by R. D. Cain
The boy knelt down and lit a candle that Anthony had left there. He had the hammer in his hand. He approached the stove, careful not to get to close the Chavez.
“I’m not like you. You’re going to feel the heat in your lungs. You’re going to suck in poison and every part of your skin is going to bubble and cook off of your body. Burn in hell, you piece of shit.”
Taylor brought the hammer down suddenly, smashing the top elements of the stove and fracturing a gas line. He turned back to Chavez, making sure he hadn’t escaped in that brief moment, then opened the gas valve. Chavez could hear the subtle hiss in the air. The smell had not yet reached him.
Taylor put the hammer on the counter and left. Chavez heard the cop and Carscadden say to something to the boy as they led him out of the house, their voices disappearing once the front door was closed, leaving him to consider his future.
Chavez’s world turned panic-red. He bucked wildly, wrenching the chair sideways, torquing the arm that was handcuffed to the cast-iron pipe three feet up the wall. There was no strategy other than to live — and eventually to teach Nastos and Carscadden what pain really meant.
With steroid-induced strength, Chavez used the chair and the cast-iron natural gas line against each other. The weakest of the three was by far the wooden chair. He tried twisting his arms to slacken the tape, knowing it wouldn’t help much. The chair was damaged from the hammer strikes; the weakest point was the sides. He stole a glance at the tool box. The saw blade was the obvious choice.
Quickly, the plan came together in his mind.
Chavez began with kicking and bucking, forcing the leverage of his weight downward and sideways against the chair’s arm. With the momentum he generated, he was able tip the chair sideways, plunging his weight at an obtuse angle. There was a loud snap, but the wood had not broken through. He pulled himself up partway with his cuffed wrist, then plunged back down on the chair. On the second strike, the impact broke his arm free.
Without pause Chavez continued to buck, flail and kick every muscle in his body. For decades, he had worked out, fueled by a mix of steroids and the hatred of being victimized. He had pushed and pulled metal plates, throwing them around until he could barely wipe the sweat from his brow, his muscles burning from lactic acid; he had forged a strength that mortals could only dream of. What remained of the wooden chair stood no chance. Spindles failed, first at the front lateral brace, then, as he twisted and wrenched further, at the back post. He had freed his left arm completely, and after two more spindles splintered, the chair essentially ceased to exist, becoming a bundle of sticks. But he remained cuffed to the wall, and the matter of the natural gas line was going to be a problem. Rupturing it would be a catastrophic mistake, he couldn’t reach to turn off the stove, and getting through the handcuffs would take too long.
He flailed at the kitchen counter with his legs, which brought down the hacksaw. His arm ached as the edge of the cuff bit into his arm like powerful jaws. He used the pain to fuel his efforts and thrashed his legs until he reached the saw and dragged it within reach of his injured hand. The smell of gas finally hit him.
Chavez estimated that he had less than two minutes to live before the gas hit the nine-percent concentration point at which explosions occurred. He reached his arm out, put the nearest part of the blade at his left wrist and pulled back aggressively. The pain was excruciating, causing him to pant to keep himself from crying out, and the work was awkward with his mangled hand. The hacksaw’s handle was slick with blood. When the teeth found the bone on the second pull, the vibrations from the sawing sent a sick tickle up to his shoulder. It was too much; he roared in agony, but only paused from his work briefly. As he sawed, the tendons and nerves severed, a feeling of cold on his fingers. The radius bone failed first, unleashing a smell from its core of weeping marrow. A vein of some significance finally opened with a thick stream of blood at first lubricating, then slowing the blade.
He considered putting down the saw and trying to slip out of the cuff, urgently deciding not to. He had to be sure. After ten more seconds of aggressive, jackhammer-speed cutting, he put the saw down and snapped his hand off at the wrist. Two arteries vomited blood in long, steady streams. Worrying about blood loss was a luxury Chavez would enjoy later. He slid the back patio door open and ran as fast as he could. After maybe twenty yards he lay down in the field flat, feet toward the house, and waited for it.
The explosion vibrated though the ground, shaking the trees and sending fragments and wreckage over his head. A rush of birds was spooked into flight and quickly obscured by debris. He turned back to look. What was left of the structure had rotated nearly forty-five degrees. It was a smoldering mess, collapsed in on itself like a jack o’ lantern left to rot in the sun.
Another near-death experience for Chavez Vega Alvarez. There was no time to feel relief, not yet. He was consumed with the need for revenge. There were many to blame for what had happened. Some of the injustices were longer than others, but they all ran deep. That lawyer and cop would pay with their lives, if not worse. Anthony, whose plan had been a failure, would also have to suffer.
Chavez felt his ears pop, one after the other, and the temporary reprieve from the sounds of the world was over. A hiss like from a giant snake filled his mind. Eyes wide open, he nervously glanced around him in the long grass before realizing the sound came from within him. With the hand missing from one arm and fingers from the other, his arms began to resemble snakes in his mind, as if he were being reborn as the ancient serpent that had haunted him as a child. He thought of Tio being eaten by crows and the satisfaction that it had brought. Then he felt a deep pang of unfulfilled rage when an image of the Child Services worker appeared, the tall thin woman with her long blond hair who had first brought him to Tio. She had escaped him. She was still out there somewhere, her and others like her.
Pain brought him back to the present. He made a mental note that after torturing Anthony to death he would take his precious Oracle cards that he kept hidden in the floor of the study. Eventually he’d flee on the first plane to Colombia and disappear into her dark mountains. No, he thought, before I go, there will be time to feed the crows.
As he prepared for the Casa Loma show, Anthony appraised his reflection in the mirror in a washroom not far from the main stage. The aging man, who could have been his father, again confronted him — a man who was just coming to his intellectual peak, while his body failed. The CBC crew were finished setting up, and this was to be his last interview before he was due on stage. Somewhere, perhaps in the creases of his deepening wrinkles, feelings of nostalgia for the love lost between him and Chavez were hidden.
Another failed relationship. He was not getting any younger. If only Chavez had listened, if only he had had cared more. Anthony decided his certainty that Chavez could change or become less selfish was where he had gone wrong. It was more than coincidence that the younger man’s interest faded once the money was gone. As the wealth had disappeared, Chavez had felt his power in the relationship grow — the sex growing rougher, then mean-spirited and eventually vicious. This show would bring the power back into its natural balance. The monster within Chavez would retreat and the struggle for dominance would be over.
Anthony straightened his tie, then adjusted his collar. He composed himself and swaggered into the studio room. He told the interviewer that he was ready. The broadcaster was what Anthony would consider the dream client. She was upper middle-class, smart; she had an innate, confident beauty earned from a healthy lifestyle and an aesthetic striving for a natural appearance. Above all she was comfortable with him.
“We’ll start recording again.”
Anthony re-clipped his lapel mic and breathed into it. The sound guy readjusted it, then gave a thumbs up.
“Welcome back to CBC’s Special Feature on the spirits of the season. We’re speaking with renowned psychic Anthony Raines, or, as he’s known to many
of his fans, Saint Anthony, the patron saint of missing things.”
The interviewer turned to him and smiled. She was receptive; this interview was going to be an ideal advertisement for future shows. “How did you get the nickname Saint Anthony?”
He smiled. “Saint Anthony comes from a long time ago. Historically, he was the patron saint of missing things. I’ve helped a lot of people find missing things over the years: jewellery, mementoes, even family members or other people.”
Her face adopted an expression of sympathy. “Like the young man you helped the police find so many years ago.”
Anthony let his voice drop a few notes. “Yes, that was sad, very sad, but the family was in a way relieved. I really don’t believe in the closure that everyone talks about. The only comfort was that at least they knew that their boy didn’t abandon them. He loved them. The reason he didn’t come home was something he couldn’t control.”
“Anthony, you speak to the spirits of people who have passed on, you read tarot cards and do public readings — how do your abilities affect your spiritual beliefs?”
“Do I believe in God?”
She laughed. “Where does faith belong in a person who already knows for a fact what is waiting for us?”
“Faith, hope — they are the most important things to have. My faith is not in God per se; my faith is in the ability of man to evolve into something more. When we work together, we can accomplish great things. We built pyramids thousands of years ago. The Mayans understood math and astronomy, it took millennia for our science to fully appreciate just how deeply. The problems began once our societies started encountering each other. When we saw people different from us, it made us rethink our interpretations of the world. Seeing other successful civilizations that have developed with a different religion makes us doubt our own. Then, as usual, our aggressive tendencies come out. All social progress stops until we are done waging war on each other to find who has the stronger god.
“It’s time for reconciliation — not in one government, but in one system of understanding. Then we will move forward, all of us together.”
“And you know the way?” the interviewer pressed.
“Simply put, I carry the burden of the truth, which throughout history has gotten more people killed than anything else. People only want their own beliefs parroted back to them. It reinforces their belief in themselves,” Anthony leaned forward. “That’s why messengers are shot. In a way, I envy those who let go of the immense weight of a self-dominating, self-forming life, to relax one’s grip on one’s own centre and yield passively to a superordinate power authority. That’s to paraphrase Ernest Becker.”
“So to clarify, as you see it, religion will not have anything to offer people going forward?”
“The fact is that religion, as it is today, exists for two simple reasons.”
“And what are those?”
“To provide comfort to counter the most troubling aspect of humanity: the fear of death. If you believe in Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, Krishna — any of the gods — they all provide a chance for immortality if you believe. They alleviate the fear of oblivion and provide an escape into paradise. That can be very tempting to the type of person who thinks it unfathomable that there could be nothing more than death.”
“And the second reason?”
“The second thing it provides, in its most cynical manifestation, is justifiable scapegoating. You can dump all of your sins, transgressions — whatever — onto the man who dies on the cross, onto your priest, and be reborn, cleansed of impurity. Religion uses guilt to lure you in, creates transgressions that are unavoidable — to the extent of thought crimes — and offers itself as the only source of absolution. I offer a path of freedom from the cycle of guilt.”
She adjusted herself in her chair to lean forward, her hands clasped together. “Are you cynical because you think it’s all wrong, or because you live an alternative lifestyle?”
Anthony appreciated that she was asking a pointed question in such a gentle, open way. Gays could never be totally welcome in any religious dogma, for obvious reasons. She was asking if he resented religion for rebuking him and his community.
“No. There are many believers who are gay. Some are even ministers or religious officials.”
“But don’t you think that religious culture provides us a sense that we are part of a meaningful universe? It gives us a sense that our lives are significant, whether we be postal workers, stay-at-home moms, janitors — we are all soldiers in Christ or Allah.”
Anthony checked his watch. “It helps us avoid and deny our mortality with a fallacy of value.”
She asked, “So what are you saying is the alternative?”
“During the show I’ll be explaining what is actually on the other side. For now, I’ll say all of the known religions are close, just not right about what’s there. In fact, what they all promise is possible; only the path they require is not the proper path.”
“Love each other, don’t commit murder, the ten commandments — it’s all wrong?” She kept the tone bright.
Anthony smiled. He liked her. She was the kind of person who loved people and enjoyed discussing such things.
“Most honest and caring interpretations of the major religions preach peace and love. That’s almost the long and short of it. But when people hear the rest of the story, it will open both their minds and their hearts.”
“Does the fact that there is a clear afterlife, a paradise waiting, does that send a message to people suffering here that it’s okay to commit suicide as a means of escape?” she asked. “Or what about murder? If we remove someone from this life, is the crime diminished since it’s not really total death?”
“This life is precious,” Anthony assured her. “Only a small amount of time is spent on this earth and it’s a shame for it to be taken away. Suicide causes bigger problems than to just the self; it harms the survivors. And murder? That’s an awful thing. We are here to learn to work together.”
“So, Anthony, here you are trying to recruit people to your cause. You’re prophesizing a new path for humanity. Just like the other faiths.”
“Yes, I know. To see others as being devoted to the same things as us, practising the same rituals, reinforces our beliefs and confidence in ourselves. If I were to tell everyone about an invisible man in the sky named Zeus who is the father of all the gods, who controls everything and talks to me, I’d be crazy. I call him God and say I need your money — then I’m a prophet. It’s a lonely path to be on your own. But the fact is, I have had an experience. It came to me as a dream, where I awoke by a river in a new land. I lived an entire life in this place. I’ve been speaking to sprits from there since I was eight years old, but being reborn there, living there, has changed everything for me.
“I’ll be starting the show with readings and a short pre-recorded video about the history of what I do; then I’m going to share nothing less than the secrets of the universe with everyone.”
30
Bannerman closed the door to his basement office and brought the laptop out of sleep mode with a shake of the mouse. When the screen was ready, he logged into the work system and began tracking records. The first check was a credit score on Darius Miner. As well as a tale of poverty, the report revealed his current address.
Nastos had found evidence that Miner had murdered Lindsay’s mom, Tabitha Moreau — what he had done to Lindsay Bannerman had learned from the adoption worker.
Darius Miner started it all. He began the inevitable chain of events that had started with a perfect young girl. He filled her mind full of chemicals, molested her, then killed the mom before she could get rid of him. He abandoned the girl and left her to be adopted. Only by greasing the wheels of the adoption process and by bribing Jessica Taylor to cancel her applications for Lindsay’s guardianship was Bannerman able to save her from a failed life.
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He was too late to spare her from Darius, but not too late for that bitch. The jury was still out on whether the abuse from Darius would have a pervasive negative effect on Lindsay’s ability to form normal, loving relationships or whether she might become highly promiscuous. The jury might be out on Lindsay, but Bannerman decided that for Darius, today was judgment day.
For the first time in years, Bannerman rode a subway rather than driving. A phone call to a friend at the Canada Revenue Agency confirmed that Darius Miner had been living for the last few years at a halfway house run by the Salvation Army in downtown Toronto. The gun felt heavy in Bannerman’s pocket. He had to keep touching it to make sure it was still there. Glocks were mostly plastic; the only real weight came from the bullets. These were hollow points. They mushroom on impact, expanding, causing extra damage to internal organs and staying inside the body, their jagged teeth lacerating organs and arteries should the victim move while trying to flee or even just writhing in agony.
Bannerman checked his watch. Lindsay had been gone for twenty-nine days. If everything that Nastos said was true, this would be the day that she was found dead. Sorrow, Joy. He had Googled the words and come upon the rhyme “One for Sorrow.” If Lindsay was to be found dead today, she’d have Girl carved on her chest. He felt sick at the thought. Having to deal with that reality was too much to bear. Even the thought of it was already too much. He was beginning to think that after he put a few bullets in Miner’s head, it would be a good idea to put one in his own so he wouldn’t have to experience the news of Lindsay’s murder.
When the train stopped, he followed the crowd as they all exited to the right and filed up the stairs and escalators to street level. Outside it was cool and overcast, the kind of thick, fast-moving cloud that travels in ragged wisps, haunting the city.
In twenty minutes he was outside the halfway house, a restored Victorian mansion with wheelchair ramps that weaved up the sides, a black wrought-iron fence for a smoker’s area to the right and a WheelTrans bus stopped at the curb.
