by 19
–Was it ever? he said, still amused, but so tired.
–At this point, this can be easy for you, or hard for you. The penalty for witchcraft is death. What you say to me now will determine how quick that death is.
–Have you ever read a book called The Lord of the Flies? And has it ever occurred to you that you and Aaron bear a suspicious resemblance to Hitler and Himmler?
Elijah stepped back, enraged, and gestured to the torturers again.
They untied him, this time, for better access.
He remembered being thrown against one of the tile walls, and how cold and hard and strange that was against his naked skin, and that he was pretty sure something had broken in his elbow. That made him think of Winston and the first aching sleepless night he'd spent reading 1984.
He kept himself limp and unresisting, and the only time any sound was driven out of him was when one of them kicked him in the small of his back, repeatedly, from his waist up to his left kidney, up and down in random explosions of unbelievable hurt. The pain was unimaginable. He was certain he was going to piss himself. He vomited instead, even managed to splatter one of the bastards.
They put him back in the chair again, re-tied him. As if he still had any kind of ability to fight back. Something in his elbow was definitely broken. His arm wouldn't bend right, and the contact of the chair was agony. And now the room reeked of bile and regurgitated Halloween-party beer.
–Do you understand this yet? Elijah asked him.
–Better than you do, I think, he croaked.
Elijah sighed. –Let's start over. What is your full name?
Damn. The glamour. He must have lost it while they were beating the shit out of him.
–Ziggy Stardust.
Two blows, to the back of his head. –Oh, sorry, what I meant to say was Oz the Great and Terrible. Willy Wonka. George Washington Timothy Leary Anton LaVey Aleister Crowley fucking Charles Manson.
They hit him so hard that time that his teeth slammed together on his tongue, and now he was about to choke on blood, between his bitten tongue and his still-bleeding nose. –All right. Stop. It's Yeshua, he said, pretending to cringe, overdramatizing it a bit.
There was a little man in the corner on a folding chair that he hadn't noticed before, writing on a yellow legal pad, and he scribbled that down furiously, apparently overjoyed at having something significant to write.
He laughed, even though it was excruciating. –That's not really my name. Don't you people ever read books?
–There is only one book, Elijah said, in that fake reverent tone that only preachers could manage, that was probably the most annoying thing on earth except for mosquito bites.
–Really? Only one book? I guess I know which book you mean, he said. He started to reach behind him with what little slack his tied hands offered, thinking that maybe rubbing or pressing on his back would help, and one of the men grabbed his hand hard and pulled it away from his bruises.
–Perhaps you have read it, Elijah said, his voice sticky with sarcasm.
–It just so happens that book is the one book on Earth I can think of with my name in it, he said, tired of this game, tired of thinking of hysterically funny answers to these dumb questions so that they could hit him again. –My real name. No jokes. It's in Revelation. Chapter One, Verse Eight. Want me to quote it, or do you know that one already?
Elijah did know it already. He could tell that by the way the man's face went white with either rage or fear, with livid red marks across his forehead, down the bridge of his nose. –Get this thing out of here, he told his guards.
(42)
They threw him into Calvary's one and only holding cell. He lay on the floor, too hurt and too apathetic to try and climb up on the splintered wooden bench. He slept fitfully, or passed out, fainted. He wasn't sure which. When he woke up, drifted back, he had the energy to stand.
He was still bleeding from his nose, so he hadn't been out for more than a few minutes. He dipped his fingers in it and painted a messy version of the sigil for release from prison, from The Key of Solomon, on the wall of the cell, just to give them something to think about. When he was finished with that he made as many Satanic symbols as he could think of, out of spite, and then pissed in the corner, agony, more blood than urine.
He was sitting with his back against the wall, facing the bars, when one of the bastard enforcers walked by, stared at him, and threw a bucketful of something on him. Vinegar. –Ha ha, you funny bastard, he called after the man, the shit stinging in his eyes like acid, burning in his abraded skin. The guy didn't even turn around.
He was dozing again when he heard the door rattle open, Wow, the sigil fucking worked, he thought, drowsy and dazed. It was one of the guards. More pain, more questions. He stood up himself, and let the man drag him back to the white room.
That night, when they brought him back, he couldn't walk at all. They had smashed two of his fingers, sprayed him with a fire hose until his skin was raw, other things that he couldn't remember except as a dark color that was humiliation and pain.
They had given up any pretense at asking intelligent questions. Now it was an endless litany, confess, repent, confess, repent. He only remembered one actual question. Elijah leaning over him while two of them knelt on his hands, saying, –Did you tell your coven that they were to be their own gods? Did you tell them that they were gods? Did you?
–Yes, he ground out, and why was he still laughing? –I told them that we are our own gods. And some of us are our own devils. Like you. Like Aaron.
After an hour or so he didn't even hear them anymore. He just let them do whatever they wanted.
The temptation was terrible. Just agree with them. Agree with whatever they say. Accept Jesus, beg for forgiveness, whatever, you don't have to mean it, just SAY it, SAY ANYTHING THAT WILL MAKE THEM STOP.
Oh, the lure of that voice. It sounded like Zillah in his head.
And if I do that, they have won already. It won't matter if I mean it or not. It will matter that I said it, and that I let them make me say something that isn't true. I won't be something I'm not. Not even to stop them. Not ever. Not for anything.
He lay where they dropped him and stared up at the concrete ceiling. He waited.
You're almost me, now. You have to be destroyed to become me. It has to be torture, but it is almost over, said the mirror man, beside him.
He turned over, weak, pushing himself around with his feet. He couldn't move his arms. He looked up into his own eyes, and said, –No. The worst part hasn't happened yet.
The best part hasn't happened yet, either.
–Why should I believe you?
You tell everyone to believe in themselves. Can't you take your own advice? I am you. I am what you will become. I am your core, the you that is underneath all of this.
–This is Gethsemane. I don't want this. I hate it. Take it away. You want to be me, then do it. You let them beat the fuck out of you, if you want. I'm through with this, he said, bitter and tired, so fucking tired.
You have it backwards. I can't become you. I already was you.
–So you're me, only from the future? he said, trying to sound scathing, and only succeeding in sounding defeated and flat.
Something like that. I am the possible you. I am the end, and you are the beginning.
–And this is the middle.
Yes.
–Well, this middle part really blows. Really. I want to go home, he said, and he was crying in spite of himself, crying like a little kid, thinking of Mary, thinking of their bed, a shower, a joint, kisses, no more torture. No more. Just no more.
I know, the reflection said, and kissed him with glass lips that were as cold as ice, as white as snow. To be a god is a terrible thing.
–But somebody's got to do it, right? he whispered.
No. Everybody's got to do it. But you...you will be the first. And the last.
And the mirror man left him alone, to lie there, to wait.
&n
bsp; Four days later, they came to his cell again. The sound of the footsteps coming closer made him rock back and forth, not even crying anymore, too scoured out by pain to do anything but rock and experience dread.
The guard opened the door to his cell, and said, –Someone has posted your bail.
Bail? Calvary didn't have bail. Someone must have offered them a fuck of a lot of money. –Who was it? he croaked, standing up.
One of them threw him his Halloween costume, watched him with cold eyes as he struggled to put it on. –That homosexual friend of yours.
He laughed at that. –Which one?
–The one with hair like a mop.
Jordan. His eyes stung with tears, gratitude and sorrow and shame at being such a burden to anyone who loved him. He followed the man out.
Elijah was waiting for him, at the door. –Understand you are still under arrest. You are not to leave Calvary.
–So much for my trip to Disneyland, he said, and walked past the bastard, trying to manage some kind of coolness in spite of his new awkward walk.
Mary and Jordan were waiting for him outside. She didn't say a word, she only flew over to him and damn near knocked him over, hugging him so hard he groaned, just clinging, her heart beating so hard he could feel it against his own chest. He held her close, from his elbows up, anyway, hands crooked. He looked at Jordan over her shoulder. –The bail.
–Six thousand.
–Thank you.
–You owe me a blow job, fucker, Jordan said, and burst into tears.
He reached out one arm to Jordan, and stood holding them both, hurting, remembering the last time he’d held them both in the very same way, wishing that someone was there to comfort him. –Why did they let me go? What makes them think I won't run?
–They burned the truck. And they…took my…motorcycle, Jordan said, still sobbing.
He sighed. He wasn't surprised.
He'd had no intention of running, anyway.
Zillah was standing about twenty feet away, smoking.
He pushed Mary into Jordan's arms, walked over to Zillah. –You betrayed me.
Zillah's eyes gleamed. –You betrayed yourself eons ago.
He hit him, one good clean straight punch with his right hand. Until it landed he wasn't sure he had it in him. It hurt the holy fuck out of his elbow. It swung Zillah's head around and knocked the cigarette out of his mouth. He felt the cigarette burn his knuckles.
Jordan cried out. –No, it wasn’t his fault, he HAD to let them in, they had guns...please...
Zillah turned back to him, his eyes still bright, his mouth bleeding.
–I am the only thing I haven't betrayed, he spat at Zillah.
He turned away, and went home with his wife.
She made him chicken soup and cleaned the blood off him and kissed him and let him cry. It was shock, he supposed. He couldn't stop crying. He wanted to talk to her, wanted to tell her about it. Every time he tried he would feel himself thrown up against that wall, cold and naked and outnumbered, and the tears would drown him. He was reduced to a child he had no memory of being, and she was the mother he had never had.
(43)
Two days later, just after sunset, there was a hesitant tap at his door.
He was curled up on the bed with her, still shaking from being hammered with questions and sneers and torture. He was trying to explain it to her, desperate to get it out of his head before it poisoned him.
He had a jelly glass in his hand that she kept quietly refilling with straight tequila. He would try to tell her, and he could only manage one or two words, or a fragment of a sentence at best before the shaking threatened to crawl up from his belly into his mouth. She just nodded, looking at him with bottomless eyes, her feet curled under her, her thigh pressed tight against his. Every time he had to stop, she would say I love you, and kiss his mouth, his chin, his cheeks, trying to soothe wounds that he could not soothe himself.
The frightened little knock startled them both. His breath seized in his lungs, hard and heavy as frozen lead. There was an instant of terrible instinct to run, to hide, and then Mary...baby...I'll kill anyone who comes in here snapped through his head, and he stood up.
She tried to catch hold of him. He was already going to the door, his hand behind him, comfortably near the switchblade in his back pocket.
Jordan was standing at the foot of the steps, looking ashamed and uncomfortable. He was dusty from boots to dreadlocks, and his makeup was smeared down to faded ghost lines. Zillah was out by the mailbox, near the scrape in the sand that served as a road, a dim abstract of gleaming white paint and the crimson glow of his cigarette. He was looking away from the house, his eyes distant.
–Hey, Jordan had whispered, not looking him in the eye.
Mary was standing in the doorway, just behind him, and when she saw Jordan's expression she began to cry, very softly.
He waved her back inside, came out and sat on the steps.
–Still?
Jordan nodded, miserable and hiding it badly. –They sent me, I guess, because they thought it would be easier–
–Easier? He laughed at that one, deliberately. –Bullshit. They made you tell me because they knew it would hurt us both, because they knew I wouldn't kill you, and because...
He stopped. Because I just happen to be number one on a list of four. And you and Mary are Undesirables numbered Two and Three.
–Like, kill the messenger? Jordan said, making a bleak attempt at a smile that was not returned.
They sat there for a minute, both numb.
–He told me to tell you to read Leviticus, chapter twenty, verse twenty-seven.
He looked at Jordan, horrified, staring his own death in the face.
–What? What does it mean?
It took him a minute. Then, he recited quietly, –A man...that is a wizard shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones.
Silence.
Jordan finally said, –So what are you going to do?
–When is it?
–Two days. Friday. At noon.
He sighed. –Only two days? My, what shall I wear? he said, dripping sarcasm.
–You can't be serious, Jordan said, appalled. Elijah said if you publicly recant, then it's over. No more torture or jail or anything. I mean, all you have to do is–
–Sell my soul? he snapped, bitterly.
He stood up, then, and turned his back on his oldest friend, his hand on the doorknob. –Jordan, this has been really great, but I have to go spend two days with my family.
–Mary –
–I know all about Mary. I was there, remember? he snarled. He wanted to be angry. It was much better than being afraid.
–Wait –
He stepped inside. He saw Jordan's face twisting, just as he closed the door.
Then Mary fell against him, a bundle of tears and terror and rage.
He spent three hours of his remaining forty-eight holding Jordan, and letting him cry. The forty-five that were left, he spent in bed with Mary.
He lay as close to her as he could, both naked, trying to climb inside each other's skin. He was talking to her in a frantic fast whisper, telling her everything he could remember of his fragmented life, every thought he had ever had, everything she meant to him, everything this world had been to him, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. It wasn't enough. There wasn't enough time, and he couldn't talk fast enough, couldn't remember it all, couldn't, couldn't. He was trying to record himself in her, and he would never do it in time.
On the second night, my last night on earth, he kept thinking, he made love to her, both sobbing, and it was over too quickly, the pleasure nothing against the dawn, the flesh already becoming less a part of him, and he crushed her close to him, and said, –I will love you forever. There is no until death do us part. I won't be apart from you. I'll be here, right here, right here.
And dawn was coming, coming fast and hard, coming at both of them at terminal velocity.
&
nbsp; (44)
He woke up, and his first thought was, Oh, no, I fell asleep.
She shook him again, gently, and he pushed himself up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
–You let me fall asleep.
A shadow that was already behind her face reared its head. She turned away, set the coffeepot down. It was too late. He had already seen it. –I thought...you needed your rest. You were so tired...
Won't there be time enough for that? he wanted to scream out at her.
He didn't. –What time is it?
Her shoulders drew themselves up into an anguished line. –It's early. There's plenty of time, she said, wiping dust off a counter top that had no dust.
Plenty of time. After all this, all they had been through, and she was lying to him now. He groped at the foot of the bed, found the plastic weight of a half-gallon container. He unscrewed the red cap, glanced at it for the first time in his life. The letters swam, refusing to be read. He lifted it to his mouth and gulped down warm orange juice. He put it down, screwed the cap back on.
She might want it, later.
The silence was unbearable. –Are you hungry? she asked him, her voice a terrible attempt at casual. It was like someone cutting you open with a rusty knife, and trying to do it politely.
Hungry. Yes, he was hungry. He wanted caviar and grilled shrimp and steak and potato chips. He wanted a margarita in a glass so cold there was frost around the rim. He wanted peaches and carrots and licorice and strawberry bubble gum. He was one long merciless skein of appetite.
–No. I'm all right, he said, running his hands through his long hair. He pulled some of it in front of his face, half-expecting it to have gone platinum during the night. Still black. There was that, at least. He looked at her, and her hair was still black, too. He was vaguely disappointed. It was supposed to go white. Probably they were both too far beyond terror. Or was it white underneath years of dye?
