barbie?”
“Sure, we do weddings,” Simon says.
He’s staring at me with an expression of loathing.
He hasn’t forgotten the incident with the zucchini.
This isn’t going to work.
“Brock here is getting married next month, like we mentioned,” Alejandro says.
“Best man,” Ty waves, grinning proudly.
“And out of nowhere, the headline sponsor just fell through,” Alejandro says.
“Braden, Parker, please don’t touch that, it’s very expensive,” Simon snaps without glancing away from me. Looking guilty, Braden and Parker set an ancient-looking dagger back into a wooden stand on the bookcase.
Alejandro hesitates. “Anyway, we thought maybe you could help him out, you know, him being from the block and all.”
Simon nods with a neutral expression.
Tentatively, I hold out the fluorescent binder. “I’ve got the headshots, the guest list, the average income, all of that.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Simon says.
“Oh.” I lower the wedding paperwork, feeling confused.
Simon faintly smiles.
“Brock, do you remember that random pole in the sidewalk at the corner of the street?”
“Yeah?”
“I always wondered, why did each of you always slap the pole when you went by?”
I glance at the others.
“Um, just a tradition?” I say.
Simon folds his hands together in his lap.
“It makes me emotional seeing that all of you are still friends,” Simon murmurs.
He turns to gaze at the moon out the window, the light of the lamp shining across his moussed hair, with a faraway quality to his voice suddenly.
“I went back to the block earlier this summer,” Simon says. “Stayed with my mother for the weekend, showering in my old bathroom, sleeping in my childhood bed. It was strange being back. The way the neighborhood has changed. The cars. The houses. I didn’t even recognize most the people living there. My mother said something during the trip that stayed with me, though. That the most important thing in life is integrity. You have to stay true to who you are. You always have to honor where you come from. That’s what she said.”
I frown.
“Wait, so you’ll help me?” I say.
He blinks at the moon without turning from the window, his voice taking on a sudden eager intensity, the light of the lamp sparkling in his gray eyes.
“I always wanted to be friends with you,” Simon says. “All of you. I used to watch you, hanging out together, playing basketball at the park. I knew that none of you were like me, but still, I used to fantasize about us becoming friends somehow. Everything that I did alone, I’d imagine us doing together. Reading tarot in the bathroom at school. Making poppets from twigs and shoelaces. Drawing sigils on sidewalks and trees. Ouija in the graveyard. You were always the ones I pictured. You’ve always been special to me in that way.”
I squint.
“So, then you’ll help me?” I say.
Simon glances at me.
“I’ll help you,” Simon says, “if, and only if, you do a ritual with me, taking a vow swearing your eternal devotion to the devil.”
I’m speechless.
“Simon, that’s pretty fucked up,” Ty says, sounding genuinely scandalized.
Simon looks at him. “Wouldn’t you agree something ‘pretty fucked up’ once happened to me?”
“He means the incident with the zucchini,” Alejandro whispers.
“Brock, that was messed up,” Braden says.
“You have to admit, bro,” Parker says.
“I thought that wasn’t my fault?” I hiss.
“Anyway, devil worship is a perfectly valid religion,” Simon says, rising gracefully from the claw-footed chair.
“I’m not going to do any creepy rituals with you,” I say.
“If you want a sponsor you’re going to have to,” Simon says.
I grimace.
Ty thinks, scowls, and then says, “Brock, it’s Barbie.”
Simon leads us through a carved wooden door, down rough concrete steps, and into a wine cellar lined with racks of corked bottles sealed with wax. The air down there has a chill, but then at the end of the wine cellar he takes us through a locked door with no knob or handle, only a keyhole, and we’re hit by a warm breeze. We step into a hot dark chamber the size of a locker-room shower. Rippled black candles with charred wicks are arranged in a circle on the floor around a pentagram painted with white paint. On the far wall, a mildewed chest with rusted latches sits on a decrepit altar. Above the altar hangs a horned skull with gigantic eye sockets and nubby teeth. A skull from a goat. Otherwise the chamber is emp
ty. No windows. No vents. No other doors. My neck and my arms are already slick with sweat from the heat. Simon lights the candles with a book of matches, looking delighted, and then motions for me to kneel in the pentagram. I don’t want to kneel. I kneel. The floor feels rough under my knees. My nostrils flare at a musty smell. Ty and the others gather around the pentagram with nervous expressions. The scene reminds me of when we once took a shortcut as kids, strolling through the weedy ruins of an abandoned warehouse, where we suddenly stumbled onto a pair of teenagers in hoodies mugging somebody at gunpoint. That petrifying feeling of having wandered into someplace we shouldn’t be.
I believe in three things in life: protein, weightlifting, and true love. I don’t believe in gods and demons. I don’t believe in hell and heaven. (Except for Jenna, my paradise here on Earth!) Still, my grandparents are all Catholic, and the pentagram freaks me out.
Simon stands beneath the goat skull at the altar.
“Repeat after me,” Simon says.
“You know this doesn’t mean anything, right?” I say.
“Brock, are you doing this or not?” Simon says.
“It’s just words,” I say.
Simon smiles.
The candles flicker as we do the ritual.
“I bow my head to the Prince of Darkness.”
“I bow my head to the Prince of Darkness.”
“I pledge my life to Lucifer.”
“I pledge my life to Lucifer.”
“I promise my soul to Satan.”
“I promise my soul to Satan.”
I don’t feel any different afterward. My heart is beating faster than after any workout ever. I’m still me though. And it’s done. It’s over now. That’s what I’m thinking, that the ritual is finished, when Simon turns to the altar to flip the latches on the ancient wooden chest. He lifts the lid. Mist pours out of the chest like fog from a freezer. Simon turns back toward the pentagram palming a dark red lump of flesh.
“What the hell is that?”
“The heart of a pig.”
Simon reaches across the pentagram to offer me the heart.
“Eat it,” Simon says.
“Fuck no,” I spit.
“Brock, the ritual isn’t complete until you do.”
Ty and the others are watching from the shadows. Braden looks stunned. Parker looks nauseous. Alejandro’s eyes have never been so wide. Ty nods, then whispers, “Just do it.”
Beneath my tank top, a bead of sweat dribbles down my spine, slipping past my tailbone, soaking into the waistband of my khaki shorts. I think about Jenna’s face. The little dimples in her cheeks when she smiles. I hesitate, then turn back toward Simon. My glutes are tensed from kneeling. My jaw is clenched together hard. My hands are trembling suddenly, which makes me feel ashamed. I’m afraid. I take the heart, cupping the raw lump of flesh between my palms. The flesh is frosted but isn’t frozen. Wax trickles from the candles as the flames flicker. Simon looks ecstatic. I part my lips, then bend down and bite into the heart like an apple, twisting my head to tear off a mouthful with my teeth. The meat is cold and spongy. Flavorless. Gritty with crystals of ice. Blood dribbles from my mouth to my chin, dripping onto the floor. I’m the strongest man she’s ever known. Jenna told me that once, the night we got engaged. That’s why she loves me. Strong in spirit, strong in body. Eating a heart isn’t any different than doing squats or curls. Each bite is another rep. I chew. I swallow. I fight the urge to gag.
Later that summer, in a tuxedo, standing at the altar in the cathedral at the ceremony presented by Neanderthal Princess Barbie™ as hired musicians make the strings on violins and violas and cellos sing, and trained swans nestle in pairs near the Gerber® archway of dried roses, and rented butterflies flutter in clusters between the Pampers® vases of fresh orchids, and live actors silently reenact the most significant scenes of our courtship in the sunlight streaming into the church through the stained glass, and our guests dab at tears with complimentary silk handkerchiefs in the pews, and Jenna walks toward me down the aisle wearing her Allstate® veil and her Verizon® earrings and her glittering Home Depot® dress, I think to ask myself, was it all worth it?
And it was. Of course it was. It really was.
One Big Happy Family
A sinkhole had appeared at dawn in the street across from the nursery, a sudden collapse of asphalt and plumbing that had swallowed a semi waiting at the stoplight, and the ensuing spectacle had distracted the staff all morning, clusters of caretakers gathering at windows on various floors of the nursery, pausing between tasks to gawk at the scene below: the water gushing from a broken pipe onto the cab of the semi, the driver being retrieved from the sinkhole by a crew of firefighters with a ladder, a highway engineer in a fluorescent safety vest placing a perimeter of neon traffic cones around the hole, oblivious traffic turning onto the street down the block and being forced to do a u-turn at the intersection, boxes of frozen crab cakes being hauled out of the trailer of the semi and rushed into the freezer of the convenience store at the corner to prevent the meat from spoiling.
Eleanor was standing at the window in her office when the new chief of security appeared in the doorway behind her desk, hat in hand, looking deeply ashamed.
“A child is gone,” the chief of security said.
Eleanor stared at the reflection of the chief of security without turning from the window.
“How is that possible?” Eleanor said.
“We’ve already reviewed the footage from the cameras. The abduction was premeditated. She had a keycard. She signed in with the guards for a visitor pass. She used the keycard to leave through the loading dock,” the chief of security said.
Eleanor suppressed a feeling of panic.
“Which child was taken?”
“Marvin.”
Eleanor knew the child. She had held the child personally. He was only a month old.
“I’ll call the police. Nobody talks to the press. We’ll prepare a statement,” Eleanor said.
Eleanor had been the director of the nursery for nearly half a century. In that time she had overseen the care of thousands of children. She had stayed up through the night with children who had fevers. She had ridden along in the ambulances with children who had appendicitis. She had slept in hospital rooms with children who had fractured bones. She had protected the children with allergies. She had comforted the children with colic. She had never lost a child. She felt a rage growing within her. She turned to reach for her phone.
“Ma’am,” the chief of security said.
Eleanor looked up.
“There’s one last thing,” the chief of security said. “The child was hers.”
* * *
The kidnapper lived in a townhouse in Georgetown, an elegant home with shining granite countertops and polished hardwood floors. She wasn’t there. Her computer was missing. So was her vehicle. Quinn arrived at the house after the others from the department, striding down the sidewalk with his derbies clacking on the pavement and the name of the kidnapper echoing through his head with every footstep. Daniela, Daniela, Daniela. Cherry blossoms were falling from the trees that grew along the curb. The petals that landed in puddles turned a darker shade of pink. Jared, his assistant, was waiting for him at the door with a to-go cup. Jared had a crush on him. Quinn didn’t encourage this. Quinn was a professional.
“I got you a latte,” Jared said, smiling.
Quinn took a sip from the cup and then grimaced and spat onto the stoop. “Is that soy?”
“It was a vegan place,” Jared said, apologetically.
Quinn handed the cup back to him.
“She might have already left town,” Jared said.
“We’re going to find her before that happens,” Quinn said.
“We’ve got the father in here,” Jared said.
Jared led him into the townhouse, down a brightly lit hallway, past a bathroom with a modernist sink, past a bedroom with a modernist dresser, past a pair of police officers chatt
ing among the gleaming chrome appliances in a kitchen, into a spacious living room where the father was sitting on a modernist leather sofa between a pair of gigantic ferns. Young and slender with a gelled crew cut and a mildly attractive face, the father wore suspenders and a silk tie over a light blue dress shirt with a white collar. He looked impatient. He’d been waiting. He probably hadn’t wanted to be interviewed here. He was cooperating, though.
Quinn took out a ballpoint and a notepad.
“Can you state your name?”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie what?”
“Roberts.”
“Where were you born?”
“The Abraham Lincoln Nursery.”
“That’s where?”
“Illinois.”
“Where were you raised?”
“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Academy.”
“Where’s that?”
“Milwaukee.”
“You went to college?”
“Georgetown.”
“Job?”
“Investing.”
“Where do you live?”
“Downtown.”
“Have you ever been to this house before?”
“Daniela came to mine.”
“You’re aware that your child was kidnapped earlier today?”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you saw your child?”
“Never.”
“Not even once?”
“I pay my taxes.”
“When was the last time you spoke to his mother?”
“When she told me she was pregnant.”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“At a work party.”
“Do you love her?”
Charlie laughed. “No.”
“Does she love you?”
“We only hooked up a single time,” Charlie said.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
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