Fortunately Les kept things moving right along. Each person took at most five minutes inside with him. Better than waiting for a ride at Disney. And you didn’t have to shell out a hundred bucks to get in neither.
The media started to swarm by the fifth day. First came reporters from the local papers, then from the tabloid magazines, then from the cable channels, then from the network news. That weekend even one of the hosts of “Good Day Nation”—the douchey guy, not the babe—had camped outside Les’s home.
Loads of filthy rich people showed up too, from as far away as France and China. They cruised up in limos and Lamborghinis, all yearning for Les to treat whatever ailed them. All at no charge. Les couldn’t even accept any gifts. If somebody left him something on the sly, like a diamond-encrusted watch or his own private jet (with personal pilot), he donated it straight to charity.
Les was really taking the rules seriously.
Me, I was looking for loopholes.
On Thursday of the second week, a pair of priests in purple capes and skullcaps dropped by Green Glades. Their first day there they just observed Les in action. On Friday they brought over this ugly Peruvian bastard with dry leprosy. Les did his mojo and POOF! Guy now looks more like the Crocodile Hunter than the Alligator Man.
The fancy priests must have reported the stellar results to their boss. The very next day the Vatican sent one of their bigwigs to our butthole town to meet Les. Bishop Sylvio had flown here all the way from Italy. He wore this sharp white suit with a shiny red tie and a shinier gold crucifix. He had the hair of an expensive lawyer and the teeth of an expensive dentist. He smelled like clove cigarettes. Sylvio also had this buttery Italian accent that could make a chick dampen her panties from across a room. He used it to tell me to leave him and Les alone awhile so they might discuss some matter in private.
So I waited outside with the other non-VIPs.
Twenty minutes later the bishop exits Les’s trailer, marches over to his white stretch Hummer (without giving us unwashed masses—even the wealthy washed ones—so much as a “bless you”) and drives off.
Les spends another hour and a half giving folks finger jobs before calling it a day. I tell the five hundred plus people still in line to come back tomorrow at 11. As usual most stay put, not wanting to lose their places.
I ask Les what the bishop wanted.
The Pope wants Les to do a global healing tour.
Where to? I ask.
Everywhere, Les answers. Even the Middle East. They think he’s the ultimate promotional tool for Christianity.
I see a problem. Wouldn’t working for them be against the “rules”?
They talked about that. The bishop said they don’t have to pay him. They would just cover his expenses. It’d be like missionary work.
I decide that’s OK. It’ll be cool seeing the world. Let’s do it, I say.
You can’t, Les says softly.
I ask him to repeat himself.
Les looks me in the eye, all sympathetic, and says I can’t go.
Why not? I ask.
The bishop told him I didn’t adequately represent the Vatican’s image. Guess he meant I wasn’t religiousy enough.
I should’ve been pissed, but Bishop Sylvio was right. I’m not religiousy at all. I’d probably embarrass myself on the road. Get drunk in Australia. Get high in Amsterdam. Get laid in Japan. Get in a fistfight in Russia. I’m a horrible role model for anybody, much less Christians.
Les, though, isn’t all that much better. Sure, he’s nice as nookie, but he’s no king of the righteous. He drinks and smokes and screws near as much as I do. And Les was never the churchgoing sort neither. He only thanks God for stuff now and then (Thank God for weed!), more often damning other stuff in His name (Goddamn shoelace!). I’d wager most any preacher has superior credentials. Hell, lots of the folks in line could probably make a stronger claim for being holier than him. In my opinion, Les didn’t deserve to sport Jesus’s finger. Maybe the angel had made a mistake.
I wanted my best friend back.
More than that, I wanted that magic finger. Badly.
So I finally figure out a loophole.
Les was jetting off to Rome Monday afternoon. I come over Sunday night to help him pack. I bought us a cheap bottle of rum for a bon voyage party. I pour us each a glass and slip a few roofies into Les’s.
For the next twenty minutes before he conks out we talk about normal stuff. Nothing about his world tour, or the Pope, or even his frankenfinger. Just shit we did together in high school—smoking grass at MacArthur Park, throwing M-80s in the boys room toilets, double teaming Amy Gratzen. Good memories. Made me kinda sad.
Once Les passes out cold, I use my mom’s gardening clippers to cut off Jesus’s digit. It’s more of a bitch than I thought it’d be. (Not that I’m any expert on chopping off fingers.) I have to put my full weight on the clippers before the finger snaps off. I plunk it into my jeans pocket and split.
Now I could go around healing folks myself. And since I wasn’t bound by any heavenly contract like Les was, I could get paid for it. Or, I could skip all that grind and sell the finger to the highest bidder. Must be worth millions. Hundreds of millions! I’d be set for life. I could buy my own castle in Scotland. Gather a harem of hoochies. Eat clambake every day.
Yeah, guilt chewed at me. But greed fed me more.
I doubted Les would ever forgive me, but I hoped he’d understand. Sometimes opportunity doesn’t knock. You have to break in.
When I enter my bedroom/mom’s garage, I put her clippers away on the wall where they belonged. Then I chug a beer from the mini fridge. Then I puke in the toilet. Then I reach into my pocket… and scoop out only greasy black dust.
Jesus’s finger had disintegrated.
*****
Les wakes up the following day with a monster headache and minus one magic finger. The wound I’d made healed up overnight. There isn’t even the tiniest scar. It’s like it was never there.
Les seems to take everything in stride. He calls to tell me first. Next he phones Bishop Sylvio and informs him of the situation. Les then goes outside and announces to his faithful followers that his trip is off, that his healing powers have been revoked, and that he is very truly sorry.
Nothing twists the heart more than the sight of scores of sick and lame folks who’ve had their hopes crushed. It takes nearly two hours for all of them to drift away, shuffling or limping or rolling back to their regularly scheduled lives.
Much like Les and me did. Les went back to managing Stu’s Market. And I went back to chilling out with my buddy who didn’t have an extra finger belonging to the son of God. Our life is as it was before, everything as it should be. I almost thanked God for it.
Except I’d also learned I got stage 4 stomach cancer and had, with chemotherapy, maybe a year or two to live. Without chemo, maybe a few months. I don’t have insurance, so I guess I’m on the fast track to Game Over. I haven’t told Les any of this because, well—
What do you think I did wrong? Les asks me while we polish off a case of PBR and play Grand Theft Auto 5.
Dunno, I say.
I followed all the rules, Les groans. Every. Single. One. Maybe he could contact the angel—
I cut him off right there, saying maybe it was because he got too famous.
Les mulls this over and says, You mean fame was a form of payment?
Yeah, I answer. Could be. Probably.
Les sighs, sags his shoulders. He seems to accept my explanation. He then says Efram should have been more specific, insists he could’ve saved so many more people. Hundreds. Thousands.
I feel the tumor pain in my gut again. I rub my belly, wincing.
You alright? Les asks.
Just my ulcer acting up, I answer. Ulcer. That’s what I told Les I had.
I could’ve done something for that, he says, when I had the… y’know.
Yeah, I say.
I knew.
CUTTING REMARKS
Two of Sinclair’s teammates knock on his front door that rainy Saturday afternoon, after he had missed his Friday bowling night twice in a row. They had tried calling his house numerous times, but the phone was apparently, oddly, off the hook.
“Oh my, yes. That’s true,” his wife Hedda confesses, embarrassed. “I didn’t want its ringing to bother him. You know if Sin doesn’t get enough sleep he can be a real crabapple to deal with!”
Hedda straightens the strap of her green sundress and brushes strands of prematurely graying hair from her face. She invites them (such nice men, Hedda thinks) into her home. “Please, sit down a spell. Would you like some coffee?”
They enter and wince. The stench, potent and putrid, is unmistakable.
They find Sinclair in the couple’s king-sized bed.
“Shhhhh,” Hedda hisses at her husband’s friends. “Don’t wake him. He so needs his rest.”
*****
It had been dinner as usual and there was that bitter taste in her mouth again, scarcely five minutes after she had sat down at the table to eat.
Mind you, it was not the meal. Hedda’s cooking was unanimously praised in town—she often contributed to potluck suppers at church functions—and tonight’s chicken cordon bleu was no exception. A superb dish.
No, the source of her distaste was her husband of eight years. Sinclair. She once thought his name, and the man himself, to be so dignified, so sophisticated, even exotic. Now to merely hear his name spoken made her skin squirm.
And the sound of his voice made her throat tighten like a tourniquet.
Sinclair was, as some described him, a critical sort. Scornful was more accurate, by Hedda’s reckoning. He relished expressing his not-so-humble opinions to anyone who would lend him an ear. Beyond that, he was keen to provoke, to rouse a heated reaction from folks, even if he himself knew he was just spewing a lot of hot air. And since he, a retired electrician, seldom ventured out of their small—too small—cottage home anymore other than to go bowling Fridays, Hedda bore the brunt of her husband’s antagonism.
He didn’t care to debate politics or sports with her like he did with his Ten Pin Bowl buddies. Rather, he threw a barrage of verbal darts at her, about her, and the deeper they stuck, the better.
“Your arms are getting flabby.”
Building muscle, they were, from keeping up the house.
“You’re looking old.”
Of course, at age 42, she was no pompom girl, yet she still had her admirers—oh, that flirty Mr. Milford at church!—but being a good Christian, she never gave into temptation.
“Don’t you ever have anything interesting to say?”
She did. Since her third miscarriage three years prior, he hardly ever listened anymore, so she had given up trying to make conversation.
“Do you plan on moving your lazy butt to do something ’round here today?”
She toiled for him and his home twelve hours or more each and every day. Didn’t she deserve those precious few minutes watching her favorite TV programs?
“You are worthless, woman.”
Hmmph! See if he could live without her!
“You make me sick.”
Oh, how she loathed him.
“This food ain’t fit for starvin’ dogs.”
It was this last remark that finally impelled Hedda to crack Sinclair’s skull with the metal meat-tenderizing mallet. He slid off his chair and crumpled beneath the table, without a fuss, which was very unlike him. But he wasn’t a particularly robust man. Quite delicate actually. Hedda was almost twice his size and strength. But it was always the scrawniest runt with the biggest mouth, wasn’t it? Trying to compensate for what he lacked in physical prowess. If only somebody long ago had clobbered him for talking too tough, too smart. All those aches and bruises from being beaten with fist and foot could really have left an indelible impression on one as tiny and as loose-lipped as Sinclair Koppinger. But nobody had ever taught him the virtue of respecting others.
He had learnt his lesson now, Hedda was confident.
Sinclair twitched a moment, then moved no more. A crimson pool spread underneath his head. She would have to mop the linoleum soon before the stains set in.
There was something pathetic about him, she mused. This proud bastard of a man sprawled on the floor like a broken puppet. Very sad indeed. Hedda lifted her husband up and, cradling his limp body in her arms, carried him to bed.
*****
Quite a change overcame Sinclair since that evening. He no longer snored like a revving bulldozer. (Ahh, Hedda couldn’t remember when she had last slept so soundly!) He paid far more attention to what she had to say. Most gratifying of all, he didn’t cut her down anymore, didn’t berate her, didn’t belittle her. Suddenly, the noxious burden that had been her husband was swatted from her weary shoulders.
She was unshackled. Free.
The following days were, in a word, delightful. Hedda watched all of her afternoon soaps without interruption, as well as two game shows and a funny sitcom. She baked a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies for herself. She played her chorale hymns record on the living room stereo, loud enough so she could hear it in the kitchen. She didn’t vacuum the carpets on Tuesday as was her routine; no doubt they could wait until Thursday, even Friday. She solved a crossword puzzle, sewed a button back on her prettiest dress—Mr. Milford said she looked positively angelic in it—and treated herself to a warm Epsom salt bath. As always, she attended Mass on Sunday morning, then went grocery shopping afterwards.
And all the while, Sinclair was, if not appreciative, certainly acquiescent.
It was heaven. Hedda was able to allow herself to relax again, and to thoroughly enjoy it, without worrying about Sin barking at her and disturbing her newfound peace of mind.
Even Pastor Greeley commented on, so out-of-the-blue, how happy and contented she seemed.
Well, Hedda replied to him, she had recently been the beneficiary of fortunate circumstances. It was like a divine thunderbolt had struck her, and she felt—yes she was—saved. Then Hedda smiled, without elaboration.
She hadn’t smiled for ages.
*****
When Sinclair awoke, Hedda could not help but feel an overwhelming wave of disappointment.
She’d been watching one of those true crime shows, which had only recently become something of an addiction for her. Her heart pounded and her stomach churned when Sin stepped into the TV room, glared at her, and grumbled, “I’m hungry. Make me something.”
Gone was the towel that Hedda had wound around the crown of his head. There seemed not a drop of blood on him. In fact, his head appeared wholly unscathed. (And she had bashed it in good!)
Curiously, he didn’t mention Hedda’s assault on him. Maybe the blow had impaired his memory. Maybe he was toying with her. Regardless, he had reverted to his usual habits.
Hedda rose from the sofa to go make him his favorite sandwich—ham and Swiss on rye with mustard. Sin stood right beside her at the kitchen counter, eyeing her with disgust, his hot breath wafting down her neck. She concentrated on tuning out his voice, but his big mouth seemed to have grown, literally, bigger. Amplifying his every pricking, prodding utterance. He hollered and bellowed and roared, and it rattled her bones. His words burrowed into her flesh and clawed at her insides.
“What a surprise! You sitting on your rump.”
Take two slices of bread…
“Been fattening your belly more I see.”
Two slices of ham…
“You look like crap.”
One slice of cheese…
“You dimwitted, good-for-nothing, poor excuse for a wife.”
And a dab of mustard…
“G’damnit, woman! Don’t you ever speak up?”
Her composure withering, then shattering, Hedda glowered back at him and shrieked into his face:
“SHUT UP!”
Sinclair appeared stunned by her outburst. So was she. It was very unlike her.
She blinked
and swallowed. Her throat tingled.
He shrugged and huffed. Vehemently, defiantly, he answered her: “No.”
It then occurred to her, maybe there was no way to shut him up, or shut him out. Sin was a stubborn man by nature and demanding anything of him was akin to lighting a fuse to a never-ending string of dynamite that would explode over and over again, longer and louder, wreaking more damage with each and every blast, until…
Hedda began to sob.
Sin smirked at her.
There was no relief. No escape.
Unless… she pondered.
Yes. The idea was so simple, so sensible, how could she not have thought of it before? It just hit her, like a thunderbolt. A moment of inspiration that would set her free, and put him in his place, once and for all.
She grinned.
“No? Well, dear,” she crooned, gazing at her husband, dead in his eyes. “I’m afraid that won’t do. Won’t do at all.”
*****
It is a week later when the policemen (what handsome boys they are, Hedda thinks, in their spiffy blue uniforms) come to examine Sinclair Koppinger’s body tucked snug in the bed, decomposing in the dank air of the room.
He had been decapitated—several days postmortem, it was later determined—his head neatly sawed off.
That part is uncovered, with Mrs. Koppinger’s polite cooperation, in the yard, buried in a shallow patch of soil along the stockade fence. (A fine spot for a vegetable garden, she chatters to the officers.) Mr. Koppinger’s cranium is caved in, his mouth stuffed full of cotton balls, then duct taped over.
Everyone Is a Moon Page 2
