by 19
The crowd was already beginning to scatter, mothers picking up children, men talking in low voices. The fun was over.
–Watch her, he told Jordan, handing Mary over to him, and he pushed and ducked his way to the crowd and stood blocking Aaron's wheelchair.
Nila looked at him, amazed. –Excuse me–she began.
–Fuck off, bitch, he said, without sparing her a glance. He was saving all his looking for Aaron. –You're Aaron?
The man was looking up at him in shock and disgust. –How dare–
–I SAID ARE YOU AARON?
He lost hold of anything like a human voice. The result compelled an answer. Aaron nodded, speechless.
–You decided to murder this man?
Aaron nodded, again, face filling with the slow return of that indignant rage.
He worked up an incredible amount of saliva and spit directly into Aaron's face.
Everything froze.
He stared down at Aaron until he had made his point, and said, –Whatever happened to thou shalt not kill? Remember that one, you murdering son of a bitch?
He turned, and took Mary back from Jordan, and they went home.
BOOK THREE:
MOON
(34)
–You can't, can you? Not now.
–No, he told her quietly. –I'm sorry, Mar. I would do anything to be able to...to fix that. I can't. There's just not...
(enough left of him to bring back)
–any way I can do anything.
–Oh, she said, and that was all. He had given her a Valium, scared to death that it might hurt the baby, knowing that letting her cry like that would definitely hurt the baby more than a little Valium would.
–He didn't get to see the baby, she said, reading his mind, and started crying again, very softly. –Oh, God, did I just see that? They just killed him? I don't understand, I loved him.
–Stop, Mar. Stop, dearest. I know. And he knows you loved him. Just sleep. Come on.
He had already peeled her out of her shoes, stockings and veil. He was the one who had put them on her to begin with. He pushed at her until she lay on her side with her head in his lap, and he stroked her hair until the drug finally caught her, and she fell asleep.
Jordan tapped at the front door, stuck his head in. –Is she okay?
–Yes. Where's Zillah?
–At Spe...at the house, Jordan said. –The church didn't get that, at least. They gave it to Mary. I don't think she heard that part. Actually they technically gave it to you since they think the husband is the boss and everything.
He knew this was not intended as a kindness.
–Fine. The two of you can have it. Stay here with her, will you?
–Oh, man, if she wakes up and you're not here...
–She won't, he told Jordan, easing himself out from under her. –I gave her a Valium.
Jordan was pleading with his eyes. He gave up and hugged him. They cried for a while.
Jordan was still for a long time. Then, he said, –Um, you can't do it, though, can you?
–I don't know, he said. –I don't think so. But I have to try.
(35)
The sky was spread thick and bright with stars, so many it looked like an illusion. He looked up at them, and wondered if there was a planet circling one of them where the people had never heard of murder, or pain, or tears. He hoped there was. The universe needed at least one place like that, even one. Just one.
The stars blurred, and he realized he was crying again.
Spectre.
We're going to name the kid Queer Circus Freak. After you.
–Hallelujah, he whispered, hurting bad and deep and ugly. He wiped his face with his hand and started to walk out to the Golgotha.
Spectre's body was lying where it had fallen, blackened and twisted and still in two pieces. The smell was awful, sickly sweet, the smell of the body of a man he had loved that some bastard had fucking set on fire.
He knelt beside it for a long time, doing what some might have called praying. He was having a conversation with the mirror man.
It was pretty one-sided tonight.
When he was as ready as he would ever be, he reached out, and very gently turned the body over, and put the head back where it belonged. The ash that had once been ghostwhite hair dusted his hand like bad cocaine.
He put his hands on the corpse, and closed his eyes. One phrase. come back come back comeback comeback comebackcomebackCOMEBACK
He poured everything he had into it, hurting himself, burning his hands, scorching his lymph nodes, his eyes pouring tears, every muscle locked in furious effort.
(SPECTRE COME BACK)
and he tried for as long as he could and then tried even longer until he was
empty
and when he opened his eyes he saw a terrible, brutalized thing, a skinned shuddering disaster weeping fluid, raising spastic hands that were still jutting burned stumps of bone, and the thing looked at him with Spectre's eyes and tried to smile.
(what have i done)
–Spectre? he whispered. He could feel the one hinge in his mind beginning to give.
–'S okay. I know you tried. Maybe...shouldn't have. Glad you did...tell you– This voice was scraped thin and made rough with ash, but it was Spectre's weird kind Mississippi voice, brutally familiar, with almost-swallowed n's and drawn easy vowels.
–Tell me, he said, and he pulled Spectre close, trying to cradle that raw flesh up away from the sand.
–Mary. Tell her...love her. Tell her...tell the baby, about me
–I will, he said. Was it possible to hurt like this and go on living? What kind of god let that be a rule? What kind of god made a mind that could suffer this way without shutting down?
–I see...a war. I see. I see everything. You.
–Spectre, I'm so sorry...
–Tell, Spectre insisted. –Tell her the faces don't matter. Tell her about...cocoon...tell her what you are.
–I can't! he cried, pleading. –How can I when I don't even know myself?
–You will know. You'll...know. I saw...the sky open up...sun gone out...you, your hands up...I saw. I see.
Spectre raised one mangled hand, poked at him. –This hurts. Send me back. I love you. Freak.
He burst into tears, like he had never cried before, vast angry aching sobs. He could not speak, so instead he waved goodbye like an idiot and let go of the part of himself that was holding Spectre together.
After a long time he took off his shirt, and folded together what was left of Spectre in it, and picked it up and started walking.
Zillah was sitting on the front steps of Spectre's house when he got there. He was smoking his eternal cigarette.
He went into the back yard, into Spectre's weird crooked tool shed. He shoved gasoline cans out of the way with his foot, cupping Spectre's head against his chest as though to keep him from seeing them. One of them spilled a little, and the smell made him cry again. He laid Spectre down, and got the shovel, and came back out and started digging a grave under the lone oak tree, right where he had gotten married. The ground was mean and mocking, with sand filling in the hole almost as fast as he could dig. He smeared sweat out of his eyes, and dug faster.
Zillah wandered over, stood there smoking languidly. –Did it work?
–Fuck off.
–Was he bloody? Squishy? Like something aborted, like he had been in an industrial acc-
He spun so quick Zillah never even saw it coming, and struck him in the face with the flat of the shovel. Zillah dropped like he had been shot, and he lay there crumpled and did not move.
–Next time it won't be the flat side, he told Zillah, and went back to digging Spectre’s grave.
–You broke one of my teeth, Zillah said, petulant, still lying there, his voice mangled.
–Heal it your fucking self. We both know you can.
Zillah sat up, pressing his hand to his bloody nose. –If you hate me so much, why don't you just kill me?
He stopped digging, looked at him. –Because I know that you really do love Jordan. And you didn't plan on that. And I want to see you experience humanity for once in your miserable, sadistic existence. Just once.
Zillah snarled, furious, but he didn't deny it.
He turned away again, and kept digging. When it was deep enough he put Spectre inside, very gently, arranging his shirt very carefully around the body. –Sweet dreams, he whispered, and he dropped a handful of sand over the corpse before he picked up the shovel, and filled in the grave.
There was never enough dirt. Never.
When he was done, he couldn't think of anything to use for a tombstone, so he uprooted one of Spectre's marijuana plants in the little greenhouse and planted it on the grave.
And that was all.
(36)
He began it the next day.
He went into the hardware store, the one where he had healed the little girl's harelip, and bought an ancient, rusting can of red spraypaint. From there, in broad daylight, he walked across the street, four blocks or so down to City Hall, and spraypainted MURDERERS across the double doors. He attracted a silent amazed crowd of witnesses. From there he went to the narrow church Elijah used for everyday services–three on Sundays–and left a different message. He spraypainted two messy but recognizable eyes, one iris colored in, one not. He dropped the can, turned, daring the little crowd with his eyes. The clot of people moved aside, and let him pass. One kid, a boy with ragged black hair and a silver ring through his eyebrow, gestured a quick surreptitious approval at him. He gave the boy eye contact for a second, as a gift, and memorized his face.
He went home to Mary, tried and failed to wash the paint off his hands in the kitchen sink. She was looking through photographs. He watched her for a moment, then went over to her and took the album out of her hands and closed it. –No more, Mar. You'll make yourself sick.
She was getting ready to cry again. –He's gone.
He picked her up and slammed her against the wall by the bed, shaking the whole damn house. He kissed her hard enough to draw blood, kneed her legs apart and ground against her. He had his hand up her shirt, and he sucked hard on her tongue, and bit at her throat and said, –And we're not. How many people have to die at one execution, Mar? I want to live. I want you to live. And if you don't want to, that's too fucking bad, because you promised you'd do what I say. You promised.
She was trying to twist away from him, and he kissed her again, slow and deep, until she was gasping in spite of herself. –Live. Live, Mar. Please, he said against her mouth.
–You win, she said, and put her arms around him.
They retaliated a week later .
But not against him. They still didn't have the balls to do that.
A hard mean pull in the top of his skull caught him in the middle of breakfast. He dropped his fork halfway to his mouth, splattering scrambled eggs and making Mary cry out in shock. He didn't stop to explain. There was no time to waste.
He ran, as fast as he could, to the tiny part of Calvary about a half-mile away that passed as downtown.
Four of Elijah's cronies had Jordan down on his knees, and one of them had a whip. They had already hit him twice. Zillah was facedown in the sand, with one of them kneeling on his back, holding his hands. It would be his turn soon enough.
You could stop this yourself, you conniving fuck, he thought of Zillah. Maybe that wasn't true, though. From Zillah he got only a terrified blur of shock and helplessness.
He hit the bastard on top of Jordan in a full tackle. There was a brief clumsy struggle, and he took the man's whip and smacked him hard with the handle of it, across his face. The man whimpered, startled and hurt, an angry red welt bisecting his face.
–What the fuck do you think you're doing? he demanded. The man struggled once, and only stared at him, sullen.
Elijah's smooth evil voice came from behind him. –These men are homosexuals. Read Leviticus. If you interfere with me again, you'll be next.
He turned to look at Elijah, and he held up the whip and did something he would probably regret for the rest of his life. He ignited it. The leather burst into flames, burning white in his hand without burning at all.
Elijah backed away from this, shaken.
–What's the matter, you leech? I thought you got off on fire, he said, grinding the words through his teeth in jagged little bursts. He stood up, slow and angry, with the blazing whip in his hand. –Now let them go. Right now. Or I will level this town.
Elijah stammered, until he managed, –Let them go
The guards obeyed.
He extinguished the whip.
Jordan stood up, too afraid to cry.
–Jordan. Come here, he ordered.
Jordan did.
He grabbed Jordan and kissed him full on the mouth, deeply, with complete and sincere passion. Jordan squeaked, went rigid, hands flailing at air. Then, he closed his eyes, and tried to kiss back, innocent and confused.
When he stopped, Jordan stared at him and blushed, stunned, his eyes shocked blank and scared.
He stepped back, and said, –You and Zillah go home. Don't come here again. If any of these fuckers come near the house, shoot them.
He turned back to Elijah, and said, –Was that gay enough for you?
–You're sick, Elijah said, revolted.
He tossed Elijah the whip, no longer in flames, still perfectly whole, and took off his shirt. He spread out his arms, stood posed like Jesus. –You get off on using that thing on queers? Have a ball. I dare you.
–You'll just heal yourself.
–I will not. I give you my word, he said. He had never attempted to heal himself. The very idea filled him with nauseated horror.
Jordan did cry, then. He tried to run back, and Zillah grabbed him. Jordan was struggling to be let go. –Don't, don't hit him. Don't. What is wrong with you? Why are you so fucking mean? he was yelling at Elijah.
–Jordan, go. I told you to go, he said, pretending to still be calm.
Zillah was pulling Jordan down the street, telling him something that made him stop resisting.
Elijah handed the whip to one of his enforcers, and said, –You heard him. Go ahead.
His enforcer looked ill. –He's just standing there.
–Didn't you just hear me? Elijah shouted.
The man give him a strange look, a frown and a sadness in his eyes. He wanted to shake the poor bastard, to yell three words: think for yourself!
Instead, he said, –I forgive you.
He saw the whip come up. He closed his eyes, opened them again. He knew better than to try to brace himself. The key was in not resisting.
The sound of it was the most terrible part. It sounded fake, synthetic, like something devised on a soundstage for a bad western.
He was vaguely aware that a crowd was forming, and that strangely enough, most of what he heard them saying seemed to be in his support.
What are you doing?
What did he do?
Don't you think that's enough?
Come on, Elijah, he gets it. You'll kill him.
The only really bad slash was when the tip swung around and split open his lower lip, tearing through to his gums. That was a white-hot slamming pain that wrung a low sound out of him, and he spit out a mouthful of blood.
The rest of it was far worse than he had expected, easier to bear than he had dared to hope. It blurred together quickly, into a single agony that would have almost become pleasure if it had gone on...except that he couldn't
...quite
...breathe
(36)
When he came back he was lying in the street, with Jordan standing over him crying and Zillah helping him sit up, being surprisingly gentle.
–Are you crazy? Why did you do that? Why? Jordan was yelling at him.
Once, when he was sixteen or so, a scorpion had stung him on the tip of his finger, almost underneath the tip of his nail. The pain had been so bad he had scr
eamed, and kept on screaming, and he had banged his hand into the ground in senseless agony until he'd broken a bone in his wrist. He felt like that now, only all over his back, his chest. –I told you to go. Don't you ever listen to me anymore?
And then Jordan hugged him, and that hurt unbelievably. –Why did you have to do that?
–I proved my point, didn't I? he croaked. –What are we going to tell Mar?
–About the only things she'll believe are either the truth, or that you fell in a meat grinder, Zillah said.
–Fuck. Help me up.
They did, and with one of them on either side, he made it back to the trailer.
The worst of them were on his chest, and he was burning with fever by the next morning. The whip had been trailed through the dust repeatedly, and who knew what kind of germs were in the open wounds. He felt like he was dying. Mary was frantic.
–Just do it. I know you can, she kept saying, her voice moving in and out of focus, sounding like a warped record. Her face was so bright. He wanted her. She was lying beside him and her skin was so cool, and if he was inside her he would be okay, yes, only his hands kept missing her, and she seemed to be upset about something. Spectre, probably. Or anything. It was hormones, driving her crazy. Was she mad at him? He tried to ask her, and someone was putting something cold and wet on his chest, over his face, and that was magnificent.
He woke up aching and tired with a terrible taste in his mouth, but he was okay.
–Mar?
She was coming out of the bathroom, her hand over her mouth. –I can't believe you did that. Jordan told me.
–Are you mad at me?
–I just can't... She was beyond crying, all out of tears, and she rubbed hard at her face, leaving red traces of her fingers. –I know, now, I think, that you have to do...the things you do. I just can't lose you. You're all I have left.
