by Torsten Krol
“Uhuh.”
“Mrs Wayne has been in touch with our ministry and expressed her deep concern about you, Dean, concerning recent developments in your life. Maybe I should say your interior life, by which I mean in your heart and your soul, Dean. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.”
I shook my head. Dean never said a word to me about his heart or his soul. What he talked about mainly while we were drinking down my bottle of Captain Morgan was how lousy our dads were and it’s a shame our moms had died young in my case and run off with another guy, that’s what happened to Dean’s mom and he never heard from her again. Even her sister, that’s Aunt Bree, she never heard either, which is a shame when family breaks apart that way.
“You can’t guess what I’m referring to, Dean?”
“Nossir, he never mentioned it. She, I mean.”
“Then I’ll spell it out loud and clear. Your aunt has expressed deep concern to us at the ministry . . .you’re familiar with our organization, the Born Again Foundation?”
That had a familiar ring to it, then I remembered it’s something on TV late at night when it’s mainly religious shows and infomercials about skin care products. Once or twice I have seen that show with the old guy with the slicked-back hair and the stabbing fingers when he gets all worked up preaching . . .what was his name again?
“Preacher Bob,” I said, remembering.
“That’s what folks like to call him,” says Chet. “Of course, around the office, if I might use that term, we call him just plain Bob, that’s how he likes it, informal and without pretension. Robert Jerome Ministries is the official title of our overall organization, but we don’t need to get into that kind of detail today, Dean. What we’re here to discuss is you.”
“Why?” I really wanted to know why a big name TV personality with his own Bible college near Topeka and his own network show that millions of people watched, I bet, what he wanted with me. With Dean, that is. It was a real mystery.
“Now, Dean, you must have some notion of what it is I’m referring to. I think maybe you’re being just a little bit disingenuous here.”
Nobody ever called me a genius before, and it made me suspicious that he’s trying to pump up my self-esteem so’s he can sell me something. I know for a fact I am not a genius, so now I’m suspicious as hell, even if he’s still smiling at me. I didn’t say a thing, just smiled back, waiting for him to say why he thinks I’m so smart. Thinks Dean is so smart, I mean, which Dean never struck me as being even very clever, never mind at the genius level.
“Dean, I’ll speak directly to the problem. Mrs Wayne has written to us about your decision to reject the faith of your fathers and embrace . . .the religion of Islam.”
I stared at him. What was he talking about? Dean never spoke a word to me about being an Islamite. They don’t look anything like Dean, with his Bad to the Bone T-shirt, and they don’t drink liquor either, everyone knows that, but Dean did and I don’t mean sipping. It made no sense at all. I couldn’t think what to say, it’s so ridiculous, but Chet was watching my face, waiting for a response. After he left I was going to wake Dean up and question him big time about all this.
“Are you still considering this radical and dangerous act, Dean? I can think of nothing more certain to condemn your soul, your immortal soul, Dean, to punishment so extreme it pains me to think about it happening to a young man like yourself with so much of life before you. Think carefully now.”
I was doing that, thinking at top speed, and it come back to me how Dean said he didn’t eat pigmeat, which is something everyone knows the Islamites do because pigs are unholy creatures or something religious like that. So it was true what Chet was saying!
“Yeah,” I said.
Chet’s face fell, I mean he really did look upset, like I’d just told him I drowned a sack of puppies. I felt bad about upsetting him that way, especially since it wasn’t me that’s going Islamite, it’s the guy upstairs giving grief to his aunt and Preacher Bob and Chet too. I was going to have strong words with Dean about this because it’s so dumb to be a Muslim when you aren’t even Arabian. Americans are Christians, everyone knows that. Now I have never been a churchgoer and my dad wasn’t either, so you might say there was a bad influence in my life that kept me away from getting churchified like some do, but even so I could tell straight off that Dean was doing something dumb here with this religious conversioning intention he had. No wonder Chet was upset like this.
“Are you thinking hard, Dean?”
“Yessir, I am.”
“Take into consideration the feelings of others in this crucial decision. We’re not just talking about the fate of your soul, we’re talking here about the effect this will have on your loved ones like Mrs Wayne, who I believe has taken care of you ever since your mother departed. Consider the pain a decision like this will inflict on a generous and good woman. You don’t want the responsibility of causing that type of person pain, do you, Dean? I know it causes me pain just to think about the rashness of what you’re contemplating, and Bob too, he sent me out here personally to see if there isn’t something we can do to help you change your mind and step back from this terrible mistake you’re about to make. Or have you already made it? Have you received instruction in Muslim doctrine yet? I would imagine that’s hard to come by in this area. Am I right about that, Dean?”
“It’s rare out here,” I agreed, saying something truthful to make myself feel better. I saw now it was a mistake not to tell Chet straight off I’m not Dean, but there’s no way I can go back now and change the situation.
“Can you tell me what it is, Dean, that makes you think Islam can offer you something that Christianity can’t. What’s the appeal?”
I couldn’t answer that. Still no sound from upstairs, so I’m thinking Dean must have gone off somewhere. He couldn’t still be asleep since this morning. Then again, how would he go anyplace without wheels?
“Mrs Wayne has hinted at a troubled upbringing, Dean, so I’m thinking this thing you’re considering doing is maybe a reaction to personal difficulties that never got resolved. She says you started refusing to accompany her to church a long time ago and have been verbally abusive toward her about her own faith which has never wavered. Is it a personal issue, Dean? Talking to the right person can very often resolve those intensely painful inner turmoils people are prone to without guidance from the Lord. Is that the case here? You may think I’ve gotten very personal all of a sudden, and I won’t blame you for that, there’s nothing so personal as inner feelings, but there’s a connection here, Dean, or maybe I mean a disconnection. You’ve gone and been disconnected from the natural and everlasting faith we know is true. Now I have respect for the lesser faiths, and I respect the right of people in other cultures to believe those things they choose to believe, but this is America we’re living in, and this nation was founded on Christian principles. Any turning away from hundreds of years of history –thousands of years – is a mistake of the first magnitude, Dean. Can you see what I mean, son?”
“Uhuh.”
“Then I’m asking you to consider very carefully this whole business.”
I had a picture flash into my mind right then, and this is the picture – Dean has gone and fallen in the hole in the yard while he’s still dizzy from the whack on the head he got. He went all dizzy out the back door and fell into the hole, which is the reason he’s not sat at the table right now talking with Chet about all this crap. Why didn’t I think of this before? Dean needed assistance right now because he hit his head again when he fell in the hole, I bet.
“Excuse me . . .”
I got up and hurried through the house to the back door and went outside. Over to the hole. The hole is empty. Okay then, big relief he isn’t there like I thought. Only where is he? Back into the house and up the stairs. Dean is lying on his bed like I left him this morning, exactly the same. I went over and poked him on the shoulder, and the way he didn’t wake up or grunt or anything made me know
the truth, which I did not want to believe, so I bent low and listened close to his mouth to that awful sound of nothing at all. Dean was dead, had most likely died after I left and been laying there all day waiting for me to come back and discover him no longer among the living.
Jesus Christ! What was I going to do now? I walked in circles around the room. I kept flinging my arms out and back, out and back, don’t ask me why, and bobbing my body up and down, I think, it’s hard to remember this part, what I was doing and what I was thinking as the full impact of this bad consequence of my actions with the baseball bat rose up to hit me from yesterday.
I don’t know how long I walked in circles before I remembered Chet downstairs waiting for answers from poor dead Dean, who at least had died a Christian still without changing over to being a Muslim person, so if it’s true what they say about the soul going to heaven then he went there instead of wherever Muslim folk go to, which I have heard has got virgin girls there, a whole bunch for every man. So maybe he would have wanted to go there instead, but it’s too late now, he’s gone and died a Christian. Been murdered like a Christian I would have said if I wanted to look at it clear and plain, which I did not, I wanted it all to go away and never have happened, every part of it from the time my Chevy died on me till right now.
I heard Chet’s chair scrape on the kitchen floor. He couldn’t come up here, couldn’t see Dean lying there with no breath of life inside him. Murdered. Chet couldn’t see that, so I went down the stairs real slow, gathering my thoughts as they say, but it was a very small bunch of thinking, mainly just one thing – I couldn’t back away from being Dean now. I hadn’t told any lies as such, but from here on in it was all lying even if I didn’t say another word, that’s what I was thinking.
I saw him standing in front of the grandaddy clock in the hall. “That’s a fine old piece,” he said, his face up close against the dial to see the scrollwork clear. “How long has it been in the family?”
“Oh, around fifty or eighty years, I guess.”
Lie number one. It had started. Everything in my entire life would be different now that I had a Dark Secret to hide. It must have been affecting my mind, the sudden shock etcetera, because I had this picture of me murdering Chet and burying him in the hole in the yard, which made not one bit of sense seeing as he never knew about the Secret, so what threat is he to me? None at all, so I did not follow through and murder Chet. I wanted him gone, though, and fast, before he sees there’s something changed about me, like there’s a sign hung around my neck that says Murderer or maybe something crazy in my eyes that he’ll see.
“Is everything all right, Dean?”
“Yup, no problem.”
“The way you rushed out, I thought maybe there’s something wrong.”
“Nah, no way.”
“Well, how about we get back to discussing the matter that brought me here?”
“Okay.”
We stared at each other for a little while, then Chet says, “Should we go back to the kitchen, or would you be more comfortable in the living room?”
“I don’t care, whichever.”
We went and sat on the sofa together, which was a mistake. I should’ve sat in the armchair so he’s not so close. I knew sooner or later he’s going to reach out and touch my arm all fatherly and concerned for my soul, and I didn’t want that, I wanted him gone gone gone.
“Now, Dean,” he says, “I want you to tell me honest and true what’s on your mind with regard to this crisis in your life. I suspect there’s a whole separate agenda going on here that has got nothing to do with choosing another religion on a . . . what you might call a philosophical basis. I suspect, and Bob does too, that your dereliction of duty to the faith you were raised in has got its basis in something purely emotional. Might that be the case here, Dean, do you think? Maybe some personal problem? Are relationships an issue with you at this time, Dean? Women trouble, you know. Any difficulties in that area you’d care to discuss?”
“Hell no.”
His face hardened a little when I said that, like I said Fuck or something. The religious kind like Chet are very easy offended about shit like that, so I would have to watch my tongue and be polite. “I don’t have a girlfriend right now, so that’s not a problem,” I said, wanting to be cooperating with him.
“Nobody at all? You’re a well setup young man, Dean, so I’m surprised to learn there are no romantic entanglements in your life. There have been girlfriends in the past, am I assuming correctly about that?”
“Oh sure, I’m not gay or anything.”
“That’s good to hear. Homosexuality is an abomination, as I’m sure you’ve been taught. I’m going to be direct here, maybe downright intrusive, and I make no apology for it.” He kind of gathered himself up and looked me directly in the eye. “Dean,” he says, “what ails you, boy?”
It was a good question, and one that I asked myself more than once. I mean, there has to be something to account for the fact that I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. What guy six-three is going to get respect by saying he still feels like a little boy? No guy, that’s who. So I said nothing. The conversation was over.
“Dean?”
“Uhuh?”
“Do you have anything to say to me?”
“This conversation is over.”
He looked troubled, even a little bit annoyed. “What do you mean by that?”
“I have to take a shower. I stink.”
“Well, of course, you’ve been hard at work all day. Mrs Wayne has always been proud of the way you made an effort with the lawnmowing after she bought you the truck and the mowers. No question about that, you’ve been a credit to her, working hard that way —”
“And you have to go.”
That made his face go hard but he tried not to show it. We looked at each other while nothing happened, then he got up and I did too, relieved that he’s leaving so I could sit down and think my way through this real bad situation that sprung up out of nowhere. But he didn’t head for the front door like I wanted, which started making me mad. He had to get out of there because there was no room in the house for nobody except me and the dead man upstairs, who being dead occupied more space than his living body had. Being a murder victim makes you ten times bigger than you were and a hundred times more of a problem. I had got a giant upstairs and Chet had to go.
“Dean, maybe I approached you the wrong way. I was expecting to find Mrs Wayne here. This has not gone the way I intended and I blame myself for that. I can see you need to be alone and clean up after an honest day’s work, and I’m going now, but I’ll ask this of you, Dean – don’t say to me that I can’t come back at least one more time to chat with you about the consequences of your choice.”
“Okay.”
I said that to shut him up and move him along in the direction of the door. If he stayed there one more minute I swear I would’ve blabbed the whole truth to him and most likely burst out in tears or something creepy and little-boyish.
At the door he stops and puts out his mitt. “This is the hand of a friend, Dean. I know you don’t think so right now, but it’s an absolute fact. Everybody in this world needs friends, and next to Jesus I want you to think of me as your greatest friend. That may sound presumptuous, but it’s true, Dean, and that’s the thought I want to leave you with today. Thank you for your hospitality.”
He pumped my hand one or two times and then he’s out the door and crossing the porch to the steps. I watched him through the screen while he got in his Cadillac and drove away. Pretty soon the sound of the car and the dust his tires kicked up have all gone away and I’m on my own again, except for Dean upstairs. I should have gone back up there but was too cowardly to face him again. I tried telling myself that Dean was a very fucked-up person and I had solved all his problems, but that didn’t sound right at all and was just a lame excuse for the guiltiness I felt crowding inside me.
I couldn’t think straight anymore. I wanted a drink to smooth away
the thorns growing inside my skull. So I got in the truck and drove away to town. Halfway there I remembered I forgot to lock the front door, or even close it behind me. That’s how rattled I was about everything.
I knew there was a store called Freedom Liquor in the shopping strip nearest to Dean’s side of town, so that’s where I went, only when I got there what do I see but Chet’s beige Cadillac parked next to the Fancy-Free Boutique. He’s got a cell phone up to his face and he’s gabbing into it. He didn’t see me and I didn’t want him to, so I drove around the other side of the strip to the parking lot there and went into Freedom Liquor by the back door. I come out again a few minutes later with two flagons of Captain Morgan and a six-pack of Coors. Then me and the Captain went home to discuss the situation man to man.
FOUR
I laid it out for myself plain and clear. Dean was dead and could not be brung back. I did it even if it was accidental and partly his own fault. I had to get on over to Manhattan to enlist but my car was dead as Dean. Aunt Bree was due home sometime soon, and Chet would be back for more sermonizing. I had a bunch of Dean’s money, but I figured I could call it mine because I’m the one that pushed those mowers around. And Dean was already starting to smell bad.
The Captain and me made a plan, and this is it – I would use Dean’s truck to tow my Monte Carlo away from his place and dump it somewhere and remove the license plates and Vehicle Identity Number from the dash so it can’t be traced to me, not that anyone would bother anyway with an old junker like that. I would take Dean’s truck back and park it in the barn like before, then write a note and leave it on the front door for Chet saying I will stay Christian after all and thank you for stopping by. Then I would walk away from Dean’s place and hitchhike into Callisto to get the bus to Manhattan, and my problems would be over. I liked the plan because it was simple. It was a shame about the terrible shock Aunt Bree would get when she come home and found Dean stinking the place out, but there was nothing I could do about that.
