Badbadbad Page 7

  After begging for a miracle, I texted Shannon the news and sped off. The hum of the recently overhauled engine gave me confidence. It was worth the expense, my faith in the Saturn.

  To avoid rush hour on the highway, I cut through the side streets, bounding over speed bumps, California-stopping at crossroads. I cranked up the volume on “A Love Supreme.” I could feel the truth in what Cyrus had said. I was One with the Spirit. Coltrane’s voice was mine. “A Love Supreme.” One and the same. I chanted along, taking a right on Penance Lane. Trane’s tenor saxophone flowed through me. “A Love Supreme.” On Jordan Drive, I hooked left, headache beginning to subside. “A Love Supreme.” I pushed it on Salvation Way, straight shot to First Church. I would head off the Reverend’s wrath. “A Love Supreme.” I’d find the backup system intact. “A Love Supreme.” Everything happens. “A Love Supreme.” Four perfect syllables.

  The straight road curved.

  I wasn’t expecting it. The Saturn fishtailed. I tried to compensate. Everything was slow motion. I turned right. The car rocked. Then left. It didn’t roll. Right again. Whiter shade of pale. I could feel myself lose control. When the rear half slammed into a lamp post, the CD skipped to the end. No sound. I knew the frame was bent. That’s the way it is.

  I was towed and ticketed for reckless driving, hassled for DUI by a half-dozen uniforms in Confederate-gray cruisers. I didn’t blow the breathalyzer, so they left me on the curb, head in hands.

  That’s how Good Charlotte found me when she pulled up in her Suburban. I told her my car was totaled and I only had liability. “God will provide,” she said.

  “A love supreme?”

  “You could put it that way.”

  I told her I needed to see the Reverend. I explained why.

  “Dear God,” she said.

  I thought on my recent prayer, asked her not to tell him anything until I’d had a chance to inspect the damage.

  “Don’t worry, sugar.” Her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “God will provide.”

  The Reverend was visibly upset when I told him about the accident, as if my misfortune had some bearing on my character and he thought it best to keep his distance. I lied about shutting down the web site for maintenance. He left me to my work.

  Somehow, the backup held tough. I was able to reload the entire site design in no time. I may have lost the Saturn, no small setback given the cost of repairs, but I hadn’t lost my livelihood or the hope of seeing my son again. Whether or not this light in the dark was a gift from God I wasn’t sure. But I was grateful for the good will and planned to share it with Shannon at day’s end.

  _________

  “Do you believe in Christ?” I said after a long kiss hello.

  She told me to take off my shirt and pants and lie down in my bedroom. She insisted on touching me, as promised, before we’d do anything else tonight. She’d brought over candles, incense and a CD of meditative Indian bansuri music. The ambience was soft and warm.

  After undressing, I was a little embarrassed, uncertain of the protocol, not wanting to disrespect her. She was, after all, a legitimate massage therapist, licensed and certified, and I was a wolfman, rabid for hands-on healing. “What do I do with this?” I gestured toward the tent I had made of the sheet.

  She squeezed me hard with both hands, said she’d take care of that later. For now, I was to roll over, be still and breathe. I did as she instructed. She placed her hands on a knot in my shoulder and pressed down. I flinched. She said to breathe into where it hurts.

  Shannon was strong, her touch firm, and she didn’t let up even when I complained. She didn’t move around much, stroking or kneading as expected. Instead, she targeted the tension on my shoulders and back and applied pressure until the muscles released, dropping into a healthier, more natural posture. She said the idea was to attend to the trouble spots where stress poisons the body like a tumor and directly deal with the pain. She could feel it, she said, just being in the same room with me. I could feel hers as well, but I didn’t know how to make it go away. The healing would come by letting go, she said, giving in to wherever her touch led me. “It’s okay, sweetie. Breathe in, breathe out.”

  I felt vulnerable, like an abandoned child. “I am Jesus,” I said.

  “I’m a believer then, sweetie.” She kissed the back of my neck.

  “No, really.” I tried to breathe into her fingers as they prodded and popped the toxins. I thought I might throw up. “My name is Jesús Ángel García.” I was truthtelling now, on how I was born Latino, in part at least, but raised A-mer-i-can. Mom was an immigrant, dad’s unknown. I told her about my younger brother. (Guess who, bro?) “Technically we’re half,” I said, “but we don’t think of it that way. I’ve never had a father. My brother’s dad wanted my mom, never me. Their last name’s Green. He tried to kill me once.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, pressing down on a sore spot, nails digging into my skin. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not so much,” I said. Then I told her everything. A story you may remember, bro.

  I talked about how we were on our way home from Disney World, you and me acting up in the back of the wagon, like all kids do, when your father threatened to pull off to the side of the freeway and leave me there in the middle of no place. I told her how he’d often bully us like this, but I bore the brunt of it. I was the oldest, he’d say. I had to man up. Remember how we’d usually chill when it got to this point? But I was fourteen, a raging adolescent. So I called his bluff. I said, “Lemme outta here, daddy!” You know I never called him daddy. That’s what did it.

  He screeched the wagon to a halt as the traffic zoomed past. “Get the fuck out, boy,” he commanded. “Find your own way home.”

  Remember how you were bawling, bro, and mom was in hysterics? I was defiant. I pushed through the door, started walking away with my thumb out.

  When I told her this, Shannon placed a finger on my lips, nuzzled up to my ear. “I’m right here,” she said. “Inside voice, sweetie.” I forced a laugh, tried to whisper. In no time I was shouting once more.

  Remember how after a quarter mile or so the wagon came up fast behind me on the shoulder? I swear to Christ I thought he was gonna run me down. I didn’t care. Your daddy then leapt out of the driver’s seat and said, “That’s enough, boy. Get your ass back in the car.” I balled up my fists and straight to his face told him to go fuck himself. Remember that, little brother?

  “No,” Shannon said, her hands flat, unmoving on my lower back.

  “Hell yes,” I said.

  That’s when he slapped me upside the head and his wedding band gashed the ridge above my eye. He then talked real slow: “Get . . . your . . . ass . . . in . . . the car.” I told him to go to hell. He hit me again. Same place, same full force. My blood on his hands now.

  I knew how to defend myself. Remember how I’d get in fights at school sometimes? But I wasn’t fighting back. Did you watch from the car as he slapped me around? He busted my lip and eye, knocked my jaw out of whack. I stumbled but never went down. Remember, bro? I wouldn’t give him the pleasure.

  I told Shannon how there was blood everywhere and I spit it in his face. He only stopped when mom got between us. I’ll never forget her screaming, “You’ll kill him!” and he hollering back, “If I wanted him dead, he’s dead!”

  “No,” Shannon said again, her hands still frozen.

  “A few weeks later,” I told her, “he was summoned to slaughter civilians in some non-white nation for NATO. Crusaders for Christ.”

  “Jesus, JAG,” Shannon said, laying her head on my back, as if listening for a heartbeat.

  “So here I am,” I gave it my best Reverend voice, “the scarred son of God.”

  “We’re all the sons and daughters of God,” she said.

  “Then we’re all called to be crucified.”

  “Maybe so, sweetie,” she said. “But there’s always the Resurrection.”

  Shannon was a good example of life aft
er death. She had dumped the badge of victimhood, imposed on her through no fault of her own, and was reborn a healer. She had so much love inside her, such compassion for others. She was selfless in her willingness to give, despite her own sorrow, despite the constant struggle to do right. “Living is more than survival,” she’d say. “Open your heart and lovelovelove.”

  After listening to my story, she gently turned me over on the bed, pressed her fingers into my chest. I heard a crunch then a pop, and at once I felt funky. She said that was all the bad inside flushing out. Her hands were magic. She cracked me wide open. I couldn’t hold back the tears. “Let it go, sweetie,” she said. “Everyone cries the first time.”

  Waves of nausea ripped through me. “I think I might be sick.”

  “That’s why I’m here, sweetie.”

  “No, really. I don’t wanna puke.”

  “Close your eyes and breathe,” she said with a mother’s smile. “What will be, will be.” She brushed her palm across my eyelids. Shannon the coroner. JAG the corpse.

  A half-hour later my body was humming at an unusual low frequency. “I feel like a cell phone on vibrate,” I said.

  “Should I tuck you between my legs?”

  “Would you, please?”

  “You know I like a boy with manners,” she said, cupping me down low in her hot little hand.

  “All this electricity, but I don’t think I can move.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “You’re not in charge anyhow.”

  She took me into her mouth, still rough but less so than the first time, twirling her tongue up and down my shaft, already firm from her touch. As she licked and nibbled the head, tickling my balls with her nails, I said, “I know it’s crazy but I didn’t think you wanted me you talked so much about girls.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She climbed on top of me, raking her fingers through my hair. She kissed the scar above my eye, hiked up her skirt, planted herself on the only part of me not comatose. Tonight she was wearing panties, black satin and wet. “The cock,” she said. “Gotta admit, I love the cock.” She locked her lips on mine, then arched back to fix me with her almond eyes. “I told you so too.” She grinned, clamping my tongue with her teeth. “And yours is perfect,” she said, pulling back once again. “Just like you.” She kissed me, lingering at my lips, breathing into me the breath of life. “If you want to know if I want you—if I neeeed you, in Jesus name—dip into my plum puddin, turn my water into wine, sugarpie.”

  I tugged her panties to the side, plunged to the hilt. We were animals now, gnashing and clawing, baying by candlelight. Her eyes flashed red as I tore at her blouse. Enormous wings burst from her spine. They were black like a vulture’s and reeked of raw flesh. With nails like talons she drew blood from my chest. I yanked at her horseshoe, my thumb brushing the red button below. Knocking hard at the mouth of her womb, I felt myself being born anew.

  “I so need this,” she said, tears drawing black bars down her cheeks. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou.” I needed it too, to be needed like this, but that’s not what I was thinking then. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was done with reason, rationale, being careful. In the sweat and scream of communion with this fallenangel from the Waydown South, I slipped into a state of all-knowing. One in the Spirit. “Heal me, my savior.” Her words, not mine.

  This would be the first of three times we’d make love that night. Her desires were challenging: forced restraints, flagellation, unlubed sodomy. But the way we came together was lovemaking. For outsiders who might protest the legitimacy of such phrasing, I direct them to Shannon’s own words: “Thank you so so much for sharing your love with me.” She said this as we were walking from my place to her rental truck. The sky was dark, the moon a sharp crescent outshining the stars. Cricket song cut through the thick night heat.

  We embraced like lovers at the threshold of the void. “Thank you so much,” she said again. In a couple hours she’d be on a plane headed back home.

  “Don’t be sad,” I told her, licking the salt from her eyes. We were on the curb across the street from her pickup. We kissed soft and slow.

  “You need to take these feelings,” she said, “give them to someone else now.”

  As we crossed the street I held one of her hands while she disarmed the lock with the other. Inside the cab she switched the engine on and the window came down. Megadeth played on the radio. “I loved you for a week,” she said.

  We kissed one last time with open tearful eyes. “You brought me back to life, Jesús Ángel García.” Oh, to hear her say my birth name! We touched fingertips and she was gone.

  I stood where she left me, staring down the empty road, sure of my path from here on out. Then the nausea rushed over me and I had to lie down.

  NINE

  “Paul said to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Colossians, the Ephesians . . .” The Reverend screwed up his brow. “Some of you might be thinking, ‘The Whatchamacallissians?’” The congregation clucked. “Know your New Testament.” The Reverend held the Scriptures above his head. “This here’s a page turner.” Hallelujahs echoed round the room. Although I’d had to get out of my apartment early this morning to catch the bus, I thought it best to grab a seat where the Reverend would see me during services. I gave him my full attention.

  “He said, ‘Strip off the old man and put on the new one.’” Dramatic pause. “You have to get naked to be clothed in the Lord. There’s no shame in change, in Jesus name. You dirty your attire from a hard day’s work? You clean up before sitting down to supper. You dirty your soul from unclean thoughts, words or actions: you clean up before sitting down at the table with the Lord. You strip off the old, put on the new. No shame in change.”

  He replaced his gray wool jacket with a white linen one. Audible sighs from the pews.

  “Paul said, ‘Put on the new one—renewed unto perfect knowledge, according to the image of his Creator.’” The Reverend cradled an arm and tapped his chin, lips pursed, weighing the meaning of the claim. I loosened my tie. “What is this perfect knowledge?” he said. His teeth twinkled in the track lighting. My mind wandered to Shannon. “How can we know?” Open your heart and love like the whole world’s at war. I could hear her voice, taste her clove breath on my lips. Then I flashed on headlines I’d passed on my way to the bus stop: INITIATIVE FOR PEACE GOES GLOBAL . . . ROCKETS’ RED GLARE BRINGS FREEDOM ROUND THE WORLD.

  The Reverend placed both hands on either side of the lectern, whispered into the microphone: “How . . . can we know?” The only sounds now were birds chittering through the windows. “Let’s consult the Word.” He flipped through the pages of his supersize KJV. “Ephesians 5: ‘Truth is in Jesus.’” I undid the top button on my only oxford shirt. “The truth of His example: ‘Be kind to one another, merciful, generously forgiving one another.’” He turned some pages. “1 Corinthians 13: ‘If I have all faith so as to remove mountains, yet do not have charity, I am nothing.’” The Reverend gazed at his cream-polished shoes. Gripping the lectern again, he said, “Say yes to faith, say yes to hope. Yes to charity. And yet . . . ‘the greatest of these is charity.’”

  I thought about the sabotaged web sites, my totaled car, the nausea I’d been swimming in since Shannon left. Where was my charity? I thought about my son, my day in court to come. How would I win custody with the law against me? How would I bring freedom to my son? X-ing the ex seemed the one way out.

  The Reverend’s voice cut through my reverie: “Charity starts with forgiveness.” He broke down the roots, explaining how forgiveness meant to give completely, to give up, to let go of the desire to punish. “The Day of Judgment is God’s domain. Let Him do His job.” I couldn’t wait that long. The Reverend grinned, wiping his brow with a clean white kerchief. “Your job is to be kind, merciful, forgive one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

  He segued back to charity, briefing the congregation on love’s connection to selfless giving in the history of biblical translation. The Reverend said
that agape, Greek for love, evolved into the Latin caritas or carus, basically meaning compassion. “The idea,” he said, “is to distinguish acts of Christian kindness—i.e., forgiveness: the giving of one’s self—from the romantic implications of amor and the arrows of Eros. Not that there’s anything wrong with such love in the context of holy matrimony. But our Father wants us to expand our conception, to give selflessly, as Christ has generously given to us, forgiven us for our sinful ways. Put your faith in our Lord and Savior and fear not!”

  Though fascinated by the Reverend’s sermon, and by no means an enemy of his message, I couldn’t help but think how wrath, vengeance and kill must have predated love, charity and forgiveness in the historical vocabulary of humankind.

  As usual, I met Good Charlotte and the Reverend after services. Pumping his hand, I thanked him for his performance. I briefly embraced Good Charlotte, whose hair smelled of tropical fruit. Her lips had once kissed my fingers. I applauded his vocab lesson. Yet I pushed her away. “Provocative,” I told him. She was warm and wet and wanted me. “Intellectually, spiritually.” I pushed her away. “Food for thought—”

  “Manna from heaven,” the Reverend’s wife, my best friend’s mom, cut in.

  “Much obliged, JAG,” the Reverend said. “The Lord works on all fronts.” He peeked at Good Charlotte, whose bright eyes blinked in the sunlight. “Should I spill the beans or would you like the ladle?”

  “Oh, go on.” She slipped her arm around her husband’s trim waist. “Teasin is not charitable behavior.” She winked at him, then at me. I must have looked puppy-eyed, panning from one face to the other.

  The Reverend cleared his throat and explained how today’s sermon was inspired, in part, by me. He said he understood I was in a pickle with the transportation setback, so he made a few calls, and it so happened a blessed family friend with a Christmas tree farm in Augusta had a fine flatbed pickup he was happy to donate to the cause.