Jake's Wake (20 page)

“I didn’t say I never got hammered.”

“Fair enough.” He laughed again.

“Just that I never went to prison. But you were saying…”

“I was saying, there’s not a whole lot of saints in there, although you might meet a couple. And all of them were sinners first. So the Bible is very popular.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“It gets passed around a lot, like cigarettes and larceny tips and AIDS and the Koran. But out of the batch, that was the one that spoke to me.”

Lisa nodded, looked back at the speedometer. Surely at least a minute had passed.

“And I gotta admit, I always had my problems with the whole Jesus thing. The big one being that I was
never
gonna be like Jesus, any more than I was gonna be like Einstein, or Steve McQueen. You know what I’m sayin’?
I was never gonna be great.
I was always gonna be this big dumb asshole who never did anything right.”

“Wow,” Lisa said.

“Then one day, I was reading Matthew 27—the crucifixion scene, in all its mockery and horror—and all of a sudden something hit me, the way it must have whacked St. Paul off his horse.

“And let me say, just so long as we’re at it,” he continued, clearly on a roll, “that St. Paul was NO FUCKING JESUS, okay? He was just another asshole, like me.”

“But…”

“No. There’s no real ‘but’ about it. He was an asshole. I was an asshole. We had a lot in common.

“But as for me, what happened was: I’m trying to find myself in the crucifixion scene. Trying to figure out where I fit in. Am I Jesus? No. Am I one of the people standing around, crying and lamenting? Well, maybe. Although—knowing me—I woulda died trying to kill those stupid fuckers. But evidently, that didn’t happen.”

“Wow,” Lisa repeated, having nothing to add but her full attention.

“And that was when it hit me: I didn’t try to stop the fucking centurions because I
was
one of the fucking
centurions. And if it wasn’t me, it was someone just like me.”

She was amazed to watch a tear slide down his cheek.

“I was one of those ignorant goons that got paid to nail him down, then hoist him up, then stand around and laugh about it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so…”

“I don’t think so, either. I
know
so,” he said, and shot her a glance that carried all his soul behind it.

It shut her mouth faster than a sock to the jaw, though there was no violence in his eyes. At least not for her.

“And that was what Jesus gave me,” he continued. “Just like he did for those dumb-ass Roman soldiers who, by the end of it, came to see the light.

“All of a sudden, I realized that
I didn’t want to be that guy
. Couldn’t be that fucking guy anymore. Couldn’t bear it for one more second.

“Which is to say: Jesus made me want to be a better person. Not perfect—cuz that was never gonna happen—but maybe just good enough.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do.” One tear of her own was rolling, too.

“Good enough to deserve to be here, on this beautiful planet, with all of God’s gifts all around me. Good enough to know enough to help other people, given half a chance…”

“Exactly…”

“So that when I die, I don’t have to crawl before the Lord like a grub on its belly, begging for forgiveness I never even tried to earn.”

“Amen,” she said, wiping away the tear.

“Amen, indeed.” Wiping away his own. “That’s why pissants like Connaway are the lowest of the low. He’s not a real televangelist, and he’s sure as hell not a real Christian.

“You know what he is? He’s a cable access cult leader, with this batshit battalion of resurrection rangers that spend half their lives lazin’ around on their fucking couches, thinkin’ that by throwing him money and blow jobs, they’re somehow gonna live forever. Which, incidentally, has less than
nothing
to do with anything Christ Jesus ever said or did.

“That’s why part of me actually hopes that he
did
fake his death, like some people have been sayin’; and that he’s standing there, pulling his shenanigans, when we walk in the goddamn door.

“Cuz I would gladly knock his lying ass straight out his forehead, just on general principles. Not to mention the thought of him
even thinking about
fucking with my bro.”

The temperature in the monster truck cab had just gone up ten degrees, without anyone touching the heater. Lisa watched him pause, mopped a little sweat off her brow, and thought to herself
how lucky am I to have him with me…?

A half hour ago, back at the bar, it had been a different story.

The redneck crowd at PJ’s Pub, on the outskirts of town, had been rowdy to night. Nothing unusual there. Lots of loud banter and rip-roarin’ laughter, poking out like rebel flags of many nations over the steady soundscape blare of George Thoroughgood, Kid Rock, and Kenny Chesney.

For Lisa, however, a hole had been blown in her good-time vibe, even before the local news came on.

It was hard not to be jealous, despite Jasper’s protestations, when she learned that he was backing up Evangeline this evening. Everybody knew they’d had a thing, and that they were still just-short-of-kissing close.

But Jasper was so cool on the phone—so clearly excited about hooking up tonight—that Lisa had put that noise on the emotional back burner, trusting her own charm and bedroom
skills to knock that skank out of the running. You didn’t have to be a pro to fuck like one; all you had to do was connect, throw down, and give it up like you meant it.

So she was confident, if a little apprehensive, that the night would go just fine.

Then the music cut out, right in the middle of that stupid “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” song; and while that would normally be cause for rejoicing, the volume on the TV sets went suddenly up.

And the news of the “Funeral Parlor Massacre” came up with it.

Her first reaction was a generic oh-my-god-that’s-so-horrible: the kind of reaction you gave to every bit of bad news that had nothing to do with you.

But as the story unfolded, her stomach sank into her knees; and she found herself trying to pull all of Jasper’s cursory info into sharp relief.

Was Jasper at the funeral home? No. He said he was going to the widow’s house. Was the massacre at the widow’s house? No. It was at the funeral home.

Did Jasper need to know about this?

Yes, probably he did.

It was so hard not to call him up immediately. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d asked her, explicitly, not to, there would have been no hesitation at all.

As it was, she watched the details pile up: multiple deaths, the original dead guy’s body missing, a $10,000 reward, some mystical mumbo jumbo.

Then the segment ended, and the TV cut to a life insurance commercial. Someone hit the mute button. The jukebox kicked back in.

And her panic attack went into full swing.

She spent the next ten minutes letting various friends buy her drinks and try to talk her down, with no success whatsoever. In fact, half of them were like
no, you HAVE to call him!

Until she finally did.

And she was still kicking herself for having called from inside the bar, with AC/DC shrieking “Back In Black.” Because the fact was, she couldn’t be certain that she’d heard what she heard.

But the whispering hiss—just before the line cut out—sure as shit sounded like it said
Jasper is dead.

She hit redial. It didn’t work.

She tried Christian’s number. It didn’t work.

She tried them both a trillion times.

At that point, Lisa felt like she had no choice but to open it up to the floor: trying not to get hysterical as she told her friends, then the people nearby, then anyone who would listen that something was wrong at the Connaway house.

It was amazing to watch how people shrank back from her then, like she had some kind of contagious disease: a leprosy of involvement that averted all gazes, and left all backs turned.

On the far side of the pool tables, she found Denny and Steve huddled in deep conversation, their game all but forgotten. Denny was a bony-faced, scruffy-ass psycho in a dingy white
I Think You Confused Me With Someone Who Gives A Shit
T-shirt. He looked much older than his forty years. The rumor was some sort of lymphatic cancer.

But Steve was younger, and sort of cute in a beefy farmboy kind of way; and though she’d seen him flash his temper at the bar on several occasions—and heard him say some fairly out-there things about niggers, queers, and Zionists—he’d always been pretty nice to her.

They looked up, startled, as she approached, like they’d been caught in the middle of planning a 7-11 heist. And Denny’s T-shirt spoke clearly for him.

But the second she mentioned the Connaway place, their eyes lit up, and they looked at each other, then back down at her tits, as if she’d just offered them blow jobs
and
backstage passes to a ZZ Top reunion.

Yes, they said. They would be happy to drive her. And yes, they said, they would definitely bring guns. They could leave right now, if she was ready. The sooner, the better. They were parked right out back.

And this was exactly what she’d wanted to hear; but coming from them, it suddenly sounded like the worst idea in the history of the world. Maybe it was the fact that they never once met her gaze for more than a split second. But all of her alarms went off.

When she hesitated, they started to get angry and insistent. Steve actually grabbed her arm, tried to lead her like a dog on a leash.

And just as she was about to shout for help, an enormous shadow fell over her from behind.

“I understand,” boomed a voice like a white James Earl Jones, “that there might be a problem.”

Steve let go of her arm so fast there was almost a ricochet effect; and Denny jumped back, his scrawny arms raised up in front of his cowering, bug-eyed face.

Lisa turned to face the giant behind her, who had inspired such fear.

“Jasper Ellis is my friend,” he said. “You just let me know what you need…”

Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, let the wind pick up the conversation. Lisa snapped out of her reverie, back into the present, and the monster truck’s cab.

Fierce light glinted in the side-view mirror, making her jump and blink. It was the high beams from a pickup truck that was coming right up on their ass; and she didn’t need to read the subtitles to know that
Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.

She whipped around in her seat to see firsthand, was blinded anew by the high beams. Then the pickup
abruptly switched lanes, left her seeing dots as it made to pass.

Through the dots, she saw a second pair of headlights.

And they, too, were closing in fast.

There were few things sweeter than a reason to hit one hundred miles per hour.

And with the hour of reckoning finally at hand, this seemed like the best possible reason of them all.

It had only taken a couple of minutes to scrounge up some believers: if not in Jake, then in either ten grand, some drunken mayhem, or Christ Almighty. Any one of them would do.

So there were six crazy bastards in or on the vintage Chevy pickup truck, howling through the wind like the mad dogs they were: Steve in the back, on the flatbed, careening around with Syd, Doyle, Pablo, Chuck, and a case of cheap longneck Tecate beer; Skinny Minnie, the possible booby prize, riding shotgun, so blitzed she could barely sit up; and in the driver’s seat, Denny Chabert—the man with nothing left to lose—pressing that pedal all the way to the metal.

“FUCK YOU!” Denny hooted, though he knew Big Keith couldn’t hear him. It was a little pregame warmup for the moment—just about to go down—when bulk succumbed to numbers, and the big man got whittled down to size.

Denny felt pretty goddamn good, all miserable cancerous
things considered. He had his hands on the wheel, and a new world a-comin’. A world where remission was no longer an issue, and his skin no longer felt like it was filled with ground glass, no matter how many drugs and drinks he took.

The world that Jake had promised.

Rapture and resurrection, just over the horizon.

In all honesty, he was probably
way
too high to be driving right now, much less pushing his turbocharged Chevy into the red. But he had spent years working on that bitch, making her as badass as he’d ever hoped to be. It was the single most rewarding relationship of his life.

A hundred per was well within her comfort zone.

And, by God, he would rise to this occasion.

As he came up even with Big Keith’s monster 55-inch wheels, he eased off the gas just enough to hang steady, flashing his ugliest grin; but it was like driving next to a tractor-trailer. All he could see was tires and the stepladder beneath the door.

The twin networks of nerves and cancer began to jangle in concert, fear cutting through the drugs and excitement to reactivate pain like glass through an eyeball. In his truck, Denny wasn’t used to looking up at anyone. He couldn’t even flip the fucker off. But he could be crushed like a beer can, anytime Big Keith wanted.

In that instant, he forgot why this was a good idea.

Then the artillery kicked in, and brought the joy back to his life.

Chuck was the first to lob an empty bottle straight at the Murderator’s cab. But the wind was tricky, the sand like needles on his skin; and when his missile flew off to nowhere, like it was smacked out of his hand, all he could do was yell, “Damn!” and start laughing.

Pablo took the next shot, and it was slightly better, denting the spit-polished bed of the monster truck in a
brown spray of glass and beer. The fact that it was still half full had a lot to do with how true it flew. This elementary physics lesson made a deep and immediate impression on all of them.