The Night Listener and Others (16 page)

“Why isn’t there any smoke?” I asked. “I noticed…when my mother was…” I trailed off.

“The heat’s so intense that it doesn’t create much smoke to start with, and it’s got a special draft control. The way the gasses recirculate you hardly get any smoke at all.” Jim pushed a small black button on the panel I had not noticed before. “The pulverizer. Just a minute or two.” I listened, and heard only the slightest grinding of machinery. Jim finally pushed the button a second time, and threw the switch that opened the door to the furnace. We looked inside and saw what appeared to be several pounds of white ash, punctuated here and there by what I took to be the metal that had held the wooden casket together.

“I’ll have that coffee now,” Jim said. “By the time we’re finished, it should be cool enough to remove the remains.”

Inside the parsonage, we chatted for another hour over coffee and tea cakes, then went to the crematory once again, where I watched while Jim withdrew the casket nails and fittings with a magnet, then carefully collected together the white ash, pouring it into what appeared to be a clay urn, which he sealed. “That’s about it,” he said. “I’ll vacuum out the residue and take the urn over to Mrs. Collins tomorrow. Her son is going to strew the ashes in the river.”

I said goodbye then, and left Jim to finish up.

Four days later, alone in the parsonage, I opened the box and dug away the salt until I reached the piece of flesh. It had shrunk considerably in its curing, and the surface of the skin was no longer smooth, but shriveled, though still the pale yellow color it had been before. Not knowing whether I needed to or not, I “overhauled” it, which consisted of examining the meat for bare spots (there were none), rubbing it well with the salt again, and repacking it as before. This time I left it only overnight, and when I removed the salt the next day, it was (according to the book) fully cured. Although I looked it over carefully, I could detect no moisture at all, and was amazed that only five days could serve to produce the dry and parchment-like prize that I now held in my trembling hands. It was far smaller than it had been originally, but it would last for weeks, months, if everything I read was true, and if I had done all properly (and I had no reason to believe I had not).

I decided to cut the flesh into smaller segments and wrap each individually. When I had finished, I had twenty pieces each the size of a quarter, a size which, I learned later, was too large, providing a veritable surfeit of richness that nearly made me ill. After that first attempt I cut each of the remaining pieces in half, which left me thirty-eight. They lasted four months before they began to deteriorate. But instead of throwing them away, I burned them. It seemed suitable.

Within a few weeks there was another cremation, and I took the flesh of yet another parishioner. It was easier that time, and became easier as the years went by and my communions continued. They are more recent now, occurring once every two weeks, corresponding to Mrs. Bunn’s absences. In the intervening years, she only once noticed the box. When she asked about it, I told her that it was rock salt for the pavement. Even if she would ever want to use it, the odds of it being on one of the perhaps ten days a year that the flesh is actually cured in the box is minimal. Besides, the flesh is always near the bottom.

Still I feared, perhaps irrationally, that Keith Holt, in some nocturnal invasion, would somehow find the box, deduce its purpose, and search for and find what it had held. He seemed to me to have some darker wisdom than the dear, gentle, trusting Mrs. Bunn, who would never think of poking into the storage area in the cellar where my suitcases were kept. I could not help but feel that Keith would know exactly where to go, would take the third suitcase from the bottom of the pile, the one with the perforations to let whatever was inside breathe, would break open the feeble locks, and would find the carefully wrapped and stored away pieces of flesh.

Flesh. I am growing tired of calling it that. Perhaps the Host would be a better term, for flesh sounds so
fleshy.
And it is indeed the Host, the Host of the Eucharist, the guide that takes me by the hand (or the tongue) and so leads me into God’s glory. But it would not have been the Host to Keith Holt, nor to anyone else who would stumble across it in that way. It would be nothing but the trove of a butcher.

I saw Keith Holt in church that first Sunday after the sanctuary was violated. He sat there with his parents and his little sister Kimberly, his eyes fixed on mine throughout the service. Every time I looked at him he was looking at me. Of course everyone looks at the pastor during the service. But this was different. This Sunday everyone seemed ill at ease, knowing what had happened in their place of worship, and few eyes met mine. Most of the people were looking down at their laps, stealing a furtive glance now and again at the altar, then looking away quickly, as if they could see what had been there. The details had not been published in the papers, but what the imagination creates can be far worse than reality.

As in my own case, to prove the point. If you were told that there is a rural minister who is a cannibal and a ghoul, and nothing more than that, your mind, instead of seeing the tall, thin, ascetic-looking, mild mannered fortyish man I am, would summon up images of some slavering, white-haired madman in an ecclesiastical gown (no doubt splashed with gore). His basement (or bedroom, depending on the psychosexual motivations you might come up with) would be filled with moldering corpses hanging from beams or tall trees, large chunks of meat cut from them and perhaps simmering in this maniac’s kitchen. History and the popular press is full of human monsters who really perpetrated such horrors, and such easy labelling would be sure to befall me were my acts discovered. Far better to tell the truth, such as I have done here, than to let imagination run wild.

I have digressed again. But I did not digress from my sermon that morning. I could not. I was locked to the outline, my mind unable to wander, my concentration fixed as it was upon that smirking boy, who would look at me and, having caught my eye, would glance quickly to the place on the altar where the paten with the cat’s head had sat. I would look at him again, and his knowing eyes would dart now to the new Bible that had replaced the old, befouled one. A third time I would look at him, and he would lead his gaze and our mutual memory to the cross, now wiped clean, but for both of us eternally stained. As my anger grew I clung to my outline like an anchor, and forged ahead with all due haste, anxious to be finished, and so quit of the presence of this demon child.

It was the shortest sermon I have preached, and when I said Amen and turned toward my pew, the congregation seemed too amazed to be delighted, although I received several favorable comments on the message as the people filed out. My practical side made a mental note to reduce the length of my sermons from then on.

That evening after dinner I walked over to the church and went to the activities room, where Youth Fellowship had just begun. Keith Holt was there, that knowing look etched firmly on his young, smooth face. I observed for a few minutes, noticing that he did not sing the songs with the others, did not even move his lips. When Randy Kornhauser began to break the young people up into groups, I went over to Keith and smiled at him.

“I’d like to speak with you, Keith. Just for a minute “

He looked at me for the longest time, as if sizing up an opponent, then nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Where?”

“My office,” I said, turning. “Just upstairs.”

“Your ground, huh?”

I turned back and looked at him. “Pardon?”

He gave a quick shake of his head. “Nothing.”

My office is small but comfortable, much more modern in appearance than the library in the parsonage where I do most of my work. The office is for counseling, conferences, and phone calls. It’s my public headquarters, while the library is my private one. Keith sat in one of the two armchairs without being asked, and I sat down behind my desk, facing him. “Don’t you want to close the door?” he said.

“Why would I do that?”

He shrugged, crossed his legs, and waited.

“I wanted to talk to you, Keith, about some of the things that have been happening here at the church in the past couple of weeks.” I didn’t know where I was going, or precisely what I was going to say. I hoped to draw him out, and thought that seeming mild and ineffectual might be the best way. The weaker he thought I was, the closer he might come to bragging about his exploits, or at least giving me enough of a hint that I would know without his admission of guilt.

“Like what? Bake sale? Choir practice?”

“No. Not good things like that. Not things that serve God.
Bad
things.”

“If you don’t like pies and singing, those are bad things.”

“I’m not talking about pies and singing. I’m talking about vandalized graves, about the defilement of the altar.”

“Oh, yeah.” He grinned. “I read about that in the papers.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“I thought it might be pretty rad.”

The phrasing was odd. “You thought it might be…”

“For whoever did it.”

“You thought it might be a…pleasurable thing to do?”

“Pleasure.” He made the word last a long time. “Yeah, I guess it would give a person…pleasure.”

“Are you wondering,” I went on, “why I’m asking you about this?”

“I guess because you maybe think I did it.”

“You
are
the only person I know,” I said, “who has expressed an interest in Satanism.”

“Boy,” he said, shaking his head. “See where my big mouth gets me? I mean, that’s the thing about churches—you guys always tell us to say what we think, that we got freedom of speech and all, and when we do it, it comes right back to us.” He cocked his head at me. “You say anything to the cops about me?”

“No.”

“How about my folks?”

“No”

“And why not?” He went on before I could answer. “You didn’t go to the cops because you don’t have any evidence, and if you go to my folks and tell them, they won’t really give a damn. Excuse me. A
darn.”

“You don’t think they would care about something like this?”

“They wouldn’t believe you because they wouldn’t want to. Besides, they know what I am, and they don’t care.”

“What you are? Do you mean a Satanist?”

“Ye say that I am,” he quoted.

It was what Christ said when the council asked if he was the Son of God. “You know the Scriptures,” I said, surprised.

“Hey, I go to church, and some of it rubs off. Besides, it’s important to know how the enemy thinks.”

“And Christ is the enemy?”

“Seems dumb, doesn’t it? I mean, how can a mealy-mouthed wimp like that be the enemy? No offense.”

There was a painful tightness in my stomach. I sat for a moment, watching him, but he seemed to have nothing more to say. “What did you do with the skull?” I asked quietly.

“What did I do with it? Well, I can tell you what
another
Satanist might do with it, and that’s to use it in a Black Mass. You ever hear of those? You go in a church, flip the crosses, crap on the Bible, say the Lord’s Prayer backwards, sacrifice a virgin on the altar—”

“A virgin?”

His eyes narrowed. “They’re harder to find these days, so sometimes you have to use an animal.”

“Like a cat,” I said.

He nodded. “A cat’ll do fine. For starters.”

We sat there looking at each other for a long time. I knew what he was doing—it was a staredown—and I knew that the longer I looked at him, the longer I went along with this childish contest, the worse I would feel when I finally looked away. And eventually I
would
have to look away, for this was no fight between good and evil, but simply a deluded boy trying to prove his strength, to prove to himself that he did have some power. Let him win, then, I thought, but act as if you don’t care.

So I pushed back my chair, interlocked my hands behind my head, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Will your parents be picking you up after Youth Fellowship tonight?”

Finally he answered. “Yeah. That’s right.”

There was triumph in his voice, satisfaction that he had held the gaze while I had looked away. “Will they both be here?” I asked, still not looking at him.

“Yeah. They visited some friends. Kimberly’s with them too. Think you’d like to discuss me with her?”

“No. I don’t think that will be necessary.” I stood up. “Suppose you go back to the others now, Keith.” It was on my lips to thank him for talking to me, but I realized that I need thank him for nothing. He had done more, I felt, than he could ever atone for, if not in God’s eyes, then in mine. But he, I learned, was far more gracious, even in mockery, than I.

“Well, Pastor,” he said as he stood up, “thanks for this little chat. I feel a whole lot better now knowing that a man of God is looking out for my welfare. And I’m sure my folks will be interested in whatever it is you have to tell them. And hey, if you want me to do up a batch of cookies for the next bake sale, you can count on me. Okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer, merely turned his back on me and walked out the door.

I sat down again and thought for a long time about the boy, praying to the Lord to show me a way to touch him, to make him understand that what he was doing and thinking was sin, was abomination, that a change must be made. But God gave me no answer. The boy was no boy, but a monster, implacable and adamant. In earlier times, a word from me and he would have been burned for heresy, and, God help me, I think I would have turned him over to the Inquisition. For he was foul. That is the most brief as well as the most accurate word I can use to describe him. Foul.

My office does not command a view of the parking lot, so I went across the hall to the adult Sunday school room and sat there in the dark, waiting for the Holts to come pick up their son. Just before 7:30 I saw their car, a new Saab, pull in the lot. I went outside, walked up to it, and waved. Mr. Holt lowered the window, and I told him that I would like to have a word with him and his wife in my office. They got out and were about to come into the church with their little girl, when Keith and some of the other students came outside. The boy cast a twisted smile at me.