Gun Church

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  The man who believes he has seen it all is a blind fooker and more often than not, a dead one.

  Weiler’s writing was, for my money, always less than the sum of its parts. The novels were like long-form versions of Steely Dan songs: slick, well-produced, clever as hell, but rather soulless and incomprehensible.

  — E-MAIL FROM HASKELL BROWN TO FRANZ DUDEK

  Twelve

  Patty Duke

  I’d broken the mile barrier on my run that morning and felt like Chuck Yeager. The euphoria was short-lived because when Jim dropped me back off at my house, I noticed the red message-light flashing as I walked through the front door. I recited the procrastinator’s oath to myself-Never do now what you can put off until you die-but I wasn’t a procrastinator by temperament or nature. If I was five minutes early, I felt ten minutes late. Even when I was writing Curley Takes Five, possibly one of the worst books ever written, I was weeks early for my deadline. An editor at Penguin once confided in me that her definition of a perfect author was one who hands in a brilliant manuscript and then gets hit by a bus. In my case, I think Ferris, Ledoux would have settled for the bus and considered themselves lucky. Those were dark days.

  That was a long time ago and the red light flashing was now. The message was a terse Kip, call me back. Pronto! Meg. I knew Meg Donovan. Terse messages meant things had gone badly.

  I dispensed with the chit chat. “How bad is it?”

  “All is not lost.”

  “Said the optimistic surgeon to the triple amputee. That’s a little cryptic even for you, Donovan.”

  “The rights deal is still on, no problem. They even upped the offer.”

  “But the new book is off. That’s what you’re telling me,” I said.

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Don’t take it out on me.”

  “I said fuck, Meg, not fuck you.”

  “Look, Kip, this isn’t all bad. By us throwing a demand for a new book into the mix, we gave Travers Legacy an out, but they didn’t take it and sweetened the pot. They want those books. If the new editions of your books sell well, they might be amenable to tossing you a bone next year.”

  “And this tossing me a bone notion is based on what exactly, my horoscope?”

  “I had lunch with Mary Caputo last week,” she said. “Mary Caputo is Franz Dudek’s assistant at Travers Legacy. Franz Dudek is the publisher.”

  “And … ”

  “And Mary told me Dudek was definitely willing to give you a one-book deal, a small deal, but a deal. Before you go bonkers, Kip, you should know it wasn’t a wholly artistic decision on his part. He loves your old stuff, but he was willing to take a flier on the new book for the same reasons he’s including you in the rights deal.”

  “The dead kid.”

  There was a brief silence on Meg’s end of the phone. “That’s right, the late Frank Vuchovich. You understand the value of free publicity. Well, it’s even more important now than it used to be. Publishing is about to get swept away by the social media/e-book tsunami just like the music industry got wiped out by digital downloads.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Haskell Brown happened. He put the kibosh on the new book. He never wanted any part of you to begin with. He was pressured by Dudek to include your books in the retro package. That was as far as Haskell was willing to go and he wasn’t very willing to go that far, if you get my meaning. He let Dudek know he would quit if push came to shove and Dudek wasn’t going to push or shove any further for you.”

  “What the hell did I ever do to Haskell Brown? Did I bone his wife at a party or something?”

  “Haskell’s gay.”

  “What, he thinks I would have boned his wife if he were straight?”

  “I told you, Kip, people here remember the Kipster. Haskell worked as an assistant editor for Moira before she died, so he heard all the dirt about you and how impossible it was for Moira to deal with you at the end. So I’ll send the rights contract down for you to sign.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Nope. Tell them I want two weeks to think it over.”

  “Two weeks! What the hell for?”

  “Because I’m disappointed. Because I’m angry. Because I’m a foolish, self-destructive prick. Take your pick.”

  “Why not ask for two months or two years?”

  “Don’t give me any ideas, Meg.”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Kip. You’ll blow this.”

  “It won’t be the first thing I’ve fucked up, will it?”

  “The list is long and apparently still growing.”

  “You know the funny thing about playing chicken with me these days, Meg?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve got nowhere else to fall and nothing left to lose.”

  “Except this deal,” she said.

  “No, the rights deal is something to gain, not to lose. Seems like two different things from where I’m sitting. Tell them two weeks.”

  “If you promise me something.”

  “Depends on what.”

  “That if they call your bluff when the two weeks are over, you’ll sign.”

  “I might.”

  “Fuck you, Weiler.”

  “I love you too, Donovan. Talk to you in fourteen days.”

  Click.

  I was dead quiet during most of our ride up into the hills and, for the first time since we began this routine, Jim Trimble seemed off balance. He didn’t know what to make of my sullenness or how to react to my silence. It reminded me that in spite of his big ideas and his prowess with guns, he was just a goofy kid who thought the world outside Brixton was what he saw when he surfed the net or what he’d read in the pages of my books-the poor dumb schmuck. He’d seen less of the world than Patty Duke: But Patty’s only seen the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights … For weeks now, I’d acted the prized pupil to his wise and benevolent master. It didn’t feel that way today. Nothing felt the same. The falls and rapids didn’t seem quite so majestic. Yet when the kid handed me the.25 Beretta, something changed.

  I took off the safety, swung the little automatic around, and put the entire clip into the trunk of a tree about thirty feet away from me. If ever there were such things as angry bullets, I’d just pumped them into that pine. I tossed the gun down in disgust as Jim ran over to the tree.

  “Holy shit, Kip! Come over here and look at this. Check this out!” he said, poking his index finger in and out of the tight grouping of holes in the flesh of the tree. “It’s not like one bullet’s on top of the next, but it’s pretty damned good. Hell, you’ve never shot like that. What got into you?”

  “Anger and self-loathing must do wonders for my shooting.”

  He tilted his head, staring up at me like a confused puppy. “What happened to piss you off so bad?”

  I’d told him previously about my conversation with Meg and about my asking for a new book contract. Jim had been totally with me-a real shocker-and thought my risking all that money was further vindication of his choosing me as the focus of his hero worship. Christ, you should have seen him. In the blink of an eye, my standing up to Stan took a backseat to my taking on the big bad world of New York publishing.

  “They turned me down.”

  “Who did?” he asked, still kneeling by the tree.

  “Haskell Brown, the editor at Travers Legacy. They want my old books, but it looks like a new book’s out of the question.”

  “He’s crazy. How could he not want a new book from you?”

  Jim wasn’t putting me on either. He was utterly sincere and seemed bewildered and hurt about it. It was kind of sweet, really, to have him hurt on my behalf. Because I had managed to alienate everyone from my past who might have taken up my cause, it had been a long time since anyone felt connected to me in this way.

  “It wasn’t all bad news, Jim,” I said, placing a consoling hand on his shoulder. “Brown’s boss was actually willing to give me a new b
ook deal, but he wasn’t willing to risk losing his editor over me. I can’t blame him for that.”

  “I guess not,” he said, but didn’t mean it. “So did you cave?”

  “Not yet. I told my agent to tell them I needed two weeks to think it over, but I guess I’ll take the deal in the end.”

  “Two weeks?”

  “That’s if they don’t just call Meg tomorrow and tell the pair of us to go fuck ourselves.”

  The kid’s face broke into a broad, goofy smile. “Cheer up, Kip.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “Two reasons.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  He stood and raised his right index finger. “One: I think you’re ready for the chapel.”

  “That’s a reason to run like hell, Jim, not to cheer up.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll see about that. What’s the second reason? And, please God, I hope it’s better than the first.”

  “Took seven days to create the world. Just think of how many things can change in twice that time. Things will turn out all right. You’ll see.”

  Thirteen

  Shroud

  This time, we had only a cold wind to keep us company. When we got out of his pickup, I was distracted by the woeful groaning of the desolate hangars and by the creaks and shrill whines of the huts. Their complaints were like the laments of humpback whales. Jim seemed not to take notice. His flashlight cut careless holes in the blackness as we dragged the generator out of its storage spot. When it sputtered to life, the generator killed the mournful romance of the night.

  Before we entered the hangar, Jim took me by the bicep. “Listen, this isn’t like up in the woods. This is serious. Pay real careful attention to what I’m doing and the way I do it. You’ll have to do it exactly like this or you can’t come back.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  That wasn’t enough for Jim. “I’m not kidding, Kip. The last time was a one-time-only thing. There aren’t second chances. Inside here, the rules always apply.”

  “I get it, Jim. I do.”

  He nodded with confidence, but he looked worried. This meant more to him than I realized. He couldn’t have known how important it was to me because I didn’t discuss, except in the most vague terms, what it was I was writing about. I couldn’t, not yet, maybe not ever. Haskell Brown wasn’t the only potential obstacle blocking my way. If I couldn’t get back inside the chapel, Terry McGuinn and I were fucked. Both of us would be remanded to the purgatory we’d only escaped from a month ago. Even I knew there were no words I could say that would reassure Jim. I had to perform.

  We walked down the same lighted path the St. Pauli Girl and I had come down the night of my first visit. And I was once again struck by the incongruity of the white blockhouse in the midst of the huge hangar, and of the elaborate wooden door set against the concrete.

  “What’s with that door?” I asked.

  “We scavenged it and the pews from the base chapel.”

  I had my answer. That’s how this place got its name.

  “Everything in here,” Jim continued, “except the generator was scavenged from the base. Even the mattresses and white paint. There’s all sorts of basements and tunnels and things underground here that people on the base either didn’t know about or forgot about. You’ll see, but first things first. Wait here a minute.”

  Once he stepped out of the light, it didn’t take long for him to be completely swallowed up by the darkness. I followed the sound of his footsteps scraping grit between the floor and the soles of his boots. I heard him clambering up a metal staircase and in less than a minute, come quickly back down.

  “Here,” he said, coming into the light, holding out a white T-shirt so large it was like a shroud. “Put this on.”

  “Why so big?”

  “It’s going to be covering a lot of stuff,” he said.

  I did as he asked. Only after I got it on did I notice Jim had removed his jacket and was wearing the T-shirt he had worn the last time. It was covered in way more red crosses than I had realized. And there was something else. Tucked in his left arm, against his ribs, Jim held a helmet that looked like it was designed by a hockey-playing gladiator. What I assumed was the face mask was a curved piece of padded steel with only a tiny slit for an eyehole.

  He said, “You’ll wear this once or a few times at most, but either way it takes some getting used to.”

  “Once, if I fuck up?”

  “Or if you get killed.” He smiled sadly and handed me the helmet.

  Heavy as it was, I understood why it might take some getting used to. I didn’t put it on. “Ashes first, right.”

  And for the first time that night, Jim smiled at me with a bit of confidence. “The ashes represent the origins of the chapel and the practice we put in. Also reminds us of where we’re headed if we make a mistake.”

  And there it was again, the repulsion/compulsion thing. Jim had alluded to death twice in twenty seconds and I should have run. Instead I stood there and let him dab ashes on my forehead. As we rehearsed the rest of the rituals, I asked what each one meant.

  “You have to earn the right to understand them,” he said. “And there’s only one way to earn the right.”

  Fourteen

  Red Fist

  I rested my sweat-damp cheek on the cold porcelain rim, the sour stench of my vomit wafting up to me from the bottom of the bowl. When I had nothing left in me to give, I sat down with the back of my soaked-through shirt against the cool tile wall. My head was exploding. I was faint, shaking with the chills. I was afraid. I don’t know.

  Five days had passed since I’d put that tight grouping into the trunk of the tree, four since Jim had walked me through the dry run in the chapel. My shooting had since faltered. My writing too. My focus was gone and when I booted up my laptop I was back to staring at the screen, helplessly. I was disgusted by my own fragility and I’d asked Renee not to come back to the house until I got the shooting over with. I was also afraid for the first time in my life that I would be impotent. I wouldn’t have been able to bear that, not now, not with the St. Pauli Girl.

  Now, this was it: my first time shooting in the chapel. Jim came up to me, a bottle of water in one hand, a towel in the other. He poured half the bottle over my head. “Here, drink the rest,” he said, handing me the bottle and pulling me to my feet. When I was done drinking, he toweled me off. “Come on, Kip, it’s time to get dressed.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to this part of the evening. Jim had dressed me in full protective gear the day before so I could get used to the feel of it; but there would never be a time when I’d get used to it, especially, as he had warned, the helmet. Cobbled from Army surplus, sports equipment, and whatever had been lying around people’s garages, the suit was bulky and stank of the sweat, vomit, and urine of the people who’d worn it before me. Jim slipped the giant white T-shirt over the padding, and I helped him do the same. The first time in the chapel, you shot against your mentor. That and the fact that Jim was dressed in a suit like mine were the only things that kept me from running. Armored as we were, it was unlikely either one of us was going to die tonight. Yet somehow, that was of little comfort.

  Just as I was willing myself to calm down, I heard it: the eerie thunder of dozens of stomping feet and hands clapping in unison, echoing around the hangar. My knees got weak.

  Jim grabbed me, steadied me. “Everyone goes through this. You’ll be fine.” Then, after a pause, “It’s time. Let’s go.”

  As we walked slowly out of the locker room and toward the chapel, the noise grew louder and louder, the foot stomping and rhythmic clapping blending into an indistinct roar. We paused outside the wooden door, Jim daubing ashes on both our foreheads.

  “Remember to do the things I showed you the way I showed you how to do them,” he said, staring me directly in the eyes. “Tonight, that’s as important as anything else.”

  Jim entered first. When I squeezed thro
ugh the space between the mattresses, it wasn’t only the din I couldn’t make sense of. There were more people there than the first time Renee brought me, but their faces were as a blur, like looking out the window of a moving subway at the faces in the windows of a passing train.

  I heard Jim say, “Helmets on,” from a million miles away and felt something on my head. Hands and fingers snugged the helmet to my chin. The face mask limited my vision to a small window straight in front of me. My hearing changed again, taking on a muted, windy quality. An arm, Jim’s, looped through the crook in my left elbow and marched me exactly eight strides-one stride for each original member of the chapel, Jim had said-between the pews to a spot directly at the center of the chapel. As Jim had instructed, I touched my right index finger to a spot above my heart, and at the top of my lungs shouted, “Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe.” I bowed quickly, then stood erect.

  I turned right to face a mattressed wall and felt Jim’s back against mine. I counted to five in my head and then took four slow, measured strides. Jim had explained that each stride was symbolic of the first four duels in the chapel by its eight original members.

  “Stop!” The voice was a familiar one, the deputy sheriff’s.

  I halted, bringing both feet together and, as instructed, I took one more stride.

  “Turn!”

  I about-faced. Jim was about thirty feet directly in front of me.

  The crowd noise grew less distinct, but my sense of smell became extraordinarily acute. My head once again filled with the rank traces of fear that people had left on the suit before me.

  The deputy sheriff showed me the little Beretta. He showed me the clip, slid the clip into place, thumbed off the safety, and racked the slide. He placed it in my hand and once again my perceptions shifted. Now all I could hear was my heartbeat and my shallow, rapid breaths bouncing around the inside of the helmet. In my head, all I could see was my father’s head flung backwards, his blind eyes seemingly focused on my mom’s fussy white curtains. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the vision of my father vanished. Now all I could see was Jim. Not him, his chest. I imagined I could see his heart beating in his rib cage like a red fist, clenching and unclenching. When he raised the.38, my world grew silent and still. I became unconscious of my heart beating, of my breathing, of the smells. I felt on an island at the center of the universe and knew that Jim was right: things were going to work out somehow.