‘Dear God!’ she thought, glancing out the window as a car pulled into the parking lot. It's Peter. Kate made a move to get off the table.
“No!” shouted Father Garvey.
“My husband's outside. I must go to him.”
“And you will, Kate. This won't take long. God works miracles. Your husband didn’t get out of his car. He’s being delayed for a reason. Don’t you see the bigger picture, Kate?” He pushed her back down, one strong arm holding her shoulders, the other ripping off her panties. His finger moving inside her wetness.
Kate looked over her shoulder and could see her husband patiently waiting for her, the car window up, Peter listening to music. She was frightened, a dark sadness filling her pores, her eyes burning. “Please let me up. My husband’s here.”
Father Garvey pulled her to the edge of the table and pushed open her legs. She slammed her fists against his chest. “No! Please,” she begged, biting her lower lip. Within seconds he had penetrated her. The pain was intense. Hot tears streamed down her face. Father Garvey reached for her chin, holding it with one hand and turning her head toward him.
“Look at me, Kate. Look into my eyes as I enter you.” She looked at him, his face twisted, eyes fiery, nostrils wide. He pushed back and forth inside her, each stroke penetrating deeper. The priest said, “He who comes to the sacred table of the Lord without faith, communicates only in the sacrament and does not receive the substance of the sacrament whence comes life.” He drove deeper into her, his penis throbbing, ejaculating.
Kate screamed. “No! Dear God, no.” She looked over her shoulder and could see a small statue of the Virgin Mary. A painting on the wall of the Last Supper. Through the office door, across the sanctuary, was a stained glass window depicting Christ ascending to heaven. The room was spinning. She was nauseous, vomit rising in her throat. She looked out the other window into the parking lot. She could see the sky growing dark. Peter stepped from the car and walked around to the trunk. He got an umbrella for Kate, like he always did. She watched him and wept. “Peter, dear Peter,” she whispered. The clouds opened into a hard rain, engulfing the old church with the roar of a waterfall. Lightning cracked and thunder rolled, smothering the final grunts of Father Thomas Garvey.
1
Of all the rides in the carnival, Courtney Burke felt safest on the ride that scared many people. She liked the double Ferris wheel the best. She loved to ride it at night, wind in her face, hair blowing, and the lights of the town like stars twinkling in the valley. She rode after the crowds had gone back to their cozy homes, gone back to warm places where beds had real pillows. On the double Ferris wheel, she was free. It was as if she had wings, flying high above the evil that crawled across the ground like the rattlesnake slithering on its belly. As a girl, she remembered almost stepping on a rattler behind her uncle’s barn, the same barn where bad things had happened. But that was in another world, a world that couldn’t hurt her again. Now, at age nineteen, she was free, free to travel the country with the carnival, free to ride the Big Wheel.
Courtney lowered the safety bar in the seat, pinned her long raven hair into a ponytail, and turned toward the ride operator. He was cute, she thought. Maybe two years older than her. She smiled, the dimples showing, her blue-green eyes wide, catching light like the crest of a breaking wave on a moonlit tropical beach. “Just a quick ride, okay, Lonnie?”
“I don’t know, Courtney. We’re gonna get caught one of these nights, sneaking back to turn on this wheel.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, huh? C’mon let’s ride a wheel that turns but never takes you anywhere, unless you let it. Pretty please, Lonnie.”
Lonnie Ebert lifted his baseball cap and ran his hand though dirty blond hair that hadn’t been washed in two weeks. He glanced around the carnival grounds, his lean face unshaven, eyes searching for a sign of movement. Most of the carnies were asleep, stoned on weed, or in honky-tonks knocking back cheap whisky chased by cheaper beer. He licked his dry lips and looked at Courtney, her smile the brightest thing in the shadows of the midway. “I do things for you that I wouldn't do for no other girl.”
Courtney smiled. “I know, and I don't take it for granted. Okay? Press the button.”
“All right, but we gotta make it quick. If Big John catches my ass he’d fire me, or worse.”
“He’s gone to town. I saw him leave. C’mon, start this thing. I wanna to feel the rush.”
“Five minutes. Tops.” He pressed the green start button, the black dirt under his thumbnail visible as the lights popped on and the Big Wheel lurched into motion.
She grinned. “Thank you! Can you stop it at the top on the second time around for a minute? I love the feeling of being that far up. I’ve never been in a jet plane. But up there I'm on top of the world.”
Lonnie blew out a pent-up breath, ran his tongue on the inside of his cheek, and looked to his right, down the midway. “Just for a few seconds, and one time only.”
Courtney gripped the safety bar, electricity surging through the motors, gears groaning, metal popping, the Big Wheel defying gravity and lifting the double wheels higher into the night sky. She rose above the lingering smells of the midway, the spilled beer and half-eaten corndogs and cotton candy stomped into the sea of damp sawdust, the stench quickly replaced with a cool night breeze of wild honeysuckles as the Big Wheel turned skyward in the warm summer night.
She sat in the center of the seat and glanced up at the harvest moon. It seemed so close, so big and bright. The wind whipped her hair as she raised her arms. Tonight, I'm a bird, a dove flying high above the world. She looked down. Lonnie smoked a cigarette and paced near the operator's stand, the tiny orange glow the only movement on the ground. Up here the wind caressed her face under a big yellow moon, and the stars seemed almost within her reach. She held her breath as a meteor streaked across the deep purple with a welder's spark of fire that sliced a fleeting crack into the heart of the heavens.
The Ferris wheel lifted her higher, almost to the summit of its cycle, the wind picking up. As the Big Wheel crested at the top, it descended quickly, going through its spinning cycle. She held her hands up and made a contorted, funny face at Lonnie, zipping by him on her way back to the top. “Yeeeeessss! I'm a bird,” she sang the words.
At the top of the cycle, the Big Wheel came to a sudden stop. Courtney looked down and blew a kiss to Lonnie, who removed his baseball cap and grinned. The night was suddenly very quiet. She raised her eyes up and felt as if she could see for a hundred miles in any direction. There was the nightglow of Gainesville, Florida, at the edge of the horizon. She saw the headlights of cars creeping down dark back roads in the distance. A flicker of heat lighting hung in the outlying clouds for a beat no longer than the blush of a firefly's belly.
The seat, attached by two metal pins as wide as her little finger, rocked back and forth at the top of the Ferris wheel. Courtney couldn't help but smile. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt the breeze on her skin, her mind in sharp focus, the world now smaller, her troubles and past seemed far beyond the horizon. She watched a plane flying low in the distance, climbing higher as it gained altitude after leaving an airport. One day I'll catch a jet plane to fly to some far away, romantic place. But right now this is the best seat in the whole world. My rockin' chair with a view that goes forever.