Kick (The Jenkins Cycle Book 1) (25 page)

Sometime after four, people started trickling in. So far, they were all Nate’s friends. I was able to figure out who some of them were by watching and listening: fellow teachers from the elementary school and their families, some parents he’d gotten to be friends with, and a group from Nate’s hiking club, many of whom comprised the strange cast from my night at Hardlickers, not a few of them looking worse for wear. I also got the sense that none of them were Erika’s friends.

When Rob and Tom showed up, they helped muscle me into my tux, for which I thanked them profusely. I’d worn a tux at my high school prom, but that had been a cheap tux with fewer straps and pieces.

“So you’re ready to take the plunge?” Rob said.

“I guess,” I said. “You ready to be best man?”

“Sure—I’ve been doing that my whole life,” he said, laughing.

Tom faked like he was gagging on something.

“Hey Tommy,” Rob said, “gimme a moment with Nate, would ya?”

“Ick, I don’t even wanna know,” Tom said, backing away, laying it on like something unwholesome was about to happen.

After he left, I said, “What’s up?”

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to thank you for making me your best man and all. Real classy of you after… uh… you know—all that happened. In the past. You know?”

No, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Absolutely,” I said. “What are friends for?”

Rob just smiled that predator smile of his.

“Friends… yeah. So hey,” he said. “About Erika. Look, I don’t want you getting angry at me, but I never told you: she’s a real knockout. Not just pretty—she’s like movie star pretty. Like if Pam Anderson and Michelle Pfeifer had a lezbo baby.”

“Yeah, I think she’s great looking too,” I said, treading cautiously. There was something odd here. It reminded me of that time in ninth grade when a bully named Randy Cobb punched me in the stomach out of nowhere.

Rob wasn’t done.

“I gotta to tell you, and I don’t wanna sound like I’m harping on it or anything, but Erika ain’t like those girls at the club last night, know what I mean? I’m not saying she couldn’t make it up there on a stage, don’t get me wrong. Great body—just being honest. But she ain’t that kind of girl.”

“Ok,” I said.

Leaning in, he looked me square in the eye.

“I’m just saying that when you get a girl like that, wholesome and pure at heart, you gotta remember to cherish her. Especially when she’s the mother of your kid.”

Then he smiled.

There was something smug about the whole thing, but Rob made it sound awkward enough that if you called him on it then you’d be the bad guy, not him. It made me want to pull a Randy Cobb on him, but I restrained myself and just nodded, noncommittally. He did me one better, taking me into a bear hug and then following it with a bone-grinding handshake.

“I wish I was you, Nate,” he said. “Maybe not all the time, cuz I’m better looking, but definitely on your honeymoon. Hey, I kid, I kid!” Then he chucked me on the shoulder and threw me a sly wink. “See ya downstairs, Professor Stud Muffin.”

Alone now, I stood looking into a mirror at a man that wasn’t me, wondering what the hell just happened.

***

The minister arrived at five, an hour out from the ceremony. He was in his fifties, tall without being skinny or stooped, with the calm demeanor of someone comfortable in chaotic circumstances. I would have shook his hand but I was carrying a box of paper decorations for Tim in one hand and a soda in the other.

He said hello and asked me how I was doing.

“Just fine,” I said. “So, how did you get into the wedding business?”

I’ve always been fascinated with how people got where they were in life and wasn’t about to let my lack of a polite segue spoil it.

The minister’s face took on a look of practiced ease, as if he’d answered that question so many times it had now become routine.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say I got into it so much as it got into me,” he said. “I was ordained Catholic, spent the early part of my calling seeing most of my congregation on Christmas and Easter. At some point, I discovered that my most joyous times as a priest were when I was officiating weddings, helping people take their first steps toward a new life together. So I became active with a group of like-minded people who specialized in nondenominational and interfaith wedding ceremonies, and I’ve never looked back.”

“Didn’t the church have a problem with that?”

He laughed, kindly.

“I think they’re waiting for me to come back to my senses,” he said. “Officially, I’m retired on inactive status.”

“What, like they can bring you back in if there’s a shortage?”

“There’s always a shortage of good ones.”

“Where do you fall in?” I said, and then immediately regretted how it sounded.

The minister didn’t act offended. He actually seemed to think it over.

“If I said I do the best with what the Good Lord gave me, you’ll think I’m avoiding the question, but it’s still true. But some men think becoming a priest is the finish line. They stop nurturing their faith. I like to think I’ve never stopped looking for the truth. I now practice Universalism. I think all of us find our own way to God, and in the end we’ll all be reconciled in his eyes.”

“Hey, I like that. Let’s just hope he does,” I said, trying to lighten things a little. He seemed like a good guy, and I regretted the slip into my jerk routine.

“I could go on forever about theology. But this is your day—yours and Erika’s. Are you excited? Any wedding jitters?”

“Nothing cocaine and whiskey can’t cure.”

The minister laughed.

“That only proves you’re human,” he said, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

The world rolled itself into a long, tube-shaped room with people in it, with everyone stretched tall like in a funhouse mirror. Talking sounded muffled, and I experienced the strange smell you get from a punch in the nose. Inexplicably, I’d just been kicked.

By the minister.

Chapter 29

The minister pulled his hand away like he’d touched something hot—or scaly—and when my vision cleared I saw him looking at me as if truly seeing me for the first time.

I responded by pretending like nothing had happened. It helped that a woman walked up to me and said, “Oh my God, Nate, turn around, Erika’s here and you’re not supposed to see her.”

The sticker on her shirt read, “Betsy”—Erika’s ex-roommate.

“Well, hello to you too, Betsy.”

Grinning, I pretended to sneak a peek back to the front door and received a scolding for my efforts. Despite the playful act, it took all I had to stay focused. I’ve always harbored this dread that I’m a friendlier version of the thing in The Exorcist.

“No peeking, buster!” Betsy said, physically turning me around toward the minister. But he’d already left. I barely caught sight of him slipping into the bathroom just off the kitchen.

I gave Tim his decorations and spent the next several minutes watching the bathroom, but the minister never came out. Part of me expected him to come boiling through the door, a crucifix clenched in a white knuckled grip, shouting, “OUT UNCLEAN SPIRIT!” or maybe, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” and then slamming a wizard staff down in Nate’s foyer with a sound like a thunderbolt, scattering hobbits and guests everywhere. Both of which would have been neat, but—

“Nate, I’d like you to meet my sister, Clara.”

Clara was a young, twenty-something brunette standing next to the speaker, a tall walrus of a man who made the dining room seem like a closet. He must have been 6’7” and 350 pounds.

This guy likes steak.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand. “Did he tell you I fly spaceships and hang out with pirates?”

Clara had an easy laugh.

“No, he didn’t.”

The man said, “Hope you don’t mind her crashing the party, Nate. There’s always leftovers at these things, and she doesn’t eat much. Wish I could say the same about me.”

He patted his belly like a tom-tom, causing Clara to giggle.

“No worries… Mark,” I said, quickly reading his nametag. “We’ll order pizzas if we have to. But you have to share with the other guests.”

Only Clara laughed.

I received more guests as they arrived. At the same time, between the handshakes and canned pleasantries, I kept an eye out for His Holiness. Frankly, I was worried he’d get cold feet and sneak out.

Nobody asked me anything I couldn’t answer or couldn’t deflect with a “Would you excuse me?” as I went to greet a new arrival. Once, it was even legitimate, when I broke away to greet two special guests: Sheila and Enrique.

“Hey, how are you two?” I said to them, and momentarily dropped my obsession with the bathroom. Of all the people at the wedding, these were the only ones I could be myself with. I’d already decided to leave a note for Nate before getting kicked—something like the one I’d penned on Mike Nichols’s arm, but on paper and more comprehensive. It worried me that he might run into them one day. It’d be a shame if he treated them poorly on my account.

Enrique seemed nervous, taking too long to notice my extended hand and return my handshake, but that was ok. Sheila greeted me warmly, brave as ever, even in a room full of total strangers.

“I am fine, Mr. Cantrell,” she said, her mouth quirked in an amused smile at her cousin’s nervousness. “Enrique is fine too.”

“Please, call me Nate.”

“Enrique, tell him,” she said, nodding her head towards me.

“Mr. Cantrell,” he said. “Thank you for the money that you sent to my mother. She will pray for you all the time.”

It sounded like he’d worked hard rehearsing it, like he wanted to get it right.

I swallowed, feeling like a total fraud.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Glad to help out.”

Sheila translated for him, after which we shook hands again.

“Everything is so lovely Mr. Cantrell—
Nate
,” Sheila said. “The decorations—they are beautiful.”

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to let my brother know.”

I spent the next fifteen minutes talking to Sheila and Enrique, doing my best to be a good host and make them feel comfortable. I asked her what she did for a living and if she had children. She said she worked for a florist and had a two-year-old boy named Paul. She showed me a picture of a cute kid with his mommy’s smile. I told her I was a gym teacher and then invented some bogus details. Once or twice, one of the other guests joined us, but they’d eventually peel off when they realized I wasn’t going to introduce them.

My eyes never strayed far from the bathroom. When the minister finally stepped out he looked straight at me. He stood there for about a minute while I nodded and laughed on autopilot at something Sheila was saying. His face betrayed no emotion, but his stance said everything:
I know what you are and I defy you.

I told Sheila to enjoy herself, that I needed to speak with someone.

“Of course, Nate,” she said. “You need to talk to other people. It is your wedding and it is expected. We are fine.”

She made a shooing motion with her hands and smiled to show it was ok.

Heading to the minister, I thought,
I’m going to miss her when I’ve moved on,
followed by,
Don’t let him touch you again!

Quietly, I said to him, “Do you want to talk outside, on the deck?”

He looked like he wanted to say,
No, we’re fine right here
, but couldn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he nodded and followed me out. I kept expecting him to grab me and cast me back to the Great Wherever, but he didn’t.

When we got outside, the minister found his voice—terribly so.

“I demand that you tell me who and what you are, and what you have done to Nathan Cantrell.”

His words hit me like physical blows, almost like a kick, but without the necessary oomph to push me out of the world. I’m ashamed to say I looked at him with something like dread, half raising my hands in self-defense.

I said, “You want to know about Nate? Fine, but seriously, hold off a second with the demands, and whatever you do, don’t touch me again. I’m going to say some things I think you’ll find interesting. But first, how much did you get from me when you touched my shoulder?”

His eyes hardened into a glare, which made him difficult to look at. Like standing below an impending avalanche, only someone had replaced the ice and snow with cement mixers loaded with Cold War nukes.

Finally, the minister said, “I offer you nothing. You
will
tell me what you have done with Nathan Cantrell!”

Again, that terrible force emanated from him, like nothing I had ever experienced before in any body on any ride. I felt amazed and scared and exhilarated all at once. For the first time ever, I didn’t have any templates from which to manipulate him.

Add
refreshed
to that list.

“No need to yell,” I said. “I’ll try. But I’ve never told anyone this stuff, so it’s going to sound like… er… kind of clunky, ok? There’s a lot to it. Right?”

“I’m listening.”

Swallowing, I said, “My real name is Dan Jenkins. I’m an ex-suicide who died in the early nineties and the Great… that is, God or something like him, has allowed me to come back and into Nate’s body. I’ve been here a week. I don’t know what’s happened to Nate, but I think he’s fine. I expect to be gone in about two more weeks. After that Nate should return to his body.”

It felt weird calling the Great Whomever
God,
but I had a very special audience.

The minister just stared at me, mouth half open, his eyes projecting as much fear as they did resolve. As if he knew he must confront me, while also realizing how woefully unprepared he was. Which made sense—he’d come here for a wedding, not a fight for Nate’s soul.

“That’s some story,” he said, his face inscrutable. “What else?”

The aura around him intensified, making him harder to look at. But it was nothing compared to his gaze. So long as he looked at me, I felt… I don’t know…
doomed
.

“As far as it concerns Nate, that’s the bare bones. It’s all true—and I think you know it is. I can’t lie to you.”