Sin lingered to take each one down in time. But just perhaps, some things could be changed; some pleading bargain might still be within her grasp. To this thin hope she pledged her waking hours.
She tip-toed down the red-carpeted aisle, her fingers lightly playing across the arched side of each pew. Effigies of Christ, Peter, Paul, and the Old Testament patriarch Moses, peered down from their stained-glass perches. She tried to bear up, but she was shamed. In her one sworn duty before God she’d failed, in what she was now beginning to see as barrier-erecting behavior against her own flesh and blood. Now, yes, she wished for Phillip, her dead husband, gone from her as completely as if he’d never lived at all. Billy, her renegade son with his soul (she feared) so hopelessly lost. And now Elizabeth. Her most beloved paying this staggering price for all of them. Unless…and Nora stopped, beginning to tremble. For the second time the blasphemous thought threatened to break irretrievably free. The Lord God could not be bought or persuaded and she knew it. Fearfully well. She quickly crossed herself, eyes downcast to the floor.
She paused, pulling nervously at the rosary beads hanging around her neck. She couldn’t hear her footfalls on the carpet as she advanced and prayed her obvious subservience was adequate in His presence.
She came to the foot of the altar, lined on either side by the minute organ pipes regimented above the choir gallery which grew to triumphant proportions along the back wall. They alone were enough to inspire both awe and fear, but they were such a small part in themselves. God’s glory or retribution would prove much greater, she knew. Echos of this were plainly evident in the stained-glass windows where Christ both healed the blind man and loosed his anger on the moneylenders in the temple. Mere yards separated the two actions. As Nora knelt carefully where she would receive the Host, she quietly opened her purse, and reaching inside, withdrew the single red rose. She laid it down in supplication, and backed away from it with her forefinger pressed firmly to her lips.
A massive silence pushed up close against her.
Hear my plea, Oh Lord, she silently implored. If You see to it, please don’t take her. If my sin is one of selfishness let me pay, but please not with the blood of my children! I don’t offer this as bribe; I have nothing to offer You. I only ask it as a mother. She cast this up to Heaven, through the shafts of sunlight, past the manmade ceiling. There was no need for a priest; she wanted no mediator. Perhaps (and this thought sometimes haunted her) that was why she always came early: to try to get her wishes one more time on her own terms. And as if to stifle such thoughts before they grew, she always fought this thorny demon away into the far reaches of her soul and always stayed for Mass.
She sat then, quietly bargaining with the accountable Host against her sins and the sins of her family. Against the sins of the world if need be. Loneliness was a steady poison; it thrived easily. Nonetheless, her sheer determination pitted her against the impenetrable silence, and the building seemed to regard her with a deference that was not all-together unjustified.
Chapter 45
Thomas sat in his garage apartment, watching the rising thump of lights ride across the Sony amplifier. He had the remote in his hand, occasionally bumping it up a notch though he’d ceased paying attention to anything but the riding curves of light. Even so, Axl Rose’s cracked, banshee-inspired voice railed against the room, tearing and wailing away until Tomas killed it abruptly by the press of his finger to the Mute button. Then, nothing. Just a fading away of the LED lights until they disappeared below the base.
He bit his lip, appeared to question himself one last time about some misgiving before snatching the phone from his lap. He hit Redial, the same number he’d hung up on twice before after the first, short volley of rings. The high-pitch pin-ball pulse rebounded quickly back and forth through his head, further disturbing his already peaked nervousness. It began to ring. His eyes flitted around the room while he waited (just now past the deadly one volley barrier), falling at last upon the powder-blue Gibson guitar propped accusingly in the corner. It’d been almost two weeks since—
“Hello?” a tired voice asked.
He almost dropped the phone, failing suddenly at the cusp. He’d almost convinced himself that the number was false, at the same moment mindful that he’d only tried it (at the most) four, maybe five times.
“Hello?” the voice asked again; this time agitation was beginning to creep to the edge.
“Oh,” he began, stumbling. “Yes, hello. It’s Tom, I mean, uh, is this Elizabeth?” He sat up stiffly in bed, tossed the remote onto his rumpled sheets and ran his free hand through his hair.
Then the voice turned unmistakably crisp. “Who is this, please?”
“Tom…Thomas Wheatley,” he answered, and when he heard only silence as the seconds stretched to years, he added, “The guy from the party.”
“I don’t know of any party, Mr…Wheatley.”
Then it was suddenly clear; the panic had screwed him. This was not Elizabeth. Thomas changed tact, hoping he’d not already revealed something this person should not know. “Oh, yes ma’am,” he said politely. “I’m a friend of hers and I was just trying to get in touch. She’s not home?” Sweat ran into his left eye and he slapped it closed.
“She is not available, Mr. Wheatley. Elizabeth, my daughter, is not here right now. She’s at the hospital getting blood work…” and with this the eerie, hollow voice snarling in his ear simply wound itself out like the end reel of a movie.
“I, uh, didn’t know.” Blood work? For what? He didn’t know her that well, for Christ’s sake. He felt he’d just dropped a crucial third down pass. The cooler voice on the other end of the line increased his anxiety.
“I don’t know when she’ll be back,” it said.
“Well, this is the number to reach her, right?” Hospital tests? He felt a sinking in his gut.
“She lives here, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Wheatley. Most of her friends know that full well.” The iciness and agitation were unmasked now completely. There was no mistaking. “However, she’s not here, and if you don’t mind I’m very busy right now, so…”
He held out his hand as if actually imploring someone in the room with him. “Okay, I understand. Okay.” Then, weakly, because he could think of nothing with which to redeem himself. “I’m sorry for taking up your time…if you’ll just tell her I called…”
“I’ll give her the message,” came the reply, gaining distance as if the woman on the other end was already steering the receiver toward its cradle.
Thomas leaned forward, intently, legs tightly drawn up Indian-style. “I hope that it’s nothing serious,” he tried but only a harsh droning buzz answered his reply as the connection was disengaged. “Sonofabitch!” he threw the phone away as if the very plastic repulsed him and snatched up the remote. His face was red and hot; he felt disgraced. The same sort of feeling he assumed he’d have if discovered beating off by his grandmother. Shamed completely. He punched the Mute button a second time and Axl Rose lept back in mid scream to tear at the air some more.
Chapter 46
As Elizabeth left Touro Infirmary that day her racing thoughts eclipsed the warmth of the noonday sun outside. She was nauseous; her stomach flipped like a fish on the cleaning table, serving to grow in scope until she became that fish, floundering in desperate futility, gasping for each searing breath in an alien landscape. The only thing that separated her was mind, her solitary contemplation against the void. The image grew in proportion, her mind’s eye zeroing in on a scene at a long-ago hunting camp as the bearded man scaled with a spoon the bream he’d scooped from the sink. She, younger and wide-eyed, breathless, as the fish’s curious, marbled eyes never changed, remaining fixed, lidless and unblinking, as its body warped in agony. This was the True Fear. The unknown horror that appeared so mundane: a fish-cleaning from the other end of the knife. And now she was the one up against it; she could scarce feel the icy blade skating along her flesh.
She caught a glimpse of hers
elf in the revolving door as it spun her to the street, and in those eyes she recognized a shade of the same blank, glazed look. Things were not getting any easier. The taped cotton patch at her elbow pulled at her skin, and she unconsciously placed a hand over the crook of her arm, trying vainly to make it go away.
Some days were harder than others. Some days there was no light.
Even so, she straightened her back and breathed in deeply as she walked on.
She caught the Metairie/Kenner bus at the corner of Louisiana Ave and St. Charles, and sat quietly in one of the handful of empty seats. The bus tooled down Louisiana, Elizabeth staring out the dirty windows at the myriad goings-on in the city. Black men of all ages hanging out on porches with large bottles of beer and malt liquor in their hands, gesturing and laughing, trying desperately to beat back the poverty around them. Children, both black and white, carelessly riding their bicycles in the street, dodging traffic, dangerously alive in their brief immortality. Also derelict cars left randomly along the curb, some with windshields smashed and tires stolen, others doorless and stripped. All dead and waiting for the Yard. These scenes did nothing to lighten her mood.
A harsh reflection ricocheted off a store-front window and happened to hit her full in the face. Even with her glasses on the effect was near blinding, and jerked her thoughts away to different things. This time it was an old favorite of her mother’s, a story told time and again in Elizabeth’s childhood so much so it’d taken on a life of its own: the blinding light that struck the evil Saul on his way to Damascus, and the changes that overtook him thereafter.
She leaned back in her seat as a peculiar thought of staring into the very eyes of God passed through her mind. There were too many parallels, every little thing leading on to a stream of ever-increasing possibilities. Everything seemed circular these days, revolving always upon itself like a dog chasing its tail. It didn’t used to be like that. Religion and fables, stories and wives’ tales; they all carried the inherent theme of startling brilliance as the forerunner or apostasy of some coming wondrous, sentient power. A brilliance mirrored in its opposite: symbolized in darkness and the blanket of ill deeds and intentions that moved fluidly, also, in the depths. The bus bumped along the heat-and-root-rumpled street, moving slowly to avoid the parked cars on either side, or the errant jaywalker with his head elsewhere.
Elizabeth remembered the talk she’d had with Billy a short while back at Cooter Brown’s, the day he’d insisted they take a walk. She surveyed the other silent passengers with a minute swivel of her head, trying to see inside them. But of course it was no good. Every mind was a veritable capsule, a prison of isolation, alone with its odd jumble of confusion or peace. Her confession had seemed to brighten Billy’s confusion that afternoon, and she’d not forgotten the details. Her ability to articulate what she’d been digging around had been invigorating. It had been powerful and strengthening, that session, but now as the hours milled and scratched away at its foundations, true sanctuary was difficult to find, hard to grasp, and torturous to hold. She could feel her metaphysical fingertips beginning to slip, even as she struggled to hold tighter still. Philosophy became ragged at its seam, and nothing on the other side seemed capable of offering protection.
She remembered they’d walked across the odd connection of roads that rounded off the end of St. Charles Street, crossed over the railroad tracks, and stepped up the gradual incline of the levee. For a while all they did was walk, Billy slightly ahead, both hands shoved into his jeans’ pockets. “The river’s nice,” she’d said as they reached the top. And still no word from Billy. She’d said it more to halt their mindless wandering than anything else, and Billy had stopped. Stopped and turned to face the bank down below, lined in a scraggy, unregimented border of cypress and chinaberry trees.
“I’ve been avoiding you, haven’t I?” he’d offered almost pleading, never taking his eyes from the lapping bank. His gaze cowed from the strain of the words and his eyes had drawn to slits.
Elizabeth walked over and took his left hand. “No, it’s not like that, Billy. I know how you are, I understand and—“ She stopped when he pulled his hand away, the move sudden enough for them both to take notice as Billy quickly attempted to salvage the already desperate moment.
“No, Liz. I don’t know that you understand me…I find it hard understanding myself. I look at you and something inside me feels like it’s gonna boil over if I don’t do something. But there’s nothing to do. That’s the worst. It’s anger and sadness and fear all rolled up into one, but the worst part,” and here Billy faltered, “the worst part is I don’t know who it’s for. I want it to be for you, but my mind tricks me, lies that this torment is because of you!” His face tensed with the pressure and this spilling of a torrent of focused emotion. For a moment Elizabeth was afraid he would fall to his knees, and she pulled hard at herself not to jump forward too quickly, but slowly, so that he had no real urge to move away, instead slumping and resting his head on her shoulder. A sob hitched in his chest, but only one. Elizabeth steered him away from the gravel service road atop the levee to a modest clump of clovers by the side facing the river. He sank down like a water-soaked towel, Elizabeth by his bent knee.
“Don’t be afraid of me, Billy. Don’t use this for fear. I don’t believe anything ever really ends….” Billy turned to her with an ancient expression of wonder, confusion flooding his features.
“So we’re telling the truth now,” he said.
Elizabeth nodded, but kept her mouth closed.
“I’m different than most, I guess…” he began, struggling for the words to fit his emotion. “I don’t believe there is anything else. I just see an emptiness, a vast, seamless void that everything drains into. It makes me afraid for you, but there’s this thing…” and he trailed off, scratching his fingers at the grass as if to implore the Earth to speak his mind. He shook his head. Then he licked his drying lips before going on. “There’s this thing that makes thinking about you dying terrifying for me, and Jesus Christ, I know how selfish that sounds, but there’s nothing I can do! I’m a prisoner; everything seems to be slipping away, like nothing’s really important at all. Like everything’s for nothing!”
“That’s not true, Billy,” Elizabeth had said very quietly but with a force in her voice that could not be taken lightly.
He found it hard to meet her gaze, but when he got it, he held on despite the rush of blood to his face and his racing heart. The cards were finally on the table. “What part’s not true?” he asked.
“The part about everything slipping away; the part about nothing being important. It’s not so, Billy. If anything, everything’s more important!” She stood up and walked a few paces away from him. She became still, composing her thoughts before turning to face him. She found him courageous enough to meet her eyes without downcasting and a bright spark in her mind caused her to smile. She hoped it would paint her reply. “We are important. We are. Our lives are meaningful and worthwhile. I’ve had a lot of time to think lately and I really believe this; I’ve been sorting through my memories, examining everything I can get my hands on.
“And here’s a weird thing: I don’t think I’m afraid of dying. I don’t know what’s the worst part, going out quick and alone which is inevitable, or going on a long while with doubt and uncertainty. I’m new at this but I think the doubt is worse.
“Everyone wants to believe, wants to know, their one life is important enough to matter. We have family and friends and we make ourselves such an integral part of the lives that surround us, even if it’s only in the way we see it, ultimately, that we can’t imagine a world without us. Then something like this fucking cancer pops out of nowhere and it makes everyone pause considering their own mortality. Then, like you, the ancient question shows its primitive, knowing head. And the question remains: Don’t I count?”
She walked back and sat beside Billy. There was insatiable hunger in his eyes. “Don’t kill yourself with guilt, Billy. We can’
t help the way we’re programmed. The survival instinct is the most powerful, and even though it does its best to hide thoughts like these from our minds, sometimes they get through anyway. And when they do they have to be reckoned with. Don’t let it hide you from me, Billy! We’re only human and have only a certain, few tools to work with. Everything else is throwing our hands in the air in desperation.
“Usually religion is the first thing people cling to when something like this comes up. We both know how much deeper Mom got after Dad died. It’s understandable to a certain extent. But I’m not going to stand here and tell you I’m going to make my Rock or Foundation out of something like that because it doesn’t feel right to me. I’m not going to turn into a raging zealot just because this got shoved in my face. Hypocrisy is not my bag.
“But I do believe in God. I just don’t think He wants me blubbering around like an imbecile this late in the game.” Her eyes grew to a startling fierceness. “I want to be me when the time’s done. I want strength and clear vision. I want to understand what’s right for me. I can’t appreciate the After Life as an eternal church function because that’s not what I am. Maybe for an older generation, raised on Lawrence Welk and Protestant warnings, but I’m a realist. My mind is where I am. All my dreams and aspirations, all my dark fantasies and longings, everything that makes me human, everything that makes me ‘me’ is already here.
“In honesty, I don’t know what to expect, whether a great light or merely shadows or even a winged St. Peter come to greet me himself at the Pearly Gates. Or nothing. I just don’t know. After all, who’s to say for sure?”
She looked at Billy and her eyes held all the brooding intensity of a ragged prophet atop his pole. “But what I’m really for is a little insurance.” A suggestion of a smile creased the corners of her mouth.