Joe's Black T-Shirt (12 page)

He gave up for the moment and stumbled to the kitchen. The best remedy to this problem, as to all his problems these days, was to have a drink. He spilled as much liquor over the granite countertop as he did to fill his glass. Quite certain he would soon blackout, he did his best to think about where he had hidden it before all hope was lost.

In a momentary flash of intelligence, it came to him. The details, murky as they were, gave him enough insight as to his next destination.

He navigated the stairs to the basement on his ass, too inebriated to walk and carry his drink. The firm concrete floor was slightly sobering. He stood slowly up using the stair rail for balance. Before he could regain his equilibrium, the full contents of his stomach erupted until he dry heaved.

His pajama bottoms drenched in vomit, his slippers sloshed with the bile. It was here, somewhere. John walked with the directional challenge of a lost, blind man. He felt no pain, but did stop when he rammed his big toe into the immovable object. A government issued footlocker, a surplus leftover he had bought in college that held his most precious things.

He knelt before it in a flop and studied its large, steel latches. It took all his drunken strength to unfasten each one and practically exhausted him. He opened his eyes to find his hands were at work, busily searching through the remnants of his life. Things such as Beatle and Bob Dylan records, a photo album cataloguing his life from infancy through matrimony, and odd little pieces of brick-a-bract he couldn’t recall as to why he would have saved them. Then, deep under all the useless shit of his misspent life, he found it.

A black, hard-shell case the size of a lap-top computer. The slides easily pushed out and the lid flopped open. John had mistakenly opened the box upside down. Its contents fell to the concrete floor in a deafening boom. Once the ringing in his ears subsided, John heard the distinct sound of liquids pouring down the built in floor drain. The washing machine was steadily hemorrhaging water through a perfectly round puncture.

He picked it up and held the gun’s barrel to his nose. The smell of fresh gunpowder was unmistakable. It must have discharged when he dropped it. Oh well, he thought, as he drunkenly lifted himself up, following the trail of his wet footprints back to the stairwell. At least he wouldn’t have to bother trying to load the damn thing.

***

Pastor Maury, by his own admission, held one vice. He was nosy. When he was twelve, an older cousin had taken him to an R-rated film. He remembered little of the movies multiple shoot outs and car chases. What had stuck with him was the main character’s advice to the man who eventually killed him. “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.”

For years he made it a habit to know what everybody was doing. His wife didn’t know it, but he sometimes he had followed her to the grocery store or the mall. One time, at the library, he had lost sight of her in the stacks. Ready to turn around and give up she stood right behind him. As luck would have it, he was standing in the reference department’s theology section. Easily able to defend his trip as a research, he picked a book at random without so much as ever reading the jacket. His wife thought it all a wonderful, coincidental surprise and out of sheer guilt he took her to lunch at the good Chinese buffet.

After that little experience, he decided distance was his best friend. No one thought anything unusual of the pastor at his desk surrounded by piles of documents. That was the early nineties, a Jurassic period in comparison with today’s technology. No longer did he have to go line-by-line over voluminous phone records, credit card bills, or occasionally having to dig endlessly through file cabinets. Thankfully, those days had passed with the evolution of spyware.

His eyes diligently scanned a computer screen. The program he used now was the best so far. It automatically compiled reports that recorded what websites were viewed and how often, cell phone activity, documents saved and deleted, and most especially how church funds were allocated. He was particularly pleased with the innovation of GPS.

He had replaced all church cell phones with modern Blackberry models. Able to know the whereabouts of each holder via a GPS signal gave him an omniscient rush so awesome he had to reconcile himself against the idea of it being a sin. He did so by convincing himself he was living up to the standard of ‘WWJD.’ A good shepherd kept count of his sheep.

He had nothing to worry about, yet his paranoia would not rest. Occasionally, he might catch someone perusing Craigslist too often or making personal on-line purchases. It was easy enough to block the user from those sites. If an employee called in sick, he would monitor their location via a chip in their phone smaller than the head of a pin. He had discovered even his most obedient to falsely claim incapacitation by the flu, yet took their phone with them out of habit, while they played hooky at a distant golf course or amusement park with their family. For this he would deliver a penance upon them of endless work until he believed the exhausted sinner had learned their lesson. Thus far, the system worked. He had not once had to reprimand the same person twice.

It was on a crisp fall morning, remotely logged into the network from the comfort of his home study, he noticed the anomaly. At first, he dismissed it as coincidence, but as a precaution, he compiled a spreadsheet that would allow him to see if a pattern truly existed. To his great disappointment, it did. Concurrent to the puritan doctrine he subscribed, it was rare liars told only one lie.

After hours on his computer reviewing personnel files, cross-referencing sent and received e-mails, and calculating text messages by time and volume, he was personally ashamed. How could he have been so naïve? It had been so obvious. Even if he was acting in the best interest of the church, his sin was no less forgivable.

***

John was back on the couch. The gun and the bottle sat beside each other on the coffee table. When the bottle was empty, he could do it. He knew what the mind conceived, prior to a blackout, the body would follow. It was no more difficult than setting an alarm clock. He couldn’t count the number of times since Nancy’s left that he awoke to find dishes smashed, holes in walls, or lying in one of the boy’s beds without a clue as to how it had happened. He knew if he continually repeated instructions mantra-like to himself, he could do this thing. A hopeful consolation was that it would be painless.

The idea of an express ticket to Hell did occur to him. John thought he deserved nothing less. If it would make everything right again, it would be worth it.

If it didn’t, well, at least he tried.

***

In the pastor’s office Monday morning, John sat ready and prepared to dole out a litany of economic voodoo. He wanted to diverge funds to a Japanese start-up. The NIKKEI was becoming much stronger. Investor’s money was returning from the east at a minimum two-to-one. If they moved fast, John could easily triple the holdings of his offshore accounts.

Eager as he was to speak, Pastor Maury was laconic. It was obvious something was on his mind. He got like this sometimes. An unfavorable yet unsubstantiated rumor in regards to a recession had been on the news all weekend. It was the kind of thing liable to disturb any figurehead with a sizable portfolio.

Unable to contain his enthusiasm any longer, John broke the silence.

“Bill, we have an excellent opportunity. If we get moving---”

“Shut-up, John,” Pastor Maury said.

His reproach silenced him as if he had cut his tongue out.

“Certain discrepancies have recently come to my attention. I think it would be best for all parties concerned if you were to tender your immediate resignation.”

“Bill,” John said trying to find an alternate solution, “I’m certain whatever this is, it can be worked out. I can’t possibly imagine why you---”

“Stop it,” the pastor commanded him. “No more lies.” He removed a stapled report from a manila folder and handed it to John. The photocopied list was a compilation of e-mails, text messages and geographic whereabouts that left no doubt any longer as to the reason for the pastor’s dismay.

Some of he and Debbie’s most personal messages were laid out cold upon the paper. Yellow highlighter lines, smeared across various passages by Pastor Maury, were direct allegations. Intimate thoughts he had shared with Debbie about work, his wife, the pastor and particularly covert messages in regards to his dalliances with church funds were clearly exposed. Each highlighted quotation was an indictment he could not possibly refute.

“Please, Bill,” John pleaded, “can’t we leave her out of this?”

“I don’t possibly see how that is an option.”

“She doesn’t deserve to be a part of this. Debbie’s a good person, regardless what I’m guilty of doing. This will destroy her reputation, her family. Can’t you show her some kind of leniency seeing as all David has done for the church?”

“I wish I could, John,” the pastor said without sympathy.

“Unfortunately, when you choose to lay with dogs, you’re bound to get fleas. I have already called
Mrs.
Martel informing her services shall no longer be required, and furthermore sent a letter outlining the reasons, as I have to your home, as to why your immediate ex-communication from the church is necessary. An emergency private meeting of deacons has been scheduled for three this afternoon. By then, I suspect this matter shall be closed.

“I never meant for any of this to happen,” John said. “Please, I’m begging you, let me stand before the congregation, explain myself, apologize. Throw stones and whip me if you want, but leave her out of this. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve mercy, not her.”

“Noble as that sounds,” said the pastor, “I have made my decision. No matter what you say, there is nothing you can say to me any longer that I am willing to hear. You disgust me.”

John tore the eight and a half by eleven-inch sheets into quarter-sized pieces and threw them in the pastor’s face.

Unmoved, he sat comfortably, hands resting on top of his rounded stomach, not bothering to remove the few stray pieces.

“You hypocrite! I’ve made this church millions of dollars. You’re a rich man because of my disgusting actions. Now, on account of some irrelevant relationship, which not only didn’t effect my work, but in spite of everything, made me ten times more productive, I can kiss your ass?”

“Watch your language. Even in this office, this is still the house of the Lord.”

“Fuck you, Bill! You pious, sanctimonious asshole. I should compile my own report for the board, maybe they would find it interesting all that you do in the name of the church.”

“My records, unlike yours, are all open and more than ready to be reviewed by any member of this church. I haven’t promised anyone I would leave my wife for another man’s or hidden church funds in a Cayman bank account. You are a moral deviant. The epitome of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. As ashamed as I am to ever have been taken in by your schemes, I know I will find absolution. You, on the other hand, will never know serenity again for what you have done.”

His fists balled in anger, John was now angry with himself. He was caught and nothing he said could change that fact.

John stood up and silently walked away from the pastor’s desk. His steps felt leaden. His hand on the door’s handle, he cast one last sincere thought out. “I’m sorry, Bill.”

“I’m sure you are,” the pastor said.

Defeated, John left.

***

Repeated banging on the front door awoke John from his semi-comatose state. The thuds were as if somebody were knocking using a jackhammer. He couldn’t remember how, but the gun was firmly in the grip of his hand. The empty liquor bottle extruded half out from the broken television screen. He couldn’t remember that happening either.

He pushed himself up from the couch, holding the gun out as a counter-balance like a surfer trying to stay upright on an invisible wave. Focused on the deafening knock, he stumbled, falling twice before reaching the door.

He crawled on his hand and knees, using the gun to swat away the weeks of discarded mail on the floor. Able to pull himself up by the doorknob, he saw two shadowy figures through the cloudy, white glass with gold ribbon trim. One of the figures was yelling something, the same thing over-and-over, but damned if John could understand him.

Clumsily he unhitched the chain and dead-bolt lock with his gun hand. The mid-day sun blinded him when he opened the door. To shield his swollen eyes, he held up the gun up to block the sun’s rays before another brief, much brighter light struck him.

John stood upright and grimly sober as he saw himself lying in the floor. Mixed among the mail, his robe open, the gun no longer in his hand, there was a hole like the one in the washing machine, dead center in his forehead. A puddle of blood collected out the back of his skull. Brains and hair, presumably his, had exploded in mass and covered the walls in tiny bits of red, black, and gray.

The sensation of gently rising overtook him. Allowed one last look toward the doorway, where the two policemen stood, the man on the porch who spoke excitedly into his walkie-talkie was unfamiliar. The other, with his revolver still held high in shock, he knew well. It was Debbie’s husband, David.

As a brilliance like none other overwhelmed and guided him from this existence, John was thankful.

###

Father’s Day

Beneath the draped American flag, my father lay in his casket, rotting. I sat in the front row, in chairs especially reserved for family, next to people who were all strangers. My father, benevolent bastard that he was, left my mom and me when I was seven years old. By the next year, he had disappeared, materializing sporadically via a birthday card. The last time he vicariously showed me any attention was thirty years ago.