Multiplex Fandango (6 page)

She walked to the pool's edge and stared down at the face of Christianity.
Dusk had fallen and the bottom of the pool had been lit by lights.
She allowed her gaze to track the stains, then looked once again to the balconies.
Most of them were
n
ow filled with people staring down at the pool.
Several of them looked eager.
Even more of them looked desperate.

***

They'd finished the langoustines
,
which had been sautéed in a garlic tamarind sauce.
Suki's tongue still tingled with the complex fusion of flavors.
The cabernet had a velvety taste and she sipped it now, pausing every now and then to taste the chocolate mousse she'd ordered for dessert.
The meal had been so delicious that she'd barely noticed Bob and his incessant commentary.
Bob smoked a Cuban cigar, occasionally sipping from his fifth Cosmo of the evening.
Both of them stared across
Zihuatanejo
Bay
at the lights aboard the ships anchored in the harbor where people celebrated Christmas the more traditional way.
She heard snatches of Silent Night.

"I know you," said a black woman.

"Maven," said a thin black man, placing his hand on her shoulder.
"Leave the young couple alone."

She shrugged free of the hand and stepped closer.
"No Martin.
I do know them.
They're in our hotel."
She pointed a wavering finger in Suki's direction.
"Didn't I see you swimming, dearie?"

Suki frowned, her moment of satisfaction gone.
Still, she remembered the woman's face from the balconies
—
a few floors above her own, if she remembered right.

"Oh Hello," said Suki

The woman mistook the salutation as an invitation.
She grabbed the empty third chair at Suki's table and sat, her escort taking position behind her, his face set and sad.

"I knew I recognized you.
I told Marvin that you were one of us, but he didn't believe me.
Said you didn't have the look"

"One of us?" asked Bob.

"You know about the Jesus Pool, right?" asked Maven.

Before Bob could respond, Suki interjected, "we were late reservations.
Our travel agent said the room was the only one available."

"Oh," said Maven.

"But we love the view," said Bob.
"Really magnificent."

Maven and Martin gave Bob an odd look.
“The Last Supper?” asked Maven.

“That too,” said Bob.
“Odd to have that painted in the pool.
Don’t you think?”

Maven shook her head slowly.
“Then you don’t know.”
She stood to go.
“Just as well, I suppose.”
She turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Suki, holding out her hand.
“Don’t go,” she said, struggling to find a reason to keep the woman from leaving.
“Let us buy you a drink.”

Maven stopped and turned.
“That’s not necessary.”

Suki smiled.
“Please.
We don’t know anyone here.
You’re the first people we’ve met.
Let us buy you a drink.”
Seeing the hesitation in the older woman’s eyes Suki added, “It’s the Christian thing to do.”

Maven grinned broadly.
“Yes it is.
Especially since tomorrow’s our Lord’s birthday.
Come on Martin, let’s have one more drink.”

One drink became several.
The foursome didn’t separate until eleven thirty.
Martin and Maven hurried back to the hotel.
Bob picked up the check, then they'd headed back towards the hotel.
What Maven had spoken about had troubled Suki.
Not just the level of belief, but the possibilities that the belief represented.

“I can’t believe you,” scoffed Bob once they were on the street.
“Suddenly you're like
Christian this
and
Christian that
.”

Suki ignored Bob’s bellicose remarks.
He wanted her to defend herself so that he could make fun of her.
All she’d really done was open the door to some startling information.
Maven had told them about all the places of power in
Mexico
like the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor which heals the sick.

"Some say that it was the older Indian influence that makes the Catholic shrines more powerful here, but only Jesus knows," Maven had said.
Then she'd gone on to talk about the Basilica of our Lady of Guanajuato, the shrine of Our Lady of St. John of the Lakes in San Juan de Los Lagos, the shrine of our Lady of Zapopan,
the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe, situated in Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo just north of Mexico City, and then of course the Jesus Pool.

“I mean come on,” laughed Bob, throwing his arms into the air.
“How can someone believe this shit?
Just like when I was going to church.
I could never get past talking bushes, walking on water, and the whole transubstantiation thing."

"You believed once, though," she found herself saying.

"I did, but I was stupid."

"If you believed once, then you could believe again," she said.
Buddhism had been a way of life for her before she came to
America
, but was nothing like the way religion was practiced in
America
.
"She said that it would be a guarantee of heaven.
Doesn't that excite you?
Doesn't that make you wonder just a little?"

"Not even a little," he said waving his hands.
"It's all hoodoo voodoo."

"But aren't you afraid of
Hell
?" she asked, stopping so that he'd realize she was serious.

"No."

"Not even a little?" she asked.
"I mean.
What if you were wrong and t
here really was a Heaven and a H
ell.
What if just for help
ing me, you'd go to H
ell.
Wouldn't you want to make up for that?"

"You mean kill
myself just in case there is a G
od?
How crazy is that?"

How crazy was that indeed?
As a Buddhist, Su
ki didn't believe in Heaven or H
ell.
She believed in karma, transmigr
ation of the soul and Nirvana
—
the end to the suffering of living.
She hadn't really thought about it before, but now she remembered the voices
that she'd heard in the water
—
scraps of speech as if there'd been some sort of reverberation upon impact.
Or even worse, perhaps their souls had never left and had been trying to communicate to her.
Perhaps the whole thing was a lie.
Perhaps Heaven was only fiction.

Several ambulances were parked in front of the hotel.
The drivers were huddled by the first one in line, joking and sharing a cigarette.
As Suki and Bob passed, the drivers became silent.
A policeman stood at the front door.
He checked their key, then allowed them to pass.
Not until they walked into the lobby, did everything register.

"Only in the first moments of the day of his birth, do you have a chance," Maven had said.
"We came last year, but I was too afraid."

They stepped into the pool area.
All the chairs and tables had been cleared.
The pool had been drained.
Only the stains and the painting remained.

Suki looked up and sucked in her breath.
From the first to the twenty-second floor, balconies teamed with people.
Entire families filled up the small areas, all staring down at the Jesus Pool.
The only empty balcony was their own.

"What the fu..." said Bob, censoring himself as his words carried over the space.

A movement caught Suki's gaze.
A man climbed over the railing on the second floor.
He stood in front of the railing, facing outwards, his hands gripping the railing behind him.
About sixty years old and balding, his knees visibly shook.
His wife put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.
She said something, and although Suki couldn't hear it, she read the lips.
We love you, Harry.
Don't be afraid.
We'll meet again in Heaven.

Suki suddenly looked at her watch.
Five minutes to midnight.
She grabbed Bob by the elbow and jerked him towards the elevator.
"Come on.
We need to hurry."

As soon as they got to the room, she ran to the balcony and opened the sliding glass window.
She stepped to the rail and looked beneath her.
With two minutes to go, each balcony held a man or woman standing in front of the railing.
She looked up and saw the same.
Theirs was the only balcony without people eager for redemption.

Maven stood two floors above her.
The woman had confided in them that she had inoperable cancer.
This was really her
only chance for a sure thing
.
Maven released a hand from the rail, waved and smiled with nervous anticipation.
Suki waved back.

Someone screamed,
"Uno minuta
."

Suki spun.
"Bob, we have to do something."

"Do what?" he said.

"I don't know.
But I can't stand here and have twenty-one people leap to their deaths."

"I don't know what we can do," he said, frowning.

"We have to do something," she said, rushing up and grabbing his shirt collar with both hands.
"These people aren't going to Heaven.
They don't go anywhere."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was swimming earlier, I heard them."

"You heard them?"

"I heard the souls.
They spoke to me.
They're trapped in the Jesus Pool, Bob.
All of them, trapped forever."

"Ridiculous," he said.
"How could they talk to you?"

"I don't know but they
—
"

Church bells interrupted them as the clock struck midnight, signaling a new day
—
Christmas Day.
A scream was followed quickly by a sickly splat.
"Jump for Jesus," shrieked Maven.
Suki spun just as Maven passed her balcony.
Suki ran towards the railing, Bob right beside her.

Maven lay sprawled in Jesus' arms.
Several others lay beside her, their blood beginning to run together and collect on the bottom of the pool.
The man named Harry didn't leap far enough.
His head hit the edge of the pool.
His body flopped, and then rolled, his smashed head coming to rest near Maven's feet.

A scream came from above.
Suki and Bob barely jerked their heads back inside before two bodies passed them
–
a man and a woman diving head-first, embracing each other all the way down.
When Suki heard their impact, she thought that she was going to be sick.
She didn't even want to look anymore.

She watched as Bob looked up, then down as his gaze followed a descending man with a perfect swan dive form.
Then Bob did something that absolutely stunned her.
He laughed.

Turning around he pointed back over his shoulder.
"Suki, get over here.
You're missing it."

She gaped as he turned around to watch some more suicides.
Remembering when she first met him as he ran up and helped her in the alley off Sunset, he'd had that same look on his face.
Like a fanatic entertained by the event, he'd been more than a little wild-eyed as he'd tried to calm her down.
She'd missed it then, but not now.
And the realization sent the contents of her stomach into her throat.

Her emotions sizzled.
Part of her wanted to run.
Part of her wanted to scream.
Another part wanted to make Bob stop.
He'd been an anvil around her neck since she'd decided to drive home drunk that night.
She'd
never
loved him.
He'd taken advantage of her and had held her heart hostage.

And for what?
Besides Bob, only she knew about her mistake.