Father of Lies

by Brian Evenson

  “You’ve had quite a run of bad luck, Provost,” he says.

  The nurse helps me to lie down, then goes out.

  “You’re all right?” Rector Bates asks.

  “Not bad,” I say. “Considering.”

  “Who has the children?”

  “My wife’s parents.”

  He nods. We sit looking at one another until the telephone rings.

  “Should I get that?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “Please.”

  He picks up the telephone. “Hello?” he says. “Yes. Who is calling, please?”

  He holds the receiver toward me.

  “Feshtig,” he says. “A Doctor Feshtig. He said you’d know him.”

  I shake my head no. Bates pulls the receiver back to his own face.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “He is unable to take your call.”

  I hear Feshtig frantically talking as the receiver leaves Bates’ ear and is slowly replaced in the cradle.

  Bates sits there a moment, seemingly embarrassed.

  “I have something to show you,” he says. “I don’t want to shock you.”

  I nod.

  He takes from his coat pocket a rolled newspaper, spreads it out, places it on the coverlet before me.

  On the front page is the tree with my car wrapped around it. The car is folded thoroughly around the tree, the interior space reduced to nearly nothing. “Accused Molester Crashes, Wife Dead.”

  “It’s a miracle you survived,” he says. “God’s looking out for you.”

  “How did they find me?”

  “A hiker found the car. He went to the main road to wave someone down. You must have been going fast,” he says. “Too fast obviously. How fast were you going?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Approximately, I mean,” he says. “Take a guess.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Fast,” he says. “Too fast,” he says.

  He stops a moment, pauses, then bows his head in a way that does not look genuine. I am much better at it than he.

  “I am sorry about your wife, truly sorry.”

  I don’t know what I should say, so I don’t say anything.

  “Seatbelts,” he says. “Got to make sure they wear their seatbelts.”

  “Seatbelts,” I say.

  He points again to the article. “See what I circled?” he says.

  I squint at the paper. “Yes,” I say.

  “Two certain women have been very busy,” he says.

  I begin to read the circled passage, slowly. I am being accused in it of all they have accused me of before. The speculation is made, on the behalf of the reporter, that perhaps when I wrecked I was trying “out of guilt and shame” to “commit suicide.”

  “This is appalling,” I say. “I had no intention of committing suicide.”

  “Shameless,” he says. “And so soon after the accident.”

  “These women,” I say. “They don’t care about the truth, they don’t care about anything. They just want to get rid of me.”

  “They want to hurt the Church,” Bates says, raising his voice. “The Church has been fair to them, you’ve been honest with them straight down the line, but they want everything their way.”

  “Bitter,” I say.

  “They take up the Devil’s cause,” he says.

  He takes the article and folds it up, puts it into his suit pocket.

  “You are the victim here, Provost,” he says. “The innocent victim.”

  He stands up.

  “I have to go,” he says. “Get well soon. We are praying for you.”

  In a few weeks I am in a wheelchair. A few more and I crutch my way out the front door of the hospital.

  The children are with my wife’s parents. I come into the empty house alone. I rest for some time in the living room, catching my breath. Everything about the room, I realize, was chosen by my wife. I have had no part in it.

  I go into the kitchen and open drawers and cupboards until I find a roll of plastic trash bags. I tear a few off and begin to load the living room into them. I take down the pastel, neoimpressionist Jesus, the tole-painted bears, the cross-stitch of the temple we were married in, the family photographs that she demanded I sit for with her each year. The rustic, open wallbox containing scenes and objects which she felt captured the essence of our relationship, the sheet music strewn across the piano that no one in the family can play, the cassettes of the Church’s official hymns, plants with dead leaves, the best-selling books by church leaders and by those who wish to be church leaders, The Suffering Heart, a framed parchment depicting Jesus Christ’s Anglo-Saxon face and beneath it the words “I never promised that it would be easy, only that it would be worth it.”

  I am shucking her whole.

  There are three full trash bags and another started and the room is falling bare, but the furniture and the wallpaper still reveal hints of my wife’s face. I will have them changed. I will have the room as I want it, though I don’t know what I want yet.

  But for now I must catch my breath.

  I lie down on the couch, my damaged leg elevated. My broken arm pulses within the cast. I sleep a little.

  When I awake, it is dark throughout the house. I feel better, some.

  I crutch slowly through the ground floor, closing doors. In the kitchen I butter two slices of stale bread and eat them. The butter is on the verge of going rancid, slightly bitter and sharp to the taste. The rest of the fridge is empty.

  I go through the newspapers piled on the table, stripping off the rubber bands, looking for news of myself. There is news of the accident, news of my wife’s death and of my survival, a follow-up article on the rape of the two boys—the Church’s public relations person unequivocally denying any involvement on my part, claiming, “We have investigated the matter thoroughly and see no evidence of wrongdoing.” The man has not spoken to me at all and, as far as I can tell, is only taking the area rector’s word on everything. There never has been—and I hope never will be—a legitimate investigation by the Church.

  I spend the evening reading the newspapers backwards, I pick up the telephone and call my wife’s parents, speak briefly to my eldest daughter, tell her how much I am looking forward to seeing her and the rest of the family.

  I leave my crutches at the base of the stairs and pull myself carefully up. It is as much as I can manage. At the top I lie down on the floor, rest for some time before pulling myself again to my feet and down the hallway to the bedroom.

  Pushing the door slowly open, I stand there swaying, legs aching. I flick on the light.

  On the bed, body extended, ankles crossed, stripped of his clothes, his body broken and angled, is the bloody-headed man.

  “Fochs,” he says, drawing me toward him. “Welcome home.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Threat

  I awake to the sound of the telephone ringing beside the bed, the bloody-headed man holding the sheets around himself and shaking me. I stumble out of bed, striking my leg cast heavily against the bedside table, turning my leg as I fall.

  The telephone keeps ringing. The bloody-headed man drags me from the floor, pulls me to the telephone, helps me pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “I am looking for a Mr. Fochs.”

  “Fochs?” I say. “This is Fochs.”

  “Mr. Fochs, it has come to our attention that you may have information about a young girl’s death.”

  “Who is this?”

  He identifies himself as a detective with the Police Department.

  “I already told the police everything I know.”

  “Your psychiatrist telephoned us,” the detective says. “He claims you know more.”

  “My psychiatrist? I don’t have a psychiatrist.”

  “Mr. Fochs, there is no delicate way to put this,” he says. “You are a suspect.”

  “A suspect?”

  “The things they say you did to those boys, Mr. Fochs,�
�� he says. “A man who could do something like that could murder easily enough. Not that you did them,” he says. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “You can’t accuse me,” I say.

  “Now, Mr. Fochs, who’s accusing anybody? It is only what I read in the papers.” I hear something rustle in the background, behind his voice. “And what I hear from your psychiatrist. We are asking for a blood sample,” he says, “for comparison purposes. Just a smear test for blood type and related. If things seem to match up, we might ask for a DNA test later.”

  “What?” I ask. “You can’t do this.”

  “If you didn’t do it, this will clear you,” he says. “If you did—”

  “—I’m bedridden. I can’t come down there.”

  “We can send someone by.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say.

  “It’s for your own benefit, Fochs.”

  “You can’t make me do it. I have a lawyer.”

  “Fine,” he says. “You call your lawyer and work it out, friend.”

  “You can’t make me,” I say again. “I am still weak from the accident.”

  “Get a doctor to say that in writing.”

  “I have rights, you know.”

  “Fochs,” he says. “Some name you have. Sounds like an X-rated clown. Not that I’m judging you, mind.” And then he hangs up.

  Bloody-Head just lies in bed, watching me. I get up and stumble around the room, throwing on my robe, then sit down on the bed again.

  “Problems, Fochs?” he asks.

  I dial Rector Bates’ work telephone, listening to the bloody-headed man chuckle softly. The secretary asks me to hold. The Muzak starts.

  “Need a helping hand, Fochs?” asks Bloody-Head.

  “Leave me alone,” I say. “This is all your fault.”

  He laughs. “It isn’t anybody’s fault but your own,” he says. “You made the choices the whole way along.”

  “Hello?” says the secretary.

  “Fochs for Bates,” I say.

  “I am sorry,” she says. “Mr. Bates is unavailable. May I take a message?”

  “It’s an emergency,” I say. “Just tell him Fochs is on the line. And that it is an emergency.”

  “Fochs,” she says. “I don’t know.”

  “Fochs,” Bloody-Head laughs. “What the hell kind of name is that?”

  “Please.”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I shouldn’t.”

  “It’s life or death,” I say. “Please ask him.”

  She puts me on hold.

  “Get out,” I say to Bloody-Head.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” I say. “Leave my house.”

  “It isn’t as easy as that,” he says.

  “Get out!” I scream. “Get out!”

  He smiles, rolls over in the bed.

  I raise my arm to the square. “I command you to depart,” I say.

  “By what authority?”

  “In the name of Jesus Christ.”

  He snorts, lies down. “Before, you thought I was Jesus,” he says. “Changed your mind?”

  “Fochs?” says the telephone. “What is it, man?”

  I manage to trouble out what the police want me to do.

  “So?”

  “I don’t want to do it. I want a lawyer,” I say. “I need the Church to provide one again.”

  “Give them the blood sample,” says Bates. “What can it hurt?”

  “I don’t want to give it.”

  “What does it matter, Fochs?” he asks. “You are innocent. This will clear you.”

  “But what if—”

  “You are innocent, aren’t you?”

  I take a deep breath. “Of course I am,” I say.

  He hesitates a long time as if listening for confirmation from the Spirit. “I believe you,” he finally says. “You wouldn’t lie to me. You are telling me the truth. No lawyer then. Go through with it.”

  The doorbell rings downstairs. My heart is beating too fast for my chest.

  “Nice try, Fochs,” says Bloody-Head, “but it is never that easy.”

  “You can help me out of this,” I say. “You’ve helped me before.”

  The doorbell rings again. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “Then I will,” he says.

  He stands and leaves the room. I hear the door open downstairs, hear muddled voices, footsteps on the stairs.

  Two plainclothesmen come into the bedroom, hats in their hands, one blond, the other bald.

  “The door was open,” the blond says. “We took the liberty.”

  “We’re here for the blood,” says the bald man.

  His partner elbows him. He puts on a pair of gloves. He takes a hypodermic out of his pocket, affixes a needle to it.

  “I won’t do it,” I say.

  “You got a lawyer?” the blond says. “If not, I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station?”

  I am going to tell them to arrest me but then I begin to think it over. They will have what they want in either case. If I am not arrested, I at least have a day to gather my things and leave.

  I push up the sleeve of my pajamas.

  “Good,” says the bald one. “You are right to see it our way.” He starts toward me.

  “Let me go to the bathroom first,” I say.

  They look at each other, shrug. The bald one goes into the bathroom and rattles around the cabinets, comes back out again.

  “Looks okay,” he says.

  “Now you’re searching my bathroom,” I say.

  “Not at all,” the bald one says, “nothing of the kind.”

  “Up you go then,” says the blond, taking my arm, helping me to stand.

  I limp my way into the bathroom.

  “We’ll be right here if you need anything,” the blond says. “We’ll be waiting.”

  I close the bathroom door. I strip my pajama bottoms off, my temple underclothing as well, leaving the clothing coiled around my ankle and the bottom of my cast. I lean sideways against the sink to take the weight off my injured leg. I look at my body, my pale sex slack and dull, jutting to one side.

  The shower curtain rustles. I turn as if stung. There is Bloody-Head, his face taut, the X carved in his head edging dark and growing bloody again, wounds circle his skull as well.

  “Need a hand?” he asks.

  I close my eyes and turn away from him, hear him step from the tub to stand next to me, breathing in my ear.

  “I can get you out of this, Fochs,” he says.

  “How?”

  “Trust me,” he says.

  I open my eyes and look at him. “Be my guest,” I say.

  “I would,” he says, “but first I want to know what is in it for me.”

  “In it for you?”

  A knock comes at the door. “Hurry it up,” one of the detectives says.

  I glance out the bathroom window. I lick my lips.

  “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” I tell him.

  He shakes his head, spattering blood on the tiles. “I want you.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I say.

  “You,” he says. “And your daughter,” he says. “Your eldest. I want her as well.”

  “Her soul?”

  “What are you talking about?” he says. “Flesh and blood.”

  “No,” I say. “I won’t do it.”

  “Fine,” he says. “You are going to hell in any case,” he says. “I am just offering you a chance to go in style.”

  He goes to crouch behind the shower curtain again. I examine my bare body.

  “What’s taking so long in there?” asks the blond through the door.

  “Give me a minute,” I say.

  “You’ve had your minute.”

  I pull back the curtain. “What do you mean you want my daught
er?”

  “Do you want to get out of this or not?”

  “What will you do to her?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “As long as you don’t kill her,” I say. “Okay.”

  He stretches out his hand, asks me to take it. I take the hand, feel nothing. It is as if my hand has gone numb.

  “Yourself in the bargain?” he asks.

  I nod.

  He gives a wide grin. He takes my hand, directs it to his crotch. I jerk my hand away.

  “Go ahead,” he says. “Seal the bargain.”

  I stay standing, looking down at him.

  “You don’t expect me to do this myself, do you?” he asks.

  I begin to work my hand and feel him swell and grow hard as death, his tip and shaft darkening. I am caught up in his arms and thrown about and find myself bent over the sink, my legs spread. His hands touch and spread me and he is prodding me, loosening me. He drives himself roughly into me from behind. I am burning and biting my tongue and there is a slow ache. He is crushing the breath out of me. I have a feeling halfway between nausea and pleasure in the pit of my stomach. He begins spurting new blood into me.

  “Where the evil has been, I will push in holy fire to burn it out,” he says, grunting. “Heard that one before, brother?”

  He moves faster and faster, my good leg quivering and giving, the porcelain warming, growing slippery against my belly. The detectives are at the door, knocking. The bloody-headed man sinks his teeth into my shoulder and I have to bite my lips not to cry out. I feel my whole soul tearing and flapping in the wind, and the pain welling up, and his new blood pumping through me and my old blood spattering out, until there is nothing left of me.

  PART FIVE

  FINISH

  CHAPTER 20

  A Chaste Little Kiss

  My children come home. I hire a woman to watch them—a beautiful young member of the Church, a junior college girl who looks much younger. My casts come off. I regain my feet fully, go back to work. My children move smoothly past my wife’s death. I regain my authority at the Church, the excommunicated women slowly fall out of attention and then disappear altogether. Everyone is happy and I am healthy, a new man. I promise the Lord I will serve him in all things. I ask him to forgive me for the faults I have, for the mistakes I have made. I receive witness that I have been forgiven.