Apparitions, page 15
You don’t need to. You’re pure. You’re perfect the way you are.
You read a lot.
Knowing things is not always best.
There’s so much to know.
More knowledge doesn’t change what happens to us. We end up going the same way no matter what. Alpha and Omega, past, present, future—the Almighty sees all of it. He allowed me to see where my path leads, and I’m going to keep following it. Understand?
No.
Your path runs right beside mine, he signed. He that overcomes and maintains God’s work until the end will receive power over the world. Felix watched me, his eyes gleaming and almost entirely black.
I’d like to talk to God, I signed. Shake his hand.
Everyone can talk to God. But God talks to only a few lucky people. No one shakes his hand.
Why not?
We have to remain humble.
I tried to picture all these things in my head: God, Heaven, faith, will, paths, power. I could not see them or hold them in my hand; they meant little to me. I picked up a pen and added a few hairs to one of my Grimteeth.
Your father will go to Hell, Felix signed.
I put down my pen. Hell was a finger thrusting downward then both hands mimicking flickering flames.
That’s where bad people go, he signed. They go down below the earth, and they burn for all time, and all the worst things happen to them. My father will go there, too, and Father Hoff, and probably my mother. Definitely Dr. Pearl.
I imagined my basement room coated in fire, orange flames eating and churning and whipping along the walls. The hulking faces of dogs rushing up through the flames, snapping their hot jaws.
That’s sad, I signed.
That image of the dogs lingered—I felt the heat of flames on my back. The air gusted out of me.
Hell is frightening, Felix signed. I wish all people could be good, but some people can’t. He flexed his fingers. When Dr. Pearl goes to Hell, he signed, he’s going to be in a room far underground. The rotted heads of all his loved ones will hang from spikes on the walls. He’ll be strapped down to a bed, just like he did to us, and demons that look like us are going to inject him with insulin and heroin and gasoline and sheep’s piss and Mello Yello, and they’ll fuck in front of him and shit in his mouth and scream into his ears that everything he knew was wrong, and they’ll cut into his head while he’s still awake and rip away his hair and show him his brain and it’ll be rotten and full of bugs, and he’ll wake up and think it’s a dream but he’ll still be strapped down, and it’ll start all over again, and every second will be full of fear and pain, and he’ll never be able to scream loud enough, and he’ll never know rest again.
Felix made a face that looked like a smile hiding a roar.
Hell is under the ground? I signed.
Mrs. Koepp showed Felix a note and tapped a small stack of papers lying in front of him. He’d scribbled a few spirals on them.
How can they make us do schoolwork here? He signed. School’s useless, anyway. I know everything I need to know.
👁
A few times Hortense asked me to play board games in the evenings and during study period, but eventually she stopped. Everyone stopped paying attention to us, though I still felt a small blush whenever I walked past George or Bernice.
One day, Ms. Beddim took me downstairs to a white room where a man with a circular blade sawed through my cast, through everyone’s words and drawings. Ms. Beddim held it up for me after, asking if I wanted to keep it. I shook my head. Flexed my arm. My muscles had thinned. The shape of the cast had been pressed into my skin; my scars seemed somehow deeper and redder.
At dinner that night, Felix grinned and signed, Go to the shower room after. I’ll meet you there.
The shower room was just a small room off the bathroom with a drain and two shower heads. In the bathroom corner, a door opened into the water-therapy room, which had a metal tub and a table full of towels; a heavy silver box with glass eyes and a hose rose out of the floor. The door had no knob, and the hole where the knob should’ve been was always dark. I’d never seen anyone use the water-therapy room.
I sat on a bench near the shower room that allowed me to see into the bathroom. Anders came in and walked toward one of the stalls but stopped when he saw me. He looked over my shoulder, then jogged back out of the bathroom. A little while after that, George walked to one of the urinals. He started to undo his pants, then saw me and covered himself and went into the stall farthest away. I approached him. He finished and quickly washed his hands. I waved at him. His face was tight and grim in the mirror. He said something on his way out; I think it started with Sawrry.
Felix arrived holding his notebook to his chest. He wore black clothing and stood straight. Proud.
In here, he signed.
He pushed open the door to the water-therapy room and snapped on the light. All the silver in the room gleamed. He set his notebook on the ledge beside the tub and turned on the water.
What are we doing? I signed.
A special—
I didn’t catch the last sign. Special what?
Special c-e-r-e-m-o-n-y, he signed. He repeated the sign, arcing his outstretched hands forward then turning his fists inward and circling both hands, both index fingers hooked.
I copied him. Ceremony.
Felix beamed, and I waited for its meaning to sink in. Felix shifted his upturned thumbs this way and that. Baptism, he signed. You need to be cleansed before we go any further.
I shower every day.
This is different.
When the tub was half-full, he shut off the water. Steam swirled up like the ghost Felix pulled from his fist whenever he talked about spirits and souls. He opened his book and began reading and signing over the water, his hands following whatever he had written there.
Physical matter is sacred matter, he signed. As water is physical matter, so is the divine covenant of my temple begun by blessing this water.
I leaned forward to ask what he was saying, but he held up a hand and closed his eyes. His face glowed. He signed slowly like he wanted his signs to sink into the water, his arms swaying in graceful arcs above the tub. I remember all his handshapes, the ideas he held in his palms and gripped in his fingers that I couldn’t quite picture, but I didn’t grasp what they meant until much later.
He signed, May those cleansed by the holy power of this water be blessed and welcomed into my temple, which follows the sacred Gospel of the New Prometheus, and may those who are cleansed always maintain their purity and faith from this day forth.
He balanced his book on his leg and held one sheet out straight, then slid his finger along the edge of the page, up and down, until blood seeped out in thick drops and trailed across his words. He held out his hand and let the blood fall into the tub; the red drops dissolved and became part of the water. Felix touched the water and drew a circle on his forehead. He turned to me.
Take off your clothes, he signed, and step into the water.
Why?
You must be naked to be reborn.
Reborn?
Trust me.
Felix shut the therapy-room door and propped a trash can in front of the door. It’s okay, he signed.
Are you loving me?
In a different way.
I removed my clothes. He watched me with a soft welcoming smile.
Beautiful, he signed.
I stepped toward him. My dick pointed at him full and long. He put his hand on my shoulder and turned me toward the tub. I squeezed his hand and lifted my leg and stepped into it. The hot water gripped my legs. I knelt down. The water rose to meet me, rose to my shoulders. I felt a charge from the water, a buoying thrill.
Coming in? I signed.
I have questions, Felix signed.
The heat scoured my head clean. Made me dizzy. I planted my hands against the tub walls to stay steady.
Do you wish to leave all your mistakes behind?
Mistakes?
Bad things you’ve done.
The dog I killed with the hammer fell onto its side and crashed against the wall of my skull. I nodded to Felix.
Do you wish to do good in this world?
I reached up with my shining wet fist. Yes.
Do you love me and believe in me, as I love and believe in you?
I love you. In my soul.
Do you accept me as your teacher?
Yes.
Do you accept me as your— He pulled his S-hands outward, then filed his flattened hands straight down, outlining a person: Save person. Saviour.
What’s that?
Felix cocked his head, arched a brow. He had incredible control over his eyes. Do you accept me as your savior?
Yes, I signed.
I baptize you in the name of the New Gospel. May we find our peace together.
He put his hand on my head and gently pushed me underwater. He held me in place for a moment, then cupped my chin and pulled me back up. I rubbed my eyes.
Your name, he signed, will not be like other people’s names. Your name will not be written down. It will exist as proof of the divinity of our people. It will require that people engage with you on your terms. Here is your name.
He dragged his fist up from his stomach and opened his hand wide, as though spreading the love that lived inside him. I breathed deep and leaned back against the tub wall. The heat had opened me up. I felt peaceful.
Understand? he signed.
I smiled. Snapped my N-fingers at him. No. The water flicked off my fingertips. The head of my dick poked up through the water.
This is your name. He signed my name again.
I blinked. My name.
Yes.
I signed my name, my hand brushing the surface of the water. His blood clung to my skin, covering it, forming a protective layer.
The past is gone, he signed. There’s only what we have now and what lies ahead. As you share your story, you become more holy. Jesus needed Lazarus to display his power. You are the key to my temple. You and I are the first true believers.
I signed my name again. And again. As I signed it, my body flexed. My muscles felt fuller. My dick hardened even more. I stood from the tub. Even with the slick tub bottom, I felt more solid on my feet, better able to stand up.
Thank you, Felix.
He took my hand and kissed it, then put his hand on the back of my wet head and pulled me toward him and kissed my forehead, his hands squeezing the water out of my hair. He touched his forehead to mine, and we stood like that for a moment, hands on each other’s shoulders, him fully clothed, me naked, our breath gathering between us, the cool air settling on my shoulders.
GOSPEL OF THE NEW PROMETHEUS
Pastor Felix Jimson
30 July 1980
I was born a ghost
and ghosts cannot be killed
love endures
MONSTERS
He knows I’m here. He stared at me through the infirmary window, locked me in place with his eyes like he had to make sure it was me. He threw a chair and smashed the window and leapt through the frame and tried to stab me with a piece of glass. It set off a huge fight. Guards, prisoners, doctors. A guard pushed me out of the way, and two of my fingers jammed against a bar and snapped sideways and broke. I’m sorry if my signing is off.
They haven’t finished the DNA testing yet, but they moved me to a new cell all the way across the prison. I’m alone in there. Can’t work in the shop anymore. Can’t go to the cafeteria or the gym. The cell is smaller, a closet. I look at magazines and draw pictures. It’s like being in that basement room again.
My lawyer wants to make a deal. I have to go to court and say what I know. If they decide my story’s true, then I have to tell more people. She says I could maybe have my time reduced. The problem is whether anyone will believe me; my father’s lawyer will say I’m unreliable. They’ll say I’m not his son. They’ll attack me because I have no name. Because I’m Deaf. Because I can’t talk. Because I’m a murderer. They’ll make things up about me, say I’m a drifter, a bum, a monster. Someone looking for fame. They’ll say my words mean nothing. People will hear my story and decide whether I’m lying and whether my father will spend the rest of his life in prison.
During that meeting my father’s face swelled through my skull, filling it like cement. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I had to ask the interpreter to repeat several times. At the end of the meeting, my lawyer said something, but the interpreter stopped and blinked. His body slumped.
What? I signed.
The interpreter made a fist and circled it over his chest, then pushed his hand toward me, then tapped his chin with his outstretched hand. He turned over an invisible body.
Your mother is dead.
My mother. She’s dead.
Yes.
I signed more slowly, letting the words sink into my bones: Bethany. My mother. Dead.
We found the death certificate, my lawyer said. She took too many drugs.
Like the red drink?
Like what?
I shook my head. I felt lighter. Nothing held me to the ground anymore—for a moment I thought I might drift away. My lawyer said a few more things, but I didn’t pay attention. I floated back to my cell, two guards walking beside me. My lawyer said she’d taken too many drugs but that’s not what killed her.
I sat in my cell last night thinking I should do something or say something. I remembered Felix at the window during that man’s funeral, so I said some of the same things he’d said, like peace, beauty, love, sleep. I signed them toward the back field and to the ceiling. She was out there somewhere in the prairie. So was Felix. I felt both of them there with me at the same time, and I fell to my knees and cried.
👁
As I ate breakfast this morning I remembered walking past a small room near the nurse’s station and seeing Ms. Beddim hooking a plastic bag full of brown sludge up to Marvin’s stomach tube. Neither Marvin nor I had gotten much sleep, and when I’d sat up to get out of bed, he’d cringed at me and run out of the room, his eyes suddenly looking older.
I stopped eating. I’m tired. I’ve lost all my strength. I keep thinking I’m close to understanding how the world works. Why Felix and my father did what they did. Why my mother is dead. Why I’m in prison and Felix isn’t. Why ghosts surround me and strain every second to dig into me. Why I’m always alone. But all of it slips through my fingers.
Felix said we are our own saviors. We must believe in our own power and create our own place in the world because no one else will. I hope to make a life for myself one day, live in a house where I’m free to leave and enter, to eat whatever food I want, to walk through the streets without feeling I’m about to be shut away again, to love someone who loves me back. I wish I could wrap my arms around the world; the world never seems to have enough love. Maybe it doesn’t know how to welcome it, doesn’t know how to hold and protect those who have the most love to give.
Royal Saskatchewan Psychiatric Hospital—Wakaw, SK
PATIENT PROGRESS REPORT
Patient Name:
Felix Jimson
DOB:
30 Oct 1963
Admitting Psychiatrist:
Dr. Harrison Pearl
Admittance Date:
2 March 1980
Reporting Psychiatrist:
Dr. Lyle Okimasis
Report Date:
4 August 1980
ACTIVE MEDICATION(S)
Serentil—150 mg injection
PROBLEMS AND PROGRESS
—Initial diagnosis: paranoid-type schizophrenia—
Switching to injection has by and large been beneficial for Felix—his mood has stabilized somewhat. The medication is only part of the story: while Felix remains defiant toward staff, he has found a companion who, like him, is Deaf and uses Sign Language. Felix appears to have found solace in teaching this companion, who did not know Sign Language previously.
There is concern that both Felix and his companion rely too much on each other for companionship; this companion appears to be younger than Felix and, because of his own vulnerable state, is quite impressionable. This companion has clearly been through some trauma; he follows Felix everywhere and mimics him in every way. (For more information, see the record for John Smith.) Also, given Felix’s past behavior, I am wary that he spends so much time with this companion. I have encouraged Felix to continue reaching out to others, but with little success, and while he has admitted to certain transgressions (see Notes below), he has not expressed remorse for them; in fact, he feels they are justified.
Given the evidence, I am confident in the present diagnosis and recommend that he refrain from resuming his course of insulin therapy at this time.
RECOMMENDATION(S)
Continue to monitor medication’s efficacy; requisition interpreter for therapy sessions (recommended separate from John Smith).
NOTES
How are you, Felix? How are things with your companion?
Does he know his name?
what is it?
I’m glad you’ve found a friend in here—have you interacted with anyone else?
I believe Father Hoff is visiting you again next week
why not?
don’t feel like talking today?
we received notice that your school might press charges. how do you feel about that?
I agree but setting fires is not constructive
that’s what we need to address, your anger
would you let me read your journal? please?
SINS OF THE FATHER
