“I thought you wanted to discuss my soul, not my son’s.”
The woman passed without a glance. New Jesus Clan in the neighborhood? None of her business.
“Do you know what today is?”
“Is this a trick?”
“It’s Good Friday. The day Jesus was nailed to the cross. He had to carry his own cross; he was beaten, whipped, tortured, humiliated. He bore this brunt with a heavy heart but a steady back and solid feet. He may have fallen on his way to the delight of hecklers, but he always got back up again. He marched to Golgotha, the place of the skull, and was nailed to the cross. You have heard this?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry it happened but—”
“Do not weep for him. He was crucified for us, Anthony. We should rejoice. On that cross, he agonized with the final dying breaths of life. It is believed he was nailed to the cross at noon and was dead at three. Do you know what he said before he died?”
“Of course. He said, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“No,” Ellis said. “He said, ‘It is finished.’ Do you know why that’s important?”
Anthony kept quiet.
“Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew of Judas’s betrayal; he knew of Pilate’s washing of his hands; he knew of the torture; he knew of his death. He knew of all of this long before it ever happened. He was an emissary from God; his mission was to show man the path to empowerment.”
“His death did that?”
“When he died, an earthquake rumbled throughout the land, tumbling buildings, cracking open tombs. That was the sign.”
“That Man fucked up again? First Eve in the Garden and now a pack of bloodthirsty Jews?”
“No. It was the sign that man could finally find the righteous path and harness the unequal might of God’s empowerment. Jesus was sent to show us the way and he did, if we are willing to look and not fear the suffering that may come along the journey.”
“What do you want me to do?” Anthony wanted to fall asleep or die or something.
“Today is a holy day. The power is out there waiting. Do you see the time?”
Ellis gestured to the digital car clock: 3:00.
“Good timing,” Anthony said, hoping it would be much more flippant than it came out.
“There are no coincidences, Anthony, only curious things we can’t explain along the path God has set for us, if we choose to take it.”
One of the men exited Anthony’s house. He rolled the duffel bag on its tiny wheels down the driveway. The bag was stretched so tightly that one of the side zippers hadn’t made it all the way shut. A piece of bloody sheet stuck out like a mottled ghost-white tongue.
“There’s something you need to do,” Ellis said.
“Get new sheets?”
“Kill your wife.”
12
The bruise on the doc’s face was still spreading. Brendan wondered how far it would go before all the internal workings of the body realized the main system had crashed. He didn’t waste time wondering if this man’s death was part of God’s plan or not; Brendan believed with all of himself that it was and that left no room for doubt.
“Didn’t expect to see you until later.” The voice was Dwayne’s; he was standing in the bedroom doorway. He was wearing his funeral suit and his hair was plastered with gel.
Brendan had an urge to run to the man, hug him. He wasn’t sure why but there was something about him, perhaps his larger size in comparison to Dad’s that suggested more manliness and that, ironically, made Brendan want to be even closer to him. Those broad shoulders and wide arms could protect him better than Dad’s thin frame and spindly arms. The world was a dangerous place; it would be nice to have a strong protector.
He was protecting you—he killed Dr. Carroll for you.
Or had that been God acting through Dad?
Dwayne stood in an immaculate suit with no wrinkles ruining the smoothness of his look and no hairs out of place on his head. Dwayne was a symbol of God’s perfection, of the Master Plan, of the Path to Empowerment.
“It’s all happening, isn’t it?” Brendan asked.
Dwayne smiled. “It certainly is.”
* * *
They stood off to the side while two men, also in black suits with the addition of latex gloves, stripped Dr. Carroll to his white boxers and stuffed his clothes in a duffel bag. The men then placed Mom and Aunt Steph on the carpet, removed all the bed sheets and squeezed the sheets into the same duffel bag. Aunt Steph mumbled something in her sleep but Mom didn’t stir.
One man sprayed something on a large, pink splotch on the mattress where the blood had seeped through the sheets. He scrubbed at the stain with a hard-bristled brush until the pink was almost gone. From another duffel bag came a set of fresh bed linens, cream colored. The bed was made in a few seconds.
“They’re fast,” Brendan said.
“Necessity of the job,” Dwayne said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. To talk.”
Glancing into the family room and the big, blank TV in there before entering the kitchen, Brendan thought about Bobo and BooBoo Bunny. The show seemed so impossibly silly right now, something meant for five-year-olds. He’d probably never watch that show again, nor any cartoon. For a moment he felt something he could have labeled sadness but it fled too quickly to really register. There were more important things to worry about.
They sat at the table where, up until a week ago, the family (minus Mom, of course) had enjoyed the weekly ritual of bacon and eggs.
“These are dark times,” Dwayne said. He sat with his big arms on the table and stared at the wall ahead, a painting set in the middle of the walclass="underline" a little kid sitting at the counter in some diner with a bulky cop next to him and the cook or waiter leaning over the counter from the opposite side. The painting was one of Mom’s favorites. It always seemed a bit creepy to Brendan. The way the cook, dressed all in white, was staring at the little kid, cigarette in the corner of his mouth; Brendan could picture the next frame—the kid strapped to a chair, tears gushing from his eyes, screams of pain echoing out of him. The cop might even be watching from the shadows. Like the Darkman.
“It is difficult sometimes to see God’s hands in everything. There is so much pain in the world that it makes you wonder.”
“What?”
“Does He even exist?”
Was this some kind of test? “God?”
Dwayne smiled, turned to him. “They say the purest believers are always children.”
He was leaning toward Brendan just the way the cop in the painting was leaning toward that boy. In fact, the two had the same broad back and wide nose, same short, neat haircuts. Was Ellis the other guy then, the one with the strange smile?
“I found God many years ago,” Dwayne said. “I was lost, so lost that it is even a wonder I was able to find my way. I was a bad person, did some horrible things. All because I hated myself so much. I abused my wife. Beat her viciously many, many times.”
Brendan couldn’t say anything. What was Dwayne’s point?
“Ellis saved me. He walked right into my house one night while I was throwing my wife around and he stopped me. I had a kitchen chair, like one of these, held over my head. I was going to crush her with it, her and our unborn baby.
“Ellis told me that God had other plans for me. I told him to go fuck himself. And you know what he did? He walked right up to me, put his hands on my arm and said, ‘God loves you so much that even if you kill this woman, He will still accept you with open arms.’ That just took out all the aggression. I went limp, dropped the chair, almost collapsed. Ellis told me that one day I’d be glad that a child existed somewhere with my DNA.”