Scars on the Face of God

by Chris Bauer

  All this “old man” crap was pissing me off. Bastard was old as I was, goddamn it.

  “Just what is it you would have done,” he said, leering at me, “had you been who you thought you were? Huh, old man?”

  “Who you calling old, jackass? You’re crazy. I’m gonna whip you silly—”

  “No, Wump!” Father cried then reached inside the armoire. “Back off!”

  I hit the monsignor below the belt, a full-fisted delivery I hadn’t used since prison, aimed with the cruelest of intentions, a punch reserved for wife-beaters and rapists and child molesters, and now the defiler of a young, defenseless nun. After the punch I tried grabbing hold of what I’d hit so’s I could squeeze him into submission but—my God—the pain—my knuckles—they were broken. “Owww…”

  Monsignor’s powerful backhand flung me across the room, sending me crashing shoulder-first against the doorjamb. Through ringing ears I heard him curse me then laugh then curse me some more. I was dazed, defenseless, his blurred red outline walking slowly toward me while he raised the long gold scepter high above head, until—

  THUMP. Monsignor’s face lit up in surprise. My eyes cleared, and I could see him touch the back of his head with his hand, then turn wearily around. Father Duncan was standing on balanced feet, his baseball bat cocked, ready to deliver a second blow. For one fleeting, hopeful moment, I believed Father and me had a real chance.

  Monsignor grinned; the moment dissolved.

  “Part of the deal,” he said, amused and no worse for either assault, “was I answer to no one. Guess I best stop fooling around with the riffraff and get to the business at hand.”

  He stepped back toward Father Duncan, raised the crucifix-tipped scepter shoulder high and parallel to the floor. The cross ignited. “You should have never come here, Duncan. You were too late.” Monsignor took a swipe. Father dodged it, the scepter trailing fire.

  “The dead babies?” Monsignor said, taunting him. “It’s ironic how close to the truth the insane pastor was, but still, nevertheless, his was a wasted effort. This wonderful boy, my offspring, so to speak. Adam. He’s such a joy, isn’t he, Father? He leaves next week, along with his sister, to be reared by old-country folks who know Lucifer’s ways.”

  A second swipe singed Father’s cassock. Father ripped the cassock off, tossed it toward the middle of the floor where it billowed before settling on the devil book. Father again raised his bat, gripped it with both hands, gritted his teeth, and slammed the bat against the side of Monsignor’s skull. The force of the blow jammed Monsignor’s head unnaturally against his shoulder. He stutter-stepped and stopped. The swing should have killed him. Instead, his head slowly tilted back upright to face the father, and after a second stutter-step and a scowl, he was on the move again. Father connected with another full cut to the head, then another, but Monsignor continued to close in. Soon Father was backed into a corner, none of his swings having any effect. His breathing slowed until he calmed himself. He lowered his bat to his side.

  “Father!” I yelled; I got to my feet. “No! Don’t quit!”

  “Wump, you listen to me,” Father shouted. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “How touching this is,” the monsignor said, “and how close you two have become. What a pity though, huh, Duncan? The way things were before, you might have lived a long life, albeit as a pathetically nondescript cleric, and you would have never been the wiser. You might have grown old and died before seeing any real change.

  “The display the church congregation saw here today? You were right, Father; the boy’s in training. But you”—Monsignor raised his finger and wagged it at him—“you and the cardinal, you both thought you could interfere. And now you, like the cardinal, will pay the price.” He spun in my direction. “Offer your respects to Father, Wump. And Duncan, say your final prayers. But fear not—”

  Monsignor contorted his face then spread his feet like a woodcutter. With both hands he curled the scepter high above his head, ready to deliver a chopping, granddaddy of a blow.

  “—I’m sure there’s room for you in heaven, where you’ll rot with the rest of the losers!”

  The scepter descended with the crushing force of a battle-ax, but at the last second it dropped wide of its mark, landing lightly against Father’s shoulder. The monsignor lurched forward, his eyes bugging out in a pain-filled wonder. Reaching up with shaking fingers he touched a foot-long crucifix embedded in the top of his skull. He turned on wobbling legs, his face and body convulsing, then he flicked out a desperate hand at his attacker, who stood flatfooted behind him.

  “M-my son—”

  His fingers caught young Adam’s pants on the way down, squeezed then released them, and the monsignor collapsed into a choking, blood-spitting heap at the boy’s feet. He exhaled his final breath, his eyes freezing into a dead man’s stare.

  All my senses were alive, fear popping and hardening my veins. I heard myself breathing, could see and hear Father emerge from the corner, his chest heaving, his steps tentative around the leaking head of the dead monsignor. Adam, his costume crown of thorns still intact, exhaled hard through his nose, but not as hard as Father did, who he was watching real close.

  Father was awestruck into silence; he slowed his breathing. I reeled from the shooting pains in my right hand, not able to flex it and not wanting to, some, maybe all of my knuckles broken. Through my agony I heard something behind me, outside the sacristy, the tinny, annoying echo of a squeaky wheel as it crossed the marble floor of the church altar.

  —EEeeEEeeEEeeEEee—

  The color in Father’s face was gone. He swallowed once, twice, his eyes never leaving Adam. Father struggled to speak.

  “I don’t know what to say, son, other than thank you. The monsignor was unstoppable. A madman. But truth be told—”

  “He was lying, Father,” Adam said, his juvenile voice cracking like it had just crossed into puberty. “Or maybe he was just mistaken. About one thing at least.”

  I squinted, unsure of what I saw. Rising above Adam were a pair of bare, olive-skinned shoulders caked in sweaty grime and streaked with scabby whip marks, and between them lifted the thorny, bleeding head of Jesus Christ. The battered form of the Savior engulfed Adam. “The deal he had, whether Monsignor realized it or not,” Adam said, his voice deep, strong, no longer juvenile, and coming to us from his and Jesus’s lips at the same time, “was he answered to no one except me.” Adam and the form of Jesus squatted next to the body. “Step back, Father.”

  Adam’s right hand reached in and gently—compassionately, like a chaplain on the battlefield—closed the monsignor’s eyes. Still squatting, Adam and Jesus tilted their heads up, greeting our puzzled looks, then—

  Adam’s sober expression twisted, was overlaid by an impish, sneaky grin that said, Just thought I’d keep you guessing, and the hand that gently closed Monsignor’s eyes now savagely gripped his chubby, lifeless face, and squeezed, crushing it like an overripe tomato. The embedded crucifix pinched out with a squishy thlok and slid onto the floor. Adam and Jesus wiped their bloody hand on Adam’s pants. As the two of them glanced at the open vestibule door, the monsignor’s bloated body lifted and was flung through it, disappearing into a windy updraft in the darkness outside.

  Adam and Jesus, whose blood-spattered, murky faces now surrounded piercing and soulless black eyes, returned their amused attention to me. “Wump, you and I need to talk.”

  I heard the squeaky wheels again.

  —EEeeEEeeEEee—

  “But seeing as I have some business with Father, now is not a good time,” Adam and Jesus said. “So I don’t give a schuetten if you hang around or not.”

  I leaned against the jamb to steady myself, my limp broken fist cradled in my good arm. Long as Father was here I wasn’t going nowhere no matter how much it hurt, or how terrified I got.

  “When we last spoke, Father, about my mother’s unfortunate accident”—Adam’s young features were fuzzy, a glowing mist that shif
ted between a uniformed schoolboy and a grit-encrusted, half-naked, crucified man in soiled and bloodied bedclothes—“I guess I sounded like one really confused adolescent, didn’t I?” His voice stayed strong, in control. “The train accident wasn’t my fault, mind you, but I didn’t care when she stumbled. Why, you might ask?” Adam shrugged. “Because she was clutter and needed to be eliminated.” He approached Father’s discarded cassock, singed and rumpled in the middle of the floor. Under it, the Devil’s Bible.

  “What have we here?” Adam said, leaning over, feeling the smoothness of the cassock’s fabric. He lifted the cassock and tented it in his pinched fingers, tipped his head in Father’s direction and hesitated, aware of his audience, then—

  “Presto!” he said, pulling the cassock away. “Yes, it’s still here, Father, awaiting study by the pompous, self-bestowed guardians of the religious free world, your Catholic Church. But frankly, Father—”

  The book shook, began flapping like a flounder on a boat deck until it lifted and balanced itself on one end of the binding. The leather covers separated, and the book opened wide like a loose woman spreading her legs, its spine thrusting in and out at the priest. The pages suddenly ignited into a furious flame, the old leather cover squealing and popping, and the yellowed paper crackling, its embers spiraling to the ceiling.

  “—what would be the point?” Adam said. “It too has outlived its usefulness, so it too must go. Just like the monsignor. He showed promise, was to get the Popehood he earned as Lucifer’s proxy. Yes, Monsignor drank from the carnal cup and wanted refills. Fornication for the sport of it. How refreshing this was for Lucifer, at least in the beginning. Until Monsignor got impatient. And today he jumped a few too many spaces ahead on the game board.”

  With a wave of Adam’s hand—“This should cozy things up a bit”—the sacristy lighting dimmed. The book was now a gas-pilot blue, burning evenly, efficiently. Adam and the glowing, misty form of Jesus retrieved the scepter and made the first move, taking lazy steps around the devil-book campfire, the scepter twirling slowly in their right hand. Father Duncan picked up his baseball bat and gripped it tightly, his jaw muscles stiffening. With a few clockwise steps, Father was able to keep his distance. It looked like he’d changed his mind about going without a fight.

  “What? You’re afraid of me? Come now, Father…”

  Adam tossed the twirling scepter upward at the ceiling like a drum major at a football game. The ceiling disappeared before our eyes, revealing a starless black sky, the baton spinning as it rose until both ends burst into flames. It reached its peak and reversed direction, falling until Adam snared it perfectly in stride. He flashed a winning smile, the scepter spinning as he spoke. “I kept the monsignor from creasing your skull, didn’t I? I saved your life, Father. Oh. I get it. You’re wondering why.”

  Father reached where I stood, stepped in front of me. He spread his feet, raised his bat off his shoulder, ready to make his stand.

  The freakish Adam now straddled the flaming scepter like it was a child’s broom-handle horse. He clip-clopped a few steps closer. With a playful smirk, he mouthed off again.

  “Sometime early in the next millennium, there will be—are you ready for this, Father? Maestro! Drum roll and cymbal splash, please! Ta-da! A nuclear holocaust! Thank you, thank you, you’re so kind,” Adam said, bowing. “I’ll have reached my fifties, with a solid, widespread base of serious believers, many of them political. I’m bright, I’m likable when I want to be, and my childhood has been one that a campaign manager could only dream of: given away at birth, raised by nuns, and reunited with my mother who, alas, was then tragically killed in a train accident. And the ultimate showstopper: unexplainable but interesting things happen when I’m around. Like you said, Father, all padding on the resume. I’ll mix religion and politics. I’ll kiss the healthy babies, bless and heal all the rest, and they will love me. ‘What, me be your president? Well, if you insist…’”

  Adam and his scepter horse moved one clip-clop closer. “Nuclear winter, Father! Can’t keep that busy little splitting atom in only one country’s bottle. Once I get the chance, I’ll make it go boom! Then boom, boom, boom and, oh yes, drum roll for the big finish, please—KABOOM! Tsk-tsk. It will set this poor planet back, what, thousands of years? Millions?

  “Then, and only then, Father”—Adam gritted his teeth behind a raised hand with a pointing finger—“will the real fun begin, but this time it will be with a level playing field. For old Lucifer and me and, you know, him. ‘The Almighty.’ He draws strength from you, you must realize. Is so much stronger than us because of you and the millions of people like you. People who have followed him, pray to him, have faith in him. Love and adore him. Yuck.”

  Adam spit into the devil-book fire, the moisture sizzling, the fire doubling in size.

  “Except all those people, all that love, will be gone. So then he, and Papa Lucifer, and me, and the other deities out there—trust me, there are more—we’ll all get a second chance. And since Lucifer deals in immediate pleasure, and your Almighty offers only a hope there’ll be some future, ‘everlasting,’ potential pleasure to be realized at an unsubstantiated later date—well, you know what they say about ‘tomorrow.’ It’s one elusive little fucker, isn’t it? So, given we get away with this planetary makeover, we expect all the love and adoration will get a bit more evenly distributed this time around.

  “Look, all we want is a second chance at giving what crawls out of the ashes whatever it desires, so it will be beholden to and honor and adore us, not him.”

  Father glanced at me over his shoulder and nodded at the door; his message to get out.

  “Ain’t leaving you, Father.”

  “You’re a witness to this, Wump. Go. You need to tell the Church.”

  Clip-clop, clip-clop went the scepter horse. “What, you think I don’t hear you, Father? Sure, Wump, why don’t you leave. Go speak with the church dignitaries. But before you do, I’ve got more fuel for your tannery pollution crusade, so while you’re at it, why not stop in at Philly City Hall?

  “It seems Ruthie, my mute twin, is speaking now. That’s right. Her first words to me were: ‘Hey Adam, look at this! If you spin in circles you get dizzy then fall down.’ How profound. For a kindergartner, not a fourteen-year-old. Yes, Wump, she’s a moron like the rest of them, and it is because of the water. But who’s going to believe an old ground-pounder with battle fatigue? And what would it matter, even if they did? Go on, get out. I have no interest in you. But I do have an interest in Father here.”

  My feet were frozen in place, like in a dream where I knew I should run but couldn’t.

  —EEeeEEee—

  The squealing wheel, behind me, so close.

  —EEee—

  The unlatched sacristy door bumped against my back and held there.

  Clip-clop, clip-clop went Adam’s shoes. His face turned charming despite its blood-caked, ghostly Jesus likeness. “So it seems, Father, what with Monsignor’s recent, ah, dismissal, that we have a job opening. Let’s call it Pontiff-in-training, with ascent to the throne guaranteed. Our man here on terra firma. Interested? You’ve got the experience. A former baseball player who became a priest. Odd combination, but it’s one that caught Lucifer’s fancy. You’ve sown your oats already, and you know what it’s like to be pleasured, so unlike our most recent candidate, we know you’ll be more discreet. You’ll keep your extracurricular activities toned down and in your pants, not call attention to our little political movement. In return you’ll be the most powerful being on earth. After me, of course. So whaddyasay? Feel like helping me rough up the Almighty?”

  Adam squared himself in front of Father, the boy’s face with an expectant look underneath his two black, impish cowlicks. “‘Pope Connie the First.’ Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? C’mon, Father. It’ll be fun.”

  Father lowered the baseball bat but kept it tightly gripped in one hand, his large forearm rippling under a white shirtsleeve, his grief
-stricken look visible to me from the side. He nudged me a step farther back, then put on his game face and spoke:

  “I am a believer of the one true God who is the Creator of heaven and earth, the father of Jesus Christ, Lord, God, and Savior of the human race.” Father made a fist of his right hand, began pounding his way through the Sign of the Cross. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost—”

  He gritted his teeth and gripped the bat in two hands, raised it to shoulder height.

  “—and if you bow your head and repent your sins, I will ask God to grant you absolution.” He thrust out his quivering chin. “Confess, and God the Father might allow you to reenter the Kingdom of Heaven. Persist, and you will return to hell.”

  The devil-book blaze exploded skyward like a high school bonfire at midnight, and as Adam roared back at him in spit-filled anger, Father took a home-run swing at his head. A blurred flick of Adam’s wrist put his free hand on the meat of the bat barrel before it could connect but Father didn’t let go, instead tried to pull free while a sure-footed Adam looked at him, head cocked like a curious six-year-old watching an ant in the sun under a magnifying glass. Adam released his grip on the bat; Father staggered but regained his balance. Adam turned away from the panting priest, said in a low, disappointed voice as he walked, his head shaking side to side, “Father, Father, Father. You’ve made a poor choice.”

  Father raised the bat and took another run at him from behind. Adam suddenly spun, ramming the burning, hard-edged crucifix end of the scepter deep into Father’s stomach, twisting it like a prison screw turns a key in a cell lock, then driving it up, under Father’s rib cage, lifting the priest off his feet. Father’s shuddering body rose, was held high, twitching like a fish on a spear. Adam then whipped the spear over the fire in the center of the sacristy, bellowing his disapproval: “Me, son of Lucifer, confess my sins? How dare you!”