American Rapture, page 13
I wait, and by the end of his cigarette, the last of the smoke clearing his lips, he reads aloud. “Hell is empty, it says.”
I whisper the rest, tearing my eyes from his face, from the way it makes me feel.
Thunder sounds again.
“All the devils are here.”
* * *
Maro digs a grave out back near the single large tree that grows there, and I sit obediently on the front porch watching the corn sway, counting the mosquitoes who land on me and feast. He told me that under no circumstances was I to go back into the house.
He took the keys from the bike when he went to radio someone and tell them what happened to Eli. The officer on the other end said not to touch the body, but I understand that this is his friend. And orders only go so far. Maro also took the keys for the truck. I know how to hotwire a car. Well, I at least know the steps. Every second I am here is another second something could happen to Noah.
The dog is whining, inside the house. It’s been going on for as long as I’ve been sitting here—twenty minutes, I don’t know. The sound is making me crazy. Dog training instructions blow through my mind like the wind in the corn, moving alongside the other words.
Ourdutyaswomen. ThewordofGod. ForgivemeFather. Virus. Infected. StandYourGround.
I stand and head toward the truck.
I am only a few paces beyond the house when a thought catches up to me. Then another. Questions I don’t want.
Where did my parents die? Have they died already, or is it happening now, right this minute? Have they crawled their way back into the house to breathe their last breaths beneath the eyes of Jesus in the home they made, or are they still on the front porch where anyone could see them, naked, painted in blood because I stabbed my father, I stabbed my father. And how long will they stay there? Will someone come? Will their wishes be honored, to be buried in the plots they bought in the Catholic cemetery? Or will the hospital tag them and shove them in freezers or incinerators and dispose of them the way they would any other corpse of the secular world?
My mother wearing that scapular every day to try and ensure she would have a peaceful death and receive last rites. They won’t have last rites. Which means … after a lifetime of servitude, after everything, after holding Christ above all else …
Will my parents not even make it to Heaven?
The dog’s whining reaches a fever pitch. I curse myself and turn back, open the screen and the front door, and stalk into the room to the right. When the dog sees me, its whines morph again into a growl. Its muzzle pulls back, teeth exposed and muscles flexed under that black fur. I can’t tell what breed he is, but his head is massive. Maybe some kind of mastiff mix, maybe Great Dane or Newfoundland. His fur is short, and he seems to have been bred to look as terrifying as possible. I don’t have the broom with me, I left it outside. It was supposed to say to the animal this is my space, and that is yours, and we can each have our own. But I don’t care about the broom, and I don’t care about Maro’s rules. I just need the whining to stop. I see where Maro left a bowl of food by the door, and I take a little in my right hand, grab hold of the bowl in my left.
I take a step toward the dog. It warns me with a nearly deafening bark and snarl. I pause, then step closer, keeping my eyes fixed on his. It’s not safe to challenge him in this way, it’s not in the instructions. But I hold the dog’s eyes anyway.
I move closer. There are now only three feet separating us, and he is even larger than I realized. If he strikes, he could kill me. Still, I take another step.
I reach my right hand out to him, palm down, food in it. He snarls again.
I wait.
He growls, low and steady, slobber dripping and pooling below him. But he takes one step toward my hand, lowers his face to it. His teeth inches from my knuckles, his hot breath wetting my fingers. I stay still, and I wait.
He sniffs. I let my fingers unravel slightly, turn my palm upward, showing him the food. He slowly stretches forward and takes it from me.
I start to move toward him. He rears back and snarls.
I still. After a moment, he comes closer. This time, tentatively, I brush the side of his jaw and the soft fur of his ear with my knuckles, holding the bowl up, offering him more food with my other hand. I graze his face and the top of his neck, moving my fingers carefully and slowly over the dog’s giant head. The rumbling in his throat slows, and then eventually quiets all together.
And then the whining again. He looks back at the lump on the floor and then up at me, wanting me to do something. He paws at the figure, nudging it with his nose, looks up at me again.
“I know. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything. I’m so sorry.”
Then, faster than I can track, the dog spins his body sideways and throws his whole weight into me, taking us both down to the floorboards, the bowl and its contents clattering to the floor. He sits on my legs and stomach and presses the side of his head into my chest. He whines and drools as he licks my arms. I wrap one arm around his neck and run the other over his back and belly, back and forth. My head comes to rest on top of his. He whines and whines and leans into me, and I hold him as tightly as I can.
I know, I know. I’m so sorry.
We stay on the floor in the living room for a long time like this, rocking back and forth. I whisper to the dog, his whines rising and falling, drool slipping down my arm. I close my eyes. Physical contact with another living being, the kind I have never been allowed. After a while, I hear Maro calling for me outside. He swears, loudly enough to hear through the walls, and the screen door slams against its frame. “Kid! Goddamnit, kid, are you in here?”
The dog growls again against my chest. I whisper to him and hold his head close. Maro bursts into the room. I sense him stop short behind me. The dog lifts his head, warning him. The growl rumbles through my body, but I hold him tight and stroke his back, whispering to him still.
“What in God’s name—”
I flinch at Maro’s choice of words, and the dog’s warning grows.
“Shh, it’s okay. He’s a friend, it’s okay.”
“You think that thing is a friend? Kid—I told you, you can’t be in here. You could get infected. We don’t know if—”
I keep my voice deliberate and low, refusing to turn toward him. “I am telling Barghest that you are a friend. If you don’t want him to attack you, you should calm down and introduce yourself.”
“Barghest?”
I slowly extricate myself from beneath the dog’s massive frame and move to his side, petting him all the while. “He has a tag. Stay where you are. I think I can do this.”
I keep petting him as I stand. Barghest follows suit, looking from me to Maro and then back again. I try to encourage him to walk toward Maro, but he won’t leave his post next to the fallen body on the ground.
“Okay. Come over here slowly.”
Maro shoots me a look. He steps forward but stops a few feet away from us when Barghest growls again. Maro has wrapped his arm in a long-sleeved shirt to stanch the bleeding.
“Hold out your hand,” I say. “No, not like that. Gently.”
I grab his fingers and pull them toward Barghest’s face. The dog sniffs at them, looks up at me, sniffs again, and then licks. Maro lets his breath out in a long, slow exhale. I drop his hand and rest mine on the furry head beside me. Barghest does in fact come up to my shoulder.
“Are you sure this wasn’t Eli’s dog?” I ask. “He seems to be protecting his body.”
“I knew Eli better than almost anyone. He was the one who got me into the force. We were partners. He definitely did not have a dog. Fuck, you can’t be in here.”
“We’ve both been in here. You’re going to carry Eli’s body. We’re sharing a motorcycle. If it’s airborne, then we both probably already have it.”
Maro deliberates. Barghest presses into my side, and I have to lean back into him in order to keep my balance.
“I finished the grave.”
* * *
It takes a few tries, but I am able to get Barghest to move a few feet away from the body—not far, but far enough for Maro to have some room to move him. The fabric covering the body is the same curtain fabric that still hangs in one sheet on the rod above. Eli must have grabbed and ripped it down, covering himself at the last minute. Flies buzz, and the breeze that blows through the house since Maro left the doors open makes them swarm even more.
I sit on the floor and hold Barghest’s head against me. I try to angle my body and position his so that he can’t see what’s happening with Eli’s body. I peer over his head and watch Maro pull the curtain back to reveal his dead friend’s face.
I see it at the same time he does.
He drops the fabric. Stares down at the heap on the floor, the one that we can now see is not one body, but two. Four arms and four legs, wrapped and tangled around each other, a woman’s hair fanning over the man’s chest, both naked and now exposed to the flies.
My parents on the living room floor. My mother beneath my father.
I shake my head. The man and the woman, her body mostly on top of his. A silver pistol resting on her back, underneath his right hand, and a pair of matching, red-and-black oozing holes—one in his chest, and one in hers. Blood from their wounds has streamed out and crusted over Eli’s torso and arms. Their hands are clasped together.
I don’t know how long we stare at the bodies. I expect Barghest to make a run for them, to lunge for Maro standing over them, but he only leans into me. I tell him the best lie there is.
It’s going to be okay.
* * *
It doesn’t take long for Maro to expand the grave to accommodate two. But getting the woman’s body—Maro said her name was Fiona—into the plot behind the house isn’t easy. Barghest almost attacks both of us when we try to move her. When Maro starts piling dirt over her, Barghest runs around her grave in circles, whining and pawing at the earth, howling.
* * *
I walk through the house, so full of life and love and stories. So full. It makes me want to cry. My eyes catch on a piece of art in the living room. A gold frame, title: The Lovers’ Whirlwind. A dark scene I remember from Inferno in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Great wind tunnels beneath one shining sun, not quite bright enough to illuminate the rest of the scene. Darkness. Pain. So much longing. And those twisting, turning funnels, entirely full of bodies. Naked bodies, writhing bodies. A woman’s, and a man’s, their hands outstretched, reaching for each other. Even as it is clear they will never touch, will be stuck forever in the torrent.
* * *
“We’re not taking him,” Maro says definitively. He is on the bike, keys in the ignition, ready to go. I stand between the house and the bike once again, but Barghest is now at my side.
“We can’t leave him here.”
“We can’t take a dog on the bike.”
“We’ll take the truck.”
“I’m taking my bike.”
“Then I can’t go with you.”
“What, you want to stay here?”
“I’m obviously not going to stay here. I am going to get in that truck with this dog,” I say.
Maro’s radio buzzes. He clicks it on and gets an order. Report to Waukesha County line.
I hold his eyes a little longer, then turn and head for the truck. Barghest follows. I let him into the bed—the backseat of the cab is too small for him to fit—and then sit myself down in the passenger seat.
* * *
Barghest growls at Maro when he opens the driver’s side door.
The three of us pull out on the highway.
Magazines
I am half lying down in the tight backseat of the pickup. I must have fallen asleep. I sit up, push my hair out of my face, and make sure I am covered by the little bit of skirt I have. Maro drives, and Barghest in the bed pants out at the road behind us. The wind has picked up again, whistles against the windows, ruffles Barghest’s fur. The clock on the dash is broken, but it appears to be late afternoon.
“Where are we?”
“Near Augusta. You’ve only been out for a half an hour.”
“He probably needs water.”
“The dog?” His eyes catch mine briefly through the rearview mirror. His eyes, his attention on me. My heart picks up again. What is wrong with me?
I realize in this moment that I know nothing about this man, and he is the only person in the world who knows where I am. Other than his departed friend, I know nothing about this person I am traveling with.
I force my eyes off his face and nod.
“We gotta fill up pretty soon anyway. I’m sure we can find something. You hungry?”
“No.”
* * *
Maro emerges from the gas station with two sandwiches, bags of chips, two packs of cigarettes, and a huge bag of dog food. While he was inside, I let Barghest out to walk around and found him some water. We sit together in the bed of the truck, his head in my lap. Maro drops the food in the cab and lights another cigarette. The wind is blowing hard now. It takes him a few tries.
“Was anyone in there?” I ask.
He shakes his head no. I jump down from the truck.
Inside, I grab a bottle of water. I stop for a moment at a magazine rack and pick one up, setting the bottle down on the counter. I’ve never been allowed to read these. Of course not, after what happened with Noah.
The pages are glossy and smooth beneath my fingers. I flip through. Women in bikinis, in underwear, in short tight dresses and leather pants and jewelry and makeup. There are men too, shirtless, suited. Not like the church suits, not like any I’ve seen, but ones that make me take notice of the lines of a shoulder, the length of a leg. There are tips for applying makeup and finding the best pushup bra and PLEASING HIM AND YOU.
I am struck, once again, by how little I know of the world outside Foreston, and the few other places I’ve been. I’ve never seen women like this, and I wonder if they can possibly be real, or if they are only an idea of something, a distant work of fiction. It’s terrible, realizing how much I do not know, more it seems at every turn. I am helpless, and I don’t want to be. But somehow, I don’t think the answer is in this magazine. There aren’t any here with two boys on the cover anyway.
I set it back on the rack and smooth my hands over its cover, once more.
The women’s bathroom is down a long corridor that ends in what looks like a supply room, a red and yellow neon sign by the door that says NATURAL AMERICAN SPIRIT. In the hall, the buzz of a flickering fluorescent light seems to bounce off the walls. The flies over Eli’s and Fiona’s bodies.
I try the door for the women’s room, but it’s locked. A sign hangs sideways on the wall saying the key is with the cashier, and a search around the cash register proves fruitless.
On the other side of the hall is the door to the men’s bathroom, slightly open. I look around. No one is here. Surely the men’s bathroom can’t be that different than the women’s. I’ve always been told it’s wrong, but I have to go.
I push the door open with one hand and fumble for the light switch with the other. I feel around for a moment but can’t find it. There’s no switch in the hall, so it must be farther inside. Holding the door open to allow in as much light as possible, I step into the bathroom.
I place my foot down.
I slip, try to catch myself, but my foot slides out completely from beneath me. I scramble to take hold of the counter, but it’s too late, it’s happening too fast.
I fall, hard, tailbone on tile. The door slams shut.
I am engulfed in darkness.
I try to push up onto one elbow, but it too slides out from under me. The same substance I slipped in. I’ve fallen in something wet and sticky. Globs of it. On one of my legs, under my arm, seeping in to wet my side through my shirt. The room smells heavily of chlorine and a little of human waste. Bile rises in my throat, and I will myself to breathe. Probably soap. It’s just soap. I press myself up with one hand, and feel the substance there as well, viscous, that tangy, acidic smell. I reach around in the dark until my fingers find the door handle. I pull myself up to stand and throw the door open. Stumble back into the hall.
I won’t look down. I can’t. I refuse, in the fluorescent light of the store, to see whatever is now covering my body. I wipe any wet areas of skin on my shirt and skirt, keeping my head up. Everything is fine. It’s just soap. It’s just soap as long as I tell myself it is.
I walk down the corridor, the wetness under the sole of my left shoe causing it to squeak. Just soap. I am about to reenter the main part of the store when I hear breathing. Breathing that is not mine.
I don’t want to look. Like the slime, like so much of this, I just want to close my eyes and open them again and find that none of it is real. I want to walk calmly out of the store and get in the truck with Maro and continue on to my brother.
But someone is breathing behind me.
I turn.
At the end of the hall, a man emerges from the supply room. He stares down at his feet, moving slowly, and he somehow hasn’t noticed me yet.
I take a step back. He doesn’t notice. I take another, with my left foot. My shoe squeaks on the linoleum, just loud enough for the man’s head to snap up. For his eyes to lock on mine.
I know this look. It is the look of the man on the highway, of my mother, my father. His forehead is beaded with sweat, and I don’t need to see his palms to know they are red.
I run.
My left foot slides on the floor, and I have to slow down to keep from falling. The man’s feet pound on the tiles behind me, and his ragged breathing is the only thing I hear. I swerve around the aisles, the man’s steps drawing closer. I can feel and hear and smell him closing the distance between us, that chlorine stench on him as well, everywhere, on everything.
