Crucifax

by Ray Garton

  As she ate Kevin explained that he couldn't see her after school but would pick her up at her place around six. He told her he'd met someone who wanted to help the band get some work and that they were to meet with him that night.

  "An agent?" she asked, touching his hand, her face brightening with excitement.

  "Not really. I'm not even sure he can help us."

  "Yeah, but he wants to! That's something. What does he do?"

  "Well, I'm not sure."

  He could be a fucking escaped convict, for all I know, Kevin thought bitterly, frustrated by his inability to explain why he was so certain Mace could give the band the support it needed. How could he explain something for which there was no solid, logical reason?

  "He knows what he's talking about, though," Kevin went on. "I can… well, I can feel it."

  "Kevin, that is so cool! That's fantastic!" She handed him a celery stick from her tray and said, "I told you, someday someone will see how talented you are."

  He stayed a few minutes more, then stood and looked at the other table. When he was sure Mallory's friends were watching, he put his hand behind her head, leaned forward, and pulled her face to his, kissing her hard and briefly cupping one breast with his hand. He laughed as he left the cafeteria, feeling good.

  Kevin spent the first half of the afternoon tracking down the others in the band. They all agreed to meet him at Trevor's brother's apartment at six-thirty sharp. When they asked him why, he simply replied, "It's about the band."

  He stopped at a gas station, rolled a joint in the restroom, and took a few tokes as he sat on the toilet. He wanted to get in and out of the house before either of his parents got home. They would rag him if they saw him leaving so soon after getting home; they'd want to know where he was going and with whom. He usually lied to them, but tonight he didn't even want to deal with them. They would be especially upset if they knew he was doing something for the band.

  "If you'd get serious about music and study it," his father often said, "maybe you could make something of it. But this garage band nonsense isn't going to get you anywhere."

  They didn't understand how he could love his music so much when he couldn't read or write a note. They wouldn't listen when he tried to explain that the melodies formed in his head and, once they were there, never went away. He put the lyrics on paper as they came to him and then played the songs for the band until they worked out their parts. It wasn't conventional, but it worked, and Kevin thought they were pretty damned good.

  His parents had never heard them play.

  It was a little after four when Kevin turned off of Ventura Boulevard in Encino. He was feeling just fine. The pot massaged his brain, and he looked forward to his meeting with Mace.

  A soft voice deep inside him whispered, But you don't know who the fuck this guy is, what he wants from you, why he's—

  Kevin silenced the voice.

  Do you trust me? Mace had asked.

  Yes. He did. He would, anyway.

  He needed to.

  Kevin saw his mother's BMW parked in the drive. As he went to the front door he braced himself for the quiz he would get about his first day at school.

  She was talking on the phone in the kitchen. From the tone of her voice, he could tell she was upset.

  Trying to avoid her completely, Kevin hurried up the stairs and met Michael in the hall.

  "Boy, is Mom pissed at you," the boy said with a grin. "You're up shit creek."

  "Fuck off," Kevin snapped, brushing by him. He came to a lurching halt at his bedroom.

  The door was gone.

  "What… in the…" He stepped into the room. Some of his dresser drawers were half open. The closet light was on, and a box had been taken down from the top shelf and emptied.

  Michael laughed in the hall.

  Anger burned in Kevin's throat like bile. His vision blurred until he had to swipe his hand over his eyes to see.

  "Your father's coming," his mother said.

  He spun around and faced her in the doorway. Her face was streaked with tears.

  "I called him," she went on, "and he said he would—"

  "What the hell is this?" he screamed, waving his arms around.

  "You didn't go to school today, and I told you—"

  "How the fuck do you know?"

  "I talked to your counselor. You didn't show up for your appointment, and—"

  "So what? That doesn't mean I didn't—"

  "—I called attendance, and they said you hadn't been to

  "Don't you have anything better to do with your fucking time? Jesus Christ, I thought you had to work!"

  Tears came to his eyes as he looked around the room again.

  "Where have you been getting the drugs?" she asked, sounding suddenly angry.

  He opened his bottom drawer. The plastic bag of marijuana that had been there that morning was gone. He stood and kicked the drawer closed. Slamming his fist on the dresser, he screamed, "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

  "Kevin, I warned you. I said there would be changes unless you cleaned up your act. You haven't. So we're cleaning it up for you."

  He began pulling drawers out, tossing them to the floor and kicking them.

  "Stop it, Kevin, stop!"

  He slowly turned to her, his back stiff.

  She was fingering the gold chain around her neck, her hand trembling, her chest rising and falling quickly, her mouth a straight line twitching at the corners. Her makeup was smeared around her eyes, and her hair was mussed.

  "Now listen to me," she said in a low, unsteady voice, her lips hardly moving as she spoke. "If you want to live here, if you want us to support you, you're going to go to school every day, get passing grades, and, most of all, you will follow the rules set down in this house. We haven't had any rules here, I know, and that's been a big mistake, but we have them now, and the first one is there will be no drugs… in this… house. If you want to do that when you're on your own, fine, but—"

  Kevin began searching the scattered drawers for the demo tape.

  "—listen to me, you will not do that sort of thing while… Kevin, what are you doing?"

  The tape was beneath a stack of underwear. He swept it up in his hand and faced her, growling, "I'm getting the fuck out of this shithole!"

  "Kevin, your father is coming, and we're going to talk about—"

  He stepped around her and left the room, but she followed him down the hall.

  "Kevin!" she called through an angry sob. "If you don't shape up, you're not staying in this house. There are places we can send you to, places that will keep you until you learn how to—"

  "Shut up!" he cried, hurrying down the stairs. His mouth was dry, his voice hoarse and ragged, and he hated himself for the tears in his eyes. "Just shut the fuck up!" He burst through the front door and jogged down the walk to his motorcycle at the curb. He took his helmet off the seat and put it on, ignoring his mother as she called him from the porch.

  The bike's engine drowned her voice. Slapping his visor down, he looked at her through the darkly tinted plastic.

  Her face was a twisted mask of anger. The runny makeup in her tears looked like bruised, melting flesh as she waved an arm toward him, her mouth silently opening and closing and curling furiously around her teeth.

  Kevin had never felt such hate.

  He drove his motorcycle over the curb, across the sidewalk, and onto the front lawn, where he spun a fast figure eight, kicking up dirt and patches of green, well-tended grass.

  As he sped onto the road away from the house he screamed his anger into the shiny black helmet on his head.

  Eleven

  Pale moonlight shone through the window of Reverend James Bainbridge's motel room on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles as he lay in bed, praying in advance for his Lord's understanding and forgiveness. The room was dark except for the sliver of light that came from beneath the bathroom door. The shower was hissing on the other side.

  He'd come over th
e hill this time to avoid any chance of being discovered. The time before last, the first time, had been unexpected and had taken place in his bedroom in the Calvary Youth House. He'd sworn that it wouldn't happen again. But it had. And now it was happening a third time.

  He felt like crying tears of shame, and at the same time he was trembling with anticipation.

  She was a slow girl, but kind and loving. Calvary Youth had been good for her. She was one of the group's most enthusiastic members, happy to share her new-found beliefs with everyone around her, not caring how they treated her in return, how they might laugh or ridicule.

  Bainbridge wondered if their relationship might have long-lasting negative effects on her. He prayed that it wouldn't.

  Then stop it, he told himself.

  But he couldn't. He was a lonely man, hungry for affection. It was a part of himself that he hated but could not ignore.

  Bainbridge had been born on the road and had spent his first eighteen years traveling with the Meredith Brothers Carnival with his parents. Growing up, Bainbridge gambled with the other carnies, learned to drink hard and often, and went on troublemaking binges in the towns they passed through. He developed quite a love affair with whiskey— not only its effects, but its taste. On the rare occasion when whiskey was not available, he would drink something else— vodka, gin, even beer—but in his mind, he tasted whiskey. The word alcoholic was not in his vocabulary then; everyone he knew, including his father, drank just as heavily, if not more so. Then, in Ely, Nevada, he met Reverend Mortimer Bigley, a massive, silver-haired circuit preacher. For a week, Bigley took him under his ample wing, inviting him to participate in the meetings, even feeding him hot meals and subtly beginning the process of weaning him from liquor, finally convincing him to leave the carnival and join up with the traveling tent revival. It wasn't an easy decision; the carnival was the only life he'd ever known. In meeting Bigley, however, an emptiness Bainbridge had hardly been aware existed in himself had been filled. When he told his parents of his newly adopted convictions and his decision to leave, they laughed.

  "Aw, Christ," his father sneered, "he's found Gaaawwd!"

  Bainbridge neither saw nor heard from his parents again.

  As he traveled with Bigley's revival Bainbridge met a lot of other teenagers who seemed to have the same emptiness in their lives that he'd had. It was then that he noticed the need for someone to reach out exclusively to young people, and he planned to do just that.

  On the road with Bigley, Bainbridge had learned a lot. One weekend, during a break between revivals, Bigley had disappeared from the motel they were staying in. He left a note saying he'd be back in a day or so, and ten dollars for food. He returned two days later. Bainbridge found him in the room staring out the window, hands folded over his enormous belly. He appeared lost in thought but turned to Bainbridge and smiled. When he asked Bigley where he'd been, the man replied, "I've been away." Then, after a moment of silence, and with a tear in his eye, Bigley said, "Son, always remember that God knows everything you do, and you can't hide anything from Him. But He also understands more than we sometimes give Him credit for understanding. Like the needs of a lonely man. He understands, and I believe… I hope… He forgives."

  Bainbridge had not understood him at the time, but he did now.

  The shower stopped in the bathroom. There was rustling behind the door, then the knob turned. As the door opened the bathroom light went out, and she stepped toward the bed, her body clean and naked, beads of moisture clinging to her round breasts and sparkling in the moonlight. When she reached beneath the covers and touched him, he grew dizzy and began praying silently again, asking for forgiveness over and over as he spoke her name.

  "Nikki… oh, Nikki…"

  Twelve

  So far, the evening had been very unsettling for Mallory.

  First of all, something was wrong with Kevin. He'd been silent since he had picked her up; silent and brooding. He was being very secretive about this meeting place, too, and she didn't like that. At Phil's apartment, he didn't tell anyone where they were going, only that they were to follow him.

  Before leaving the apartment, she'd quietly asked him what was wrong. He replied only with a silent, vague shake of his head, and she knew not to ask again.

  When Kevin drove his bike behind the darkened, empty building on Ventura, Mallory began to regret coming. Surely no one legitimate would agree to meet at such a place.

  As he got out of his Toyota Trevor sneered, "Wow, we've really hit the big time now, huh, guys?"

  The others laughed at his sarcasm but stopped when they saw the angry glare on Kevin's face.

  "Shut the fuck up or leave," Kevin said. "And if you leave, you're out of the band."

  The heels of Kevin's boots clicked on the pavement as he walked to the back of the building.

  "You're early," someone said as the rear entrance rattled open. When the door was fully open, Mallory saw him.

  He was silhouetted against the glow of candlelight, which hid his face, but she was certain his eyes were looking into hers.

  He stepped outside and let the door swing half-closed behind him as she and Kevin and the others approached.

  "I like people who are early," he said. "It shows ambition."

  "I brought the tape," Kevin said, reaching into his coat pocket.

  "We'll get to that," the man said. "Come inside."

  Mallory tensed and took a step back. Something was wrong; she could feel it like a gust of cold Arctic wind that cut to the marrow. She took Kevin's hand and squeezed it tightly. The conversation around her seemed garbled, as if her ears were stuffed with cotton. She started to tell Kevin she didn't want to stay and she especially didn't want to go into that building because she had a prickly feeling at the back of her neck, like when she was a little girl and her father took her to Disneyland, where she chickened out seconds before entering the Haunted Mansion because she knew it was going to be scary inside, scary as hell, and she didn't want to be that scared, but then Kevin snapped, "Shut up!" and she closed her mouth.

  A siren howled mournfully in the distance.

  "No reason to shout, Kevin," the man said calmly. He stepped forward into the hazy glow cast by a street light and smiled at them. It was a warm and welcoming smile, and Mallory felt some of the tension in her neck melt away. She almost smiled back.

  Almost. Not quite.

  "You must be Mallory," he said pleasantly, taking her hand.

  She smiled; the gracious gesture was so unexpected, she almost laughed.

  "I'm Mace. And there's no reason for you to be nervous."

  Kevin introduced Trevor, Mark, Perry, and Steve, and Mace greeted each of them warmly.

  "Let's go inside," he said, holding the door open as they filed in.

  Though more relaxed than a moment before, Mallory was still hesitant. When she paused at the door, Kevin took her arm and pulled her inside.

  It was stuffy and dark in the building; candlelight flickered through a couple of the doorways that lined the corridor ahead, and shadows danced like dark ghosts all around them.

  "Did you buy this place?" Mark asked.

  Mace replied, "I own it," as he closed the door behind them and locked it. He stepped into one of the rooms for a moment, then returned holding a candle. Above the flame, the features of his narrow face seemed to writhe over his skull as if small, restless insects were crawling beneath his pale skin. Mallory's fear returned in an instant, pulling her with an almost tangible force back to the door, but Kevin held her arm until Mace spoke again, and her unease left as quickly as it had returned.

  "Let's go downstairs," he said happily. He led them down the corridor and around a corner, the light of his candle squirming through the darkness, to a staircase that seemed to spiral down to nowhere.

  Their feet clattered on the metal stairs as they followed Mace to the room below.

  Jeff hated himself as he parked his mother's car on Whitley and killed the engine. When he
rolled down the window, he heard laughter echoing from the hidden parking lot behind the abandoned building.

  After school that day, Mallory had met Jeff at the car. She said that she wasn't meeting Kevin after all and needed a ride home. In the car, she told Jeff that Kevin had met someone who wanted to give the band exposure, and that she was going to go with him to see the guy that night. Her mood had changed drastically since that morning; she couldn't sit still in the seat as she excitedly talked about what that night's meeting could mean for Kevin's band.

  "They might get some club work," she said, "so you could come see them play. You'll love Kevin's music, Jeff, really," she added quickly, touching his arm and bouncing slightly in the seat. "He's incredible on the guitar, and he's never had a lesson! He loves music—I mean, he's passionate about it, you know—it means more to him than anything, and this might—God, I hope so—give him the chance to, like, prove it, you know? Prove that there really is something he works hard at and does well."

  Her excitement and enthusiasm nibbled at his insides with sharp teeth. Somewhere deep inside himself, Jeff recognized the feeling as jealousy but wouldn't admit it to himself. He never did.

  "Where are you meeting this guy?" he asked.

  "I don't know. Kevin's picking me up at six. The guy told him to bring his girlfriend," she added with an almost bashful smile.

  It didn't occur to Jeff to follow them until a half hour before Kevin was to arrive. Something about this meeting—

  The guy told him to bring his girlfriend.

  —didn't sound quite right to Jeff. He left the apartment at five-forty and waited in the car until Kevin picked Mallory up, then followed them at a distance, silently chastising himself as he drove.

  They'd gone to an apartment just off Chandler first. Jeff parked across the street and several yards down the block. The building was run-down and not very well lighted, and it definitely did not look like a building in which a mover and shaker in the music business would live. Less than ten minutes later, Jeff was ready to go back home and try to forget he'd been so petty as to follow Mallory like some cheap private detective when he'd spotted them leaving. Kevin and Mallory were followed by four guys in a beat-up old Toyota Corolla.