Scarecrow Gods

by Weston Ochse

  “Sorry, Mom,” he said.

  “You best go to your room. I’m sure your father will want to have a word with you. You might even want to clean it up a bit. I was down there a while ago and didn’t like what I saw.”

  Danny didn’t answer. He shuffled, head down, out of the kitchen ignoring the complex pattern upon the floor and his previous conventions. He trudged down the fourteen carpeted steps to the converted basement where his room was.

  He really didn’t want to cause his parents any trouble. He knew they were on edge. They thought he didn’t notice the way they looked at each other, the way each glance of his mother was an accusation. He wasn’t sure what it really was, but he knew it wasn’t love. Sometimes he thought he almost understood. His friends had talked about it enough. Like at the baseball game last week, Danny had surprised Timmy with the punch. He didn’t know if he was lucky or if Timmy hadn’t been paying attention. Either way, when someone accused his family of incest, it was fighting words—even if he was small for his age.

  Danny could tell his mom had heard the rumors too. Especially when she stared at his dad sometimes with those looks that were both far off and penetrating, like the time he saw her staring out the living room window at his dad on the riding lawnmower. As his dad drove in his shrinking square of cut grass, it was the set of his mother’s jaw that had scared him. Danny had called to her and remembered how she’d spun, the strange glint still in her eyes, slowly softening into something less lethal, more familiar.

  Danny passed a bathroom on the right and a bedroom on the left. He stopped at the end of the hall under a picture of a lion and its pride. His favorite picture in the house, it had gathered spider eggs in the storeroom for God knows how long until he’d found it in one of his bored searches. He remembered bringing it out and begging his mom to let him hang it. It hadn’t been the picture that had made his mom angry, it was his snooping into things that weren’t his business. Through the efforts of his dad, however, Danny kept out of trouble. After all, kids were meant to explore, he’d said.

  To his left was the door to his room. Plastered in the middle were two signs. One said No Girls Allowed in his own crimped writing. The other said Except Me in a beautiful scrawl, written by his sister, Elaina, almost a full year ago. He eyed the sign and wished that she really was in his room. He glanced to his right at the door to his sister’s room which was unmarred except for the crucifix his mother shined and replaced every day.

  He paused, remembering his sister’s warnings never to enter upon pain of wedgy, then reached down and turned the well-used, old-fashioned brass knob that Elaina had begged dad to install three years ago. When Nana had died, each kid was given a choice to have anything they wanted before the grown-ups took their turn. They could have anything, anything at all as long as it was small. This last restriction had come from Great Aunt Madupe who’d let everyone know that Nana’s china was now hers, as it should have been when their mother had died. Danny remembered picking a small glass frog, one he’d played with every trip to the farm. Almost as good as a toy, it was something that would allow him to always remember the bright-eyed old woman with the wrinkled smile and soft skin.

  Elaina, on the other hand, much to the consternation of her parents and to her aunts, chose the knob from the door that led to Nana’s room. Danny thought his sister’s choice was pretty cool. The brass knob shined up real nice. It had raised, intertwining vines all over so that when one gripped the cold metal, the outlines of the vines could be felt in one’s palm. Danny had asked his sister why, among all of the old cool things that were available to her, she’d chosen the doorknob. She’d said, because more than anything else in the house, Nana had touched that the most.

  The wood creaked softly as Danny gripped the knob and swung the door open to the room. Someone had closed the blinds since yesterday when he’d last been here. The brightness of the yellow walls and white furniture seemed subdued without his sister. It wasn’t just the darkness. It wasn’t just his sadness. It was as if a filter had been placed across the room.

  He noticed that everything had been recently dusted. He smelled the fresh lemony scent of furniture polish. On the tightly-made bed was an imprint as if someone had recently sat upon the edge. On the floor beneath, was a wadded-up tissue like the kind his mom carried in her sweater pocket; the kind she spit on and wiped his face with if she determined he’d missed a spot before school.

  Danny closed the door carefully and entered his own room where he flopped onto his twin bed. Bouncing twice on the blue and black plaid spread, he reached over and grabbed a book from a stack on the night table. He opened it to the middle and began to read, his eyes moist and sparkling.

  * * *

  Ooltewah, Tennessee

  Night had fallen. The time had come for Maxom to make his thrice-weekly trek to work. Before he left, however, he had his special therapy to perform. Something he spent his entire day dreading. Something he could do without.

  His kitchen was sparse. A few open shelves were bolted to one wall holding cans of green beans, black-eyed peas, BBQ’d beans, peaches, etc. A wicker basket sat filled with potatoes. Ball jars containing pickled amberjack, okra, corn, stewed tomatoes and assorted relishes took up an entire shelf. An old refrigerator, an older stove and a large stainless steel sink sat against the grimy walls. Other than the archway, two doors exited the room. One led to the backyard and hadn’t been opened in years. The other led to a large walk-in pantry that now held the most terrifying thing in his life.

  With the steel hook of his left arm, Maxom grasped the metal back of a kitchen chair and pulled it toward him, the sound of the legs grating against the floor ominous. He sat heavily facing the closed door. Closing his eyes, he steeled himself for the moment. As the old Mung had taught him, Maxom worked on his breathing, slowing it, concentrating on his heart and the pumping of the blood through his veins. Once it reached forty beats per minute, he opened his eyes and licked his lips.

  With a slightly trembling hand, Maxom reached out and grasped the doorknob. He counted to three and jerked it open. He knew this was something that had to be done. Something that, if left undone, would eventually undo him. Maxom stared pointedly at the floor, feeling his chest tighten and his heart rate increase. Slowly, using all his will, he lifted his eyes and beheld the shadowy outlines of the crucifix hung high upon the back wall. He could make out the arms and legs of a black plastic Jesus tacked to the cross and he remembered.

  The shivers began in his legs, mingling with the acidic fear now boiling within his stomach. Memories flooded him, threatening to overwhelm, bringing back all the pain and evil he’d endured. He wanted to flee. He wanted to run away on his manufactured limbs. He wanted to scream. His hand began to shake violently and it took effort to control it enough to slam the door shut.

  His glance at the crucifix had only lasted five seconds, but it was five more than he’d made before he started the therapy. Still trembling, he stood and headed for the door. Maybe his therapist was right. Maybe it was helping. At this rate, he calculated, he could stare at one of the damned things for an hour if he did this every day for another twenty years. For the thousandth time Maxom wondered what the purpose was in even trying.

  Like the Carol King music, however, it was his therapist’s idea. Face your fears, she’d said. Maxom grinned wryly. The woman really had no idea. She’d never been forced to watch a friend die nailed to a cross. She’d never been nailed to one herself.

  Maxom stared at the puckered, star-shaped scar tissue on his one remaining hand. The pain never really went away. Day after day after day in that hellhole of Vietnam, whenever he’d shifted or the soldiers had rattled his cross, the pain arched anew. Sometimes, like the itching of his phantom legs and arm, he’d wake in the middle of the day, his hand aching as if it had a memory of its own.

  Maxom dropped his hand in disgust. Like everything else on his body, it was just another scar. Just another bad memory.

  * * *
>
  Coronado Canyon, Southern Arizona

  Brother Dominic squatted on the gray stone, enthralled by the brilliance of the Sonoran Desert sunset. He wasn’t sure if it was the tremendous breadth of the sky or the pollution-free colors that made him appreciate this particular beauty.

  He’d been raised in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, his closest Big Sky sunset had come from watching Rawhide and Fury reruns on their one room apartment’s tiny television, cowboys and children cavorting through deserts and mountains, an environment totally alien from the gritty streets of his home. Even so, he was unable to appreciate the true artistry of his God on the black and white screen. As he grew older, moving from city to city as a day laborer, he caught glimpses of the true majesty, hints at the mosaic face of God, but was unable to fully realize the immensity of the sunset hemmed in by the city’s false concrete horizons and filtered through prisms of pollution.

  Truly, it wasn’t until his first journey to the Retreat House, a place for Alexian Brothers to rest and meditate before moving on to their next assignment, that he’d seen the entire sky each night brushed by the hand of the one Master, pastels intermixing with neon hues as the sun journeyed west to rest for the new day.

  From his perch on a rocky prominence jutting from Coronado Canyon, Brother Dominic examined his valley, watching the transformation from heated day to tepid night. To the south, barely ten miles away, was Mexico. He’d passed some tin cans and a few dirty blankets on his earlier hike, evidence of starving souls who were seeking the salvation of the American way. On the other side of the valley, within the clutches of the Mule Mountains, were the towns of Bisbee and Tombstone.

  Tombstone. Just thinking of this town of legend and childhood dreams made him smile as he remembered his games of cowboys and injuns and cowboys and cops and cowboys and gangsters. He remembered reading about Wyatt Earp, his brothers and Doc Holliday by flashlight. His young mind had easily tuned out the sounds of sirens and screams and the Manellis arguing upstairs, allowing him to descend into the dusky days of history when honor and loyalty were substantial things.

  He loved the OK Corral and on many occasions had envisioned himself as a witness, hiding behind a barn door, watching as the Sheriff and his deputies gunned down the terrible Clantons. He’d gone to the fabled town yesterday and paid his five dollars to watch the reenactment. Even with overweight businessmen playing dress-up, he could still imagine the Earps towering into history, and the bullets, each one a whisper of sacrifice and redemption, slicing the air in divine trajectories. He felt a kinship to those Wild West Lawmen in his own mission to save the world and had imagined more than once that he and Wyatt Earp had been cut from the same cloth.

  Behind him were the Huachucas, the Apache word meaning Thunder Mountain. The arm of the mountain was five miles south of Sierra Vista, the valley’s largest town, a veritable metropolis of dusty families who struggled at the alchemical dream, attempting to lift themselves from the long shadow of Fort Huachuca. The old fort had been spun into concrete and steel since its pioneer days, all vestiges of its original grandeur now encapsulated in a single monument of Buffalo Soldiers eternally scanning the horizon for the dread Apache.

  Within the bowl of the mountains lay a vast plain of hidden life, complicated interaction within the fragile desert. Too many people saw the scorpions, the spiders and the sharp spines of the cacti and perceived danger and death. They remembered paintings and pictures of the sun-bleached skulls of cattle lying on the hard crust of the desert floor and thought that if they were there, they might be next.

  Brother Dominic had thought the same when he’d first ventured to the Retreat House ten years ago. After three trips, however, he’d come to learn of the unique partnerships between the animals, the insects and the plants. He’d learned that beneath a hard and sometimes sharp exterior, there was a soft life that strove to survive—a little like himself, before he’d been called.

  Married twice, arrested half a dozen times, Brother Dominic had been more willing to solve an argument with his fists or a knife than utilize the pleasantries of intelligent civilized conversation. It wasn’t until he’d joined the Congregation of Brothers and learned the monastic tradition, that he’d put the violence behind. For the first time he’d seen his true self, one that had been trying to surface for thirty years, a self that wanted nothing more than to help people and share the wonderment of God.

  Although the last glow of the sunset was disappearing, he could still make out the creosote and ocotillo shrubs dotting the valley floor. Rising like monoliths were the rare saguaro, sometimes reaching fifty feet and weighing over seven tons. The older ones had many arms, each one uplifted as if in praise. It was the younger ones he loved the most, however. The seven-foot tall sentinels standing straight and true with two arms held out like Jesus on the cross. Nature’s Crucifixions he liked to call them. It was a miracle for such a plant to grow in such an inhospitable climate, but it was in the very shape of the saguaro to glorify the greatest gift of God—life from death, indisputable proof of the divine existence.

  With all the beauty arrayed before him, it was easy to forget that there was true evil in the world. The hues of the sunset and the painted effect of the desert could trick one into believing that all was good. Brother Dominic had seen evil, however, so he knew it existed. Not the everyday evil of the criminal, or a cheating husband. No. What he’d seen was the source. He’d been witness to a horrible event that had forged him into a determined warrior of Christ. He’d stared evil in the eye and called it by name, Legion, and the biblical truth terrified him. With a grunt of despair he shook the image of the group of priests huddling around the little boy from his mind.

  Brother Dominic heard a snuffling from far below and swung his telescope to the sound. Too dark to make out the shape of the animal, he knew it from the sound. The javelina, or desert boar, sometimes grew to be as large as a rottweiller. They were mean in packs, but like rabbits if alone. He felt safe on his high perch, knowing the animal was more intent in the search for cactus fruit than bothering an old man.

  With a sigh, Brother Dominic got down to business. He swung his telescope along Highway 92 until it hit the glowing lights of the small hamlet of Paradise Valley. He adjusted the scope a few increments to his right and twisted the focusing knobs until the Church of the Resurrection came into clear view.

  Once a bible college that had fallen into bankruptcy and disrepair, a bright-eyed young man who passed himself off as John the New Baptist had swung into town and purchased the place with cash. No one knew where the man got his money, but within a year, the entire place had been refurbished, the bright lapis-lazuli dome of the church polished and gleaming, the dorms and the cafeteria had been repaired, painted and filled with new furniture, and the place was filling with people.

  Brother Dominic had gone to one of the Sunday services just to see what it was like. Even though he was in mufti, John the New Baptist had recognized him as an Alexian and welcomed him with a warm hug and a kiss upon the cheek. Brother Dominic had to admit he’d felt at home in the refurbished church. There was no denying the power of the man’s charisma. The religious service itself, a strange synchretic mix of far-eastern philosophy, Native American ceremony and Christianity wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. The man touted the correct values and said the right things, but something had seemed out of place.

  Later on, he’d spoken to some of the locals—half of them hardened men and women of the desert, the other half upper middle class retirees. They passed on rumors of drug use, runaway children, smuggled illegals, some even going so far as to swear there had been human sacrifice and pedophilic orgies by moonlight.

  Brother Dominic had yet to come to a definitive conclusion, but he’d done some research and discovered the possibilities of truth embedded within the rumors. His gut instinct told him something was wrong. Other than God and the Congregation of Alexians, that is what he trusted most.

  He’d been sitting for over an
hour watching people walk to and from the different buildings, when he heard the clatter of a rock behind him as if it had been dislodged from higher up the mountain. He turned slowly. There were many predators in the desert, most of them human. He’d not thought to bring a gun or knife. He was armed only with his faith, both a weapon and a shield that he’d carried through riots and many would-be street crimes when he’d been on the Chicago Urban Outreach Program. It was his faith that had let him go unscathed and he projected it like a suit of holy armor before him.

  He scanned the rocky face of the bluff, but was unable to pierce the darkness. Even had his eyes been like they were thirty years ago, the desert had a special darkness at night. As he watched, another small rock skittered down. Then another and another, as if something or someone was descending.

  He sat back and called, “Ho, Stranger.”

  The response was a low guttural growl that sent chills up his spine. Suddenly, a large brown form landed six feet in front of him, its tail whipping around heavily-muscled hind quarters—a mountain lion, easily a hundred and fifty pounds, yellow teeth and yellow eyes. He smelled its musk and felt terror grab hold and scream for him to run. The mountain lion stared at Brother Dominic, the creature’s eyes locking with his own. What he saw there gave him hope. Instead of the absent malice of an animal, he saw an almost human intelligence lurking behind those yellow eyes, something that recognized him for who he was.

  Armored with his faith, Brother Dominic smiled and greeted another of God’s creations, admiring its symmetry as a perfect hunting machine.