Not Far From Golgotha

  “—up on my back, see?” Ebenezer was saying, replete with gestures and movements performed long years ago and dragged once again into the light. Maggie finished arranging their drinks and Billy nodded his appreciation. She was gone in a flash. “I threw him in back the Jeep, but just the few seconds I held ‘im I could feel the poor bastard burnin with fever. Heat just pourin off im.” Ebenezer reached past his drink and touched Billy with a knuckled finger on the shirtsleeve. “Light fella, no ‘parent wounds, jus a burnin fever boilin inside like he’d jus popped outta a oven…or hell.”

  Ebenezer quieted down, looked at his drink thoughtfully a moment while he spun it around in a wet circle. “The whole way back he mumbled strange shit I couldn’t figure at all.” Another slug of whiskey went the way of the last and Ebenezer grimaced, nodding his head.

  He slapped his hands together sharply, locking in on Billy. “So I pulled inta the base ‘round three-thirty or so, ran inside ta get a crew ta see what I brung ‘em. Got ‘im on a stretcher and carried ‘im inside, and I ‘member bein real scared then, like a pallbearer at a funeral I had no business attendin.” He shook his head, seemingly more mystified than frightened by the memory now. His fingers drummed lightly, once.

  “Well, at first everbody’s real int’rested. He’s a fuckin novelty; like a weird story ya’d hear ‘round a campfire suddenly come ta life. Only one thing…shortly after we got ‘im tucked away the Grey Boy, that’s what we called ‘er, come bustin up. Full a dead and dyin. Over the course a the next few hours that sick soldier got lost in the shuffle. Priority shifted. By the time I managed ta bug out it was way late but he was still alive. Burnin to death with fever but alive. Just mostly forgotten til the next day.

  “An what a helluva day that turned out ta be,” he added, putting a finish to his drink. He caught Maggie’s immediate approach out of the corner of his eye and put out a hand to stop her. “Enough for me, darlin,” he said in his loud, brusque manner. “Maybe the kid here?” Billy shook his head and Ebenezer waved her back to the bar.

  “It was stillness that woke me,” he continued, his bloodshot eyes finding Billy as he fumbled around in his breast pocket. He fished out a filter-less cigarette and lit it with a lighter he pulled from the pack. Suddenly, oddly, he appeared lost, fighting to find the thread of his story behind some invisible obstacle. After several disconcerting moments Billy reached over and nudged him. Expression ebbed back as the old man blew out a thin fan of smoke. Then he found the thread.

  “In the jungle there ain’t never abs’lute quiet, but that partic’lar mornin there wasn’t a goddamn jump in the breeze. Even the leaves on the trees looked like they was holdin their breath.” He paused, considering the effectiveness of his metaphor. “Not a damn leaf blowin, and the sky---“ He broke off.

  Billy hung back until he could wait no longer. “Go on,” he urged, in conspiracy now.

  Ebenezer still stared away, but continued. “The sky had a black tint like a net been cast through it, even though ta the horizon the sun was comin up. The air was suffocatin, like Time was squeezin by so slowly She was myth…or a dream. Somethin lost that shouldn’t never come back.

  “That’s when we heard it. A loud, wailin howl. Like I said, even though we could see the sun, everythin was real murky. Couldn’t see much a nothin in detail. A coupla us pulled out binoc’lars, strainin for all we’as worth ta find out what the fuck was makin that noise. And then one a the guys--b’lieve his name was Garvey--says, ‘Holy Jesus, will ya look at that!?’ And he’s pointin towards the Boy in the harbor, anchored out in deep water past the bouys.”

  The past exploded on the old man, startling the ghost of his youth into his features for a fleeting, mesmerizing instant. Ebenezer pointed across the room, speaking low now. “And there i’tis! The ship leanin hard ta port through the murk!” Ebenezer wiped his mouth and belched. His face wrinkled, twisting as if his nose itched. “It drifts up maybe fifty yards from the dock and I swear a guy bails over the side! And this ain’t no fuckin swimmin weather, boy! And by God that’s when the rain started, burstin sheets of it full a hail the size a golf balls! I couldn’t fuckin believe it, heat like the Devil’s own nuts, and now sleet! Unfuckinbelievable!

  “But I could still see the guy who bailed. I almost recognized ‘im!

  “I wiped my hands over my face,” and he demonstrated, “tryin ta see better and it’as the weirdest thin…” He paused, breathed deeply and went on. “I asked several a the other guys later if they seen the same’as I did, an ya know what?” Ebenezer peered at Billy, a shadow from the ceiling lying half across his chin. “Every goddamn one had!” he said, punctuating each word with a firm knock on the table.

  He pointed again. “There he was in the water. Christ, he must’ve been 2-3 hundert yards away. Everthin around him was clear even though ya couldn’t make out nothin anywhere else. Like a spotlight focused on the main attraction.

  “Because out there,” he said, seeing it. Billy saw that he could. “Out there the fuckin water’s boilin and rockin. Behind him and kinda beginnin ta circle out was this huge shadow seated underneath the water.

  “It started gettin closer and I knew he was finished.

  “Funny, the only thin I remember is this hoarse, ghostly-thin voice waverin in the background, whisperin, ‘What the fuck’s swimmin behind the Boy?’’’ Ebenezer’s shoulder flinched and he continued looking away. Billy gripped the table’s edge.

  “Then,” Ebenezer’s voice clicked like a breaking bone. “He suddenly made it inta the waves out there ‘bout waist deep, stumblin through em, tryin ta reach the beach.” He nodded at Billy coldly. “I knew he wasn’t gonna make it,” the old man intoned.

  “The wooden staircase begins vibratin,” his hand unmindfully mimicking the long ago sight. “Real gentle at first til it starts really hummin from all the water tearin down the side. But I’m still seein ‘im through the torrent, his face, eyes, everythin. Details. Horrible, bulgin eyes fit ta bust and his face pumped up like a sausage. Especially the eyes, though, those eyes that kept on drillin right through me.” His body tremored faintly.

  “He made it ta the staircase even though the thing was history, concrete footings or not. And he saw it too. He managed ta hang onta the bottom stair longer’n I expected. Every vein standin out’n his arms, his mouth all twisted and hitchin, his hands strainin on the soaked wood. Nothin takes it away,” he added in a whisper.

  Then unexpectedly, Ebenezer seemed to hunt Billy from the foggy depths of his memories. “Right before the water took ‘im I could no longer deny the face a the guy I’d picked outta the mud!” An icy glow of insanity melted behind Ebenezer’s eyes, coalescing lightly into the shadowed corners beneath his lashes.

  “I looked past ‘im inta the dark shapelessness behind the ship and that’s when I saw the--.” He faltered, laying a finger aside his mouth. He looked much drunker than he sounded. “A huge whirlpool was pickin up a spin. I could just see the shadow underneath it…suckin…

  “And after that everythin wobbled, like a wormhole in space opened up. The porch where I was standin disappeared and the rest a the real world went with it. I didn’t feel the rain anymore; I couldn’t hear any wind or thunder. There was just a vast void a emptiness, like darkness so thick ya could tear off a chunk with your hands.

  “When he did get ripped off,” and Ebenezer skimmed his hands rapidly across one another, “he didn’t sink below the choppy surface. He never did, not through the whole goddamn thing. He just sorta bobbed out like a cork, cuttin a straight path t’ward the whirlpool.

  “And that’s when he started screamin.”

  Billy could hear their own storm heaving for breath, as if declaring reprieve, but he was going nowhere. He had to know the rest.

  Ebenezer continued, “I watched as he got pulled closer and closer. Then I fixed on his eyes again and it was like the whole ocean was inside em. Somethin real primitive, hard. Evil. That was the first time I really seen it. Ain’t no ot
her way ta explain; that’s when I recognized the fact a its existence. Then the nightmare started.” Ebenezer shook his finger and Billy noticed (also for the first time) the man’s nails were bitten to the quick. “Like an apocalypse outta the Book a Revelation. Monster waves crashin, tearin the surface ta ribbons; the sky a ripplin black and gapin open; thunder roarin; a ravin wind screamin murder way back in my ears. But through it all, somehow I stayed fixed on the man in the water,” and Ebenezer buried his finger emphatically on the table. He screwed it back and forth momentarily and looked at Billy.

  “I thought ‘bout this for years. Rolled it over here and there tryin ta make sense a it. And I’ll tell ya what I come up with. Me…the old drunk,” he said quietly, the edge of a tired smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “Ya can believe it or not; I don’t give a damn.” Ebenezer held his hands up in front of his face, curled as if grasping an invisible ball. Putting shape to the ideas encompassed there. “I b’lieve everthin served the sole purpose a settin a mood.” He opened his hands to let the idea escape and his next utterance was low and fragile, leaving Billy unsure if he’d heard correctly. Or even if the old man had been aware himself, the exhalation having been more incantation than comment. “What scares a man more’n the wildness loose in his own soul, the empty little, jitterin spaces that don’t live for peace?” This unexpected, philosophic glimpse into the old man caused Billy deep disquiet. Such soliloquies appeared outside the character of the story, prying deeper than it had any right. Billy filed it away (along with many other things Holgren had touched tonight) for later thought.

  A dry, monotone followed; a startling departure from Ebenezer’s earlier excitement. “When he reached the perimeter he spun ‘round sev’ral times. Musta been ‘most a mile across but I never lost sight a him. Not one goddamn time.

  “Then he was gone, and when he went so went the whirlpool. The filtered, tinted air loosened up; the rain pulled back like a horse after a long run. The peals a thunder grumbled off across the dyin waves…

  “I looked ‘round slowly, feelin like somebody had run a wire brush across my brain. I could only see forms: people sprawled everywhere. But no real features. And,” his hands pawed at the air, “I could tell somethin was still happenin out there. Wasn’t over. One a the figures off ta the side started pointin, and I heard deep, gutt’ral growls comin outta the jungle like it was tired a being quiet and had a few threats a its own.

  “I looked out the screen door and saw the spot in the ocean (the one where he’d gone down) startin ta bulge. It looked like a huge cyst buildin up pressure, growin and spreadin ‘til it suddenly couldn’t no more and bust wide, throwin a gigantic sheet a water inta the air. But I didn’t miss the man shootin outta the center.”

  Ebenezer caught Billy with a deadly, serious stare. “He looked like a champagne cork comin out a bottle. His body was stripped clean a flesh ‘cept for long, ragged tangles hangin down from his neck! His bones was glitterin like they just been waxed, and I saw deeper and deeper and the shadow was nothin but madness and teeth!!” Ebenezer practically yelled, and Billy spotted a fellow late-nighter peering at their table in a drunken effigy of concern. Billy waved his hand to ward off the old drunk. He would not allow interruption, not now. But this concern proved foundless as the drunk lost interest and his chin gradually slid back to his chest.

  “Everthin went out,” Ebenezer dead-panned. “Complete grave-silence black ‘cept for one lil spot a light.” He held his hand up, and Billy saw the thumb and forefinger nearly touched. “It was like seein outta a tunnel from miles inside. Then this small, wrigglin dot appeared, slowly taking on shape as it got closer. Comin like a streak with no disguises. His face was still intact and it was howlin insanity; the eyes bustin outta his head, the hair peelin back from the forehead as the mouth unhinged! I heard what sounded like a board crackin inside my head and the next thin I knew I was sprawled on the floor!”

  He slowed down, almost panting. “I ‘member rubbin my hand along the rough floorboards, decidin if I was still sane. I ‘member the fear right then a being lost forever in some bizarre limbo, strung out and soulless as Time.

  “I was afraid ta open my eyes so I laid there musterin up the courage ta sit. But before I did I turned an looked along the floor. There was bed pans and overturned tables and people layin all over the fuckin place! Looked like a helluva brawl had just ended, and everbody was just now gettin around ta checkin’ if their parts was in the right places. That’s when I realized one voice was still screamin.

  “I got ta my feet, along with a few others, and started lookin around,” he said, imitating the action in furious retrospect. “Then I saw the dyin soldier, all cast off and stuffed inta his corner bed where we’d left ‘im.

  “His eyes was open and horrified, glazed over. The air ‘round his head kinda danced like it does above a hot car hood. His mouth was open and ringed with puke and blood run down his neck, all over the blanket. He mighta bit his tongue; I never took the time ta check… But he was mumblin somethin…kinda kickin out with his legs, his eyes rollin back ta whites…murmurin somethin ‘bout a ‘whirlpool.’” Ebenezer’s eyebrows raised and he slapped the table top.

  “It was real quiet, and I realized I wasn’t the only swingin dick who had a few questions. The others saw it too. We all stood around for another second, starin at each other like baboons. And somewhere right about then he died just as dead as dead can be.

  “I ‘member one a the guys askin, ‘Zit over, zit over?’ But nobody answered.

  “Well, we let ‘im lay, nobody sayin much. Nobody wantin ta touch him. The whole lotta us cleanin up and clammin up, tryin ta stay busy doin anythin. Anythin ta put off facin that dead man in the corner.

  “Near ‘bout dark two a the fellas worked up their nerves ‘round a bottle a rotgut and wrapped ‘im up in a sheet. Carried him out back and buried him at the jungle’s edge.

  “No cross, no nothin. Nothin ta mark the fact he ever existed. I always felt a little ashamed I didn’t do somethin, but I was a lot younger then.” He smiled. “Easier ta scare.”

  Billy nodded.

  “But ya see,” Ebenezer said slowly, finally beginning to unwind. “No one ever knew what the hell killed ‘im. Oh hell, sure, the fever, that was what his papers said but really? Really? Talked ta a lotta people over the years, doctors, nurses, other grunts been in worse shit than me,” he held up his hands as if denying an unspoken allegation. “Don’t laugh, ain’t always been a drunk,” he said wryly. Billy made no comment and Ebenezer went on. “There was plenty a fevers that caused insanity and delirium, but only in the one who had it! And no doubt delirium, exhaustion, any number a things will make a man crazy, make ‘im do things he wouldn’t otherwise do. I actually saw a German prisoner cut off three a ‘is fingers with a broken mirror—bones an fuckin’ all—after a screamin fit in solitary! Ya imagine that? Definitely a hard thing ta understand, or even begin ta…but even with somethin that bad I wasn’t involved. I was strictly a spectator, another random seat in the audience. With this guy it was all different.

  “Fever was partly responsible for killin the poor bastard, but it was fear that finished the job as far as I’m concerned.” He paused and leaned closer. “Fear pure and simple; a fuckin nightmare. One so horrible everbody in the room gotta lil taste.

  “Over the years I tried ta imagine how somethin so huge and evil could be inside someone, seethin like it would explode ages before, but not. Just contentin itself all hunkered down in the darkness gettin stronger. I wonder what kinda fear or damnation, or whatever other violent hell ya can imagine it would take ta burst outta one man and claim the minds a others in one, short…colossal…moment.” Ebenezer snapped his fingers. “Then, in my mind’s eye I still see ‘im sittin there, stuffed inta that corner, his legs drawn up, and his eyes…his eyes always the worst; the thing that becomes mythic instead a rotten.

  “That pain is somethin ya never forget, how it poured out and infected everbody else. I
can remember, and I know the piece I got was tiny, dilute…fadin even as it come on. What he got, the meat and bones, cooked his brains. Erased him. Now…” he said, slumping back in his chair. “I never been a religious man, but over the years I feel comfortable enough sayin ‘if there is a devil and he does care ta fuck in our business time ta time, ya can find him,” and Ebenezer pointed to a place far away over his shoulder, beyond the walls of the bar, “in the jungles off’n the tip a Africa.”

  He stared at Billy in pale lucidity. Exhausted, he let out his breath and his clothes compressed around him, riding the contours of his body. His mouth curled as if in deep thought, parted for a moment pondering something more to say, then sealed again tightly as he let it go. He kicked back his chair and with a double thump Billy heard both feet plant solidly on the chair next to him. Ebenezer leaned ponderously far back: a giant turtle wriggling itself deep into the sand.

  Obviously, he didn’t plan on leaving.

  Billy turned to the clock, aslant above the Wurlitzer, so dusty the hands were mere shadows behind the accumulated grime. Just after three in the morning. He didn’t feel drunk anymore, just incredibly tired. He looked for Maggie, didn’t see her. The lights in the bar had been dimmed, and the only other person beside Billy and Ebenezer (the guy who’d looked up from his chest when Ebenezer got loud) was crashed out too.

  Inexplicably, the Wurlitzer, silent for the better part of an hour, now began softly moaning some rarified oldie by the Righteous Brothers. Billy suddenly felt claustrophobic. The story was over; nothing would follow. He stood up slowly and quietly from the now-sleeping old man and as if in response, Ebenezer began snoring with a steady, rising cadence.

  It was no longer raining. Now the humidity would boil into an ever-thickening fog which hunched on the other side of the door. Billy wanted to thank or congratulate Ebenezer for the story but didn’t consider that enough reason to wake the old man. After all, it could spur him on to new heights and Billy was not prepared for that now.