Jesus Jackson (18 page)

Thirty-two

My parents didn't offer me any further details of Ryan's death. And I didn't bother to ask. In my mind, I'd heard enough: The coroner, or whoever, had tested Ryan for cocaine, and he came up positive, thus making me a liar. Furthermore, Alistair and his boys had gotten together on a story that was good enough to convince the cops, thus making my story implausible, at best. Whatever credibility I thought I had, whatever chance there was of convincing anybody of anything—it was all gone. What else was there to know?

So my father took off with Henry (who seemed irritatingly relieved, almost smiling as he carried the bag of useless “evidence” by his side), while my mother drove me home. A few times on the ride she tried to start a conversation, first pointing out that there was a sale at some department store and then moving on to more pressing subjects like whether or not I was hungry and if I wanted her to rent me a movie. I didn't answer a single one of her questions, just like I didn't respond to her knocks for the next three days. I just remained locked in my room, accepting the occasional meal, while avoiding even the smallest bit of pointless conversation.

It's hard to describe my state of mind over those three days. I didn't feel numb anymore, as I had since Ryan's death, but I didn't really feel sad yet, either. I just felt beaten; utterly defeated.

And no one really seemed that worried about it. My mother left meals and clean clothes outside my door. My father left me pamphlets about Krishna and bought me one of those Zen gardens where you make lines in a little box of sand with a tiny rake. I barely ate the food, and I couldn't bear to read a word of the pamphlets. But the Zen garden was actually quite nice.

On Tuesday, after about three hours of raking tiny circles in the garden, I heard a knock at my door.

Breaking my silence for the first time, I said, “Not now, Mom. Come back tomorrow.”

“Jonathan?” It wasn't my mother. It was Tristan.

I stared deep into the swirls of sand, deciding stupidly that she could do no harm, and walked over to unlock my door. “It's open,” I said finally, as I went back to my position on the bed, raking my garden.

Tristan gently pushed open the door and came in. She squinted a bit as her eyes adjusted to the dark. “Jonathan?”

“Hey.”

I mustered an effortful smile as she shuffled over, taking a seat beside my little Zen garden. “That looks very calming.”

“It is.”

Neither of us said anything for a minute or two; we just stared at the swirling sand. Finally she put her palm on my hand, stopping me. “So, what's this isolation act all about? Your mom said you've been in here for days.”

“I don't know. I just haven't felt like doing much since Saturday.”

“Why,” she asked. “What happened on Saturday?”

I paused. “Wait. You don't know about anything that happened since Friday night?” I found this hard to comprehend, though of course it made perfect sense.

“Um…no.”

“Henry didn't say anything to you about it?”

She chuckled nervously. “I've tried to ask him about you five times, but he always runs away when he sees me coming.”

“And my mom didn't either?”

“No. I mean, I only talked to her for a minute before coming up here. What happened?”

I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “I went to the cops.”

She gasped. “You didn't!”

“I did. I took the evidence and Henry and I told the detective all about everything.”

“I never thought you'd really go to the police,” Tristan whispered, seemingly more to herself than to me.

“Well, I guess you were wrong there.”

“And you told them what you think about Alistair?”

“I did. I gave Detective Conrad the whole story…or a version of it, anyway.”

“What do you mean a version?”

“Well, I sort of left out the part about Ryan doing coke.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said that he knew Ryan was high. He said Alistair and his friends all had alibis. He said my theory was impossible. And then he called my parents.”

Tristan lay down next to me, on her side, propping her head up on her hand. “Oh, Jonathan.”

“I ruined it,” I said, feeling the weight of the words as I spoke them. “I ruined my one chance.” And then, for the first time since Ryan's death, I felt my eyes well up with tears. I swallowed hard a few times and tried to hold them back. “I can't go back to the cops now…no matter what I find. They'll never believe anything I say.”

Tristan took my hand and gave it a squeeze. She was almost smiling. “But why would you have to? The detective said it was impossible. They must just know that it was an accident. You should be relieved.”

I turned to face her. “Impossible? Relieved? Tristan, they lied to the cops. Alistair and Mike and Phil, they told a bullshit story about some alibi. They got away with murder! And because I lied about the coke, I don't have a chance at proving any of it. That's not a relief!”

“But, what if you're wrong?” she said pleadingly, squeezing my hand even tighter. “I mean, what if it
was
an accident? And yes, they lied about where they were so they wouldn't get in trouble, but that doesn't mean they killed Ryan. They just didn't want to get kicked off the team, or suspended, or whatever. You don't
know
that it was Alistair. You weren't
there
. You don't even know that Alistair is capable of doing something like that.”

“I was there two minutes earlier, and he looked damn near capable enough.”

“He was angry. He was high. I'm sure he was acting crazy, but that doesn't mean he's a murderer.”

I sat up. “What the hell is this, anyway? Why are you defending him?”

“I'm not. It's just—”

“It's just what?”

“It's just that this is all insane,” she said, jumping off of the bed and pacing in front of me. “You really think that Alistair is a murderer? A murderer? Really? He's just a kid. A regular kid that goes to our school. I went along with the idea for a little while, but if the police say he's innocent, then he's innocent.”

I got up, fuming, and stood just inches away from her. “And what? It's all just an accident? A meaningless accident? Nothing that happened in those woods has anything to do with it? Just a total fucking coincidence?”

She was fighting the tears, and losing. “Yes! Or no, not a total—but yes, it has to be—at least…or mostly…or….”

“Or what? What the fuck are you saying, Tristan? You don't think it was an accident. You don't think Alistair did it. Then what? Do you think he jumped off that cliff?”

Then she smacked me. Hard. I didn't even really see it happen. I just heard it, felt the pain slice across my face, and then I was on the floor and she was running down the steps and out of the house. And then I was alone.

***

I stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, for a very long time. From a logical point of view, I was having a hard time understanding what had just happened. From an emotional point of view, however, it was crystal clear: I was angry. Furious, in fact.

Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't so much angry about the slap. The slap was fine. I was pissed about everything that happened right before it. Tristan didn't think Alistair killed Ryan…or at least that's what she said. The question was: Did she really believe that? Or did she think that Ryan killed himself? Or did she actually buy that it was an accident? I went over her words again and again in my head: You don't
know
. You weren't
there
. You don't
know
. You weren't
there
. You don't
know
. You weren't
there
. Where the hell does she get off? No, I wasn't there when it happened, but I could damn well see where things were headed right before it happened. Ryan was outnumbered three to one, they were fighting, they were all coked-up out of their skulls, and besides, how else can you explain the way Alistair has been acting since it happened? Did she think that was normal? To be threatening the brother of your friend who just died? Didn't any of this matter to her? Didn't she see it?

I played out this imaginary argument with Tristan, alone there in my bedroom, for hours. I sat a make-believe version of her right down in my desk chair and laid out the evidence, the logic, the reasoning—piece by piece, hour after hour. We went over the events as I witnessed them: an explanation of the effects of cocaine on the central nervous system, the height of the ravine and its distance from the running path; we examined the characters of both Ryan and Alistair: their grades, behavior, social standing, and church attendance; I explained the physical evidence down to the minutest of details—the fabric, the footprint, the jersey, the phone—even making up expert testimony (which, I believed, was probably quite accurate) about the certainty of the correlation between what we found and the events on the day that Ryan died.

My mother knocked on my door at least two or three times throughout the process, but I just ignored her and continued the deposition, assuming she was just trying to feed me, or something equally insignificant. It was about a four-hour ordeal, all told, and by the end of it I was thoroughly exhausted and utterly convinced that I was right about everything.

Thirty-three

It was two o'clock on a Tuesday, just three days before Ryan was to start at St. Soren's (and three years and three days before he died in the ravine) when our mother drove Ryan and me to Saint Christopher's for our counseling session. I remember that she was wearing a stark white pantsuit, and that we were both freshly showered, our hair combed and parted, our penny loafers shining, and both of us dressed in matching khakis, blue dress shirts, and clip-on green ties.

Once in the rectory, a girl not much older than Ryan asked us to please sit and wait, and told us that the priest would be with us shortly. I slouched down into one of the hard wooden chairs and stared at the crucifix on the wall. This was a definitively mild crucifix, with Jesus' wounds represented by only a few small red nicks, and his crown of thorns looking more like a tennis headband than an instrument of torture.

To my great relief, the priest had my brother and me come in to see him at the same time, and told my mother to wait for us in the lobby. Initially, I had assumed we would each be going in alone, outnumbered by my mother and Father Kevin and a few other inquisitors thrown in for good measure. So this was a welcome development.

Inside his office, Father Kevin had arranged three chairs in a semicircle around a small table, on top of which was a large, leather-bound King James Bible.

“Please,” he said, smiling warmly. “Sit, sit. Make yourselves comfortable.”

We did as we were told, making our way to the two chairs that sat closest to the door. “Oh, no. No,” said Father Kevin. “Please. I'll take the middle chair.”

Divide and conquer, I thought.

When all three of us were sitting, Father Kevin spent a minute or two just looking us both over, a serene sort of calmness on face. Finally, he came out with it: “So, you two boys have been having a hard time with your faith, then, is that right?”

We both shrugged. Then Father Kevin asked us if what our mother said was true, and if we really believed that God was not real.

I was about to agree, but Ryan broke in too soon. “Actually, Father, it's really just me. Jonathan listens to me talk about it sometimes, but that's all.”

“I see,” said the priest. “And do you believe your brother, Jonathan? When he tells you these things?”

The truth, of course, was that I believed him completely; that Ryan could have told me the world was made of string cheese and that God looked exactly like a pepperoni pizza, and I would have bought it completely.

But of course, I had to be a bit more noncommittal if I was going to get out of this thing alive. “I don't know. Maybe a little.”

Ryan clearly picked up on my discomfort, and came to my rescue. “Actually,” he cut in. “The real problems with your theology are a bit over little Jonny's head.”

Father Kevin raised his eyebrows sharply. “Oh? Problems, you say?”

“Well of course,” Ryan said, growing bolder. “Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of really nice things about Christianity, but your whole theology just has so many holes, that it's basically useless.”

These words smacked the patient expression right off Father Kevin's face. He leaned forward in his chair, glaring. “Now, I don't know what you think you've figured out here, but I can assure you that—”

“Hold on there,” Ryan said, growing calmer as the priest got more flustered. “Take a breath. Let me explain.”

Father Kevin huffed a few times and then relaxed a bit. “Please,” he said. “Enlighten me.”

Ryan smirked. “Sure thing.” Then he turned to the great big King James Bible and opened up to the book of Exodus, Chapter 20. “You recognize this, Father?”

Father Kevin squinted at the page. “Of course. The Ten Commandments.”

Ryan pointed at a verse. “What's this one here?”

“Thou shalt not kill,” read the Father. “Are you going to tell me you have some kind of problem with ‘Thou shalt not kill?”'

“No, no.” Ryan chuckled, turning a few pages. “That's a good one.” He pointed to another verse, in chapter 32. “Now what's this one say?”

Again, Father Kevin squinted down at the page, and read, “Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.”

“Now that's a whole lot of slaying,” said Ryan. “Especially since God told the people—like, a few pages earlier—that they ‘shalt not kill' anybody.”

Father Kevin rolled his eyes. “Now Ryan, just because you find a passage that seems to contradict, doesn't mean—”

“Please Father,” broke in Ryan. “Indulge me for another minute.”

The priest stared at my brother as if he'd already seen every passage that Ryan was about to show him…and, who knows, maybe he had. But he seemed to make some sort of calculation and nodded anyway. “Okay, Ryan. Please, continue.”

And so Ryan continued for maybe a half-hour, or more, flipping around the King James Bible, showing contradiction after contradiction. Father Kevin just sat there, stone-faced and unimpressed. I, however, was riveted. Sure, after a whole year of critiquing religions with Ryan, I didn't put much stock in the Bible, but I never thought it could be shown to be so incredibly flawed, so ridiculously inconsistent.

At last, Father Kevin had heard everything he needed to hear. He shut the Bible before Ryan could turn to another page. “Enough,” he said. “I get your point.”

“Good,” said Ryan. “I'm glad.”

“However,” said Father Kevin, rising to his feet. “You have to understand that this is a book written by men, and it's not meant to be taken literally word-for-word.”

“There are quite a few people who would disagree with that.”

“Yes, there are, and if you've shown anything here it's why they are wrong in doing so. Because in actuality, the Bible is a collection of parables and metaphors that must be interpreted, meditated on, prayed about. That's why you have clergy like myself to help you to understand the truth—God's truth—that lies beneath all of these words on paper. And for that you need faith.”

“Faith?” said Ryan.

“Yes, faith…God asks us to believe in him even though there is no scientific proof of his existence, and even though his Holy Word may seem to be a little inconsistent in some places.”

Now Ryan stood as well. “You know, I'm glad you brought up this idea of faith, Father. Because this is really where the whole thing breaks down for me.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, it just seems to me that your god has gone to great lengths to throw peoples' faith off the trail of his truth, don't you think? I mean, science points to evolution and the big bang, his book is full of holes, and there are so many other religions to choose from….”

“Now, now,” said the Father. “You're getting confused. It is the devil, the father of lies, that deceives people from the truth, that creates these…distractions.”

“So then why doesn't your god just open up the sky, fly on down to Earth, and show everyone the truth? He can do that, right? He is a god, after all.”

“Of course he can, but he wouldn't. Because then the people wouldn't need faith.”

“But what about all of the people who believe the ‘lies,' as you call them? People like that are dying every day. What happens to them?”

“Well, without Jesus, they…”

“They go to hell? Because your god wanted to play some game with them?”

“Now it's hardly a game, you see—”

“And here's the point, Father, the biggest contradiction of them all. God cannot simultaneously be good, loving, and all-powerful, if the world he created dooms millions upon millions of its souls to an eternity of torture. Something has to go. Either he's not all-powerful, or, if he is, he's a major league asshole. Or, or, or—and here's a wild idea—the whole story is just a steaming pile of horseshit, made up by a bunch of black-robe-wearing freaks who thought so little of the people they were shoveling it to, that they figured they could sell them any old load of crap, just so long as they threw in a few scary statues and some stained-glass windows.”

Father Kevin, as you might imagine, was not amused. He turned, and walked over to the window, looking out at the rectory courtyard. He took a few deep breaths and said, “Jonathan, will you leave us alone please?”

But by this point, I didn't want to go anywhere. I would've much rather stayed and listened to how this whole little showdown was going to play out, and who would prevail in the end. But I knew better then to tempt my own fate by defying the priest in his current mood. So I just suppressed my smile, stood from my chair, and headed out into the lobby.

Then, as I was closing the door behind me, I caught Ryan's eye for a second, and he winked. And it was only then that I realized what the priest had already seen, and why he had asked me to leave: that Ryan had won the showdown before it even began.

Ryan came out of the rectory almost an hour later, seeming quite content and at ease. Smiling, actually, as if the whole thing had gone even better than he expected. When I asked him what happened, he just told me that he and Father Kevin had a good talk and that everything was fine. He never told me any more than that, and the following week he began his freshman year at St. Soren's without so much as a whisper of protest. He joined the football team, made a few friends, and went quietly to mass every Sunday with our mother. And we never spoke about that day, or about gods, or religions, or anything like that again.

The effect of all this on me was profound. After the first Sunday mass in which Ryan didn't let loose even so much as a single snicker, I decided that I would never find a god I could believe in, so I would simply be an atheist for the rest of my life. We grew further and further apart over those next few years, and if I'm being honest with myself, it wasn't until I started looking into his death that I finally understood how little, by the end, I actually knew about his life.

That might be the saddest part of this whole story.