A Hideous Beauty

by Jack Cavanaugh

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  About Jack Cavanaugh

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Clinton E. Arnold and Greg Boyd for your excellent studies on principalities and powers and the nature of spiritual conflict as portrayed in the Bible. Your books have been a source of enlightenment and inspiration for this work.

  Special thanks to Alton Gansky, a constant friend and sounding board for all things theological.

  Thanks to Brett Burner for valuable suggestions that developed the story during rewrite.

  Thanks to Steve Laube, agent, cheerleader, and friend.

  Thanks to the people at Howard Books. This is our fifth book together. Your professionalism and encouragement are refreshing.

  And thanks to my wife, Marni, and children, who bring such joy and laughter into my life.

  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,

  but against spiritual forces of evil

  in the heavenly realms.

  ~HOLY BIBLE

  For how shall I relate

  To human sense th’ invisible exploits

  Of warring Spirits?

  ~JOHN MILTON

  Let us suppose that this everyday world were,

  at some point, invaded by the marvelous.

  Let us, in fact, suppose a violation of frontier . . .

  ~C. S. LEWIS

  Before the clock of cosmic time was wound,

  In heaven, fresh made, there dwelt a holy race.

  Conceived in light for worship we were cast

  To walk in luster and eternal grace.

  Until a fatal wickedness was found

  Hidden, a cancer deep within a soul.

  Thus Lucifer turned thought to plan and deed,

  With dragon’s breath set heaven’s fields aflame

  With war. He scorched the Father’s pristine realm,

  Laid waste unblemished joy.

  Defeated, he and all the host who loved him,

  Cast down to worlds new born. Archenemy now,

  Confined in time, a cosmic spectacle.

  The rage that ravished heaven’s brotherhood,

  Now terrorizes earth with lies and strife.

  Its borders breached, the warring hoard descends,

  And what began in heaven now scourges man.

  —ABDIEL, SERAPH OF HEAVEN

  CHAPTER 1

  Nifty little talk, Mr. Austin.”

  The kid’s eyes mocked me from the recesses of a hooded gray sweatshirt.

  “Speech. It was a speech,” I corrected him. He was playing to his buddies a few feet away.

  The kid smirked. “And that prize thing . . . like, wow!”

  “It’s the Pulitzer, son, not some whistle ring you pull out of a box of Cracker Jacks.”

  “Yeah . . . whatever . . .”

  I walked the open hallway. Ten years separated me from my graduation. This wasn’t my high school anymore. The buildings were the same but the occupants had changed. Everywhere I looked there were hooded sweatshirts. Since when had my alma mater become a school for Unabomber wannabes?

  Swept along in a river of adolescent angst—an endless stream of tattoos, piercings, colorful swatches of hair, studded leather chokers, and black lipstick—I tracked the smart-mouthed kid as he passed. He joined a pod of his friends, casting himself as the hero who’d gotten under the skin of some old geezer. They looked my way and laughed.

  What is it about high school that brings out the worst in the human species? All my teenage insecurities, like faithful old dogs, were waiting for me when I stepped on campus, and had been nipping at my heels all morning.

  I had an overwhelming urge to grab the kid by the scruff of his neck and take him on, to teach him a thing or two about respect.

  Instead, I told myself I wasn’t going to sink to his level. What difference did it make if some identity-challenged adolescent didn’t appreciate the magnitude of my literary achievement? I told myself to let it go. I was the mature one here.

  Breaking eye contact with him, I turned forward and walked smack into a metal pole.

  A pair of coeds, one plump and one rail thin, gasped. Their hands flew to their mouths, at first in shock, but then to hide their giggles.

  A wiry-haired boy with serious acne problems laughed openly. “Ouch! That’s gotta hurt!”

  He was just glad it wasn’t him. This time.

  “Are you all right, sir?” the plump coed asked.

  “Do you want us to help you to the nurse’s station?”

  I cringed as the image flashed in my mind. Me, with a coed under each arm, being helped out of the fast lane.

  I assured the girls I was fine. I struck a fine pose—more than fine, robust, virile—and hurried on my way, eager to put them, the pole, and the incident behind me.

  A buzzer sounded. The corridor rapidly cleared as students disappeared into every open doorway like water pouring down drains.

  With the corridor to myself, I rubbed my forehead and wondered if the pole had left a mark. A familiar spring breeze swirled past me. My thoughts turned nostalgic.

  The outdoor stucco walls were the same mud-brown color I remembered, the doors aqua-blue. The open central corridor still stretched the length of the campus, with alternating rows of classrooms and grassy areas on each side.

  Approaching one of my former classrooms, I peered inside. A small, redheaded woman with a hairstyle that predated my lifetime stood in front of the classroom. She wielded a wooden pointer like it was a broadsword. Behind her was a map of Gettysburg with red and blue arrows indicating troop movements.

  “Reminiscing?”

  I turned toward the voice behind me to find a smiling, horseshoe-bald Hispanic man with a thick, black mustache. He held a sheaf of papers in one hand. Extending his other hand, he introduced himself. “Carlos Ruiz Mendoza.” His smile widened, revealing a gold tooth.

  “Grant—”

  “Austin. Yeah, I know. The assembly. Congratulations, by the way. The Pulitzer. Quite an achievement.”

  I shrugged modestly, but didn’t disagree. “Are you a teacher?” I asked.

  “Remedial reading.” He said it like he was apologizing. “The way I see it, if I do my job, by the time my students complete the course they’ll actually be able to read your book . . . They won’t, of course.”

  We both laughed.

  “It’s not exactly Stephen King,” I admitted.

  Mendoza motioned toward the classroom. “Do you know Rose?”

  Inside the classroom the teache
r, Rose, had leveled her broadsword at a sandy-haired student who slumped in his chair and stared at her defiantly.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure,” I said. “This was Coach Walker’s room when I was here.”

  “Walker . . . quite a character from what I hear,” Mendoza said. “He passed on two years before I arrived. Stories still circulate, though.”

  I laughed. “Believe them. Walker knew only one way of doing things—as a football lineman coach. History, football, it was all the same to him.”

  “Were you on the team?”

  “Football? No. Tennis was my sport. But Walker coached it too. The man didn’t know a foot fault from a double fault, but he had us in great shape. We were the only team in the district doing bear crawls on the courts.”

  Mendoza laughed.

  “But I learned some valuable life lessons from him,” I added. “If nothing else, Coach taught us to hustle. I learned that hustle can beat superior talent; not always, but often enough.”

  “Good lesson.”

  “Got me where I am today.”

  By silent agreement, we continued down the corridor.

  “I didn’t have the smarts for scholarships,” I explained. “Worked my way through college throwing baggage around at the local airport and pinching pennies.”

  “Ah, the Cup o’ Noodles degree,” Mendoza said.

  I grinned. “You too?”

  “Midnight shift at a twenty-four-hour convenience store.”

  I liked this man.

  With matching strides we walked in silence for a moment, then he said, “You’ve come a long way since your microwave-soup days, Austin. The Oval Office. Air Force One. The G-8 Summit in Paris. Few men get to see the things you’ve seen.”

  “I’m glad someone was listening to my speech.”

  Mendoza gave me a sideways glance. “Was school assembly behavior all that different when you attended?”

  “I guess not,” I admitted. “We once had a conductor stop his orchestra mid-symphony because we started batting a beach ball in the stands.”

  Mendoza nodded. “Some are better than others. Last month we had a band . . . a rhythm group, actually. They beat on trash cans, banged lids, swished brooms, that sort of thing. They were good. The students loved them.”

  “So you’re saying if I want to make a hit with teenagers, I need to bang trash can lids together.”

  “Of course not,” Mendoza scoffed. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added, “But it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “Seriously, Grant—long after the din of trash can lids fades away, what you have done will be remembered and revered. The Pulitzer Prize, son! They don’t hand those out in Cracker Jack boxes!”

  “Seems I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

  “You are, without a doubt, the most famous alumnus this school has produced.”

  I thanked him as humbly as I could. But, truth was, I’d traveled the width of the country to hear those words. If only Myles Shepherd had heard them, my day would have been complete.

  “Coming back here,” Mendoza continued, “after all the exotic places you’ve been, all the famous people you’ve met, this must seem rather mundane to you.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Singing Hills High will always be a part of who I am.”

  Mendoza pulled up in front of a door labeled FACULTY. He offered his hand again. “I’m glad I had this chance to chat with you, Mr. Austin. Something to tell my grandchildren someday.”

  Before letting go, I said, “Tell me, Mr. Mendoza, is Myles Shepherd still in the same classroom?”

  “Shepherd? Sure. First room on the last wing.”

  I thanked him and continued down the corridor, my spirits much improved. There’s something satisfying about hearing a teacher respectfully calling you “Mister.” I made a mental note to send Mendoza a copy of my book.

  Upon reaching the last wing, I peered through the louvered windows and caught my own reflection. I was grinning like a man about to burst at the seams. And why not? I’d waited a decade for this day to arrive and I wanted to savor every second of it.

  This morning, as I dressed for the assembly, I told myself I wasn’t going to gloat, that I was going to take the high road. But now that I was here, all I had in my head were low-road thoughts.

  I peered into the room. It was empty. In the front right a door stood open. The teacher’s office. A light spilled out from inside.

  Shepherd was in there.

  I was almost surprised. It would have been just like him to deprive me of my moment of triumph.

  The door was unlocked. I let myself in.

  The threshold proved to be a time portal. As I walked between the rows of desks I was seventeen again with books under my arm and worries swirling in my head that I’d forgotten to do my homework.

  I trod the same scuffed, green-tile floor that I’d stared at while straining to remember answers to test questions. Even the assignment on the chalkboard could have been one I’d copied down years ago—

  Chapters 45–47 for Thursday

  TERM PAPERS DUE IN TWO WEEKS!!!

  I ran my fingertips across the top of a desk. Suddenly, the past gave way to a single thought.

  Mundane.

  Mendoza had pegged it, hadn’t he? The room. The studies. The students. The repetitious routine. All of it was ordinary. Commonplace. Mundane.

  I couldn’t believe that for years I had allowed myself to be haunted by Myles Shepherd’s teaching success. For what? For this? Look at it! Shepherd’s grand kingdom consisted of nothing more than row after row of graffiti-marred desks with chewing gum stuck to the undersides.

  “Grant? Is that you?”

  I approached the office door of my old nemesis and poked my head inside. My first impression? Cramped. Books defined the decor. Books squeezed vertically and horizontally into every inch of shelf space. Books stacked on top of shelves, on chairs, on the floor, on other books. In the center of the room a gray metal desk dominated the floor space. Binders and folders of every color formed what looked like a New York city block of towers. On the working part of the desk was a small stack of papers that were being graded. The top sheet was heavily slashed with red marks.

  “Grant! Welcome to my snuggery!” Myles Shepherd half rose from his chair. He extended his hand across the desk. His grip had no more warmth than that of a car salesman.

  “Sit! Sit!” he cried. “Just move those books anywhere.”

  He motioned to two student chairs with identical book towers. I managed to relocate one of them to the floor without toppling it or setting off an avalanche.

  I situated the chair in front of the desk and sat. The chair was smaller than it looked. I felt like Papa Bear sitting in Baby Bear’s chair.

  Looking down on me, Shepherd made no attempt to hide his amusement. I didn’t care. There was only one Pulitzer Prize–winning author in this room and it wasn’t him.

  “So, you took the time to stop by,” Shepherd said. “I wasn’t sure you would, now that you’re famous.”

  “And miss this opportunity to see you? I’ve been looking forward to it.” And that was the truth. “You’re looking good, Myles.”

  It was an understatement. He looked great. Tanned. Fit. Not only had he not lost any hair, but his neatly trimmed style looked fuller and thicker than it had in high school.

  He still had that killer combination of pale blue eyes and dimpled smile that turned women’s knees to butter. The cleft in his chin sealed the deal. He looked more like a movie celebrity than a high school teacher. He was one of those guys who looked better in person than in his publicity pictures.

  A tweed sports coat was draped over the back of his chair. Blue oxford sleeves rolled midway up his muscular forearms. His collar was unbuttoned and his red tie loose.

  “I suppose congratulations are in order,” he said.

  He swiveled around so that the back of his chair was facing me.
I could hear three-ring binders toppling. When he swiveled back, he was holding a thick book which he plopped onto his desk. I recognized it instantly.

  Lionheart: The R. Lloyd Douglas Story by Grant Austin.

  Instinctively I reached to autograph it, then stopped myself. I settled back into my undersized chair.

  Let him ask.

  “Have you read it?”

  Shepherd replied by picking up the book and thumbing through it. He took his time, pausing at every chapter.

  He took so long my attention wandered to the display on the wall behind him. He’d hung his master’s degree from Yale along with three framed news clippings—

  MYLES SHEPHERD TURNS DOWN YALE OFFER

  TO TEACH AT LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL

  MYLES SHEPHERD:

  CALIFORNIA TEACHER OF THE YEAR

  PARADE MAGAZINE

  TRENDY TEACHER INSPIRES TEENS:

  MYLES SHEPHERD, ROLE MODEL EXTRAORDINAIRE

  Something familiar caught my attention. Prominently displayed on top of a mustard-yellow file cabinet was a tennis trophy—Most Valuable Player.

  On the night of the award ceremony Coach Walker confided in me that his decision to give the award to Myles had largely been a coin toss. Myles had edged me out. That’s the way it had always been between us.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if the trophy normally resided atop the file cabinet or if Myles had placed it there in anticipation of my visit.

  As I continued to look around, I felt that there was something odd about the room. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I did.

  Conspicuously absent was any kind of student homage to Shepherd. For an award-winning teacher, that struck me as odd. There were no pictures of Shepherd surrounded by laughing students. No nostalgic teacher plaques or knickknacks, the kind gift stores sell by the case at graduation time. In fact, there were no apple-for-the-teacher mementos of any kind.

  “Your book is certainly getting you a lot of attention,” Shepherd said, breaking into my thoughts. “The New York Times bestseller list, for what? Three weeks now?”

  “Thirteen weeks.”

  “Thirteen! Are you sure?”

  “Thirteen. Trust me. An author knows. And you still haven’t answered my question. Have you read it?”