He laid in bed listening to the phone ring.Work, he thought solemnly. But he couldn’t stand to disappoint Dan again, to protest mechanically that he’d done the audit and hear the doubt in his own voice.
When he finally wandered into the lobby for coffee, Boris didn’t even look up. Jack told himself that this was a good thing. Boris didn’t remember, so he couldn’t hold any grudges. More importantly, he didn’t notice the blush creeping up Jack’s neck.
The following evening, he decided to visit the liquor store again. This time, he took a new route, winding down Main Street, past the bookstore, the vitamin shop, and a quaint little candle shop called To Wick Upon a Star, whose window displayed candles in the shapes of tree stumps and forest creatures, with price tags into the triple digits. Beyond was the church, an old steeple with fading paint and a statue of a cross on the manicured lawn.
Jack was not a religious man, but his parents were devout worshippers, so he grew up enmeshed in the church. Religious education classes on weekdays, church services on bothSaturday and Sunday, followed by brunch at a little diner that burned the bacon and smelled constantly of ammonia.
“Don’t ask questions,” his mother always snapped when Jack wanted to know why God let people suffer, or how come Jesus hadn’t come back yet, or why the Bible said that women were unclean, or why God condemned all but a chosen few innocent animals to drown.
For a time, he clung to her reassurance, harsh though it was. Jesus loved him, even if his own father didn’t. Jesus understood him, even when his teachers thought his ideas were nonsensical and his attention span nonexistent.
But after a while, the lack of proof began chewing away at him like termites at Noah’s ark. And though he tried to plug the holes, desperate to save his faith, eventually he found that there was nothing more he could do. He stood back and watched the boat that was promised to bring him to safety sink and realized he didn’t need it after all—his toes touched the bottom of the lake, and he could bob along just fine, like a child first venturing into the community pool.
But now he felt that familiar pull, digging at him like the claws of some monster, hooking into his bones, dragging him ever closer to some dark, unknowable fate. This time, he didn’t fight it. The pain would be lesser if he just gave in and let his feet lead him up the cobblestone walkway, through the heavy, carved door and into a cold narthex stinking of incense, dry dollar bills, and polished brass.
The lights were dim. There was no one to greet him, but he expected that. At this time of day, he anticipated only adorers in the chapel, maybe a few old ladies with rosary beads wedged between arthritic fingers. A priest might wander in only if he (and the old ladies) got especially lucky.
When his grandfather died, there was no priest to be found, not for hours and hours. The corpse had gone cold, and the hospital chaplain’s apologies fell on deaf ears. Jack’s mother was distraught.
There was never a priest when he needed one.
Passing the baptismal font (carved from marble, trickling holy water like blood from a wound), he made his way to the nave. Though muscle memory tempted him, he did not dip his fingers into the cloudy brass stoup. Did not touch them to his forehead, his chest, his shoulders. If he must relive this, then he would do so on his own terms, without cowering under the memory of childhood ritual. A ritual that reinforced his father’s rage, his mother’s silent compliance. A sacrifice of salt—blood, tears, flesh.
The church echoed with the ghosts of the forgotten; the dead parishioners, the beggars, the drunks, the sinners, and his own childish faith, finally discarded.
He dropped into the pew like an ancient marionette whose strings had snapped. For a time, he waited there, legs spread wide, head tipped back as if he’d sat down for a nap.
The emerald cloth draped across the altar was starched and pristine. Baskets of flowers rested on either side, so bright and cheerful that they couldn’t be real. The stained-glass window beyond depicted saints huddled together in prayer.
On the back wall, a crucifix bore a life-size figure of Christ bleeding from a crown of thorns. Blank, pupil-less eyes stared over the pews.
Jack sat for a long time, but no prayers came to mind. Only a sense of desperation, which he pushed forth, toward the figure on the cross.A miracle,he thought.I need a miracle.
“Please,” he said aloud. “I need help. I think I’m trapped. Um, amen.”
Silence.
Right. God was the savior of his father’s generation, not Jack’s.
An hour passed. Maybe two. At some point, he began to weep. This was it. Endless days caught in this cycle, stuck in a hotel far from home, in the company of angry townspeople, a receptionist who kept alcohol and magazines under the counter, living the same miserable day over and over. He’d never see Rainy again, never rescue Mr. Blues from his shitty owners. He’dnever talk to Kathy about anything other than his inevitable termination, never listen to his records when the nights were too long and lonely, never watch a new film, never own a car, never marry… The list of nevers went on until he was shaking, tears streaking down his face.
Had he done something to deserve this? Was it because he was too lazy, too directionless, too tired? Had hedied? Was thisthe afterlife?
Nothing justified this. Sure, he’d lost his faith. Frustrated a few exes (both male and female) with his lack of commitment. His parents thought he was an idiot, but being an idiot wasn’t a crime. Sometimes he spoke without thinking and hurt someone’s feelings, but everyone did that.
Was this some kind of punishment for some long-forgotten sin? But there was no proof of that, just an unpleasant twist to his guts, the taste of bile in the back of his mouth. Besides, Jack was pretty sure he’d never done anything terrible—never hurt anyone intentionally, never cheated or kidnapped or raped or killed anyone.
So why the fuck was this happening to him?
Confusion blossomed into rage, then wilted into despair. He dropped to his knees, pressed his forehead against the back of the pew, and sobbed.
And when no answers came, when no godly being appeared to remove him from this hell, he staggered to the altar, dropped into a clumsy bow, and climbed upon it like a sacrifice, waiting to feel a knife at his breast, for his blood to run and darken the marble beneath.
Then he stumbled to his feet. Transfixed by the empty eyes of Christ, he stood at the foot of the crucifix. Observed a mouth twisted in agony, limbs stretched until muscles strained, hands and feet impaled. Jack could imagine the way one might writhe and twist, trying to force open the lungs, to find a less painful position.
Would he die here, afraid and forgotten, trapped in October seventeenth until the end of time itself?
He fell to his knees, grasped the figure by the ankles, felt its eerie smoothness, its inhuman chill, and remembered that he was alone in a world of wine and relics and bread that crunched like bone between his teeth. “Help me,” he wailed, gripping the cross.
