by S. L. Duncan
From his pocket he pulled out a pill the size of a grape and tossed it into his mouth. He hesitated, reluctant, and then bit down, crunching it open. The bitter taste soured on his tongue, and he gagged, fighting the chalky substance down his throat.
With any luck, the medication would force the migraine into retreat.
When the room stopped spinning, he set off for the sanctuary, hoping his father’s lecture would be more tolerable than the headache.
CHAPTER THREE
The interior of the cathedral loomed with a design that paid homage to gothic masonry used in Europe’s medieval churches. At least, that’s what Gabe’s father had told him in their first days at the church. Walls built from large block stone descended from vaulted ceilings to meet hardwood floors. Antique light fixtures kept the hallways lit, though their illumination provided little warmth to make the décor feel hospitable. Silver tinsel and red holiday bows adorned their iron housings but only looked desperate amongst the gloom.
A quick succession of hallways led to the dimly lit foyer and the back entrance to the sanctuary used by staff. The effect of the lighting suggested that a certain degree of seriousness was required to enter. Gabe often teased his dad that his sermons were solemn enough. “Mood lighting isn’t necessary,” he’d say.
He stood in front of the closed door to the sanctuary, reluctant to enter. With every step on the hardwood, the loud patter of his shoes had announced his arrival. His father had undoubtedly used the time to strategize another lecture on responsibility.
Gabe took a breath and opened the door.
His father, Joseph, stood atop a stepladder, taking down a string of tinsel draped over a large suspended gold cross that hung above the pulpit. He wore a black Anglican clerical shirt with a white neckband and blue jeans, awkwardly mismatched, in Gabe’s opinion, with hospital-white sneakers. Thick hair cascaded around a thin face. Though he was fifty-two, there was hardly any indication of gray.
“I hope it isn’t too inconvenient for you to join us,” his father said in a Manchester accent diluted by his years of living in America. He finished coiling the roll of tinsel and handed it down to his intern, Richard, who stretched up like a baby bird in a nest waiting to be fed by its mother.
“Inconvenient?” Gabe said. “It’s Christmas break. The operative word there being break.”
Richard packed the tinsel into the box below the ladder. His scowl suggested he was disappointed by Gabe’s intrusion. Richard came from a nearby school of divinity to learn the practicalities of the seminary and help out with odd jobs over the holiday. Gabe had decided that he seemed nice enough, but they had little in common. Richard always wanted to engage in theological discussions, which Gabe found to be a complete bore. After countless attempts at these conversations, Richard had begun to act as though Gabe were a pest, interfering with time spent with Gabe’s father.
On the plus side, the intern managed to divide his father’s attention, a benefit during times of housecleaning and other officially boring cathedral business. For that, Gabe was thankful, though he couldn’t see a way out of tonight’s project.
Countless bows, tinsel, and poinsettias decorated the sanctuary. Some simple math told him getting everything down and stowed could take all night, but he resisted the instinct to debate his father about evening plans. He walked past rows of wooden pews and plopped down on the last one closest to the stage, usually reserved for deacons.
“By the way, if you keep screaming like a banshee you’re going to blow it for Sunday service. You’ll lose your voice, and, heaven forbid, souls might be lost,” Gabe said with a laugh. “You knew where I was. All you had to do was come to the tower.” He motioned to Richard. “Or send him. I’m only up there, like, every day after school.”
His father furrowed his brow, unaffected by Gabe’s attempt at charm.
Richard placed a ribbon into the cardboard box and bowed out of the conversation, as he did every time a confrontation was about to occur. “I’ll go see if we have any extra boxes in the back, Father,” he said.
The way he said “Father” always made Gabe cringe. It was almost like a challenge, as if he was trying to stake claim to the word.
“I accept that you are prone to being messy and unorganized, Gabe. Your room is a testament to that. But you live here, too,” his father said and pointed to the cathedral’s painted ceiling. “You can help with managing the common areas as well, especially when we’re shorthanded for the holiday. I need your participation, not your petulance or wit. Would you care for another apology for my endless dedication to making your life miserable, or would you for once act like an adult and perhaps accept that you may have to make some sacrifices just a few months longer while my profession provides food for your table and a roof over your head?”
The guilt card. It worked every time. “Fine. Sorry.” Gabe found a box and removed a red bow from the pew. Thoughts turned to outstanding university admission letters. “Did the mail run today?”
“No. Not until January 2, I would imagine.”
“When do you think I’ll hear from NYU?”
“Oh, any day now. Your grades are spot-on. Don’t go worrying yourself sick about getting in.”
“And you’re sure that the admissions board received the recommendation letter from your friend in England?”
“Positive. In fact, Carlyle relayed to me a conversation he had with one of their board members, which if I recall, went quite favorably.” His father stopped packing a ribbon and seemed to stare at the box, as if considering something. “Have you had time to catch up on your Bible studies?”
Gabe felt the muscles in his jaw tighten at the mention of his father’s extracurricular assignments. “I was a little busy with finals before the break and would rather not do them over the holidays. I’ve told you this. A thousand times at least.”
“These studies are important. You need—”
“I don’t see how,” Gabe said, and his face flushed. “I don’t want to be a minister or some religious historian. I’m sick of everything being so goddamned—” He caught himself as soon as he said it. The word echoed off the pillars and walls.
His dad didn’t make a sound. He simply lowered his head and turned his back to him.
Gabe found it hard to swallow. “I’m sorry. It’s just that . . .”
“I accept that you are drifting away from the church. You’re seventeen. There isn’t much I can do about the way you think, though perhaps I bear some responsibility for it. I also accept that you are interested in ideas that fall outside the doctrine of my religion. Nothing I can do about that, either.” He looked at Gabe, the lines on his face hardening. “But what you will accept is that while you are here, you are still living under my roof. You will do as I say, without question. Chores and Bible studies included. I want five pages from one of the assignments you are delinquent, typed and placed on my desk by midmorning tomorrow.”
“But it’s New Year’s Eve. I was going to check out Times Square.”
“Then you best get started as soon as we finish boxing these decorations,” his father said, and the discussion was over.
CHAPTER FOUR
The packed snow crunched with every bitter step Gabe took as he crossed the street. In thicker patches, the ice under his boots would squeak, causing his skin to prickle as if someone had dragged fingernails down a chalkboard, an effect that encouraged the headache at the base of his skull.
Freaking holiday homework. Unbelievable, he thought and adjusted the bulk of his backpack on his shoulders. The straps dug into his neck so heavy, it felt like the tower bell itself had been zipped inside.
He loved his father but hated being a preacher’s son—especially a preacher who went to extraordinary lengths to tether him to a religious culture he cared nothing about. The Bible studies were ridiculous and childish—some archaic holdover from his elementary school days. Why his father still insisted on them, he’d never know. Mostly, the subjects covered books fr
om the Old Testament. They were cumbersome to read, difficult to understand, and totally unrealistic in his opinion. As a metaphor? Sure, he got it. But as a definitive holy document? He couldn’t see how.
He remembered a recent argument he’d had with his father after watching a documentary on how the Roman government assembled the Bible.
“How can you think science is wrong about evolution when Darwin’s Galapagos study proved it?” Gabe had asked. “You have to admit, that sort of questions the religion’s authority to speak about it.”
“Darwin’s study is only theory. All science is.”
“Theory based on facts.”
“Whose facts? The Bible tells us that God created the world as we find it today. You have to keep faith that some things are true, despite society’s attempts to undermine what you believe,” his dad said.
It was always the same fallback—it is written in the Bible.
“But the books of the Bible were written and chosen by men, not God. Just because some anti-Semitic bishop in the second century decided that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the only Gospels that deserved to be read because of an infatuation with the number four doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it. I mean, the guy literally believed four actual pillars at the corners of the Earth held up the sky.”
“You are referring to Irenaeus of Lyon, and his decree in the year 170. An anti-Semite, I think not. Is it safe to assume you’ll also point to Athanasius’s 39th Easter Letter as the reason Rome adopted the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as further evidence of the lack of God’s involvement?”
“Sure. Why not? It happened, like, three hundred years after Jesus died. On top of that, you’ve got a pagan emperor and a governor’s council deciding which books met Rome’s standard to be in the Bible. I don’t know much about politics, but isn’t that like a state run religion?”
“Is it too much to have faith that God worked through these politicians? That his divine hand guided these men in their decisions?”
Their debates were always circular—two opposing ideas and no middle ground.
As Gabe descended into the subway station, he considered the widening gap of ideology between himself and his father. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to deal with these theological mind benders much longer. Once he got into college, he planned to take a long break from the church and purge his brain of all the confusion.
A nice college kegger might be just the cure, he thought.
Every time the subway train got up to speed, Gabe felt like a little kid. He still got a cheap thrill out of the ride, even with his lingering headache. He remembered flying into New York for the first time, sitting with his father on the plane as he fondly recalled the London Underground and excitedly talked about living in a place that mirrored London’s cultural diversity. It had been a rare moment of informality with his father, one that Gabe wished he shared with him more often, but it seemed as he got closer to graduation, his father’s concern about Bible studies and his responsibilities at the cathedral had begun to overwhelm their relationship.
Gabe pushed the thought aside and tried to settle into the commute by reading an ad above his head, but the pictures and letters refused to focus. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, feeling a sudden rush of dizziness. A tightening sensation at the top of his neck traveled over his skin, intensified by the subdued migraine in the back of his skull. His nausea returned. To combat the motion sickness, Gabe put his head down over his knees, hoping it would soon pass.
He wondered if he’d built a tolerance to the medicine dose. Whenever he took a pill, he felt lethargic, even sick, but this was something different. As if a stereo had turned on in his mind to full blast, he felt a flood of pain surge through his head. He must have moaned, because an old woman sitting across the aisle pulled her bag closer to her body and looked at him as if he were on drugs.
Gabe tried to massage the pain out of his forehead. Pulling his hand back, he could see it glisten with sweat from his brow.
His vision blurred, and for a moment he felt scared he might go blind. Through the fog, he watched people around him carry on like everything was fine. Voices from passengers screamed in his ears, exaggerated but also somehow distant. He felt faint, ready to pass out.
But then something changed. Movements of people in the cabin slowed. The old woman became a statue, and the train hardly moved—everything slowing in time. Gabe felt different, too. Removed from everything, as if he were watching the scene from outside his body. Light dimmed. Sounds carried in waves, echoes. The world came to a stop—all except for one person at the far end, standing where the space seemed to resist the light.
As Gabe looked at the dark figure shrouded in shadow, he felt as though all the hope and warmth of life had been ripped away. The temperature plummeted. His breath drifted from his mouth, but it was ethereal, like a dream. It was the same with the passengers, breath seeping out in their frozen state. His heart beat in rhythm to the slowing sounds of the tracks inching along under the train.
The man wore a business suit beneath a black trench coat. Gabe would have taken him for any other commuter except that under his jacket swirling crimson lines appeared, staining the fabric of his white shirt, as if wounds on the man’s chest were opening to let blood.
He approached, moving like a ghost between the passengers. Through Gabe’s failing sight, he could see that where facial features should have been, there was nothing but a flesh-toned veil. Then cold, blue eyes formed on his empty-canvas face. An airy noise, like the prolonged gasp from a dying breath, hissed through the train.
He was close, only a few feet away now.
Gabe closed his eyes and felt profound fear, as if his life were in jeopardy. If this was a dream, it had become a nightmare.
Wake up, he thought. Wake up!
A warmth bloomed on his arm. It spread to his shoulder and chest, flowing over the rest of his body. Sounds inside the train returned to normal, and the empty despair slipped away from his mind.
He opened his eyes and exhaled. The world was once again right.
“You okay, dear?” The old woman from across the aisle now sat beside him with her hand on his arm. Her touch soft, comforting.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” Gabe said.
“You dropped this.” She handed him the Bible that had fallen from his bag. “I believe you were having an episode.” Her smile eased some of his concern.
Gabe wiped his brow with the sleeve of his coat and zipped the book back into his backpack. Wheels under the compartment squealed, startling his nerves and cutting into his throbbing head. The train came to a stop and announced its arrival.
“I get really bad migraines. Thanks,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why.
Passengers stood and prepared to get off the train. None of them, he noticed, wore a black suit.
The woman didn’t seem satisfied by his explanation but dismissed him with another smile.
He thanked her again and waited at the sliding doors. Questions spun in his thoughts about what he’d just experienced. As the doors opened, he hoisted his backpack and ran for the exit. All he could think about was getting out of that station.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gabe’s nerves were all but fried when he entered the jingling door of The Study Habit Café, a small university coffeehouse. When NYU became a realistic option for college, he found his own little spot near Greenwich Village to get familiar with the area frequented heavily by university students. He came often to study or just to catch up on one of the professional soccer matches that regularly played on the café’s single television.
The backpack fell loudly on a tabletop, and Gabe slid onto one of the tall chairs. With his head in his hands, he breathed slowly and deliberately, trying to suppress his anxiety.
“Hey, Gabe. Can I get you—Jesus, you look like hell,” said a perky blonde girl holding a tray.
“Thanks, Coren.”
She took a large step backwards. “God hel
p me, if you get me sick . . . I’m doing extra shifts to cover my Christmas credit card bill. I can’t afford to miss work.” She raised the round bar tray to her mouth and nose, taking advantage of whatever viral defenses it offered.
“It’s just a migraine. Don’t freak out,” Gabe said. Her reaction made him laugh. He felt better already.
“Oh, good. I mean, sorry. I’m sure it sucks. Anyway, do you know what you want?”
“Caramel mach would be great. Better make it decaf, please.”
“Aren’t we suddenly health conscious?” Coren jotted down the order on her notepad, then turned and scurried away, stopping to check on a few more tables.
Gabe couldn’t help but admire the view. She managed to keep tan in the dead of winter, a trait that, among others, earned a crush or two from several of her customers, including Gabe. Unfortunately, he had become a confidant for her complaints about that sort of attention, placing him, he figured, in the inescapable Friend Zone. Still, she seemed to enjoy his daily visits.
He pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped the remaining sweat from his forehead. His heartbeat had returned to a steady rhythm, but whatever happened on the subway begged an explanation. Nobody has hallucinations during a migraine. Or had he fallen asleep? Maybe it was a dream. He tried not to think about it.
For once, his studies came as some relief. At least they would help to distract his worries. He hoped to read a few chapters and get something legible onto paper. If he went to his father with nothing, any New Year’s Eve celebration was off. And if he used the migraine excuse one more time, it was definitely off. “Too sick for study, too sick for play,” he could hear his father quip.
