The Bastard Hand (31 page)

The congregation only looked at him. No one moved.

Forrey said, “Right now, people!” and Oldfield began herding them up, clapping his palms together, saying, “You heard the man, folks, get all the kids outta here right this second! Everyone under twenty-one years old, get out now!”

Like confused, panicked cows, the congregation started moving, too stunned to even protest. Mothers escorted their children out or told them to go themselves. Fathers nodded at their sons sternly and the sons stood up and walked out. Some of the children were crying and the atmosphere was less like a church and more like a circus, right after the elephant escapes and tramples eight people.

I sat there in the front pew while all this went on, staring straight ahead and examining the dead pieces that remained of my heart. I was a corpse now, my personality wiped clean, my right to feel anything at all forfeit. The hate I felt before gone, but so was everything else. Like a reed, with the wind blowing through me. I didn’t look up at the Reverend, had no idea what he was doing, how he was reacting. It didn’t matter.

After a few minutes, the under-agers were out and Oldfield closed the doors and came back to where the television sat, in front of the congregation. I made myself look around—the church was still full by most standards, maybe about eighty people. It would be enough.

Without another word, Forrey unplugged the unused microphone from in front of the podium and replaced it with the television plug. He turned on the television, then pressed the play button on the built-in VCR.

I only half-watched the tape. Didn’t need to, obviously. But my eyes were the only ones not peeled constantly to that big screen, high definition television. It started right away with the Reverend yanking off his shirt, grinning wickedly, unbuckling his pants and pulling Elise Garrity to him. The entire church gasped as one when they saw her. Unmistakable, that gold-blonde hair and those fine, sharp features.

I glanced around at the congregation. Confusion on every face as the couple on the TV locked themselves together and the Reverend tore her blouse off and grabbed her breasts with rough hands. The picture came out good, I had to admit. Clear and steady. Better than some professional work I’d seen. I could make a career out of it, probably.

They fell into bed and by now Elise Garrity was naked under him and the confusion on the faces of the church people began to give way to understanding. Understanding, and horror. The volume was up as high as it would go, and the walls of the church and the wood of the pews vibrated with the sounds of ecstasy. Elise Garrity moaning, crying out. The Reverend talking dirty, grunting. Flesh slapping rhythmically against flesh, and all the beautiful and sacred sinfulness of man played out in color and Jesus still on the cross above the Reverend’s head, as impassive and limp as ever, but the Reverend wasn’t limp, was he? Hell, no, and how about one more amen for the road?

The Reverend’s face blanched and his hands shook. My Father, why hast thou forsaken me? I stood up, took a step onto the stage. He looked at me with dead, stunned eyes. I reached into his pocket and took the Bible from it and put it in my own jacket pocket and he didn’t even try to stop me. The entire congregation in front of us, but I didn’t care—probably, most of them didn’t even see it, their eyes were glued to the masterpiece I’d filmed for them.

I stepped into the aisle, past the television set, past Forrey and Oldfield, and walked to the doors. Elise was saying, “Yes, yes. . . . Oh God, yes. . . .”

In the open doorway, I looked back and he was looking right at me. The stunned expression slowly dying away, something else growing in its place. A realization. I turned away from him and started out and was on the porch steps before I heard it—a low, almost plaintive wailing, obscured by the soundtrack of he and Elise. It built up, becoming an animal roar of hatred and anger, the sound of Lucifer, at last realizing what he was, until it was louder than the television and I couldn’t hear anything else.

Even half way up the street, I imagined I could still hear it.

Reverend Childe, roaring, “CHARLIE! YOU SONOFABITCH, I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!”

One October day at the Institute, I sat in the rec room reading Huckleberry Finn for the eighth time when the doctor came in and called my name.

I looked up at him, surprised. The doctor almost never came into the patient’s living areas; when it was time to see him, orderlies escorted you into the doctor’s office. I put down my book and he said, “Charles. Do you have a moment, son? I’d like to talk to you.”

I stood up and followed him. He led me down the hall toward the room I shared with two other men. He talked quietly the whole time. “How’ve you been feeling lately? We’re very pleased with your progress, if you didn’t know. Is group working for you? Are you getting enough to eat?”

I gave him the answers I thought he wanted, but was distracted. Two orderlies had fallen into line behind us, following at a short distance. In my room, he asked me to sit on the bed. The orderlies came in and one of them closed the door behind us. The doctor pulled the only chair up near where I sat. He turned it around and straddled it like a horse and looked at me with a concerned eye. Something bad was coming.

“Charles,” he said. “You’re expecting a visitor tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes. My brother, Kyle.”

He nodded. “Are you close to your brother?”

I glanced at the orderlies. They fixed their gazes on the far side of the room.

I said, “Well. We never used to be, when we were growing up. He’s a couple years older than me, you know. I guess I was like the annoying kid who always hung around.”

“But now?”

“Now it’s different, I guess. We’ve gotten closer. Since I . . . since I’ve been here. He visits every month and it’s different now.”

“Your brother loves you.”

“Sure, I guess so.”

“And you love your brother.”

I said, “What’s going on? Why are you asking me about Kyle?”

The doctor let out a deep, steadying sigh, glanced once at the orderlies, and put a hand on my shoulder. “Charles, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

My gut twisted.

“There was an accident, Charles. A car accident, yesterday.”

• • •

I can’t remember anything else about that day. Just a sudden, violent grief, lashing out. A flash of my fingers around the doctor’s throat and the orderlies falling on me and the sharp sting of a needle in my neck.

But I thought about it as I left the church, thought about Kyle and grief, and wondered why love always seemed to equal pain. If I’d never killed the young policeman in Seattle, if I’d never gone to the Institute, I’d never have had a good relationship with Kyle. I’d never have known a brother’s love and I’d never have felt the pain his absence caused in me, everyday.

I could see it all so clearly now, the threads of continuity that led me to this point, led me from love to love. I loved the Reverend, too, didn’t I? Despite everything, I loved him, because he occupied the space that Kyle used to occupy, a space I needed to fill. Kyle’s space was round and warm and the Reverend filled it with something sharp and angular, but it wasn’t empty anymore, that was the point.

I would never have met the Reverend if I hadn’t lost Kyle, and I would never have lost Kyle if I hadn’t loved him, and I would never have loved him if I hadn’t . . .

If I hadn’t killed the young policeman.

All I’d known before killing him was fear. He died so that I could know love and pain. He was my John the Baptist. He saved me.

This new understanding didn’t make me feel better. In fact, it made everything seem that much worse—the idea that massive forces were behind it all, behind everything, an enormous conspiracy of grief that I couldn’t buck against no matter what. I couldn’t change anything.

I walked, and my hand strayed to the Bible in my pocket, Jathed’s Bible. He died for someone, too. He died so someone could know pain. He died for the sins of Cuba Landing.

I stopped walking and looked around. The parking lot of the bar. Where the hell was I going? The bar was closed, a steel gate lowered over the entrance, and I didn’t really have time for a drink just then anyway. Things to do. But I had driven, hadn’t I? I’d been driving Elise Garrity’s Rover.

I looked around, laughed to myself. “I’ll be damned,” I said aloud. I couldn’t remember where I’d left the Rover.

I stood there trying to remember where I’d parked it and even though I was actually looking around, I had completely dropped my guard. Not the smartest thing to do, when gangsters are looking to kill you.

Someone moved behind me. I started to turn, caught quick movement from the corner of my eye, three of them. The nearest one swung at me and his fist caught me in the jaw and I reeled backward into the steel gate.

Only part of my brain snapped to awareness, and that part immediately knew I was in big trouble. The rest of my brain, though, was still reeling and completely unprepared.

Another punch, in the kidney, and I started to go down but he yanked me up by the collar and slammed me again in the stomach.

The other two grabbed my arms, twisted them behind me, forced me around and pushed my face against the gate. The third one took a fistful of my hair, pulled my head back, and slammed it forward again. It broke my nose.

I struggled and kicked against them, but my eyes had gone all watery and I couldn’t see or think. I tasted blood. The one behind me pulled my head back, hissed in my ear, “You thought you could hide?”

He rammed my head against the gate one more time, then jerked me backward and threw me onto the pavement.

I lay on my back, trying desperately to find the strength to get up, but couldn’t. Three of them, three Bad Luck Inc. boys, their faces set and hard and looking forward to taking care of some unfinished business.

This was going to be bad, it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. One of the gangsters kicked me in the side and I curled up into a ball. Another kick, to the back of the head, and then all three of them started kicking. Big, steel-toed boots connecting at the back of my head, my spine, my ass and legs and arms. It was happening too fast, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t gather my wits long enough to fight back.

Then they relented for a moment. One of them, a slim black guy wearing a doo-rag, squatted down next to me, lifted my head up by my hair, and said, “You ain’t all that, are you? Hobby said you was a bad-ass, but you ain’t nothin’.”

I could barely breathe, let alone answer him. He put his face in mine and showed me his teeth. A lot of gold in that mouth.

“Where’s the bitch, punk? You tell me where she is, I see ’bout letting you live, know what I’m saying?”

I gritted my teeth, fought to keep down the pain.

“You need a minute, homie? You need a sec to collect yourself?” They all laughed. “I give you a minute, huh, how zat?”

The three of them stepped back. I rolled over and looked up at them and they grinned down at me. I started to push myself up off the pavement and one of them kicked my arm out from under me and I went down again.

“Where you think you’re going, punk-ass? You stay right there, get yourself together.”

I started laughing.

Weakly at first, because my whole body was wracked with pain, but then the laughter started getting stronger because, Jesus, this was all too much, these half-ass gangsters who’d seen too many movies and were so tough only because there were three of them and one of me. And really, they didn’t stand a chance because I could feel the pain going away and the slight buzz at the back of my head. I could feel the glow building in my fingertips.

Doo-rag Slim said, “What you laughing about, you punk-ass bitch?” and moved to kick me again. I grabbed his foot inches from my head and twisted it and he went down on his back.

The other two moved quickly, but in a heartbeat I was on my feet and fighting. The light glowed in my hands as I jabbed at the nose of the nearest guy, and as I felt bone crack under my knuckles the light seemed to spread over his face, splatter like gold blood and arc away.

The other gangster performed a fairly impressive kung fu move, jumping back on one foot and kicking out sharply with his other. His heel caught me in the upper chest and I staggered back a few feet but stayed up. It looked good, but didn’t hurt much. I guessed he didn’t really know martial arts but saw the trick in a movie and practiced it on his own in the privacy of his bedroom.

I grinned at him, took three steps forward, snatched his shirt collar and slammed my forehead into his nose.

I heard a click behind me, the sound of a gun hammer being drawn back, and turned to see the last of them, Slim, pointing a 9 mm Beretta at my belly. He looked scared and I knew he was going to shoot, to hell with where Tassie was.

One step toward him, and he did it, he pulled the trigger. I felt the sudden fire pierce my stomach, felt the little slug of metal, like a steel wasp burrow into my gut and lodge against my spine.

It didn’t slow me down. Snarling, I grabbed the gun and his hand, and the golden light flared like a beacon and the flesh of his fingers sizzled. He screamed. I gripped him tighter, feeling his hand fuse into the metal of the gun.

He dropped to his knees, his screams getting weaker and weaker, and then the only thing holding him up was me. He passed out.

I let him go and he crumpled to the pavement. I glanced around for the other two. They were gone, ran off.

My shirt was bloody, but the flesh underneath had already begun scabbing over. Even the scabs would be gone in an hour or so. The broken nose, too, had already repaired itself, leaving no trace save for the drying blood on my face.

I pulled off my jacket and shirt, used the shirt to wipe away the blood, and then tossed it away. Slim wore a black t-shirt; I pulled it off over his head and put it on. It fit okay, and didn’t smell any worse than mine had. I put my jacket back on, and the Bible in the inside pocket thumped against my chest.

Then it finally occurred to me that I was in the middle of a public parking lot on a bright sunny Sunday morning. I looked around warily, expecting to see crowds of witnesses everywhere. But there was no one. The parking lot empty, blocked off from the view of the rest of the street by the bar.