Jake's Wake (21 page)

Doyle, of course, didn’t learn a thing. He thought two empty bottles would be twice as good as one. When it didn’t work, he cracked open a third and spat in his own eye: as always, far better at feeling than thinking.

That left Steve, who pulled a full beer from the case and winged it with all his might. He had a third base-man’s throwing arm—trained for hurling long distances, with pinpoint precision—and he aimed for Big Keith’s head.

It was an excellent shot, thrown off just enough by the wind to smash the handle on the driver’s-side door.

“BOO-YAH!!!” he bellowed, throwing up his arms, the clear champion of round one…

…and that was enough for Big Keith, who muttered, “Fuck this!” and veered abruptly toward the passing lane.

He knew that an actual collision, at seventy per, would not work out so well for him. His center of gravity was a lot more precarious than an ordinary, lower-slung vehicle. He would flip before they did. And that would be very bad.

But what the Murderator lacked in high-speed maneuverability, it more than made up for with intimidation.

Big Keith couldn’t see the driver’s face; but from the look of shrieking terror on poor, dumb Skinny Minnie, he could extrapolate Denny’s bug-eyed shit-your-pants expression with relative ease.

And when that pussy stomped on the accelerator, pushing the Chevy ahead and—for the moment—out of harm’s way, it was a pure gut pleasure to watch those assholes in the back turn white as they whipped by, suddenly not so cocky.

He pulled full into their lane, missing their rear bumper by inches; and as they screeched up to eighty and beyond, he just smiled at their apelike asses, jumping up and down on the flatbed, his headlights in their squinting eyes.

Lisa started laughing in the passenger seat; and for a moment, he allowed himself the smirk of the just.

Then another set of headlights appeared behind them, less than a hundred yards back, and gaining on them like Keith was going backward.

Trista Gluck was no stranger to sin.

She had worked her way through hell’s buffet, and stayed to lick all the plates clean, so she could look any sinner in the eye and know what they were going through.

But she knew when to say she’d had enough.

That night had come only two years ago, in a biker bar on the edge of town, where Trista, hoping only to blow a stranger for a taste of cocaine, and compulsively picking holes in her face, had first heard him preach.

Not just on his show, but in the flesh. He had waded into the deepest slough of sin and despair to rescue her, when she was going down for the last time.

Not that he’d spoken to her directly, or cast her a second glance when he came in the door. Trista wasn’t much to look at even in her youth, and she’d had to party twice as hard to keep up with the guys, to be the girl ready for anything, after all the pretty ones had passed out.

Those days were long gone. Jake had addressed his sermon to a hot young thing with tits like honeydew melons and no acne scars and, more than likely, all her own teeth.

Trista had to eavesdrop on their conversation, but she was struck to the quick by the handsome preacher’s words, as if they were for her alone. They owned her every failing, and
forgave her; as if his piercing stare cut right through the empty vessel of the bleach-blonde slut at the bar, right into Trista’s scarred, loveless heart.

She went home before last call to watch his show, and with the first golden words of his sermon, she began the first day of her new life. She took the pledge, right then and there. In Jake’s name.

She’s been a drunk, a drug addict, and a whore with four abortions, chronic herpes (Simplex I and II) and a crappy cot in the Joshua Tree Recovery Center to show for her misspent life. But Pastor Jake had thrown her a rope, and she had climbed out of her pit of despair, ascended into the light of grace.

To look at her these days—two years clean, and now, she
ran
the recovery center—was almost to see a different person. Her dentures fit so well hardly anyone could tell, and the dermatologist said the scarring might even be treatable.

But for the last three days, none of those things had mattered. Not even the love of the Lord seemed to matter.

Because he was gone. And with him, all hope.

That was thirty-five minutes ago.

When, once again, everything was changed by the hand of her savior.

The wind howled through the broken window of Trista’s beat-up old Toyota Camry, almost loud enough to drown out the asthmatic scream of the overtaxed engine; but the uniquely penetrating tone of her strident voice cut through the maelstrom of noise.

“Who’s smoking back there?”

She couldn’t look away from the road, and her rearview mirror was knocked askew when Army got in the passenger seat, but the stink of a burning menthol butt assailed her nose like a Devil’s promise.

None of the lumpen cargo in the backseat made any sound. For a change.

“I
smell
it,” she continued. “When the Lord calls you to testify, silence is a lie.”

That one was stenciled all over the walls at the halfway house, so it got a response.

“Rudy’s smoking, Ms. Trista!”
Charlene bleated, a heartbeat from hysterics. “I told him put it out—”

“Rudy. We are all tempted, but his Love is the only drug we need. ISN’T THAT SO?”

They all sounded off a dutiful echo, and Rudy flicked the butt out the rear window. Some hand-slapping and whispered cursing went on in the backseat, but the four of them were packed in too tight to hurt each other.

Charlene, Rudy, Tammy, and old Mrs. Tibbs—and her blind tortoiseshell tomcat, Timothy—all wanted to come to witness the miracle, but Army had the front seat all to himself. Even if someone else could have fit in the seat with him, none of them wanted to be next to him.

Army rocked back and forth, his huge bald head knocking against the roof of the car, making the rotten foam headliner crumble and fly away on the wind. Practicing his lines, rehearsing with the knife.

Trista caught her hand digging at a scab on her forehead, and bit off her last press-on nail. She couldn’t trust her hands, but she could hardly blame them. It felt like the coke bugs were back, burrowing under her skin, making her sweat through her only nice dress, despite the shivery chill in the rushing wind. But she put it behind her, threw it over her shoulder like Jake always said to do.

She didn’t read too well, but she knew full well how the apostles and the early Christians were outlaws, persecuted, hated, and feared for following their savior. To do his work and spread his word, they had to break the laws of Rome.

The world they lived in was a second Rome, another Babylon of de cadence and idolatry. A Devil in human form—a
succubus like the platinum blonde in the bar—had silenced Jake Connaway.

But even the Devil did God’s work, as the prophet said.

Trista clamped both hands on the wheel and steered the car out of the last hairpin turn at the top of the mountain overlooking the town, and crushed the pedal to the floor, heading into the two-lane straightaway that she had driven so many times.

But this time, she would not pass by his house, as she had, so many empty nights.

They would stop, and their actions would lay the foundation of a new gospel.

If what the news said was true, they would be first to bear witness; but Trista was no fool. Even if he did
not
rise, the Church of Eternal Life would rise out of the ashes of Jake’s death.

With Trista Gluck at its pulpit.

But there would be obstacles. Up ahead, she saw the taillights of her rivals, whipping down the road like it was slicked with shortening as they drunkenly swerved up around a cruising monster truck like it was standing still.

She fought the urge to point and shriek at the first glimpse of Denny Chabert and his pathetic wet-brained pals: the focus of all her hatred, in that speeding pickup truck.

But here, as in all things, she was too loaded down, and she was falling behind.

Then the pickup slowed, as if taunting the giant. Why, she could not begin to say. But it was clearly a sign from God.

She stomped down hard on the gas.

The Camry’s bald tires squealed on the blacktop, Trista fighting to keep them from sliding off the shoulder into soft sand as the acceleration grappled with her for control of the car.

In the back, her fellow apostles tried to rally their spirits with a rousing hymn, but they were each singing a different one, and Timothy yowled in his cat carrier. They knew all of Pastor Jake’s songs, but they couldn’t keep the lyrics straight.

To hear his heavenly message mocked as if by chain-smoking howler monkeys stretched her last nerve to the breaking point. But it gave them something to do, until they were needed.

Beside her, Army rocked harder. His meaty forehead thumped the windshield with each thrust, pumping like on a child’s swing, to push the car forward.

This made her more than nervous; it scared her; but Army was more important, and she didn’t want to confuse him by telling him to do anything else. If you poured too much into a shot glass, you would spill something, and Army’s shot glass of a brain was filled to the brim.

Nobody knew his real name. They called him Army because he always wore ratty, ripped T-shirts from the army recruiter:
BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE,
or
AN ARMY OF ONE.
He probably never was in the army, but he must have been something, once, before he did what ever it was that broke his brain. Nobody as deeply retarded as Army could have lived to adulthood.

His T-shirt to night said
NOT JUST STRONG, BUT ARMY STRONG,
through the carrot soup he spilled down his front when the news interrupted mealtime confession.

Trista had made sure he understood what
really
happened to Jake. The idea had come to her like a lightning bolt, divine inspiration from on high. A way to save the halfway house, which had donated more to the Church of Eternal Life in the last year than it had paid in rent and upkeep.

A way to claim the $10,000 reward offered for Jake’s murder, and make the halfway house into the church’s new home…

Still ahead, but coming up fast, the monster truck
starting edging Denny’s pickup off the pavement. It was the most beautiful thing she’d seen since Jacob Connaway’s smile.

Then Denny sped up and out of the way, the leviathan sliding into the passing lane behind him.

It was as if a gateway had opened: again, for her and her alone.

The Camry almost floated above the road, the runaway car becoming a missile. They blasted by the monster truck, passing on the right, Trista waving and honking with glee.

“Thank them, on behalf of our Savior!”
she bellowed, urging her passengers on.

“THANK OOO, HALF A SAVIOR!” came the resounding response of the chosen.

And only then—as she fully entered the fray—did Trista notice that there were still more headlights, far in the distance, coming up behind her.

Lisa watched the crazy fuckers whip by on their right; and though the shotgun was now cocked and in her hands, it didn’t occur to her to actually
shoot
those stupid people.

She was more interested in blowing Steve and his pals off the back of the pickup, before they dumped any more glass in the road.

Especially now that they’d tossed a whole twelve-pack, and were picking up guns of their own.

She loved the fact that Big Keith remained cool as a cucumber throughout. Though his teeth had clenched a little when he drove over the bottles, the Murderator had barely registered the crunching. The odds on a shard of glass punching through the knobby hide of the radial tires were slim to none, but not impossible. So far, so good.

Lisa rolled down the passenger window, unclipped her seat belt, and poked the barrel out into the wind. She wasn’t looking forward to sticking her head out there—spend an hour on your hair, just to destroy it in a second—but Big Keith clearly had his hands full.

And frankly, she was sick to death of feeling helpless.

“What the fuck is going ON with these people?” she hollered over the sudden upsurge in sound.

“I don’t know for certain!” he hollered back. “But if I had to guess—”

“GOD DAMN IT!” Guessing the same thing, too, as the clankity Toyota sedan passed the pickup, uneasily pushing ninety.

In Keith’s high beams, Lisa watched Steve and his drunken shitwits turn away from her entirely, shouting and brandishing arms.

Then the pickup took off in hot pursuit, leaving Lisa and Big Keith to lollygag after, like a tortoise racing hares.

“AUGH!” Lisa screamed, with no one left to shoot at. “How are we supposed to catch ’em now?”

“We may not have to,” he said, loud enough to be heard. “Roll up the window, would’ja, darlin’? You’re gettin’ sand all over my seats.”

Trista tried to ignore the furious honking from the pickup filled with backsliders coming up behind her, but it was impossible. Only a mile to Jake’s ranch, and the bastards were drinking all the way, the road behind them littered with bottle glass and starbursts of demon liquor.

She let loose a teapot scream of wordless fury as the wets closed the distance. How dare they come to his house in such a state? They huddled around his guiding light but remained lost; to them, Jake’s love was just another drug, another cheap high on a Saturday night.

They would not be saved, and they would be blasted out of their boots by the first sight of him, if he had truly risen.

She believed in him, truly and without reservation.

She would give her life, knowing he would return it to her, this night, if he could.

If he could…

Was that gnawing doubt the work of a demon in her head—a coke-bug infestation of the soul—or was it destiny, calling her to do its work?