After an endless moment, the door to his room burst open and people dressed in white flooded in with urgency, dragging something behind them he couldn’t see through the blur of tears and panic. Their urgent voices were so far away as they came near. A man said something, but Jake couldn’t hear over the thrum of blood in his ears and the damned beeping behind his head, now joined by another machine alarm. He reached with a shaking hand for the one who looked like the nurse who’d gone to fetch him sleep. He reached for her jacket. Dene was in the bottle she kept there. The bottle in her pocket. The needle in the bottle. The drug in the IV line. Rest in his blood. And in his dreams, the woman he loved. The woman so long gone, leaving him with only sleep and memory to live for.
Though the world was just about finished with him, he wasn’t done. He had more to dream.
He tried to speak. There was something over his face, forcing air in his mouth, into his lungs. He didn’t want it. Hands on his body and voices all around. And everything hurt. And he was so afraid. He wanted to call for his mother the way he’d done when it seemed like the world was too big a place to be in and all he needed was her arms around him—a small embrace of comfort and security. The nurse and her bottle. Mother’s nourishing morphine.
Then the hands were gone and there was a new beeping, so distant. And the flash like a nighttime storm on Guadalcanal. And afterward, everything was softer, more distant and dimmer. Just one more, please. One more dream and then I’ll go. Let me run in the rain with my brothers. Let me make love to my wife one last time before leaving. Just one more dream. Please.
Jacob Blackmun turned his head and another flash blossomed behind his eyes. And when it cleared, he saw the rising sun outside his window, and he said goodbye to no one because there wasn’t anyone he loved left to hear him say it. Mom and Pop. Jim from Georgia, Sterling, Pearl, Rod and Stone. And Dene. Most of all, Dene. All gone.
Only he remained, along with the memory of a dream a moment ago.
And then nothing else in the early morning light but the dark and silence.
The dream of a man was done.
MINE, NOT YOURS
Some of the kids next to me laugh as the girl on the hospital bed screams about killing her baby. Fake blood coats the inside of her thighs and the bedspread between them. A couple of kids dressed as a doctor and nurse say something I can’t hear because the hyperventilating girl behind me keeps repeating “ohmygodohmygodohmygod” and sobbing. She’s been like that since the second room on the tour of The Hallows House. Peter Stott—“Pastor Pete” to the kids—pops up again from behind the bed wearing a ridiculous rubber devil mask and begins preaching. “You thought that you were going to find love in cyberspace, but instead you were raped! And now you’ve killed! Your! Baby!” He’s shouting much louder than he needs to in the enclosed space. Maybe he thinks we can’t hear him through the mask. He steps around the bed with a flourishing gesture to redirect our attention between the teenager’s legs, just in case any of us thought there was anything more interesting to look at than a young girl’s thighs. The boy playing the doctor continues the morality play.
“Nurse. This bleeding isn’t normal. I don’t think we can stop it.”
“Oh my God, Doctor. What do we do?”
“It’s too late; this one’s gone. Come on. We have other abortions to perform.”
Pete laughs again from behind the mask and shouts at the bleeding girl. “You’re going to Hell! But it’s okay because it was your choice!” The girl on the bed pretends to die while the doctor shrugs like that sort of thing happens to him all the time and walks out of the room.
Not one of them has ever actually been in this situation and it plays like a politician talking about hard work. Even though this is my third time through the house, I still haven’t gotten over my urge to howl for these kids to stop pretending they know what pain is.
I unclench my fists and stuff them back in my jacket. I have to consciously fight to keep from wrapping my fingers around the butt of the gun in my right pocket.
The girl behind me sobs again. Her friends are dragging her through the house despite the fact that she’s clearly wanted to leave since the drunk-driving skit in the first room. The girls on either side of her whisper reassuringly, “It’s okay,” and “It’s not real,” in between giggles and groans of excited disgust.
The Devil laughs again, sounding like a Bela Lugosi impression done by someone who’s never actually seen Dracula. “We’ll be seeing her again real soon,” he shouts, hinting at the penultimate room in which we’re treated to the pleasure of watching the sinners from all the previous skits suffering in Hell.
The teenager dressed up like an angel who has been our guide apologizes again for the sights she must subject us to. Her smug look belies any real regret. She loves every minute of trying to send us running in a panic into the arms of her lord. She motions for everyone to proceed. Awaiting us in the next room is a semi-racist gangbanger party that’ll devolve into an argument over a “ho” and a shooting. While everyone else files past, I lag behind, slipping into the shadow of black plastic stapled to the wall. The last of the kids leave and the angel shuts the plywood door behind her. I hear the latch of the slide bolt on the other side.
No one gets to backtrack; no one escapes Hell.
I step out of the darkness and over the cheap rope separating the performance area from the spectator path. Walking up to the Devil, I say, “Pastor? Excuse me, Pastor Stott.” He lifts up his mask to reveal black-ringed raccoon eyes and a confused expression.
“I’m sorry sir, but you need to stay with the group.”
I know he recognizes me. He pretends not to and gives me that Cheshire smile he wore the first day I saw him. He was standing up in a pulpit and my daughter sitting next to me on the pew was on the edge of her seat like she was at a rock concert. He kept looking down at her from that perch of his and I remember thinking at the time, Damn, this guy knows how to work a room. Even my wife seemed moved and she grew up around Evangelicals and Charismatics.
“I’m Andrew Matheson,” I say, like we haven’t met after sermons, church barbecues, bake sales, Easter passion plays. My wife and daughter were always the vanguard at those events. I was the quiet guy who hung back trying to give my daughter the room to be herself without her old man intruding and embarrassing her. How I wish I had ever stepped forward to stand beside her. To be seen along with her. “I’m Mattie Matheson’s father.”
“Mattie? Oh, Amanda.”
She hated being called Amanda. She was christened “Amanda Hugginkiss” in the fourth grade and was mortified. We told her she could be called anything she liked and my wife suggested Mattie. I hated it. I sounded to me like some blue-haired Indian Bingo player down by my mom’s place in Florida, but for her it was like being born again. Taking control of her name had allowed her to take control of her life. She took the name and wore it like armor.
“We haven’t seen Amanda in a long time,” he said.
I want to pistol whip him for his feigned ignorance. “I’m sure you haven’t,” I say instead. My hands are shaking and I’m afraid the gun might slip out of my pocket. I grab hold of it and a soothing calm like morphine flows through my body, the weapon’s cool grip pressing into my palm, warming, taking my heat and becoming a part of me.
“You tell her we miss her at Loving Heart. She should come back to service on Sunday. In the meantime, you should head on into the next room. You’re missing the show.” He points toward the locked door. “I’ll radio and get Sheila to let you through.”
I grab his pudgy arm and pull him closer. “I’ve seen the show. I want you to know that I’m Mattie Matheson’s father.” I look into his eyes searching for a hint of guilt. If there is any, either the black grease paint hides it or he’s a much better actor without the mask.
“Got it,” he says, shaking me off. I get the first real glimpse at the devil beneath the disguise. He’s got a moon-shaped face with bright blue eyes that peer
through that greasepaint like pools of ice. I can see that he knows me but won’t admit it. Not given what else he knows.
“Pastor Pete?” The girl from the bed appears out of the gloom at the back of the stage. Fuck! I was too anxious to corner my target and I didn’t make sure the room was clear first. The other two times I cased the show I was paying attention to the live act, not looking behind the scenes. I take a step back. Not with a witness. Not with a child in the room.
She approaches us timidly, her hospital gown fallen back down covering the red Karo syrup staining her thighs. Her hands are bright red from pawing at the gore. She and the other kids were supposed to be moving on to take their places under the Lexan glass in the floor of the “Hell Room” where the teenagers who “died in their sins” throughout the house will writhe in eternal agony.
“Laylah. Would you please take Mr. Matheson to meet his friends in Hell?” He looks at me with the Sunday morning smile. “Or maybe you’d just rather go right to the prayer room, since you’ve already been through it.”
“It’s funny you’d put it like that.”
“Pastor Pete?” the girl repeats. She looks afraid to come near me. I can’t tell if it’s how I look or who I am. Either way, her instincts are good.
“What is it, Laylah?” Pete asks.
“Amanda Matheson . . . Mattie . . . she . . .”
“My daughter killed herself last month,” I finish for her.
My wife says she “passed away” or “she left us.” But that’s bullshit. Our only child killed herself. No euphemism exists that can soften the truth of it.
Pastor Pete stands quietly, trying to look shocked to hear the news. It must not be a look he tries on often, because I can see the muscles in his face twitching at the unfamiliarity of this expression. He knows what she did as well as why she did it. He took everything we built up and broke it down, taking everything from her—even her name—until all she had to lean on was him. “Mr. Matheson,” he says, “I am sorry to hear we’ve lost Amanda, but—”
“We haven’t lost shit.”
“I understand you must be upset, but—”
I slap him. The Devil mask pushed back up on his head goes flying and he steps back a couple of feet, holding his face. That expression is real. Laylah gives a shocked squeak. I close the distance, hitting him again, this time with a closed fist. He drops the walkie-talkie. It chirps as it clatters away. Laylah shrieks. I really wish she wasn’t here to see this, but she is and I won’t get another opportunity to be alone with Pete again. Not after this.
I hold a finger up to my mouth encouraging her to be quiet. With all the shouting coming from the next room, there’s really no need. She could start screaming her head off and it’d all sound like part of the act. It’s why I want to do this here. Gunshots and screams are what you get for the price of admission. Still, I want Pete to hear me without having to shout. I don’t like raised voices.
“What do you want?” he slurs. Blood dribbles out of his mouth as he paws at the floor looking for the radio in the dark.
“Mattie’s dead because of you.”
“You said she killed herself. If she chose to sin, I only ever tried to keep her on the right—” I’m not even close to getting tired of hitting Pete, but we don’t have all night so I pull the gun and shove it in his face as encouragement to be judicious with his words. I really want him to be conscious when I pull the trigger but everything he says makes me want to beat him to death instead of shoot him.
He opens his mouth to say something. I slip my finger inside the trigger guard and he thinks better of verbalizing whatever it was that occurred to him. Instead, he paws at his split lip and stands back up to face me.
“She left a note,” I say. “Do you want to know what she wrote?”
“I don’t think it’s anything I want to hear, Andy.”
No one calls me Andy. The way he’s making me feel, I can barely keep to the plan. He took Mattie’s name and now he’s messing with mine, trying to use it against me.
“Before you do anything you’ll regret,” he continues, “why don’t you just hand me the pistol?” He holds out his hand. It’s soft and white and I imagine it touching my girl. I want to break his fucking fingers.
Laylah hesitantly moves closer. I watch his eyes tracking her, trying to give her subtle directions with them. I don’t know what she can see through the dim light and his makeup, but I pay attention to her in my peripheral vision anyway. Despite the gloom, she’s easy to see in the white gown. She’s almost glowing.
“Mattie wrote that she hoped that her baby in Heaven would never be able to look down and see its mother burning in Hell. She hoped it wasn’t really like The Hallows House.” Saying the words is harder than I thought it would be. I don’t want to utter them. I hid the note from the police so they wouldn’t see her final confession. I didn’t want them to know what he had done to my little girl. But then the medical examiner found the fetus and I had to give the police my DNA to prove it wasn’t my baby. That’s when my wife moved out. I was cleared, but she’s stayed away anyway.
Pete’s caring-preacher look falls away and his expression goes blank. He saw it then. Laylah being in the room wasn’t going to stop me. “I d-don’t know what this has to do with me,” he stammers, lying. “Can we pray together?” The tremor in his voice getting worse. “Matthew 6:14 says—”
“She mentioned you by name in her note. Her last words were that she hoped you would forgive her for killing your baby when she died. Your baby.”
His stupid round face is covered in sweat despite the chill in the house. I can see in his eyes he’s thinking hard about how to get out of this. He’s making a plan and playing it out in his head. Struggle with me for the gun? Run for the door? Call out for help? But I’ve been planning longer. I’m stronger than he is. The doors are locked and we’re alone. The overacted fight in the room next door will soon erupt in hysterics and shooting. And that’s all I’m waiting for. He’s running out of time.
I check my watch. The tour is staggered every twenty minutes. I’ve kept Pastor Pete for five, maybe seven. I don’t know; I lost count. The first time I saw his face the only thing that occurred to me was blowing a hole in it. I can’t wait much longer. If I do, they’ll notice the Lord of Hell is missing. “Pray,” I say.
“What?”
My hand is shaking, but I’m pretty sure at this range I won’t miss. Pastor Pete has to see that as well. “Pray! Pray that I’ll let you live. Get on your fucking knees and ask Him to move me.”
Pete drops to the floor, blank look in place, and begins performing like it’s a Sunday morning tent revival. “Dear Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray in your name that you deliver us from the influence of the . . . of the Devil and that you move dear brother Andrew’s heart—”
I clock him in the forehead with the butt of the gun. The dull thud of metal on bone sounds like a hosanna to me. “Don’t pray for deliverance. Pray for forgiveness,” I say.
Struggling to get back up to his knees he says, “I have nothing to ask forg—”
“I dare you to say that again. Say it again with a straight face so I can feel even better about killing you.”
Slowly, so I don’t startle and accidentally pull the trigger, Laylah places her hand on my forearm. Her skin is sticky from the fake blood, but her touch is still tender and soft, like the down of her white wings. I don’t remember her having angel’s wings in the scene. I guess she was getting ready for her next part in the play when I interrupted her. I try to remember whether at the end she’s saved or one of the damned, but all I can think of is Pastor Pete. His eyes narrow as he judges whether her distraction would be enough for him to make a dash for it. It isn’t. I’m focused on him kneeling there looking like a dog that doesn’t know whether to jump or roll over.
“Can I have the gun, Mr. Matheson?” she asks.
“Sorry, kid. I need it. I need it until I feel the hand of God move me. Do you think we’ve got his atte
ntion?” My anger is turning into sorrow as I try to keep the hitch out of my voice. Everything has gone wrong and the plan doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I know that this won’t bring my Mattie back. Nothing will. Not prayer, not faith, not hope—all things I’ve given up. The girl is sapping my resolve. She’s not part of the plan. I don’t want to hurt her.
She looks so much like my daughter.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name,” Pete says.
“Not feeling it.” I bluff, holding back my tears. “Try harder.”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
“You’re running out of time.”
Laylah’s hand slides down my arm, lightly squeezing my wrist. She’s gentle, but there’s something else there: the strength I’m losing. She whispers to me, “You don’t have to do this. It’s not your fault.”
“You’re right. It’s his,” I insist.
“What does your heart tell you?” She places her other hand flat on my chest—those slender hands like Mattie’s.
“. . . and the glory. Forever and ever.”
I lower the gun.
“God has touched your heart,” he says. “Amen.”
“Laylah changed my mind. She touched me.”
“Forgiveness is the first—”
“I don’t forgive you!” For a moment the look on his face turns from satisfaction to fear as he expects me to raise the gun again and fire. Without the girl there, I might have done just that. Instead, I feel calmness wash over me. Someone cares about me even though I don’t. Feeling clean for the first time since I put the flesh of my flesh in the earth, I let the girl in the angel costume take the gun from me. I shouldn’t let her have it—it’s irresponsible—but I can’t stand the weight of it in my hand any more. I’ll make sure she gives it to the police when they get here. She lets her other hand linger on my chest. The coldness of her fingers pierces through my coat.
13 Views of the Suicide Woods Page 13
