The Fatted Calf: Hot Springs

Your brother finally let you come along with him to the hot springs when you were barely eight, the same year he left.  You had gotten in your first real fight at school, and you had won. Gabriel said that your decision to win was crucial, and that your entire future with women depended on it. He said it like you were his business partner. Mom was making dinner in the kitchen, slamming things that didn’t need slamming. Gabriel hung from the kitchen door the way mom always told him not to, and you couldn’t hear everything she said but you caught “just like your father” a few times, and then you stopped listening.  Dad had been away for a while, "drying out" as mom called it. This wasn't the first time. Gabriel advocated for you to your mother, told her you felt terrible, guilty, ashamed, even. She didn’t even pretend to believe him. Gabriel told her you needed to talk, just to talk. She said to be back by dinner even though it was already getting dark. 

Gabriel was almost eighteen and had been in more fights than you could count on two hands. He looked like your father, his stern features always looking a little like stone despite a scar that crossed his eyebrow, an ugly wrinkle in his ear and a slight hump in the bridge of his nose, which had been broken twice and, as he said, earned him a few notches on his belt. Gabriel had never taught you to fight, had never said more than ‘make sure it’s for a good reason,’ but there was something about the pain in your fat lip, the soreness in your knuckles from hitting someone, really hitting someone, that felt good, and not because it was right. Tyler Fairbanks’ face had felt like dough against your knuckles. Like it would break if you hit it hard enough. Like you could choose not to hit hard enough. 

You had nagged Gabriel incessantly to go to the hot springs. Nagged in a way you were ashamed to mention now that you were old enough to be invited. You didn’t think he would have ever let you go with him if you hadn’t won that fight. You asked him if there would be girls there and he shrugged and said maybe. You asked him if there were good fish too and he asked you where our fishing poles were. You asked him why his friends weren’t here, and he smiled, said it was just going to be the two of you. 

You and he walked up the gravel slope that you were still too young to climb without stumbling a little bit, past the Liminas’ house. Their oldest son had died in a wreck right at the end of their driveway. Right where you were standing. That kid would have been a year older than Gabriel if that asshole hadn’t come around the curve doing something like eighty. Could have driven into the house killed the whole damn family. Gabriel looked a little sad as we walked by. You guessed he and the kid knew each other but you didn’t want to ask just in case he said yes and then things got awkward and the whole experience would be ruined before it even started.

The slope was steep and you would have slid clear down it to the lake at the bottom if Gabriel hadn’t been in front of you, holding one arm back towards you. He stopped suddenly, as soon as you were right at the edge of the woods where the rocks began and the undergrowth became tangled and would rip your clothes if you tried to climb it. Gabriel got to his knees slowly behind the Wall of Thorns, (which is what it seemed like to you), pulling on your arm, knowing you wouldn’t ask any questions. You didn’t have to ask anything. You heard them from over the barrier between you; their voices so soft they didn’t even sound like voices, splashing off into open space. Gabriel didn’t let go of your arm, so you knew not to move. He was already smiling, already just as excited as you were. He held the both of you still for what seemed like the longest time, just listening, then put one finger over his mouth as he got up to his knees, then up to his full height. You mimicked him as perfectly as you could. 

They were more than you had dared to think about, the curves of their bodies full and smooth in the bleaching moon. They stepped carefully and nervously into the water before sliding in, sighs escaping them that seemed like a call. They went under and then came back up, their breath like moaning in the quiet, their hands smoothing over their dark hair streaming down. You thought about Tyler Fairbanks for a moment and then told yourself not let him in on this. Not even for a second. You thought about dad, but then looked at Gabriel who was grinning like a dumb bastard and nodding his head to some beat you couldn’t hear. Then he looked down and reached around in his pockets for something. You almost wanted to tell him to pay attention, to keep his eyes on the prize, but you didn’t want to question his leadership at a time like this. He was, officially, the coolest big brother ever.

He flicked a lighter and you smelled the burning paper, then the slightly bitter smell you recognized. You had smelled it on him before. You had smelled it on dad. It wasn’t like your dad’s cigarettes, which smelled just plain disgusting. And Gabriel was enjoying it much more than you had ever seen anyone enjoy a cigarette. You weren’t sure where to look, so you looked back at the girls. They were laughing, calling to each other, swimming with their bodies arcing out of the water and then back under. They were more confident when the water covered them, even though they were all girls, even though their bodies were the same. 

Gabriel leaned back against the roots of a pine that seemed to have grown around his body. He was lost to darkness except for when he blinked and the sheen in his eyes was lost for a moment before returning. 

He wiggled the joint at you and all you could see was the ember, like a glowing bulb.  “Have some of this,” he said.  

You pretended you had done this fifty times, pulled in only a little so you wouldn’t cough and give yourself away. 

  “So,” Gabriel said, and a long sigh escaped him that I could see floating in the air a few seconds after. “So tell me about this fight. Who was the guy?”

  “Tyler,” you said. “Fairbanks. Assclown.” 

  Gabriel laughed. “Fairbanks? Tyler Fairbanks? You fought a guy named Tyler Fairbanks? How hard could it have been? Was it even fair?” 

  “My lip hurts.” 

  “Of course it does. But come on. What’d he do, slap you?”

  Gabriel handed you the joint and you were nervous for your lip. You closed your eyes until the feeling went away. 

  “I wish I had some scars. He didn’t even give me a black eye.”

  Gabriel laughed and tapped the joint. A few sparks fell down into the needles and you watched them, afraid there wouldn’t be smoke. 

  “All in good time, dude. It’s good to lose a fight sometimes. Keeps you from becoming a big-shot.” 

  “I don't want to be a big shot?”

  “No way. Big shots are full of shit. Everyone’s gotta lose sometime, you know?”

  It was heavy. So you didn’t talk for a while and it seemed that Gabriel liked the silence. You asked him if the girls would get pneumonia swimming around like that. 

  “They’ll be fine,” Gabriel said. 

You waited again. Gabriel had a way of making you quiet if he wanted you to be, without even asking you to be quiet. You felt the pleasant thumping rhythm in your head, and you patted your hands on your knees without making much sound even though you didn’t know the song you were thumping to. You were stoned. 

  “But the girls like it, right?" You asked after a while. 

  “Oh yeah.” He nodded and you saw the side of his face in light and dark, the shadow that cut into his cheek, turned his jaw into a black line. His face didn’t look like it had been mashed in even once. 

  “They say they don’t like it,” he said, “they say women don’t like blood and gore like men do. My ass. They love to see a man bleed. They look for it.”

  You nodded like you understood, trying not to think about a generous bosom in a soft blue sweater, a cooing voice above my head and a heartbeat against my face. 

  “The quicker you learn that, the better off you’ll be. If some dude isn’t kicking your ass, some woman will do it just to hold your head in their lap when it’s all over.”

  Gabriel was licking the tips of his pointer finger and thumb, squeezing the end of the joint, really taking the whole orange bulb and crushing it between his fingers like it was nothing. He put the joint, whatever was left of it, you couldn’t see, in the breast pocket of his shirt. It was your dad’s flannel shirt, one of many tokens he always gave him when he went away. He didn’t say anything for a minute and you were afraid that was the end, that his voice had receded into the silence and the darkness and you realized suddenly you had forgotten all about the girls. You had been looking, but also looking at something beyond them, something that made their white bodies turn into blurs with no distinction between them. You were both looking now, blinking slowly and you thought maybe the silence wasn’t so bad. 

  “But there’s something”…Gabriel said, shaking his head. He said, “just something…about the way they look at you. The way they ask you if it hurts…” he sucked at his teeth, spit back into the woods away from you and the girls. “It’s pretty great,” he said, and you believed him.

  You nodded, not too much. Just what you thought was enough. You liked the way Gabriel laughed. Like he was certain of something. 

  “It’s comin, little man, don’t worry.”

  You were thirsty. You were about to die you were so thirsty. But you didn’t tell Gabriel that. 

  “So this Tyler Fairbanks. Did he start the fight or did you?”

  “He started talking about things he shouldn’t have, so I asked him to be quiet.”

“You asked?”

  “Yeah, I did,” you said. “Honest. Asked nicely. But you know how some guys are.”

  Gabriel nodded and it was the first time we really agreed on anything. 

  “He was talking about dad.”

  You think you said it because it was so dark, because this might be the only time you could say it out loud and not have to see someone’s face when you were doing it; not see Gabriel’s face, when he always loved dad a little less than you did. You always knew. 

  After a second he asked, “what was he saying?”

  “Saying his dad used to play Hold ‘em with him at the Bull and he didn’t play fair. Wouldn’t let anyone know his tells. Said it wasn’t right for a guy to win that much.”

In the darkness you heard Gabriel laughing hard, gasping, slapping his leg. You saw him lean back against the tree, the side of his face a white blade in the light. 

  “What? What’s funny?”

  “You fought a kid over that?”

  “Yeah. It was dad.”

"And dad's a drunk. How do you know he isn't a cheat, too?" 

He was looking at you through the darkness, waiting for you to say something. When you didn't, he sighed and said, "Look, kid. I'm not saying I'm not proud of you. But you gotta pick your battles, you know? Only fight for yourself or for something that's really true."

  “Well what did you get in all those fights for then?”

  You heard your voice trembling, and the darkness itself seemed to be quivering in the tears that were bubbling up in your eyes. You hoped Gabriel couldn’t see them but you knew he could hear you, so angry you were crying. 

  “You okay, little man?”

  You held your breath and tried to hide everything. 

  There was a sound, a snapping of branches, closer and closer, and then a click, clear and decisive. 

  “Gabriel?”

  “Just stay still, Matty.” 

  It was Gabriel’s voice but different, like he had to force it to sound familiar in the dark. 

  “Shut up, both of you,” said the third voice, an older one. Trembling more than yours. Angrier. “You’re trespassing, you know that?” 

  The voice sounded a moment away from screaming, like it would be screaming if it could breathe. 

  “We don’t have to scare the girls, do we?” the voice said.

  You turned towards them but couldn’t look. You couldn’t think of their bodies with cold metal and bullets so close. 

  “Sir,” Gabriel said, and you heard leaves rustling. When the older man spoke again, the rustling stopped.

“There’s nothing but woods and water around here. I can tell the police you were breaking into my house and I shot you. I could tell them anything I want.”

You heard Gabriel’s voice after a patient breath, starting to reason, maybe to beg, and then his voice cut off by a cracking sound, a sound that reminded you of your fist hitting Tyler’s face, the way it echoed, sharp and clear against the hallway walls. Gabriel’s head jerked sideways, and all you could see was the smear of his face as it cut through the light and then back into the shadow. There was another sound, a packing sound, and a groan from Gabriel’s body that sounded like an animal. It was so dark. You couldn’t see. You still couldn’t see. 

“Stop,” you said, reaching out towards Gabriel. He should have been right there. You wanted to scream, to panic. But you didn’t want to scare the girls.

  The pounding sounds stopped and the pointed gun was in front of you, a clear, white line in the dark. You could imagine him putting it to your head. You could feel the twitch right before he pulled the trigger, the pop of your pitiful skull and the spilling out of your brains. 

  “Quietly,” the man said, and he was moving backwards as if he had no fear of stumbling. "Come with me.” 

“Sir,” you said, like Gabriel had tried to, “we know Mr. Limina. He lives right over there.  We used to know his son.” 

As you said it, you wondered if any of it was true.

“Then you should know we don’t have kids around here anymore.  You should know that. And if we did, he wouldn’t be down here in the woods spying on these girls. He’d be man enough to go down and introduce himself, wouldn’t he? You should be ashamed to say you knew him.”

He stopped as if he was out of breath and when he looked down towards Gabriel you saw the sagging skin of his face, the deep black line of his mouth.  He might have been waiting on you to say something, but you didn’t. You felt like everything inside of you was about to come out of every opening. He let the shotgun drop to his side like a withered limb and told you to get off his property and to take your hophead brother with you. You waited until you could barely hear his footsteps and then crawled over to Gabriel. He was flat on his back, a horrid splash of red on the right side of his face. It glowed in the white light. He moved his right arm, scraped it against the pine needles, opened his mouth and murmured something but didn’t open his eyes. You put your hands around his face and said his name. You told him we had to go and that you couldn’t carry him. When he went still you stopped speaking, as if you were bothering him, then watched the rhythm of breath in his chest until you were sure it wasn’t going to stop. 

You were afraid of tripping, of falling down the slope all the way to the water. You were afraid of startling them. But you crouched down until my ass was nearly on the ground and went down carefully, digging my heels into the dirt. When you were still too far away for them to see, you called out ‘excuse me’ like a gentleman would if he were asking for a match from a woman on the street. You liked the way they jumped, the way they ducked down into the water and clutched their breasts, their heads swiveling on their long necks. You said you needed help and you liked the way they asked you to come out where they could see you. 

Gabriel would have been proud. Maybe even jealous of the way you handed them their clothes and respectfully turned your back while they dressed. He would have enjoyed the way they gasped when they saw him, dropped to their knees and touched his face, the way their hair fell onto his mouth as they listened for breath, held you to their still-damp bodies and said in soft voices, “oh, you poor things. You poor little things…”

The Fatted Calf: Do You Know What These Are?

Even thinking about the trip, about the year-long quest we were embarking on to evangelize to the godless masses, I was bored. Dread, not excitement. I was sitting at a dinner thrown in my honor. In our honor, and my legs were asleep, my back was aching from sitting and I was tired of smiling and saying thank you, thank you, yes I'm really excited...

Believe me, when I signed up for this trip, things were different. Everyone was different. Rusty gave a dedication about the young armies of God with the Word as their weapon. He nearly cried he was so excited and moved. He called us a "mark of God's goodness to the world." He called us righteous and brave and he hugged and kissed every one of us. 

Everyone is wondering where Matty is but no one is saying anything, everyone hoping that no one will notice, though we all do. I keep looking over at the Hurts, as does everyone, and I can see Nathan furiously texting under the table, thinking no one can see just how frantic he is. I wouldn't have thought anything was really wrong until I saw his face. He has already gotten up twice during Rusty's dedication and and once before that and now he isn't even bothering to get up. The problem is, of course, that Matty is part of the presentation. He is supposed to, in five minutes or less, present the slideshow he put together of all the senior highlights. So now Rusty is sitting back down with Marta and Nathan is standing, responding to the three or four seconds of silence that pass in which everyone is waiting for something to be explained to them. He stands up, clearing his throat too many times, bearing his panic with stoic grace, as usual, and he grips the sides of the podium, continually indicating the massive projector screen behind him, staring blank and blue at the waiting audience. Prolonged eye contact is making him nervous he is starting to lose it, his mask starting to slip. But he smiles in this nearly bashful way and says, "my son got stuck in traffic on the way back from a football game in Greenville today...he was very excited about showing this presentation and I'm honestly sorry to steal the honor from him but, hey, the show must go on, right? So here it is, Matty's gift to the youth, to the church really, for what he has called, in his own words, "the most important year of his life." I hope you enjoy it." 

He signals to phil, the A/V guy in the back of the auditorium and then steps out from behind the podium, acknowledging the silent sympathies of the audience with a "what can you do?" sort of shrug. He makes it back to his seat and Cecilia touches his shoulder and then they lean into each other and whisper as the presentation begins. The lights go down and a Michael W. Smith song begins, soft piano and acoustic guitar, as the words WHITE CHAPEL YOUTH 2005 spins onto the screen, superimposed over the first image. It is a picture of us, all 17 of us, smiling in front of the soupkitchen where we volunteer as a general practice, on Sunday afternoons. This particular picture was taken on a Sunday shortly after Matty's return to us, when all of us were over the moon about his rebirth. He is right in the middle of the crowd, giving a peace sign to the camera. Next is an array of photos; us dancing with the mentally and physically disabled wards of the Mary Campbell center, us at the water park, us giving out Easter eggs at the pediatric ward of the hospital, us rebuilding a house in Texas after hurricane Rita. The crowd oohs and aahs accordingly. 

Then an image occupies the screen, something too close up, too zoomed in to see clearly. Under the image are the words, in a dripping red font typically used for Halloween, the words, CAN YOU TELL WHAT THESE ARE? 

All I can see is a blur of pinky-peach. 

Splashed onto the screen is the giant face of Jamie Whitaker, her eyeliner hanging in ugly crescents under her eyes as she drunkenly blathers on about her reluctance to go to Japan because of the availability of horse meat. Her speech is so slurred it's actually alarming. She cusses like a sailor. From somewhere behind me, Jamie shrieks and ducks down in her seat. Michael W. Smith is still playing.

The original flesh-colored image returns to the screen, clear this time, and my heart stops beating, just for a second. Right away I recognize Rodney, Cassie, Alex, Jared, Bethany, Jessica, Amber and Hunter, all of them staring at Stephanie and Elizabeth with their shirts up, flashing their small, perky breasts, their faces stretched in ecstatic toothy smiles. Cameron is behind them, his eyes wide and dilated, giving two thumbs up. Everyone in the crowd gasps, some people actually cover their eyes. The fathers look away, then start looking around, trying to figure out who to blame.

The rest of them in the photo are all guilty of their own sins: bottles of beer, bottles of liquor, big blunts and even if they're not holding something incriminating, they're in the picture, so the damage is done. In a moment, the image disappears and is replaced by a shaky video of a door opening, a dark room illuminated by camera light, a surprised and naked Rodney and Cassie in bed, clawing at the covers, Rodney stumbling out and yelling at the camera to "get the fuck out of here!" 

Finally, the women are covering their faces, putting their heads down. Someone is yelling to turn it off, turn it off, for God's sake. From the corner of my eye, I see Rodney bolt, then Mr. Maddox stand up and walk out as quickly as he can. My mother takes my wrist but does not stop watching, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I must be on the video, too, right? It's just a matter of time.

But I'm not. That I know for sure.

By the time Phil gets out of his chair, licks the barbecue sauce from his fingers and gets to the controls, it is too late. The video is over, the question answered in those horrible, dripping red letters: 

THESE ARE YOUR CHILDREN.

The Fatted Calf: A Couple of Misfits

I've kept Matty's secrets, and I've kept them well. Even from the other guys. It's a hell of a job having spiritual communion with a person when you're keeping something from them; when you're {baring} the dirt of your soul but still holding something back. When it's someone else's dirt all over your soul. 

Matty got out of Camp Warren months ago, got out and showed up here like a new person. He got up in front of the church and made us all feel less Christ-like because he was so changed, so re-born. So saved. People were crying, for God's sake. And for a while, Matty was a new person. The old kid was gone; the sudden bursts of violence and cruel laughter, the vulgar jokes, the constant flirting with danger. Matty had been like a kid chasing a ball out into traffic and here he was, safe. Careful. Dependable. Scared the crap out of all of us. I had just started to believe it, I mean really believe it, when he came into the soup kitchen one morning and changed things up on me again. I went in early on a Sunday, so early it was still dark and cold even though it was only September. Matty had been out two months by now; a born-again believer for two straight months with no sign of back sliding. 

Lawson had let me in through the back way into the kitchen and had gone into his office to do his quiet time. He always locked himself in that office for most of the morning; trusting us to get breakfast started. It wasn't the mechanical difficulty of the job that weeded out the slackers. It was the willingness to do it; the thanklessness of it. Lawson told me to save the eggs for last, said that even the poor don't like rubbery eggs that have been sitting out too long, so I got started with the morning routine the same as always save this one little detail. I started filling up the filters with coffee from the economy-sized cans; smelled like wood chips and dirt but it would satisfy dozens of people today whose craving was for a lot more than caffeine. I was just taking frozen waffles out of the freezer by the dozen when the back door opened again. I had left it open for Matty; I had been expecting him. He and I always did Sunday mornings together. 

He stumbled in, a pint bottle of whiskey in his hand like it was nothing. He leaned against the brushed-steel counter and looked at me with a sloppy smile that could have meant anything, then drained the bottle, his cheeks filling up, a grimace coming over his face like he was about to vomit the drink back up. He wiped the tears from his eyes and said, "sausage or bacon, today, Brad?" 

Then I, like the dumb ass I am, asked, "Matty, are you supposed to be drinking?"

He chucked the bottle into a large empty trash can and it bounced around the bottom, making a harsh noise that filled up the empty, poorly-lit kitchen, illuminating all of its sharp corners all of a sudden. 

"Have you met my dad?"

"Of course I have," I answered. I didn't catch the sarcasm. I was too afraid.

"If anyone was on the fence about becoming a full-time drunk, then he's just the guy to push him right over." 

He made a motion with his hand like knocking over a bowling pin or one of those punching dummies that never stay down no matter how hard you swing. 

"Mathis, you know what will happen if they catch you doing this. Do you want Lawson to see you like this?" 

"Let him see me," he grumbled, "I'm just being myself."

He slung an arm over my shoulder and hooked it around my neck as he drew me in for an embrace. My heart pounded and my hands shook and even then, even with everything I knew, I wanted him to stay close. I wanted to hold him tight and console him and I wasn't even sure what was making him suffer. I wanted to tell him all the truths I had to tell and cancel out the lies. But I didn't. I didn't do any of that.

"Matty, won't they send you back?" 

The drunken smile slipped away and he stood up straight, or as best he could, and I regretted asking him. I realized, right then, that I had overstepped. Or maybe worse.

"Back to where, huh?" 

He didn't raise his voice. But he scared me like a man with a gun pointed at me.

"Look, Matty..." I tried to backtrack. 

"Back to where, Brad? Back to the Camp? Why would they send me back when I'm all healed? No, even better! I'm saved!" 

He was coming towards me where I stood with my back against the refrigerator door, the freezer still open and misting into the warm air of the kitchen. I forgot why I had opened it. Matty had to lean against the counter just to stay on his feet but he was still coming, menacing.

"You know what you're talking about? Do you know what you're talking about? Huh? Do you know how they got me into that place?" 

"Matty, you don't have to..."

"They waited for me to come home from school, when the whole house was empty. Dad and his friend Vance and some of his hunting buddies. They wait in my room and they have this guy from the place, this ex-linebacker named Delroy. And you know what Delroy says to me?" 

Matty stands up straight and sticks out his chest. He crosses his arms and sticks out his chin and does his best impression of a large, black football player. 

"He says, 'there's no need to fight, Matty.'" 

He drops his caricature and slumps back against the counter. His legs look like they've lost all the bones in them. His face falls like a tragic mask and he's not looking at me anymore. He's re-living. Always re-living.

"He called me Matty. Can you believe that?" 

"That sucks," I said. 

I was gripping the handle of the freezer door like it would keep me on my feet. I was watching the darkened hallway that lead to Lawson's office and praying that he wouldn't overhear what was going on, that he wouldn't come out and find Matty like this. How careless Matty could be with his fate, just tossing it into the air for whomever to catch it that happened to be close by. 

"You should be careful," he said. He actually pointed at me when he said it, "or they'll throw you in there, too. Guys like us...couple of misfits." 

"What are you talking about?" 

Matty laughed, then quieted his own laughter. He leaned in close enough for me to smell the whiskey, for me to breathe it in like the powerful perfume that it was. It almost made me retch. 

"Come on, man," he said with a wink, "your secret's safe with me. You know I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms." 

Then he patted me on the shoulder and started back out towards the back door. He could barely walk. He leaned on the door and gave me one last look on his way out. 

"Tell Lawson you haven't seen me, okay?" 

Then he fished the bottle back out of the trash can and left. I got back to making the waffles.

Now it has been over a day since the video was shown and I all I can think about is that Sunday morning. It is Sunday morning now, barely seven-thirty and I am doing the same damn thing I was doing then. I am taking bricks of frozen waffles out of the freezer and pre-heating the ovens and making the coffee and turning on the burners on the stove. I am trying not to think about Matty but I can't think of anything else. Except maybe Rodney, the way he looked at me that night right before he made a run for it. I had looked around the room for the other guys and most of them were looking at their parents, at their shoes, staring with transfixed horror at the screen. But Rodney had been looking straight at me. Looking at me like he knew something about me. I am thinking about Matty and that look. It is exactly what I am thinking about when I open the back door to take out last night's trash and I find Rodney there. And Jared. And Alex. I downplay my surprise and greet him with little to no enthusiasm. I do not pretend that I am happy to see him or that I am worried. But my heart is a fish being microwaved.

"What are you doing here?" 

By now I am backing into the kitchen, afraid to take my eyes off of him. I am obviously wanting to go back inside where it's warm; I obviously don't care about whatever it is that these clowns find important enough to stand in the cold for at this hour of the morning. Whatever it is, it's got nothing to do with me. But Rodney is following me, and before I know it he is halfway inside, like he owns the place, like we're old friends, my house is his house and all that. 

"Hey, do you have a minute to talk? I mean, are you real busy?"

If I were to shut the door now it would be on his face and as much as I want to, I keep walking backwards. I let him in. The alley with the Dumpsters in it is like a wind tunnel and at this time of the year it's unpleasant, to say the least. 

"Well yeah," I answer, "we're short-handed today. Matty's normally here..."

"Don't worry man, it won't take a second," Rodney says, gesturing towards the alley behind him. 

I can see Alex and Jared sharing a cigarette, fidgeting in the cold, their faces pale except for their red noses. They are watching me, threatening me without a word. I consider for a moment, going to get Lawson, just yelling his name like a drowning person to a rescue boat. I don't care what kind of a chicken that makes me. I've told Lawson everything. He knows everything there is to know.

"You want me to come out there?" I ask him.

Rodney nods, "I don't want to get in the way and my hands aren't clean," he says. 

So I put my coat back on. It's still cold from when I took it off, and I go outside, propping the door open with a brick that sit outside for that very purpose. Matty put it there months ago so he could take smoke breaks more easily. I amp up my visible impatience, as if I am in a hurry to get back to work. But really I just feel my life slipping away, more and more every moment I have to spend with these jackasses. Rodney gets right to it.

"We think we can get Rusty and Nathan to change their minds about the trip." 

I had been pushing that out of my mind as well; the relief that came with knowing it had been cancelled, that the anxiety was gone and in its place there was only guilt. I was still wrestling with that, with the fact that I cared not a bit about the fucking trip. Not really.

"Oh yeah?" I actually laugh in disbelief, "how? Please don't get my hopes up."

Jared steps in, handing the stump of a cigarette off to Rodney, who recedes back towards Alex to smoke, to let Jared do the talking. Jared says if we can get Matty to apologize or even take the blame, if we can get him to admit that he planted it just to ruin everything, then maybe we can get the pastors to change their minds.

"And why would that make any difference? You're still on it, drinking and screwing."

Rodney says the trip has been in the works now for two years, almost. The rest of the congregation doesn't know anything, not yet. He says that surely they would rather just fix this whole thing rather than have to explain what happened to a thousand disapproving church members. Rodney says that Matty could take the heat off of the rest of them and forfeit his place on the trip. It'll all go back to normal.

"Matty won't apologize," I say. I forget the part where this has anything to do with me. I forget to mention that this has nothing to do with me. "Are you stoned or something?" 

"Oh he will," Rodney says with a grin, "we're going to make him."

They all look so self-assured, self-satisfied, confident like people are when they think things are simple. When they have made up their minds to get what they want and have already decided to do whatever's necessary. Maybe they're just naive. Just young. 

"How are you going to do that?" 

I am getting worried. I have seen this look on Rodney's face before, the obvious bloodlust.

"We're going to tell everyone he's a drug dealer unless he agrees to apologize."

I actually laugh. I laugh out loud and I have to smother the sound with my hand.

"Come on..."

"You weren't there," Alex cuts in, suddenly involved, "you don't know anything about him you just think you do."

"What are you talking about?" 

Rodney says he knows who Matty's connection is, that if they can get to her, they can get to Matty.

"He won't go to Camp Warren this time. He'll go to the state fucking pen!" 

My blood is boiling. The collar of my shirt is too tight around my neck and I am burning up inside my clothes. My legs are aching to run, my hands eager to slam the door in their asshole faces. 

"You guys are really...so stupid. Don't you understand? He's doing this because you guys put him in Camp Warren in the first place! He was on the video too, do you think he cares what anyone in the church thinks of him? He may as well have said 'fuck you' to the entire congregation!"

It all comes out in a hot rush of air, like something that was trapped in my belly waiting to get out. Rodney drops the cigarette and it rolls, smoldering on the ground. Jared and Alex and Rodney, all of them, are closing in, trapping me between the propped-open door and their animal hunger for Matty's flesh.

"Why are you defending him? Because he's your little boyfriend?" 

"Shut up," I choke out, "just shut up." 

The blood is rushing to my cheeks, pumping, pumping, revealing everything I am trying to hide. Instinct is kicking in like it does when you're helpless, when all human logic is gone and you feel like a small animal that has wandered into the wrong cave.

"We know he didn't put you in the video for a reason," Rodney says, "he could have put you in there like all the rest of us. No one in the church would even care about the drinking and the smoking and all that if they knew your secret." 

"I have to go," I say, "I'm not listening to this." 

Rodney grabs my jacket and pushed me back into the wall nearest the door. Alex kicks the brick out of the way and the door slams and I am locked out of the kitchen. I could throw up.

"Am I wrong?" he asks. 

"You're fucked," I say. This only earns me another jolt. 

"If he cares so much about you, then why did he ruin the trip for you, too? That's got to hurt." 

"I understand why he did it," I say, "I already told you. You're not going to convince me to do anything."

"Come on," Rodney says, prodding me again, "it doesn't make you mad? It doesn't piss you off that he did this to you? He ruined everything just to fuck us! Don't you realize he only cares about himself? Huh?" 

"Why don't you do it yourself? If you want to make him apologize, just do it yourself. Leave me out of it." 

"No, Brad, we need you. We can't have anyone on Matty's side."

"I'm not doing it," I say again. But I can feel the strength of my voice leaving me. I can hear it, and I know they can too. 

"Listen, Brad, I'll tell you honestly," Alex cuts in again, "we don't even have to have proof that you and Matty are...well, you know. Just the idea of it..." He grimaces, shudders. "You'll have to leave town! Think of your mother!" 

Rodney waves his hands around, telling Alex to calm down, telling me to take a breath. He tells us all to just relax. Just relax.

"Look. Just help us out with this and we'll forget all about it. We'll go on the trip and it'll be great and we'll never have to worry about Matty again."

No one is holding me against the wall now, no one keeping me on my feet. I feel lightheaded. I feel sick. 

"He won't do it."

"He will," Rodney says, "we have a back-up plan." 

So I listen to the plan. Rodney says they need me to confront Matty of his guilt. He says it's not enough to just make him afraid. Matty doesn't scare easy, we all know that. He would rather go to jail than give in. But not if I'm there. I will beg him to give in, to surrender, to be reasonable. I will beg him to save his own life and tell him that it's not worth all of this, whatever it is he's trying to prove. I will beg him to save himself from the backup plan. And if I cannot convince him, then it won't matter because I will be bound to these monsters by my own guilt, my own complicity. 

Even I can admit, it's a good plan.

The Fatted Calf: The Fight is All You Need

You didn't always hate your father. For a long time you were too afraid to hate him, so afraid that it was a matter of life and death, you thought. There was no time to stew, to brood. No reason to be so reckless as to let it slip. But then he went away and got clean, came out a new man, all full of the Lord. Then you viewed him the way one views a Jehovah's witness; panicked by your own inconvenience, annoyance, but only for as long as it took for him to go into another room. Just wait, and he'll go away. He'll stop talking about Jesus if you just wait and keep your mouth shut. Besides, he was so busy with the church, which seemed to absorb him like an amoeba, just taking him right in and making him like them, that those horrible moments were infrequent at the beginning, but it was still horrible, dad with that weak smile, that smile that always trembled like some creature dug up in a pile of earth, that desperate, breathy laugh that made even a twitch of sympathy from your side impossible to give over to him. He was a paler, flabbier version of himself, his face too smooth and soft, all his hard edges gone. There was no trace of him, and you stayed up nights trying to decide wether this was a  good or a bad thing.

You can admit, you were pretty messed up as a child. 

You weren't sent to school because you wouldn't talk. There was a therapist named Jean that visited three times a week for what seemed forever, beaming down at you (she was beautiful even though she was nearly fifty, had to be) and cooing her sweet words into your ear like she knew you (if that woman could have heard what you were keeping quiet she would have cried so hard she'd crap herself), urging, urging you to speak a word. It took her nearly three months to even get you to smile but they didn't let her go like they let the others go, the ones that didn't 'break through.' She came from nine  a.m until three p.m and ate lunch with you in the dining room, usually with your mother or your father, whichever wasn't the supervising owner on that day. You liked Jean. That was why you started talking again. For Jean.

The real problems started at the end of that year, when you were eleven, as soon as your parents decided you could go back to school. Dad was still in treatment, Mom had lost it. It was really just you and Grandpa. 

When you were twelve you got in trouble for trying to cut off a classmate's hand with a paper slicer. When asked why you did this, you simply explained that that kid was messing around with it and needed to learn that it wasn't a toy. You thought you would show him. You couldn't believe they thought you were more dangerous than that dumb kid. The incident got you suspended from Harley Elementary but not expelled. It wasn't a great school anyway and most of the kids that went there were black and from the projects. You didn't mind being around them even though you knew somehow that all of your parents' friends didn't approve, thought you would flourish in a "more exclusive environment."  Most of your classmates had absent fathers, addicted mothers, imprisoned brothers, impregnated sisters. You fit right in. Everyone got in fights, all the time. It wasn't just you. After the paper slicer incident, some bullies cornered you in the bathroom and told you they were going to break your arm, your jaw, whatever they wanted to. You pulled a knife and told them you would slash all their windpipes at once. You cut a few before they got to you but a teacher heard the noise and broke it up before it got serious. They ambushed you later that week and you couldn't even walk home after. The police had to go out and look for you. That was when Mom transferred you to Connor Middle School instead of letting you get zoned into the "less desirable" place that would have come next. You had to get up at six a.m to make the bus and the ride was over an hour there and back. 

You hated Connor Middle School and they knew it. In fact, they were prepared for you. Well prepared. All it took was one threat (to burn down the motherfucking place with everyone inside; hyperbole, right?) and you were out.

After that, you spent a year in a school for the emotionally and behaviorally challenged in Spartanburg. Most of the kids there had done far worse than you had and even they couldn't understand why you would pick fights with them. You told them you didn't understand it, either. You were just angry. But your grades were always good and they didn't cater to you. These were professionals and they knew the difference between emotionally challenged and stupid. Your grades were always high, your performance in class was excellent (albeit, antagonistic) and you always handed in your homework on time. It was when the others started handing in A papers that the teachers realized you were being bribed, forced or threatened to do your classmates' work. One day DSS came in and saw some bruises they weren't supposed to see and the state declared that was no longer necessary or wise to keep you in a specialized school. The school almost lost its funding over your case.

By then, Dad was back in the picture, a new man. Even Mom was smiling again, enduring an entire day without any drugs to help her. The public schools were willing to take you on for ninth grade but Mom and Dad had already enrolled you in White Chapel Christian Academy, housed in the same building as their new mega-church, White Chapel Baptist Assembly. You didn't even know what the hell an assembly was.

You got re-connected with the public school kids, saddened to hear that some of them had been held back, locked up, sent away, but usually not surprised. You saw old friends like Travis, Rodney and Jacob and spent most of your afternoons with them, picking up a bag when you could and smoking, sometimes drinking your brains out all afternoon and evening until you had to go home.  It made it easier to sit at dinner with dad because all he wanted to talk about at dinner was Jesus. He would go on for hours, that guy. By Christmas of that year you had come home drunk more times than you could count and sometimes not at all. Dad started nailing your windows shut. He put a bolt lock on your door. The first night he locked you in you destroyed everything and started to set your baptismal bible on fire just to draw him back in. As soon as the door was open you ran out and went to Rodney's house. 

This went on for almost two years before your parents ran out of ideas. Your father sat you down and started talking about "drastic measures," giving you warnings as if they meant anything anymore. You were almost sixteen. By then Rodney's dad had become a Christian and he had been transferred to the Christian Academy as well. The school had been prepared, just like the others had been, and measures had been taken to keep the two of you separate. You had to admit that the news of Rodney's conversion had hit you hard. You felt you had no real friends left in the world and that everyone was betraying you. You really felt this way. Some days you almost wanted to believe what you read in the Good Book because at least then you would fit in. You wouldn't have to fight all the time. But fitting in meant giving in. Or at least that's what you thought. So you tried a new tack. You got some weed from the public school kids and went to Rodney with your idea. You could have made a killing off these Christian Academy fucks. 

Was it Rodney that ratted you out? You never found out for sure. But it didn't really matter. He had already betrayed you, already abandoned you. The cops showed up at your door with the same baggie you had given Rodney earlier that day. Maybe it wasn't Rodney's fault. Maybe his dad had wailed on him and he just couldn't take the pressure. 

The parents, the church, the judge, they all had secret meetings to which you were not invited. Then Dad mentioned Camp Warren and you asked, playfully, if that was where the President vacationed. You got a slap in the face for that. The first one in a long time. He asked you if you would go calmly. If you, he, Mom and Grandpa could all drive up there together, nice and easy. He had to have known the answer already. Your dad may be many things; stupid ain't one of them. 

It happened on a Thursday when the house was empty. Dad and some others and an "interventionist" from Camp Warren, they were waiting for you after school. You fought so hard you reduced these christian men to swearing and using the Lord's name in vain. You fought so hard you made your father cry. Not that it mattered in the end. They got you, didn't they? They got what the wanted. But the fight was all you had. They would have to do their worst to tear it out of you. 

They think it's gone. They think you've traded it in for something better. But the fight is patient. The fight endures all things. The fight keeps a record of wrongs and the fight does not rest. 

The fight is all you need.

The Fatted Calf: Serious but Stable

To My Eldest Son:

You weren't the only reason I had to get sober. It's important that you know that. Besides; you had gone. You had decided that you didn't want to be my son, and I know you. I know you are not a man to change his mind. I knew it then, when you were barely a man.

Is that why you left? Was I in the way? Could you have become a man, an adult in my house? Had I rendered it impossible for you to ever be anything more than a scared child, an angry teenager, a damaged and resentful adult? Did you leaving even change any of that? Maybe I will never know. Maybe my questions will never be answered and maybe it will be just another thing that I don't deserve, that I have no right to expect or even hope for out of this life that I have so efficiently ruined. It has been nearly five years and I am on my way to see you now. I read in the paper about the accident, about the way you drove your motorcycle into the path of that Honda, nearly graceful for less than a moment before hitting the ground. I read about the woman, the would-be victim who owes you her life.

Is it really you? Do things like this really happen? A beautiful woman about to cross the street, not paying attention, and there you were, willingly absorbing the shock, the impact that was meant for her , that was due to her for her carelessness with her own life. The newspaper wouldn't report on the details of your injuries but they said you were stable, that it was never critical. Just serious. Serious but stable. Those were the exact words if I remember correctly. And I do. I have the article in my wallet and I started making arrangements as soon as I read it, thinking of ways to get out without alarming anyone, without raising any suspicion, and I called your uncle Ed to involve him in my plan (to lie to your mother or your grandfather, whichever made itself necessary first). Overall they are not worried about my travel arrangements to go visit Ed and Marla in San Antonio. Someone has to stay and run the hotel and I haven't seen Ed in years. I've already told your mother that Ed is having a "tough time" (the same kind of "tough time" that describes about twenty years of my life) and she didn't ask questions. Your grandfather wrote Ed off years ago, after he divorced Carol Anne, you remember? Marla was only nineteen then, selling Italian Ice on the sidewalk. Ed said he had never lived before laying eyes on her. 

I will be flying to San Antonio and then driving to you. I will do what I can for you, son of  mine, in your time of need.

There's also something you should probably know. Obviously I don't drink anymore. Or at least, I don't have a problem anymore. Yes, I was the recipient of a miracle, a gift. I am a saint amongst recovered alcoholics in this town. A prophet. A vessel. Most drunks consider themselves "recovered" when they can resist a drink and it doesn't tear apart their insides, the very fabric of their minds. What about me? I have transcended such miserable feats of self-control. Or the Lord has. I can accomplish much more than the mere feat of resistance.

You know why most born-agains don't drink? Because they see alcohol as an evil thing. They see it as a sin and even if they look more closely the only underlying evil is Satan. Well I say that's horse shit. Yes, the Devil exists. Yes, he used to rent a cozy little room inside of me. But you can't kill Satan. You can't remove him like a tumor. He is inside all of us. He lives in ever beating heart. It's how he works. It's the buttons he chooses to push, that's the key. it's the durability of the vessel, the integrity of the structure, that makes all the difference. 

I became a sober man on October 17, 1999. Two years after you disappeared. Hell, I had gone into treatment and come out twice since you'd gone, and half a dozen times before that, you remember. But it wasn't until the accident with your brother that I really decided to get clean and sober. You don't know about that. I wasn't even drunk at the time, thank God. Anyhow, one year and ninety days of treatment later, I could look at a bottle of whiskey and keep from drooling. I wasn't willing to test myself until then, until I really started feeling the weight of the Lord on my shoulders, after I started to really see the Big Picture. I was to ensure a place at God's right hand. I had to be more than just sober. I had be transcendent. And wouldn't you know it, I can have a glass of wine at dinner. I can have one drink and I don't have to worry about sweating bullets. 

Don't get me wrong. The voice is still there. The deep, growly voice of sin, of temptation; louder when shit is hitting the fan, when your mom is off her medication, when your brother is kicked out of another school, when guests are few and money's not coming in. I am, as all believers are, a work in progress. But those are the moments when prayer is so important. And so I fall on my knees and close my eyes and seek communion with the Lord and son, let me tell you. The drink He gives me in those moments, the water of Heaven that pours into me, it's so sweet, so cleansing that in those moments I am transcendent. I am filled with something that cannot be described. In those moments, I laugh in the face of Jack Daniels.

I hope this is the man you see. I hope this is the man that walks into the hospital where you lay recovering, the man who has brought his paltry gift of coin (hospital bills should be no concern to the young, it's the least I can do, really). I hope this is the man you see when you open your eyes, after the initial surprise, even shock wears off, after you recognize me and say to me whatever you feel is right after all this time. I will take whatever vitriol you have to give and I will take it gladly. Because I am now, in a way I never was, your father. The man you knew before is dead and he never was your father. Not really. I hope you will see that.

Now you are sleeping and I am glad of it; it gives my blood time to calm. You are more than I was expecting even in your condition, even bruised and bandaged and slung every which way. Even in your drug-induced sleep you are the man I always imagined you would be and more. Maybe because of your injuries. Maybe because I know what populates your dreams and what from childhood is gone from them. I know you dream of fearsome things that do not exist in form in daylight. I know you dream of me and you always have. I know you will wake up and maybe fail to recognize me, you will squint and frown, displeased, and with disdain your heart could not possibly have contained when you were a child, you will ask me what the hell I am doing here.

I pray you will not ask me to leave. And if you do, I pray I will have the strength to refuse. I have come here for absolution and I will not leave without it.

The Fatted Calf: Saturated Fat is Immoral, Dad

I used to run a simple operation: a pizza/burger/fries/hot dog sort of place with little seating and a lot of grease. It was called The Dog House, like, I'm sure many similar places are called. I know it's not an original name, okay?

Anyway, my daughters got through school on what this place brought in and after they graduated they came to work part-time for me, along with my youngest boy, Jared, who's a senior at White Chapel Christian Academy. Sydney, my older girl, is an insurance actuary but she always came in on weekends to help out. My younger one, Tabitha, went to community college and lived nearby, coming in to work most evenings. But a few years ago, after my back started going out on me, they started talking to me about letting them take on more responsibilities, like the accounting and the inventory and things like that and before I know it, they're starting to change the whole damn place, putting in all these new butcher-block tables and tall wooden bar chairs. Used to be just a few benches along the walls where people could wait for their food. Usually guests didn't linger. But Sydney starts talking about how lingering can be profitable, and I'm like, ok, so we start talking about expanding the menu. I tell the girls as long as the staff can handle it, I'm okay on all their decisions. My younger one graduated in business and the older one is taking night school now and caring less and less about her insurance job. 

Before I know it, we're serving coffee. Croissants. Green salads and herbal tea. Somehow all my friers got replaced with smaller burger and pizza ovens with the revolving grills that can also spit out bagels and other grilled sandwiches. They talked to me about healthy food like I had no idea. 

Saturated fat is immoral, dad.

So we start serving tuna salad and grilling the burgers instead of frying them. We start offering fresh fruit parfaits and bottled water and little greek salads in little plastic containers. We start frying our fries in peanut oil and I lose three or four of my customers due to a damn food allergy. 

Now I'm serving turkey and provolone on a fresh croissant with fig jam and a slice of Granny Smith Apple. And you know what? the same people come in. They come in because they have nowhere else to go where the owner will allow them to sit for hours on end. The only other place is the Exxon Dunkin Donuts off 526. So they come here and they reluctantly munch on their scone or their mandarin orange salad and my daughters pat each other on the back and say well done, we're keeping this town healthy.

I do miss the smell of the place, though. 

People come here to drink bottomless fountain Cokes. They come here to share absurd milkshakes and a concoction of ice cream entitled "Everything but the Kitchen Sink" (my daughters can't stop me from serving ice cream. Not yogurt. Ice Cream) which is so huge that the only party I've ever seen complete it was a half dozen football players from the baptist college down the way. People come here to hold hands and play music on the jukebox and talk and slow dance (sometimes) and talk about the game or talk about the show or talk about the weather. 

People come here to talk. And the worst ones are the old folks. They seem to know everything. About everyone. And they are merciless. They come in here every day; the regulars of this strange little town, the elderly who have no golf courses, no pools to sit by. They come in droves, they come in pairs, they never come alone. Never enjoy a book or a magazine. No, they order their chamomile and their cream soda and they talk, they talk about what the world is coming to and how family values are going down the shitter and it always starts the same way; some teenager or group of teenagers or some woman or some group of women walks by the large picture window; too much makeup or not enough clothes ; hair too black or jeans too ripped, skin too pale or too black or too tattooed and suddenly these people remember that life is not what they were promised and there is no better example of this than in a roving band of miscreants.

However, it is nearly Christmas and the old women sitting in a booth near the counter have other things to talk about than their usual dismay with the changing times. They're not even discussing their children and children-in-law, their grandchildren and all the choices they've made laid up on the table for approval. They had already done that around Thanksgiving. This year, it's the Hurts. All year it's been the Hurts.

The old man, Mathis, he's got emphysema, and maybe a few months. The old women say he still retains ownership of the White Chapel Inn, even though it's his son, Nathan and his wife Cecilia who really run the place. But as depressed as everyone is about  Mathis (he really is a great guy, the family's been in this town a long time) they still have other things to say about the family that are anything but sensitive. Anything but giving. 

Last Sunday at church Nathan said that his son Gabriel (whom we we all know to be more than just estranged), would be visiting for the holidays and for support through this difficult time. He asked for prayers of support and clarity and that everyone would make Gabriel feel as welcome as possible. The prayer was long and stagnant and I remember I couldn't stop thinking about Nathan's testimony some five years ago now. 

Everyone knew that Nate had been a mean drunk and would've been locked up for the rest of his good years if it weren't for the Lord's intervention. And did the Lord intervene. The change has been nothing short of miraculous; from sinner to saint, I mean it. Nathan's story is too saturated with divine grace to allow room for personal opinions about the man. 

Everyone knew his son might as well have been dead for all the good he was to him. Nathan spent nearly enough money looking for the kid to bankrupt the whole inn but his drinking was getting pretty out of control and the money ran out. Everyone was contributing as much as they could, the whole church, even though Nathan wasn't a member or even a believer, but that ran out, too. And of course, there was his wife. A whole other set of problems. Most people in town are pretty sympathetic and basically too yellow to actually bring her up. 

Except for this particular pack of cotton candy-haired old women. Four of them, discussing something that, as far as I could tell, was actually new and shocking. It had been a big year for the family.

The young one, Matty, about seventeen, just got out of that juvenile facility upstate, all filled up with the Lord last June, let out early because of good behavior and due to his grandfather's declining health. Mathis has always been close with those boys. 

One of the women, Linda, says that Gabriel coming home is a good thing, a sign of progress and unity in the family. She has not quite gotten over her church talk and the others are more than a little irritated by it.

"Well he's only in town for his grandfather. I doubt he came back for that father of his..."

"Probably just to see how  much he's getting in the will."

"Not everyone cares only about money, Margaret."

"I'm not saying everyone, but the boy's been gone so long they're like strangers now. It ain't because he cares."

"Can you blame him? Getting slapped around every other day?"

The one named Margaret, wears her powder-blue sweater with an all-over winter ice skating scene knitted into its pattern. She made it herself. The woman across from her, Claire, wears a red sweatshirt with a similar scene screen printed. Her skaters are white, smiling polar bears. She sits up straighter because she and Claire are usually competitive.

"It's been years and people have been forgiven for much worse, so if that's the reason, then I'm not breaking my back to make this young man feel welcome. His father's a deacon now for goodness sake." 

"Well have they been keeping in touch?" 

"Wasn't the boy in a motorcycle accident some years back? Pretty bad one I heard. Nathan flew to Milwaukee or lord knows where to pay his hospital bills."

"Good gracious..."

"And he still hasn't come home to see his family? That's not right..."

"He must be in a real pickle if he's coming all the way here," Margaret says, "he probably owes a loan shark or something..."

Margaret says 'loan shark' like something she read out of a book, like she's thrilled to be using such a term in her own life. The others tease her with high cooing and airy slaps of mock-scolding, but they agree with her. Gabriel's departure slashed the family open, everything visceral and nasty dropping out to be seen by everyone, and once people started paying attention again, they didn't look away. Mathis' smoking increased and he had a few heart attacks not long after the boy disappeared. Now he's dying at 76. Cecilia lost what little control she had and started wandering the woods at night and has to take fifty pills a day to stay in the house. 

At first, of course, right Gabe disappeared, Nathan nearly lost it from the stress, from the police poking around his house and never really acting on their worst suspicions but having them anyway, which was bad enough. It helped his case that Gabe had a history of running away, sometimes for days at a time, only coming back home usually starving and often worse for the wear. It would have been a shocking case in any other household. He broke under the pressure and he broke publicly, with that car accident that could have easily killed Matty, too ("the man should have gone to prison," the old ladies are saying), then retreated to this clinic in Greenville to get cleaned up and everyone, all of us just watched, transfixed, too fascinated to praise or criticize. We had all seen the man try and fail, try and fail, and now go off the deep end, but this time it was different. When he came back from Greenville after just 90 days of treatment, he was a different person. He was a christian. And in the sense that we weren't. In the sense that the Lord descended upon him and took a hold of his heart, spontaneously and at his most desperate time. None of us were born-again, not at that level. Nathan got up in front of the church and everything, gave his testimony and told us all what we already knew but with the purpose of showing us how he came to lay his sins at the foot of the Cross. Nearly everyone in the congregation wept, and moreover, believed him. We all believed, in a moment, that this was the real deal. It had a big impact on the church; a pretty big morale booster.

Nathan transitioned the family into the church community about six months after he came out of the facility, when Matty was nearly nine. The boy still wasn't talking. Not a word. The car accident had occurred right before his eighth birthday, and had done nothing to shake him out of whatever it was that had him so rattled. I heard more than a few people say that the police had based their entire investigation upon the signs of PTSD in Matty after Gabe's disappearance, that it had factored in even more than the abusive relationship Nathan had with Gabriel, and of course, Nathan's alcoholism. 

We all have problems; that's the core belief of this whole place. All of us are born-again. All of us have come to know the Lord at our most desperate point, and most of our desperate points are pretty damned desperate. Waking up on the side of the road with no shoes and no wallet sort of desperate. The last thing in the world Nathan could have wanted was a son who took after his former self, a son who walked the wide path. But Matty had always been troubled; too skeptical to come easily to faith. One of the women, Charlene, says that a boy with a father like that isn't really going to have the most positive image of God. The church did its best to minister to him but he had this way of smiling at you, this narrow-eyed knowing way that made you feel like the butt of a joke. 

He was peddling drugs at twelve though we didn't know this until later, and he continued to do it even after his father transfered him to the Christian school in his freshman year of high school. Prior to that, Matty could barely keep himself in a slew of public schools let alone a private institution. The board let him in even though he himself hadn't claimed any belief in Jesus, (which was merely a legal stipulation) and he continued his illegal business there, too, ensnaring too many of our good youth in the process. It took a lot of us to finally talk Nathan into taking the final step, of signing him over to Camp Warren. He had needed more help than any of us could give him, and parishioners had had problems such as these before; circumstances that were out of their control, beyond them. Camp Warren came highly recommended. It was in fact, the very first suggestion that Rusty had when Nathan and Cecilia approached him. They thanked him in front of the whole church a few weeks into Matty's treatment. The place was only a few hours away, not even out of the state, and by then the Hurts were so tired and sick they would have done anything Rusty said. Beside, if someone didn't know better,  they'd think Camp Warren was a vacation spot, a school for the gifted. All in all it could have been worse for the kid. 

But the hand of blame always falls on Nathan. For Gabriel, for Matty, even for Mathis. There is comfort in pinning it all on one person. Such comfort. Margaret says, "what is the mark of a man's quality if not those he's responsible for? Look at his wife! Look at his kids!" 

The conversations go on like this all day, and then, somehow, upon the arrival of darkness, they stop; the shifting of eyes, the suspicion and the misgivings too much for these old mouths and their talk, all too afraid of what might happen if the next street corner gives way to the very person they tore apart with their words, the face they block out of their minds while the gossip hovers; as real and as sinister as their deepest dread could make him; maybe more. No one really wants to think of their neighbors in such a way.

The Fatted Calf: Don't Strain Yourself

You open your eyes and you can feel her pulling on you. It hurts in a weary, distant way, like it has been going on for a long time and you are just now feeling it. You can barely even lift your hand to stop her. You can’t even feel your crotch, which is dry and limp and she is pulling harder to make up for it. Her breath is hot and wet like something crawling on you and it brings up in your skin a sweaty, nauseous feeling. The couch under you is damp with your sweat. You look down and your head falls like a dead weight and you see her hand and in it your sad, boneless self, moving but not responding. You put your hand over hers to stop it and she keeps kissing your throat, your jaw, your neck, your lips. The edge of your mouth, even as you zip up your jeans. 

Still drunk, you think. Stumbling, blinding drunk, and you don’t even know who it is next to you. You put your hand on her shoulder and push her back gently as her neck stiffens against you and her lips pucker out, like a nursing baby. You turn to look at her face and all you see is her wrinkled, reddened lips hanging open in mid-kiss, the sad, sliding down of her eye makeup as if she’s been crying. Her breath is thick and sweet with rum and it’s so distracting that you can’t figure out who she is for a few seconds. 

Maybe Amber O’Quinn. The best singer in the youth choir. She was going to a performing arts college in Vermont. You remember, as she blinks her big, blue eyes at you, and asks you, ‘what’s wrong?’ that you had always thought she was cute, but just too good for you. Her hand is now resting beside what may have once been a fantastic erection but who knows how long ago that was? 

You can barely look at one thing for longer than three seconds before everything else starts spinning. You realize that you may have been sitting on this couch getting jerked off by Amber O’Quinn for hours. In a panic, you look around the room and adrenaline rushes in like water soaking into a sponge and you feel cooler all over, more awake. Thank God. No one is here. You and Amber are sitting on a couch with cushions that swallow you in certain spots even though the bed is right there.  

Amber sighs, then cuts her eyes away, then falls back onto the couch. She is drunk, and completely oblivious to your sudden and intense fright. Doesn’t she want to know what you did with the last four hours? Doesn’t she want to know who’s been watching?

You feel heavy from your neck down and the weight is so intense you can’t sit up and if you did, you know you would throw up. So you don’t. The room is dark and there are candles burning and you are thinking, shit, what is this? 

But you still have all of your clothes on. You are on a loveseat opposite the bed and when you look at it (empty, thank God), you remember when there were people sitting here, talking to you. Right after you did shots in the kitchen with Alex and Rodney and this girl he brought who hung on him like a fox fur.

Where's Rae?

You zip up and try to stand, slowly realize she is not here. She wouldn't be here. This thought gives you a cold feeling. You remember now what exists beyond the walls of this room, the college you are visiting that is nearly an hour away through nothing but creepy farmland. The room is small and the ceiling is low, the walls painted brick, slightly underground, the windows a strip of rectangular panes of frosted glass. The beds are positioned facing each other in opposite corners of the room, one half-made, one half covered with laundry and books. An open laptop glows in the otherwise dim room, the only light besides a desk lamp and the muted TV. You stare at the screen for a while and see a lot of naked women but you're pretty sure it's not a porno you're watching. Whatever it is, it seems to blend perfectly with the clanking sounds of Zeppelin playing from the laptop. You vaguely remember choosing this music.

 I said it's alright, you know it's alright, you know it's all in my heart...

 She murmurs something you don't hear. You hear the music and it's so good and the love seat is so acceptable (and you can't move anyway). You're pretty sure Amber is passed out for the long haul so you look down at your sad, limp penis and feel a rush of panic so you cram it into your underwear and zip up your jeans. You make it to your feet and you tell yourself it's fine, just keep your hand on something. A doorframe. The wall, to steady yourself.  You remember your brother telling you that there were still active Klan members out here, a community of them, out in the woods between your home and this college. This is what you are thinking about as you stumble to the bedroom door, as you turn the knob and nearly fall down opening it. You fall against the doorjamb, your hand clinging to the knob as your shoulder takes in the sharp edge like a bite. It stings but you talk your legs into working and you know that everyone in the common room outside the bedroom is probably looking at you, shaking their heads. The room outside is a loud rush like water that keeps crashing over you and it's just music, more music and conversation but it's so loud. You only think about this for a split second before you think about your cigarettes. Your coat. 

Then you think of something else and panic gets you, makes you suddenly fast, accurate, focused. You spin around to the couch and see your coat draped over the back of it and you pad your hands over it, groping for the shape of the small plastic case you put in your pocket earlier and nearly going limp with relief when you find it, solid and safe like you left it. Candace has leaned back on the couch and appears to have passed out. You look her over as you find your cigarettes. She's got on a deep red blouse that laces up the front like a corset. It's very low-cut and still, very strange to you. You have never seen this girl in such an outfit. For a moment you want to find a blanket and cover her up. For a moment you consider taking one of the bedspreads and covering her but it's too much trouble. You have to get outside, smoke a cigarette, find Rodney, and get the hell out of here. It's far too risky to stay. 

When you get to the front porch the cold hits you and makes you feel thin and weak and you slump against the wall, feebly sticking a cigarette in between your teeth. You are shivering and you drop your cigarette and immediately a rush of panic goes through you as you look at the crowded floor, the proximity of dirty sneakers that, any one of them, could crush your precious cigarette if you don't pick it up in time. You're not even sure if you can pick it up. Then you feel a hard, jarring slap on the shoulder and before you even look up, you know it's Rodney and then there he is, grinning at you, amused by your pathetic state. He is smoking American Spirits and he hands you one and says, "don't strain yourself."

"I need to get out of here."

"What? Did something go wrong with Amber?"

"She's passed out. Dude, what happened?"

"We were in there, like ten of us, and you two just started sucking each others' faces off like no one else was there. We ignored it for a while but, you know, we figured you guys wanted some privacy."

Rodney nudges you with an elbow in an encouraging way but it makes you feel sicker. He expects you to laugh, or even to crack a smile, and when you don't he straightens up and says, "okay. I'll go get the guys and we'll leave. Sit your ass down before you hurt yourself." 

There is nowhere to sit out here so you stay where you are, dead weight against the wall, smoking hard on the cigarette as if the smoke were a solid thing that could run through your bones and make them useful again. You don't dare close your eyes, and you keep your free hand inside your coat, feeling the plastic rectangle in your pocket, like if you take your hand away it might vanish without even having to be stolen. You have never had in your possession anything so valuable. 

Rodney is nearly as drunk as you are. You pray to the cold, the air, the plastic case in your pocket, that you get home alive. 

You have so much to live for.