As it was, CNN was running on-going updates about the BOWLING BALL DEATH. It had been the top story for most news programs and cover page material for the local newspapers.
The New York Times
gave it top billing on the Local News page. All the reports, all the articles, they all said the same thing: Delaney Williabillaney Wms had been killed from a bowling ball dropped off an overpass. The police had no leads. Not for lack of trying. They had questioned Anthony and the boys, tried to question Chloe, and had, according to those reports, questioned everyone at the bowling alley. No one had seen a thing. “Something will turn up,” Sergeant Fratto said. “Someone was driving by, saw something. It’s only a matter of time before that person puts it together. Don’t give up.”
Don’t give up. Ha.
Greg was gone and someone else, one of Chloe’s friends, was offering her condolences. She wore a black and white cocktail dress that stopped well above her knees. If not for the overcoat that hung near her calves, she would have appeared to have wandered into the wrong place. She must be one of Chloe’s single friends. A wake was a good enough place to pick up men as any other, maybe better: she could cry and some guy could console her and that consoling could lead to a bedroom somewhere.
He was retreating back in his own mind while still processing the continuous line of mourners when a tall man in a black suit with a Bible held in both hands stepped in front of him. He had blue eyes and sharp features and his hair was slicked back, matted heavy with gel.
Then Anthony’s mind was lucid again, or as clear as it could be following a few days of endless crying, sleeping pills, and funeral planning. “What do you
want
?”
“I am very,
very
sorry for your loss,” the man said.
“Thanks.” He hoped his eyes conveyed his insincerity. What other reason could this man be here if not to use Delaney’s death as an opportunity to add more people to his flock of Jesus freaks? He had probably spotted the obituary in the paper and—
The other guy, the short, stocky one with the loose hairs waving on his head and the He-Man shoulders: he had seen Delaney, even said,
She’s very pretty
. At the advice of the funeral director, Anthony had the newspaper insert a headshot of Delaney next to her obituary. Pure coincidence, God’s intervention according to them, had led these assholes here.
“Where’s your partner, the one with the wrinkled suit?”
“He’s not here, Anthony.”
“Don’t say my name.”
The man squatted in front of him. Anthony could kick him in the crotch with almost no effort. The dread Anthony had first discovered when staring into this man’s eyes did not return; instead, anger began to stir inside him. There was something off about this man, perhaps even something dangerous, but Anthony didn’t care. He was crashing Delaney’s wake.
“God sometimes speaks to me.”
What more proof was needed of the man’s instability: the really dangerous freaks always claimed a direct link with the man in the clouds.
“He led me to your house. You live in a gated community and the guards would never let us in but last Saturday morning when we drove past on our way to a more accessible development, the gate was open and the guard was gone. It was a sign. We parked in the street and walked your community. We walked right to your house. God led us there.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
The man shook his head. His blue eyes were almost impossibly clear. “I don’t expect you to believe anything, not yet. Your mind is too cluttered with grief.”
“Clutterednyt“Clut?” Anthony’s voice peaked to an unacceptable octave for a viewing and several heads turned. “My daughter is dead.”
“God led me to you for a reason.
This
is the reason. You need Him.”
Anthony laughed; he couldn’t help it. “That’s how He works, right? He punishes you, takes your kid away, and then says, come to me. I’ll make it all better. He’s a con artist.”
The man’s face did not waver. “‘Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ Listen to Jesus and let Him empower you.”
That sounded so familiar and then Anthony remembered. “Got those pamphlets memorized, I see.”
“It’s the truth. I knew you would need His help because He led me to you. That’s all I can do. I am His messenger.”
Anthony leaned forward, their faces only inches apart. “Message delivered. Now get the fuck out of here before this gets ugly.”
“You have so much hate. He can help you. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. It is the day Jesus broke bread for the final time. It is the Last Supper. It could have been a time of despair, but it wasn’t, because Jesus knew He would rise again. He was empowered, and you can be empowered, too. You just have to give it a chance. You don’t have to believe, Anthony, you only have to be willing to believe. Tomorrow night. We want you to join us.”
Somehow the man’s words calmed Anthony’s anger. While the man spoke and those blue eyes stayed focused on Anthony, the aggression that had been boiling up receded, leaving his limbs rubbery. If Jesus had existed and the Last Supper really happened, it would be perfectly apropos to join in the commemoration because Anthony was at his own last supper. When Delaney was put in the ground tomorrow, with her would be buried Anthony’s hope. The ultimate loss of innocence. Could a bunch of Bible worshippers actually give him back that hope?
“We only want to help,” the man said. “He wants to help you, Anthony.”
“I told you not to say my name,” Anthony said. He could have easily thrown his arms around this man and wept when only a moment ago he was preparing to fight him. He was trying to be tough, but he only wanted comfort. Dr. Carroll had warned about the emotional roller coaster that followed death, especially that of a child.
“Just think about it and search your heart. Bring your family if you want or come alone. God will help you. He will empower you. Your family is not destroyed. You have a lovely wife and two wonderful sons.”
“What about my sons?”
“I read of them in the obituary.”
“You saw them. Outside.” The ire flushed through him again.
“They’re good boys.” The man’s smile betrayed something from his eyes. That smile revealed true intent, harm even.
“Anthony,” Stephanie said with alarm in her voice, “is everything okay? Who is this man?”
“Where’s your partner?”
“I told you, he’s not—”
“You son of a bitch,” Anthony said so evenly and with gravity that Stephanie backed away and even Mr. Blue Eyes blinked. The man’s partner, the short stocky guy with the wrinkled suit and the uneven gaze in his eyes, entered the viewing room, his arm draped over Brendan’s shoulders. A small smile teased at Brendan’s lips.
Thaveright="0t’s what broke the camel’s back, of course—that smile.
Anthony stood and while the squatting man was trying to explain that everything was okay and that there was no reason to be upset, he shoved the man and stormed right for the stocky guy. The guy was shorter than Anthony but a good thirty pounds heavier. He probably played football in high school whereas Anthony had played tennis. Even so, getting the drop on somebody always offered the advantage.
Someone screamed, more of a startled gasp than a scream but it was enough to turn the stocky guy’s attention away from Brendan and toward Anthony. Had that woman not uttered anything, Anthony would have gotten the full advantage of a surprise attack, but as it was he knocked the man off his feet and into the wall. His head bounced off the wall, narrowly missing the white legs of an elderly woman who was next in line for the kneeler. She jumped out of the way and tripped on someone else. She crashed to the floor amid many startled shouts as Anthony grabbed the stocky guy’s black tie.
This guy had been alone with his son saying who-only-knew-what nonsense. Maybe just Bible shit but maybe something worse. The hit against the wall had glazed the man’s eyes but behind that dazed expression pulsed something not right, something
uneven
, as he had originally labeled it. This guy had watched him surreptitiously while Delaney joked about no one liking his breakfast. This man had smiled real big, the grin of someone who reads the newspaper to count how many sinners were killed in a day’s daily murders, and said,
Your daughter. She’s real pretty
.
“What were you doing with my son? You
cocksucker
!
What did you do to my daughter? What the
fuck
did you do to my
Delaney?!
”
The screams pushed everyone back but not for long. Anthony’s fists pummeled the man’s face over and over until blood streaked his eyes and mouth and Anthony wasn’t sure if the blood was from the guy’s face or his own knuckles scraping the wall after each hit. Screaming near gibberish, Anthony wouldn’t relent until two people grabbed him by the arms, pulled him off the Bible-thumper and pinned him to the floor.
It was an hour later when, after washing the blood from his knuckles (they were undamaged though swollen and throbbing), Anthony looked for Brendan and couldn’t find him. He couldn’t find Tyler, either. And no one had noticed them leave. Least of all Chloe, whose drug stupor had kept her immune to her husband’s outburst.
3
Usually, images and thoughts flooded his brain and the only way he could hone in on something was to start writing. He had explained this problem, at least in part, to Dr. Carroll in October: “All these images crowd my head, each fighting for attention . . . and they’re all about bad stuff--like death.” Dr. Carroll nodded, told Brendan his thoughts were perfectly normal and natural, and then gave him Pilly Billie, which helped, but it had really only shone him the way to engage with his thoughts, not how to manage them.
Pilly Billie opened the paper (he wasn’t sure what he meant by that but it was the only way to explain how, after swallowing his daily pill, the disparate thoughts drifted to the margins of his mind and he could focus clearly and precisely on one thing). Once he put pen to paper, it seemed Pilly Billie was unnecessary--writing was its own kind of drug. The pill gave him access to his imagination, but the writing (Detective Bo Blast ang w Bo Blad his endless quest for The Darkman) kept him focused and, though he’d hate to admit it at times like these, happy even when the world was going to shit. He might even be able to do without the pill, but it was unlikely Dr. Carroll would have him stop: the doc was big on pills; he had been keeping Mom drugged up for a month now.
Watching Delaney’s dead body in a coffin had pushed away all of Brendan’s thoughts--well, almost all of them. It was a protective measure, no doubt, and stronger than even two Pilly Billies. To let all those thoughts (
You Killed Her! You Killed Your Own Sister!
) have free reign would be suicide. There was no way to rationalize what had happened anyway. Brendan dropped the bowling ball and Delaney went in a casket.
Only one thought made it through the filter:
Why had the gods done this to me?
He had done what they wanted and in return they took away a piece of what he had been trying to protect. In school, he had read about Greek mythology and had even created a family tree. People believed in these gods for hundreds of years and some people, if his teacher, Mr. Nicholson, was to be believed, still believed in them. They were the precursors to the modern, single God. Mr. Nicholson had presented mythology like an amusing anecdote in mankind’s history. Many people believed the stories, he told them, but certainly not everyone, especially not the educated class. That was a cop-out. Mr. Nicholson hadn’t read the book Brendan kept under his bed. Brendan thought about bringing it in to show him; they could discuss the real meaning of mythology, the real practices these “educated” people performed. Why was the idea of numerous gods so unbelievable but the notion of a single, all-powerful deity completely plausible? Didn’t it make more sense that many gods conspired to create the world the way it was? Such talk would probably
send him to Guidance or, heck, even in The School Psychologist’s Office.
Brendan believed in many gods (even if he knew it meant others would recommend counseling) and belief was the magic ingredient that opened you up to blessings from on high. The gods demanded obedience and sacrifice, and Brendan gave them both, but still they had taken Delaney. Perhaps some kind of cruel joke. Were the gods, even now, laughing somewhere above him in the sky? Mr. Nicholson referred to the gods as “capricious,” which meant they were constantly changing their minds, bestowing favor on one person and then removing it without cause to place it upon another. Had that been what happened? The gods simply changed their minds and—
oops
—Brendan killed his own sister? Was there no fairness? No sense of obligation from the gods to a dutiful servant?
When Brendan read the following passage from
Finding God: a History of Appeasing Higher Powers and Fulfilling Man’s Destiny,
he almost brought the book to Mr. Nicholson and risked a trip to Guidance or The School Psychologist:
All rudimentary religions are founded on the cornerstone of polytheism, the belief in numerous gods. Whether this be from the Aztecs through the Romans or even the Native Americans (and their belief of spirits in all things--pantheism), the existence in multiple gods, each ruling a separate sector of the natural world and, presumably, the world beyond, is irrefutable as a belief common in early civilizations. To Man, it only made sense that multiple gods held dominion over the world--there was just too much for one god alone.