Disconnection (23 page)

She took a long breath. There was only one way to find out.

D
ean’s borrowed clothes and Sela’s hair dried slowly as she waited at a booth inside the gas station’s restaurant. Half an hour had passed since she had called Harold, and still he had not arrived. With an empty stomach and only a few dollars in her pocket, Sela’d bought a Mr. Pibb and a bag of cheese crunchies and proceeded to eat.

Harold Applegate entered through the glass doors just as Sela was about to lay her head on the table and rest after her healthy meal. She watched the reverend walk in wearing a black suit and a tie with illustrations of rubber ducks wrapped in blue bath bubbles. He stood at the Frito-Lay display, his eyes moving across the store. Sela waved from her position at the booth. Applegate’s tight frown loosened with relief when he finally saw her.

“Ms. Warren, hello. I am so glad I found this place,” he said as he approached. “You’re in the middle of freakin’—pardon my English—nowhere, aren’t you?” He ran a hand through his exaggerated hairpiece.

“I know,” Sela said. “I am sorry you had to come,” she added.

“Think nothing of it. I was just discussing you with Detective Kline, matter of fact. Your ears must have been burning.” He cleared his throat. “Sela, I know we hardly know one another, but you left an impression on me that day at my brother’s house. I just wanted you to know that.

“You just missed a spectacular event. We had the most glorious spiritual revival in Jackson Square only a short while ago. But enough of that fiddle-faddle now, I’ll tell you all about it in the car.” He paused. “Are you are all right? On the phone you sounded like the Devil himself was chasing you.”

Ha. If you only knew!

Sela drew in a deep breath. “You might be closer to the truth than you think,” she admitted.

“Well, then, let’s get going.”

The back seats of Harold’s silver Ford Explorer were extremely cramped with Jesus brochures and boxes with what Sela believed to be clothes for Goodwill—baby clothes, ladies’ slips, men’s ties, multi-colored windbreakers. The reverend dropped the transmission into gear and pulled onto the rock-strewn street. Sela turned to watch the gas station drop behind them in a cloud of dust and exhaust.

Time passed by in minutes of sprawling unease before Harold said, “Music feels right about this time. Would you mind if I turned on some music?” His hand stretched toward the radio knob.

Sela shook her head. “No. I don’t mind.”

He flicked the knob and the radio turned on, and a series of gospel tunes followed, each song more syrupy sweet and praise-a-licious than the last. Harold ate it up like a cat with catnip. “Praise the Lord for music. Amen,” he said, glancing her way. “Would you like to talk about your experience today, Ms. Warren?”

No, I certainly would not
. Sela clutched her hands in her lap. “Would you take me to the police station once we get to town, Reverend Applegate?”

“Harold, please. And of course I will take you, if that’s where you need to go. Have you been a victim of crime, Ms. Warren? Crime has gotten out of control these days, hasn’t it? Lord bless the sinners, let them learn to heal.”

“I have to see Detective Kline,” Sela said, leaning one tired shoulder blade against the window’s glass as she continued to stare outside at the passing scenery.

“Is someone bothering you?” Harold asked. “You can talk to me. That’s part of my job, you know. Healing the injured and comforting the bereaved.” He paused when the DJ came on to announce the new song. Harold clapped his hands in glee, his face turning red with excitement. “I love this song. It’s called, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’ It’s one of the oldest gospel songs still sung today. Do you mind if I turn it up?”

Sela shook her head. Harold turned the knob and the music played louder, enveloping the entire car with its cheery messages of faith and joy.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!

She continued to stare out the window at the developing darkness washing over the swamp landscape like a shadowy curse. As it rounded a curve, the Explorer skidded on pebbles. Sela spotted a figure near the railing. She looked closer, her breath sharpening when she saw the shaggy-bearded man walking along the road. His reptilian gaze found her as the SUV drove past. He smiled with blood in his teeth, his beard blowing in the wind like a shroud of grey seaweed. His finger moved across his throat in a slicing motion.

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!

Sela closed her eyes tightly, willing the image to disappear. When her eyes opened, he was gone.

The time for the redeemer is at hand
.

Sela shuddered as a ‘Do You Know Jesus?’ brochure blew into her lap. She promptly threw it into the back seat. “Did you see that man?” she asked Harold.

“What man?” Harold asked cheerfully. He glanced sideways at Sela. “Was there a man back there? A hitchhiker? Perhaps I should turn around and go back? Praise the Lord for cars, they sure do get us where we need to go.”

Praise the Lord for cars, they sure do get us away from maniacs
, Sela thought. “I probably didn’t see anything,” she said.

“All righty then.” Harold’s eyes returned to the road, his tenor voice still humming along with the song. “I just love radio, listen how they carry the Lord’s tune! God bless the radio, God bless music!” He laughed.

O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer
.

Sela gazed at Harold from the corner of her eye and noticed for the first time that he had dirt under his fingernails. Not just a case of going throughout the day without washing his hands either, but honest-to-God mud caked in and around his fingernails.

Have we trials and temptations?

Sela looked closer. Harold had dirt in his ear too. Dirt, or something brown. More than just the standard unhygienic wax build-up. Way more than that.

Is there trouble anywhere?

Harold cut his eyes suddenly in Sela’s direction. His irises had grown cloudy, his pupils had dilated.
“Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord brought this?”
he quoted, his strange eyes never wavering from the landscape of Sela’s face.

Sela’s palms grew sweaty within her lap. “Excuse me?” she asked the reverend.

“For thy Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not; I will help thee.”
Harold paused. “Do you read the Scriptures, Ms. Warren?”

Sela was about to answer when Harold began coughing furiously. His hacking was harsh, sharp as blades, and louder than a scream. His face grew bright red, his throat tightened in convulsions as he spit up a glob of phlegm into the palm of his receiving hand. He rolled down the window and tossed the greenish wad out into the night air. Sela watched as his unclean hand made a half-assed attempt at cleaning itself on his left thigh before proceeding to grip the steering wheel once more.

We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer
.

Sela wondered if Harold was always nonchalant in regard to practicing sanitary habits and if so, she felt sorry for his congregation.

Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?

“Sinuses,” he said, his focus returning to the road as they passed the sign that said “Orleans Parish.” “What did you say, Ms. Warren, about the Bible? Are you acquainted with the Good Book?”

She could not remember. She could not stop thinking about his hand, his ears, his fingernails. Everything about the Reverend Harold Applegate seemed to change in front of her. “I forgot,” she said.

Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer
.

“Well, there’s always time to get reacquainted with the Lord.” He waited a moment before mumbling something else under his breath, something vague and soft as a whisper, but Sela heard it all the same:

I bet even Dean the Jew boy knows the Old Testament
.

Goosebumps grew along Sela’s arm. “What did you say?”

“I said, there’s always time to get reacquainted with the Lord.”

“No, after that.”

“I don’t understand, Ms. Warren. That’s all I said. People leave the church and come back all the time. If you give yourself to God and accept Jesus as His son, the Lord will open His arms to you.” He turned and smiled at her, his laughing gaze growing vibrant with the intensity of his eyes—eyes that were growing cloudier, eyes that were retracting into a sea of storms and nightmares.

(that’s not all he said and you know it)

The dirt—or what Sela had thought was dirt—was now wiggling its way out of Harold’s ear. She watched it move, piece by piece unraveling, until it fell like dark string onto her arm. She looked down and saw a worm crawling along the length of her elbow. Sela recoiled, smacking it off her skin.

Harold said,
“The righteous shall judge.”

(you heard him right the first time you heard him right the first time)

Hot saliva rose up Sela’s throat as a strange sense of truth finally seized her. “You said his name,” she began. “You said Dean’s name. How do you know him?” Her body tensed up for the answer.

Harold hit a pothole and the Explorer yanked to the left, falling just short of hitting the railing.

“Sela. Isn’t that your first name?
Sela, Sela, went quite mad, burnt her house, her mom and dad.”
Harold coughed again. Another wad of mucus fell from his mouth and into his lap. The phlegm was bloody and covered with moving black
somethings
.

Harold pretended not to notice the black
somethings
moving in his lap. He coughed again and laughed while he hacked, his face turning redder and redder. He no longer bothered to cover his attack. During his fit, he stuck one hand in his mouth and gagged himself. A groaning sound emanated from the core of his throat. When he retracted his hands, a coiled cottonmouth snake lined his fingers that were reddish yellow and slippery from saliva and bile. The reverend raised the hissing reptile up close to Sela’s face. “This one here is called Mandy,” he said. “Do you know that song, Sela?
Oh, Mandy, you gave and you gave without taking, and I need you today, oh, Mandy
. Ha! Not a Gospel song is it, Ms. Warren?”

What did he do what did he kill oh God what did he do?

Panic surged like electricity through Sela’s blood as she watched the snake slither along Harold’s fingers. She crept closer and closer to the door
(my only way out God my only way to be free he’s going to kill me)
, her hand reaching over to the door’s latch, ready to open it, ready to flee. Harold glanced over and, seeing what she was about to do, grabbed her arm from its poised position. Sela fought back, but the reverend pressed the brakes suddenly and she flew forward in her seat. The Explorer sailed off the road and into the field nearby, where it slid to the beginning of the bayou’s shore. Sela braced her hands against the windshield as the world twirled in stages of blue and black around her. The box of clothes from the back seat flew into the front seat, its contents pouring out, revealing not only clothes but blood and dismembered body parts, all of which found a place together at the floor below Sela’s seat.

Sela blinked hard when the car finally rolled to a stop. Her body was pressed against the dashboard, her legs flattened against her chest. She turned and saw that Harold was leering at her, his thick tongue moistening his scaly lips as two yellow eyes watched her from a blood-red face. The snake had disappeared, but the radio’s gospel music stayed like a mocking voice in the background, saintly with hope, steady with doom.

Harold continued singing,
“Oh, Mandy, you came and you stopped me from shaking! And I need you today, oh, Mandy!”

Shivers as cold as ice ran down Sela’s back.

Mandy Mandy Mandy went for a job interview yesterday morning didn’t she for a church who needed a new receptionist and no word from her since
.

“What did you do with Mandy?” Sela asked, barely recognizing her own terrified voice.

Harold ignored her. “You need to be saved, Ms. Warren,” he whispered confidently, his hand reaching over and touching a lock of Sela’s hair. “You look so much like Chloe,” he muttered. “So much.”

Sela reeled back. “What did you do?” she cried, knowing exactly what he did. He killed Chloe. He killed his own niece. And maybe Mandy, too.

Harold laughed and his breath smelled like an open grave. “What do you think I did?” he asked.

“You said Dean’s name.”
You killed your niece
. Sela looked at the floor. She saw an infant’s sliced off thumb and forefinger rested in the crotch of a boy’s bloody Levi’s.
This is not happening to me what is this nothing is real
. No longer having the strength to scream, she inhaled sharply, for the air in the car had grown musty with the sickening smell of blood and decomposition.

Harold moved closer, so close that Sela could see the slugs bleeding out of his gums. He said, “What’s Chloe’s business is my business, Ms. Warren. I figure, it’s up to me to show her the way to salvation, me being her uncle and all. She already went through some silly atheist stage two years ago. It took longer than a granny stirring cream to get her out of that fiddle-faddle. And then she planned on going to Hollywood with that hooker! ’Scuse my English, but that’s what Lisa Hart is—a hooker. Oh, and that final insult—the Jew boy. You really think I’d stand by and let her talk to some Jew boy over the Internet? Next thing you know, they get married and have a bunch of Jew children. The Murderers of Christ. Couldn’t let that happen, could I? That’s why Chloe had to be saved. Make an example of her. And an example out of that lesbian Yankee woman, and that pretty little so-called Baptist girl living in sin with her boyfriend. Oh, mercy me, and that California business woman too, fornicating in public like that! All examples for the world to see—we will no longer tolerate sin! No more sin against our Lord and Savior! Hallelujah! Although, Ms. Warren, I have to say—you’ve missed the point completely.”