Not Far From Golgotha

  And watching them, he began to grow hard.

  I’m part of this, two sides echoed, one not wanting to accept the fact while the other basked in the thrill of the two girls. But Billy had to accept it (regardless what the two voices bickered over in his head), unable to disavow any longer the hard-on straining at his zipper. He shuffled from foot to foot, trying to position his jeans for accommodation. Finding only limited success he took a long, hard shot of whiskey and closed his eyes, grimacing as the liquid raced a fiery path to his stomach.

  He limped from his voyeur’s post, making slow passage to the restroom. In the long, seedy, dimly-lit hallway the Men’s Room was last, and he hoped to have himself under control by then. But as he passed the open door of the Ladies’ Room he could not resist a peek inside. A girl stood not three feet away, in the dank recesses of an open stall, a key to another girl’s nose making short work of cocaine. Neither of them paid him any attention. His sexual urge continued sinking as he turned away, running smack into an incredibly drunk man who fell, stiffly, back to the wall. The drunk mumbled something incoherently, stinking of a mixture of cologne, alcohol, and puke; his eyes mere pissholes.

  He appeared harmless and Billy squeezed by to the Men’s Room door, pushing it open slowly in case someone else was tipping the key here also. But no one was; in fact, the place was empty except for a urinal full of cigarette butts and a wet pile of puke trailing down the drain stuck in the middle of the floor. He went inside and set what little remained of his drink atop the urinal, proceeding about his business with his free hand. And as he pissed he read the brilliant work of the shit-house poets. Assorted ‘fuck you’s’ and ‘suck my dicks’ warned, threatened. Mothers and homosexuals were invited to perform mighty perversions and sex for hire. Phone numbers rampant with pornographic instructions. Despite (and sometimes because of) their vulgarity, Billy had to admit a handful were original enough to warrant a half-hearted laugh. However, the one that topped them all was in fact a simple line, starting off miniscule in one lower corner by the toilets (leaving Billy to wonder just how and why someone had gone to that much trouble) that grew stupendously, lapping to the ceiling where it grew and hung like a weight of snakes ready to let go. A simple phrase repeated with a steady, rising hysteria: ‘The Blue Hell’ over and over again as if the true immensity of this point could never be entirely conveyed. Like finding tangible evidence of a sin.

  Billy closed his eyes and stopped pissing. He zipped and turned to check himself in the remaining smashed mirror-shards stuck to the wall. Not great; in fact, not even good. A rowdy group was filing down the narrow hallway and he thankfully squeezed by without provoking the inebriated angst of any of them. When he made it to the end of the passage he noticed he no longer held his drink; it was still sitting on top of the urinal. Fuck it, he thought. If it was there it was lost, and suddenly he only wanted to be home, pulling the sheets up to his chin for the night to complete its cycle.

  He left The Blue Crystal as fast as the crowd allowed.

  Chapter 37

  With a crazy sense of foreboding Billy ran up the chilly three flights of stairs. It was just past 11:30 Friday morning, and even though he had one hell of a headache, he didn’t let it slow him. A startling bolt of imperative had awakened him hardly an hour before: a firm finger in the chest warning him to go see the old man again.

  Jesus Christ, the power had been astonishing.

  The only thing helping to stave off the debilitating effects of his hangover was fear he might’ve missed the old man. Of course this fear had been initiated with the shocking dream which awoke him, the one that now hung like a dripping towel in his thoughts as he raced up the stairs. In it, on a cold drizzling half-dark day, a coterie of grim-faced, old men had strained against wet ropes as they lowered into the muddy ground what Billy had known to be Ebenezer’s casket. Bouquets of red and yellow roses, bent and preyed upon by the steady rain had ringed the yawning hole awaiting its cargo. And in the weird surrealism of dreams Billy had seen himself, set apart from the other older men, hands clasped in a fig leaf pose far off to the right, eyes closed while what could have been rain or tears dripped from the tip of his nose.

  As the dream-Billy had been closed off from the sight of the casket’s descent, the omniscient Billy had occupied a floating position above, watching the box go down, mind-numbed and unbelieving that he’d denied the man’s company out of simple, irrational fear. The dream painted flesh to these fears because as the casket began its descent, things he’d fled to avoid thinking of began their slow crawl. Billy could feel them moving through the sludge of his oppressed memories. Shapes clamored, images collapsed; a rickety bookcase of disquiet went screaming over; a bar full of unease spewed its contents mindlessly. And in the dream the intensity had continued building until the dream-Billy suddenly broke and flung himself down into the hole, vainly attempting to hold back the shovel fulls of mud that now rained down. Trying to scream but finding no voice with which to avert the disaster, recognizing the symbol of his own defeat with every muddy clump that landed.

  Now, Billy took the stairs two, sometimes three at a time. Even as he went his mind played with the current paradox of racing to this place he only raced from. It was impossible to deny, since every moment he spent here another little drip of his life slid down the drain, pooling with the multitude of other destroyed lives that had slid down before. But this time, this one time…

  He felt he raced to retrieve a bit of that life, stealing it back from the impenetrable darkness by sheer force of will. He remembered Ebenezer asking him to return (the pleading evident in the old man’s eyes), and his skin burned with the embarrassment and pain of his continuing inadequacy and cowardliness.

  Redemption.

  Billy rushed up the final piece like a madman. Ebenezer’s mysterious power held the key to his redemption; if anything did, that was it. He did not know how or why he suddenly possessed this inspiration, but the knowledge was concrete. That in itself was reason enough to tear after the old man. Perhaps this was the only sort of hope an exile could expect.

  He burst through the stairwell door, unmindful of the sign that reminded anyone approaching to “Open Door Slowly.” Fuck it, he had no more time to spare, he’d wasted enough. He hoped the Head Prick had the day off, but it really didn’t matter at this point. If he were spotted and reported for running through the hospital like a hunted terrorist, then so be it. Perhaps by grace he’d be hidden in shadows.

  Just down the hallway to the left, not much more to go. Billy saw the door still cracked ever so slightly, just as it had been several days back when he’d first seen the old man. Billy ran to it like a nomad to an oasis, his hair wild, in a greasy ring upon his head. Emptiness greeted him when he thrust the door wide, a stark room lit only because the sheet changer had been careless upon leaving.

  He slumped, fairly collapsed into the hard visitor’s chair beneath the ceiling-mounted television. “Goddammit,” he breathed, blossoming spasms of pain behind his eyes, bringing tears only half from the hangover. His heart pounded. “Missed him,” he said, the benediction coming quietly, simply.

  He sat there for some time before shakily gaining his feet and walking like a zombie through the door and then down the hall. At the bank of humming elevators he stared vacantly at the ‘DOWN’ arrow, absently mulling over its implications, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He slowly turned around, uninterested in who he found there. It was Gerda, her black, sarcastic face now melded into an expression approaching concern. Billy’s eyebrows raised.

  “Billy?” she asked curiously, as if she didn’t fully recognize him.

  He gave her a semblance of a nod.

  “Ain’t you off today?”

  Another nod.

  “Well, what you doin’ ‘ere?”

  “Raising the dead, Gerda. But it looks like I was too late.”

  His answer caused any semblance of courtesy to drain from both her expression and voice, challenged in his
ridiculous reply. “Yeah, show you did,” she curtly returned. As the elevator beeped, preparing to open, she continued, “You smart-ass-muthafucka. I ain’t even should give you this…” and she shook her head while digging through the front pocket of her Housekeeping coat. She withdrew a small piece of paper as she went on describing him in expletives, all the while, Billy trying to put meaning to the fragment he’d heard. “Give me what?!” he spouted excitedly, so much that Gerda was thrown off balance and obliged quicker than she’d intended.

  “This,” she shot back, slapping the scrap into his hand. And without another word she was off to fight another day.

  Billy looked down and unfolded what looked to be a note. There, in barely legible scrawl was the name ‘Ebenezer Holgren’ and below it an address. Nothing else. The elevator closed again as Billy’s mind registered the information he’d been given, and he stood in front of the silent bank of elevators, staring. “Just like the fucking story,” he said to no one at all.

  Chapter 38

  Not long after Billy had made his frantic assault of the hospital’s back staircase, Elizabeth and Thomas passed a rather subdued drive across the Causeway Bridge. Elizabeth stared out the passenger side window, trying to focus on the wisps of clouds trailing overhead in hopes she could take her mind off the escalating pain proclaiming itself with every heartbeat. It was clear; fantasy night was over.

  In the seat beside her, Thomas kept his eyes on the road, sneaking an occasional glance at the girl with whom he’d been so intimate the night before, now silent and miles away with the coming of day. She seemed unable to inhabit the same skin he’d known, so quiet and withdrawn was she now. She’d not said a word since they’d gained the Causeway.

  He didn’t know what to think; she hadn’t come on like she was bombed. Sure, she’d had a few drinks, that’d been obvious, but not enough to warrant this change in attitude. The girl in the dark had been laughing and articulate, eager to please; she’d asked to be taken in perfectly lucid, and explicit, terms. The one sitting next to him now was a sealed vault.

  Maybe you were the one reading the wrong signals, his sub-conscious piped in, leaving him to consider these abstractions as he listened to the road and the quiet pulse of the radio.

  Somehow it just didn’t ring true. No, but… what about venereal disease? He gripped the wheel tighter, trying to chase that unwelcome specter away. Even though his stomach tensed and a crease crept across his brow as he squinted into the morning sky, this much more disconcerting thought didn’t seem to hold water. They had gone to bed with each other last night, but so what? Thomas figured he’d been with enough females to catch vibes off them. Doubtless, he’d been with a few sluts (caught a case of the crabs that’d been damn near impossible to shake), but this girl didn’t fit the type. She was different. Somehow…he couldn’t be sure how he knew. She was more cute than a consecrated beauty, way above the line in smarts (not that he was such a great judge of that), and in the few hours he’d known her had maintained her lusty and ebullient attitude with little effort. Or so it had seemed.

  Maybe she’s not a morning person? he pondered. He tried on that idea to see if it fit. He chanced another quick peek, saw a sharp grimace of pain flash above her cheek. A hangover, perhaps? Hard to say because she’d not spoken a word. And for one of the strange, mystical reasons that go forever unexplained, the look he’d witnessed shook loose a terrible pity, ranging back through the mists of his early memories and bringing one particular, lost moment to the forefront.

  He was suddenly in mind of the time he’d seen his brother clutching his stuffed monkey. The expression had been the same somehow. Thomas had punched it in the face and then laughed and mocked the younger boy in the afternoon; however, standing in the shadowed doorway that night had shamed him. He could still remember that moment, years past now but just as real as if it’d happened yesterday, his dignity so low that he’d cried silently and thought about it time and again ever since. All this, even though his brother probably didn’t even remember the episode at all. It was a private sin, a lesson that sunk to the softest part of one’s soul. A sin paid for in memory.

  He also remembered quietly kissing his brother’s forehead that night, and then making a mad dash to the door when Stephen began to stir. His brother was away in military school in Alabama now, paying his dues for a horrible, anti-social personality and a careless disregard for everyone except himself. Of course, Thomas did not believe that one mean act as a child had set his brother on his darkened course thereafter, but he had felt determined ever since to attempt righting any obvious wrong he inflicted on another person. Regardless of whether they felt the same or not towards him. He reached across and switched radio stations. “You feel okay?” he asked.

  Elizabeth flinched and drew back in her seat. A thin line of sweat beaded below her nose and Thomas saw her drag it away with the back of her hand. Then she turned to face him bearing a mighty stamp of dignity, immediately confirming what he’d already suspected. She was no tramp.

  Just very deep. Like ocean depths.

  Almost imperceptibly she nodded her head, and on a whim he reached over and touched her knee, relieved when she let his hand remain. Then she answered in a quiet reserved manner, “I’m fine.”

  “Good. I was just wondering. You’re just real quiet, you know…and I wanted to make…uh, I don’t want to upset you about last night…”

  She covered his hand with her own, looking down at them as she answered. “Upset about what, Thomas?” and he noticed how carefully she pronounced his name. “It was wonderful and I think you’re wonderful too. Nothing’s wrong; I just don’t feel terrific.”

  “Headache?”

  She hesitated, then nodded her head in agreement. “Yes,” she said in a tiny fraction of her own voice. “Just a headache…”

  Without consideration Thomas stumbled on, “I know things went fast, but I want you to know—“

  She put her hand quickly to his mouth. “Shh,” she warned, leaning close. “You didn’t take advantage of me; if anything, it was the other way around. You gave me exactly what I wanted.” She took her hand away from his mouth, boring deeply into his eyes with her own. “Exactly what I needed…” she finished quietly.

  Thomas’ eyes widened as the staccato thumping coming from outside warned him he’d drifted too far to the left. He looked away to get his bead on the road. “Ho! Look out!” he said excitedly. “Keep it between the lines!”

  When he looked back she was smiling. “Watch where you’re going, Mister,” she scolded. “You’re gonna kill us both.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, throwing her a brief salute with his free hand. “I’ll do m’best.” His face had visibly brightened under her attention.

  “Appreciated.” Elizabeth kept her hand on his knee. “If you’re wondering where this wild goose chase will end, I live on Severn in Metarie. Close to Rummel High. You know where that is?”

  “Sure. Used to play ‘em in football, twice, their stadium. No problem at all.” Then he veered back to the previous course. “I’m glad you came home with me last night…it was really great.” He looked to see how she took it, and saw as before, her screwed brow. The tell-tale sign of pain clearly evident. He also felt her nails digging unconsciously into his leg through the jeans. Better to let further discussion cease. They spent the remainder of the ride coasting in silence, Elizabeth resting her head, eyes closed. Her hand stayed on his leg and every once in a while it jolted with a savage urgency. Each time he would peer over and find her brow furrowed as if in intense concentration. It was then he dared not move his leg for fear he’d disturb her; from the looks of it, the headache was a doozy. Twice, he turned the radio down a single click.

  As he passed the glass-fronted, sharply-cut Galleria staring like a cut diamond at the rush of cars on I-10, he cut to the far right lane and began watching for Old Metairie Road. He didn’t like the idea of rousing her, but he felt it necessary that Elizabeth at least possess co
nsciousness when he pulled into her drive. “Elizabeth,” he prodded gently, just loud enough for her to hear, he hoped. “We’re almost there. You’re going to have to tell me where to turn.”

  She opened her bloodshot eyes, shading them with her palm to cut off the fierce morning sunlight. She took a moment and said, “Take a right at the next 4-Way, and another right after the circle.” She’d forgotten the pain killer the doctor had prescribed, and every passing minute stoked any of the number of burning fires building within her body. She tried not to let on.

  Five minutes later they pulled into the short driveway Elizabeth pointed out, and Thomas sized it up unconsciously for later. Typical, late-fifties neighborhood, probably alone on the outskirts of the swamp when first built, now showing the inevitable scars of time and neglect. And it was readily obvious, many of these scars came not from choice but from the meager incomes most of these families had to live on. He wondered whether or not to shut off the engine. He decided not to, not now.

  He watched as Elizabeth turned the door handle and pushed out, aware the moment was fast escaping. It was almost gone when he reached over and pressed her arm. “Last night was great, I wanna tell you,” he fumbled lamely, “and, uh, I would like to see you again.” His swallowed hard. “That okay?”

  Elizabeth rifled through her purse, her eyesight swimming, finally, thankfully finding a pen and scrap of paper. She quickly scrawled her number on it and leaned over to kiss him quickly. “I loved it too, Thomas,” and she managed a smile that, along with the words and the number, produced a satisfying calm in the young man. He clutched the paper in his fist.

  “I hope you feel better,” he offered.

  “I will, don’t worry. Thanks for everything, Thomas. Call me…” and she moved away.