Asylum
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit… Amen.
This is a story of a guy named Marty. Sheriff Mary. Well, Sheriff Martin Kahlberg really. He was the Sheriff on this small town, Ellendale, North Dakota. Most nights he sat in his squad car at the intersection of 1st and Main at the one stop sign on your way through town and waited for people to blow through. He loved writing people from out of town up for failing to yield and for doing 60 mph in a 45 mph zone. I think he lived to do that, but not really. I think he cared about the town and he cared about the people’s safety. Above all, Sheriff Marty was the kind of guy who did the right thing even when nobody wanted him to.
You can respect a guy like that.
Or hate him.
It’s like this one night he told me about. He was parked in the Cenex parking lot, there at 1st and Main, waiting for travelers of the night to blast through town doing Mach 2. The Twins had a night game out on the west coast, so even through it was late he could still listen to the game on the radio. They were playing in Anaheim and they were down by two runs to the Angels. But it was the top of the seventh and the Twinkies had some big bats coming up.
He had his lights off and his window down so he could spit sunflower seeds out while listening to the game. It was a quiet night and he was enjoying himself.
Then, of course, his two way police radio crackled to life. The Dispatch Officer said, “Sheriff, this is Dispatch. Come in, over.”
“God damn it, which drunk is picking a fight now?” he said to himself and then answered, “This is Sheriff Kahlberg.”
“Hey Sheriff, we got a complaint from Ethanol Acres,” Dispatch said.
“What now?”
“Cats.”
“I’m sorry. Cats?”
“Roger that, Sheriff. From your favorite person in the whole wide world.”
“Sheldon Persing is complaining about cats?” Sheriff Marty asked.
“I couldn’t make this stuff up Sheriff,” Dispatch said. “Do you have the address?”
“Oh, I have the address alright,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
“Ten four Sheriff. Dispatch out.”
So Sheriff Marty, Sheriff Kahlberg I mean, hung the police radio mike back on its clip, turned on his headlights, spat what sunflower seeds he had in his mouth out on to the pavement and put the patrol car in gear. He pulled out on to 1st street and hearing that the Angels had put away the Twinkies big bats three outs in a row, turned off the game.
Ethanol Acres was a trailer park just on the outside of town. Its real name was Edgewater Acres, being that a narrow stream ran behind the park. But, being that the place was a dump half full of 70’s and 60’s era trailers in various stages of disrepair, and being that the park also sat adjacent to the local ethanol plant that reeked like a paper mill the locals usually referred to it as “Ethanol Acres,” instead.
The owner and landlord of Ethanol Acres was Sheldon Persing, and all I need to say about him right now is that Sheriff Marty was pretty sure he was cooking meth somewhere in the park. Not in the trailer he lived in, but in one of them.
Sheriff Marty pulled up to Sheldon’s trailer, turned off his engine and walked up the steps to the door. Sheldon’s trailer was the nicest one in the park. It was a double wide with a large deck off the back. Everything was in good condition and looking sharp because everything was new. The only eye soar was a full cigarette butt can by the front door and a lawn that hadn’t been touched by a mower all summer. The same was true or the rest of the park too. Sheldon was responsible for the grounds keeping, but apparently he didn’t care too much about that. The truth was that Ethanol Acres attracted the kind of clientele that weren’t all that concerned with appearances.
And yet, Sheldon always managed to pull of his own style…
When Sheriff Marty knocked on door that night Sheldon answered wearing a sleeveless belly shirt, softball pants and one golf shoe. The other foot was bare. His navel, exposed below the bottom of the belly shirt, was hairy and full of lint. The belly shirt used to be one of those heat-reactive shirts from the late 80’s. Sheldon was missing one of his big front teeth. The rest were rotting and turning black. He was unshaven and the hair on top of his head was a wild rat’s nest. His eyes darted all around in their sockets. They could never keep still, even when he tried to focus on something.
And there was Sheriff Marty, trapped between this stinking disgusting mess of Sheldon and the stink of old socks pouring from the ethanol plant and screen door Marty held open with the back of his shoe. He tried to play it cool.
“Good evening Mister Persing,” Marty said. “Hear you’re having some problems with the local wildlife.”
“Yeah,” Sheldon smiled, exposing the rotting maw that was his mouth. “Wildlife. Wild… wild… wild… I tried getting ‘em, Sheriff, with my shoe!” Then he stopped down with his golf shoe, bamb, bamb, bamb, three times. Each time he did, the little spikes left holes in the pile of shag carpet on the trailer floor.
“May I come in?” Sheriff Marty said. He didn’t want to go into that trailer. He didn’t want to sit on Sheldon’s furniture, and if Sheldon had offered him a beverage he would have strictly refused. Sheriff Marty wanted in that trailer to look for traces of meth, or at least enough cooking materials to get a warrant from the county judge.
“They’re all over the place, Sheriff. Wild! Running around all night, crying at the moon,” Sheldon went on, oblivious to Marty’s request.
“Okay. Okay. Now hold on just a cool minute there Mr. Persing,” Sheriff Marty said. “Now-“
“Wild Sheriff. Wild! You gotta understand, Sheriff. They’re crying inside my fucking brains!”
“Now, first things first,” Marty said a bit louder, asserting him more than before.
“Right! First things first. First things first,” Sheldon said like it was a new idea.
“Right. First things first, and the first thing is for us to file a report so we can document this and get to the source of the problem.”
Sheldon stopped his yammering. The last line may have put up a red flag… being that the real source of the problem was most likely wearing a belly shirt and one golf shoe.
“Can I come inside?” Sheriff Marty asked.
“Inside?” Sheldon said.
“Right. So we can fill out a report and see what we can’t do about these cats of yours,” Marty said.
Sheldon cracked a smile as if he just remembered the game they were playing: the game where he pretends to be a law abiding citizen and Sheriff Marty pretends he’s here to help with some problem regarding cats. “Yeah. Of course. Come right in Sheriff and we’ll fill out that report.”
Sheriff Marty tried to ignore the larger mess that was Sheldon’s trailer. He tried not to focus on the giant barbeque sauce stain on the carpet, the cigarette butts lying everywhere, the dirty laundry, the dirty dishes lined with dried up ketchup and cigarette ash, the thousands of Post-it notes stuck to every smooth surface covered in erratic scribbles of pen or pencil, the random CDs and DVDs too scratched to ever play in any machine ever again, the empty bottles of Frebreeze and beer, the crumpled up cigarette boxes, the wadded up receipts from a thousand impulse purchases and whatever else. He tried to ignore all that and look for other things hidden amongst the debris: red tinted coffee filters, antifreeze containers, drain cleaner, duct tape, Coleman propane bottles, ether, paint thinner, “Heet” gasoline additive… that sort of stuff. You know, all the stuff you need to cook meth. His eyes searched for all those things the Drug Taskforce guys told him to look for, to document, to report to the judge so he’d be granted a search warrant. His eyes searched for those things, but what he saw was barbeque stains, cigarette butts, dirty laundry and dried ketchup.
These two men, these two polar opposites pretending to be casual equals, moved around the clutter to the dinning room table. Once there, Sheldon quickly shoved some dishes and tabs of paper over to clear a spot for Marty’s clipboard. He plucked off a half dozen Post-its and then pulled out the chair to offer Marty a seat. Marty sat down while Sheldon moved around more clutter to the opposite side of the table. He sat down, knitted his fingers together and fixed his ever-jittering eyes on Sheriff Marty.
Marty, cool as a cucumber, was flipping through some pages in his clipboard. He came upon one sheet he liked and brought it to the top. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked it to life.
“Now,” he said, still not meeting Sheldon’s intense shaking eyes. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Cats, Sheriff. Cats,” Sheldon said.
“Cats?”
“Wild cats, Sheriff. I tried chasing them and stomping them and… and…” Sheldon pulled his wringing hands apart and then clapped him back together. “Catching them… but… but… they’re wild!”
“Now, who’s cats are we talking about Mr. Persing? Are these your cats?” Sheriff Marty finally raised his eyes to look into Sheldon’s.
“No Sheriff. They’re wild,” he said, almost pleaded.
“You mean, they’re strays?”
“Yeah. Strays. Born in the wild. Never belonged to nobody.”
Sheriff Marty had been jotting in his clipboard. Now, he stopped and shut the metal cover to the clipboard. “Now, god damn it, Sheldon. I’ve told you about keeping those strays under control. You let them run wild and make kittens so the kittens can have kittens and those kittens can have kittens and pretty soon the whole damn town will be crawling with the things. Then they’ll be on the roads and the highway, and then I’ll have nice old ladies swerving all over the god damn place trying not to kill the poor things, crashing into street lights, crashing into cars, crashing into each other. All because of your cats.”
Sheldon was lost for worlds. His hands had stopped wringing into themselves. Even his eyes seemed to steady for a moment. “You ain’t gonna arrest me are you Sheriff?”
… if only he could…
So this is a story about a guy named Marty. Sheriff Marty. But it really starts with him and his bag of cats cruising through the night in his patrol car. This is the part of his story where he does the right thing, even when nobody wants him too.
He drove out to the state line. He rolled to a stop just past the little green sign reading, “South Dakota: Legendary,” and put the cruiser into Park. He left the headlights on to light up the roadside in front of him. He stepped out and went around to the trunk. There, he stopped before opening the trunk. He tilted back his Stetson Sheriff hat and looked up into the sky.
I haven’t told you about the Dakotas yet, about the endless fields that went for miles and miles, about the table-flat landscape, about the constant blowing wind that came even at night, about how big and empty it all seemed… At night, like that night, there were no lights to take away from the glow of the stars. You could see every one. And there’s so many. You forget, living in the city or even suburbia. All the lights from cars and houses and streetlights drowned them out. But they’re still up there. And that night, like so many other nights in the Dakotas, nothing was there to hide them. Even the shyest dwarfs millions of millions of miles away were there to shine.
Sheriff Marty wasn’t thinking about stars though. They had been there for him his whole life. Sheriff Marty was thinking about what was in his trunk. He popped it and looked down inside. An old army olive drab laundry bag was resting there in the center of the trunk. It shuffled and moved. And it mewed in a dozen tiny voices.
When Sheldon said “cats,” he meant “kittens.”
Sheriff Marty had pulled close to a dozen out from underneath Sheldon’s trailer. There were probably more, but these were all he could get. He would have liked to cite Sheldon and force him to take care of the damn things himself, but Marty knew that Sheldon had never taken care of anything. They would be out running around through town, carrying diseases, causing accidents, making more kittens, and eventually dying in much more inhumane ways than if Sheriff Marty were just to take care of them himself. So he picked up the olive drab sack and lifted it out of the trunk. Then, he reached in a found a claw hammer he kept back there with some other tools. He carried the sack and the hammer around the side of the car to the ditch bathed in the light of the high beams. There, he set down the bag of kittens.
Still holding the hammer in his one hand, he exhaled and shook his head.
He didn’t want to do this. He just knew he had to.
So he got down on one knee and started smacked the bag with the hammer. He started swinging and didn’t stop until after a good six or seven smacks. The bag was moving and fighting more than ever. The mews had turned into screeching cries. Marty wiped the sweat away from his forehead and tried not to cry himself. He tried not to think about what was in the bag. He tried not to think about the litter of kittens that had grown up in his dad’s barn when he was a kid. He tried not to think about feeding the runt with a baby bottle. He tried to remind himself that sometimes you have to do things you don’t like doing. It was hard for him.
He brought the hammer back down. Then again, and again, and again. Another half dozen and then a dozen times. He was angry at that piece of shit Sheldon for putting him in this situation. He was angry at every lazy irresponsible idiot that made him do these hard difficult things. He hated them and he was angry and right now the only thing he could divert his anger into was that bag of kittens.
Still, they didn’t stop that screeching cry. The truth was, this wasn’t working. In order to do it right he would have to take each one out of the bag and smack them in the brain, and he just didn’t have the heart to do that. He didn’t have the heart to reach in and see how he had mangled these poor creatures. He just couldn’t do it.
So he threw the hammer out into the ditch and went back to the driver’s seat. He put the cruiser in Reverse so he could see the olive drab sack, and then put it in Drive. He slammed on the gas and steered the left front tire right over the bag. The tires thumped twice. He stopped and put it in Reverse. He backed up and the tires went thump once more. Then he made a three point turn, aiming the cruiser back into North Dakota. He stepped on the gas and left the bag of what used to be kittens behind. If he would have looked in the rearview mirror he would have noticed that his trunk was still open. But he didn’t. He was afraid he’d see through his watering eyes and notice that the bag was still moving.
So, really, this is a story about a girl named Sheena… or Shine, or Star Diamond or Betty Bounce or DP Dorothy or a hundred other names. But really, her name was Sheena. She used to be a porn star out in Hollywood under all the hills and lights and stars. And while she was there, while she was doing her thing, she thought it was the exact right place and the exact right thing she wanted to be doing.
But after a while she started feeling different.
The stars faded under all the lights. The lights burned her eyes. The hills lost all of their mystery.
So she decided to go back home.
It’s a longer story than just that, but I’ll get to the rest later.
For now, we’ll skip to the part where she wrecks her piece of shit Plymouth Sundance along the highway on her way back to Ellendale. Some 1,800 miles ago, she left LA on I-15 and drove for 3 days straight on one hell of a meth high. And while she was cooking hot on crystal meth things were good. She was feeling fine and the miles were ticking by. She was in her zone. Then she hit South Dakota and ran out of crank and ran out of good luck. Coming up into North Dakota on I-29, she dozed off and veered right into a No Passing Zone sign.
She was down in a deep place in her sub-subconscious. The Sundance crossed the centerline. The wheels reverberated off the sleep strip. It meandered to the opposite shoulder, and the sleep strips there didn’t wake her up either. The Sundance went down the embankment and plowed into the No Passing Zone sign and that didn’t wake her up. The tires gouged up dirt and spread it over the windshield just before the front bumper smashed into an old railroad tie cattle fence. Her head hitting the windshield finally woke her up.
When she did come to, the windshield was spider webbed and smeared with blood. The engine was racing; her foot was still on the gas, so after realizing this she pulled it off. The engine quieted and the wheels quit spinning through the dirt. She looked out through the sprayed cracks in the windshield and saw a big fat Holstein. The cow looked at her and she looked at it and they both wondered the same thing.
What the fuck just happened?
No answered came so they both decided the same thing.
Fuck it.
The girl went back to sleep. The cow went back to chewing the grass.
The next thing Sheena remembered was coming to on a old green threaded couch in a room she had never been in before. There was a dull orange light bulb glowing underneath a glass lamp shade. It was old and covered in dust, but to her eyes it was blindingly bright. It seemed to go right through her eyes and poison her brain. Her muscles ached. When she tried to move her joins it felt like she was full of pins and needles. Her mouth felt like a desert; her head, a swamp.
She moaned.
“Morning,” a voice said. It was a man’s voice. She went to lift her head but her neck and spine stung from her tailbone to the base of her skull. Luckily enough, the man seemed to notice her pain. He swatted down in from of her, so they were at eye level. “Name is Tony. Nice to meet you, Sheena.”
He was mid-twenties young and handsome in that roughed redneck sort of way. He had one of those baseball caps on with the fishhook clipped to the brim. The room she found herself in must have been his living room. It was older than he was and said “circa 1979” in the loudest of voices. The only thing new in the room was the electronics. He had a big TV, an X-box and all sorts of DVD players and surround sound components. There was a coffee table behind him that was littered with sports magazines and remotes. Something reeked like piss.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“Sheena? I found your driver’s license. That’s how you say it, right? She-nah?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Like that old Ramones song. Sheena is… a punk rocker. Shee-nah is… a punk rocker,” he half sang.
“Yeah. Sheena. My fucking head hurts really fucking bad,” she moaned.
“Yeah, you’re all kinds of fucked up. I found you on a Thursday morning smashed through a cattle fence…”
“Thursday morning…” she moaned. “What time is it now?”
“It’s Saturday,” he said.
“Oh,” she said and turned her head to the back of the couch so she wouldn’t have to look at the light.
“I towed you and your car back to my place, brought you in to rest on my couch three days ago and you haven’t moved since,” he said. “You pissed yourself a couple of times by the way.”
“Oh,” she moaned. That would explain the smell.
“I mean, I cleaned you up as best as I could, but… Well, let’s just say I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Thank you,” she said, her face still buried in the back of that old musty couch. “I mean, I appreciate it and everything. But my head really fucking hurts right now.”
He didn’t say anything for a little bit, and she wasn’t looking in his direction to see how he was reacting. Eventually, he said, “Sure. No problem. It’s like they say, what comes around goes around. Do good to others and they’ll do good to you. Do you need anything?”
“Some water maybe?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back,” he said and left.
Once he was out of the room she turned over, face up to look around and take inventory. The living room wasn’t big. It was furnished with the couch she was on, a recliner, the coffee table and the big TV and that was enough to make the place pretty cramped and her a little claustrophobic. The carpet was shag and the ceiling had water stains in the corner. But she wasn’t much concerned with the room. It was her own body that was drawing all of her attention.
She was covered under a thin blanket, but under that she was naked. The couch underneath her pelvis was damp from her own urine. Her legs were covered in stubble and she stunk. Every part of her ached and hurt, especially her head and her pussy.
She realized that, and then suddenly wondered if he had raped her. She had laid there for three days, completely naked and unconscious for probably most of it… He could have and she would have never known. She searched her memories for any hints of dreams of him on top of her but found nothing. The last few days were a blank slate. All she had were fuzzy clues and suggestions.
She had been in worse spots. The truth was, this wasn’t the first time she’d crashed for more than a couple of days and pissed herself. This was the indecency of addiction, not that she recognized it as that. To her, it was just another day in another room.
He came back with the glass of water. He sat on the coffee table and handed the glass to her. She kept the blanket tight around her chest and sat up slowly.
“Here you go,” he said. “Your clothes are in the other room. I threw them in the wash for you after the first time you… you know… went.”
She took the water and drank it down.
“Thanks,” she said again after she had finished off half the glass. “I mean it. For everything. The water’s is great, but really… you got anything a little stronger? A fix, I mean?”
He smiled in a way that told her he did. Like he knew she would ask. “Damn, you are pretty fucked up, huh?”
“I’m not going to fuck around man. I need a fix bad,” she said. “Can you hook a girl up or what?”
He pulled open a drawn in the middle of the coffee table. He took a baggie out and held it in front of her. There were a few good sized rocks of cocaine inside.
“Now, the water and the room and board are all free,” he said. “But you’re going to have to get me back for the coke.”
“Sure,” she said, having no attention or ability to pay him money. “Just cut me a couple lines already.”
He pulled her California driver’s license from her wallet and chopped the lines right there on the table. Then he found a dollar bill and rolled it tight. She forgot all about her nudity and sat up to suck down the lines. It wasn’t crank, but it would cut the edge. He had chopped four lines, and she took them all up through the dollar and up her nose.
“God damn, bitch,” he said. “Go easy.”
She looked up at him and laughed, a little bit of white still around her nostril. “Sorry. Told you I needed a fix.”
“No worries,” he said and looked her over. “I know you’re good for it.”
He took the dollar bill back and chopped himself a few more lines. She sat back against the couch and let the coke drip through her veins and into her brain. She started to feel better. Not good. Not good by a long shot. But better.
When he was done he tosses the dollar bill to the table, stood up and said, “I need a smoke. I’ll be outside.”
She waited till he was gone and then leaned forward to find the baggie of coke. It was gone. Her wallet was there, so she ruffled through it’s guts but found nothing. There was a little dust left where he’d chopped the lines, so she wet her finger, mopped it up and sucked her finger clean.
It was a rough life for a girl.
Sometime later she went outside and found him in the backyard smoking a cigarette as he sat on the tailgate of his truck looking off into the distance.
The house she came out of was a old country rambler set on a large plot. There was a dead fire pit not far from the truck, an old clothes line, a row of trees and an old school bus half consumed by weeds and bushes off in the distance. The row of trees seemed to be the property line. Beyond them was nothing but cornfields.
She walked through the long grass to the pickup truck and the man.
“Got one of those for me?” she asked, meaning the cigarette.
“Damn, you’re demanding,” he said, but pulled one from his pack anyway. He leaned over and handed her the smoke and his lighter.
“Thanks,” she said and lit up. “So, what’s your name?”
“Tony,” he told her again.
“Hi, Tony,” she said.
It was a warm summer evening outside. The sun had gone down and left the clouds a pink and orange wash of colors. There were a few mosquitoes out, but they weren’t bad. Then, he picked up a handgun.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“This?” he asked casually. “This is my baby, baby. It’s a Springfield 1911 .45.”
Whatever that meant.
“Cost me a cool grand and will take down a motherfucker with no questions asked, you know?” he said, and then played with it a bit. He pulled back the slide, checked the sights, flipped the safety on and off and all those other things boys do with their toys. Everything short of spinning it on his finger like a cowboy. “Nickel-plate finish, ivory grips, ambidextrous magazine release, palm safety, day-glow sites… See how the sites glow in the dark?”
She nodded.
“That’s tritium, bitch.”
Again, whatever that meant. She was too fucked in the head to pay much attention or care to what he was talking about.
“Is it loaded?” She asked.
He dropped the clip out and showed her the bullets sitting inside. “Would do me much good if it wasn’t.”
Then things got a little weird. Those bullets, before he loaded the clip back into the gun, those bullets started to glow red. I mean, not really, but to her eyes they seemed to put of there own hot light like the coils of an old stove, like a warning light say “Danger.” But the thing was, she had done quite a bit of acid when she was younger and even then, she’d have the occasionally hint of an acid flashback. Things would glow. Moving objects would leave contrails. Her vision would twist. Her spine would ache. So, she wrote off the red hot bullets as a side effect of years-old LSD condensating at the top of her skull and then dripping down onto her frontal lobe.
And right about then, a rocket took off into the sky from behind the row of trees. It shot straight up for the moon and then burst into a thousand flashes of blue and purple light. Then another came up, boomed and shot out sparks in a wild array, just like when her head hit the windshield.
“What fucking day is it?” the girl, Sheena, asked.
The guy, Tony, laughed. “Don’t you even know that? It’s the 4th of fucking July.”
The two of them sat there, him with his gun, her with her head, and watched fireworks shoot up over the tree line and burst into a vast spectrum of colors above them. Some twisted and corkscrewed skyward. Others exploded and sent bit of glowing magnesium and phosphorus outward as if they were bits of a space shuttle disaster. Some snuck up into the sky and puffs of smoke for just one quick flash, followed by a loud boom that seemed to shake the walls of chests. Others yet, burst into those sky-filling flowers of colors and light. They all dazzled her. She hadn’t seen fireworks in years.
“So when do you plan on getting even with the house?” the guy, Tony, said.
“Huh?” she replied.
“When are you gonna even up the tab?” he asked again.
She laughed. “You’ve been through my wallet. You know I don’t have no money.”
Then he laughed. “And you know I ain’t talking about money. Don’t pretend you don’t. I don’t pull fine-ass bitches like yourself out of their wrecked cars in the middle of nowhere to earn a fucking merit badge.” He wrapped his arm around the front of her, his empty hand grabbing her breast. “It’s time you give it up, baby.”
She sat shocked of a bit. More fireworks popped off in front of them. She ignored them now, and said, “Fuck you, you fucking dick.”
“Whatever, bitch,” he said. He pushed her down, her back against the bed of his truck. His hand slid her shirt up over her breast and started fondling and sucking on her tits. She started to shove his head away and kick with her legs but she was weak and not right in the head. He came up and slapped her hard across the face.
“Hey. Play nice. Maybe you can even enjoy this too,” he said.
He pulled his pants down, and then pulled her’s off. Then he was back on top of her, holding her down against the rusted metal bed. The next things she knew, he was inside of her, ramming his dick into her dry pussy, ripping her apart from the inside out. All she could see was this asshole’s neck and fireworks shooting off in the sky above her.
That girl… Sheena… Shine, Star Diamond, Anal Annie, Candy Cums-a-lot and all those other screen names, …that girl on her back in the bed of a pickup in the middle of nowhere, strung out on meth and acid, getting raped on the 4th of July… that girl was me.
It was a rough life for a girl.
Maybe your thinking, so what? I’m a porn star and I’ve thrown my shit around all over Hollywood like it was candy at a parade. What’s one more dick thrown in the mix? Well, I didn’t want this dick. I wanted all those others. All the other nasty, sick, twisted shit I’d done… I wanted to all of it. I was in my zone and doing my thing. But I didn’t want this. And it hurt really fucking bad too.
At first I had tried to push him off of me, but my muscles were too weak and my mind too worthless. All I was able to offer was, what we called in the business, “playful resistance.” So, I guess I decided to give up and ride it out. He couldn’t last much longer, right? My hands dropped back to the bed of the truck, and went out trying to find something to hold on, something to squeeze to block out the pain, something to give me some other textile sensation other than that of being rapped.
My right hand found something cool and smooth, something nickel-plated with ivory grips, something with a trigger.
Above us, the fireworks were blowing off faster, louder and bigger. He was moaning louder and pumping faster, locked into a rhythm that told me he was coming up to it… the Grand Finale. I had just enough strength to lift up that big heavy gun and put the barrel to his head. I don’t think he noticed because he didn’t stop.
I pulled the trigger and blew his brains out and up into the sky with all the big pretty fireworks. For the tiniest split second it was like he was still alive. His brains and skull were airborne, sprayed out in a fan above us. They glowed red. Then, he slumped over, dead, on top of me. He landed on me like a wet bag of shit, all loose unmanageable weight. I felt his dick go soft and plop out of me. I tried rolling him off of me but he was too heavy. His brains, blood and skull dripped into my hair. I started freaking out, just then realizing what had happened and what I’d done.
I started screaming and kicking. I shook my head, trying to avoid the dripping guts of his head. I squirmed and eventually worked my way out from underneath the late great Tony. I feel off of the end of the pick up and into the grass with the gun still in my hand. The fireworks finished their finale and left the night sky with a dozen thinning clouds of invisible smoke. Somewhere, people were cheering, rolling up their blankets, and starting to walk back to their cars.
I found my pants and underwear. I got into the drivers seat of the truck, threw the gun and my clothes into the seat next to me, and found the keys dangling from the ignition. I started it up and put it in drive. Somewhere between the backyard and the driveway I hit a bump. Tony fell out of the back. I took a left and started driving for god-knows-where. I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was free.
So I drove. I drove like I was being chased, like something was after me and if I stopped, slowed down or even paused to check my back it would be on top of me, raping and tearing me apart again. In my fucked up burnt out head, black swirls of smoke coursed along the highway, chasing me or maybe just corralling me out away from Oakes and towards my destination. These Black Demons would sometimes take on vague shapes: thin black arms with clawed fingers, a neck-less pointed head of smoke with burning coal eyes… crazy, I thought then… old acid trips coming back to haunt me.
I drove as fast as the pickup would go. It was a late 90’s model Ford with loud pipes and naked-lady mudflats. The seats were ripped, the bed was rusted, and there were about fifty dried up pine-tree air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. The little cardboard trees swayed and bounced as I raced down the narrow country highway. The pavement was cracked and scattered with potholes. Every ten to twenty miles the road would make a wide shallow curve and turn 90 degrees. I had to slow down so I wouldn’t roll the truck, but not much. On those turns, the little pine trees would dangle to the outside of the curve, pulled by invisible gravity.
It didn’t take long for the cocaine high to wear thin. My heart rate slowed down, my blood pressure dropped. Despite what just happened to me, and what I just happened to Tony, I was getting drowsy, weak, thin in the mind. I was coming down and coming down hard.
I don’t remember the last leg of my trip. It turned fuzzy and then black. I’m sure I slowed down, meandered from one side of the highway to the other, steered into the ditch just to be pulled semi-conscious by the bumps to correct myself. Shit. For all I know, I could have plowed into another field of cows, drove through the pasture for a half mile until I came back out on another road. I don’t remember much of anything after leaving Oakes, just driving fast, and those swirls of pursuing smoke following me along.
Some people might say that, really, this is a story of a church. A church that I had yet to lay eyes on. Really, I knew nothing about it. Didn’t even know it existed. Maybe I should have. I grew up in Ellendale and Ellendale has always been a tiny, drop-in-the-bucket sized town. I mean, if their was a building in Ellendale I had probably been by it a hundred times.
But that was when I was a kid, millennia ago, it seemed. Maybe I had seen the church before, but I couldn’t tell you what it looked like. Hell, right then, I couldn’t tell you what road I was on, what town I was in or what my name really was. I was unconscious when I landed in Ellendale. I couldn’t have told you anything.
But for whatever reason, I could hear the church. The pastor up front. The congregation below.
The pastor, in his white robe and green sashes, raised his arms, palms up to heaven. He spoke and the congregation, all the people sitting in the rows, sang in response.
“Open thou my lips,” he said.
And my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
“Make haste, oh God, to deliver me.”
Make haste to help me, oh Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Ho-ly Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. A-men.
Halle-lue-ia.
Sheriff Marty stopped his car a good distance away. He parked diagonally across Main Street with his lights on so traffic would stop. He radioed up to dispatch, hung the mic back on its spot and then got out.
After all these years… he thought to himself. After all these years, I thought I’d seen it all. All these years and these people still find a way to surprise me. Where do these folks come from anyway? I swear, they must fall right down from outer space… or California at any rate.
There was a girl, half in and half out of an old late 90’s model Ford pickup with her face planted into the pavement right there in the middle of Main Street. The truck was still running. The driver’s door was wide open, and out of it had spilled this girl. Her cheek was smeared and stretch against the pavement, and her lips kissed the dirt and loose pebbles there. She had a loose shirt on, but no pants. Her ass was hanging out, halfway between her face planted on the street and her feet twisted up in the peddles. It smiled up at the sky, there for everyone to see. She was out, so unconscious it looked like it hurt.
There were a few people stopped in their cars, and the closest had the desire to get out, stand up, crane their necks and get a closer look.
“Stay in your cars, people,” Sheriff Marty waved to them.
He hurried to a trot. He had a thought in his mind that perhaps she wasn’t just unconscious. Perhaps she was dead.
He got to the girl and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Ma’am,” he called her. Probably the most inappropriate term for a strung-out ex-porn star dangling half naked out of a stolen pickup, but whatever. “Ma’am, are you okay.”
And Sheena moaned. I don’t remember any of this. Other people had to fill me in later.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Marty felt my pulse and noted that it was strong enough to keep me alive. I was breathing fine and wasn’t bleeding any significant amounts of blood from anywhere. He cracked a smile. The situation was funny again, rather than possibly tragic. Well, maybe it was tragic, but isn’t humor how we react to small doses of other people’s tragedy?
“Alright, alright,” he said. Now he was pulling the rest of me out of the truck and laid me on the pavement. “Rise and shine. You picked the wrong place to take a nap there missy. Hey. Hey. Wake up, now.”
I wasn’t coming to. Not for him, not for anybody.
Sheriff Marty looked around a saw Rick Jorgensen sitting in his Tahoe. “Hey, Rick!”
“Yeah, Sheriff?”
“Say, you got a blanket or a jacket there with you? Something to cover up this girl’s shame?” he called across the gap between pavement between them.
“Sure thing,” this Rick character said. “Give me a minute.”
Marty took the time to look in the truck and find my pants and underwear. He thought of dressing me right there, like I was big unconscious baby doll but decided against it. He’d wait for the blanket. In the mean time, he found my wallet and then my driver’s license.
“Hot damn,” he laughed to himself. “She is from California!”
They covered me, picked me up, and moved me to the back of Sheriff Marty’s cruiser. The pickup was towed to the fenced-in lot behind the station. They brought me into the drunk tank and put me down on the plastic bed.
“Thanks, Rick,” Sheriff Marty said. “She’s not but a hundred pounds of skin and bones. All the same, I’m not sure I could’ve lifted her down here without your extra hands. Hope I didn’t take up too much time out of your day.”
“Nah. I was just on my way to Pamida, picking up some groceries. Nothing so important I couldn’t stop and help a friends.”
“Well, I sure do appreciate it,” Sheriff Marty said. And then, “And by God, does she stink! Smells like she’s been sleeping in a litter box for the past few days!”
“Yep. You sure know how to pick ‘em,” Rick said.
“’Know how to pick ‘em!’ Why I aught to throw you in one of these cells right along with her! Now, get out of here, you ol’ cuss,” they joked and laughed. It was just another day for a pair of friends.
I never met Rick. Don’t know if I would have wanted to.
So, like I said. I didn’t remember any of that. I was filled in later. From the time I went under somewhere between Oakes and Ellendale to the time I finally woke up, all I really remember is hearing the sounds, singing and music of that church. Weird that I would hear it down there, in that cell, crashed out with my mind rotting from the inside out. Weird. But all the same, I heard it.
“O come, let us worship the Lord,” the pastor called out to his congregation.
For he is our Maker.
“O come, let us unto the Lord,” he called out again.
And then they began singing, in that far away church which I had never laid eyes on. Somehow it came down through the ground, through the cinderblock walls, through my skull and into my head. It sounded so strange, almost like a chant from a far off foreign country, but also as familiar. Familiar, but strange, like re-visiting your old childhood bedroom. The voices held out the notes till they neared the end of the line and then rose or fell in unison.
Let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
And make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods.
In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The strength of the hills is His also
The sea is His, and He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
Oh, come let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker
For He is our God
And we are the people of His pasture
And the sheep of His hand.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
And to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning, is now,
And ever shall be; world without end. Amen.
And then I woke up. My eyes popped open. I looked for the source of the singing, maybe a radio or an open window, but didn’t find either. So strange…
What I did find was a jail cell.
It was small but clean and well lit. The six by eight foot walls were made of freshly painted cinder block. The tile floor was clean and dry. The door was solid metal, with only a narrow glass and wire mess window to look through. There wasn’t a doorknob on my side. In the corner was a stainless steel toilet and sink. The mirror above the sink was polished metal instead of glass. Above me, a bright light sat behind a plastic and wire mess sheet. The bed was a metal frame with a thin plastic mat under me for a mattress. The pillow was plastic too. There was no radio, no open window, and now that I was awake, no church singing/chatting strange but familiar tunes.
I didn’t know where I was, didn’t know how I got there, didn’t know why I was locked up. My head spun from getting up too fast.
I dropped my head down, and that was when I noticed that I wasn’t wearing my own clothes. My feet were in rubber flip flops and white socks. I had gray sweatpants on and a white t-shirt. A gray sweatshirt matching the sweatpants sat on the floor next to my bed, neatly folded. I had no idea where my clothes were. It didn’t take long to realize that they weren’t in this room.
I got up, went to the door and looked out the narrow window.
“Hello?” I called out. All I could see through the wire mess was the opposite wall of a hallway. More cinderblocks with a fresh coat of beige paint. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”
I listened and waited for someone to answer me.
Nothing.
“Hello?” I called again.
This time, there was some noise down the hall: a rattle of keys, the clink of a coffee mug, the shuffle of keys on tile. I tiled to look to the right or the left through the window, but it was too narrow and too thick to see anything but more wall. But I could hear footsteps coming. I backed away from the window, but just a foot.
I man came and stood before the window. He was middle-aged, maybe forty or forty five, and heavy set. He wore a tan sheriff uniform with no tie. He was bald everywhere but the sides of his head. His face was guarded, not looking mean or angry, but not looking exactly happy either. It was that professional cop/poker face.
He looked in and saw a young woman who looked very dogged and tired. Her eyes, my eyes, were sunk in and dark below her eyelids. Her hair was a rat’s nest and hung dead around her face. She had no bra, so she hung loose under the white t-shirt. The gray sweatpants and the view of her through the prison cell window made her look like the poster girl for “What-not-to-do-children.” Still, he saw something in her, he always tried to, that told him that at one point in time she had been a good person, a law abiding citizen, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter.
“Evening,” he said to me.
“Where’s my clothes?” I asked.
He nodded his head, telling me he had expected a less than cordial greeting. “We have them for you, washed folded and secured for you.”
“I want ‘em back,” I said.
He nodded again.
“And I want out of here,” I said.
“Well, now, that’s something we’re going to have to talk about,” he said. “Now, if I open this door are you going to try anything smart?”
At first, I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to give him anything. All I wanted was my clothes, my freedom and my next fix. Was that really that much to ask for? I felt I deserved it.
“Ma’am. If you want those things we’re going to have to talk a bit. Now, if you can promise to me that you won’t attack me or try to run off somewhere when I open this door, well then, I’ll come in there and we can sit and talk.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked off, leaving me standing there starring at the blank wall opposite my cell.
“Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!” I called out from him. Something about being stuck there with no explanation got me freaked out. “Come back!... please?”
A few seconds passed by and then his face once again appeared through my window.
“Can we talk then?”
I nodded my head.
“Are you going to hold a civil tongue?” meaning I wouldn’t swear at him.
I nodded again.
“And if I open this door, you’ll stay right here in this cell and not attack me?” he said.
“Okay. Promise,” I said.
He rattled his keys, turned the lock and then opened the door.
“Mind if I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, thinking it was a weird thing for him to ask that, being that this was his jail cell, his jail and his building. Whatever.
He came in and sat on the lid of the stainless steel toilet. I sat on the bed. He sighed and got comfortable. Then he stuck out his hand for a hand shake.
“My name is Sheriff Marty Kahlberg of the Todd County Sheriff’s Department,” he said as I hesitantly took his extended hand. I didn’t want to shake hands with this redneck pig, but if I hadn’t, I don’t think he would have ever put his hand down. “And who might you be?”
“Sheena,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you Sheena. Do you have a last name?”
“Rosemark,” I told him.
“Sheena Rosemark,” he said. “Mind if I-“
I interrupted him. “Where am I?”
He paused before answering, deciding whether or not he was going to object to the interruption. Then, he spoke up. “You’re in Ellendale, North Dakota in the Sheriff Station holding cell. I brought you here, because I found you sprawled out, unconscious, and indecent, on our Main Street.” He took a breath. “Now, I could tell by looking at you, that you had been coming down off some serious narcotics. But, I had one of our paramedics check you out, and she said that you’d be okay, as long as you were able to sleep it off.
“That’s who got you into those clothes you’re wearing: Jody, one of the EMS medics we work with. Just so as you know, it wasn’t me undressing and re-dressing you.”
“Oh,” I said.
“We have your clothes, cleaned and stored safe for you.”
“What day is it?” I asked.
“’What day is it?’ It’s still Sunday, honey,” he checked his watch. “Coming up on eight o’ clock now.”
“Oh,” I said again. I thought he’d start talking again, but he didn’t so I asked, “So, can I go then?”
“Hmm. About that,” he said. “Now, you should know, that if I so choose to do so, I could charge you with several severe violations and keep you here till you saw a judge.”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t do shit.”
“Watch the civil tongue, young lady,” he cut me off. “Now, the way I found you, I wouldn’t have any problem writing you up for driving under the influence, plus driving uninsured and unregistered. That’s not to mention the indecent exposure…”
“You can’t seriously-“
“And, possession of a controlled substance,” he said.
I shut up.
He voice became less authoritative and quieter. “I found a zip-lock bag in your pants pocket with a quarter ounce of methamphetamines inside. Now, in this county, possession of methamphetamines holds a severe penalty of no less than six months in confinement or a $20,000 fine. Can be both. Can be a lot more. You should know, I’ve put away people for up to five years in this county, just for possessing this stuff. We’ve had problems with it in the past, and we don’t take kindly to it here in Todd County.”
He didn’t say anything after that. He just locked eyes with me, trying to force me to take all that in. I’d spent a few days in lock up before, but never anything like six months. I wasn’t that I was afraid of doing six months. It was just that I really really really didn’t want to. He took a breath.
“Now, lucky for you, I can tell the difference between an out-and-out criminal and someone who’s come across some problems in her life.”
Out-and-out criminal. Those words stuck in my head, and then I remembered Tony in Oakes. The fireworks, the truck, the gun… his head blowing out the top of his skull. And that was when I realized, Oh shit. I’m a murderer.
He didn’t know. He was talking about the meth residue I had in my pocket like it was the crime of the century. He had no idea that he should be arresting me right then and there for Murder 1.
“I talked with Judge Morris, and we came up with a solution, if you’ll agree to it,” Sheriff Marty was saying. He pulled out a slip of paper. It was some kind of form with all sorts of blocks and columns and signature lines. Two signatures were already on it. “You can read it if you want-“
I couldn’t read it. My heart was thumping in my chest. I was strained to keep a straight face. I pretended to be mildly interested in what he was showing me, but all I could think about was being busted for murder. I knew he didn’t know. I knew if he had any evidence or idea that I had killed that motherfucker in Oakes he sure as shit wouldn’t be handing me this piece of paper. I couldn’t read it, but I did manage to scan it over and make sure it wasn’t some kind of confession he was trying to slip me. It wasn’t.
“-but all its says is this:” he was still talking. I was barely listening. “If you agree to attend a local NA program, and if the gentleman there who runs the place tells me you’re progressing through the program, we can pretend none of this ever happened.”
I caught that last part. He was letting me off. All I had to do was sign this paper and go to some bullshit meetings and he’d let me walk.
“Now, I’ll tell you right now. It’s not an easy program. You’re going to have to put forth real effort. You’re-“
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Oh?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ll do it. Where do I sign?”
He took his time, but then pointed with his finger. “Right there. Block number forty.”
I signed, and an hour later I had my clothes back and I was walking out of the front door of the Todd County Sheriff Station.
The Todd County Sheriff’s Station was an uncelebrated modern building. The back parking lot and the fenced off section that was the impound lot were well lit with streetlights. It must have been late, because it was dark out when I walked out the door and the lamps were blazing and buzzing away. Sheriff Marty had to walk with me to unlock the gate so I could get to the pick up. The unregistered pick up. Hopefully, that meant Tony never turned in the title and no one, I mean, no one, FBI, CIA, Interpol, no body, knew he had ever owed the vehicle. That was the only reason I was walked out that place and climbing back into a truck I stole from the scene of a murder.
He unlocked the gate and swung it open. I took the keys out of the big Ziploc bag that he had put all of my personnel effects in. I got in, started it up and was about to roll through the gate when he came up to my window. He put his forearm on the open window ledge and leaned in.
I swore inside my head. My hands were starting to shake a little bit. The dull aching headache I had since I woke up was starting to become something more. Whatever he had to say, I hoped it wouldn’t take long.
“Now, I want to make sure you understand what you need to do to avoid coming back and spending more time in one of our cells here,” he said.
Okay. He had my attention.
“First off, you need to get this truck registered here in the next thirty days. Licensing in here at the Government center, just down the hall as you come in the front doors there. Second, you need to attend those NA meetings I set you up with. I already talked with Paul, the gentleman who runs the meetings down there at Zion Lutheran and he’s expecting you. Now, me and Paul know each other pretty well and he won’t think twice about picking up a phone and letting me know that you didn’t show up. So make it to the meetings. And that’s it. I’m turning a blind eye to those other things because right now I think you need some help more than you need to sit in a jail cell. Don’t prove me wrong now.”
“I won’t,” I said, honestly believing that I wouldn’t. Nevermind the shakes and the aches. I could ignore them long enough to convince myself and him that I could quit. I didn’t think I could quit meth and go straight at the drop of a hat, and I didn’t really have any intentions to either. I just felt like I didn’t want to disappoint this man. He was treating me so nice, when he could have locked me up for life.
He nodded his head, as if to say that he wasn’t sure if he believed me, but he was happy with my response, for now.
“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. He was just standing there outside my window, leaning on the door so I couldn’t leave.
He looked off across the impound lot, thinking about something.
“You know, quitting an addiction is never easy, and what you’re on, that one’s a real bitch. I’ve never had it, but I’ve seen what it can do. I’ve seen good people, good people go down some dark roads because of that stuff. I don’t like seeing that, and I don’t want to see it happen to a young girl like yourself,” he said and looked me in the eyes when he said it.
“The other day, a fellow had to call me out to his place because he’d let the cats go feral in his trailer court. Feral, meaning, wild, no owners, out and about doing whatever it is they feel, you understand. Well, the man called me up because he’d found a couple litters of kitchens under his place and couldn’t stand the crying anymore. Now, what was I to do? A dozen or so kittens, no owners, no momma, no home for these to go to. What was I to do?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I don’t know what I was supposed to do, but I’ll tell you what I did do. And then maybe, you can tell me if I did right.
“I gathered up those kittens in an old laundry bag I had, and I brought them out into the country side, and I killed them with a hammer I had in my trunk. And I left them out there, figuring the coyotes and crows will clean up the mess faster than any road crew.” He paused. “I didn’t enjoy doing that. I don’t like hurting things just for the fun of it. That’s not the kind of man that I am. I usually like all sorts of animals, whether it be dogs or cats or horses and cows. But, if I didn’t do that, those kittens would have died from starvation, from disease, from being run over, and in the process they would have spread more disease, caused more hunger and maybe even a couple car accidents.”
“Now, you might think I’m a brute now, but what I’m trying to tell you is this. Some things look real nice and fun and pleasant when you first come up on them. They look like everything you want and nothing you want to do with out. But that ain’t always the case. It weren’t with those cats, and it sure as all hell ain’t the case with the meth amphetamines. Do you understand?”
“I do, Sheriff,” I said.
“Will you go to the meetings?”
“I will.”
“And listen to Paul. He’s a smart man and he’s good at what he does. There’s been plenty of folks who’ve had the same type of problems as you. Go to the meetings; listen to what there is to be said.”
“Okay,” I read his name off of his chest. “Thank you, Sheriff Kahlberg.”
“You can call me Marty,” he said. “You have a good night now.”
“Okay.” I smiled. Marty. I liked the sound of that. That sounded like a friend. “Bye Marty,” I said.
He stepped back and let me drive off.
Two blocks later I pulled behind a Burger King. Twenty seconds later, I was on my hands and knees, picking through the litter and the bits of garbage and gravel for the tiniest crystal of meth. The first thing I found was that .45 caliber hand gun I killed Tony with, right underneath the driver’s seat. Finding that meant that Sheriff Marty hadn’t searched the truck. And that meant there might be a stash of Tony’s cocaine tucked away somewhere, or even another baggie lined with meth residue that had maybe fallen out of my pants. I never knew I had the one baggie that he did find, so it wasn’t impossible that there was another baggie I didn’t know about that somehow made it into the truck.
Sheriff Marty had called me an addict, and he was right. I knew I was an addict, and when I was feeling straight that bothered me. But when I was coming down, all I could think about was getting back up. That was all that mattered in the world. It’s not that I didn’t have good intentions when I left the impound lot. It is just that I needed a fix, something to sooth the shakes, something to make me feel normal, something to make the pain just go away.
I pulled everything out of the cab. Old rags, old folded paper maps, sockets, screwdrivers, pine tree air fresheners that had fallen off the rearview mirror… everything under the seat, in the glove box, on the dash, in the ashtray… everything. I didn’t even make sense, I know. There was never any meth in those places, but I had to check anyway. I had to check, just in case. So, I picked through the little rocks all over the floor of the truck, taking the clear bits of salt or quartz and trying them in my mouth, hoping that just maybe it was a bit of crank. They weren’t. But that didn’t discourage me. I bet I picked up and tasted every tiny pit of sand in the whole truck. This took me awhile. I was very meticulous. I started piles of grains of sand that I had checked, like Horton searching for his Who in that clover patch. Then I’d bump a pile with my knee and have to check it all over again.
The Burger King was still open for the first few hours of me searching through the sand, but then they closed. That was nice. At least now I could search without the curious looks coming from the drive-thru. Not that any of them could have stopped me.
After hours of making all the dirt in the bottom of the truck into little conical ant hills, I remembered that Sheriff Marty said that he’d found the baggie in my pants pocket. I closed the door of the truck and pulled my pants off. I carefully turned the pockets inside out and watched for granules. There was some dirt and lint in the bottom of the pockets, and I put all of it in my mouth. Nothing. I spat it out and tried the next pocket. When all the pockets were empty, I sucked on the material, hoping that some of the meth had soaked in. All I tasted was material, but I kept sucking anyway.
That is when I realized that I had nothing. I didn’t have any money, or a job, or a place to stay, or a fix or even someone who could get me a fix. I thought about driving back to Tony’s place to find his stash of coke. But I knew I’d never be able to find the place again, and after looking at the truck’s gas gage, I knew I didn’t even have enough fuel to get there. The truck was sitting on E. All I had was the clothes I was wearing/sucking on, the truck and that gun sitting on the dash.
I broke down. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally. I cried like a baby. And I spent hours doing it.
I knew crying was getting me nowhere, but for that while, I just had to do it. Hours later, I managed to dry my face, put my pants back on and tuck the .45 back under the seat. It was getting light outside. Between piling up grains of sand and sucking on my pants pockets I had spent the whole night inside the pick up. I watched the Burger King employees show up one by one and open the place up. Then I watched the first customer pull around the drive through and leave with a cup of coffee.
The back of Burger King looked out over its dumpsters, my pick up truck, and then a huge corn field. This was at the edge of town, and there was nothing beyond town but corn. Beyond the corn, the sun started to rise. I sat there, drained of energy and emotion, and watched the eastern sky turn a light blue, and then a soft orange, and then a rich vibrant red just before the sun came up over the horizon. It was beautiful and quiet, and the only reason I ever noticed it was because I lacked the ability not to. If I had had my way, I’m sure I would have been rolling through another day, soaring on meth and not having a thought or a care in the world. I would have been happy. Instead, I was stuck there in a ransacked pick up truck, watching a sunrise.
I smelled the Burger King fryers fire up. I could smell the grease cooking all those sausage patties and soaking in all through croissants and biscuits. I was hungry.
And I was broke.
I watched a few more early risers come around the drive-thru. They ordered by the big sign, drove up to the next window to pay, and then turn the corner to drive to the next window to pick up their order.
Whoever designed this place must have never been hungry. At least not as hungry as I was.
It didn’t take very long, waiting for the first female customer. I sat in the pick up truck with the engine on, burning a portion of the fumes of fuel I had left. Then I spotted a tan Chevy Corsica sedan. I real low class “business professional” type car. I bet she thought she was pretty fucking important. I would have loved to see her face. She ordered from the big board and then pulled up to pay at the first window. As soon as she did that, I put the truck and gear and pulled into the drive-thru around the corner from the first window. I waited for her to show up in my rearview mirror, and then pulled up to the second window. The lady with the Burger King getup and the fancy little headset didn’t bat an eye. She dutifully read off what the lady behind me had ordered and handed it to me in a big sack along with a big cup of steaming joe. I told her thanks and took off. Thanks for breakfast Miss Chevy Corsica Business Professional.
I left the BK lot with one hand on the wheel and the other in the paper sack, feeling for what Miss Corsica bought me for breakfast. It was a Crossandwich with one of those oval grease-sponge hash browns. It wasn’t a lot, but it was delicious. The coffee was way too hot. I got impatient waiting for it to cool and threw it out the window on my way to the gas station. The Crossandwich and hash brown was down my throat by the time I pulled into the Cenex.
I pulled the truck around the back of the Cenex gas station, the same Cenex Sheriff Marty liked to steak-out speeders and listen to Twins games in. I parked next to the empty milk crates, pallets and dumpsters and killed the engine. I took some time to look in the rearview mirror and rake my hair straight with my fingers. I slapped my face and rubbed the crust out of my eyes. If someone looked at me close, like really close, really paid attention to details, they could tell that I hadn’t been sleeping well, that my skin was dying and my hair was falling out. But I wasn’t going for close details. My face had to be just passable enough. By body would make up for the rest. I whipped the white crud from the corners of my mouth and hopped out of the truck. Then I snatched the empty plastic two gallon gas can out of the bed and walked around to the front.
When I came around the front of the store, with the gas can in my hand, there was a man pumping unleaded into his old beater station wagon. He was a farmer, or something similar. He wore jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap with a broken bill down the center, like the peak of a roof.
“Um, excuse me,” I said as I came up to him. “Could you help me out? I ran out of gas down the road and I don’t have any cash. Could you fill this up for me?”
I held up the gas can and he looked right past it to my chest, never bothering to stop at my face. I had a way with men. And with some women. After all, you can’t make much money in pornography if you can’t direct a little attention to certain places.
“Sure,” he said. He cut the flow to his car and waited for me to unscrew the cap off of my can. When it was off, I held it at hip level and he put the nozzle into the gas can and started pumping. I coo’ed as it filled to the top. When it was full, he pulled the nozzle out.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
“No problem,” he said. “Said you were stuck down the road a bit?”
“It’s not far. I just needed a little gas to get me the rest of the way.”
“If you say so.”
“Yep. Thank you so much,” I said and left his standing there with his dripping nozzle.
I went around the back of the Cenex and dumped the can right into the Ford’s tank. I could have felt bad from scamming the guy, but I think we both enjoyed the innuendo too much to really call it a scam. After all, how many North Dakota farmers can say they stuck their hose in a porn star’s can?
After the farmer had left, I went around and found another man filling his tank. He filled mine. Then I filled the Ford’s. Then there was a woman, then another man. And then a young teenager. I think the teenager enjoyed the process the most. He offered to give me a ride to wherever I needed to go, and I’m sure, would have offered to fuck my brains out too. Cocky little prick. I think the woman was the only one who didn’t enjoy the encounter. She looked me over with disgust and silently judged me in her mind. It’s not that I think she didn’t find me attractive. It was just that she had no imagination.
Some homeless-looking guy had pulled this scam on me back in California. He was missing half his teeth and reeked like dog shit. I filled his can just because I figured it was the quickest way to get him to leave me the fuck along. Now that was theft. What I was doing was more like public service.
Then there was the guy with the old Jeep Cherokee.
He was older, maybe in his fifties or even sixties. I couldn’t tell. He seemed to look older than he really was though. I don’t know why I thought this. It was just something about the way he looked. He was skinny. His legs and arms were toothpicks. His back was slightly humped like an old man’s, but he wasn’t slow like someone getting ready to die. He still moved around as fast and nimble as most middle-aged men. His face was like an elephant’s. Too much skin over too like skull. He had huge wrinkles and lines. His face was tired, but not defeated.
I went up to him without thinking about any of this. To me, he was just another two gallons of gas.
“Hi. Uh, excuse me,” I said and finally got his attention. He was already filling up the Cherokee.
“Good morning,” he said. “Something I can help you with?”
“Yeah. I need some gas,” I told him. I held the can up, the nozzle off and the neck waiting for the nozzle. “My truck ran out of gas and I was hoping you could fill me up?”
And this guy, unlike all the others, didn’t focus on my breasts or my hips pressing into the gas can. I mean, he noticed them. He saw everything I was selling, but he didn’t get lost in it. His eyes said “Bullshit,” even if his mouth was silent.
“Ran out of gas, huh? Well that’s unfortunate. Where’s your truck now?” he said.
“Not far. If you could just pump a few gallons into my can, you know since you already have it going and all…” I was saying. “I don’t need a ride or anything. I like walking. It’s just that I’m out of money.”
“What? No cash? No ATM card? Credit card? Nothing?” he asked. It was like he was acting, like he knew the answers to his questions, but was playing along with me anyway. Or maybe that’s just out his look made me feel.
His eyes, they were an almost transparent blue, they were so light. They pierced. I heard people talk about so-and-so’s piercing blue eyes, but I never experienced it until just then.
“I have family in town. They’re going to help me get back on my feet,” I lied.
“Oh. I see,” he said, and then cut off the gas going to his station wagon and redirected it into my little gas can. Nothing was said while it filled up. When it was topped off and he cut off the gas, he looked at me again. “You sure that’s all you need?”
“Really, it is. And thank’s so much,” I said and turned to leave.
That was enough of that. I had close to a half tank by then and it was time to get out of there before the 16 year old gas station clerk called Sheriff Marty and reported my ass. After dumping the last two gallons in the tank, I jumped inside the Ford and left the Cenex. I didn’t know where I was going, but at least I had some gas to get there.
I didn’t leave California with much of a plan. It was more of a prison break that it was a planned move. I didn’t pack a U-Haul. I didn’t forward my mailing address. I didn’t call my friends to tell them goodbye. Not so much as a mapquest print-out.
I found myself, in what I considered to be, a moment of clarity. I found myself somewhere between a high and a crash. Not that I was clean. I just wasn’t. I wasn’t working. I wasn’t high. I wasn’t low. I had LA and Hollywood all around me, and I suddenly realize that none of it had any appeal anymore. The movies, the city, the weather, the drugs, all my cool hip new-age friends who thought they were so innovative and cutting-edge, none of it. It all looked so suddenly dry and boring. I knew I was in this moment of clarity, or at least I thought I was in a moment of clarity at that moment, and I felt I had to react. I suddenly felt as if I was sitting in a prison cell, and someone and forgot to lock my door. The door was open and I could escape.
I was always one of those people that believed that if you can do something, then you should do something, regardless of what that something is.
So I grabbed the things in my apartment that I thought I would need and that were within arm’s length and shoved them into my purse and I left. That was the extent of my planning. And so there I was. Deep in the heart of North Dakota with out a direction or plan, or even a mapquest print-out. I did have my bank card. I had already tapped it out and collected some “insufficient funds” ATM slips while in Wyoming, or somewhere. I tried it here in North Dakota and got the same results. That’s how I work, I guess.
I drove around town, burning up a quarter of a tank of gas I’d just spent an hour begging for. I didn’t know where I was going now anymore than when I left LA.
I drove through the short strip of what, I’m sure, the locals call “downtown.” The buildings were all two stores tall and brick. Turn of the century small-town American architecture. There was a bar, a American Legion, a Chinese buffet, a Laundromat, not much else. The biggest of the brick buildings, the one that was both the Legion and the buffet, read “First National Bank” near the top, spelled out in brick. “Downtown” consisted of about a block and a half. This must have been where I passed out.
I drove through the residential area, through all the little cute post-war Veteran Home Loan houses built when this town was still alive. They all seemed forgotten now. I could tell old ladies with a thing for lawn ornaments lived in some. Some had furniture on the porches and mowed lawns, but others just looked vacant. Too many had little signs stuck in the ground close to the sidewalk. They were reality signs from companies I’ve never heard of. Schmitz Reality. Good Home Real Estate. For sale by Owner. It was all the same. They were advertisements for a dying neighborhood inside a dying town. But the trees were big and old. They hung over the streets and the steep pitched roofs. There shadows swayed like a net over the street. They made me feel calm for a while.
I wasn’t born in Ellendale. I didn’t grow up here and the only time I think I’ve ever been hear before was when I was driving through. I don’t know if I can say I really have a home town. My parents divorced when I was young. I moved around a lot. Sometimes with mom. Sometimes with dad. Sometimes with my aunt. Then back with mom again. Always in a different little shit Dakota town. When I was with my aunt we lived in Aberdeen. That’s where I got into smoking weed and fucking boys. We drank and smoked and fucked down by Richmond Lake, soaking in the summer sun. I was with a guy named Derek then. We’d always hang out there, skipping school and just enjoying life. For awhile, I thought I loved him and he loved me too. I thought these were the best years of my life. Maybe I was right. Then we moved again. I was getting into too much trouble, and auntie sent me back to mommy. She was back in Fullerton, where we lived when I was just a few years old. Fullerton is a lot like Ellendale. Same kind of houses. Same kind of gas stations. Same sheriffs. I remember growing up in a house similar to the ones around me, playing with my toys in the yards, riding my big wheel down the sidewalks, too young to realize my dad was gone and my mom was an alcoholic. When I came back to Fullerton, after leaving Aberdeen, Fullerton was still Fullerton. It’s just that all the jobs had left town, the streets were a bit more broken and cracked, my mom was still an alcoholic and any friends I may have had when I was young were long gone, never to set eyes on this dried up dead end town ever again. I stayed with my mom there for about two months and did nothing but drink and smoke weed. She would yell and scream at me to get a job or to go to school or move out. So I moved out. All the way to California.
That was a long time ago.
Now here I was again, in a different town but the same town really, on the other side of my big adventure across American… no richer, no smarter, nothing gain, nothing learned… just older and more tired. All my efforts and dreams and work, the pain, the glory, the limelight, the shame… all of it came to nothing now. I sat in that stupid pick up, looking out at a house that could have been mine when I was five and the world was still good, and it stared back at me with the evidence and proof that everything I have ever down has come to nothing.
Nothing.
That’s what I had and that’s what I was.
Nothing.
I found a Pamida, mid-America’s discount super store, and parked in an empty space far away from the front doors. There weren’t many cars in the lot anyway. If I had to bet, I’d say that the whole place would be out of business in a year. I pulled out the slip of paper Sheriff Marty had handed me. It was my agreement to go to the NA meetings. It had an address of the church, and first date and time that I was to attend. I tried reading over all the lines, blocks and paragraphs like I was a lawyer, like I could find a loop hole somehow and get out of this whole embarrassing thing. But I was coming down hard. I hadn’t slept since I woke up in the prison cell and I was beginning to feel it. My muscles slacked. I eyes drooped. I read past the date and time and couldn’t get any further. Then I was asleep.
I heard the singing again, deep inside my head, but so light it felt like it had to be coming from outside the truck, through the thin summer air of the town.
Just like before, it was familiar but ungraspable. Did I know these songs from some service I’d come to and forgotten about? Had my aunt brought me? My mom? Did I wonder into a church back in LA, too stoned to realize where I was or what was going around me?
Why did these words seem so familiar?
My soul doth magnify the Lord
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God our Savior
For he hath regarded
The lowliness of his handmaiden
For behold from henceforth
All generations shall call me blessed
Fore he that is mighty had magnified me
And holy is his Name.
When I woke up, it was evening. A whole day had passed over my head and I barely noticed. I was still holding the slip of paper in my hands with the address, dates and times of my meeting. The singing voices were still in my head, and no matter how much I looked around, I couldn’t figure out where they came from.
So I went to church.
It was strange. I’d never been there. No one had ever given me directions. But for some reason, I knew right where it was. Maybe my mom did bring me there once and I remembered it from back when I was a kid. I don’t know. I just found it, was all.
The church was one of those small turn-of-the-century farm churches. Like something you’d see in one of those Little House of the Prairie re-runs, except it was surrounded by an old neighborhood, filled with small houses, potholed streets and huge overhanging oaks. The church was white with wood siding and stained glass windows along the sides. Up the uneven concrete steps, a steeple and a church bell rose straight above the thick oak doors. There was a place for the church bell, and then, above that was a plain, undecorated cross. Just past the sidewalk, surrounded by plants, was a little sign with the letters you and slide into place to make words. Behind the sheet of glass it read:
ZION LUTHERAN CHURCH
LCMS
8:00 AM 10:30 AM SUNDAYS
HE GIVES POWER TO THE WEAK. HE INCREASES THE STRENGTH OF H1M WHO HA5 NO MIGHT.
- I5AIAH 40:29
The church’s steps lead straight to the sidewalk that ran along the street. Across the street was a small city park, with one of those plastic habitrails for kids to play it, and a small parking lot. Hundreds of acorns crunched under the tires as I pulled in and backed the truck up into a slot. I killed the engine.
I closed my eyes and leaned back. Maybe I’d fall asleep again.
When I didn’t, I opened my eyes and took a good look at the church; really looked at it for the first time.
It shimmered.
At first I thought there were flood lights aimed up at it from the bushes, just like the side leading up to the steps and a flood light aimed up so people could read the letters. But there weren’t any flood lights aimed at the church. Then, I figured it had to be the white paint job, maybe catching the fading sunlight. But the light seemed to move, like moonlight reflected off the calm waves of a creek. It was so strange. A white glow seemed to come from nowhere.
…you know, maybe, this story is about a church…
I popped open truck’s glove box. There was a tiny little light bulb in there that usually shined a dull orange. I didn’t know if it was working or not, but the glove box glowed red. I pulled out the .45 and the red glow followed the gun into my hand. The waves of red coming off the gun looked like they should burn my hand, but the gun was just slightly warmer than I would have expected a normal gun to be.
Fucking weird. This didn’t seem like an acid trip. My forehead turned cold and started making these tiny droplets of sweat, a cold sweat.
In my right hand was the gun. My left hand was clenched on the steering wheel. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against my fist, against the wheel. That space, that little bit of enclosure that was between my head, my arms and my feet, felt very intimate and safe, like no one could hurt me as long as I was enclosed in it. I saw the red glow of the gun through my eyelids. I breathed deep, almost cried and then noticed that the glow behind my eyelids had faded and then disappeared.
I opened my eyes. I looked in my right hand, at the .45, and couldn’t see it in the darkness of the truck cab. I looked up at the church, the shinning edifice I’d seen before, now just looked like an ordinary small town church.
The light of the day was fading.
Someone opened the front door and came down the steps. It was an old man. He walked down the street and around the corner to a mini-van. I watched him get it, start it up, turn on the lights and drive away. There was still a light on inside the church, in a basement window. Someone was still inside.
Then things got really weird, only nothing glowed.
Things were weird in a different way, a way I’ve never experienced before. I mean, I’ve done acid and X and meth and sex and every other abnormality I could put in my body. I’ve experienced weird. The glowing church and the glowing gun were comfortable compared to this next weird.
I felt compelled.
I mean, I gathered this sense of direction and purpose, like I knew what I should do and where I should go for, really, the first time in my life. Always before, I’d do things out of anger or curiosity, or all out unabated angst. But this wasn’t like any of that. This felt right. It was like, I had strayed from my fated path for my entire life, and now finally I had stumbled back on to it.
I got out of the truck and walked across the street to the church.
It was mid-summer, but that night was cold. A wind blew down the street like a river through a ravine. It cut through my clothes and made me shiver. I came to the large wooden doors and knocked as loud as I could. They were probably unlocked, but it wouldn’t have felt right if I had just barged right in. I wrapped my arms around me to stop the shivering. That didn’t work. My teeth rattled against each other. Maybe I was nervous. I couldn’t tell.
The door opened, just a crack. An old woman in her 50’s or maybe 60’s poked her head out.
“Yes?” she asked me.
“Um. Hi.” I didn’t really know what to say. “I’m looking for a place to stay.”
“Looking for a place to stay?” the lady repeated.
“Yeah. See, I just came into town, and I just got out of jail and I don’t have a dollar to my name and I know that sounds bad but I was hoping…”
“You want to stay here?” she asked, not as an invitation. More as a check on my sanity.
“Well, I need help. I mean, this is a church, right? Aren’t you supposed to offer me asylum?” I said, thinking of those old western movies where the bandits hide out in the old Spanish missions.
“Asylum?” the old lady asked. Maybe she was hard of hearing and that was why she seemed to repeat everything I said.
“Well, I mean, yeah. Asylum.”
She shook her head and sort of laughed to herself. “I’m sorry honey. I can’t let you stay in this church. I’m going home, and no one else will be here.”
“I… I won’t steal anything. And I don’t need anything. I can take care of myself. I just need a place to rest for the night.”
“You don’t understand, dear. This is a very old church. And a very special church,” she said. It seemed she said it with some regret, like she would have genuinely liked to help me, but didn’t believe she could. “I don’t think you understand everything that you’re asking for.”
“No. I’m not asking for anything other than to stay her, in doors for one night,” I said.
It was too late. The woman had already made up her mind. She flicked a switch and the lights inside went off. She stepped through the door and began locking it behind her.
“I’m sorry. Maybe somewhere else. This is a special place of God, and I couldn’t let you stay here. Maybe…” she looked me over. “If you really need a place, maybe you could stay with me.”
I guess it was something in the way she looked me over. I could tell she didn’t trust me and wasn’t real comfortable with me being anywhere near her. She didn’t want me to stay at her place anymore than she wanted to let me stay in the church. I didn’t want that.
“No. No. That’s okay. I guess I can find somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry dear,” she said again.
“No. I understand,” I said and turned away. I walked back to the pick up feeling let down, lowered back to reality. They’d never let me stay in the church. Me? A drug-addict, raped, murdering worn out porn star? Never.
I got back in the truck and drove off, not bothering to say good bye to the old lady, or look over my shoulder to the church.
Things were quiet in Ellendale, a small town where nothing moved past nine o’ clock at night. Oakes, some thirty or so miles down the road in the next county, was usually the same. But tonight things were different.
The local police department, the county sheriff, the fire department and the paramedics had all gathered at a small rundown trailer on the outside of town, surrounded by nothing except the highway and cornfields. I knew the place well. The first responders there knew it only by its view from the road. They didn’t know the owner and occupant, and tonight they were only getting to know him by the contents of his wallet.
The mailman noticed a man laying in the front yard. At first, he assumed he had past out after a long night of drinking. Then the mailman noticed he didn’t have a head.
Now, the local cops had taped off the driveway. The EMTs had confirmed death and loaded the corpse into the truck. The local cops took pictures. The local sheriff scratched the hair he had left under his Smokey hat and said, “Well I never…”
Soon, they would be running the man’s drivers license, comparing dental records, digging through auto-insurance information. They didn’t know Anthony Tesdahl that night. But by morning they’d know everything that was ever written down about him.
In Ellendale, Sheriff Marty was away from his post at the intersection of 1st and Main. He was at his desk, filling out some forms and reports on his computer. His email was open, and it pinged as a new message came in. It was short and simple:
“Suspected Murder in Oakes County. No current suspects. More information to follow.”
“Oakes…” he said out loud, to himself, with no one else around. “God almighty, that’s right next door.”
All this going on… people moving, investigations beginning, reports being sent out across the state, a body being hauled off… and all I was doing was wondering aimlessly around a closed down town. Ellendale is like a ghost town after dark. There are lights behind doors and inside of bars, but if you’re a girl on the outside looking in, it all seems pretty cold.
Sometime shortly before midnight, I wondered into the Pamida. It was the only place still open other than the pay-at-the-pump gas station where Sheriff Marty liked to stake out speeders. I know it was before midnight because they locked up as soon as both hands touch the 12. I know it wasn’t much earlier than midnight, because as soon as I came through the door the kids running the registers gave me that don’t-you-know-we’re-about-to-close stink eye. They could kiss my ass. It’s not like there was any other place for me.
I went in thinking about finding a sleeping bag or something to make another night’s sleep in the truck a little more comfortable. That was before I walked past the pharmacy aisle and my mind switched to its getting-a-fix mode. Never mind that I was feeling somewhat okay before. As soon as the idea came in my head, I felt the lack of a high, the dry grinding condition of daily existence without a fix, the unbearable un-stoned-ness of going straight. It took me about a half second to decide that going straight was for the fucking birds. I wanted a fix.
That’s the thing about needing a fix. Once your mind gets on it, the idea of getting your brain back on course, the thought of feeling good again pushes out any other thoughts. I started going up and down the rows, going over all the different bottles and packages, trying to decipher what would most effectively kill the pain.
I found one of those little plastic shopping baskets at the end of a row. Then I started filling it with all the usual suspects: Nyquil, Dayquil, Sudafed, “Herbal” diet pills, NoDoz, whatever. My midnight snack was about to be four bottles of Skittles and a pint of poor mans’ speedball. It was a poor substitute for what I really wanted, but it would cut the edge.
That’s when I met Sheldon. He was wearing a brown leather vest over a purple tie-died long john shirt. His jeans were too loose. He kept tugging at them to keep them up while he was starring at me. His hair hung loose over his brow. His lips were dried and cracked. His eyes swam in their sockets. He was fixed on me, almost drooling.
“What?” I said.
“I know what you want in there,” he said and pointed to my basket of pills and syrups. “I know what you really want.”
I saw him starring and leering at me like a dead animal and he scared me. It was like the humanity had been sucked from his skull and all that was left was his desire to get, to take, to rape. I took a step back.
“I know what you want… and you know what I want!” he said that last part as if the realization had just come into his brain.
“I think you and me… I think maybe we can work something out,” he said.
I grabbed the bottle of Dayquil and pulled it back to throw it at his head, hoping they still made the bottles out of glass.
“Wait, wait, wait! You don’t understand,” he said. Then slower, “I have what you need… I can see it by your eyes; you’ve been strung out for awhile now, haven’t you? Somebody has been holding out on you… You’ve been left in the cold. Don’t you think it’s about time to come back into the warm? I have what you need.”
Then I looked at him and saw his glazed eyes, the rotten teeth, his boney frame. He had exactly what I needed. I lowered the bottle of Nyquil and he came closer. I didn’t want him to. I was still scared. But he came up on me and pressed me against the shelves of cough medicine. The product rattled. A few bottles fell to the floor. His face came close to mine. He reeked like decay. I could feel his stiff prick pressed against my belly. It must have been the first time he’d been able to get it up in weeks.
“You know what we can do for each other, don’t you?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Come to your demon, angel-child,” he said to me.
And the worst part about all of this? It wasn’t his looks or how he smelled. It wasn’t the looks of the other shoppers as they passed by. It wasn’t what I was willing to do to get the fix. It wasn’t his dirty fingers working down into my pants. It was that I wanted it. I wanted it all. The sex, the drugs, the shame, the abuse… I wanted it more than anyone could ever imagine.
He had my pants undone and halfway down my ass. His fingers were working their way inside of me. I dropped the basket full of pills and syrups and put my hands on his chest, wrapping them around his thin ribs under the dirty long john shirt. His mouth was near my neck and I could feel the air of dying climbing up to my nostrils. I moved my hand across the center of his chest and closed my eyes…
I saw an old army laundry bag with a faded “US” stamped on it. It sat on the lip of a county road. Things were moving around inside of it. Kittens were crying. Then a hammer came down and whacked the center of the mass. There was more crying; then another smack from the hammer. I could hear a man whimpering to himself as he did this. I could hear Sheriff Marty curse and then swing the hammer down again into the bag of feral cats. Parts of the laundry bag were now wet with black blood. The cries continued.
I opened my eyes and saw the long neon lights and the rafters of Pamida. The stink of shit and rot rose up from Sheldon like smelling salts. I looked at him and saw that his entire body was glowing red. I revoked and shoved him away from me. He back pedaled and crashed again shelves of shaving cream and razor blades.
“You bitch,” he said, confused at where he found himself.
I didn’t listen to him. I took off running.
I didn’t know where the front door was. I’d forgotten how I ever got in there. Now, I was just running, scared by the stink of him and by the vision of that bag on the side of the road. I ran through Housewares and knocked over a rack of maternity pants in Womens. I found a wide aisle, and down another hundred feet, an exit sign. I sprinted for the small door and hit it at full speed, triggering the fire alarm as I ran into the parking lot.
I exploded out of the emergency exit and kept running. Behind me, I heard the fire alarm wail, but just for the brief moment it took the door to close. Under me, my feet slapped and lifted off the pavement along the side of the store, the space only used by semis to get to the loading dock. In front of me was a shallow ditch and a wooden fence separating the Pamida parking lot from the rest of Ellendale.
I wasn’t thinking about any of this. More honestly, I wasn’t thinking at all. All I knew in my head was that I had to get away. I couldn’t stop or turn around. I just had to run.
My right foot found the supporting crossbeam half way up the fence. My hands found the top. A blink later, my left foot found the top too, and a blink after that I was in the air, falling down into the grass on the other side. I kept running.
Fireworks had gone off in my head when I hit the ground, as if some old acid had crusted off of my skull and now found some fresh neural uptakers. I was seeing flashes of color as I ran, through a vacant lot now, some reds and whites, like Sheldon or the church, but also sick greens blues and that purple that really isn’t purple, but that color you get when you mixed all the finger paints together in Kindergarden. I tried to ignore them as they superimposed themselves around the night lights of the small town.
I remembered and reminded myself that I’d done this before: sprint across streets, barely giving glances to check for cars, vaulting fences, cutting through backyards… Back in Aberdeen where I lived with my aunt as a teenager, there would be parties at some kid’s house, some kid whos fake ID got him a keg or two, or some kid ballsy enough to empty his parents liquor cabinet for them. We’d drink and smoke. Smoke and fuck. Fuck and drink. Then the cops would come. A few kids would try to hide the keg. The rest of us would run.
Or we would be down by the lake, swimming and skipping school. A squad car would roll by. And since we were all holding, we’d run then too.
Through the trees, over the fence, through neighbor’s yards, across streets, through parking lots… it was all the same. Couldn’t count how many times I’ve run like this. And here I was again. “See?” I asked myself. “This is no different than all those times in Aberdeen.”
Only this wasn’t Aberdeen. There were no cops after me. I wasn’t drunk or stoned. Nevermind how nearly everything seemed to be glowing red. Nevermind how the trees in backyards stretched their twig fingers down to tangle into my hair. Nevermind how the flickering light bulb on someone’s back porch was like a strobe light into my cerebellum. Nevermind that I was running from the devil I found in the Pamida pharmacy aisle.
I was curving threw a backyard, aiming to run around a house and cut across the street in front of it. Beyond that, I had no idea where I was going. It didn’t matter. I never made it there.
My toe caught the top brick of a backyard fire pit. The toe stuck and the rest of me came down on the stone bricks and burnt logs. I tumbled and knocked some of the bricks loose. My elbow slide across the grass till I stopped. My head hit the ground and bounced. And that was all it took. Bing. Boom. Blam. 4th of July fireworks. My brains went out of just like ‘ol Tony’s. The sky lit up nice and bright, and then everything went black.
When I woke up it was still night out. Dew had gathered on my back and I was cold. But the cold seemed to clear my head, soak down the acid fires and chase away the demons. I was cold, wet, hurt and confused, but I was me again.
I picked myself up, feeling aches in my knees, elbow and head as I did. I looked around. I saw the spilled bricks of the fire pit scattered by my feet. I saw the fly of my jeans was open and my underwear marked by Sheldon’s greasey finger prints. I saw the house I had all the intention in the world of curving around and never seeing again. But here were the bricks that tripped me up and the house that should have been history standing right in front of me.
“Fuck,” I said.
I didn’t even know where I was. What was I supposed to do now?
Of course, I did the only thing I could do. The only thing I had been doing for some time now. I buttoned my fly back up, pick a direction, and I wandered.
I made it around that damn house and to the street. I followed the residential back road til I’d gone half a block and found street signs at the intersection. 7th street and Dogwood. Pamida was on 1st and Birch, six streets up and three trees over. Guess I hadn’t gone that far after all.
By the time I came back to the Pamida, morning was on its way. The sun wasn’t up, but it was reflecting it’s orange glow on the horizon in an otherwise black-fading-to-blue sky. The parking lot was mostly empty. I could see the pick up along with a handful of others. I didn’t bother to look around any more than that. I saw that the pick up was still there and I headed that way. I was cold and I walked with my eyes on my feet.
I got in the truck and slammed the door behind me. The keys were still in my pocket. I dug them out and was about to start the truck and fire up the heater when I looked up.
Sheriff Marty’s squad car was right in front of me, parked so that his front bumper was right across the lane from the trucks’. His door open and he got out slowly, not to be dramatic, but because that was just how fast he moved. He sauntered across the lane, just giving quick glance either way. Shit. After all that running, all my neat little tricks and skills I’d polished to perfection back in Aberdeen, after all the fences and fire pits, here I was and here was Sheriff Marty. Well, he wasn’t who I was really running from anyway. He walked up to my window. I unrolled it for him.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You taking up walking? Or is your truck run out of gas?”
I gave a short laugh. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, it can’t be too long. It ain’t been but a day since we last saw each other.” He had a cheek full of sunflower seeds. It buldged out like a squirrels. Between sentences he lowered his head and discretely spit the shells on the ground.
I smiled. “It’s been a long day.”
“You find a place to stay yet?”
My mind went back to the church. “I think I found a place, but they haven’t let me in yet.”
“Good. That’s good. That you found a place I mean, not that you’ve been stuck out in this here truck,” he said. He paused and thought to himself. He spat some shells and chewed some seeds. Then, “So you don’t have any family?”
I answered by staying silent.
“Friends?”
None around here.
“Anybody?”
“I have an aunt who lives up in Aberdeen,” I said, feeling that I had to tell him something. “Who knows where my mom is. My dad…. Shit. It’s my aunt’s truck. She gave it to me.”
“Uh huh,” he said, not totally calling my bullshit, but not buying it either. “No family in the parts of Oakes then?”
“Oakes?” I asked.
“Yeah. Little town not too far from here. Reason I ask is, there seems to have been a murder down that way. I’d be a horrible thing to come to find out you had relations down that way, or were in any way associated with that mess down there.”
“…I’ve never been to Oakes,” I told him. “Not that I can remember.”
“No family or friends down that way?”
“No. Nobody.”
“Well, that’s all for the better then, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t paying attention anymore, didn’t catch whether I should answer yes or no. He was questioning me, interrogating me, feeling me out to see if I’d react to news about a murder in Oakes. So of course, I tried to react by not reacting. I gave him a “Yeah,” as it not yeah your right, but as is, yeah, that’s something else.
“Say, you seem to have something in your hair,” he said and then reached through the window and put his fingers through my hair.
I jumped, not sure what the hell he was doing. From anyone else, it would have seemed like a come-on. From him, I didn’t know what it was. I tried to restrain my confusion. I wanted to lash out and ask him what the hell he was doing. But I held myself still. He ran his fingers through my hair just once, and then pulled his arm back out the window.
“Just a blade of grass I guess,” he said. He took the hair he’d pulled from me and placed it inside a waiting zip-lock bag inside his pocket. He’d zip it later. The boys at the lab would have to separate his DNA from mine, but with the two or three hairs that followed his fingers back to his pocket, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Meanwhile, I waited for him to arrest me. My luck had ran out. He was going to slap the cuffs back on me right then and there. At least that’s what I thought. Instead, he rested his forearms on the ledge of my window and bent down so he could look in at me. Before he talked, he pinched some sunflower seed shells from his lips and dropped them outside the window.
“Remember that story I told you? Then one about those strays I told you about?” he asked.
How could I forget.
“I admit, it wasn’t a nice story. But I was thinking about it the other day, what it means to mean and what I learned from the experience. And I was thinking… maybe what I really learnt was this: I shouldn’t feel bad and I shouldn’t hesitate or regret when I had to do a bad thing like what I’d done to something that looks nice and cute and innocent on the outside. Now, I know I told you basically then same thing when I told you that story. I guess what I was thinking was that maybe the story applies to me as much as anyone else. Do you understand what I mean?”
He was asking me more than if I understood his story. He was asking me if I realized that he knew I’d blow that kid’s brains out, and that he was going to nail me to the wall for it.
“Yeah. I get it.”
He nodded. “Just something I was thinking about. Nothing you really have to worry about.” He slapped the inside of the door as it to adjourn our little meeting, like my door was a gavel. “When then, good luck getting into a place. And don’t be a stranger. He stood up and turned towards his squad car. “And good luck with your meeting tonight. I hope everything goes well.”
“Yeah. Me too,” I said. “See you around Sheriff Marty.”
He smiled at me like he was that friendly father-figure type again. “We’ll see ya kiddo.” He waved as he walked back to his car. Then he got behind the driver’s seat and drove off.
I sat there, behind the driver’s seat of my murdered rapist’s truck. I focused my eyes beyond the ceiling and tried to think of nothing. It didn’t work.
Things weren’t supposed to be like this. I know I said before that I had no plan when I left Hollywood and put the scene behind me. I had no intentions and no expectations. I thought I was down for anything, as long as it wasn’t what I had been doing. But I wasn’t prepared for this. I mean, hell, things were easier in California.
I started to think, what the hell was I doing here? Didn’t I leave this shit hole for a reason? Why in the fuck did I ever think that things would be different after I came back? After all, wasn’t my family and all these little shit po-dunk towns what drove me to fuck for money on film in the first place? And wasn’t I enjoying life and having fun while I was at it? And you know, while I was out there, while I was in front of the cameras, while I was high, while I was paid… it seemed like there was nothing better… nothing better than anything in the whole fucking universe. Sure, there were bad times, hard times, broke times… times when I was strung out and needing a fix… times when the fucking just felt like work… times when all I wanted was out… but not into this. Not with some fat-shit Andy Griffith looking to clean me up or throw me in prison. Damn it. Like I said, I never knew what the plan was coming back here, but I’m pretty sure a murder conviction wasn’t a part of it.
I thought about starting up the truck and leaving back for California just as abruptly and spontaneously as I had left. Hell, when I left the Dakotas the first time I had nothing. When I left California and made the trip the second time I had nothing, and I was pretty sure I could make the trip back with nothing too. Just put the truck in gear and head west. Steal some gas, steal some money, steal some drugs… I could be back in the scene as easy as that.
But the truth is, I was never one to go backwards. I’d been out there. I’d played that game. I’d written that chapter of my life and I wasn’t looking to try to re-write it. The truth was, as young as I was, I’d peaked. I’d topped out. I’d fucked as many, as hard, as long as I ever wanted. I’d been the highest I could get without dying. I’d taken everything the scene could give me and sucked it dry. There was nothing left there anymore. Not for me.
I didn’t know if there was anything left for me anywhere else, but it didn’t make sense to go back to a dry well. So what now?
I didn’t bother to answer. Maybe I didn’t have the luxury of answering. I just figured that I was in no position to make long term plans. What I needed now, was to make it through the day. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
I found the slip of paper Sheriff Marty had given me when I left lock up, the flyer for the AA meetings a the local church. The first meeting was tonight. I had to be there by seven, that is, if I wasn’t already back in a cell in county lock-up. What I needed was a short-term plan. Something to get me to the worrying I had to do tomorrow. I needed a safe place where I could sleep and eat, someplace where Sheriff Marty couldn’t pick me up and arrest me. I figured, maybe if Sheriff Marty saw I was going to the meetings he’d back off, maybe forget that I showed up in town in an unregistered truck the day after a murder in the next town over. Maybe he’d let me off.
Crazy thoughts, I know. But they were what were in my head.
A crazier thought…
I could find Sheldon. He’d fix me up. I’d let him fuck me. He’d let me sleep. Maybe even let me eat. It would get me through the day… maybe.
But then Sheriff Marty would have his reason to take me down, his reason to take down Sheldon too and take down his whole meth operation while he was at it. That crazy thought seemed to dead-end a little too quickly. Besides all that, I’d have to let Sheldon fuck me. That was enough deterrent on it’s own for now.
Still, I needed to know where he lived. I needed to know where I could get a fix, in case I really needed it, in case the tweaks got so bad I’d either find a fix or die, in case everything else failed. All I had to do was drive around and look. I could find it. I could feel where the cookers lived, where the dealers dealt, where the meth lived.
I found Ethanol Acres in less than an hour. Cheap housing, low property value, tucked out of site from the all the nice neighborhoods… it didn’t take a DEA investigator to find what I was looking for.
After the main drive, the road going around Ethanol Acres makes a rough square. At each corner, the road changed names, but just slightly. There was Edgewater Drive, Edgewater Court, Edgewater Terrace and Edgewater Lane all linked together in one big square with trailer homes on either side all the way around. The ethanol plant was about a hundred feet from Edgewater Terrace on the other side of the chain link fence. When the wind was blowing right, sock and stalled beer smelling clouds swung down and enveloped half of the trailer park. Most trailers have the old window AC units that sucked the stink right in through the unit and incensed the house with the smell of old soggy laundry. The trailers without the window ACs had no AC at all and left their windows open in hopes that a cool breeze would come through at least as often and the wafting gray sweat fog. I knew Sheldon lived somewhere in the trailer park. You’d have to be high to tolerate a place like this.
All that was left was to narrow down which trailer was his. It was almost as easy. I looked for the place with more money but no class. No signs or symptoms of the ability to earn money, just money. I found that in a little sized lot with a fancier double-wide home. The grass was overgrown. The garbage overflowed. There was a security system and a buzzer that would go off when the door opened. The trailer was new but a screen was ripped and dangled loose in the stinking breeze. I didn't see any of the obvious signs of a meth cooker: empty propane canisters, reddish brown coffee filters, windows covered in black garbage bags, weird stains above the dryer exhaust vent running up the siding... nothing like that. Still, I knew. He probably cooked somewhere else. I could have taken another lap around the Edgewaters and probably found that trailer too, but he lived here. I was sure on it.
I thought about knocking on the door or waiting in the truck till I saw him, just to be absolutely sure. Then I saw a scrawny starving cat, a tiny little thing, a kitten really. It scurried out from underneath the trailer’s large porch. It ran like lightening to the shadows of the neighbors’ trailer. When it got to that trailer it huddled low in the grass as if it expected to be attacked. One look and I knew this was no ones pet. It was wild. A stray. Feral.
It was Sheldon's cats in the story. He'd called Marty the night the Twins played the Angels and he was the one going crazy with the single golf shoe. They were his cats and Marty hadn't gotten them all.
I put the truck back in gear and left ethanol acres behind me.
My first AA session was that night. If asked if I wanted to go to the meeting I would have said not “No,” but “Fuck no.” I didn't want to sit around with these old sorry sacks of shit and hear about how the demon alcohol ruined there lives and took away their wives, kids, jobs and dignity. I didn't want to hear there stories. I didn't want to look into their defeated eyes. I wanted nothing to do with them and all their problems, and I had the feeling that they probably didn't want to have anything to do with mine.
Still, the meeting was at the church I saw glowing white the day before, and I wanted to go inside of there. I had to see what it was like inside. Was it a normal place like any other church? Was there something else going in inside? Why wouldn't the old woman let me stay? And what made the place so damn special anyway? Would a look around inside really be worth sitting through two hours of 12 stepping bullshit? I don't know, but it's not like I had anything else planned for the evening. My daily planner was wide open.
I opened the front door. It was like any other church really. There was a lobby or entry way or foyer... whatever. Then I could go in two directions. Straight ahead was the worship area where they held services on Sunday. I could see through glass double doors the sanctuary, the pew benches, the altar and above that a large unadorned wooden cross. The worship area was older than the rest of the building. The walls were all brick. The floor was cracked tiles. Everything else was made of a dark stained wood. The place was well worn in. All the benches and pulpits were smoothed with age finer than any sand paper could have ever managed. I could hear the Sunday hymns and the congregational chants almost as clearly as I had when I was in the county lock up.
Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distress,
Longing for rest everlasting.
There were no people there. The worship area was empty and the only lights were from a few burning candles. Still, I heard the hymn like it was a memory forcibly playing in my head. If it’d let it, or them, or whoever, another verse would have started, complete with pipe organ and voices. But I turned away and shut it out. I wasn't there for all that.
To the left was a newer addition to the building. This wing looked more like a school than a church. Low ceilings. Wide hallway. Doors along both walls. There were bulletin boards advertising garage sales and youth groups. There was a poster of cartoon fish all swimming one way. In the middle was one of those Jesus fish people put on there cars swimming the other way. The poster said, “Go against the flow.” I found a door labeled with a white sheet of printer paper reading, “Alcoholics Anonymous.” The lights were on behind the door and I could hear voices. I guess this was the place. I pushed in the door and stepped inside.
There were two long folding tables set end to end in the center of the room. Metal folding chairs were around it. The walls were decorated with smiling Jesuses and bible story cartoons. This was a Sunday school room. It was only set up for drunks this one night each week. There was a counter on one end of the room where someone had set up pitchers of coffee, Styrofoam cups and little plastic baskets of sugar, creamer and stir straws. There were five people there, and when I stepped inside, no one really took there eyes away from what they were doing to notice me. I learned their names a few minutes later.
Gene was in his late thirties and looked like he came from a long day at an office job. He had suit pants, a white button up shirt, but no tie. He must have left that in his car. He was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a napkin he was folding in his hands over and over again. First he folded it into squares, they triangles, then in tight rows almost like he was rolling a joint.
Carol was standing near the back wall, going through her purse she had hooked over her elbow. She kept digging things out of it, play with it for a bit and then put that back and dig out something else. It was her compact when I first came in. Now it was her cellphone. She was older than Gene, maybe 50 or even 60. Still, she looked able enough, fucking around with her cell, checking the voicemail or texting a friend.
Two others were standing near the counter and coffee set up. One had a cup. The other didn’t. The one without the cup was whispering something to the one with a cup. It must have been important, because I could tell he was all wound up and excitable. His whispers always threatened to burst into a full volume rant. The other guy, he just nodded and agreed. I don’t remember ether of their names.
The last one in the room was setting out copied papers and sharpened pencils at each seat around the table. Two sheets of paper. One pencil. Then he’d move onto the next seat. Two sheets of paper. One pencil. I didn’t catch his face at first, but when he turned the corner and began setting up papers and pencils on the far side of the table I recognized him instantly.
God damn it.
He was the guy from the gas station. The guy who saw through my bullshit scam. The guy with the saggy baggy elephant skin. And he was the leader guy of this whole deal. I could tell by how he set out the papers and pencils. I bet he brewed the coffee and lined up the little packets of sugar in the baskets too. This was all his show.
God damn it.
Eventually, I caught his eye. He came over and extended his hand.
"So you must be Sheena," he said.
We shook hands. I nodded.
"Marty said you might come by tonight. How's your truck? Manage to get it into town alright?" he asked. His voice was slow and steady, affected by age in tone but not in strength.
"Yeah. I got it here," I said.
"Well that's good then. And good that you made it here too. You can call me Paul."
We'd been shaking hands this whole time. I never wanted to touch him to begin with, and then once I had put my hand into his he held onto to it, demanding that I focus on him, that I listened to what he had to say, but also trying to comfort me at the same time. I know that was his intent, but that's not how I felt. All I could think was "God damn it, would you please let go of my fucking hand?"
"Well, come on in and have a seat. There's fresh coffee on the counter if you'd like. We'll get started in just a few minutes." Finally he let go of my hand and walked away.
The meeting started on time. They went around the table taking turns singing the standard tune: "Hello, my name is so-and-so and I'm an alcoholic." This is when I learned everybody's name. Gene, Carol, Paul... Those other two guys too, whatever their names were. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention. When it came to my turn I toed the line and said my part. "Hello. My name is Sheena. I'm an addict." I felt like that needed an explanation since everyone else, even Paul the leader guy, was an alcoholic. "I don't drink," I said. "I do drugs."
There was a delay in their "Hello Sheena'" response. I guess they were unsure about my introduction. Eventually it came. "Hello Sheena," they said, although some of them pronounced it Shawna, but whatever.
We were about to move on and start the meeting. Then one more alcoholic showed up.
He barged through the door like he knew he was late. He was a huge man, not fat and not a bodybuilder, but big like an overgrown corn-feed farm boy. He was older though, maybe 40, and not from a farm. He wore blue work pants and a matching blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up tight around his meaty forearms. His name was stitched into a little oval patch above his shirt pocket: Terry. He looked like the son of Charles Bronson and a ham hock. He had these protruding high cheekbones, a Neanderthal forehead and a big old Tom Selik mustache.
"Sorry I'm late," he said. "Had a big order come in. Had to work late slinging concrete."
The only chair left was next to me. When I sat down earlier everybody treated me like the plague. Now, this big fella had no choice. Not that he looked that discriminating. He didn't even notice me till after he sat down. He took a look around the table, greeting the people he'd known from previous meetings. He'd nod or say a name. "Gene. Paul..." then his eyes looked over and saw me. "Who's this?" he asked Paul, apparently not trusting me enough to give him an honest answer.
"This is Sheena. It's her first meeting tonight." Paul told him.
"Hi," I said. "I'm a drug addict."
"Oh. Right," the man said, just now remembering protocol. "My name is Hyster, and I'm an alcoholic."
“Hello Hyster,” everybody said expect me. I was too busy wondering what the hell kind of a name was Hyster.
Paul led the meeting. He said some things to get the meeting started off, and then gave everyone else who wanted to speak a chance to. But really, I wasn’t listening. I was still trying to figure out Hyster.
I couldn’t stop looking at his hands, these big meaty clubs, covered in calluses, hair and grit. They were rough and cracked. His fingers were thick and short compared to his otherwise massive palms. I guessed by looking at them that he’d lost all sense of touch and texture from the years of digging through gravel and concrete at his job. I wondered what he did on a daily basis. I wondered what his home life was like. I felt sorry for him because his hands seemed to detail a rough life of hard work and harder drinking.
As for the rest of the man, his hair was balding. His lips were cracked as if he was perpetually dehydrated. His work shirt smelled like dust and mortar. His body reeked of sweat and cigarettes.
But his hands…
Then he spoke, and started with a grunt. “Boss down at the plant, down at the concrete plant, he’s been pissing me off. Nice enough fella when he wants to be…”
Hyster had interrupted someone else. Gene or one of the other two guys had said something that had tripped a reaction in Hyster’s brain. That trip was enough to get him going on this tangent. It didn’t matter what was being said before. This was Hyster’s story now.
“… when he wants to be, and only when he wants to be. Treats his employees like they were kids. Says one thing in front of them and another thing behind them. Like we’re too dumb to catch on. Now old Hyster, I know I’m not the sharpest bulb in the box. Spent my years working at the factory, fifteen years at the factory now, not at some college like the kids these days or in an office working with computers and whatnot…”
I looked at Paul, the elephant man, the leader of this crew of lost souls, and noticed that he was listening to Hyster, patiently, attentively, caringly. That’s when I realized that this wasn’t just Alcoholic’s Anonymous for Hyster. It was also Anger Management. I got the immediate sense that sometime in the past a bottle of Windsor and those big meat hooks of hands he’s got got him into some trouble, and someone else into more trouble. Hyster could kill someone if he wanted to, with those hands clasped on the table right in front of me. Hyster was a bulldog, and Paul had the leash.
Still, I wasn’t scared of Hyster. More impressed than anything else. I don’t know why, but I sympathized with Hyster almost immediately. I’m not the sympathizing type either.
“… I didn’t trust him when I meet him. He was too greasy. Too clean. Thought he was up to no good, but he’s got a way about him that convinces you otherwise. He’ll make you believe your best friends and then lay you off the next day. You remember that story you told, Gunny?”
“And which one would that be?” Paul asked.
“The one about the scorpion and the boy,” Hyster said. “You know, the boy, he’s going to climb over this mountain, and he’s at the bottom and looking up at the top, and sees how long of a climb it will be. Then a scorpion down by his foot looks up to him and tells him he’s got to get over the mountain too, and for the scorpion it will be a much longer climb because he’s just a little scorpion and his legs are so small.”
Hyster, he was talking with his hands, trying to use those fat sausage finger to show how small the scorpion was. The way he talked, he had a way of wrapping me in, and making me believe that he believed everything he was saying. I mean, to everyone else, this is a silly fairy tail. But to Hyster it was the real thing. There really was a boy and there really was this scorpion.
“So the scorpion asks the boy if the boy could carry him over the mountain. That way, the scorpion can keep the boy company so he doesn’t get scared and cry. And the boy can carry the scorpion so it won’t take so long for it to get over the mountain. That way, they can both get over the mountain. But the boy knows that the scorpion could sting and kill him any time he wished, so he doesn’t trust the scorpion. So he asks it, ‘How do I know you won’t sting me? After all, you are a scorpion and that’s what scorpions do.’”
Everyone was quiet while Hyster told the story. Paul, Gene, Carol, those two guys I can’t remember their names… Nobody interrupts. Nobody doodles on their paper or plays with there coffee cup. Even though they’ve all heard it before, they’re all wrapped in by that guff raw voice telling this kid’s story.
“But the scorpion promises, ‘I won’t sting. We’ll be partners. Friends. I need you and you need me.’ So the boy agrees. He picks up the scorpion and it doesn’t sting him. He puts the scorpion on his shoulder so he can hear the scorpion’s voice. They start their journey and the scorpion keeps the boy company. He tells stories of where he’s been and the things he’s seen. He tells the boy of others he’s stung too. Horrible stories. But he tells the boy that he promised, and that he won’t bite or sting, that he’ll keep his promise. And the boy believes him.
“So they get to the top of the mountain, and its easier heading down. And before they know it they made it down to the other side. The boy was never scared because he had the scorpion to keep him company, and the scorpion was never tired because he had the boy to carry him. So the boy is about to put the scorpion down so they can go their separate ways. He says, ‘Thank you scorpion. I couldn’t a got over that mountain without you on my shoulder. Couldn’t a done it.’ And the scorpion says, ‘You’re welcome little boy. Now put me down so I can get on my way.’ So the boy picks up the scorpion back up off his should and is about to put him down when the scorpion…”
Hyster jabbed the air with his curved pointer finger, like a scorpion striking out, and we all knew what happened to the boy.
“The scorpion stings the boy right on the hand. And the boy is shocked. He’s holding his hands and he’s crying and he says, ‘Why did you do that? Why did you sting me after all we’ve been through and after I carried you over the mountain and after you promised me you wouldn’t? Why did you sting me?’
“And the scorpion says, ‘Boy, you knew what I was when you picked me up.”
Hyster, his face was red when he was done telling this story. He was angry at the betrayal and the lies. I could tell there was nothing he despised more than that lack of loyalty. He still had his finger pointed out, curved like a scorpion’s tail, held out over the table.
“I think that’s what my supervisor’s like down at the plant. He’s a liar!”
All I can think is: Holy shit. If that guy ever fired Hyster… holy shit… I closed my eyes and imagined some skinny smart ass kid out of college with his fancy business management degree beaten to a blood pulp underneath some gravel elevator on the edge of town… wet red blood spilled all over that dusty plant… Hyster on the run with no place to go… wanted for murder… just like me.
“What’s he make you want to do?” Paul asked, calm, not surprised by Hyster’s emotion.
“Makes me want to drink,” Hyster said. “Before I’d go to the bar and drink all night and as long as I could do that I was still in charge. He could be a weasel all day at the plant, but as long as I could make it to happy hour I was still in charge. But now, he knows I go to these meetings. The boys down at the plant know, and he hears things. He looks at me different now. He knows he’s really in charge now, that son of a bitch.”
“Hmm,” Paul said, not knowingly, not like he was Sigmund Fraud or Doctor Phil. He was just Paul. “So were you really in charge when you’d go to the bar and drink and drive and get arrested and get in fights with the Sheriff?”
Hyster didn’t voice a response. He just shook his head, real tightly. All the muscles were taut in his neck.
“Is your supervisor really in charge of anything more than what concrete goes where?”
Hyster kind of laughed at that. He relaxed a little bit. “Doesn’t know his head from his asshole. He’s a scorpion, but he couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”
“So why are you so angry? You’re still in charge. The only reason you’re hear is because you decided to be here. Not because of your supervisor or because of anyone else. You’re in charge here Hyster, and there’s nothing he can say about it.”
“You’re right boss. Always right,” he said and subsided. The red left his face a little. He leaned back in his chair.
The meeting didn’t last that much longer. Paul never made me talk or saying anything other than my name. I guess they let you take your time in those meetings. Maybe they know what they’re doing in there. Still, I only left thinking about Hyster and his scorpion story.
I stood out on the front steps of the church. I managed to bum a cigarette off of Gene but didn’t get a light from him before he left. The others had left too, but Paul was still inside and he seemed like the kind of guy who smoked so my guess was that he probably had a light. Eventually, Paul came out with a cigarette already hanging from his lips and a lighter in his hand. He nodded when he saw me and then went to lighting his GPC. I held up my cigarette, the Malboro I’d bummed from Gene, unlit. He handed me his lighter and I fired up my cherry.
“Hyster,” he said after his smoke was going well enough. “… is a brand name of a folk lift. That’s why they call him that.”
That made sense. I’d known the guy for less than an hour and already he was more of a “Hyster” than a “Terry” like his shirt said. Still, there was something I hadn’t figured out yet.
“He called you Gunny,” I said.
“Mmm. Gunnery Sergeant Paul Anderson, reporting for duty,” he said and gave me a silly little salute while he was at it. “Spend three of my better years trudging through the People’s Republic of Vietnam. He’s the only one who calls me Gunny anymore. He served too, but never in combat.”
“You were in combat?” I asked.
He nodded and took a drag of his smoke. “Enough,” he said, and I got the idea that that was all he wanted to say about it.
We stood and smoked in silence for a while.
“Hyster, he needs a new sponsor,” Paul said.
“What happened to his last sponsor?”
“Tried to hug her. Squeezed her too hard and crushed her guts out. Killed her right there,” he said.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I said.
“Just wanted to hug her, but instead he went and killed the poor bitch,” Paul said. “I know we’re not supposed to swear in church, so I’m glad we stepped out here.”
“He killed her?” I asked again.
Paul looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and smirked, just enough to let me know he was joking. Then I got it, and laughed too.
He smoked fast. His cigarette was halfway to the filter already. He’d smoke it all the way down to the fiberglass too. I could tell by the yellow tobacco stains on his fingers. “So, what’s your story?”
I hemmed and hawed. I didn’t want to really tell this guy much of anything. “I was living out in California for awhile. Hooked up with some bad people and did some stupid things.”
“Hmm. What did you do for money all the way out there?” he asked while lighting up his second cigarette.
Questions like these are the ones I was hoping to leave behind me. I dug my toes into the dirt and stalled. I looked at this old man, wrinkled and worn beyond his years and decided to crack, just a little bit.
“I was in the film industry.” I had answered this question a lot of time before, and this was generally the answer I’d give. Back in California, this is usually where whatever jerk-off I’m talking to would then stop asking questions and start talking about their own star-struck Hollywood career in movies, TV, commercials, documentaries, Youtube videos or whatever. Everybody was in the “film industry” back in LA.
“Oh really?” he said, genuinely impressed. “Movie star, huh? Were you in anything I might have seen?”
I had to laugh at this. “I don’t know. I’ve been in a lot of movies.”
“Name one,” he said, never laughing when I laughed, but never judging either. He didn’t smile, but you could tell he was in a good mood underneath his sagging cheeks and face.
I cracked a smile. “Um…Miss Anal’s Big Ass Bang Bus 12.”
“Oh. Those kinds of movies,” he said.
I tried to peak out of the corner of my eye to see his reaction, to see if he still had that pleasant mood under his elephant skin face. He was just starring off in the distance, thinking or wondering or judging?
“I’m not proud of-“
“What was the name again?” he said, cutting off my apology.
This time when I said it, I wasn’t smiling. “Miss Anal’s Big Ass Bang Bus 12.”
“Twelve,” he repeated. “No. No. Haven’t seen that one.”
He cracked a smile.
I cracked a smile, and then laughed. He let out a few guffs too. Both of us laughing there, it was like a weight had been lifted off. I didn’t believe for a second he’d seen any of my movies, but I got the sense that back in the day, in those Quonset Huts and foxholes back in ‘Nam that this guy hand’s had probably flipped through and passed along his fair share of Playboy and Hustler magazines.
“It wasn’t my best work,” I said. “The director won an award for it, but I don’t know why. I thought the lighting was all wrong in that one.”
“Yes. Always aimed a little too low, I bet,” he said, joking again.
“Right,” I said laughing.
We paused there, seeming to have run out of things to say. We stood there and smoked.
“Well, award’s don’t mean jack shit anyway. I won a medal once,” he said. He always took his time saying things. Never rushed. “I was back in ‘Nam and we were out on a patrol through the bush and we got hit pretty hard up front and we started pulling back. Breaking contact, they called it.”
I listened patiently, kind of wondering where this was going and why he decided to share it with me.
“Well, my buddy Tom, he was a Navy corpman, a medic you’d say, he was there with me along with some other guys. We’d all gotten down, laying on our belly’s in the mud, and the guys furthest away from the attack would lay down some fire and cover us so the dinks would duck their heads and we could pick ourselves up out of the dirt and run back behind our buddies. Well, I was up front, real close to where they were hitting us from. I mean, I can see those fucking dinks. I can see there faces. I mean, maybe from me and you to that car over there, that’s how far away. My buddy Tom is back towards the rear of the fight, not far behind me but behind me and the guys right next to me. So, they lay down some cover fire for us, and me and the guys around me pick ourselves up and run back away from the attack. We run past Tom and the guys around him, and dump ourselves back down in the mud, turn around and start firing back at the dinks so our buddies will get there chance to haul ass out of there. And next thing I know they’re running by, just like they’re supposed to, but I don’t see Tom. So I see this…”
He looked around the parking lot and the surrounding streets, as if anybody was still out and awake in this town.
“So I see this fucking nigger, and I say to him, ‘Hey, where’s Tom? Where’s the corpman?’ And you know what this fucking piece of shit spade tells me? He says, ‘He got hit man. Fuck him,’ And this is my buddy he’s talking about! I said, ‘Fuck him? Fuck you, pal.’ And I turn around, and I shoot him. Right in the ass. Now he’s screaming, ‘Awoo! Corpman! I need a corpman!’ And I yell at him ‘Yeah, the corpman is pretty fucking important now, huh? You motherfucker.’”
I think this was supposed to be funny. And it was on some level, but I was more shocked than humored. Still, I tried to smile like it was funny.
“Anyway, long story short, I had to go back and grab my buddy Tom since no one else would. And for that, they gave me a Bronze Star.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Now, I never told anybody that I shot that nigger in the ass. If I had, they probably would have taken away that medal and thrown me in prison. But I don’t regret it. I got too many other things to regret to regret doing that. Now, that fellow I plugged in the ass, the negro, he got a god damn Purple Heart for his piece in the story. Like I said before, medal’s… awards… don’t mean jack shit.”
I smiled and went about smoking my cigarette, not really sure as to what to say next. He finished his cigarette, twisted the cherry out from the filter with his fingers, and then tossed the butt into the Folgers butt can there on the step.
“Now, the real reason I told you that story is because you told me yours. I don’t talk about ‘Nam much, and when I do it’s usually to other guys like me who have been there. But you were honest with me, so I wanted to be honest with you.
“I understand what it’s like to sit in that circle for the first time and to think that everyone is expecting you to start goose-stepping the twelve steps right off on day one. I’ve been there… more than once… so don’t think I don’t know what its like to sit in a circle and say you have a problem when in your heart of hearts you feel like you’re cruising along just fine.”
He was talking about me. He’d seen right through me, and this was his way of telling me.
“You’ll hear some of the gentlemen in there say things like ‘You have to fake it to make it,’ and what they mean by that, is don’t give up on this just because you don’t feel the Holy Spirit of God descend down from a cloud your first night here, or your second or your third night. The truth is, I’ve been doing this for some 13 odd years, and I still haven’t felt no Holy Spirit descend down on me. What’s important is that you keep faking it until you start to make it. Even if you can’t remember what it is now, there was a reason you walked into that meeting tonight.”
“Yeah. Because Sheriff Marty made me come here after he found me passed out in the middle of Main Street,” I joked at him.
He nodded up and down, his crows feet and slack jowls never looking so old.
“Some people just never bother to see the red flags that are obvious to others. The fat woman who has to knock out a wall so they can move her to the hospital… the crazy fellow who is in a stand off with the cops and starts shooting at news helicopters… the addict who starts digging through his own vomit for the smallest bits of pain pills to re-ingest… or the prodigal porn star who barely managers to make it back to her hometown with nothing more than fumes in her tank and lint in her pockets, just so she can take a nap in the middle of Main Street in her underwear. No. There’s no reason for you to be here. No reason you might need some help. Hell, I guess we should have all just rode right on by and never bothered to stop."
I felt embarrassed. Not because he knew I’d passed out in the middle of town with my ass hanging out for all to see. Hell, back in LA that would have been nothing but a funny story to tell friends at parties. I wasn’t embarrassed because of that. I was embarrassed because I was too stupid, too arrogant and too prideful to ask for help, and he saw right through it.
I guess nothing is more embarrassing than your own pride.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” he asked, genuinely not knowing what I was referring to. Paul was always genuine, by the way. I don’t think the guy knew how to lie.
“Yeah. Okay. As in, I won’t bullshit you no more.”
Paul laughed just twice. “Ah, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter sweet heart. Didn’t your momma ever tell you that?”
I smiled. Okay. Maybe he had bullshitted in the past. But a real honest to god lie? I couldn’t see it coming out of him.
“You know, Sheriff Kahlberg… he’s a good guy,” Paul said. “Not always on top of things. But he tries.”
“I know. But I like him though. He’s kind of funny,” I said.
“Funny,” he said, not agreeing, just restating the word. He was pulling another GPC out of his pack now. He stuck it in his lips and it dangled there just by the very end. “I’d offer you another butt but you don’t want to smoke like me. I quick drinking and took up smoking full time. I figure this way I won’t live long enough to suffer the indignities of old age. Ha, ha, ha.” When he laughed he did it real dry like, like this was his way of telling me he was being sarcastic. He went on talking through the side of his mouth while he lit this next cigarette. “There’s a lot of funny things about this town…” He paused to inhale deep and fire up the fresh cherry. “the Sheriff… the town… this church…”
“What?” I said. “What’ so funny about this place?”
“It’s an old church,” he said. “Older than you. Even older than me. People get funny inside of old places. Say they see things and hear this and that… I don’t believe everything I hear… Well. Doesn’t much matter anyway. They’re building a new church across town. This one’s to be bulldozed a week from now.”
“I’m looking for a place to stay,” I told him. “There’s not much in town. I don’t have money for an apartment or even a hotel room…”
“Your asking to stay here?” he said.
I nodded.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said. His mood had turned suddenly cold. He was closed on this subject, didn’t want to listen.
“I was just thinking, I don’t need much, just a room in the basement…”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “I understand things are hard for you, but staying in this church is not an option. Here…” He dug into his hip pocket and pulled out an old worn out leather wallet. He pulled out three twenties and held them out for me to take. “This should pay for a hotel room for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll ask around and see what else I can do for you.”
I took the money. I hadn’t eaten in two days. He was talking hotel, but I was only thinking food.
“Will you tell Sheriff Marty I was here tonight?” I asked him.
He nodded. His mood had shifted back from cold to warm, in his cool quiet sort of way. “Will you come back next week?”
“I will.”
“And remember what we talked about.”
“Okay.”
“You better run along now,” he said and he was finishing up his second cigarette. Just like with his first smoke, he twisted the cherry out of the GPC with the little bit of tobacco that was left and then flicked the filter in the Folders can. Then he walked down the steps. Without turning around, he gave a little wave over this shoulder and said, “See you next week.”
I let him saunter over to his Jeep Cherokee, the same rust bucket he'd been filling up when I pulled my out of gas stunt. He drove off, never bothering to mention our gas station encounter, even though he knew that I was just a bullshitter trying to bullshit another bullshitter. Never mentioned it. But I guess he got his point across.
The one restaurant in town was a little family dinner attached to the cheap motel on the edge of town. I got a booth by the front window looking out over Main Street. It was getting dark out and the only traffic was the few lonely passers-through that Marty loved to bust so much. Not that I cared about the passing traffic. The restaurant served breakfast all day and I had twenty of Paul’s sixty dollars in front of me, turned from cash to the Lumberjack Breakfast platter. The eggs were greasy. The bacon was crisp. The hash browns and pancakes layered with butter and maple syrup. I was in heaven.
But of course, when I was done, I didn’t have the money for the motel room, and I wouldn’t have spent it there anyway. I paid the bill, even left the changes as a tip, and headed back in Tony’s truck to the church.
Nothing had changed since I left. Only maybe the place was a little darker than before. There were no lights in the windows now. No movement inside. No other cars parked along the curb or around back. That was good. And no one else was out on the streets either. That was good too. I drove past and found a cul de sac a few blocks away. I parked the truck there, under a grove of oak trees. Beyond my driver’s side window and the low hanging oak branches was miles and miles of cornfield. The sun had gone down and there was no light out there. Just empty space. I could have been an astronaut looking out the window of a space shuttle. Just stars and space.
I killed the truck and left it parked there under the stars and oaks in the cul de sac. It was only a few blocks back to the church. I decided to jog the few blocks to the church, but before I left the truck and grab the .45 and tucked it in the back of my jeans.
I was feeling good. Really good. Full stomach. Well rested. Jogging down this little town street, my Addias slapping against the blacktop. Breathing fresh air. I hadn’t felt that clean, that natural, in years.
I liked it.
When I got to the church I was out of breath. I stopped to catch it across the street. As I breathed in the cool summer night air I took another look at the structure. It wasn’t glowing or shimmering. As a matter of fact, most of it was dark. There were a few street lights on, and there were a pair of flood lights shining on the “ZOIN LUTHERAN CHURCH, LCMS” sign, but all but the foundation of the church was shaded in shadows. The stained glass windows that were so full of color during the day were panes of black now. The roof caught some of the starlight that managed to filter through the oak branches, just like Tony’s truck a few blocks back. The steeple jutted through the web of branches and leave, almost through the stars. I guess that’s what the idea was anyway.
But I wasn’t interested in the steeple. I was looked back towards the rear of the church, back where the pastor and janitors parked, where they kept the garbage cans and lawn mower shed. There was a gravel drive way around the back, and that was even darker than those stained glass windows. I trotted across the street and behind the church. There were some concrete steps leading up to a back door. I didn’t bother with the knob. I went around the steps to a short ground-level basement window. It was cracked open about a half inch, just enough to get my finger tips between the frame and the sill. I pulled and jerked and got it to move open up away from the ground. Another few tugs and it was open all the way. I could have been a cat burglar.
I sat on my butt and slipped my feet in first, then scooted my butt along the gravel to dangle my legs in. The gun dug into my back and I had to squeeze and wiggly to sneak it through the sill. My feet swung around a bit, feeling for something to put my weight on, but there was nothing. I slipped in a little further, my chest limboing under the window now. Then my foot found something to set on. A small shelf or something. I was able to manage my feet to the floor and slip down to the basement floor without too much noise. There was carpet below me, which helped with the sound. I wanted to stay quiet. After all, there was no way of really knowing the building was empty until I got a chance to look around.
It was dark. I stood and listened for a few seconds. Then I turned and shut the window behind me. Then I listened some more.
Silence.
That was good. I figured if anyone was inside and heard me come through the window they’d probably investigate in the first few minutes. That was what I told myself anyway. It was as good of an assumption as any other. Who knew if it was true. Regardless, the church was still silent. Not even the mice squeaked.
Listening gave my eyes time to adjust to the lack of light. When I first came in, everything was blackness. Now, after a half a minute of starring into nothing and blinking, I could see a dim red light coming from a staircase across the room. It was as good of a place to start as any. I kept my hands in front of me to keep from bumping into anything and headed for the staircase.
The dim red light was an EXIT sign. The steps were hard concrete that echoed every touch of my shoes. But the stairs turned and went past the door with its EXIT sign. I continued up to the ground level.
The stairs lead to a carpeted hallway. There were doors for classrooms and offices on either side. Some were open. Others were closed. The Sunday School room where Paul held his meetings, that door was closed and the “Alcoholics Anonymous” sign was gone. Down the hall was an office with it’s door open. A secretary’s office, I guessed. Maybe a minister. The computer monitor flashed family pictures from vacation and summer weekends. Mom. Dad. A couple of kids and a dog. The whole kitten-kaboodle. The light splashed and flickered like a muted TV in a dark house. I moved on.
The carpeted hallway ended where the tiled main hallway began. The one that led from the front door to the main sanctuary. Stained glass windows on either side of the front door let in multicolored pools of dim light from outside. Opposite the front doors were the clear glass doors leading into the sanctuary. There were more stained glass windows inside, and more rainbow stained moonlight fell onto the pews and altar below. I pushed open one of the glass doors and went inside.
I had never been in that particular sanctuary before, but everything in my brain and body told me I had. It was completely new to me, but also more familiar than any LA hotel, motel, apartment or flophouse I’d ever lived in. Even the smells seemed to re-awaken memories I’d never had.
The hall was rectangular. The walls were brick. The altar was up front along with the pastor’s podiums and the railing for communion. A large unadorned cross stood over the altar. A candle inside a red glass flickered against the right wall. All the old wooden benches where the people sat were, of course, empty. Fat battered Bibles and song books filled the racks of the back of each bench, but no people. A cross was carved into the wood at the end of each bench. There were crosses everywhere. I walked down the center aisle, a bride abandoned by the world. Light from one of the big stained glass windows fell on me, tinting me red… blue… green…
I looked at each of the windows and the mosaic pictures inside the frames.
Nearest the back, on the left side was a picture of a hand reaching down from a cloud, a ray of light, a garden, a nude man and woman running away, a snake and an apple left fallen on the ground. A missing chunk as crime scene evidence. Next was a rainbow, Noah’s ark on a hill and animals pouring out from the boat, two by two. A dove with a leaf in its beak soared overhead. On to the next. Two tablets, one chiseled with Roman Numerals one through four, and the other five through ten. A mountain. A rising column of flames to the right of the mountain and a column of smoke on the left. The next window: a walled city crumbling apart, circled by soldiers with trumpets. The last window on the left was of a lamb. There was a flagpole and a banner flying over the baby sheep. It read “Emmanuel God with Us.” I don’t get it.
The windows of the right side seemed less cryptic. I could remember more of the stories these ones told.
A star over head. A baby in a wooden cradle. The mom and dad looking down on there new baby with halos around their heads. Christmas. Second window. Another beam of light coming down from the clouds. Another white dove holding a clam shell this time. A bearded man standing in a river. Jesus, right? The next window was mostly dark clouds. Lightening bolts zigzagged down from the darkness. Three empty crosses rose out of the ground. The middle, largest cross was labeled INRI. The ground below the crosses drained streams of blood. The next was only slightly less dramatic. A hill of boulders. A dark cave, only barely accessible. Another boulder blocked most of the way. The last window stood in contrast to the others. The clouds were white. Instead of lightening there were rays of sunlight again. Open metal gates seemed to lead to the source of the light… heaven?
Then something caught my eye from the back of the church, back where I’d come in through the glass doors. I froze. My heart raced and I had to hold my breath to keep quiet. Another flash of light, not from the back of the church, but from the front, reflected off the glass doors! I spun around.
She moved quick and smooth, as silent as light itself. A woman all in white dashed from the altar to a wooden door in the wall just behind the pastor’s podium. She moved so quickly I only caught a glance, but I knew it wasn’t any acid trip or hallucination. The thick wooden door clunked shut behind her.
I gasped out loud and back pedaled into one of the benches. I ducked behind the bench like a little kid. I didn’t think to do it. That’s just what my scared brain had me do. It surprised me more than anything else, how quick she moved and how quiet she’d been. It just took awhile to tell my brain and my heart to calm down. Meanwhile, I hid behind the bench.
The .45! I pulled it out from the back of my jeans. It shimmered brilliant red. My hands looked like I was holding fire. But I didn’t care. For a second I wondered if it was loaded, and then remember that I’d never unloaded it since blasting Tony’s head into outer space. If it worked on him, it should work on anybody else. Slowly, I stood up from behind the bench.
She’d gone through the door past the pulpit. Braver now with the blazing gun in my hands, I continued up the aisle towards the altar. I stepped up past the communion railing. Past the pulpit. The gun grew brighter and warmer in my hands.
I pushed open the door. No girl in white. Just darkness. As I went in the shimmer from the .45 reflected off the walls and gave me as much light as the EXIT sign had in the stairwell. I was in a small back room with cabinets, closets and a sink, where the pastor got ready before his Sunday morning shows. There was a hallway and a uni-sex bathroom. I pushed opened that door, but all that was inside was a sink, a mirror and a toilet. At the end of the hall was another EXIT sign, and then another stairwell going down to the basement. I peaked over the railing.
The girl starred back at me. Pale face. Straight brown hair. Piercing blue eyes… just like Paul’s. She shimmered white.
“Hey!” I yelled at her.
She dashed off again, further into the basement.
I ran down the stairs, coming to the landing and then to the basement floor. Another hallway. No girl. I shoved open a door to a kitchen and took a quick look inside. No girl. I ran down the hall and found myself in a larger room, I think the one I came in through the window. To my left, no girl. To my right…
“Hey!” I yelled. She took off again. This time up a different flight of stairs I hadn’t seen before. I sprinted after her. Then halfway across the room I slammed into a folding table and metal chairs. I let go of the gun and it went sliding across the carpet, under another set of table and chairs. My hip hurt bad, but I ignored it. I limped over to my gun and scampered under the table. I grabbed it, it was easy to finding glowing like a stoplight in the dark. Once I had it again in my hands I took off after that girl.
I hit the stairs running and jumps as many steps as I could without tripping and crashing again. When I hit the landing and turned the corner I caught site of her feet, bare feet on the cold tile, at the top of the stairs. She was running again.
I wanted to call after her but I was out of breath. Instead I kept up the chase. I got to where her feet were and found more stairs. I thought I was on the ground floor again, but I was getting turned around so much I couldn’t tell. I had no idea such a small church could be so big. More stairs? Fuck it. I was tracking that bitch down. I went up the steps, the glow of the .45 leading my way. I came around the turn at the landing excepting to catch another glance, but there was nothing. I went up the last flight of stairs. When I got to the top and brought up my gun and swept it across the room like a SWAT team clearing a room.
Nothing there.
I was in the balcony over looking the sanctuary below. There was an organ and a piano and rows of chairs and sheet music stands like in band class. This was where the choir set up on Sunday morning. But it was also a dead end. There was no other doors up here. No other hallways or staircases. Just pianos and chairs and song books. No girl.
I looked over the railing down on the sanctuary below. What, did she jump? It had to be a twenty foot drop from up her. I would have heard her land, wouldn’t I have? What the fuck? Besides, the sanctuary was tomb-quiet again. No girl in white. Just those stained-glass windows, the burning candle, the altar and that big empty cross.
I checked behind the piano, behind the organ, around each four corners, everything. She must have jumped. Must have.
I decided to retrace my steps, starting with behind the altar where I’d first seen her. Was she hiding back there? Watching me? Who the hell was she?
When I checked behind the altar I found exactly what I thought I would find: nothing. I went through the doors behind the pastors stand. Nothing back there either. Just the same cabinets and closets. I looking over the stair railing again, but this time no one was looking back with shimmering “can’t bullshit a bullshitter” eyes. I went back to those closets and cabinets. The closets and white robes the pastor or choir or altar boys wear. Was that what she was wearing? I checked the cabinets.
Finally, a smile cracked on my face. I didn’t find the girl. I found something better: the communion wine.
“Fucking right,” I said. The gun went back into the seat of my pants and I grabbed a bottle.
Like I told Paul and Hyster and the others: I don't drink, I do drugs. Well, I did drugs. Because I quit now, doing the meetings and all that. I was an addict, not an alcoholic. See, I was immune to the demon alcohol. It had no power over me. Drugs, sure. But a little wine? What was a bottle of wine to a person like me? Nothing.
Besides, if I didn't catch a buzz pretty soon I was going to fucking need some drugs. That's the reason I told myself I needed that bottle. Never minding I'd spent the last half hour running through an abandoned church chasing a ghost or the fact that the shakes were coming back. Never mind any of that.
I grabbed the bottle with my left hand and kept the gun in my right. I shut the cabinet behind me, the consummate cat burglar that I was, and carried on. Now that it was in my hands the bottle began to shimmer, like a small flame was burning deep inside and growing every step I took away from the cabinet.
"Fuck you demon alcohol," I muttered to myself. So much for pretending.
I still needed to find the girl dressed in white. If for no other reason than to prove myself sane, but also to make sure my cover wasn't blow. Since the first time out of lock-up I had a place to sleep tonight and I wasn’t about to fuck that up, especially now that I had a bottle of wine to keep me company.
I headed for the back on the church. I figured she had to have jumped from the balcony, and if she didn't run off in this direction, maybe she took off out the front door. I pushed through the glass doors, and then opened the heavy exterior door.
The night had chilled. A cool dry wind cut through my t-shirt and blew my hair into my eyes. I stayed mostly in the church. Half because I didn't want to get locked out and half because of the cold. So I stayed there and watched the branches of the trees sway over the empty street. The air smelled like maybe a storm was blowing in. As I stood there, half in half out of the church door, the shadows out there seemed to sway and move... Beyond sway... I think some shadows traveled from one end of the street to the other.
I brushed it off. The light from the gun and the wine must have been playing tricks on my eyes. That made sense, right? Didn't mattered. The girl was gone and it was time for me to get drunk.
I brought my glowing bottle of piot noir back up to the balcony.
It's strange being in a church at night with all the lights off by yourself. Never minding all the other strangeness. Just being in that church was strange enough. So quiet. A normal person couldn't help but be introspective. Lucky for me, I had a whole bottle of the blood of Christ to help me dodge that kind of shit. No soul searching tonight. I didn't think that I would like whatever it was I found. So found a comfortable spot on the floor and I drank.
About half way down the label, I gave in and became introspective.
The wine was good, but not what I needed. The roof over my head was nice, but nothing near permanent. My stomach was full from dinner, but would be empty again after breakfast tomorrow. The truck parked two blocks away wasn't mine. The sheriff was coming after me and these soon to be demolished church walls weren't going to stop him.
Tomorrow I'd go to Sheldon and get my fix. I'd top off the pick-up and drive off without paying. Then I'd head back for sunny CA. I could be there in three days time. Two if I could get enough crank to keep me up through the trip. Then I'd sell the truck to a chop shop and spend the next week crashed out in my apartment. My friends might not even notice I ever left. Which was good because they'd give me an alibi for the murder. Then I could leave this whole nightmare behind me. No more sheriffs or cat stories or AA meetings or shinning churches or glowing guns or strange songs popping up in my head at night.
Those songs... Where'd they come from? Why did they seem so familiar? Why did I only hear them in my sleep? Those songs...
Another big swig off the bottle. Down to the bottom of the label now. Have to finish it off yet. Another drink... And then I was out.
But the hymns came back. And the chanting. And prayers. I heard them all night. I couldn’t wake up enough to sit up and look for a ghost congregation in the pews below me. I couldn’t even remember most of it. But I do remember one part:
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth
and of all things visible and invisible.
There were dozens of voices, all chanting in unison.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of His Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father,
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried.
And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures
and ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of the Father.
And He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead,
whose kingdom will have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,
who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church,
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I woke up shaking. I couldn’t stop. I felt like I was freezing. My whole body ached. This is what I get for trying to quit cold turkey. This is what I get for coming down. This is what I get for thinking anything could ever be different.
There were no voices. No chanting or singing.
It was morning. Dull grayish light leaked through the stained glass, soft and filtered. There were no birds chirping outside. I don’t think the sun was up yet. Maybe in a little while. But for now, a pre-dawn silence hung over the church.
I noticed this between bouts of shakes and aches bouncing from one side of my head to the other. Instead of dulling the pain, I think the wine just found fresh nerve endings. I picked up the bottle and noticed there was still an inch left in the bottom, swirling around the concave bottom. I tipped it back and polished it off. It was no help.
A door opened below me. There were footsteps. Shuffling. Someone had come into the sanctuary Another set of footsteps. And another. Three people. Maybe more.
“I think we’ll start with the small stuff and work our way up,” a man said.
“Well, we got plenty of boxes for the hymnals and whatnot,” another one said. “Might as well start their.”
“Sounds good enough for me.”
I crawled to the balcony ledge and peered over the railing.
Movers. They were coming to clean out the church.
My stash of wine was going to be gone before I could crack the second bottle.
Who was I kidding? Enough of this bullshit. I had a plan. For once since I’d come to this god-forsaken fucking town I had a plan. And it was time to get moving. I’d hung out here long enough. I found the .45 on the floor next to the bottle. I tucked it back into my pants.
I took the stairs all the way back down to the basement. I tip-toed past the main floor, but the movers had gone off to their trucks by then. The basement was still dark, but not as dark as last night. I saw the tables and chairs I knocked over last night and left them where they were. No sense in cleaning up. I wasn’t coming back here. I found the window I’d come through, and slipped out easier than I’d slipped in.
It was raining out. That’s why there was so little light coming through the church windows. It was probably late morning already. I couldn’t tell from the sun. The whole sky was one big gray sheet.
I headed for Tony’s truck. I didn’t run there like the night before. I didn’t sneak or tip toe. I just walked. Fuck ‘em if they didn’t like me in there church. I wasn’t going to be around her much longer anyways. Neither was their special little church for that matter. There were moving trucks out front, and one of those roll away dumpsters in the back. It wouldn’t be long before it was gutted and bulldozed.
The truck was where I left it. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I shuffled up to the driver’s door, head down, keeping the rain out of my eyes. I opened the door; I left it unlocked, and was about to hop in. Then I noticed the scattered sunflower seed shells between my sneakers. I stopped right there, my eyes focused on the ground.
Sheriff Marty had been by. He must have followed me. Probably searched the truck. Took finger prints. Who knows? It only mattered in that it told me I needed to get out of town all that much sooner.
I kicked the shells with my shoe and jumped into the truck. My hands trembled as I fumbled with the keys and started up the truck. I wheeled the truck around the cul de sac and headed towards Ethanol Acres.
Marty. Sheriff Marty. Sheriff Kahlberg. Sergeant Asshole.
All these people with all their fucking stories. Paul with his gooks and nigers. Hyster with his scorpion. Marty with his cats…
I had a story. I had all kinds of stories. But I remember one they’d all love. They could gather together around their fucking AA meetings and swap meets and give it some grandiose symbolic meaning. Tell all the little DARE kiddies at the local elementary school.
I don’t remember much about my father. I remember he drank. I remember he was mean. And I remember he raised pigs. And I remember that he drank. Most of the time he did all of those at once.
I remember standing outside of the pig pen. He was in the pen, sorting the hogs from the sows. This one goes through this gate, this one goes through that gate. He’s shoving these huge animals around, these giant muddy stubborn mean animals like he’s actually in charge. My dad was a buck thirty soaking wet. Short. Scrawny. Drunk. There was no reason those pigs should pay one bit of attention to his stupid ass. But he had a way of commanding attention. Regardless of reality, he believed he was the biggest pig in the pig pen and he had a way of making the pigs believe it too. Only this one day, he wasn’t so convincing.
There was a big momma sow, probably three hundred pounds. Hungry. Muddy. My dad whacked the pig with a switch to get it down the shoot. That’s when the pig veered into him and pinned him against the fence rails. My dad’s head whiplashed and his seed hat fell off outside the pen. He held onto the bottle of Black Velvet he had but dropped the switch. The pig didn’t let up. She started grinding him into the fence rails. Churning back and forth. Suffocating him.
Here was this small little angry man who thought he was so in charge of every living being in the whole damn world and he was getting killed by a pig. And it would have killed him to. It would have broken his legs, broken his hips and then let him slip down lower so it could crush his chest. Then all the nice little piggies would have eaten his drunk ass… probably catching a buzz while they were at it. Poor pigs.
And there I was, maybe five years old, if even, watching my dad who I hated with all my heart, get ground to death right in front of my eyes.
First he swore at the pigs. Then he swore at God. Then he swore at me. It took awhile to realize that he was actually swearing at me to do something. There was a claw hammer hanging on the fence, just out of his reach. He was yelling at me, “Hammer! Fucking Christ, get me the fucking hammer!”
I was frozen. I didn’t want to help my dad. I didn’t even want to be there. A part of me understood even then that that pig was trying to kill him too. But I couldn’t move. I was scared. I was just a little girl.
I remember my dad’s hand stretched out like Luke Skywalker reaching for his lightsaber in the ice cave. Fingers sprayed out. Tips just inches away. Then the sow let up for just a second and it was enough to let my dad stretch those extra inches and grab the hammer.
You can guess what happened next. That angry little hundred and thirty pound runt brained that three hundred pound sow like he was the dictator he believed he was. I remember the sound of the hammer hitting the top of the pigs skull. He might as well have been hitting concrete. The pig didn’t stop grinding and my dad didn’t stop smacking it with the hammer. It was like, “whack, whack, whack,” going on for what seemed like forever. Then the pig kind of went slack, like its knees buckled. I don’t know if pigs have knees really, but that’s what it was like. And then my dad kept going. Over and over again. Braining this pig with this old rusty claw hammer. Blood started flicking off the hammer onto my dad and into the grass. The pig fell into the mud. My dad kept swinging. And swinging. The pigs legs twitched. My dad kept swinging. He never let go of that bottle either. He just clenched it all that much tighter and he literally beat that pig into the mud. It was beyond dead by the time he finished. It was massacred.
That’s when I learned not to fuck with my dad. I was glad when he stopped watching me. My mom was no better, but at least I didn’t have to worry about her turning my brain to mush with the nearest blunt instrument. Fuck.
That’s what I was thinking about as I drove to Ethanol Acres. That’s what was going on here. I was the pig. Sheriff Marty was my dad. Paul… I don’t know. Paul was the bottle of Black Velvet, you know, cause he’s an alkie. It didn’t matter if my allegories made sense. I wasn’t a bag of kittens to Sheriff Marty. I was a big fat dangerous sow and they were going to trap me and beat me to death with whatever they could.
Half way across town I noticed an old Ford Bronco following behind me. I turned left and it turned left. I turned right and it turned right. Always about a block or so away. Never sticking too close. I was being followed. It glowed red.
A small part of me wondered if I was hallucinating this. But I hadn’t hallucinated the gun or the church or the rest. Besides, there was too much detail in the Bronco for it to be a hallucination. South Dakota plates… missing passenger side mirror… dented right bumper… the way the red glow was caught in the water droplets clinging to the back window of Tony’s truck… this thing was real, and it was following me.
I floored Tony’s truck. I was in a residential neighborhood, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t in the mood for playing games. I knew where I was going, I knew I what I wanted and I knew I was going to fucking get there. I turned down an arbitrary street. I took the turn sharp and didn’t bother to signal. I went a block and turned again. The wheels backed this time. I stepped on the pedal to put some distance between me and the Bronco. Then I saw one of those little back alley driveways that cut through to the next block. I had to stand on the brakes, but I made that turn too. A dog-walking lady gave me the evil eye I when I crossed her path on the sidewalk lining the next street.
Fuck her. She didn’t know what I was dealing with.
I took the alley for another block, then slowed down and pulled the pickup along the curb. Then I waited and watched the rearview mirror.
Nothing. Just the slow rhythm of rain hitting the truck’s roof.
I waited longer.
Still nothing. I think I lost him. Finally. I put the truck back in gear and headed for Ethanol Acres.
Sheldon’s place was just how I’d last seen it. Double-wide trailer. Over grown lawn. Over stuffed garbage can… The lights were on inside. He was home. I parked the truck, turned off the engine and pocketed the keys. When I got out the first thing I heard was the cats. They cried and whined from under the wooden deck leading up to the front door. There had to be a dozen of them under there. More were in the yard, snaking around the garbage can, trotting around the corner of the trailer, coming up to me, meowing for food or attention or both. All of them looking skinny and wet and neglected in the rain. I ignored them.
I went up to the front door. I noticed the little security buzzer screwed to the frame; a dealer’s doorbell. All I’d have to do is open the door a crack and he’d come running, probably with a gun. I knocked instead.
There was a clattered immediately after the knocks. A few curses. Then he came to the door.
When Sheldon opened the door he didn’t look any more healthy or attractive than the last time I’d seen him. But that didn’t matter. He had what I needed and I needed it bad. My hands went on shaking. My heart beat like a drum, just thinking of what he had.
A fix. My fix. The crank that would keep me going all the way back to LA. I couldn’t make the drive without it. He had my only way out of this hellhole.
He still looked like a bum. Ratted patchy hair. A loose dirty “Steve Miller Band” t-shirt. Sweatpants. Bare feet. He was ugly. But somehow all that turned me on. I wanted that sleaze, that shame that came with what he had that I really wanted. I wanted the freedom that came with abandoning all your morals and principles. I wanted to bottom out and wallow in the gutter.
“I need it,” I told him, and that’s all I told him. He understood the rest.
He smiled. “Come in from the rain, my child.” He took my hands into his as I put my foot up on the threshold of the trailer.
When I first heard the voice from behind me, I thought it was thunder. It could have been. It was so loud and deep.
“Better she stay out here,” it boomed.
I turned around and saw Hyster’s massive frame standing at the curb, shoulders hunched and wet from the rain. His face was angry and resolute. The cats cried all around him.
“Who the fuck?” Sheldon said. “You fucking mongoloid. Get the hell off my property. This ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
Sheldon moved past me, into the rain, down the steps and towards Hyster. Hyster, who seemed immobile only a second before, suddenly moved fast and grabbed Sheldon by the throat, one handed. Sheldon was in the middle of saying something about Hyster “finding his lost chromosome,” but once those thick meaty fingers were clasped around his windpipe, all he could let out was a paniced “urk!” The next thing Sheldon knew, Hyster had carried him the distance back to the trailer and slammed him against the trailer’s siding. The impact rattled and echoed across the court. A second later, Hyster threw Sheldon to the ground.
“You no good pusher. You good for nothing low life…” Hyster was saying. He came down on Sheldon, trying to hold him still with his left hand and beating the hell out of him with his right. Hyster’s fist looked as hard and a heavy as a sledge hammer. Each impact smacked into Sheldon and echoed off the other trailers. Each hit, Sheldon dropped and slumped, as if real weights like wrecking balls were being dropped on him. When Hyster swung his fist down, rain water sprayed against the siding. When he pulled it back for another punch, bright red blood sprayed against the siding instead.
Oh my god.
“Hyster…” I said.
Next to Sheldon was one of those concrete lawn ordiment garden gnomes everybody loves so much. The gnome was waving a hand in the air, saying hello to visitors. When Hyster saw it, he stopped dropping his anvil fist on Sheldon. Instead, he reached down and picked up the gnome, using it’s friendly wave for a handle.
“Hyster, no!” I saw what was coming. I couldn’t let this happen.
Sheldon was holding up his open palms, trying to block the next attack. Hyster was using his left hand to try to grab Sheldon’s, or at least knock them away so he could get another clean shot. Hyster knocked the hands away and swung. Sheldon crumpled to the ground, completely limp. But I heard him cry in pain. Then he tried to cover his head with his arm, bare able to. He was still alive.
Hyster was regripping the gnome, looking for another clean shot at the mess of human being underneath him. He shuffled his feet like a big league batter in the box. He was going to kill Sheldon. I could see it in his eyes.
I had to save him.
I ran down the steps and just as he was about to crush that piece of concrete into Sheldon’s head I wrapped him up in a big hug.
“Hyster, stop!” I yelled. My face was buried in his broad heaving chest. The smell of concrete dust permeated the rain and filled my senses. Huging this huge oak tree, I think it was the only way to stop him, to save him from killing Sheldon. “Don’t do it. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.”
He kind of groaned and came back from wherever his brain had gone.
“I saw what he was going to do to ya,” he said. “Couldn’t a let that happen. No decent sponsor would a.”
“I know Hyster. I know, but we have to go right now. We have to leave,” I said. “If the cops come… I mean if Sheriff Marty finds you here…”
“Uh. Yeah. Yeah. We should go,” he said. He dropped the gnome. I corralled him back towards the Bronco, not that I could have moved him an inch if he hadn’t let me.
As he got into the Bronco and I went to the pickups door I looked back at Sheldon. His legs were flexing and twisting as he soaked in the pain. One of his feral cats was meowing and smelling around his head. He was still alive when we left. I didn’t know if he’d stay that way, but he was alive when we left.
As I drove through the rain all I could think about was the pig my dad had killed, or the bag of cats Marty had killed.. or really, Hyster dropping those fists on Sheldon and swinging that god damn garden gnome. I couldn’t get the sound of hammers smacking flesh out of my ears.
And now what? Hyster was following me again in his black Bronco, running just like I was. Following me… that was the last thing he should be doing. It’s not like I had any idea where we could go. I pulled the pickup over in the Burger King parking lot. As good a place as any. He followed and parked behind me. I hopped out and wrapped him in a hug as he climbed out of his ride.
“You have to go somewhere. Somewhere out of town where you can tell them you’ve been while all this happened,” I said.
“Huh. Out of town. Yeah,” he said. “My brother lives in Oakes. I can stay there.”
“Oakes,” I said. “He doesn’t drive a pickup like this one does he?”
“Like that?” he asked, meaning Tony’s truck. “No. Not like that. He’s a farmer. Drives an International.”
“Good. That’s good,” I said. “You should go now.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
“Hyster,” I said as he was about to pull away. “Thank you,” I said and kissed him on the cheek.
That was the last time I saw him. I don’t think Sheriff Marty ever pinned Sheldon’s assault on him, but I guess I have no way of knowing.
I stood and looked out across the great plain in front of me. A bean field. Otherwise empty. Borderless. Limitless. Without definition or description. Empty. I was alone again, and I had earned it. But that didn’t make me feel any better. Hyster was gone. Marty was out to arrest me. Sheldon was pulped to a bloody mess in his helter-skelter front lawn. I had exactly what I started out with: nothing.
There was only one place left to go…
I knocked on the front door of the church.
The movers and helpers were moving through the backdoor now. Boxes and boxes of hymnals and hand bells, papers and pamphlets. I didn’t want to get in there way. Didn’t want them to stop me and ask me all sorts of prying questions. Or worse, expect me to help move boxes. So I knocked on the front door.
No one came. I knocked again.
After another half minute of waiting in the rain, the door opened. Not all the way. Only part. The old woman must have seen me through a window before she came to the door.
“Yes?” She started out our last conversation the same way. And just like last time, I had the feeling this conversation that started with a “Yes,” would end with a “No.”
It took some time for me to find my words, to begin to explain why I was here. Eventually, I told her, “I need help.”
Her face, she looked sad. Sad because her church was getting torn down I guessed. Her “special” church. “What kind of help, dear?”
“I…” she knew what kind of help. “I need a place to stay. I need…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a police car coming down the street. The lights weren’t flashing; that was good. But it wasn’t Sheriff Marty’s car either. It drove by the front of the church slow. The door said, “North Dakota Highway Patrol.”
“I need Asylum,” I said again.
The woman let out a sigh. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“I know but, you have to under-“
“You’ve asked me this before,” she cut me off.
“I know but-“
“And I told you no then,” she continued. “Then, I understand you asked Paul the same thing.”
She was right. After the AA meeting, and he’d told me the same thing. It was a special church.
“And now you’re asking me again,” she said.
The bitch. Why was she telling me what I already knew?
“That’s three times you’ve asked to stay here,” she said.
I nodded.
“Three times you’ve asked us for Asylum,” she said.
I got the picture. “Never mind. I guess I’ll find somewhere else.”
“Child, I hope you understand what it is you’re asking for,” the old woman said. Then she opened the door all the way open. She stood by the end of the door, waiting for me to come in. “You can come in now. And stay as long as you’re able,” she said.
I didn’t believe her. Thought she might wait till I had a foot in the threshold and then slam the door back in my face. I thought he was joking.
“Come on in, child. Come in from the rain,” she said, and I did.
The door closed behind us, blocking out the noise of the street and the rain. It was quiet in the church, even if the movers were busy out back. The old woman looked me in the eye, trying to figure me out it seemed. I didn’t like it. It felt like she just might figure me out if she looked long enough.
“Thanks,” I said.
“There’s a woman you should speak with,” she told me. Then she began fishing a necklace from under her knit sweater and white turtleneck. She pulled out a thin gold chain. Dangling from the end, was a key. The chain and key were both gold, or at least brass, but of course they were shimmering white. “In the basement. Behind the staircase, there’s a door. There’s a room back there for you to stay. Talk to the woman there.”
She held out the necklace with the key dangling at the bottom. I held out my palm and she set the key inside, then let the thin gold chain follow after. When it was all in my hand, she clasped my hand shut with both of hers, blocking out the white shimmer. Then she looked me dead in the eyes.
“You can’t leave now my child,” she told me. “You can’t ever leave again.”
I smirked. Her eyes stayed fixed on mine, her hands still clasped over mine. I didn’t know what she meant. What I did know was that she was bat shit crazy. “I’ll go talk to the woman,” I said. I backed away from her. She let my hand and the key necklace slip through her fragile fingers.
“You can never leave, my child. Never again,” she said.
By then I had backed away and then turned down the hall towards the AA classroom. I told myself again: bat shit crazy. Too many days behind the organ for that old broad. I’ll leave whenever I feel like it.
Still, I headed for the basement. There were a few movers in the hallway, clearing out the Sunday School rooms and offices. None of them bothered me. I went to the staircase and headed down to the basement, the same way I came up last night… the first time… before I started chasing ghosts.
The basement was still mostly dark, but enough dull light made it’s way through the windows that I could see that it was empty. The movers must have already come for the tables and chairs and loaded them up into their trucks. Last night, the room seemed to be full of them. Now, the place was bare. Not even pictures on the walls. I looked for a light switch, but then decided I’d rather not have it on anyway. I headed in the direction of the kitchen, figuring the room the old woman told me about had to be around there.
And she mentioned another woman too. Someone I was supposed to talk to. Nobody was down here. The place was being gutted. Why would some lady be hanging around down here?
As I headed across the large basement room, I looked at the key and necklace I had it my hand. When I opened my hand, it was still glowing white light. But through the light, I could still see the chain and the key very clearly. Aside from the glow, there was nothing special about the necklace, an ordinary gold chain she could have picked up at the Pamida jewelry counter. The key wasn’t like one of those old skeleton keys, but it wasn’t new either. Years of wear had polished the edges smooth and rusted the cuts. It was unmarked on both sides, no numbers stamped in or brand name. It was just a key. Only it shined white in the darkness.
I pushed through the door to the little hallway where the kitchen and another set of stairs branched off. I thought I searched the whole church last night. But as soon as I came into the hallway I saw the door I’d missed during the chase. Just past the kitchen. Unmarked. An old door, but not ancient. A door that would match the key.
So this is where that girl hide out last night. I must have lost her on the stairs going up to the balcony. She must have ducked around a corner and waited for me to pass, and then came back down here. Sneaky little girl.
I pushed the key into the lock, it’s light shining the way. It fit. I turned it and the mechanism inside unlatch. The door began to swing open by itself. I stepped inside.
It was dark, even with the shimmering key and necklace. Then I found the light switch. The room was small. The bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling was enough for me to see that someone was staying here. There was a mattress in the corner with blankets and quilts. There was a small table and chair. There was some change and a few dollar bills on the table. There was a pair of old shoes under the table. There were a few shelves next to the bed. There was a old pocket watch sitting there and… bullets?
I moved in closer and shut the door behind me. As I stepped deeper in, I hung the key around me neck and reached behind my back for the .45. It was still there. That was good enough for now. I glanced at the money on the table as I walked by. A few ones. A twenty. The old style money with the little pictures of dead presidents in the middle. It seemed old and half rotted away. But I didn’t really care about the money. I wanted to see those… Yep. Bullets. Little fat ones standing on end on top of the shelves. I picked one up and rolled it between my fingers.
“Point four five, Browning,” I said out loud. Then I held the bullet in my left hand and took out my gun with my right. I was able to figure out how to eject the clip and then thumbed out one of my own bullets.
I read the bottom. “Point four five, Remington.”
“What are you doing here?”
I spun around and there she was. The girl from last night. Right behind me, now right in front. She had a gun pointed at my face. My hands fumbled. The Browning and the Remington bullet fell to the concrete floor. So did the clip with all of the rest of my bullets in it.
I tried not to focus on the black void of the barrel a foot away from my nose. Beyond the gun, a revolver, I could see the five other loaded chambers… each one loaded with a .45 Browning bullet I was sure. Beyond the gun were those cutting blue eyes, a mature but unaged face, uncelebrated straight brown hair.
“I’ve been watching you,” she said
“I know. Last night I chased you.”
“How’d you get in here?” she spoke with a strange accent, American enough, not foreign, but still strange.
“The old lady, she gave me a key.”
I held it up, hanging it from the necklace.
The girl, or woman, she was no older than I was; she smirked. “You asked her?”
I nodded.
“Three times?”
“Yeah. What’s the point?”
She lowered the gun. Her smirk became suddenly less threatening and more humored. I noticed she was beautiful.
“The door has been opened unto you,” she said. “You’ve been granted Asylum.”
“Who are you?”
“Sit down,” she said. “I have a lot to tell you.”
We sat at the small table. Her first and then me, after I picked up the clip for my .45. I didn’t load it, hers was rested on the table in front of her, but I wanted it on me. She picked up the twenty dollar bill that was next to her revolver and began to study it, like there was something hidden inside all those designs. I looked at one of the singles. It was different. Older. It said,”One Dollar Payable on Demand to the Bearer of this Note.”
It was older.
The gun…
Her white dress…
Her slight accident almost Irish or English…
It was all from a different era.
But her face was still so young.
“The 1st National Bank on Main Street, is it still there?” she asked me.
“Uh huh. It’s an American Legion now, and a Chinese buffet,” I said.
She looked confused for a moment. “But the building is still there?”
“Yeah. It’s still there.”
“I don’t ask this question much, but I’ll ask you. What year is it out there?”
I told her.
She absorbed that for a minute. Stirred it over in her brain it seemed. Then she took a breath like she was starting fresh, like she had been side tracked before. She brushed her plain brown hair to the side and then began again.
“Henry and I were married in the summer of 1931. We were young and didn’t have any money. But understand, no one had any money in those days. Henry had worked at the floor mill at Saint Anthony Falls. But they laid him off along with all the others, and then they shut the mill down. See? No one had any. Not even the rich fellows that owned mills and such. I think the prohibition didn’t help any either. Without all the grains for the beer it was just that much less business around.” She stopped. Must have seen the look on my face.
“That was along time ago, I know,” she said. “I’ve been down here for a long time.”
She didn’t look it. Not age-wise. But maybe, hidden inside those shimmering blue eyes and the subtle lines of her face… there was history in them.
“We were starving. The breadlines were miles long. All the farmers had come into the Twin Cities for jobs or the handouts. The fields were nothing but sand and dust, especially down south and to the west. Nothing was growing. No one was working… you wouldn’t believe your own eyes sometimes,” she said. Then paused. “But not everyone was living this way.”
“It was my idea, see. It was mine from the very start,” the woman said. “Henry knew some fellas that worked at the Army ammunition plant over on Arden Hills. They weren’t hiring, but sometime they could make certain items disappear from the inventory. So I came up with the plan, and as soon as his friends at the plant could sneak out some things for us, we started doing what any reasonable young lovers would do in the same situation. We started robbing banks.”
“Those boys at the ammo plant, they got a BAR machine gun for Henry and a pair of Colt .45 automatics for me,” she said.
I eyed her piece sitting on the table between us. The slide read, “M1911A1 .45 Cal Colt.”
“But favors like that didn’t come cheap,” she told me. “But I knew how to get things from men, even back then. I didn’t mind spending some time on my back to get what I thought we needed. I didn’t tell Henry how I’d convinced them to help us with this favor, and he didn’t ask. But in the end, it was no secret. But that’s for later.”
“In the two years between, we lived it up,” she said. “The first time we went into a bank, we were scared little children. By the time six months had past, we were pros. We’d kick in the doors. I’d fire up the ceiling with my pair of Colts and folks would just start throwing money at us. And it wasn’t just banks either. Payrolls. Post Offices. One time we robbed an Auction house and got more money than most banks. The money was out there. You just had to know where to find it, and how to easy it out of the tight fists holding it. Me and Henry, we had the grease to get it out.”
“I should have caught on when he brought in another partner,” she said. “We were tied in the with mobsters in Saint Paul by then, and this fella was supposed to be a professional. Alvin Lester. A real ugly one, he was. Had a face like a horses ass, all puckered together in the middle like he’d just smelled the shit he’d stepped in.
“He was only with us for one job. Well, with me for one job. We were supposed to be laying low. Staying away from the cities so things could cool down for a while. He wanted to do a job way out in the sticks. Somewhere where maybe we wouldn’t have a big take, but we could work as a team together and see how it fit. He had a way of talking, this Alvin, that made you believe him. Like he had all of our best interests in mind and he was just there to help out where he could.
“The liar. Him and Henry both. I should have seen it coming.
“So we ride out to this little one horse town, Ellendale North Dakota. You’ve heard of it, of course.”
I gave her a little grin. This was Ellendale. The First National Bank/American Legion/Chinese Buffet… I think I was about to hear why it wasn’t a bank anymore.
“We parked out Ford sedan right on Main Street and strolled into the First National like we owned the place. Not more than five minutes later and we did own the place. Well, all the cash anyway. The three of us jumped in the Ford and gassed it for the edge of town. Alvin was behind the wheel.
“Just as we’re about to make Ellendale a memory, he stopped the car and turns to Henry. He says, ‘You ready to do this.’ And Henry saying, ‘I’ve been ready for a long time now.’ He gets out and pulls open my door. Grabs me by my hair and yanks me out to the ground. He standing over me and the next thing I know he’s pointing one of my Colts as me. One of my Colts no less!
“Then he says to me, ‘This is for Arden Hills.’ And then he shot me six times through the chest. Six times.”
“See, he’d heard about how I’d got the guns from his friends at the ammunition plant. Word had gotten around and after that, I was nothing more than an embarrassment. So he shot me with my own gun and left me for dead in this god forsaken dust bowl of a town.”
I smiled at that last line. I had to ask her, “So how is it that your still alive?”
“I’ll get to that part,” she said. “But I’m not done with my story yet.
“Henry and Alvin went for another year or so. Eventually they got busted outside of Milwaukee and were thrown in Leavenworth Federal Pen. Alvin got out. Henry died in there from typhoid. Hope it took him slow. I hope he had plenty of time for regrets as he laid in the prison cell, coughing up his own death.
“As for me, they dumped and shot me right outside of this very church. The altar guild heard the shots and ran out to find me, bleeding in the street. They brought me in and did was they could to plug the holes and keep me breathing. A doctor came. They prayed for me. He was able to drain some of the blood from my lungs. They thought my lungs would collapse, but they ended up hold through. The infection came next. For about a month I was in and out of consciousness. I had a fever. When I was awake, I saw visions of Henry and Alvin and demons circling around the church windows. They were haunting me. Waiting for me to die so they could take me down with them. It was a strange time for me.
“After a while, the local sheriff heard about the girl they were taking care of in the church. He put two and two together and came knocking on the door for me. I was barely alive, but he wanted to haul me away. The church women, they told him he wouldn’t lay a hand on me. That God had granted me Asylum and no earthly authority could trump that.
“A couple of weeks after that, the G men came. The Feds, they had less patience for quaint old church ladies than local lawmen ever had. They were ready to haul us all off, me dying of fever or not.
“I think it was good for them that I died about them. I’m thankful for it. After all they’d done for me, it would be wrong to have had them drug away and thrown in the slammer for having helped my sorry case. It wouldn’t have been any sort of justice I’m familiar with. The G men. They never knew anything about justice anyway. All they wanted was to get their arrests and prove their boss wasn’t a panty-wearing fairy. But that’s another story.”
She stopped there to pick up one of the loose .45 rounds. One of the ones that said, “.45 Browning” on the bottom.
“You know, you wouldn’t think such a little thing could do so much damage,” she said. “I suppose I should show you, so you know I’m telling the truth.”
Her dress button down the front. She undid two and pulled open the white fabric. I could see two of the scares. They were like starbursts of torn white skin. Albino fireworks. Poisoned flowers on a pale plain, blossoming pain and bad memories. She buttoned her shirt back up.
“I lived here in this church for too long now. Unnaturally long. It’s my gift from God that he’s protected me here, but also my penance,” the woman told me. “Understand my friend, I can’t leave here. It’s my life support you might say. And it’s also my prison. Those demons I saw while I had my fever, the visions of Henry and Percy, the G Men waiting for me out in the dusty street, surrounded by black visages of the evil hoards… They’re still out there. I belong in hell, and they’re waiting to take me there.”
She had been looking down, talking to the table and fiddling with the .45 Browning round. Now she looked up and into my eyes. The blue sparkled.
“They’re coming for you now too,” she said.
It’s true.
By now the DNA tests had come back from the lab with a 99.9% match. South Dakota State Patrol produced records of a ticket issued to Anthony Jorgenson for driving an unregistered red Ford Ranger pick-up truck. Holding that citation next to the one Sheriff Marty wrote up for a strung out girl named Sheena… well, that DNA matched up too.
He wanted to take me down quiet. No flashing lights. No fighting. No guns or tasers. Maybe, if I behaved, maybe not even cuffs. He figured we could do this civilly.
Sheriff Marty always liked things to be civil.
He parked the squad car across the street. He got out and limbered over to Zion Lutheran Church. He took each step with grace, even though they made his knees pop. He wasn’t as young as he used to be.
He knocked on the door and waited.
“Our Lord entrusted me with the physical protection of this house…” she told me. “… until another came. I don’t know why he chose me. I don’t know why he chose this church. But he has, and now he’s chosen you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“This maybe true,” she said. “But it wasn’t me that brought you here out of darkness. It wasn’t me who protects you from those wishing to bring you harm. Sheena, I can’t save you.”
I heard knocking. Knuckles on thick oak. Somehow I knew the knocks were for me. Somehow I knew everything this woman was telling me was true.
The old woman opened the door for Sheriff Marty, but not all the way. Just wide enough for them to talk.
“Angela,” Marty said.
“Sheriff,” she said. Usually she called him Marty, but she knew what the score was.
“I’m looking for a young lady by the name of Sheena,” he said. “She’s been here for a NA meeting, and I think a couple of other times too. She’s a tall brunette with a bad dye job. Pretty face but tired eyes. You’d know her if you seen her.”
“Sheriff, we both know that I know who you’re talking about. But I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she said.
“Is she here?” he asked.
“She’s in the basement,” the old organist said.
“Angela, I have a warrant for her arrest. Seems she was involved in a shooting over in Oakes.”
Angela shook her head, telling him no, it didn’t matter, she couldn’t help him.
“Angela, this is a matter of the law. A man is dead. She’s driving his truck. Her DNA matches that found at the scene of the crime.”
Still, shaking her head, not meeting his eyes.
“Angela, we’re talking about a man’s life here. Murder, Angela. Murder. Now, you know I can bring other agencies here, and they will be much less polite. They’ll knock the door in and won’t bother to wipe their feet on the rug.”
“Marty…” she said.
“One call and I can have them here,” he told her.
“Marty,” she said again. “You call whoever you feel you need too. But she’s been granted Asylum. I can’t bring her out and I’m afraid I can’t let you in.”
Marty went to say something and then lost his thought. He tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came. So he just stood there defiant. Then finally, “How do you know? How do you know she deserves Asylum? In this church of all places?”
“Marty, this isn’t something I decide. It’s not up to me,” she said. “And don’t tell me you haven’t seen it too. This girl you’ve found, she shimmers.”
“The others will come for you as well. Just as they did for me,” the woman said. She picked up the forty five. Her forty five. She dropped the magazine and then slide back the top, popping a round out of the top as she did. Her gun, it was unloaded now. She set it on the table. “You can use it if you have to.”
“Why?” I asked her. She got up and started for the door. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
She smiled, a genuine smile this time.
“Not sure. But I hope it’s up.”
“I can’t be what you’re asking me to be,” I called after her. “I’m no champion of the church or of anything else. I’m a sleaze, a slut, a junkie…”
“And don’t forget murderer my dear,” she said. “We’re not that different you and I… when you think about it.”
“You can’t do this to me,” I told her. “You can’t tell these lies and then leave me here. Who are you? Who are you really?”
She took in a breath. “I’ve been a patient servant for a long long race now, and I’m tired. My time has come now. Please don’t make me run any longer.”
“You’re leaving me here?”
“Be glad your time is short. This church will be gone soon. Once the earthly symbols of Christ are removed, your tormentors will come for you. I would stay and fight by your side, but it is not my fate.”
“But what the hell am I supposed to do?”
She paused before opening the door and leaving for good. “Everyone finds there own way. Mine started with a prayer. Try that.”
“Fuck you!” I yelled, but she was already moving through the door.
I grabbed my .45 and put the magazine back in. Then I slide the top back like she did. A round popped out the top and told me it was loaded. Then I did the same the .45 she’d left behind. Then I headed out the door after.
I shoved the door open. She wasn’t in the hallway. I ran down the hall and into the big room where all the tables and chairs were the night before. Nothing. Another one of her disappearing acts.
But the room was dark. I first guessed the movers cut the power. Then I walked over to the window I’d slipped into… last night? Two nights ago? Seemed like a millennia. I looked out the window and saw starts. The sky was that deep purplish, blackish blue it turns just before dawn. Morning wasn’t far away. That woman had kept me in that room all day and through the night. It didn’t seem that long, but somehow time slipped by. She’d made it slip by. Somehow, she made time slip while we were in that room.
Who was she really? Was I really supposed to believe she was a hundred year old ghost, chosen by God to protect this old rickety church in the middle of nowhere? I didn’t make any sense.
I held on to both of the .45’s, each one glowing a little red again, and crept towards the stairs leading up to the church. She had to still be here. She just ditched me like she did the night before. Only this time I’d find her.
I let the glow of the guns lead me. Up the stairs. Down the hallway with all the classrooms and offices. Everything was gutted. I turned into the main foyer. Nothing. No girl. No bulletin boards. No coat racks. No flyers. Nothing. This place was a shell. The big main sanctuary was next.
I pushed open one of the double doors with the barrel of a .45 and stepped inside. This place had been gutted two. The song books and Bible were gone. The podium the pastor stands behind… gone. The communion plates and the flowers around the altar… gone. The altar itself was still there, but it had been stripped of all the linen and lace that had covered it before. The candelabras had been cleared out too. The one red candle was still mounted to the wall near the altar, and still burned. That big wooded cross was still bolted to the front wall. The benches were still there, and the stained glass windows with all their obscure symbolism were still up too. Nothing else though. No white robed girl for sure.
I went close to one of the stained glass windows. This was the one of Adam and Eve running away from the snake. I looked around the sanctuary one more time, checking for the woman, and then crouched close to one of the panes of glass so I could see through. The pane was green and it gave everything outside an unearthly quality, like I was looking through a portal to the moon. There wasn’t much to see outside. I could see some bushes just outside the window. The road past that, and a couple houses across the street.
Then the shadows began to dance. The came crawling out of the dark and into the street. Moving with purpose towards the church. Then human shapes can from the darkness between those quaint little houses. Glowing red even through the green tint of the glass, they came. I recognized Tony first, his brain still blown out the top of his head like a firework. He came lumbering out like a George Romero zombie. The black wisps of hell accompanying him. I pulled myself away from the glass.
…Tony…
Tony from Oakes.
Tony who pulled me out of the ditch and got me a fix…
I was still on his couch. I was tripping out, fucked up, still laying on his couch.
That’s what’s going on here. That was the only thing that made sense. This whole thing is a bad trip. There was something funny in the blow Tony had cut for me. Three days on the road, strung out on meth and coming down, crashing into a cow pasture and then waking up to a weak fix cut with baking soda or something worse… that will do this to a girl. That will fuck with your head. I tried to imagine myself still there in that little trailer in Oakes. Naked. Passed out. My own piss soaked into the couch. My driver’s license and a few lines of the mystery mix still on the coffee table…
But I opened my eyes and I was still in the church.
“Fuck,” I said to no one.
I looked back through the window, this time through an orange pane. The bushes, the street, the houses were all still there. I didn’t see Tony or the demons… and then one rose up, inches away from the glass. Its black soot body floated upwards, following the nap of the building.
I back pedaled again, crashing into one of the benches, falling on my ass. I dropped one of the .45’s and it clattered against the tile floor. The walls echoed. I scrambled for the gun, found it underneath one of the benches, and then turned both on the stained glass window. I could see more of the demons, even through the Garden of Eden mosaic.
I fired alternating blasts from the two .45’s. I punched out five or six of the oddly shaped little panes before I gathered together enough sense to stop. Nothing moved. But I didn’t believe for a second that I managed to make the least bit of difference to what was out there. The guns were glowing red again, and stranger yet, there were almost laser-like red contrails were the bullets had sped through the air. As seconds past, the contrails dissolved and dissipated, more like smoke than light.
I picked myself up and went through what was left of the bullet trails. The air around my body pushed them away, like floating bugs in the water. I came up to the window and looked through one of the missing pieces of glass. I caught a glance of the demons, those moving dark.
They’d retreated, but not far. Even as I watched they seemed to regather and turn back for the church. They lurched in the shadows between houses and under cars and trees, probing the dim early morning light, feeling out when and where they’d find their best approach. I didn’t see Tony. Tony was gone.
For now.
Then, with no warning, the singing started out again.
Lord, let thy servant depart in peace…
It was like the volume was on full-blast. The whole church was filled with voices…
According to thy word,
For my eyes have see the glory that those has prepared before
The face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles
And the Glory of your people
Is-rael.
Then a pastor’s voice boomed from the front of the church, even though no pastor was there.
“Let us pray unto God our Father.”
Then, the whole congregation… or perhaps all the congregation that have come and gone over the years… a multitude of voices speaking in unison responded.
Jesus Christ is the light of the world
The light no darkness can overcome
Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening,
And the day is almost over.
Let your light scatter the darkness
And illumine Your Church
.
It was too much. The shadows and the voices. The red bullet contrails. The ghost woman… I had to get out of there.
I ran for the back of the church and shoved open the glass double doors. Four quick steps through the foyer and I was at the thick oak doors leading to the street. I threw open the double doors.
There had to be millions of them.
The black creatures.
Gangsters, G Men and sheriffs.
Tony, with his blown out brains.
Old friends from California who’d overdosed or died of disease.
Hundreds of unrecognizable dead, maundering and gathering in the street.
Millions of the black swirling demons swam through the mass, all claws and teeth with burning candle-wick eyes.
And there in the middle of them all was Sheldon, still alive from what I could tell. He was oblivious to the army around him. He thought he was alone out there. He strolled towards the church steps, casually. You know, like he was just coming by for a visit. He limped though. As he came closer I saw his face was bruised and swollen. He’d wrapped duct tape around his one hand as a bandage. He held out his arms. In his unwrapped hand, he held a steel crowbar.
“Miss me angel-child?” he asked.
He didn’t know it, but I could barely hear him over the hissing swarm of death around him.
“We were so rudely interrupted last time,” he laughed. This was all a joke to him. “You ran off so fast, I never got a chance to say goodbye!”
I looked down at the two .45’s still in my hands.
“There’s so much left unsaid my love,” Sheldon called to me. Then he was suddenly full of anger. “And you owe me for that gnome!”
Then Tony called out, “Time to get even with the house.”
“Time to pay your dues,” a G Man said.
“Time for your fix,” a long dead friend.
The demons hissed.
“You betrayed me!” Sheldon yelled. “I was going to bring you in! I was going to give you shelter from the storm! I was going to give you everything you needed…”
As Sheldon reached the first step I stepped back myself. Just one foot. Just to brace myself. Then I raised up the two .45’s.
My first two shots went right through Sheldon’s head. It popped like a water balloon. His body slacked and fell. But I didn’t stop shooting. I blasted away at the humans first. The bullets drew lines of red mist to the bodies of ghosts and demons. The rounds seemed to impact against the ghosts and knocked the back. The zipped through the demons, but not without effect. Maybe the bullets wouldn’t kill them, but it made them scream. They screeched, louder and higher than I thought possible. A few of them charged. I turned my guns on them and hit them. They screeched too and flew back for the shrinking cover of the shadows.
I didn’t stop firing until the street was empty.
Red contrails lingered in the morning air, almost like fog coming off a lake. I could see the demons still waiting in whatever darkness they could find. The ghosts were nowhere to be seen.
Sheldon’s dead body was sprawled out at the bottom of the church steps. His brain was linking blood and mess down the sidewalk towards the curb.
The dawn was breaking.
I had held them back… for now.
That’s when I came back down here. Into this little room where Your church’s protector had lived for so long. I figured I should find more bullets and reload the guns, but when I dropped out the magazines they were still full to top. I tried cramming a few of the loose “.45 Browning” rounds end, but there was no room. They were topped off.
The construction crew is here now. They’ve already taken down the cross from the front of the sanctuary. And the stained glass windows. The bells will come next and then the cross from the top of the steeple.
Once those are gone…
Then demons… those ghosts… they only stopped because I was inside of this church. Once it’s not a church anymore… once it’s just a building…
They’ll come back.
So I’m praying to you God. I told you my story. I know I’m no saint. No deserving soul. I’m a weak disgusting person. I’ve failed so much… I can’t accomplish any of this by myself. But here I am, Sheena, your angel-child earthbound champion. I’ll stand and fight. And I don’t ask for any paradise… Just grant me this earthly asylum. Let me shimmer.
In your name I pray, Amen.
I think I did that right. Guess I’ll find out soon enough. Here they come.
This is a story of a guy named Marty. Sheriff Mary. Well, Sheriff Martin Kahlberg really. He was the Sheriff on this small town, Ellendale, North Dakota. Most nights he sat in his squad car at the intersection of 1st and Main at the one stop sign on your way through town and waited for people to blow through. He loved writing people from out of town up for failing to yield and for doing 60 mph in a 45 mph zone. I think he lived to do that, but not really. I think he cared about the town and he cared about the people’s safety. Above all, Sheriff Marty was the kind of guy who did the right thing even when nobody wanted him to.
You can respect a guy like that.
Or hate him.
It’s like this one night he told me about. He was parked in the Cenex parking lot, there at 1st and Main, waiting for travelers of the night to blast through town doing Mach 2. The Twins had a night game out on the west coast, so even through it was late he could still listen to the game on the radio. They were playing in Anaheim and they were down by two runs to the Angels. But it was the top of the seventh and the Twinkies had some big bats coming up.
He had his lights off and his window down so he could spit sunflower seeds out while listening to the game. It was a quiet night and he was enjoying himself.
Then, of course, his two way police radio crackled to life. The Dispatch Officer said, “Sheriff, this is Dispatch. Come in, over.”
“God damn it, which drunk is picking a fight now?” he said to himself and then answered, “This is Sheriff Kahlberg.”
“Hey Sheriff, we got a complaint from Ethanol Acres,” Dispatch said.
“What now?”
“Cats.”
“I’m sorry. Cats?”
“Roger that, Sheriff. From your favorite person in the whole wide world.”
“Sheldon Persing is complaining about cats?” Sheriff Marty asked.
“I couldn’t make this stuff up Sheriff,” Dispatch said. “Do you have the address?”
“Oh, I have the address alright,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
“Ten four Sheriff. Dispatch out.”
So Sheriff Marty, Sheriff Kahlberg I mean, hung the police radio mike back on its clip, turned on his headlights, spat what sunflower seeds he had in his mouth out on to the pavement and put the patrol car in gear. He pulled out on to 1st street and hearing that the Angels had put away the Twinkies big bats three outs in a row, turned off the game.
Ethanol Acres was a trailer park just on the outside of town. Its real name was Edgewater Acres, being that a narrow stream ran behind the park. But, being that the place was a dump half full of 70’s and 60’s era trailers in various stages of disrepair, and being that the park also sat adjacent to the local ethanol plant that reeked like a paper mill the locals usually referred to it as “Ethanol Acres,” instead.
The owner and landlord of Ethanol Acres was Sheldon Persing, and all I need to say about him right now is that Sheriff Marty was pretty sure he was cooking meth somewhere in the park. Not in the trailer he lived in, but in one of them.
Sheriff Marty pulled up to Sheldon’s trailer, turned off his engine and walked up the steps to the door. Sheldon’s trailer was the nicest one in the park. It was a double wide with a large deck off the back. Everything was in good condition and looking sharp because everything was new. The only eye soar was a full cigarette butt can by the front door and a lawn that hadn’t been touched by a mower all summer. The same was true or the rest of the park too. Sheldon was responsible for the grounds keeping, but apparently he didn’t care too much about that. The truth was that Ethanol Acres attracted the kind of clientele that weren’t all that concerned with appearances.
And yet, Sheldon always managed to pull of his own style…
When Sheriff Marty knocked on door that night Sheldon answered wearing a sleeveless belly shirt, softball pants and one golf shoe. The other foot was bare. His navel, exposed below the bottom of the belly shirt, was hairy and full of lint. The belly shirt used to be one of those heat-reactive shirts from the late 80’s. Sheldon was missing one of his big front teeth. The rest were rotting and turning black. He was unshaven and the hair on top of his head was a wild rat’s nest. His eyes darted all around in their sockets. They could never keep still, even when he tried to focus on something.
And there was Sheriff Marty, trapped between this stinking disgusting mess of Sheldon and the stink of old socks pouring from the ethanol plant and screen door Marty held open with the back of his shoe. He tried to play it cool.
“Good evening Mister Persing,” Marty said. “Hear you’re having some problems with the local wildlife.”
“Yeah,” Sheldon smiled, exposing the rotting maw that was his mouth. “Wildlife. Wild… wild… wild… I tried getting ‘em, Sheriff, with my shoe!” Then he stopped down with his golf shoe, bamb, bamb, bamb, three times. Each time he did, the little spikes left holes in the pile of shag carpet on the trailer floor.
“May I come in?” Sheriff Marty said. He didn’t want to go into that trailer. He didn’t want to sit on Sheldon’s furniture, and if Sheldon had offered him a beverage he would have strictly refused. Sheriff Marty wanted in that trailer to look for traces of meth, or at least enough cooking materials to get a warrant from the county judge.
“They’re all over the place, Sheriff. Wild! Running around all night, crying at the moon,” Sheldon went on, oblivious to Marty’s request.
“Okay. Okay. Now hold on just a cool minute there Mr. Persing,” Sheriff Marty said. “Now-“
“Wild Sheriff. Wild! You gotta understand, Sheriff. They’re crying inside my fucking brains!”
“Now, first things first,” Marty said a bit louder, asserting him more than before.
“Right! First things first. First things first,” Sheldon said like it was a new idea.
“Right. First things first, and the first thing is for us to file a report so we can document this and get to the source of the problem.”
Sheldon stopped his yammering. The last line may have put up a red flag… being that the real source of the problem was most likely wearing a belly shirt and one golf shoe.
“Can I come inside?” Sheriff Marty asked.
“Inside?” Sheldon said.
“Right. So we can fill out a report and see what we can’t do about these cats of yours,” Marty said.
Sheldon cracked a smile as if he just remembered the game they were playing: the game where he pretends to be a law abiding citizen and Sheriff Marty pretends he’s here to help with some problem regarding cats. “Yeah. Of course. Come right in Sheriff and we’ll fill out that report.”
Sheriff Marty tried to ignore the larger mess that was Sheldon’s trailer. He tried not to focus on the giant barbeque sauce stain on the carpet, the cigarette butts lying everywhere, the dirty laundry, the dirty dishes lined with dried up ketchup and cigarette ash, the thousands of Post-it notes stuck to every smooth surface covered in erratic scribbles of pen or pencil, the random CDs and DVDs too scratched to ever play in any machine ever again, the empty bottles of Frebreeze and beer, the crumpled up cigarette boxes, the wadded up receipts from a thousand impulse purchases and whatever else. He tried to ignore all that and look for other things hidden amongst the debris: red tinted coffee filters, antifreeze containers, drain cleaner, duct tape, Coleman propane bottles, ether, paint thinner, “Heet” gasoline additive… that sort of stuff. You know, all the stuff you need to cook meth. His eyes searched for all those things the Drug Taskforce guys told him to look for, to document, to report to the judge so he’d be granted a search warrant. His eyes searched for those things, but what he saw was barbeque stains, cigarette butts, dirty laundry and dried ketchup.
These two men, these two polar opposites pretending to be casual equals, moved around the clutter to the dinning room table. Once there, Sheldon quickly shoved some dishes and tabs of paper over to clear a spot for Marty’s clipboard. He plucked off a half dozen Post-its and then pulled out the chair to offer Marty a seat. Marty sat down while Sheldon moved around more clutter to the opposite side of the table. He sat down, knitted his fingers together and fixed his ever-jittering eyes on Sheriff Marty.
Marty, cool as a cucumber, was flipping through some pages in his clipboard. He came upon one sheet he liked and brought it to the top. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked it to life.
“Now,” he said, still not meeting Sheldon’s intense shaking eyes. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Cats, Sheriff. Cats,” Sheldon said.
“Cats?”
“Wild cats, Sheriff. I tried chasing them and stomping them and… and…” Sheldon pulled his wringing hands apart and then clapped him back together. “Catching them… but… but… they’re wild!”
“Now, who’s cats are we talking about Mr. Persing? Are these your cats?” Sheriff Marty finally raised his eyes to look into Sheldon’s.
“No Sheriff. They’re wild,” he said, almost pleaded.
“You mean, they’re strays?”
“Yeah. Strays. Born in the wild. Never belonged to nobody.”
Sheriff Marty had been jotting in his clipboard. Now, he stopped and shut the metal cover to the clipboard. “Now, god damn it, Sheldon. I’ve told you about keeping those strays under control. You let them run wild and make kittens so the kittens can have kittens and those kittens can have kittens and pretty soon the whole damn town will be crawling with the things. Then they’ll be on the roads and the highway, and then I’ll have nice old ladies swerving all over the god damn place trying not to kill the poor things, crashing into street lights, crashing into cars, crashing into each other. All because of your cats.”
Sheldon was lost for worlds. His hands had stopped wringing into themselves. Even his eyes seemed to steady for a moment. “You ain’t gonna arrest me are you Sheriff?”
… if only he could…
So this is a story about a guy named Marty. Sheriff Marty. But it really starts with him and his bag of cats cruising through the night in his patrol car. This is the part of his story where he does the right thing, even when nobody wants him too.
He drove out to the state line. He rolled to a stop just past the little green sign reading, “South Dakota: Legendary,” and put the cruiser into Park. He left the headlights on to light up the roadside in front of him. He stepped out and went around to the trunk. There, he stopped before opening the trunk. He tilted back his Stetson Sheriff hat and looked up into the sky.
I haven’t told you about the Dakotas yet, about the endless fields that went for miles and miles, about the table-flat landscape, about the constant blowing wind that came even at night, about how big and empty it all seemed… At night, like that night, there were no lights to take away from the glow of the stars. You could see every one. And there’s so many. You forget, living in the city or even suburbia. All the lights from cars and houses and streetlights drowned them out. But they’re still up there. And that night, like so many other nights in the Dakotas, nothing was there to hide them. Even the shyest dwarfs millions of millions of miles away were there to shine.
Sheriff Marty wasn’t thinking about stars though. They had been there for him his whole life. Sheriff Marty was thinking about what was in his trunk. He popped it and looked down inside. An old army olive drab laundry bag was resting there in the center of the trunk. It shuffled and moved. And it mewed in a dozen tiny voices.
When Sheldon said “cats,” he meant “kittens.”
Sheriff Marty had pulled close to a dozen out from underneath Sheldon’s trailer. There were probably more, but these were all he could get. He would have liked to cite Sheldon and force him to take care of the damn things himself, but Marty knew that Sheldon had never taken care of anything. They would be out running around through town, carrying diseases, causing accidents, making more kittens, and eventually dying in much more inhumane ways than if Sheriff Marty were just to take care of them himself. So he picked up the olive drab sack and lifted it out of the trunk. Then, he reached in a found a claw hammer he kept back there with some other tools. He carried the sack and the hammer around the side of the car to the ditch bathed in the light of the high beams. There, he set down the bag of kittens.
Still holding the hammer in his one hand, he exhaled and shook his head.
He didn’t want to do this. He just knew he had to.
So he got down on one knee and started smacked the bag with the hammer. He started swinging and didn’t stop until after a good six or seven smacks. The bag was moving and fighting more than ever. The mews had turned into screeching cries. Marty wiped the sweat away from his forehead and tried not to cry himself. He tried not to think about what was in the bag. He tried not to think about the litter of kittens that had grown up in his dad’s barn when he was a kid. He tried not to think about feeding the runt with a baby bottle. He tried to remind himself that sometimes you have to do things you don’t like doing. It was hard for him.
He brought the hammer back down. Then again, and again, and again. Another half dozen and then a dozen times. He was angry at that piece of shit Sheldon for putting him in this situation. He was angry at every lazy irresponsible idiot that made him do these hard difficult things. He hated them and he was angry and right now the only thing he could divert his anger into was that bag of kittens.
Still, they didn’t stop that screeching cry. The truth was, this wasn’t working. In order to do it right he would have to take each one out of the bag and smack them in the brain, and he just didn’t have the heart to do that. He didn’t have the heart to reach in and see how he had mangled these poor creatures. He just couldn’t do it.
So he threw the hammer out into the ditch and went back to the driver’s seat. He put the cruiser in Reverse so he could see the olive drab sack, and then put it in Drive. He slammed on the gas and steered the left front tire right over the bag. The tires thumped twice. He stopped and put it in Reverse. He backed up and the tires went thump once more. Then he made a three point turn, aiming the cruiser back into North Dakota. He stepped on the gas and left the bag of what used to be kittens behind. If he would have looked in the rearview mirror he would have noticed that his trunk was still open. But he didn’t. He was afraid he’d see through his watering eyes and notice that the bag was still moving.
So, really, this is a story about a girl named Sheena… or Shine, or Star Diamond or Betty Bounce or DP Dorothy or a hundred other names. But really, her name was Sheena. She used to be a porn star out in Hollywood under all the hills and lights and stars. And while she was there, while she was doing her thing, she thought it was the exact right place and the exact right thing she wanted to be doing.
But after a while she started feeling different.
The stars faded under all the lights. The lights burned her eyes. The hills lost all of their mystery.
So she decided to go back home.
It’s a longer story than just that, but I’ll get to the rest later.
For now, we’ll skip to the part where she wrecks her piece of shit Plymouth Sundance along the highway on her way back to Ellendale. Some 1,800 miles ago, she left LA on I-15 and drove for 3 days straight on one hell of a meth high. And while she was cooking hot on crystal meth things were good. She was feeling fine and the miles were ticking by. She was in her zone. Then she hit South Dakota and ran out of crank and ran out of good luck. Coming up into North Dakota on I-29, she dozed off and veered right into a No Passing Zone sign.
She was down in a deep place in her sub-subconscious. The Sundance crossed the centerline. The wheels reverberated off the sleep strip. It meandered to the opposite shoulder, and the sleep strips there didn’t wake her up either. The Sundance went down the embankment and plowed into the No Passing Zone sign and that didn’t wake her up. The tires gouged up dirt and spread it over the windshield just before the front bumper smashed into an old railroad tie cattle fence. Her head hitting the windshield finally woke her up.
When she did come to, the windshield was spider webbed and smeared with blood. The engine was racing; her foot was still on the gas, so after realizing this she pulled it off. The engine quieted and the wheels quit spinning through the dirt. She looked out through the sprayed cracks in the windshield and saw a big fat Holstein. The cow looked at her and she looked at it and they both wondered the same thing.
What the fuck just happened?
No answered came so they both decided the same thing.
Fuck it.
The girl went back to sleep. The cow went back to chewing the grass.
The next thing Sheena remembered was coming to on a old green threaded couch in a room she had never been in before. There was a dull orange light bulb glowing underneath a glass lamp shade. It was old and covered in dust, but to her eyes it was blindingly bright. It seemed to go right through her eyes and poison her brain. Her muscles ached. When she tried to move her joins it felt like she was full of pins and needles. Her mouth felt like a desert; her head, a swamp.
She moaned.
“Morning,” a voice said. It was a man’s voice. She went to lift her head but her neck and spine stung from her tailbone to the base of her skull. Luckily enough, the man seemed to notice her pain. He swatted down in from of her, so they were at eye level. “Name is Tony. Nice to meet you, Sheena.”
He was mid-twenties young and handsome in that roughed redneck sort of way. He had one of those baseball caps on with the fishhook clipped to the brim. The room she found herself in must have been his living room. It was older than he was and said “circa 1979” in the loudest of voices. The only thing new in the room was the electronics. He had a big TV, an X-box and all sorts of DVD players and surround sound components. There was a coffee table behind him that was littered with sports magazines and remotes. Something reeked like piss.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“Sheena? I found your driver’s license. That’s how you say it, right? She-nah?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Like that old Ramones song. Sheena is… a punk rocker. Shee-nah is… a punk rocker,” he half sang.
“Yeah. Sheena. My fucking head hurts really fucking bad,” she moaned.
“Yeah, you’re all kinds of fucked up. I found you on a Thursday morning smashed through a cattle fence…”
“Thursday morning…” she moaned. “What time is it now?”
“It’s Saturday,” he said.
“Oh,” she said and turned her head to the back of the couch so she wouldn’t have to look at the light.
“I towed you and your car back to my place, brought you in to rest on my couch three days ago and you haven’t moved since,” he said. “You pissed yourself a couple of times by the way.”
“Oh,” she moaned. That would explain the smell.
“I mean, I cleaned you up as best as I could, but… Well, let’s just say I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Thank you,” she said, her face still buried in the back of that old musty couch. “I mean, I appreciate it and everything. But my head really fucking hurts right now.”
He didn’t say anything for a little bit, and she wasn’t looking in his direction to see how he was reacting. Eventually, he said, “Sure. No problem. It’s like they say, what comes around goes around. Do good to others and they’ll do good to you. Do you need anything?”
“Some water maybe?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back,” he said and left.
Once he was out of the room she turned over, face up to look around and take inventory. The living room wasn’t big. It was furnished with the couch she was on, a recliner, the coffee table and the big TV and that was enough to make the place pretty cramped and her a little claustrophobic. The carpet was shag and the ceiling had water stains in the corner. But she wasn’t much concerned with the room. It was her own body that was drawing all of her attention.
She was covered under a thin blanket, but under that she was naked. The couch underneath her pelvis was damp from her own urine. Her legs were covered in stubble and she stunk. Every part of her ached and hurt, especially her head and her pussy.
She realized that, and then suddenly wondered if he had raped her. She had laid there for three days, completely naked and unconscious for probably most of it… He could have and she would have never known. She searched her memories for any hints of dreams of him on top of her but found nothing. The last few days were a blank slate. All she had were fuzzy clues and suggestions.
She had been in worse spots. The truth was, this wasn’t the first time she’d crashed for more than a couple of days and pissed herself. This was the indecency of addiction, not that she recognized it as that. To her, it was just another day in another room.
He came back with the glass of water. He sat on the coffee table and handed the glass to her. She kept the blanket tight around her chest and sat up slowly.
“Here you go,” he said. “Your clothes are in the other room. I threw them in the wash for you after the first time you… you know… went.”
She took the water and drank it down.
“Thanks,” she said again after she had finished off half the glass. “I mean it. For everything. The water’s is great, but really… you got anything a little stronger? A fix, I mean?”
He smiled in a way that told her he did. Like he knew she would ask. “Damn, you are pretty fucked up, huh?”
“I’m not going to fuck around man. I need a fix bad,” she said. “Can you hook a girl up or what?”
He pulled open a drawn in the middle of the coffee table. He took a baggie out and held it in front of her. There were a few good sized rocks of cocaine inside.
“Now, the water and the room and board are all free,” he said. “But you’re going to have to get me back for the coke.”
“Sure,” she said, having no attention or ability to pay him money. “Just cut me a couple lines already.”
He pulled her California driver’s license from her wallet and chopped the lines right there on the table. Then he found a dollar bill and rolled it tight. She forgot all about her nudity and sat up to suck down the lines. It wasn’t crank, but it would cut the edge. He had chopped four lines, and she took them all up through the dollar and up her nose.
“God damn, bitch,” he said. “Go easy.”
She looked up at him and laughed, a little bit of white still around her nostril. “Sorry. Told you I needed a fix.”
“No worries,” he said and looked her over. “I know you’re good for it.”
He took the dollar bill back and chopped himself a few more lines. She sat back against the couch and let the coke drip through her veins and into her brain. She started to feel better. Not good. Not good by a long shot. But better.
When he was done he tosses the dollar bill to the table, stood up and said, “I need a smoke. I’ll be outside.”
She waited till he was gone and then leaned forward to find the baggie of coke. It was gone. Her wallet was there, so she ruffled through it’s guts but found nothing. There was a little dust left where he’d chopped the lines, so she wet her finger, mopped it up and sucked her finger clean.
It was a rough life for a girl.
Sometime later she went outside and found him in the backyard smoking a cigarette as he sat on the tailgate of his truck looking off into the distance.
The house she came out of was a old country rambler set on a large plot. There was a dead fire pit not far from the truck, an old clothes line, a row of trees and an old school bus half consumed by weeds and bushes off in the distance. The row of trees seemed to be the property line. Beyond them was nothing but cornfields.
She walked through the long grass to the pickup truck and the man.
“Got one of those for me?” she asked, meaning the cigarette.
“Damn, you’re demanding,” he said, but pulled one from his pack anyway. He leaned over and handed her the smoke and his lighter.
“Thanks,” she said and lit up. “So, what’s your name?”
“Tony,” he told her again.
“Hi, Tony,” she said.
It was a warm summer evening outside. The sun had gone down and left the clouds a pink and orange wash of colors. There were a few mosquitoes out, but they weren’t bad. Then, he picked up a handgun.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“This?” he asked casually. “This is my baby, baby. It’s a Springfield 1911 .45.”
Whatever that meant.
“Cost me a cool grand and will take down a motherfucker with no questions asked, you know?” he said, and then played with it a bit. He pulled back the slide, checked the sights, flipped the safety on and off and all those other things boys do with their toys. Everything short of spinning it on his finger like a cowboy. “Nickel-plate finish, ivory grips, ambidextrous magazine release, palm safety, day-glow sites… See how the sites glow in the dark?”
She nodded.
“That’s tritium, bitch.”
Again, whatever that meant. She was too fucked in the head to pay much attention or care to what he was talking about.
“Is it loaded?” She asked.
He dropped the clip out and showed her the bullets sitting inside. “Would do me much good if it wasn’t.”
Then things got a little weird. Those bullets, before he loaded the clip back into the gun, those bullets started to glow red. I mean, not really, but to her eyes they seemed to put of there own hot light like the coils of an old stove, like a warning light say “Danger.” But the thing was, she had done quite a bit of acid when she was younger and even then, she’d have the occasionally hint of an acid flashback. Things would glow. Moving objects would leave contrails. Her vision would twist. Her spine would ache. So, she wrote off the red hot bullets as a side effect of years-old LSD condensating at the top of her skull and then dripping down onto her frontal lobe.
And right about then, a rocket took off into the sky from behind the row of trees. It shot straight up for the moon and then burst into a thousand flashes of blue and purple light. Then another came up, boomed and shot out sparks in a wild array, just like when her head hit the windshield.
“What fucking day is it?” the girl, Sheena, asked.
The guy, Tony, laughed. “Don’t you even know that? It’s the 4th of fucking July.”
The two of them sat there, him with his gun, her with her head, and watched fireworks shoot up over the tree line and burst into a vast spectrum of colors above them. Some twisted and corkscrewed skyward. Others exploded and sent bit of glowing magnesium and phosphorus outward as if they were bits of a space shuttle disaster. Some snuck up into the sky and puffs of smoke for just one quick flash, followed by a loud boom that seemed to shake the walls of chests. Others yet, burst into those sky-filling flowers of colors and light. They all dazzled her. She hadn’t seen fireworks in years.
“So when do you plan on getting even with the house?” the guy, Tony, said.
“Huh?” she replied.
“When are you gonna even up the tab?” he asked again.
She laughed. “You’ve been through my wallet. You know I don’t have no money.”
Then he laughed. “And you know I ain’t talking about money. Don’t pretend you don’t. I don’t pull fine-ass bitches like yourself out of their wrecked cars in the middle of nowhere to earn a fucking merit badge.” He wrapped his arm around the front of her, his empty hand grabbing her breast. “It’s time you give it up, baby.”
She sat shocked of a bit. More fireworks popped off in front of them. She ignored them now, and said, “Fuck you, you fucking dick.”
“Whatever, bitch,” he said. He pushed her down, her back against the bed of his truck. His hand slid her shirt up over her breast and started fondling and sucking on her tits. She started to shove his head away and kick with her legs but she was weak and not right in the head. He came up and slapped her hard across the face.
“Hey. Play nice. Maybe you can even enjoy this too,” he said.
He pulled his pants down, and then pulled her’s off. Then he was back on top of her, holding her down against the rusted metal bed. The next things she knew, he was inside of her, ramming his dick into her dry pussy, ripping her apart from the inside out. All she could see was this asshole’s neck and fireworks shooting off in the sky above her.
That girl… Sheena… Shine, Star Diamond, Anal Annie, Candy Cums-a-lot and all those other screen names, …that girl on her back in the bed of a pickup in the middle of nowhere, strung out on meth and acid, getting raped on the 4th of July… that girl was me.
It was a rough life for a girl.
Maybe your thinking, so what? I’m a porn star and I’ve thrown my shit around all over Hollywood like it was candy at a parade. What’s one more dick thrown in the mix? Well, I didn’t want this dick. I wanted all those others. All the other nasty, sick, twisted shit I’d done… I wanted to all of it. I was in my zone and doing my thing. But I didn’t want this. And it hurt really fucking bad too.
At first I had tried to push him off of me, but my muscles were too weak and my mind too worthless. All I was able to offer was, what we called in the business, “playful resistance.” So, I guess I decided to give up and ride it out. He couldn’t last much longer, right? My hands dropped back to the bed of the truck, and went out trying to find something to hold on, something to squeeze to block out the pain, something to give me some other textile sensation other than that of being rapped.
My right hand found something cool and smooth, something nickel-plated with ivory grips, something with a trigger.
Above us, the fireworks were blowing off faster, louder and bigger. He was moaning louder and pumping faster, locked into a rhythm that told me he was coming up to it… the Grand Finale. I had just enough strength to lift up that big heavy gun and put the barrel to his head. I don’t think he noticed because he didn’t stop.
I pulled the trigger and blew his brains out and up into the sky with all the big pretty fireworks. For the tiniest split second it was like he was still alive. His brains and skull were airborne, sprayed out in a fan above us. They glowed red. Then, he slumped over, dead, on top of me. He landed on me like a wet bag of shit, all loose unmanageable weight. I felt his dick go soft and plop out of me. I tried rolling him off of me but he was too heavy. His brains, blood and skull dripped into my hair. I started freaking out, just then realizing what had happened and what I’d done.
I started screaming and kicking. I shook my head, trying to avoid the dripping guts of his head. I squirmed and eventually worked my way out from underneath the late great Tony. I feel off of the end of the pick up and into the grass with the gun still in my hand. The fireworks finished their finale and left the night sky with a dozen thinning clouds of invisible smoke. Somewhere, people were cheering, rolling up their blankets, and starting to walk back to their cars.
I found my pants and underwear. I got into the drivers seat of the truck, threw the gun and my clothes into the seat next to me, and found the keys dangling from the ignition. I started it up and put it in drive. Somewhere between the backyard and the driveway I hit a bump. Tony fell out of the back. I took a left and started driving for god-knows-where. I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was free.
So I drove. I drove like I was being chased, like something was after me and if I stopped, slowed down or even paused to check my back it would be on top of me, raping and tearing me apart again. In my fucked up burnt out head, black swirls of smoke coursed along the highway, chasing me or maybe just corralling me out away from Oakes and towards my destination. These Black Demons would sometimes take on vague shapes: thin black arms with clawed fingers, a neck-less pointed head of smoke with burning coal eyes… crazy, I thought then… old acid trips coming back to haunt me.
I drove as fast as the pickup would go. It was a late 90’s model Ford with loud pipes and naked-lady mudflats. The seats were ripped, the bed was rusted, and there were about fifty dried up pine-tree air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. The little cardboard trees swayed and bounced as I raced down the narrow country highway. The pavement was cracked and scattered with potholes. Every ten to twenty miles the road would make a wide shallow curve and turn 90 degrees. I had to slow down so I wouldn’t roll the truck, but not much. On those turns, the little pine trees would dangle to the outside of the curve, pulled by invisible gravity.
It didn’t take long for the cocaine high to wear thin. My heart rate slowed down, my blood pressure dropped. Despite what just happened to me, and what I just happened to Tony, I was getting drowsy, weak, thin in the mind. I was coming down and coming down hard.
I don’t remember the last leg of my trip. It turned fuzzy and then black. I’m sure I slowed down, meandered from one side of the highway to the other, steered into the ditch just to be pulled semi-conscious by the bumps to correct myself. Shit. For all I know, I could have plowed into another field of cows, drove through the pasture for a half mile until I came back out on another road. I don’t remember much of anything after leaving Oakes, just driving fast, and those swirls of pursuing smoke following me along.
Some people might say that, really, this is a story of a church. A church that I had yet to lay eyes on. Really, I knew nothing about it. Didn’t even know it existed. Maybe I should have. I grew up in Ellendale and Ellendale has always been a tiny, drop-in-the-bucket sized town. I mean, if their was a building in Ellendale I had probably been by it a hundred times.
But that was when I was a kid, millennia ago, it seemed. Maybe I had seen the church before, but I couldn’t tell you what it looked like. Hell, right then, I couldn’t tell you what road I was on, what town I was in or what my name really was. I was unconscious when I landed in Ellendale. I couldn’t have told you anything.
But for whatever reason, I could hear the church. The pastor up front. The congregation below.
The pastor, in his white robe and green sashes, raised his arms, palms up to heaven. He spoke and the congregation, all the people sitting in the rows, sang in response.
“Open thou my lips,” he said.
And my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
“Make haste, oh God, to deliver me.”
Make haste to help me, oh Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Ho-ly Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. A-men.
Halle-lue-ia.
Sheriff Marty stopped his car a good distance away. He parked diagonally across Main Street with his lights on so traffic would stop. He radioed up to dispatch, hung the mic back on its spot and then got out.
After all these years… he thought to himself. After all these years, I thought I’d seen it all. All these years and these people still find a way to surprise me. Where do these folks come from anyway? I swear, they must fall right down from outer space… or California at any rate.
There was a girl, half in and half out of an old late 90’s model Ford pickup with her face planted into the pavement right there in the middle of Main Street. The truck was still running. The driver’s door was wide open, and out of it had spilled this girl. Her cheek was smeared and stretch against the pavement, and her lips kissed the dirt and loose pebbles there. She had a loose shirt on, but no pants. Her ass was hanging out, halfway between her face planted on the street and her feet twisted up in the peddles. It smiled up at the sky, there for everyone to see. She was out, so unconscious it looked like it hurt.
There were a few people stopped in their cars, and the closest had the desire to get out, stand up, crane their necks and get a closer look.
“Stay in your cars, people,” Sheriff Marty waved to them.
He hurried to a trot. He had a thought in his mind that perhaps she wasn’t just unconscious. Perhaps she was dead.
He got to the girl and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Ma’am,” he called her. Probably the most inappropriate term for a strung-out ex-porn star dangling half naked out of a stolen pickup, but whatever. “Ma’am, are you okay.”
And Sheena moaned. I don’t remember any of this. Other people had to fill me in later.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Marty felt my pulse and noted that it was strong enough to keep me alive. I was breathing fine and wasn’t bleeding any significant amounts of blood from anywhere. He cracked a smile. The situation was funny again, rather than possibly tragic. Well, maybe it was tragic, but isn’t humor how we react to small doses of other people’s tragedy?
“Alright, alright,” he said. Now he was pulling the rest of me out of the truck and laid me on the pavement. “Rise and shine. You picked the wrong place to take a nap there missy. Hey. Hey. Wake up, now.”
I wasn’t coming to. Not for him, not for anybody.
Sheriff Marty looked around a saw Rick Jorgensen sitting in his Tahoe. “Hey, Rick!”
“Yeah, Sheriff?”
“Say, you got a blanket or a jacket there with you? Something to cover up this girl’s shame?” he called across the gap between pavement between them.
“Sure thing,” this Rick character said. “Give me a minute.”
Marty took the time to look in the truck and find my pants and underwear. He thought of dressing me right there, like I was big unconscious baby doll but decided against it. He’d wait for the blanket. In the mean time, he found my wallet and then my driver’s license.
“Hot damn,” he laughed to himself. “She is from California!”
They covered me, picked me up, and moved me to the back of Sheriff Marty’s cruiser. The pickup was towed to the fenced-in lot behind the station. They brought me into the drunk tank and put me down on the plastic bed.
“Thanks, Rick,” Sheriff Marty said. “She’s not but a hundred pounds of skin and bones. All the same, I’m not sure I could’ve lifted her down here without your extra hands. Hope I didn’t take up too much time out of your day.”
“Nah. I was just on my way to Pamida, picking up some groceries. Nothing so important I couldn’t stop and help a friends.”
“Well, I sure do appreciate it,” Sheriff Marty said. And then, “And by God, does she stink! Smells like she’s been sleeping in a litter box for the past few days!”
“Yep. You sure know how to pick ‘em,” Rick said.
“’Know how to pick ‘em!’ Why I aught to throw you in one of these cells right along with her! Now, get out of here, you ol’ cuss,” they joked and laughed. It was just another day for a pair of friends.
I never met Rick. Don’t know if I would have wanted to.
So, like I said. I didn’t remember any of that. I was filled in later. From the time I went under somewhere between Oakes and Ellendale to the time I finally woke up, all I really remember is hearing the sounds, singing and music of that church. Weird that I would hear it down there, in that cell, crashed out with my mind rotting from the inside out. Weird. But all the same, I heard it.
“O come, let us worship the Lord,” the pastor called out to his congregation.
For he is our Maker.
“O come, let us unto the Lord,” he called out again.
And then they began singing, in that far away church which I had never laid eyes on. Somehow it came down through the ground, through the cinderblock walls, through my skull and into my head. It sounded so strange, almost like a chant from a far off foreign country, but also as familiar. Familiar, but strange, like re-visiting your old childhood bedroom. The voices held out the notes till they neared the end of the line and then rose or fell in unison.
Let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
And make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods.
In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The strength of the hills is His also
The sea is His, and He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
Oh, come let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker
For He is our God
And we are the people of His pasture
And the sheep of His hand.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
And to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning, is now,
And ever shall be; world without end. Amen.
And then I woke up. My eyes popped open. I looked for the source of the singing, maybe a radio or an open window, but didn’t find either. So strange…
What I did find was a jail cell.
It was small but clean and well lit. The six by eight foot walls were made of freshly painted cinder block. The tile floor was clean and dry. The door was solid metal, with only a narrow glass and wire mess window to look through. There wasn’t a doorknob on my side. In the corner was a stainless steel toilet and sink. The mirror above the sink was polished metal instead of glass. Above me, a bright light sat behind a plastic and wire mess sheet. The bed was a metal frame with a thin plastic mat under me for a mattress. The pillow was plastic too. There was no radio, no open window, and now that I was awake, no church singing/chatting strange but familiar tunes.
I didn’t know where I was, didn’t know how I got there, didn’t know why I was locked up. My head spun from getting up too fast.
I dropped my head down, and that was when I noticed that I wasn’t wearing my own clothes. My feet were in rubber flip flops and white socks. I had gray sweatpants on and a white t-shirt. A gray sweatshirt matching the sweatpants sat on the floor next to my bed, neatly folded. I had no idea where my clothes were. It didn’t take long to realize that they weren’t in this room.
I got up, went to the door and looked out the narrow window.
“Hello?” I called out. All I could see through the wire mess was the opposite wall of a hallway. More cinderblocks with a fresh coat of beige paint. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”
I listened and waited for someone to answer me.
Nothing.
“Hello?” I called again.
This time, there was some noise down the hall: a rattle of keys, the clink of a coffee mug, the shuffle of keys on tile. I tiled to look to the right or the left through the window, but it was too narrow and too thick to see anything but more wall. But I could hear footsteps coming. I backed away from the window, but just a foot.
I man came and stood before the window. He was middle-aged, maybe forty or forty five, and heavy set. He wore a tan sheriff uniform with no tie. He was bald everywhere but the sides of his head. His face was guarded, not looking mean or angry, but not looking exactly happy either. It was that professional cop/poker face.
He looked in and saw a young woman who looked very dogged and tired. Her eyes, my eyes, were sunk in and dark below her eyelids. Her hair was a rat’s nest and hung dead around her face. She had no bra, so she hung loose under the white t-shirt. The gray sweatpants and the view of her through the prison cell window made her look like the poster girl for “What-not-to-do-children.” Still, he saw something in her, he always tried to, that told him that at one point in time she had been a good person, a law abiding citizen, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter.
“Evening,” he said to me.
“Where’s my clothes?” I asked.
He nodded his head, telling me he had expected a less than cordial greeting. “We have them for you, washed folded and secured for you.”
“I want ‘em back,” I said.
He nodded again.
“And I want out of here,” I said.
“Well, now, that’s something we’re going to have to talk about,” he said. “Now, if I open this door are you going to try anything smart?”
At first, I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to give him anything. All I wanted was my clothes, my freedom and my next fix. Was that really that much to ask for? I felt I deserved it.
“Ma’am. If you want those things we’re going to have to talk a bit. Now, if you can promise to me that you won’t attack me or try to run off somewhere when I open this door, well then, I’ll come in there and we can sit and talk.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked off, leaving me standing there starring at the blank wall opposite my cell.
“Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!” I called out from him. Something about being stuck there with no explanation got me freaked out. “Come back!... please?”
A few seconds passed by and then his face once again appeared through my window.
“Can we talk then?”
I nodded my head.
“Are you going to hold a civil tongue?” meaning I wouldn’t swear at him.
I nodded again.
“And if I open this door, you’ll stay right here in this cell and not attack me?” he said.
“Okay. Promise,” I said.
He rattled his keys, turned the lock and then opened the door.
“Mind if I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, thinking it was a weird thing for him to ask that, being that this was his jail cell, his jail and his building. Whatever.
He came in and sat on the lid of the stainless steel toilet. I sat on the bed. He sighed and got comfortable. Then he stuck out his hand for a hand shake.
“My name is Sheriff Marty Kahlberg of the Todd County Sheriff’s Department,” he said as I hesitantly took his extended hand. I didn’t want to shake hands with this redneck pig, but if I hadn’t, I don’t think he would have ever put his hand down. “And who might you be?”
“Sheena,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you Sheena. Do you have a last name?”
“Rosemark,” I told him.
“Sheena Rosemark,” he said. “Mind if I-“
I interrupted him. “Where am I?”
He paused before answering, deciding whether or not he was going to object to the interruption. Then, he spoke up. “You’re in Ellendale, North Dakota in the Sheriff Station holding cell. I brought you here, because I found you sprawled out, unconscious, and indecent, on our Main Street.” He took a breath. “Now, I could tell by looking at you, that you had been coming down off some serious narcotics. But, I had one of our paramedics check you out, and she said that you’d be okay, as long as you were able to sleep it off.
“That’s who got you into those clothes you’re wearing: Jody, one of the EMS medics we work with. Just so as you know, it wasn’t me undressing and re-dressing you.”
“Oh,” I said.
“We have your clothes, cleaned and stored safe for you.”
“What day is it?” I asked.
“’What day is it?’ It’s still Sunday, honey,” he checked his watch. “Coming up on eight o’ clock now.”
“Oh,” I said again. I thought he’d start talking again, but he didn’t so I asked, “So, can I go then?”
“Hmm. About that,” he said. “Now, you should know, that if I so choose to do so, I could charge you with several severe violations and keep you here till you saw a judge.”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t do shit.”
“Watch the civil tongue, young lady,” he cut me off. “Now, the way I found you, I wouldn’t have any problem writing you up for driving under the influence, plus driving uninsured and unregistered. That’s not to mention the indecent exposure…”
“You can’t seriously-“
“And, possession of a controlled substance,” he said.
I shut up.
He voice became less authoritative and quieter. “I found a zip-lock bag in your pants pocket with a quarter ounce of methamphetamines inside. Now, in this county, possession of methamphetamines holds a severe penalty of no less than six months in confinement or a $20,000 fine. Can be both. Can be a lot more. You should know, I’ve put away people for up to five years in this county, just for possessing this stuff. We’ve had problems with it in the past, and we don’t take kindly to it here in Todd County.”
He didn’t say anything after that. He just locked eyes with me, trying to force me to take all that in. I’d spent a few days in lock up before, but never anything like six months. I wasn’t that I was afraid of doing six months. It was just that I really really really didn’t want to. He took a breath.
“Now, lucky for you, I can tell the difference between an out-and-out criminal and someone who’s come across some problems in her life.”
Out-and-out criminal. Those words stuck in my head, and then I remembered Tony in Oakes. The fireworks, the truck, the gun… his head blowing out the top of his skull. And that was when I realized, Oh shit. I’m a murderer.
He didn’t know. He was talking about the meth residue I had in my pocket like it was the crime of the century. He had no idea that he should be arresting me right then and there for Murder 1.
“I talked with Judge Morris, and we came up with a solution, if you’ll agree to it,” Sheriff Marty was saying. He pulled out a slip of paper. It was some kind of form with all sorts of blocks and columns and signature lines. Two signatures were already on it. “You can read it if you want-“
I couldn’t read it. My heart was thumping in my chest. I was strained to keep a straight face. I pretended to be mildly interested in what he was showing me, but all I could think about was being busted for murder. I knew he didn’t know. I knew if he had any evidence or idea that I had killed that motherfucker in Oakes he sure as shit wouldn’t be handing me this piece of paper. I couldn’t read it, but I did manage to scan it over and make sure it wasn’t some kind of confession he was trying to slip me. It wasn’t.
“-but all its says is this:” he was still talking. I was barely listening. “If you agree to attend a local NA program, and if the gentleman there who runs the place tells me you’re progressing through the program, we can pretend none of this ever happened.”
I caught that last part. He was letting me off. All I had to do was sign this paper and go to some bullshit meetings and he’d let me walk.
“Now, I’ll tell you right now. It’s not an easy program. You’re going to have to put forth real effort. You’re-“
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Oh?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ll do it. Where do I sign?”
He took his time, but then pointed with his finger. “Right there. Block number forty.”
I signed, and an hour later I had my clothes back and I was walking out of the front door of the Todd County Sheriff Station.
The Todd County Sheriff’s Station was an uncelebrated modern building. The back parking lot and the fenced off section that was the impound lot were well lit with streetlights. It must have been late, because it was dark out when I walked out the door and the lamps were blazing and buzzing away. Sheriff Marty had to walk with me to unlock the gate so I could get to the pick up. The unregistered pick up. Hopefully, that meant Tony never turned in the title and no one, I mean, no one, FBI, CIA, Interpol, no body, knew he had ever owed the vehicle. That was the only reason I was walked out that place and climbing back into a truck I stole from the scene of a murder.
He unlocked the gate and swung it open. I took the keys out of the big Ziploc bag that he had put all of my personnel effects in. I got in, started it up and was about to roll through the gate when he came up to my window. He put his forearm on the open window ledge and leaned in.
I swore inside my head. My hands were starting to shake a little bit. The dull aching headache I had since I woke up was starting to become something more. Whatever he had to say, I hoped it wouldn’t take long.
“Now, I want to make sure you understand what you need to do to avoid coming back and spending more time in one of our cells here,” he said.
Okay. He had my attention.
“First off, you need to get this truck registered here in the next thirty days. Licensing in here at the Government center, just down the hall as you come in the front doors there. Second, you need to attend those NA meetings I set you up with. I already talked with Paul, the gentleman who runs the meetings down there at Zion Lutheran and he’s expecting you. Now, me and Paul know each other pretty well and he won’t think twice about picking up a phone and letting me know that you didn’t show up. So make it to the meetings. And that’s it. I’m turning a blind eye to those other things because right now I think you need some help more than you need to sit in a jail cell. Don’t prove me wrong now.”
“I won’t,” I said, honestly believing that I wouldn’t. Nevermind the shakes and the aches. I could ignore them long enough to convince myself and him that I could quit. I didn’t think I could quit meth and go straight at the drop of a hat, and I didn’t really have any intentions to either. I just felt like I didn’t want to disappoint this man. He was treating me so nice, when he could have locked me up for life.
He nodded his head, as if to say that he wasn’t sure if he believed me, but he was happy with my response, for now.
“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. He was just standing there outside my window, leaning on the door so I couldn’t leave.
He looked off across the impound lot, thinking about something.
“You know, quitting an addiction is never easy, and what you’re on, that one’s a real bitch. I’ve never had it, but I’ve seen what it can do. I’ve seen good people, good people go down some dark roads because of that stuff. I don’t like seeing that, and I don’t want to see it happen to a young girl like yourself,” he said and looked me in the eyes when he said it.
“The other day, a fellow had to call me out to his place because he’d let the cats go feral in his trailer court. Feral, meaning, wild, no owners, out and about doing whatever it is they feel, you understand. Well, the man called me up because he’d found a couple litters of kitchens under his place and couldn’t stand the crying anymore. Now, what was I to do? A dozen or so kittens, no owners, no momma, no home for these to go to. What was I to do?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I don’t know what I was supposed to do, but I’ll tell you what I did do. And then maybe, you can tell me if I did right.
“I gathered up those kittens in an old laundry bag I had, and I brought them out into the country side, and I killed them with a hammer I had in my trunk. And I left them out there, figuring the coyotes and crows will clean up the mess faster than any road crew.” He paused. “I didn’t enjoy doing that. I don’t like hurting things just for the fun of it. That’s not the kind of man that I am. I usually like all sorts of animals, whether it be dogs or cats or horses and cows. But, if I didn’t do that, those kittens would have died from starvation, from disease, from being run over, and in the process they would have spread more disease, caused more hunger and maybe even a couple car accidents.”
“Now, you might think I’m a brute now, but what I’m trying to tell you is this. Some things look real nice and fun and pleasant when you first come up on them. They look like everything you want and nothing you want to do with out. But that ain’t always the case. It weren’t with those cats, and it sure as all hell ain’t the case with the meth amphetamines. Do you understand?”
“I do, Sheriff,” I said.
“Will you go to the meetings?”
“I will.”
“And listen to Paul. He’s a smart man and he’s good at what he does. There’s been plenty of folks who’ve had the same type of problems as you. Go to the meetings; listen to what there is to be said.”
“Okay,” I read his name off of his chest. “Thank you, Sheriff Kahlberg.”
“You can call me Marty,” he said. “You have a good night now.”
“Okay.” I smiled. Marty. I liked the sound of that. That sounded like a friend. “Bye Marty,” I said.
He stepped back and let me drive off.
Two blocks later I pulled behind a Burger King. Twenty seconds later, I was on my hands and knees, picking through the litter and the bits of garbage and gravel for the tiniest crystal of meth. The first thing I found was that .45 caliber hand gun I killed Tony with, right underneath the driver’s seat. Finding that meant that Sheriff Marty hadn’t searched the truck. And that meant there might be a stash of Tony’s cocaine tucked away somewhere, or even another baggie lined with meth residue that had maybe fallen out of my pants. I never knew I had the one baggie that he did find, so it wasn’t impossible that there was another baggie I didn’t know about that somehow made it into the truck.
Sheriff Marty had called me an addict, and he was right. I knew I was an addict, and when I was feeling straight that bothered me. But when I was coming down, all I could think about was getting back up. That was all that mattered in the world. It’s not that I didn’t have good intentions when I left the impound lot. It is just that I needed a fix, something to sooth the shakes, something to make me feel normal, something to make the pain just go away.
I pulled everything out of the cab. Old rags, old folded paper maps, sockets, screwdrivers, pine tree air fresheners that had fallen off the rearview mirror… everything under the seat, in the glove box, on the dash, in the ashtray… everything. I didn’t even make sense, I know. There was never any meth in those places, but I had to check anyway. I had to check, just in case. So, I picked through the little rocks all over the floor of the truck, taking the clear bits of salt or quartz and trying them in my mouth, hoping that just maybe it was a bit of crank. They weren’t. But that didn’t discourage me. I bet I picked up and tasted every tiny pit of sand in the whole truck. This took me awhile. I was very meticulous. I started piles of grains of sand that I had checked, like Horton searching for his Who in that clover patch. Then I’d bump a pile with my knee and have to check it all over again.
The Burger King was still open for the first few hours of me searching through the sand, but then they closed. That was nice. At least now I could search without the curious looks coming from the drive-thru. Not that any of them could have stopped me.
After hours of making all the dirt in the bottom of the truck into little conical ant hills, I remembered that Sheriff Marty said that he’d found the baggie in my pants pocket. I closed the door of the truck and pulled my pants off. I carefully turned the pockets inside out and watched for granules. There was some dirt and lint in the bottom of the pockets, and I put all of it in my mouth. Nothing. I spat it out and tried the next pocket. When all the pockets were empty, I sucked on the material, hoping that some of the meth had soaked in. All I tasted was material, but I kept sucking anyway.
That is when I realized that I had nothing. I didn’t have any money, or a job, or a place to stay, or a fix or even someone who could get me a fix. I thought about driving back to Tony’s place to find his stash of coke. But I knew I’d never be able to find the place again, and after looking at the truck’s gas gage, I knew I didn’t even have enough fuel to get there. The truck was sitting on E. All I had was the clothes I was wearing/sucking on, the truck and that gun sitting on the dash.
I broke down. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally. I cried like a baby. And I spent hours doing it.
I knew crying was getting me nowhere, but for that while, I just had to do it. Hours later, I managed to dry my face, put my pants back on and tuck the .45 back under the seat. It was getting light outside. Between piling up grains of sand and sucking on my pants pockets I had spent the whole night inside the pick up. I watched the Burger King employees show up one by one and open the place up. Then I watched the first customer pull around the drive through and leave with a cup of coffee.
The back of Burger King looked out over its dumpsters, my pick up truck, and then a huge corn field. This was at the edge of town, and there was nothing beyond town but corn. Beyond the corn, the sun started to rise. I sat there, drained of energy and emotion, and watched the eastern sky turn a light blue, and then a soft orange, and then a rich vibrant red just before the sun came up over the horizon. It was beautiful and quiet, and the only reason I ever noticed it was because I lacked the ability not to. If I had had my way, I’m sure I would have been rolling through another day, soaring on meth and not having a thought or a care in the world. I would have been happy. Instead, I was stuck there in a ransacked pick up truck, watching a sunrise.
I smelled the Burger King fryers fire up. I could smell the grease cooking all those sausage patties and soaking in all through croissants and biscuits. I was hungry.
And I was broke.
I watched a few more early risers come around the drive-thru. They ordered by the big sign, drove up to the next window to pay, and then turn the corner to drive to the next window to pick up their order.
Whoever designed this place must have never been hungry. At least not as hungry as I was.
It didn’t take very long, waiting for the first female customer. I sat in the pick up truck with the engine on, burning a portion of the fumes of fuel I had left. Then I spotted a tan Chevy Corsica sedan. I real low class “business professional” type car. I bet she thought she was pretty fucking important. I would have loved to see her face. She ordered from the big board and then pulled up to pay at the first window. As soon as she did that, I put the truck and gear and pulled into the drive-thru around the corner from the first window. I waited for her to show up in my rearview mirror, and then pulled up to the second window. The lady with the Burger King getup and the fancy little headset didn’t bat an eye. She dutifully read off what the lady behind me had ordered and handed it to me in a big sack along with a big cup of steaming joe. I told her thanks and took off. Thanks for breakfast Miss Chevy Corsica Business Professional.
I left the BK lot with one hand on the wheel and the other in the paper sack, feeling for what Miss Corsica bought me for breakfast. It was a Crossandwich with one of those oval grease-sponge hash browns. It wasn’t a lot, but it was delicious. The coffee was way too hot. I got impatient waiting for it to cool and threw it out the window on my way to the gas station. The Crossandwich and hash brown was down my throat by the time I pulled into the Cenex.
I pulled the truck around the back of the Cenex gas station, the same Cenex Sheriff Marty liked to steak-out speeders and listen to Twins games in. I parked next to the empty milk crates, pallets and dumpsters and killed the engine. I took some time to look in the rearview mirror and rake my hair straight with my fingers. I slapped my face and rubbed the crust out of my eyes. If someone looked at me close, like really close, really paid attention to details, they could tell that I hadn’t been sleeping well, that my skin was dying and my hair was falling out. But I wasn’t going for close details. My face had to be just passable enough. By body would make up for the rest. I whipped the white crud from the corners of my mouth and hopped out of the truck. Then I snatched the empty plastic two gallon gas can out of the bed and walked around to the front.
When I came around the front of the store, with the gas can in my hand, there was a man pumping unleaded into his old beater station wagon. He was a farmer, or something similar. He wore jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap with a broken bill down the center, like the peak of a roof.
“Um, excuse me,” I said as I came up to him. “Could you help me out? I ran out of gas down the road and I don’t have any cash. Could you fill this up for me?”
I held up the gas can and he looked right past it to my chest, never bothering to stop at my face. I had a way with men. And with some women. After all, you can’t make much money in pornography if you can’t direct a little attention to certain places.
“Sure,” he said. He cut the flow to his car and waited for me to unscrew the cap off of my can. When it was off, I held it at hip level and he put the nozzle into the gas can and started pumping. I coo’ed as it filled to the top. When it was full, he pulled the nozzle out.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
“No problem,” he said. “Said you were stuck down the road a bit?”
“It’s not far. I just needed a little gas to get me the rest of the way.”
“If you say so.”
“Yep. Thank you so much,” I said and left his standing there with his dripping nozzle.
I went around the back of the Cenex and dumped the can right into the Ford’s tank. I could have felt bad from scamming the guy, but I think we both enjoyed the innuendo too much to really call it a scam. After all, how many North Dakota farmers can say they stuck their hose in a porn star’s can?
After the farmer had left, I went around and found another man filling his tank. He filled mine. Then I filled the Ford’s. Then there was a woman, then another man. And then a young teenager. I think the teenager enjoyed the process the most. He offered to give me a ride to wherever I needed to go, and I’m sure, would have offered to fuck my brains out too. Cocky little prick. I think the woman was the only one who didn’t enjoy the encounter. She looked me over with disgust and silently judged me in her mind. It’s not that I think she didn’t find me attractive. It was just that she had no imagination.
Some homeless-looking guy had pulled this scam on me back in California. He was missing half his teeth and reeked like dog shit. I filled his can just because I figured it was the quickest way to get him to leave me the fuck along. Now that was theft. What I was doing was more like public service.
Then there was the guy with the old Jeep Cherokee.
He was older, maybe in his fifties or even sixties. I couldn’t tell. He seemed to look older than he really was though. I don’t know why I thought this. It was just something about the way he looked. He was skinny. His legs and arms were toothpicks. His back was slightly humped like an old man’s, but he wasn’t slow like someone getting ready to die. He still moved around as fast and nimble as most middle-aged men. His face was like an elephant’s. Too much skin over too like skull. He had huge wrinkles and lines. His face was tired, but not defeated.
I went up to him without thinking about any of this. To me, he was just another two gallons of gas.
“Hi. Uh, excuse me,” I said and finally got his attention. He was already filling up the Cherokee.
“Good morning,” he said. “Something I can help you with?”
“Yeah. I need some gas,” I told him. I held the can up, the nozzle off and the neck waiting for the nozzle. “My truck ran out of gas and I was hoping you could fill me up?”
And this guy, unlike all the others, didn’t focus on my breasts or my hips pressing into the gas can. I mean, he noticed them. He saw everything I was selling, but he didn’t get lost in it. His eyes said “Bullshit,” even if his mouth was silent.
“Ran out of gas, huh? Well that’s unfortunate. Where’s your truck now?” he said.
“Not far. If you could just pump a few gallons into my can, you know since you already have it going and all…” I was saying. “I don’t need a ride or anything. I like walking. It’s just that I’m out of money.”
“What? No cash? No ATM card? Credit card? Nothing?” he asked. It was like he was acting, like he knew the answers to his questions, but was playing along with me anyway. Or maybe that’s just out his look made me feel.
His eyes, they were an almost transparent blue, they were so light. They pierced. I heard people talk about so-and-so’s piercing blue eyes, but I never experienced it until just then.
“I have family in town. They’re going to help me get back on my feet,” I lied.
“Oh. I see,” he said, and then cut off the gas going to his station wagon and redirected it into my little gas can. Nothing was said while it filled up. When it was topped off and he cut off the gas, he looked at me again. “You sure that’s all you need?”
“Really, it is. And thank’s so much,” I said and turned to leave.
That was enough of that. I had close to a half tank by then and it was time to get out of there before the 16 year old gas station clerk called Sheriff Marty and reported my ass. After dumping the last two gallons in the tank, I jumped inside the Ford and left the Cenex. I didn’t know where I was going, but at least I had some gas to get there.
I didn’t leave California with much of a plan. It was more of a prison break that it was a planned move. I didn’t pack a U-Haul. I didn’t forward my mailing address. I didn’t call my friends to tell them goodbye. Not so much as a mapquest print-out.
I found myself, in what I considered to be, a moment of clarity. I found myself somewhere between a high and a crash. Not that I was clean. I just wasn’t. I wasn’t working. I wasn’t high. I wasn’t low. I had LA and Hollywood all around me, and I suddenly realize that none of it had any appeal anymore. The movies, the city, the weather, the drugs, all my cool hip new-age friends who thought they were so innovative and cutting-edge, none of it. It all looked so suddenly dry and boring. I knew I was in this moment of clarity, or at least I thought I was in a moment of clarity at that moment, and I felt I had to react. I suddenly felt as if I was sitting in a prison cell, and someone and forgot to lock my door. The door was open and I could escape.
I was always one of those people that believed that if you can do something, then you should do something, regardless of what that something is.
So I grabbed the things in my apartment that I thought I would need and that were within arm’s length and shoved them into my purse and I left. That was the extent of my planning. And so there I was. Deep in the heart of North Dakota with out a direction or plan, or even a mapquest print-out. I did have my bank card. I had already tapped it out and collected some “insufficient funds” ATM slips while in Wyoming, or somewhere. I tried it here in North Dakota and got the same results. That’s how I work, I guess.
I drove around town, burning up a quarter of a tank of gas I’d just spent an hour begging for. I didn’t know where I was going now anymore than when I left LA.
I drove through the short strip of what, I’m sure, the locals call “downtown.” The buildings were all two stores tall and brick. Turn of the century small-town American architecture. There was a bar, a American Legion, a Chinese buffet, a Laundromat, not much else. The biggest of the brick buildings, the one that was both the Legion and the buffet, read “First National Bank” near the top, spelled out in brick. “Downtown” consisted of about a block and a half. This must have been where I passed out.
I drove through the residential area, through all the little cute post-war Veteran Home Loan houses built when this town was still alive. They all seemed forgotten now. I could tell old ladies with a thing for lawn ornaments lived in some. Some had furniture on the porches and mowed lawns, but others just looked vacant. Too many had little signs stuck in the ground close to the sidewalk. They were reality signs from companies I’ve never heard of. Schmitz Reality. Good Home Real Estate. For sale by Owner. It was all the same. They were advertisements for a dying neighborhood inside a dying town. But the trees were big and old. They hung over the streets and the steep pitched roofs. There shadows swayed like a net over the street. They made me feel calm for a while.
I wasn’t born in Ellendale. I didn’t grow up here and the only time I think I’ve ever been hear before was when I was driving through. I don’t know if I can say I really have a home town. My parents divorced when I was young. I moved around a lot. Sometimes with mom. Sometimes with dad. Sometimes with my aunt. Then back with mom again. Always in a different little shit Dakota town. When I was with my aunt we lived in Aberdeen. That’s where I got into smoking weed and fucking boys. We drank and smoked and fucked down by Richmond Lake, soaking in the summer sun. I was with a guy named Derek then. We’d always hang out there, skipping school and just enjoying life. For awhile, I thought I loved him and he loved me too. I thought these were the best years of my life. Maybe I was right. Then we moved again. I was getting into too much trouble, and auntie sent me back to mommy. She was back in Fullerton, where we lived when I was just a few years old. Fullerton is a lot like Ellendale. Same kind of houses. Same kind of gas stations. Same sheriffs. I remember growing up in a house similar to the ones around me, playing with my toys in the yards, riding my big wheel down the sidewalks, too young to realize my dad was gone and my mom was an alcoholic. When I came back to Fullerton, after leaving Aberdeen, Fullerton was still Fullerton. It’s just that all the jobs had left town, the streets were a bit more broken and cracked, my mom was still an alcoholic and any friends I may have had when I was young were long gone, never to set eyes on this dried up dead end town ever again. I stayed with my mom there for about two months and did nothing but drink and smoke weed. She would yell and scream at me to get a job or to go to school or move out. So I moved out. All the way to California.
That was a long time ago.
Now here I was again, in a different town but the same town really, on the other side of my big adventure across American… no richer, no smarter, nothing gain, nothing learned… just older and more tired. All my efforts and dreams and work, the pain, the glory, the limelight, the shame… all of it came to nothing now. I sat in that stupid pick up, looking out at a house that could have been mine when I was five and the world was still good, and it stared back at me with the evidence and proof that everything I have ever down has come to nothing.
Nothing.
That’s what I had and that’s what I was.
Nothing.
I found a Pamida, mid-America’s discount super store, and parked in an empty space far away from the front doors. There weren’t many cars in the lot anyway. If I had to bet, I’d say that the whole place would be out of business in a year. I pulled out the slip of paper Sheriff Marty had handed me. It was my agreement to go to the NA meetings. It had an address of the church, and first date and time that I was to attend. I tried reading over all the lines, blocks and paragraphs like I was a lawyer, like I could find a loop hole somehow and get out of this whole embarrassing thing. But I was coming down hard. I hadn’t slept since I woke up in the prison cell and I was beginning to feel it. My muscles slacked. I eyes drooped. I read past the date and time and couldn’t get any further. Then I was asleep.
I heard the singing again, deep inside my head, but so light it felt like it had to be coming from outside the truck, through the thin summer air of the town.
Just like before, it was familiar but ungraspable. Did I know these songs from some service I’d come to and forgotten about? Had my aunt brought me? My mom? Did I wonder into a church back in LA, too stoned to realize where I was or what was going around me?
Why did these words seem so familiar?
My soul doth magnify the Lord
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God our Savior
For he hath regarded
The lowliness of his handmaiden
For behold from henceforth
All generations shall call me blessed
Fore he that is mighty had magnified me
And holy is his Name.
When I woke up, it was evening. A whole day had passed over my head and I barely noticed. I was still holding the slip of paper in my hands with the address, dates and times of my meeting. The singing voices were still in my head, and no matter how much I looked around, I couldn’t figure out where they came from.
So I went to church.
It was strange. I’d never been there. No one had ever given me directions. But for some reason, I knew right where it was. Maybe my mom did bring me there once and I remembered it from back when I was a kid. I don’t know. I just found it, was all.
The church was one of those small turn-of-the-century farm churches. Like something you’d see in one of those Little House of the Prairie re-runs, except it was surrounded by an old neighborhood, filled with small houses, potholed streets and huge overhanging oaks. The church was white with wood siding and stained glass windows along the sides. Up the uneven concrete steps, a steeple and a church bell rose straight above the thick oak doors. There was a place for the church bell, and then, above that was a plain, undecorated cross. Just past the sidewalk, surrounded by plants, was a little sign with the letters you and slide into place to make words. Behind the sheet of glass it read:
ZION LUTHERAN CHURCH
LCMS
8:00 AM 10:30 AM SUNDAYS
HE GIVES POWER TO THE WEAK. HE INCREASES THE STRENGTH OF H1M WHO HA5 NO MIGHT.
- I5AIAH 40:29
The church’s steps lead straight to the sidewalk that ran along the street. Across the street was a small city park, with one of those plastic habitrails for kids to play it, and a small parking lot. Hundreds of acorns crunched under the tires as I pulled in and backed the truck up into a slot. I killed the engine.
I closed my eyes and leaned back. Maybe I’d fall asleep again.
When I didn’t, I opened my eyes and took a good look at the church; really looked at it for the first time.
It shimmered.
At first I thought there were flood lights aimed up at it from the bushes, just like the side leading up to the steps and a flood light aimed up so people could read the letters. But there weren’t any flood lights aimed at the church. Then, I figured it had to be the white paint job, maybe catching the fading sunlight. But the light seemed to move, like moonlight reflected off the calm waves of a creek. It was so strange. A white glow seemed to come from nowhere.
…you know, maybe, this story is about a church…
I popped open truck’s glove box. There was a tiny little light bulb in there that usually shined a dull orange. I didn’t know if it was working or not, but the glove box glowed red. I pulled out the .45 and the red glow followed the gun into my hand. The waves of red coming off the gun looked like they should burn my hand, but the gun was just slightly warmer than I would have expected a normal gun to be.
Fucking weird. This didn’t seem like an acid trip. My forehead turned cold and started making these tiny droplets of sweat, a cold sweat.
In my right hand was the gun. My left hand was clenched on the steering wheel. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against my fist, against the wheel. That space, that little bit of enclosure that was between my head, my arms and my feet, felt very intimate and safe, like no one could hurt me as long as I was enclosed in it. I saw the red glow of the gun through my eyelids. I breathed deep, almost cried and then noticed that the glow behind my eyelids had faded and then disappeared.
I opened my eyes. I looked in my right hand, at the .45, and couldn’t see it in the darkness of the truck cab. I looked up at the church, the shinning edifice I’d seen before, now just looked like an ordinary small town church.
The light of the day was fading.
Someone opened the front door and came down the steps. It was an old man. He walked down the street and around the corner to a mini-van. I watched him get it, start it up, turn on the lights and drive away. There was still a light on inside the church, in a basement window. Someone was still inside.
Then things got really weird, only nothing glowed.
Things were weird in a different way, a way I’ve never experienced before. I mean, I’ve done acid and X and meth and sex and every other abnormality I could put in my body. I’ve experienced weird. The glowing church and the glowing gun were comfortable compared to this next weird.
I felt compelled.
I mean, I gathered this sense of direction and purpose, like I knew what I should do and where I should go for, really, the first time in my life. Always before, I’d do things out of anger or curiosity, or all out unabated angst. But this wasn’t like any of that. This felt right. It was like, I had strayed from my fated path for my entire life, and now finally I had stumbled back on to it.
I got out of the truck and walked across the street to the church.
It was mid-summer, but that night was cold. A wind blew down the street like a river through a ravine. It cut through my clothes and made me shiver. I came to the large wooden doors and knocked as loud as I could. They were probably unlocked, but it wouldn’t have felt right if I had just barged right in. I wrapped my arms around me to stop the shivering. That didn’t work. My teeth rattled against each other. Maybe I was nervous. I couldn’t tell.
The door opened, just a crack. An old woman in her 50’s or maybe 60’s poked her head out.
“Yes?” she asked me.
“Um. Hi.” I didn’t really know what to say. “I’m looking for a place to stay.”
“Looking for a place to stay?” the lady repeated.
“Yeah. See, I just came into town, and I just got out of jail and I don’t have a dollar to my name and I know that sounds bad but I was hoping…”
“You want to stay here?” she asked, not as an invitation. More as a check on my sanity.
“Well, I need help. I mean, this is a church, right? Aren’t you supposed to offer me asylum?” I said, thinking of those old western movies where the bandits hide out in the old Spanish missions.
“Asylum?” the old lady asked. Maybe she was hard of hearing and that was why she seemed to repeat everything I said.
“Well, I mean, yeah. Asylum.”
She shook her head and sort of laughed to herself. “I’m sorry honey. I can’t let you stay in this church. I’m going home, and no one else will be here.”
“I… I won’t steal anything. And I don’t need anything. I can take care of myself. I just need a place to rest for the night.”
“You don’t understand, dear. This is a very old church. And a very special church,” she said. It seemed she said it with some regret, like she would have genuinely liked to help me, but didn’t believe she could. “I don’t think you understand everything that you’re asking for.”
“No. I’m not asking for anything other than to stay her, in doors for one night,” I said.
It was too late. The woman had already made up her mind. She flicked a switch and the lights inside went off. She stepped through the door and began locking it behind her.
“I’m sorry. Maybe somewhere else. This is a special place of God, and I couldn’t let you stay here. Maybe…” she looked me over. “If you really need a place, maybe you could stay with me.”
I guess it was something in the way she looked me over. I could tell she didn’t trust me and wasn’t real comfortable with me being anywhere near her. She didn’t want me to stay at her place anymore than she wanted to let me stay in the church. I didn’t want that.
“No. No. That’s okay. I guess I can find somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry dear,” she said again.
“No. I understand,” I said and turned away. I walked back to the pick up feeling let down, lowered back to reality. They’d never let me stay in the church. Me? A drug-addict, raped, murdering worn out porn star? Never.
I got back in the truck and drove off, not bothering to say good bye to the old lady, or look over my shoulder to the church.
Things were quiet in Ellendale, a small town where nothing moved past nine o’ clock at night. Oakes, some thirty or so miles down the road in the next county, was usually the same. But tonight things were different.
The local police department, the county sheriff, the fire department and the paramedics had all gathered at a small rundown trailer on the outside of town, surrounded by nothing except the highway and cornfields. I knew the place well. The first responders there knew it only by its view from the road. They didn’t know the owner and occupant, and tonight they were only getting to know him by the contents of his wallet.
The mailman noticed a man laying in the front yard. At first, he assumed he had past out after a long night of drinking. Then the mailman noticed he didn’t have a head.
Now, the local cops had taped off the driveway. The EMTs had confirmed death and loaded the corpse into the truck. The local cops took pictures. The local sheriff scratched the hair he had left under his Smokey hat and said, “Well I never…”
Soon, they would be running the man’s drivers license, comparing dental records, digging through auto-insurance information. They didn’t know Anthony Tesdahl that night. But by morning they’d know everything that was ever written down about him.
In Ellendale, Sheriff Marty was away from his post at the intersection of 1st and Main. He was at his desk, filling out some forms and reports on his computer. His email was open, and it pinged as a new message came in. It was short and simple:
“Suspected Murder in Oakes County. No current suspects. More information to follow.”
“Oakes…” he said out loud, to himself, with no one else around. “God almighty, that’s right next door.”
All this going on… people moving, investigations beginning, reports being sent out across the state, a body being hauled off… and all I was doing was wondering aimlessly around a closed down town. Ellendale is like a ghost town after dark. There are lights behind doors and inside of bars, but if you’re a girl on the outside looking in, it all seems pretty cold.
Sometime shortly before midnight, I wondered into the Pamida. It was the only place still open other than the pay-at-the-pump gas station where Sheriff Marty liked to stake out speeders. I know it was before midnight because they locked up as soon as both hands touch the 12. I know it wasn’t much earlier than midnight, because as soon as I came through the door the kids running the registers gave me that don’t-you-know-we’re-about-to-close stink eye. They could kiss my ass. It’s not like there was any other place for me.
I went in thinking about finding a sleeping bag or something to make another night’s sleep in the truck a little more comfortable. That was before I walked past the pharmacy aisle and my mind switched to its getting-a-fix mode. Never mind that I was feeling somewhat okay before. As soon as the idea came in my head, I felt the lack of a high, the dry grinding condition of daily existence without a fix, the unbearable un-stoned-ness of going straight. It took me about a half second to decide that going straight was for the fucking birds. I wanted a fix.
That’s the thing about needing a fix. Once your mind gets on it, the idea of getting your brain back on course, the thought of feeling good again pushes out any other thoughts. I started going up and down the rows, going over all the different bottles and packages, trying to decipher what would most effectively kill the pain.
I found one of those little plastic shopping baskets at the end of a row. Then I started filling it with all the usual suspects: Nyquil, Dayquil, Sudafed, “Herbal” diet pills, NoDoz, whatever. My midnight snack was about to be four bottles of Skittles and a pint of poor mans’ speedball. It was a poor substitute for what I really wanted, but it would cut the edge.
That’s when I met Sheldon. He was wearing a brown leather vest over a purple tie-died long john shirt. His jeans were too loose. He kept tugging at them to keep them up while he was starring at me. His hair hung loose over his brow. His lips were dried and cracked. His eyes swam in their sockets. He was fixed on me, almost drooling.
“What?” I said.
“I know what you want in there,” he said and pointed to my basket of pills and syrups. “I know what you really want.”
I saw him starring and leering at me like a dead animal and he scared me. It was like the humanity had been sucked from his skull and all that was left was his desire to get, to take, to rape. I took a step back.
“I know what you want… and you know what I want!” he said that last part as if the realization had just come into his brain.
“I think you and me… I think maybe we can work something out,” he said.
I grabbed the bottle of Dayquil and pulled it back to throw it at his head, hoping they still made the bottles out of glass.
“Wait, wait, wait! You don’t understand,” he said. Then slower, “I have what you need… I can see it by your eyes; you’ve been strung out for awhile now, haven’t you? Somebody has been holding out on you… You’ve been left in the cold. Don’t you think it’s about time to come back into the warm? I have what you need.”
Then I looked at him and saw his glazed eyes, the rotten teeth, his boney frame. He had exactly what I needed. I lowered the bottle of Nyquil and he came closer. I didn’t want him to. I was still scared. But he came up on me and pressed me against the shelves of cough medicine. The product rattled. A few bottles fell to the floor. His face came close to mine. He reeked like decay. I could feel his stiff prick pressed against my belly. It must have been the first time he’d been able to get it up in weeks.
“You know what we can do for each other, don’t you?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Come to your demon, angel-child,” he said to me.
And the worst part about all of this? It wasn’t his looks or how he smelled. It wasn’t the looks of the other shoppers as they passed by. It wasn’t what I was willing to do to get the fix. It wasn’t his dirty fingers working down into my pants. It was that I wanted it. I wanted it all. The sex, the drugs, the shame, the abuse… I wanted it more than anyone could ever imagine.
He had my pants undone and halfway down my ass. His fingers were working their way inside of me. I dropped the basket full of pills and syrups and put my hands on his chest, wrapping them around his thin ribs under the dirty long john shirt. His mouth was near my neck and I could feel the air of dying climbing up to my nostrils. I moved my hand across the center of his chest and closed my eyes…
I saw an old army laundry bag with a faded “US” stamped on it. It sat on the lip of a county road. Things were moving around inside of it. Kittens were crying. Then a hammer came down and whacked the center of the mass. There was more crying; then another smack from the hammer. I could hear a man whimpering to himself as he did this. I could hear Sheriff Marty curse and then swing the hammer down again into the bag of feral cats. Parts of the laundry bag were now wet with black blood. The cries continued.
I opened my eyes and saw the long neon lights and the rafters of Pamida. The stink of shit and rot rose up from Sheldon like smelling salts. I looked at him and saw that his entire body was glowing red. I revoked and shoved him away from me. He back pedaled and crashed again shelves of shaving cream and razor blades.
“You bitch,” he said, confused at where he found himself.
I didn’t listen to him. I took off running.
I didn’t know where the front door was. I’d forgotten how I ever got in there. Now, I was just running, scared by the stink of him and by the vision of that bag on the side of the road. I ran through Housewares and knocked over a rack of maternity pants in Womens. I found a wide aisle, and down another hundred feet, an exit sign. I sprinted for the small door and hit it at full speed, triggering the fire alarm as I ran into the parking lot.
I exploded out of the emergency exit and kept running. Behind me, I heard the fire alarm wail, but just for the brief moment it took the door to close. Under me, my feet slapped and lifted off the pavement along the side of the store, the space only used by semis to get to the loading dock. In front of me was a shallow ditch and a wooden fence separating the Pamida parking lot from the rest of Ellendale.
I wasn’t thinking about any of this. More honestly, I wasn’t thinking at all. All I knew in my head was that I had to get away. I couldn’t stop or turn around. I just had to run.
My right foot found the supporting crossbeam half way up the fence. My hands found the top. A blink later, my left foot found the top too, and a blink after that I was in the air, falling down into the grass on the other side. I kept running.
Fireworks had gone off in my head when I hit the ground, as if some old acid had crusted off of my skull and now found some fresh neural uptakers. I was seeing flashes of color as I ran, through a vacant lot now, some reds and whites, like Sheldon or the church, but also sick greens blues and that purple that really isn’t purple, but that color you get when you mixed all the finger paints together in Kindergarden. I tried to ignore them as they superimposed themselves around the night lights of the small town.
I remembered and reminded myself that I’d done this before: sprint across streets, barely giving glances to check for cars, vaulting fences, cutting through backyards… Back in Aberdeen where I lived with my aunt as a teenager, there would be parties at some kid’s house, some kid whos fake ID got him a keg or two, or some kid ballsy enough to empty his parents liquor cabinet for them. We’d drink and smoke. Smoke and fuck. Fuck and drink. Then the cops would come. A few kids would try to hide the keg. The rest of us would run.
Or we would be down by the lake, swimming and skipping school. A squad car would roll by. And since we were all holding, we’d run then too.
Through the trees, over the fence, through neighbor’s yards, across streets, through parking lots… it was all the same. Couldn’t count how many times I’ve run like this. And here I was again. “See?” I asked myself. “This is no different than all those times in Aberdeen.”
Only this wasn’t Aberdeen. There were no cops after me. I wasn’t drunk or stoned. Nevermind how nearly everything seemed to be glowing red. Nevermind how the trees in backyards stretched their twig fingers down to tangle into my hair. Nevermind how the flickering light bulb on someone’s back porch was like a strobe light into my cerebellum. Nevermind that I was running from the devil I found in the Pamida pharmacy aisle.
I was curving threw a backyard, aiming to run around a house and cut across the street in front of it. Beyond that, I had no idea where I was going. It didn’t matter. I never made it there.
My toe caught the top brick of a backyard fire pit. The toe stuck and the rest of me came down on the stone bricks and burnt logs. I tumbled and knocked some of the bricks loose. My elbow slide across the grass till I stopped. My head hit the ground and bounced. And that was all it took. Bing. Boom. Blam. 4th of July fireworks. My brains went out of just like ‘ol Tony’s. The sky lit up nice and bright, and then everything went black.
When I woke up it was still night out. Dew had gathered on my back and I was cold. But the cold seemed to clear my head, soak down the acid fires and chase away the demons. I was cold, wet, hurt and confused, but I was me again.
I picked myself up, feeling aches in my knees, elbow and head as I did. I looked around. I saw the spilled bricks of the fire pit scattered by my feet. I saw the fly of my jeans was open and my underwear marked by Sheldon’s greasey finger prints. I saw the house I had all the intention in the world of curving around and never seeing again. But here were the bricks that tripped me up and the house that should have been history standing right in front of me.
“Fuck,” I said.
I didn’t even know where I was. What was I supposed to do now?
Of course, I did the only thing I could do. The only thing I had been doing for some time now. I buttoned my fly back up, pick a direction, and I wandered.
I made it around that damn house and to the street. I followed the residential back road til I’d gone half a block and found street signs at the intersection. 7th street and Dogwood. Pamida was on 1st and Birch, six streets up and three trees over. Guess I hadn’t gone that far after all.
By the time I came back to the Pamida, morning was on its way. The sun wasn’t up, but it was reflecting it’s orange glow on the horizon in an otherwise black-fading-to-blue sky. The parking lot was mostly empty. I could see the pick up along with a handful of others. I didn’t bother to look around any more than that. I saw that the pick up was still there and I headed that way. I was cold and I walked with my eyes on my feet.
I got in the truck and slammed the door behind me. The keys were still in my pocket. I dug them out and was about to start the truck and fire up the heater when I looked up.
Sheriff Marty’s squad car was right in front of me, parked so that his front bumper was right across the lane from the trucks’. His door open and he got out slowly, not to be dramatic, but because that was just how fast he moved. He sauntered across the lane, just giving quick glance either way. Shit. After all that running, all my neat little tricks and skills I’d polished to perfection back in Aberdeen, after all the fences and fire pits, here I was and here was Sheriff Marty. Well, he wasn’t who I was really running from anyway. He walked up to my window. I unrolled it for him.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You taking up walking? Or is your truck run out of gas?”
I gave a short laugh. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, it can’t be too long. It ain’t been but a day since we last saw each other.” He had a cheek full of sunflower seeds. It buldged out like a squirrels. Between sentences he lowered his head and discretely spit the shells on the ground.
I smiled. “It’s been a long day.”
“You find a place to stay yet?”
My mind went back to the church. “I think I found a place, but they haven’t let me in yet.”
“Good. That’s good. That you found a place I mean, not that you’ve been stuck out in this here truck,” he said. He paused and thought to himself. He spat some shells and chewed some seeds. Then, “So you don’t have any family?”
I answered by staying silent.
“Friends?”
None around here.
“Anybody?”
“I have an aunt who lives up in Aberdeen,” I said, feeling that I had to tell him something. “Who knows where my mom is. My dad…. Shit. It’s my aunt’s truck. She gave it to me.”
“Uh huh,” he said, not totally calling my bullshit, but not buying it either. “No family in the parts of Oakes then?”
“Oakes?” I asked.
“Yeah. Little town not too far from here. Reason I ask is, there seems to have been a murder down that way. I’d be a horrible thing to come to find out you had relations down that way, or were in any way associated with that mess down there.”
“…I’ve never been to Oakes,” I told him. “Not that I can remember.”
“No family or friends down that way?”
“No. Nobody.”
“Well, that’s all for the better then, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t paying attention anymore, didn’t catch whether I should answer yes or no. He was questioning me, interrogating me, feeling me out to see if I’d react to news about a murder in Oakes. So of course, I tried to react by not reacting. I gave him a “Yeah,” as it not yeah your right, but as is, yeah, that’s something else.
“Say, you seem to have something in your hair,” he said and then reached through the window and put his fingers through my hair.
I jumped, not sure what the hell he was doing. From anyone else, it would have seemed like a come-on. From him, I didn’t know what it was. I tried to restrain my confusion. I wanted to lash out and ask him what the hell he was doing. But I held myself still. He ran his fingers through my hair just once, and then pulled his arm back out the window.
“Just a blade of grass I guess,” he said. He took the hair he’d pulled from me and placed it inside a waiting zip-lock bag inside his pocket. He’d zip it later. The boys at the lab would have to separate his DNA from mine, but with the two or three hairs that followed his fingers back to his pocket, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Meanwhile, I waited for him to arrest me. My luck had ran out. He was going to slap the cuffs back on me right then and there. At least that’s what I thought. Instead, he rested his forearms on the ledge of my window and bent down so he could look in at me. Before he talked, he pinched some sunflower seed shells from his lips and dropped them outside the window.
“Remember that story I told you? Then one about those strays I told you about?” he asked.
How could I forget.
“I admit, it wasn’t a nice story. But I was thinking about it the other day, what it means to mean and what I learned from the experience. And I was thinking… maybe what I really learnt was this: I shouldn’t feel bad and I shouldn’t hesitate or regret when I had to do a bad thing like what I’d done to something that looks nice and cute and innocent on the outside. Now, I know I told you basically then same thing when I told you that story. I guess what I was thinking was that maybe the story applies to me as much as anyone else. Do you understand what I mean?”
He was asking me more than if I understood his story. He was asking me if I realized that he knew I’d blow that kid’s brains out, and that he was going to nail me to the wall for it.
“Yeah. I get it.”
He nodded. “Just something I was thinking about. Nothing you really have to worry about.” He slapped the inside of the door as it to adjourn our little meeting, like my door was a gavel. “When then, good luck getting into a place. And don’t be a stranger. He stood up and turned towards his squad car. “And good luck with your meeting tonight. I hope everything goes well.”
“Yeah. Me too,” I said. “See you around Sheriff Marty.”
He smiled at me like he was that friendly father-figure type again. “We’ll see ya kiddo.” He waved as he walked back to his car. Then he got behind the driver’s seat and drove off.
I sat there, behind the driver’s seat of my murdered rapist’s truck. I focused my eyes beyond the ceiling and tried to think of nothing. It didn’t work.
Things weren’t supposed to be like this. I know I said before that I had no plan when I left Hollywood and put the scene behind me. I had no intentions and no expectations. I thought I was down for anything, as long as it wasn’t what I had been doing. But I wasn’t prepared for this. I mean, hell, things were easier in California.
I started to think, what the hell was I doing here? Didn’t I leave this shit hole for a reason? Why in the fuck did I ever think that things would be different after I came back? After all, wasn’t my family and all these little shit po-dunk towns what drove me to fuck for money on film in the first place? And wasn’t I enjoying life and having fun while I was at it? And you know, while I was out there, while I was in front of the cameras, while I was high, while I was paid… it seemed like there was nothing better… nothing better than anything in the whole fucking universe. Sure, there were bad times, hard times, broke times… times when I was strung out and needing a fix… times when the fucking just felt like work… times when all I wanted was out… but not into this. Not with some fat-shit Andy Griffith looking to clean me up or throw me in prison. Damn it. Like I said, I never knew what the plan was coming back here, but I’m pretty sure a murder conviction wasn’t a part of it.
I thought about starting up the truck and leaving back for California just as abruptly and spontaneously as I had left. Hell, when I left the Dakotas the first time I had nothing. When I left California and made the trip the second time I had nothing, and I was pretty sure I could make the trip back with nothing too. Just put the truck in gear and head west. Steal some gas, steal some money, steal some drugs… I could be back in the scene as easy as that.
But the truth is, I was never one to go backwards. I’d been out there. I’d played that game. I’d written that chapter of my life and I wasn’t looking to try to re-write it. The truth was, as young as I was, I’d peaked. I’d topped out. I’d fucked as many, as hard, as long as I ever wanted. I’d been the highest I could get without dying. I’d taken everything the scene could give me and sucked it dry. There was nothing left there anymore. Not for me.
I didn’t know if there was anything left for me anywhere else, but it didn’t make sense to go back to a dry well. So what now?
I didn’t bother to answer. Maybe I didn’t have the luxury of answering. I just figured that I was in no position to make long term plans. What I needed now, was to make it through the day. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
I found the slip of paper Sheriff Marty had given me when I left lock up, the flyer for the AA meetings a the local church. The first meeting was tonight. I had to be there by seven, that is, if I wasn’t already back in a cell in county lock-up. What I needed was a short-term plan. Something to get me to the worrying I had to do tomorrow. I needed a safe place where I could sleep and eat, someplace where Sheriff Marty couldn’t pick me up and arrest me. I figured, maybe if Sheriff Marty saw I was going to the meetings he’d back off, maybe forget that I showed up in town in an unregistered truck the day after a murder in the next town over. Maybe he’d let me off.
Crazy thoughts, I know. But they were what were in my head.
A crazier thought…
I could find Sheldon. He’d fix me up. I’d let him fuck me. He’d let me sleep. Maybe even let me eat. It would get me through the day… maybe.
But then Sheriff Marty would have his reason to take me down, his reason to take down Sheldon too and take down his whole meth operation while he was at it. That crazy thought seemed to dead-end a little too quickly. Besides all that, I’d have to let Sheldon fuck me. That was enough deterrent on it’s own for now.
Still, I needed to know where he lived. I needed to know where I could get a fix, in case I really needed it, in case the tweaks got so bad I’d either find a fix or die, in case everything else failed. All I had to do was drive around and look. I could find it. I could feel where the cookers lived, where the dealers dealt, where the meth lived.
I found Ethanol Acres in less than an hour. Cheap housing, low property value, tucked out of site from the all the nice neighborhoods… it didn’t take a DEA investigator to find what I was looking for.
After the main drive, the road going around Ethanol Acres makes a rough square. At each corner, the road changed names, but just slightly. There was Edgewater Drive, Edgewater Court, Edgewater Terrace and Edgewater Lane all linked together in one big square with trailer homes on either side all the way around. The ethanol plant was about a hundred feet from Edgewater Terrace on the other side of the chain link fence. When the wind was blowing right, sock and stalled beer smelling clouds swung down and enveloped half of the trailer park. Most trailers have the old window AC units that sucked the stink right in through the unit and incensed the house with the smell of old soggy laundry. The trailers without the window ACs had no AC at all and left their windows open in hopes that a cool breeze would come through at least as often and the wafting gray sweat fog. I knew Sheldon lived somewhere in the trailer park. You’d have to be high to tolerate a place like this.
All that was left was to narrow down which trailer was his. It was almost as easy. I looked for the place with more money but no class. No signs or symptoms of the ability to earn money, just money. I found that in a little sized lot with a fancier double-wide home. The grass was overgrown. The garbage overflowed. There was a security system and a buzzer that would go off when the door opened. The trailer was new but a screen was ripped and dangled loose in the stinking breeze. I didn't see any of the obvious signs of a meth cooker: empty propane canisters, reddish brown coffee filters, windows covered in black garbage bags, weird stains above the dryer exhaust vent running up the siding... nothing like that. Still, I knew. He probably cooked somewhere else. I could have taken another lap around the Edgewaters and probably found that trailer too, but he lived here. I was sure on it.
I thought about knocking on the door or waiting in the truck till I saw him, just to be absolutely sure. Then I saw a scrawny starving cat, a tiny little thing, a kitten really. It scurried out from underneath the trailer’s large porch. It ran like lightening to the shadows of the neighbors’ trailer. When it got to that trailer it huddled low in the grass as if it expected to be attacked. One look and I knew this was no ones pet. It was wild. A stray. Feral.
It was Sheldon's cats in the story. He'd called Marty the night the Twins played the Angels and he was the one going crazy with the single golf shoe. They were his cats and Marty hadn't gotten them all.
I put the truck back in gear and left ethanol acres behind me.
My first AA session was that night. If asked if I wanted to go to the meeting I would have said not “No,” but “Fuck no.” I didn't want to sit around with these old sorry sacks of shit and hear about how the demon alcohol ruined there lives and took away their wives, kids, jobs and dignity. I didn't want to hear there stories. I didn't want to look into their defeated eyes. I wanted nothing to do with them and all their problems, and I had the feeling that they probably didn't want to have anything to do with mine.
Still, the meeting was at the church I saw glowing white the day before, and I wanted to go inside of there. I had to see what it was like inside. Was it a normal place like any other church? Was there something else going in inside? Why wouldn't the old woman let me stay? And what made the place so damn special anyway? Would a look around inside really be worth sitting through two hours of 12 stepping bullshit? I don't know, but it's not like I had anything else planned for the evening. My daily planner was wide open.
I opened the front door. It was like any other church really. There was a lobby or entry way or foyer... whatever. Then I could go in two directions. Straight ahead was the worship area where they held services on Sunday. I could see through glass double doors the sanctuary, the pew benches, the altar and above that a large unadorned wooden cross. The worship area was older than the rest of the building. The walls were all brick. The floor was cracked tiles. Everything else was made of a dark stained wood. The place was well worn in. All the benches and pulpits were smoothed with age finer than any sand paper could have ever managed. I could hear the Sunday hymns and the congregational chants almost as clearly as I had when I was in the county lock up.
Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distress,
Longing for rest everlasting.
There were no people there. The worship area was empty and the only lights were from a few burning candles. Still, I heard the hymn like it was a memory forcibly playing in my head. If it’d let it, or them, or whoever, another verse would have started, complete with pipe organ and voices. But I turned away and shut it out. I wasn't there for all that.
To the left was a newer addition to the building. This wing looked more like a school than a church. Low ceilings. Wide hallway. Doors along both walls. There were bulletin boards advertising garage sales and youth groups. There was a poster of cartoon fish all swimming one way. In the middle was one of those Jesus fish people put on there cars swimming the other way. The poster said, “Go against the flow.” I found a door labeled with a white sheet of printer paper reading, “Alcoholics Anonymous.” The lights were on behind the door and I could hear voices. I guess this was the place. I pushed in the door and stepped inside.
There were two long folding tables set end to end in the center of the room. Metal folding chairs were around it. The walls were decorated with smiling Jesuses and bible story cartoons. This was a Sunday school room. It was only set up for drunks this one night each week. There was a counter on one end of the room where someone had set up pitchers of coffee, Styrofoam cups and little plastic baskets of sugar, creamer and stir straws. There were five people there, and when I stepped inside, no one really took there eyes away from what they were doing to notice me. I learned their names a few minutes later.
Gene was in his late thirties and looked like he came from a long day at an office job. He had suit pants, a white button up shirt, but no tie. He must have left that in his car. He was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a napkin he was folding in his hands over and over again. First he folded it into squares, they triangles, then in tight rows almost like he was rolling a joint.
Carol was standing near the back wall, going through her purse she had hooked over her elbow. She kept digging things out of it, play with it for a bit and then put that back and dig out something else. It was her compact when I first came in. Now it was her cellphone. She was older than Gene, maybe 50 or even 60. Still, she looked able enough, fucking around with her cell, checking the voicemail or texting a friend.
Two others were standing near the counter and coffee set up. One had a cup. The other didn’t. The one without the cup was whispering something to the one with a cup. It must have been important, because I could tell he was all wound up and excitable. His whispers always threatened to burst into a full volume rant. The other guy, he just nodded and agreed. I don’t remember ether of their names.
The last one in the room was setting out copied papers and sharpened pencils at each seat around the table. Two sheets of paper. One pencil. Then he’d move onto the next seat. Two sheets of paper. One pencil. I didn’t catch his face at first, but when he turned the corner and began setting up papers and pencils on the far side of the table I recognized him instantly.
God damn it.
He was the guy from the gas station. The guy who saw through my bullshit scam. The guy with the saggy baggy elephant skin. And he was the leader guy of this whole deal. I could tell by how he set out the papers and pencils. I bet he brewed the coffee and lined up the little packets of sugar in the baskets too. This was all his show.
God damn it.
Eventually, I caught his eye. He came over and extended his hand.
"So you must be Sheena," he said.
We shook hands. I nodded.
"Marty said you might come by tonight. How's your truck? Manage to get it into town alright?" he asked. His voice was slow and steady, affected by age in tone but not in strength.
"Yeah. I got it here," I said.
"Well that's good then. And good that you made it here too. You can call me Paul."
We'd been shaking hands this whole time. I never wanted to touch him to begin with, and then once I had put my hand into his he held onto to it, demanding that I focus on him, that I listened to what he had to say, but also trying to comfort me at the same time. I know that was his intent, but that's not how I felt. All I could think was "God damn it, would you please let go of my fucking hand?"
"Well, come on in and have a seat. There's fresh coffee on the counter if you'd like. We'll get started in just a few minutes." Finally he let go of my hand and walked away.
The meeting started on time. They went around the table taking turns singing the standard tune: "Hello, my name is so-and-so and I'm an alcoholic." This is when I learned everybody's name. Gene, Carol, Paul... Those other two guys too, whatever their names were. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention. When it came to my turn I toed the line and said my part. "Hello. My name is Sheena. I'm an addict." I felt like that needed an explanation since everyone else, even Paul the leader guy, was an alcoholic. "I don't drink," I said. "I do drugs."
There was a delay in their "Hello Sheena'" response. I guess they were unsure about my introduction. Eventually it came. "Hello Sheena," they said, although some of them pronounced it Shawna, but whatever.
We were about to move on and start the meeting. Then one more alcoholic showed up.
He barged through the door like he knew he was late. He was a huge man, not fat and not a bodybuilder, but big like an overgrown corn-feed farm boy. He was older though, maybe 40, and not from a farm. He wore blue work pants and a matching blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up tight around his meaty forearms. His name was stitched into a little oval patch above his shirt pocket: Terry. He looked like the son of Charles Bronson and a ham hock. He had these protruding high cheekbones, a Neanderthal forehead and a big old Tom Selik mustache.
"Sorry I'm late," he said. "Had a big order come in. Had to work late slinging concrete."
The only chair left was next to me. When I sat down earlier everybody treated me like the plague. Now, this big fella had no choice. Not that he looked that discriminating. He didn't even notice me till after he sat down. He took a look around the table, greeting the people he'd known from previous meetings. He'd nod or say a name. "Gene. Paul..." then his eyes looked over and saw me. "Who's this?" he asked Paul, apparently not trusting me enough to give him an honest answer.
"This is Sheena. It's her first meeting tonight." Paul told him.
"Hi," I said. "I'm a drug addict."
"Oh. Right," the man said, just now remembering protocol. "My name is Hyster, and I'm an alcoholic."
“Hello Hyster,” everybody said expect me. I was too busy wondering what the hell kind of a name was Hyster.
Paul led the meeting. He said some things to get the meeting started off, and then gave everyone else who wanted to speak a chance to. But really, I wasn’t listening. I was still trying to figure out Hyster.
I couldn’t stop looking at his hands, these big meaty clubs, covered in calluses, hair and grit. They were rough and cracked. His fingers were thick and short compared to his otherwise massive palms. I guessed by looking at them that he’d lost all sense of touch and texture from the years of digging through gravel and concrete at his job. I wondered what he did on a daily basis. I wondered what his home life was like. I felt sorry for him because his hands seemed to detail a rough life of hard work and harder drinking.
As for the rest of the man, his hair was balding. His lips were cracked as if he was perpetually dehydrated. His work shirt smelled like dust and mortar. His body reeked of sweat and cigarettes.
But his hands…
Then he spoke, and started with a grunt. “Boss down at the plant, down at the concrete plant, he’s been pissing me off. Nice enough fella when he wants to be…”
Hyster had interrupted someone else. Gene or one of the other two guys had said something that had tripped a reaction in Hyster’s brain. That trip was enough to get him going on this tangent. It didn’t matter what was being said before. This was Hyster’s story now.
“… when he wants to be, and only when he wants to be. Treats his employees like they were kids. Says one thing in front of them and another thing behind them. Like we’re too dumb to catch on. Now old Hyster, I know I’m not the sharpest bulb in the box. Spent my years working at the factory, fifteen years at the factory now, not at some college like the kids these days or in an office working with computers and whatnot…”
I looked at Paul, the elephant man, the leader of this crew of lost souls, and noticed that he was listening to Hyster, patiently, attentively, caringly. That’s when I realized that this wasn’t just Alcoholic’s Anonymous for Hyster. It was also Anger Management. I got the immediate sense that sometime in the past a bottle of Windsor and those big meat hooks of hands he’s got got him into some trouble, and someone else into more trouble. Hyster could kill someone if he wanted to, with those hands clasped on the table right in front of me. Hyster was a bulldog, and Paul had the leash.
Still, I wasn’t scared of Hyster. More impressed than anything else. I don’t know why, but I sympathized with Hyster almost immediately. I’m not the sympathizing type either.
“… I didn’t trust him when I meet him. He was too greasy. Too clean. Thought he was up to no good, but he’s got a way about him that convinces you otherwise. He’ll make you believe your best friends and then lay you off the next day. You remember that story you told, Gunny?”
“And which one would that be?” Paul asked.
“The one about the scorpion and the boy,” Hyster said. “You know, the boy, he’s going to climb over this mountain, and he’s at the bottom and looking up at the top, and sees how long of a climb it will be. Then a scorpion down by his foot looks up to him and tells him he’s got to get over the mountain too, and for the scorpion it will be a much longer climb because he’s just a little scorpion and his legs are so small.”
Hyster, he was talking with his hands, trying to use those fat sausage finger to show how small the scorpion was. The way he talked, he had a way of wrapping me in, and making me believe that he believed everything he was saying. I mean, to everyone else, this is a silly fairy tail. But to Hyster it was the real thing. There really was a boy and there really was this scorpion.
“So the scorpion asks the boy if the boy could carry him over the mountain. That way, the scorpion can keep the boy company so he doesn’t get scared and cry. And the boy can carry the scorpion so it won’t take so long for it to get over the mountain. That way, they can both get over the mountain. But the boy knows that the scorpion could sting and kill him any time he wished, so he doesn’t trust the scorpion. So he asks it, ‘How do I know you won’t sting me? After all, you are a scorpion and that’s what scorpions do.’”
Everyone was quiet while Hyster told the story. Paul, Gene, Carol, those two guys I can’t remember their names… Nobody interrupts. Nobody doodles on their paper or plays with there coffee cup. Even though they’ve all heard it before, they’re all wrapped in by that guff raw voice telling this kid’s story.
“But the scorpion promises, ‘I won’t sting. We’ll be partners. Friends. I need you and you need me.’ So the boy agrees. He picks up the scorpion and it doesn’t sting him. He puts the scorpion on his shoulder so he can hear the scorpion’s voice. They start their journey and the scorpion keeps the boy company. He tells stories of where he’s been and the things he’s seen. He tells the boy of others he’s stung too. Horrible stories. But he tells the boy that he promised, and that he won’t bite or sting, that he’ll keep his promise. And the boy believes him.
“So they get to the top of the mountain, and its easier heading down. And before they know it they made it down to the other side. The boy was never scared because he had the scorpion to keep him company, and the scorpion was never tired because he had the boy to carry him. So the boy is about to put the scorpion down so they can go their separate ways. He says, ‘Thank you scorpion. I couldn’t a got over that mountain without you on my shoulder. Couldn’t a done it.’ And the scorpion says, ‘You’re welcome little boy. Now put me down so I can get on my way.’ So the boy picks up the scorpion back up off his should and is about to put him down when the scorpion…”
Hyster jabbed the air with his curved pointer finger, like a scorpion striking out, and we all knew what happened to the boy.
“The scorpion stings the boy right on the hand. And the boy is shocked. He’s holding his hands and he’s crying and he says, ‘Why did you do that? Why did you sting me after all we’ve been through and after I carried you over the mountain and after you promised me you wouldn’t? Why did you sting me?’
“And the scorpion says, ‘Boy, you knew what I was when you picked me up.”
Hyster, his face was red when he was done telling this story. He was angry at the betrayal and the lies. I could tell there was nothing he despised more than that lack of loyalty. He still had his finger pointed out, curved like a scorpion’s tail, held out over the table.
“I think that’s what my supervisor’s like down at the plant. He’s a liar!”
All I can think is: Holy shit. If that guy ever fired Hyster… holy shit… I closed my eyes and imagined some skinny smart ass kid out of college with his fancy business management degree beaten to a blood pulp underneath some gravel elevator on the edge of town… wet red blood spilled all over that dusty plant… Hyster on the run with no place to go… wanted for murder… just like me.
“What’s he make you want to do?” Paul asked, calm, not surprised by Hyster’s emotion.
“Makes me want to drink,” Hyster said. “Before I’d go to the bar and drink all night and as long as I could do that I was still in charge. He could be a weasel all day at the plant, but as long as I could make it to happy hour I was still in charge. But now, he knows I go to these meetings. The boys down at the plant know, and he hears things. He looks at me different now. He knows he’s really in charge now, that son of a bitch.”
“Hmm,” Paul said, not knowingly, not like he was Sigmund Fraud or Doctor Phil. He was just Paul. “So were you really in charge when you’d go to the bar and drink and drive and get arrested and get in fights with the Sheriff?”
Hyster didn’t voice a response. He just shook his head, real tightly. All the muscles were taut in his neck.
“Is your supervisor really in charge of anything more than what concrete goes where?”
Hyster kind of laughed at that. He relaxed a little bit. “Doesn’t know his head from his asshole. He’s a scorpion, but he couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”
“So why are you so angry? You’re still in charge. The only reason you’re hear is because you decided to be here. Not because of your supervisor or because of anyone else. You’re in charge here Hyster, and there’s nothing he can say about it.”
“You’re right boss. Always right,” he said and subsided. The red left his face a little. He leaned back in his chair.
The meeting didn’t last that much longer. Paul never made me talk or saying anything other than my name. I guess they let you take your time in those meetings. Maybe they know what they’re doing in there. Still, I only left thinking about Hyster and his scorpion story.
I stood out on the front steps of the church. I managed to bum a cigarette off of Gene but didn’t get a light from him before he left. The others had left too, but Paul was still inside and he seemed like the kind of guy who smoked so my guess was that he probably had a light. Eventually, Paul came out with a cigarette already hanging from his lips and a lighter in his hand. He nodded when he saw me and then went to lighting his GPC. I held up my cigarette, the Malboro I’d bummed from Gene, unlit. He handed me his lighter and I fired up my cherry.
“Hyster,” he said after his smoke was going well enough. “… is a brand name of a folk lift. That’s why they call him that.”
That made sense. I’d known the guy for less than an hour and already he was more of a “Hyster” than a “Terry” like his shirt said. Still, there was something I hadn’t figured out yet.
“He called you Gunny,” I said.
“Mmm. Gunnery Sergeant Paul Anderson, reporting for duty,” he said and gave me a silly little salute while he was at it. “Spend three of my better years trudging through the People’s Republic of Vietnam. He’s the only one who calls me Gunny anymore. He served too, but never in combat.”
“You were in combat?” I asked.
He nodded and took a drag of his smoke. “Enough,” he said, and I got the idea that that was all he wanted to say about it.
We stood and smoked in silence for a while.
“Hyster, he needs a new sponsor,” Paul said.
“What happened to his last sponsor?”
“Tried to hug her. Squeezed her too hard and crushed her guts out. Killed her right there,” he said.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I said.
“Just wanted to hug her, but instead he went and killed the poor bitch,” Paul said. “I know we’re not supposed to swear in church, so I’m glad we stepped out here.”
“He killed her?” I asked again.
Paul looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and smirked, just enough to let me know he was joking. Then I got it, and laughed too.
He smoked fast. His cigarette was halfway to the filter already. He’d smoke it all the way down to the fiberglass too. I could tell by the yellow tobacco stains on his fingers. “So, what’s your story?”
I hemmed and hawed. I didn’t want to really tell this guy much of anything. “I was living out in California for awhile. Hooked up with some bad people and did some stupid things.”
“Hmm. What did you do for money all the way out there?” he asked while lighting up his second cigarette.
Questions like these are the ones I was hoping to leave behind me. I dug my toes into the dirt and stalled. I looked at this old man, wrinkled and worn beyond his years and decided to crack, just a little bit.
“I was in the film industry.” I had answered this question a lot of time before, and this was generally the answer I’d give. Back in California, this is usually where whatever jerk-off I’m talking to would then stop asking questions and start talking about their own star-struck Hollywood career in movies, TV, commercials, documentaries, Youtube videos or whatever. Everybody was in the “film industry” back in LA.
“Oh really?” he said, genuinely impressed. “Movie star, huh? Were you in anything I might have seen?”
I had to laugh at this. “I don’t know. I’ve been in a lot of movies.”
“Name one,” he said, never laughing when I laughed, but never judging either. He didn’t smile, but you could tell he was in a good mood underneath his sagging cheeks and face.
I cracked a smile. “Um…Miss Anal’s Big Ass Bang Bus 12.”
“Oh. Those kinds of movies,” he said.
I tried to peak out of the corner of my eye to see his reaction, to see if he still had that pleasant mood under his elephant skin face. He was just starring off in the distance, thinking or wondering or judging?
“I’m not proud of-“
“What was the name again?” he said, cutting off my apology.
This time when I said it, I wasn’t smiling. “Miss Anal’s Big Ass Bang Bus 12.”
“Twelve,” he repeated. “No. No. Haven’t seen that one.”
He cracked a smile.
I cracked a smile, and then laughed. He let out a few guffs too. Both of us laughing there, it was like a weight had been lifted off. I didn’t believe for a second he’d seen any of my movies, but I got the sense that back in the day, in those Quonset Huts and foxholes back in ‘Nam that this guy hand’s had probably flipped through and passed along his fair share of Playboy and Hustler magazines.
“It wasn’t my best work,” I said. “The director won an award for it, but I don’t know why. I thought the lighting was all wrong in that one.”
“Yes. Always aimed a little too low, I bet,” he said, joking again.
“Right,” I said laughing.
We paused there, seeming to have run out of things to say. We stood there and smoked.
“Well, award’s don’t mean jack shit anyway. I won a medal once,” he said. He always took his time saying things. Never rushed. “I was back in ‘Nam and we were out on a patrol through the bush and we got hit pretty hard up front and we started pulling back. Breaking contact, they called it.”
I listened patiently, kind of wondering where this was going and why he decided to share it with me.
“Well, my buddy Tom, he was a Navy corpman, a medic you’d say, he was there with me along with some other guys. We’d all gotten down, laying on our belly’s in the mud, and the guys furthest away from the attack would lay down some fire and cover us so the dinks would duck their heads and we could pick ourselves up out of the dirt and run back behind our buddies. Well, I was up front, real close to where they were hitting us from. I mean, I can see those fucking dinks. I can see there faces. I mean, maybe from me and you to that car over there, that’s how far away. My buddy Tom is back towards the rear of the fight, not far behind me but behind me and the guys right next to me. So, they lay down some cover fire for us, and me and the guys around me pick ourselves up and run back away from the attack. We run past Tom and the guys around him, and dump ourselves back down in the mud, turn around and start firing back at the dinks so our buddies will get there chance to haul ass out of there. And next thing I know they’re running by, just like they’re supposed to, but I don’t see Tom. So I see this…”
He looked around the parking lot and the surrounding streets, as if anybody was still out and awake in this town.
“So I see this fucking nigger, and I say to him, ‘Hey, where’s Tom? Where’s the corpman?’ And you know what this fucking piece of shit spade tells me? He says, ‘He got hit man. Fuck him,’ And this is my buddy he’s talking about! I said, ‘Fuck him? Fuck you, pal.’ And I turn around, and I shoot him. Right in the ass. Now he’s screaming, ‘Awoo! Corpman! I need a corpman!’ And I yell at him ‘Yeah, the corpman is pretty fucking important now, huh? You motherfucker.’”
I think this was supposed to be funny. And it was on some level, but I was more shocked than humored. Still, I tried to smile like it was funny.
“Anyway, long story short, I had to go back and grab my buddy Tom since no one else would. And for that, they gave me a Bronze Star.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Now, I never told anybody that I shot that nigger in the ass. If I had, they probably would have taken away that medal and thrown me in prison. But I don’t regret it. I got too many other things to regret to regret doing that. Now, that fellow I plugged in the ass, the negro, he got a god damn Purple Heart for his piece in the story. Like I said before, medal’s… awards… don’t mean jack shit.”
I smiled and went about smoking my cigarette, not really sure as to what to say next. He finished his cigarette, twisted the cherry out from the filter with his fingers, and then tossed the butt into the Folgers butt can there on the step.
“Now, the real reason I told you that story is because you told me yours. I don’t talk about ‘Nam much, and when I do it’s usually to other guys like me who have been there. But you were honest with me, so I wanted to be honest with you.
“I understand what it’s like to sit in that circle for the first time and to think that everyone is expecting you to start goose-stepping the twelve steps right off on day one. I’ve been there… more than once… so don’t think I don’t know what its like to sit in a circle and say you have a problem when in your heart of hearts you feel like you’re cruising along just fine.”
He was talking about me. He’d seen right through me, and this was his way of telling me.
“You’ll hear some of the gentlemen in there say things like ‘You have to fake it to make it,’ and what they mean by that, is don’t give up on this just because you don’t feel the Holy Spirit of God descend down from a cloud your first night here, or your second or your third night. The truth is, I’ve been doing this for some 13 odd years, and I still haven’t felt no Holy Spirit descend down on me. What’s important is that you keep faking it until you start to make it. Even if you can’t remember what it is now, there was a reason you walked into that meeting tonight.”
“Yeah. Because Sheriff Marty made me come here after he found me passed out in the middle of Main Street,” I joked at him.
He nodded up and down, his crows feet and slack jowls never looking so old.
“Some people just never bother to see the red flags that are obvious to others. The fat woman who has to knock out a wall so they can move her to the hospital… the crazy fellow who is in a stand off with the cops and starts shooting at news helicopters… the addict who starts digging through his own vomit for the smallest bits of pain pills to re-ingest… or the prodigal porn star who barely managers to make it back to her hometown with nothing more than fumes in her tank and lint in her pockets, just so she can take a nap in the middle of Main Street in her underwear. No. There’s no reason for you to be here. No reason you might need some help. Hell, I guess we should have all just rode right on by and never bothered to stop."
I felt embarrassed. Not because he knew I’d passed out in the middle of town with my ass hanging out for all to see. Hell, back in LA that would have been nothing but a funny story to tell friends at parties. I wasn’t embarrassed because of that. I was embarrassed because I was too stupid, too arrogant and too prideful to ask for help, and he saw right through it.
I guess nothing is more embarrassing than your own pride.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” he asked, genuinely not knowing what I was referring to. Paul was always genuine, by the way. I don’t think the guy knew how to lie.
“Yeah. Okay. As in, I won’t bullshit you no more.”
Paul laughed just twice. “Ah, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter sweet heart. Didn’t your momma ever tell you that?”
I smiled. Okay. Maybe he had bullshitted in the past. But a real honest to god lie? I couldn’t see it coming out of him.
“You know, Sheriff Kahlberg… he’s a good guy,” Paul said. “Not always on top of things. But he tries.”
“I know. But I like him though. He’s kind of funny,” I said.
“Funny,” he said, not agreeing, just restating the word. He was pulling another GPC out of his pack now. He stuck it in his lips and it dangled there just by the very end. “I’d offer you another butt but you don’t want to smoke like me. I quick drinking and took up smoking full time. I figure this way I won’t live long enough to suffer the indignities of old age. Ha, ha, ha.” When he laughed he did it real dry like, like this was his way of telling me he was being sarcastic. He went on talking through the side of his mouth while he lit this next cigarette. “There’s a lot of funny things about this town…” He paused to inhale deep and fire up the fresh cherry. “the Sheriff… the town… this church…”
“What?” I said. “What’ so funny about this place?”
“It’s an old church,” he said. “Older than you. Even older than me. People get funny inside of old places. Say they see things and hear this and that… I don’t believe everything I hear… Well. Doesn’t much matter anyway. They’re building a new church across town. This one’s to be bulldozed a week from now.”
“I’m looking for a place to stay,” I told him. “There’s not much in town. I don’t have money for an apartment or even a hotel room…”
“Your asking to stay here?” he said.
I nodded.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said. His mood had turned suddenly cold. He was closed on this subject, didn’t want to listen.
“I was just thinking, I don’t need much, just a room in the basement…”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “I understand things are hard for you, but staying in this church is not an option. Here…” He dug into his hip pocket and pulled out an old worn out leather wallet. He pulled out three twenties and held them out for me to take. “This should pay for a hotel room for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll ask around and see what else I can do for you.”
I took the money. I hadn’t eaten in two days. He was talking hotel, but I was only thinking food.
“Will you tell Sheriff Marty I was here tonight?” I asked him.
He nodded. His mood had shifted back from cold to warm, in his cool quiet sort of way. “Will you come back next week?”
“I will.”
“And remember what we talked about.”
“Okay.”
“You better run along now,” he said and he was finishing up his second cigarette. Just like with his first smoke, he twisted the cherry out of the GPC with the little bit of tobacco that was left and then flicked the filter in the Folders can. Then he walked down the steps. Without turning around, he gave a little wave over this shoulder and said, “See you next week.”
I let him saunter over to his Jeep Cherokee, the same rust bucket he'd been filling up when I pulled my out of gas stunt. He drove off, never bothering to mention our gas station encounter, even though he knew that I was just a bullshitter trying to bullshit another bullshitter. Never mentioned it. But I guess he got his point across.
The one restaurant in town was a little family dinner attached to the cheap motel on the edge of town. I got a booth by the front window looking out over Main Street. It was getting dark out and the only traffic was the few lonely passers-through that Marty loved to bust so much. Not that I cared about the passing traffic. The restaurant served breakfast all day and I had twenty of Paul’s sixty dollars in front of me, turned from cash to the Lumberjack Breakfast platter. The eggs were greasy. The bacon was crisp. The hash browns and pancakes layered with butter and maple syrup. I was in heaven.
But of course, when I was done, I didn’t have the money for the motel room, and I wouldn’t have spent it there anyway. I paid the bill, even left the changes as a tip, and headed back in Tony’s truck to the church.
Nothing had changed since I left. Only maybe the place was a little darker than before. There were no lights in the windows now. No movement inside. No other cars parked along the curb or around back. That was good. And no one else was out on the streets either. That was good too. I drove past and found a cul de sac a few blocks away. I parked the truck there, under a grove of oak trees. Beyond my driver’s side window and the low hanging oak branches was miles and miles of cornfield. The sun had gone down and there was no light out there. Just empty space. I could have been an astronaut looking out the window of a space shuttle. Just stars and space.
I killed the truck and left it parked there under the stars and oaks in the cul de sac. It was only a few blocks back to the church. I decided to jog the few blocks to the church, but before I left the truck and grab the .45 and tucked it in the back of my jeans.
I was feeling good. Really good. Full stomach. Well rested. Jogging down this little town street, my Addias slapping against the blacktop. Breathing fresh air. I hadn’t felt that clean, that natural, in years.
I liked it.
When I got to the church I was out of breath. I stopped to catch it across the street. As I breathed in the cool summer night air I took another look at the structure. It wasn’t glowing or shimmering. As a matter of fact, most of it was dark. There were a few street lights on, and there were a pair of flood lights shining on the “ZOIN LUTHERAN CHURCH, LCMS” sign, but all but the foundation of the church was shaded in shadows. The stained glass windows that were so full of color during the day were panes of black now. The roof caught some of the starlight that managed to filter through the oak branches, just like Tony’s truck a few blocks back. The steeple jutted through the web of branches and leave, almost through the stars. I guess that’s what the idea was anyway.
But I wasn’t interested in the steeple. I was looked back towards the rear of the church, back where the pastor and janitors parked, where they kept the garbage cans and lawn mower shed. There was a gravel drive way around the back, and that was even darker than those stained glass windows. I trotted across the street and behind the church. There were some concrete steps leading up to a back door. I didn’t bother with the knob. I went around the steps to a short ground-level basement window. It was cracked open about a half inch, just enough to get my finger tips between the frame and the sill. I pulled and jerked and got it to move open up away from the ground. Another few tugs and it was open all the way. I could have been a cat burglar.
I sat on my butt and slipped my feet in first, then scooted my butt along the gravel to dangle my legs in. The gun dug into my back and I had to squeeze and wiggly to sneak it through the sill. My feet swung around a bit, feeling for something to put my weight on, but there was nothing. I slipped in a little further, my chest limboing under the window now. Then my foot found something to set on. A small shelf or something. I was able to manage my feet to the floor and slip down to the basement floor without too much noise. There was carpet below me, which helped with the sound. I wanted to stay quiet. After all, there was no way of really knowing the building was empty until I got a chance to look around.
It was dark. I stood and listened for a few seconds. Then I turned and shut the window behind me. Then I listened some more.
Silence.
That was good. I figured if anyone was inside and heard me come through the window they’d probably investigate in the first few minutes. That was what I told myself anyway. It was as good of an assumption as any other. Who knew if it was true. Regardless, the church was still silent. Not even the mice squeaked.
Listening gave my eyes time to adjust to the lack of light. When I first came in, everything was blackness. Now, after a half a minute of starring into nothing and blinking, I could see a dim red light coming from a staircase across the room. It was as good of a place to start as any. I kept my hands in front of me to keep from bumping into anything and headed for the staircase.
The dim red light was an EXIT sign. The steps were hard concrete that echoed every touch of my shoes. But the stairs turned and went past the door with its EXIT sign. I continued up to the ground level.
The stairs lead to a carpeted hallway. There were doors for classrooms and offices on either side. Some were open. Others were closed. The Sunday School room where Paul held his meetings, that door was closed and the “Alcoholics Anonymous” sign was gone. Down the hall was an office with it’s door open. A secretary’s office, I guessed. Maybe a minister. The computer monitor flashed family pictures from vacation and summer weekends. Mom. Dad. A couple of kids and a dog. The whole kitten-kaboodle. The light splashed and flickered like a muted TV in a dark house. I moved on.
The carpeted hallway ended where the tiled main hallway began. The one that led from the front door to the main sanctuary. Stained glass windows on either side of the front door let in multicolored pools of dim light from outside. Opposite the front doors were the clear glass doors leading into the sanctuary. There were more stained glass windows inside, and more rainbow stained moonlight fell onto the pews and altar below. I pushed open one of the glass doors and went inside.
I had never been in that particular sanctuary before, but everything in my brain and body told me I had. It was completely new to me, but also more familiar than any LA hotel, motel, apartment or flophouse I’d ever lived in. Even the smells seemed to re-awaken memories I’d never had.
The hall was rectangular. The walls were brick. The altar was up front along with the pastor’s podiums and the railing for communion. A large unadorned cross stood over the altar. A candle inside a red glass flickered against the right wall. All the old wooden benches where the people sat were, of course, empty. Fat battered Bibles and song books filled the racks of the back of each bench, but no people. A cross was carved into the wood at the end of each bench. There were crosses everywhere. I walked down the center aisle, a bride abandoned by the world. Light from one of the big stained glass windows fell on me, tinting me red… blue… green…
I looked at each of the windows and the mosaic pictures inside the frames.
Nearest the back, on the left side was a picture of a hand reaching down from a cloud, a ray of light, a garden, a nude man and woman running away, a snake and an apple left fallen on the ground. A missing chunk as crime scene evidence. Next was a rainbow, Noah’s ark on a hill and animals pouring out from the boat, two by two. A dove with a leaf in its beak soared overhead. On to the next. Two tablets, one chiseled with Roman Numerals one through four, and the other five through ten. A mountain. A rising column of flames to the right of the mountain and a column of smoke on the left. The next window: a walled city crumbling apart, circled by soldiers with trumpets. The last window on the left was of a lamb. There was a flagpole and a banner flying over the baby sheep. It read “Emmanuel God with Us.” I don’t get it.
The windows of the right side seemed less cryptic. I could remember more of the stories these ones told.
A star over head. A baby in a wooden cradle. The mom and dad looking down on there new baby with halos around their heads. Christmas. Second window. Another beam of light coming down from the clouds. Another white dove holding a clam shell this time. A bearded man standing in a river. Jesus, right? The next window was mostly dark clouds. Lightening bolts zigzagged down from the darkness. Three empty crosses rose out of the ground. The middle, largest cross was labeled INRI. The ground below the crosses drained streams of blood. The next was only slightly less dramatic. A hill of boulders. A dark cave, only barely accessible. Another boulder blocked most of the way. The last window stood in contrast to the others. The clouds were white. Instead of lightening there were rays of sunlight again. Open metal gates seemed to lead to the source of the light… heaven?
Then something caught my eye from the back of the church, back where I’d come in through the glass doors. I froze. My heart raced and I had to hold my breath to keep quiet. Another flash of light, not from the back of the church, but from the front, reflected off the glass doors! I spun around.
She moved quick and smooth, as silent as light itself. A woman all in white dashed from the altar to a wooden door in the wall just behind the pastor’s podium. She moved so quickly I only caught a glance, but I knew it wasn’t any acid trip or hallucination. The thick wooden door clunked shut behind her.
I gasped out loud and back pedaled into one of the benches. I ducked behind the bench like a little kid. I didn’t think to do it. That’s just what my scared brain had me do. It surprised me more than anything else, how quick she moved and how quiet she’d been. It just took awhile to tell my brain and my heart to calm down. Meanwhile, I hid behind the bench.
The .45! I pulled it out from the back of my jeans. It shimmered brilliant red. My hands looked like I was holding fire. But I didn’t care. For a second I wondered if it was loaded, and then remember that I’d never unloaded it since blasting Tony’s head into outer space. If it worked on him, it should work on anybody else. Slowly, I stood up from behind the bench.
She’d gone through the door past the pulpit. Braver now with the blazing gun in my hands, I continued up the aisle towards the altar. I stepped up past the communion railing. Past the pulpit. The gun grew brighter and warmer in my hands.
I pushed open the door. No girl in white. Just darkness. As I went in the shimmer from the .45 reflected off the walls and gave me as much light as the EXIT sign had in the stairwell. I was in a small back room with cabinets, closets and a sink, where the pastor got ready before his Sunday morning shows. There was a hallway and a uni-sex bathroom. I pushed opened that door, but all that was inside was a sink, a mirror and a toilet. At the end of the hall was another EXIT sign, and then another stairwell going down to the basement. I peaked over the railing.
The girl starred back at me. Pale face. Straight brown hair. Piercing blue eyes… just like Paul’s. She shimmered white.
“Hey!” I yelled at her.
She dashed off again, further into the basement.
I ran down the stairs, coming to the landing and then to the basement floor. Another hallway. No girl. I shoved open a door to a kitchen and took a quick look inside. No girl. I ran down the hall and found myself in a larger room, I think the one I came in through the window. To my left, no girl. To my right…
“Hey!” I yelled. She took off again. This time up a different flight of stairs I hadn’t seen before. I sprinted after her. Then halfway across the room I slammed into a folding table and metal chairs. I let go of the gun and it went sliding across the carpet, under another set of table and chairs. My hip hurt bad, but I ignored it. I limped over to my gun and scampered under the table. I grabbed it, it was easy to finding glowing like a stoplight in the dark. Once I had it again in my hands I took off after that girl.
I hit the stairs running and jumps as many steps as I could without tripping and crashing again. When I hit the landing and turned the corner I caught site of her feet, bare feet on the cold tile, at the top of the stairs. She was running again.
I wanted to call after her but I was out of breath. Instead I kept up the chase. I got to where her feet were and found more stairs. I thought I was on the ground floor again, but I was getting turned around so much I couldn’t tell. I had no idea such a small church could be so big. More stairs? Fuck it. I was tracking that bitch down. I went up the steps, the glow of the .45 leading my way. I came around the turn at the landing excepting to catch another glance, but there was nothing. I went up the last flight of stairs. When I got to the top and brought up my gun and swept it across the room like a SWAT team clearing a room.
Nothing there.
I was in the balcony over looking the sanctuary below. There was an organ and a piano and rows of chairs and sheet music stands like in band class. This was where the choir set up on Sunday morning. But it was also a dead end. There was no other doors up here. No other hallways or staircases. Just pianos and chairs and song books. No girl.
I looked over the railing down on the sanctuary below. What, did she jump? It had to be a twenty foot drop from up her. I would have heard her land, wouldn’t I have? What the fuck? Besides, the sanctuary was tomb-quiet again. No girl in white. Just those stained-glass windows, the burning candle, the altar and that big empty cross.
I checked behind the piano, behind the organ, around each four corners, everything. She must have jumped. Must have.
I decided to retrace my steps, starting with behind the altar where I’d first seen her. Was she hiding back there? Watching me? Who the hell was she?
When I checked behind the altar I found exactly what I thought I would find: nothing. I went through the doors behind the pastors stand. Nothing back there either. Just the same cabinets and closets. I looking over the stair railing again, but this time no one was looking back with shimmering “can’t bullshit a bullshitter” eyes. I went back to those closets and cabinets. The closets and white robes the pastor or choir or altar boys wear. Was that what she was wearing? I checked the cabinets.
Finally, a smile cracked on my face. I didn’t find the girl. I found something better: the communion wine.
“Fucking right,” I said. The gun went back into the seat of my pants and I grabbed a bottle.
Like I told Paul and Hyster and the others: I don't drink, I do drugs. Well, I did drugs. Because I quit now, doing the meetings and all that. I was an addict, not an alcoholic. See, I was immune to the demon alcohol. It had no power over me. Drugs, sure. But a little wine? What was a bottle of wine to a person like me? Nothing.
Besides, if I didn't catch a buzz pretty soon I was going to fucking need some drugs. That's the reason I told myself I needed that bottle. Never minding I'd spent the last half hour running through an abandoned church chasing a ghost or the fact that the shakes were coming back. Never mind any of that.
I grabbed the bottle with my left hand and kept the gun in my right. I shut the cabinet behind me, the consummate cat burglar that I was, and carried on. Now that it was in my hands the bottle began to shimmer, like a small flame was burning deep inside and growing every step I took away from the cabinet.
"Fuck you demon alcohol," I muttered to myself. So much for pretending.
I still needed to find the girl dressed in white. If for no other reason than to prove myself sane, but also to make sure my cover wasn't blow. Since the first time out of lock-up I had a place to sleep tonight and I wasn’t about to fuck that up, especially now that I had a bottle of wine to keep me company.
I headed for the back on the church. I figured she had to have jumped from the balcony, and if she didn't run off in this direction, maybe she took off out the front door. I pushed through the glass doors, and then opened the heavy exterior door.
The night had chilled. A cool dry wind cut through my t-shirt and blew my hair into my eyes. I stayed mostly in the church. Half because I didn't want to get locked out and half because of the cold. So I stayed there and watched the branches of the trees sway over the empty street. The air smelled like maybe a storm was blowing in. As I stood there, half in half out of the church door, the shadows out there seemed to sway and move... Beyond sway... I think some shadows traveled from one end of the street to the other.
I brushed it off. The light from the gun and the wine must have been playing tricks on my eyes. That made sense, right? Didn't mattered. The girl was gone and it was time for me to get drunk.
I brought my glowing bottle of piot noir back up to the balcony.
It's strange being in a church at night with all the lights off by yourself. Never minding all the other strangeness. Just being in that church was strange enough. So quiet. A normal person couldn't help but be introspective. Lucky for me, I had a whole bottle of the blood of Christ to help me dodge that kind of shit. No soul searching tonight. I didn't think that I would like whatever it was I found. So found a comfortable spot on the floor and I drank.
About half way down the label, I gave in and became introspective.
The wine was good, but not what I needed. The roof over my head was nice, but nothing near permanent. My stomach was full from dinner, but would be empty again after breakfast tomorrow. The truck parked two blocks away wasn't mine. The sheriff was coming after me and these soon to be demolished church walls weren't going to stop him.
Tomorrow I'd go to Sheldon and get my fix. I'd top off the pick-up and drive off without paying. Then I'd head back for sunny CA. I could be there in three days time. Two if I could get enough crank to keep me up through the trip. Then I'd sell the truck to a chop shop and spend the next week crashed out in my apartment. My friends might not even notice I ever left. Which was good because they'd give me an alibi for the murder. Then I could leave this whole nightmare behind me. No more sheriffs or cat stories or AA meetings or shinning churches or glowing guns or strange songs popping up in my head at night.
Those songs... Where'd they come from? Why did they seem so familiar? Why did I only hear them in my sleep? Those songs...
Another big swig off the bottle. Down to the bottom of the label now. Have to finish it off yet. Another drink... And then I was out.
But the hymns came back. And the chanting. And prayers. I heard them all night. I couldn’t wake up enough to sit up and look for a ghost congregation in the pews below me. I couldn’t even remember most of it. But I do remember one part:
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth
and of all things visible and invisible.
There were dozens of voices, all chanting in unison.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of His Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father,
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried.
And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures
and ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of the Father.
And He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead,
whose kingdom will have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,
who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church,
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I woke up shaking. I couldn’t stop. I felt like I was freezing. My whole body ached. This is what I get for trying to quit cold turkey. This is what I get for coming down. This is what I get for thinking anything could ever be different.
There were no voices. No chanting or singing.
It was morning. Dull grayish light leaked through the stained glass, soft and filtered. There were no birds chirping outside. I don’t think the sun was up yet. Maybe in a little while. But for now, a pre-dawn silence hung over the church.
I noticed this between bouts of shakes and aches bouncing from one side of my head to the other. Instead of dulling the pain, I think the wine just found fresh nerve endings. I picked up the bottle and noticed there was still an inch left in the bottom, swirling around the concave bottom. I tipped it back and polished it off. It was no help.
A door opened below me. There were footsteps. Shuffling. Someone had come into the sanctuary Another set of footsteps. And another. Three people. Maybe more.
“I think we’ll start with the small stuff and work our way up,” a man said.
“Well, we got plenty of boxes for the hymnals and whatnot,” another one said. “Might as well start their.”
“Sounds good enough for me.”
I crawled to the balcony ledge and peered over the railing.
Movers. They were coming to clean out the church.
My stash of wine was going to be gone before I could crack the second bottle.
Who was I kidding? Enough of this bullshit. I had a plan. For once since I’d come to this god-forsaken fucking town I had a plan. And it was time to get moving. I’d hung out here long enough. I found the .45 on the floor next to the bottle. I tucked it back into my pants.
I took the stairs all the way back down to the basement. I tip-toed past the main floor, but the movers had gone off to their trucks by then. The basement was still dark, but not as dark as last night. I saw the tables and chairs I knocked over last night and left them where they were. No sense in cleaning up. I wasn’t coming back here. I found the window I’d come through, and slipped out easier than I’d slipped in.
It was raining out. That’s why there was so little light coming through the church windows. It was probably late morning already. I couldn’t tell from the sun. The whole sky was one big gray sheet.
I headed for Tony’s truck. I didn’t run there like the night before. I didn’t sneak or tip toe. I just walked. Fuck ‘em if they didn’t like me in there church. I wasn’t going to be around her much longer anyways. Neither was their special little church for that matter. There were moving trucks out front, and one of those roll away dumpsters in the back. It wouldn’t be long before it was gutted and bulldozed.
The truck was where I left it. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I shuffled up to the driver’s door, head down, keeping the rain out of my eyes. I opened the door; I left it unlocked, and was about to hop in. Then I noticed the scattered sunflower seed shells between my sneakers. I stopped right there, my eyes focused on the ground.
Sheriff Marty had been by. He must have followed me. Probably searched the truck. Took finger prints. Who knows? It only mattered in that it told me I needed to get out of town all that much sooner.
I kicked the shells with my shoe and jumped into the truck. My hands trembled as I fumbled with the keys and started up the truck. I wheeled the truck around the cul de sac and headed towards Ethanol Acres.
Marty. Sheriff Marty. Sheriff Kahlberg. Sergeant Asshole.
All these people with all their fucking stories. Paul with his gooks and nigers. Hyster with his scorpion. Marty with his cats…
I had a story. I had all kinds of stories. But I remember one they’d all love. They could gather together around their fucking AA meetings and swap meets and give it some grandiose symbolic meaning. Tell all the little DARE kiddies at the local elementary school.
I don’t remember much about my father. I remember he drank. I remember he was mean. And I remember he raised pigs. And I remember that he drank. Most of the time he did all of those at once.
I remember standing outside of the pig pen. He was in the pen, sorting the hogs from the sows. This one goes through this gate, this one goes through that gate. He’s shoving these huge animals around, these giant muddy stubborn mean animals like he’s actually in charge. My dad was a buck thirty soaking wet. Short. Scrawny. Drunk. There was no reason those pigs should pay one bit of attention to his stupid ass. But he had a way of commanding attention. Regardless of reality, he believed he was the biggest pig in the pig pen and he had a way of making the pigs believe it too. Only this one day, he wasn’t so convincing.
There was a big momma sow, probably three hundred pounds. Hungry. Muddy. My dad whacked the pig with a switch to get it down the shoot. That’s when the pig veered into him and pinned him against the fence rails. My dad’s head whiplashed and his seed hat fell off outside the pen. He held onto the bottle of Black Velvet he had but dropped the switch. The pig didn’t let up. She started grinding him into the fence rails. Churning back and forth. Suffocating him.
Here was this small little angry man who thought he was so in charge of every living being in the whole damn world and he was getting killed by a pig. And it would have killed him to. It would have broken his legs, broken his hips and then let him slip down lower so it could crush his chest. Then all the nice little piggies would have eaten his drunk ass… probably catching a buzz while they were at it. Poor pigs.
And there I was, maybe five years old, if even, watching my dad who I hated with all my heart, get ground to death right in front of my eyes.
First he swore at the pigs. Then he swore at God. Then he swore at me. It took awhile to realize that he was actually swearing at me to do something. There was a claw hammer hanging on the fence, just out of his reach. He was yelling at me, “Hammer! Fucking Christ, get me the fucking hammer!”
I was frozen. I didn’t want to help my dad. I didn’t even want to be there. A part of me understood even then that that pig was trying to kill him too. But I couldn’t move. I was scared. I was just a little girl.
I remember my dad’s hand stretched out like Luke Skywalker reaching for his lightsaber in the ice cave. Fingers sprayed out. Tips just inches away. Then the sow let up for just a second and it was enough to let my dad stretch those extra inches and grab the hammer.
You can guess what happened next. That angry little hundred and thirty pound runt brained that three hundred pound sow like he was the dictator he believed he was. I remember the sound of the hammer hitting the top of the pigs skull. He might as well have been hitting concrete. The pig didn’t stop grinding and my dad didn’t stop smacking it with the hammer. It was like, “whack, whack, whack,” going on for what seemed like forever. Then the pig kind of went slack, like its knees buckled. I don’t know if pigs have knees really, but that’s what it was like. And then my dad kept going. Over and over again. Braining this pig with this old rusty claw hammer. Blood started flicking off the hammer onto my dad and into the grass. The pig fell into the mud. My dad kept swinging. And swinging. The pigs legs twitched. My dad kept swinging. He never let go of that bottle either. He just clenched it all that much tighter and he literally beat that pig into the mud. It was beyond dead by the time he finished. It was massacred.
That’s when I learned not to fuck with my dad. I was glad when he stopped watching me. My mom was no better, but at least I didn’t have to worry about her turning my brain to mush with the nearest blunt instrument. Fuck.
That’s what I was thinking about as I drove to Ethanol Acres. That’s what was going on here. I was the pig. Sheriff Marty was my dad. Paul… I don’t know. Paul was the bottle of Black Velvet, you know, cause he’s an alkie. It didn’t matter if my allegories made sense. I wasn’t a bag of kittens to Sheriff Marty. I was a big fat dangerous sow and they were going to trap me and beat me to death with whatever they could.
Half way across town I noticed an old Ford Bronco following behind me. I turned left and it turned left. I turned right and it turned right. Always about a block or so away. Never sticking too close. I was being followed. It glowed red.
A small part of me wondered if I was hallucinating this. But I hadn’t hallucinated the gun or the church or the rest. Besides, there was too much detail in the Bronco for it to be a hallucination. South Dakota plates… missing passenger side mirror… dented right bumper… the way the red glow was caught in the water droplets clinging to the back window of Tony’s truck… this thing was real, and it was following me.
I floored Tony’s truck. I was in a residential neighborhood, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t in the mood for playing games. I knew where I was going, I knew I what I wanted and I knew I was going to fucking get there. I turned down an arbitrary street. I took the turn sharp and didn’t bother to signal. I went a block and turned again. The wheels backed this time. I stepped on the pedal to put some distance between me and the Bronco. Then I saw one of those little back alley driveways that cut through to the next block. I had to stand on the brakes, but I made that turn too. A dog-walking lady gave me the evil eye I when I crossed her path on the sidewalk lining the next street.
Fuck her. She didn’t know what I was dealing with.
I took the alley for another block, then slowed down and pulled the pickup along the curb. Then I waited and watched the rearview mirror.
Nothing. Just the slow rhythm of rain hitting the truck’s roof.
I waited longer.
Still nothing. I think I lost him. Finally. I put the truck back in gear and headed for Ethanol Acres.
Sheldon’s place was just how I’d last seen it. Double-wide trailer. Over grown lawn. Over stuffed garbage can… The lights were on inside. He was home. I parked the truck, turned off the engine and pocketed the keys. When I got out the first thing I heard was the cats. They cried and whined from under the wooden deck leading up to the front door. There had to be a dozen of them under there. More were in the yard, snaking around the garbage can, trotting around the corner of the trailer, coming up to me, meowing for food or attention or both. All of them looking skinny and wet and neglected in the rain. I ignored them.
I went up to the front door. I noticed the little security buzzer screwed to the frame; a dealer’s doorbell. All I’d have to do is open the door a crack and he’d come running, probably with a gun. I knocked instead.
There was a clattered immediately after the knocks. A few curses. Then he came to the door.
When Sheldon opened the door he didn’t look any more healthy or attractive than the last time I’d seen him. But that didn’t matter. He had what I needed and I needed it bad. My hands went on shaking. My heart beat like a drum, just thinking of what he had.
A fix. My fix. The crank that would keep me going all the way back to LA. I couldn’t make the drive without it. He had my only way out of this hellhole.
He still looked like a bum. Ratted patchy hair. A loose dirty “Steve Miller Band” t-shirt. Sweatpants. Bare feet. He was ugly. But somehow all that turned me on. I wanted that sleaze, that shame that came with what he had that I really wanted. I wanted the freedom that came with abandoning all your morals and principles. I wanted to bottom out and wallow in the gutter.
“I need it,” I told him, and that’s all I told him. He understood the rest.
He smiled. “Come in from the rain, my child.” He took my hands into his as I put my foot up on the threshold of the trailer.
When I first heard the voice from behind me, I thought it was thunder. It could have been. It was so loud and deep.
“Better she stay out here,” it boomed.
I turned around and saw Hyster’s massive frame standing at the curb, shoulders hunched and wet from the rain. His face was angry and resolute. The cats cried all around him.
“Who the fuck?” Sheldon said. “You fucking mongoloid. Get the hell off my property. This ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
Sheldon moved past me, into the rain, down the steps and towards Hyster. Hyster, who seemed immobile only a second before, suddenly moved fast and grabbed Sheldon by the throat, one handed. Sheldon was in the middle of saying something about Hyster “finding his lost chromosome,” but once those thick meaty fingers were clasped around his windpipe, all he could let out was a paniced “urk!” The next thing Sheldon knew, Hyster had carried him the distance back to the trailer and slammed him against the trailer’s siding. The impact rattled and echoed across the court. A second later, Hyster threw Sheldon to the ground.
“You no good pusher. You good for nothing low life…” Hyster was saying. He came down on Sheldon, trying to hold him still with his left hand and beating the hell out of him with his right. Hyster’s fist looked as hard and a heavy as a sledge hammer. Each impact smacked into Sheldon and echoed off the other trailers. Each hit, Sheldon dropped and slumped, as if real weights like wrecking balls were being dropped on him. When Hyster swung his fist down, rain water sprayed against the siding. When he pulled it back for another punch, bright red blood sprayed against the siding instead.
Oh my god.
“Hyster…” I said.
Next to Sheldon was one of those concrete lawn ordiment garden gnomes everybody loves so much. The gnome was waving a hand in the air, saying hello to visitors. When Hyster saw it, he stopped dropping his anvil fist on Sheldon. Instead, he reached down and picked up the gnome, using it’s friendly wave for a handle.
“Hyster, no!” I saw what was coming. I couldn’t let this happen.
Sheldon was holding up his open palms, trying to block the next attack. Hyster was using his left hand to try to grab Sheldon’s, or at least knock them away so he could get another clean shot. Hyster knocked the hands away and swung. Sheldon crumpled to the ground, completely limp. But I heard him cry in pain. Then he tried to cover his head with his arm, bare able to. He was still alive.
Hyster was regripping the gnome, looking for another clean shot at the mess of human being underneath him. He shuffled his feet like a big league batter in the box. He was going to kill Sheldon. I could see it in his eyes.
I had to save him.
I ran down the steps and just as he was about to crush that piece of concrete into Sheldon’s head I wrapped him up in a big hug.
“Hyster, stop!” I yelled. My face was buried in his broad heaving chest. The smell of concrete dust permeated the rain and filled my senses. Huging this huge oak tree, I think it was the only way to stop him, to save him from killing Sheldon. “Don’t do it. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.”
He kind of groaned and came back from wherever his brain had gone.
“I saw what he was going to do to ya,” he said. “Couldn’t a let that happen. No decent sponsor would a.”
“I know Hyster. I know, but we have to go right now. We have to leave,” I said. “If the cops come… I mean if Sheriff Marty finds you here…”
“Uh. Yeah. Yeah. We should go,” he said. He dropped the gnome. I corralled him back towards the Bronco, not that I could have moved him an inch if he hadn’t let me.
As he got into the Bronco and I went to the pickups door I looked back at Sheldon. His legs were flexing and twisting as he soaked in the pain. One of his feral cats was meowing and smelling around his head. He was still alive when we left. I didn’t know if he’d stay that way, but he was alive when we left.
As I drove through the rain all I could think about was the pig my dad had killed, or the bag of cats Marty had killed.. or really, Hyster dropping those fists on Sheldon and swinging that god damn garden gnome. I couldn’t get the sound of hammers smacking flesh out of my ears.
And now what? Hyster was following me again in his black Bronco, running just like I was. Following me… that was the last thing he should be doing. It’s not like I had any idea where we could go. I pulled the pickup over in the Burger King parking lot. As good a place as any. He followed and parked behind me. I hopped out and wrapped him in a hug as he climbed out of his ride.
“You have to go somewhere. Somewhere out of town where you can tell them you’ve been while all this happened,” I said.
“Huh. Out of town. Yeah,” he said. “My brother lives in Oakes. I can stay there.”
“Oakes,” I said. “He doesn’t drive a pickup like this one does he?”
“Like that?” he asked, meaning Tony’s truck. “No. Not like that. He’s a farmer. Drives an International.”
“Good. That’s good,” I said. “You should go now.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
“Hyster,” I said as he was about to pull away. “Thank you,” I said and kissed him on the cheek.
That was the last time I saw him. I don’t think Sheriff Marty ever pinned Sheldon’s assault on him, but I guess I have no way of knowing.
I stood and looked out across the great plain in front of me. A bean field. Otherwise empty. Borderless. Limitless. Without definition or description. Empty. I was alone again, and I had earned it. But that didn’t make me feel any better. Hyster was gone. Marty was out to arrest me. Sheldon was pulped to a bloody mess in his helter-skelter front lawn. I had exactly what I started out with: nothing.
There was only one place left to go…
I knocked on the front door of the church.
The movers and helpers were moving through the backdoor now. Boxes and boxes of hymnals and hand bells, papers and pamphlets. I didn’t want to get in there way. Didn’t want them to stop me and ask me all sorts of prying questions. Or worse, expect me to help move boxes. So I knocked on the front door.
No one came. I knocked again.
After another half minute of waiting in the rain, the door opened. Not all the way. Only part. The old woman must have seen me through a window before she came to the door.
“Yes?” She started out our last conversation the same way. And just like last time, I had the feeling this conversation that started with a “Yes,” would end with a “No.”
It took some time for me to find my words, to begin to explain why I was here. Eventually, I told her, “I need help.”
Her face, she looked sad. Sad because her church was getting torn down I guessed. Her “special” church. “What kind of help, dear?”
“I…” she knew what kind of help. “I need a place to stay. I need…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a police car coming down the street. The lights weren’t flashing; that was good. But it wasn’t Sheriff Marty’s car either. It drove by the front of the church slow. The door said, “North Dakota Highway Patrol.”
“I need Asylum,” I said again.
The woman let out a sigh. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“I know but, you have to under-“
“You’ve asked me this before,” she cut me off.
“I know but-“
“And I told you no then,” she continued. “Then, I understand you asked Paul the same thing.”
She was right. After the AA meeting, and he’d told me the same thing. It was a special church.
“And now you’re asking me again,” she said.
The bitch. Why was she telling me what I already knew?
“That’s three times you’ve asked to stay here,” she said.
I nodded.
“Three times you’ve asked us for Asylum,” she said.
I got the picture. “Never mind. I guess I’ll find somewhere else.”
“Child, I hope you understand what it is you’re asking for,” the old woman said. Then she opened the door all the way open. She stood by the end of the door, waiting for me to come in. “You can come in now. And stay as long as you’re able,” she said.
I didn’t believe her. Thought she might wait till I had a foot in the threshold and then slam the door back in my face. I thought he was joking.
“Come on in, child. Come in from the rain,” she said, and I did.
The door closed behind us, blocking out the noise of the street and the rain. It was quiet in the church, even if the movers were busy out back. The old woman looked me in the eye, trying to figure me out it seemed. I didn’t like it. It felt like she just might figure me out if she looked long enough.
“Thanks,” I said.
“There’s a woman you should speak with,” she told me. Then she began fishing a necklace from under her knit sweater and white turtleneck. She pulled out a thin gold chain. Dangling from the end, was a key. The chain and key were both gold, or at least brass, but of course they were shimmering white. “In the basement. Behind the staircase, there’s a door. There’s a room back there for you to stay. Talk to the woman there.”
She held out the necklace with the key dangling at the bottom. I held out my palm and she set the key inside, then let the thin gold chain follow after. When it was all in my hand, she clasped my hand shut with both of hers, blocking out the white shimmer. Then she looked me dead in the eyes.
“You can’t leave now my child,” she told me. “You can’t ever leave again.”
I smirked. Her eyes stayed fixed on mine, her hands still clasped over mine. I didn’t know what she meant. What I did know was that she was bat shit crazy. “I’ll go talk to the woman,” I said. I backed away from her. She let my hand and the key necklace slip through her fragile fingers.
“You can never leave, my child. Never again,” she said.
By then I had backed away and then turned down the hall towards the AA classroom. I told myself again: bat shit crazy. Too many days behind the organ for that old broad. I’ll leave whenever I feel like it.
Still, I headed for the basement. There were a few movers in the hallway, clearing out the Sunday School rooms and offices. None of them bothered me. I went to the staircase and headed down to the basement, the same way I came up last night… the first time… before I started chasing ghosts.
The basement was still mostly dark, but enough dull light made it’s way through the windows that I could see that it was empty. The movers must have already come for the tables and chairs and loaded them up into their trucks. Last night, the room seemed to be full of them. Now, the place was bare. Not even pictures on the walls. I looked for a light switch, but then decided I’d rather not have it on anyway. I headed in the direction of the kitchen, figuring the room the old woman told me about had to be around there.
And she mentioned another woman too. Someone I was supposed to talk to. Nobody was down here. The place was being gutted. Why would some lady be hanging around down here?
As I headed across the large basement room, I looked at the key and necklace I had it my hand. When I opened my hand, it was still glowing white light. But through the light, I could still see the chain and the key very clearly. Aside from the glow, there was nothing special about the necklace, an ordinary gold chain she could have picked up at the Pamida jewelry counter. The key wasn’t like one of those old skeleton keys, but it wasn’t new either. Years of wear had polished the edges smooth and rusted the cuts. It was unmarked on both sides, no numbers stamped in or brand name. It was just a key. Only it shined white in the darkness.
I pushed through the door to the little hallway where the kitchen and another set of stairs branched off. I thought I searched the whole church last night. But as soon as I came into the hallway I saw the door I’d missed during the chase. Just past the kitchen. Unmarked. An old door, but not ancient. A door that would match the key.
So this is where that girl hide out last night. I must have lost her on the stairs going up to the balcony. She must have ducked around a corner and waited for me to pass, and then came back down here. Sneaky little girl.
I pushed the key into the lock, it’s light shining the way. It fit. I turned it and the mechanism inside unlatch. The door began to swing open by itself. I stepped inside.
It was dark, even with the shimmering key and necklace. Then I found the light switch. The room was small. The bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling was enough for me to see that someone was staying here. There was a mattress in the corner with blankets and quilts. There was a small table and chair. There was some change and a few dollar bills on the table. There was a pair of old shoes under the table. There were a few shelves next to the bed. There was a old pocket watch sitting there and… bullets?
I moved in closer and shut the door behind me. As I stepped deeper in, I hung the key around me neck and reached behind my back for the .45. It was still there. That was good enough for now. I glanced at the money on the table as I walked by. A few ones. A twenty. The old style money with the little pictures of dead presidents in the middle. It seemed old and half rotted away. But I didn’t really care about the money. I wanted to see those… Yep. Bullets. Little fat ones standing on end on top of the shelves. I picked one up and rolled it between my fingers.
“Point four five, Browning,” I said out loud. Then I held the bullet in my left hand and took out my gun with my right. I was able to figure out how to eject the clip and then thumbed out one of my own bullets.
I read the bottom. “Point four five, Remington.”
“What are you doing here?”
I spun around and there she was. The girl from last night. Right behind me, now right in front. She had a gun pointed at my face. My hands fumbled. The Browning and the Remington bullet fell to the concrete floor. So did the clip with all of the rest of my bullets in it.
I tried not to focus on the black void of the barrel a foot away from my nose. Beyond the gun, a revolver, I could see the five other loaded chambers… each one loaded with a .45 Browning bullet I was sure. Beyond the gun were those cutting blue eyes, a mature but unaged face, uncelebrated straight brown hair.
“I’ve been watching you,” she said
“I know. Last night I chased you.”
“How’d you get in here?” she spoke with a strange accent, American enough, not foreign, but still strange.
“The old lady, she gave me a key.”
I held it up, hanging it from the necklace.
The girl, or woman, she was no older than I was; she smirked. “You asked her?”
I nodded.
“Three times?”
“Yeah. What’s the point?”
She lowered the gun. Her smirk became suddenly less threatening and more humored. I noticed she was beautiful.
“The door has been opened unto you,” she said. “You’ve been granted Asylum.”
“Who are you?”
“Sit down,” she said. “I have a lot to tell you.”
We sat at the small table. Her first and then me, after I picked up the clip for my .45. I didn’t load it, hers was rested on the table in front of her, but I wanted it on me. She picked up the twenty dollar bill that was next to her revolver and began to study it, like there was something hidden inside all those designs. I looked at one of the singles. It was different. Older. It said,”One Dollar Payable on Demand to the Bearer of this Note.”
It was older.
The gun…
Her white dress…
Her slight accident almost Irish or English…
It was all from a different era.
But her face was still so young.
“The 1st National Bank on Main Street, is it still there?” she asked me.
“Uh huh. It’s an American Legion now, and a Chinese buffet,” I said.
She looked confused for a moment. “But the building is still there?”
“Yeah. It’s still there.”
“I don’t ask this question much, but I’ll ask you. What year is it out there?”
I told her.
She absorbed that for a minute. Stirred it over in her brain it seemed. Then she took a breath like she was starting fresh, like she had been side tracked before. She brushed her plain brown hair to the side and then began again.
“Henry and I were married in the summer of 1931. We were young and didn’t have any money. But understand, no one had any money in those days. Henry had worked at the floor mill at Saint Anthony Falls. But they laid him off along with all the others, and then they shut the mill down. See? No one had any. Not even the rich fellows that owned mills and such. I think the prohibition didn’t help any either. Without all the grains for the beer it was just that much less business around.” She stopped. Must have seen the look on my face.
“That was along time ago, I know,” she said. “I’ve been down here for a long time.”
She didn’t look it. Not age-wise. But maybe, hidden inside those shimmering blue eyes and the subtle lines of her face… there was history in them.
“We were starving. The breadlines were miles long. All the farmers had come into the Twin Cities for jobs or the handouts. The fields were nothing but sand and dust, especially down south and to the west. Nothing was growing. No one was working… you wouldn’t believe your own eyes sometimes,” she said. Then paused. “But not everyone was living this way.”
“It was my idea, see. It was mine from the very start,” the woman said. “Henry knew some fellas that worked at the Army ammunition plant over on Arden Hills. They weren’t hiring, but sometime they could make certain items disappear from the inventory. So I came up with the plan, and as soon as his friends at the plant could sneak out some things for us, we started doing what any reasonable young lovers would do in the same situation. We started robbing banks.”
“Those boys at the ammo plant, they got a BAR machine gun for Henry and a pair of Colt .45 automatics for me,” she said.
I eyed her piece sitting on the table between us. The slide read, “M1911A1 .45 Cal Colt.”
“But favors like that didn’t come cheap,” she told me. “But I knew how to get things from men, even back then. I didn’t mind spending some time on my back to get what I thought we needed. I didn’t tell Henry how I’d convinced them to help us with this favor, and he didn’t ask. But in the end, it was no secret. But that’s for later.”
“In the two years between, we lived it up,” she said. “The first time we went into a bank, we were scared little children. By the time six months had past, we were pros. We’d kick in the doors. I’d fire up the ceiling with my pair of Colts and folks would just start throwing money at us. And it wasn’t just banks either. Payrolls. Post Offices. One time we robbed an Auction house and got more money than most banks. The money was out there. You just had to know where to find it, and how to easy it out of the tight fists holding it. Me and Henry, we had the grease to get it out.”
“I should have caught on when he brought in another partner,” she said. “We were tied in the with mobsters in Saint Paul by then, and this fella was supposed to be a professional. Alvin Lester. A real ugly one, he was. Had a face like a horses ass, all puckered together in the middle like he’d just smelled the shit he’d stepped in.
“He was only with us for one job. Well, with me for one job. We were supposed to be laying low. Staying away from the cities so things could cool down for a while. He wanted to do a job way out in the sticks. Somewhere where maybe we wouldn’t have a big take, but we could work as a team together and see how it fit. He had a way of talking, this Alvin, that made you believe him. Like he had all of our best interests in mind and he was just there to help out where he could.
“The liar. Him and Henry both. I should have seen it coming.
“So we ride out to this little one horse town, Ellendale North Dakota. You’ve heard of it, of course.”
I gave her a little grin. This was Ellendale. The First National Bank/American Legion/Chinese Buffet… I think I was about to hear why it wasn’t a bank anymore.
“We parked out Ford sedan right on Main Street and strolled into the First National like we owned the place. Not more than five minutes later and we did own the place. Well, all the cash anyway. The three of us jumped in the Ford and gassed it for the edge of town. Alvin was behind the wheel.
“Just as we’re about to make Ellendale a memory, he stopped the car and turns to Henry. He says, ‘You ready to do this.’ And Henry saying, ‘I’ve been ready for a long time now.’ He gets out and pulls open my door. Grabs me by my hair and yanks me out to the ground. He standing over me and the next thing I know he’s pointing one of my Colts as me. One of my Colts no less!
“Then he says to me, ‘This is for Arden Hills.’ And then he shot me six times through the chest. Six times.”
“See, he’d heard about how I’d got the guns from his friends at the ammunition plant. Word had gotten around and after that, I was nothing more than an embarrassment. So he shot me with my own gun and left me for dead in this god forsaken dust bowl of a town.”
I smiled at that last line. I had to ask her, “So how is it that your still alive?”
“I’ll get to that part,” she said. “But I’m not done with my story yet.
“Henry and Alvin went for another year or so. Eventually they got busted outside of Milwaukee and were thrown in Leavenworth Federal Pen. Alvin got out. Henry died in there from typhoid. Hope it took him slow. I hope he had plenty of time for regrets as he laid in the prison cell, coughing up his own death.
“As for me, they dumped and shot me right outside of this very church. The altar guild heard the shots and ran out to find me, bleeding in the street. They brought me in and did was they could to plug the holes and keep me breathing. A doctor came. They prayed for me. He was able to drain some of the blood from my lungs. They thought my lungs would collapse, but they ended up hold through. The infection came next. For about a month I was in and out of consciousness. I had a fever. When I was awake, I saw visions of Henry and Alvin and demons circling around the church windows. They were haunting me. Waiting for me to die so they could take me down with them. It was a strange time for me.
“After a while, the local sheriff heard about the girl they were taking care of in the church. He put two and two together and came knocking on the door for me. I was barely alive, but he wanted to haul me away. The church women, they told him he wouldn’t lay a hand on me. That God had granted me Asylum and no earthly authority could trump that.
“A couple of weeks after that, the G men came. The Feds, they had less patience for quaint old church ladies than local lawmen ever had. They were ready to haul us all off, me dying of fever or not.
“I think it was good for them that I died about them. I’m thankful for it. After all they’d done for me, it would be wrong to have had them drug away and thrown in the slammer for having helped my sorry case. It wouldn’t have been any sort of justice I’m familiar with. The G men. They never knew anything about justice anyway. All they wanted was to get their arrests and prove their boss wasn’t a panty-wearing fairy. But that’s another story.”
She stopped there to pick up one of the loose .45 rounds. One of the ones that said, “.45 Browning” on the bottom.
“You know, you wouldn’t think such a little thing could do so much damage,” she said. “I suppose I should show you, so you know I’m telling the truth.”
Her dress button down the front. She undid two and pulled open the white fabric. I could see two of the scares. They were like starbursts of torn white skin. Albino fireworks. Poisoned flowers on a pale plain, blossoming pain and bad memories. She buttoned her shirt back up.
“I lived here in this church for too long now. Unnaturally long. It’s my gift from God that he’s protected me here, but also my penance,” the woman told me. “Understand my friend, I can’t leave here. It’s my life support you might say. And it’s also my prison. Those demons I saw while I had my fever, the visions of Henry and Percy, the G Men waiting for me out in the dusty street, surrounded by black visages of the evil hoards… They’re still out there. I belong in hell, and they’re waiting to take me there.”
She had been looking down, talking to the table and fiddling with the .45 Browning round. Now she looked up and into my eyes. The blue sparkled.
“They’re coming for you now too,” she said.
It’s true.
By now the DNA tests had come back from the lab with a 99.9% match. South Dakota State Patrol produced records of a ticket issued to Anthony Jorgenson for driving an unregistered red Ford Ranger pick-up truck. Holding that citation next to the one Sheriff Marty wrote up for a strung out girl named Sheena… well, that DNA matched up too.
He wanted to take me down quiet. No flashing lights. No fighting. No guns or tasers. Maybe, if I behaved, maybe not even cuffs. He figured we could do this civilly.
Sheriff Marty always liked things to be civil.
He parked the squad car across the street. He got out and limbered over to Zion Lutheran Church. He took each step with grace, even though they made his knees pop. He wasn’t as young as he used to be.
He knocked on the door and waited.
“Our Lord entrusted me with the physical protection of this house…” she told me. “… until another came. I don’t know why he chose me. I don’t know why he chose this church. But he has, and now he’s chosen you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“This maybe true,” she said. “But it wasn’t me that brought you here out of darkness. It wasn’t me who protects you from those wishing to bring you harm. Sheena, I can’t save you.”
I heard knocking. Knuckles on thick oak. Somehow I knew the knocks were for me. Somehow I knew everything this woman was telling me was true.
The old woman opened the door for Sheriff Marty, but not all the way. Just wide enough for them to talk.
“Angela,” Marty said.
“Sheriff,” she said. Usually she called him Marty, but she knew what the score was.
“I’m looking for a young lady by the name of Sheena,” he said. “She’s been here for a NA meeting, and I think a couple of other times too. She’s a tall brunette with a bad dye job. Pretty face but tired eyes. You’d know her if you seen her.”
“Sheriff, we both know that I know who you’re talking about. But I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she said.
“Is she here?” he asked.
“She’s in the basement,” the old organist said.
“Angela, I have a warrant for her arrest. Seems she was involved in a shooting over in Oakes.”
Angela shook her head, telling him no, it didn’t matter, she couldn’t help him.
“Angela, this is a matter of the law. A man is dead. She’s driving his truck. Her DNA matches that found at the scene of the crime.”
Still, shaking her head, not meeting his eyes.
“Angela, we’re talking about a man’s life here. Murder, Angela. Murder. Now, you know I can bring other agencies here, and they will be much less polite. They’ll knock the door in and won’t bother to wipe their feet on the rug.”
“Marty…” she said.
“One call and I can have them here,” he told her.
“Marty,” she said again. “You call whoever you feel you need too. But she’s been granted Asylum. I can’t bring her out and I’m afraid I can’t let you in.”
Marty went to say something and then lost his thought. He tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came. So he just stood there defiant. Then finally, “How do you know? How do you know she deserves Asylum? In this church of all places?”
“Marty, this isn’t something I decide. It’s not up to me,” she said. “And don’t tell me you haven’t seen it too. This girl you’ve found, she shimmers.”
“The others will come for you as well. Just as they did for me,” the woman said. She picked up the forty five. Her forty five. She dropped the magazine and then slide back the top, popping a round out of the top as she did. Her gun, it was unloaded now. She set it on the table. “You can use it if you have to.”
“Why?” I asked her. She got up and started for the door. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
She smiled, a genuine smile this time.
“Not sure. But I hope it’s up.”
“I can’t be what you’re asking me to be,” I called after her. “I’m no champion of the church or of anything else. I’m a sleaze, a slut, a junkie…”
“And don’t forget murderer my dear,” she said. “We’re not that different you and I… when you think about it.”
“You can’t do this to me,” I told her. “You can’t tell these lies and then leave me here. Who are you? Who are you really?”
She took in a breath. “I’ve been a patient servant for a long long race now, and I’m tired. My time has come now. Please don’t make me run any longer.”
“You’re leaving me here?”
“Be glad your time is short. This church will be gone soon. Once the earthly symbols of Christ are removed, your tormentors will come for you. I would stay and fight by your side, but it is not my fate.”
“But what the hell am I supposed to do?”
She paused before opening the door and leaving for good. “Everyone finds there own way. Mine started with a prayer. Try that.”
“Fuck you!” I yelled, but she was already moving through the door.
I grabbed my .45 and put the magazine back in. Then I slide the top back like she did. A round popped out the top and told me it was loaded. Then I did the same the .45 she’d left behind. Then I headed out the door after.
I shoved the door open. She wasn’t in the hallway. I ran down the hall and into the big room where all the tables and chairs were the night before. Nothing. Another one of her disappearing acts.
But the room was dark. I first guessed the movers cut the power. Then I walked over to the window I’d slipped into… last night? Two nights ago? Seemed like a millennia. I looked out the window and saw starts. The sky was that deep purplish, blackish blue it turns just before dawn. Morning wasn’t far away. That woman had kept me in that room all day and through the night. It didn’t seem that long, but somehow time slipped by. She’d made it slip by. Somehow, she made time slip while we were in that room.
Who was she really? Was I really supposed to believe she was a hundred year old ghost, chosen by God to protect this old rickety church in the middle of nowhere? I didn’t make any sense.
I held on to both of the .45’s, each one glowing a little red again, and crept towards the stairs leading up to the church. She had to still be here. She just ditched me like she did the night before. Only this time I’d find her.
I let the glow of the guns lead me. Up the stairs. Down the hallway with all the classrooms and offices. Everything was gutted. I turned into the main foyer. Nothing. No girl. No bulletin boards. No coat racks. No flyers. Nothing. This place was a shell. The big main sanctuary was next.
I pushed open one of the double doors with the barrel of a .45 and stepped inside. This place had been gutted two. The song books and Bible were gone. The podium the pastor stands behind… gone. The communion plates and the flowers around the altar… gone. The altar itself was still there, but it had been stripped of all the linen and lace that had covered it before. The candelabras had been cleared out too. The one red candle was still mounted to the wall near the altar, and still burned. That big wooded cross was still bolted to the front wall. The benches were still there, and the stained glass windows with all their obscure symbolism were still up too. Nothing else though. No white robed girl for sure.
I went close to one of the stained glass windows. This was the one of Adam and Eve running away from the snake. I looked around the sanctuary one more time, checking for the woman, and then crouched close to one of the panes of glass so I could see through. The pane was green and it gave everything outside an unearthly quality, like I was looking through a portal to the moon. There wasn’t much to see outside. I could see some bushes just outside the window. The road past that, and a couple houses across the street.
Then the shadows began to dance. The came crawling out of the dark and into the street. Moving with purpose towards the church. Then human shapes can from the darkness between those quaint little houses. Glowing red even through the green tint of the glass, they came. I recognized Tony first, his brain still blown out the top of his head like a firework. He came lumbering out like a George Romero zombie. The black wisps of hell accompanying him. I pulled myself away from the glass.
…Tony…
Tony from Oakes.
Tony who pulled me out of the ditch and got me a fix…
I was still on his couch. I was tripping out, fucked up, still laying on his couch.
That’s what’s going on here. That was the only thing that made sense. This whole thing is a bad trip. There was something funny in the blow Tony had cut for me. Three days on the road, strung out on meth and coming down, crashing into a cow pasture and then waking up to a weak fix cut with baking soda or something worse… that will do this to a girl. That will fuck with your head. I tried to imagine myself still there in that little trailer in Oakes. Naked. Passed out. My own piss soaked into the couch. My driver’s license and a few lines of the mystery mix still on the coffee table…
But I opened my eyes and I was still in the church.
“Fuck,” I said to no one.
I looked back through the window, this time through an orange pane. The bushes, the street, the houses were all still there. I didn’t see Tony or the demons… and then one rose up, inches away from the glass. Its black soot body floated upwards, following the nap of the building.
I back pedaled again, crashing into one of the benches, falling on my ass. I dropped one of the .45’s and it clattered against the tile floor. The walls echoed. I scrambled for the gun, found it underneath one of the benches, and then turned both on the stained glass window. I could see more of the demons, even through the Garden of Eden mosaic.
I fired alternating blasts from the two .45’s. I punched out five or six of the oddly shaped little panes before I gathered together enough sense to stop. Nothing moved. But I didn’t believe for a second that I managed to make the least bit of difference to what was out there. The guns were glowing red again, and stranger yet, there were almost laser-like red contrails were the bullets had sped through the air. As seconds past, the contrails dissolved and dissipated, more like smoke than light.
I picked myself up and went through what was left of the bullet trails. The air around my body pushed them away, like floating bugs in the water. I came up to the window and looked through one of the missing pieces of glass. I caught a glance of the demons, those moving dark.
They’d retreated, but not far. Even as I watched they seemed to regather and turn back for the church. They lurched in the shadows between houses and under cars and trees, probing the dim early morning light, feeling out when and where they’d find their best approach. I didn’t see Tony. Tony was gone.
For now.
Then, with no warning, the singing started out again.
Lord, let thy servant depart in peace…
It was like the volume was on full-blast. The whole church was filled with voices…
According to thy word,
For my eyes have see the glory that those has prepared before
The face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles
And the Glory of your people
Is-rael.
Then a pastor’s voice boomed from the front of the church, even though no pastor was there.
“Let us pray unto God our Father.”
Then, the whole congregation… or perhaps all the congregation that have come and gone over the years… a multitude of voices speaking in unison responded.
Jesus Christ is the light of the world
The light no darkness can overcome
Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening,
And the day is almost over.
Let your light scatter the darkness
And illumine Your Church
.
It was too much. The shadows and the voices. The red bullet contrails. The ghost woman… I had to get out of there.
I ran for the back of the church and shoved open the glass double doors. Four quick steps through the foyer and I was at the thick oak doors leading to the street. I threw open the double doors.
There had to be millions of them.
The black creatures.
Gangsters, G Men and sheriffs.
Tony, with his blown out brains.
Old friends from California who’d overdosed or died of disease.
Hundreds of unrecognizable dead, maundering and gathering in the street.
Millions of the black swirling demons swam through the mass, all claws and teeth with burning candle-wick eyes.
And there in the middle of them all was Sheldon, still alive from what I could tell. He was oblivious to the army around him. He thought he was alone out there. He strolled towards the church steps, casually. You know, like he was just coming by for a visit. He limped though. As he came closer I saw his face was bruised and swollen. He’d wrapped duct tape around his one hand as a bandage. He held out his arms. In his unwrapped hand, he held a steel crowbar.
“Miss me angel-child?” he asked.
He didn’t know it, but I could barely hear him over the hissing swarm of death around him.
“We were so rudely interrupted last time,” he laughed. This was all a joke to him. “You ran off so fast, I never got a chance to say goodbye!”
I looked down at the two .45’s still in my hands.
“There’s so much left unsaid my love,” Sheldon called to me. Then he was suddenly full of anger. “And you owe me for that gnome!”
Then Tony called out, “Time to get even with the house.”
“Time to pay your dues,” a G Man said.
“Time for your fix,” a long dead friend.
The demons hissed.
“You betrayed me!” Sheldon yelled. “I was going to bring you in! I was going to give you shelter from the storm! I was going to give you everything you needed…”
As Sheldon reached the first step I stepped back myself. Just one foot. Just to brace myself. Then I raised up the two .45’s.
My first two shots went right through Sheldon’s head. It popped like a water balloon. His body slacked and fell. But I didn’t stop shooting. I blasted away at the humans first. The bullets drew lines of red mist to the bodies of ghosts and demons. The rounds seemed to impact against the ghosts and knocked the back. The zipped through the demons, but not without effect. Maybe the bullets wouldn’t kill them, but it made them scream. They screeched, louder and higher than I thought possible. A few of them charged. I turned my guns on them and hit them. They screeched too and flew back for the shrinking cover of the shadows.
I didn’t stop firing until the street was empty.
Red contrails lingered in the morning air, almost like fog coming off a lake. I could see the demons still waiting in whatever darkness they could find. The ghosts were nowhere to be seen.
Sheldon’s dead body was sprawled out at the bottom of the church steps. His brain was linking blood and mess down the sidewalk towards the curb.
The dawn was breaking.
I had held them back… for now.
That’s when I came back down here. Into this little room where Your church’s protector had lived for so long. I figured I should find more bullets and reload the guns, but when I dropped out the magazines they were still full to top. I tried cramming a few of the loose “.45 Browning” rounds end, but there was no room. They were topped off.
The construction crew is here now. They’ve already taken down the cross from the front of the sanctuary. And the stained glass windows. The bells will come next and then the cross from the top of the steeple.
Once those are gone…
Then demons… those ghosts… they only stopped because I was inside of this church. Once it’s not a church anymore… once it’s just a building…
They’ll come back.
So I’m praying to you God. I told you my story. I know I’m no saint. No deserving soul. I’m a weak disgusting person. I’ve failed so much… I can’t accomplish any of this by myself. But here I am, Sheena, your angel-child earthbound champion. I’ll stand and fight. And I don’t ask for any paradise… Just grant me this earthly asylum. Let me shimmer.
In your name I pray, Amen.
I think I did that right. Guess I’ll find out soon enough. Here they come.