Scarecrow Gods (9 page)

“Butt-fucking, pussy-eating Father of raped sheep, come down from behind that pulpit where you’ve been ejaculating and kneel before a real man.”

Simon leapt and grabbed the man by the shoulders, but was thrown back by a surprising strength. Simon hit the floor hard, his head bouncing off the hard granite.

“Simon, no! The house of the Lord is no place for violence,” said the Padre.

“That’s right, Simon, you pretty bitch, stay on your knees and I’ll let you suck me off once the Padre’s done.”

Simon rose, but came no closer. He wasn’t used to losing fights. This small man had tossed him aside like he was a child. The brother swallowed his outrage and planted himself squarely in front of the door. When it was time for the man to leave, they’d have a conversation outside—a bloody conversation.

The man spun as three large men stood and formed a protective arc in front of the Padre. Even though their large hands seemed capable of dismantling a charging bull, fear flashed in their eyes.

“You worms of the earth, fornicators all! You can’t stop me.” Then, his voice changed to that of a beaten child, “help me.”

“You need to leave, Mister,” said Simon.

The man jerked a knife from his pocket. With a flick, a rusted four-inch blade sprung to life. Those who hadn’t yet been standing jumped to their feet and surged back towards the walls creating a circle of empty pews with the maniac in the center.

“All of you will die.”

And the man lunged.

Before he could get three feet, however, six strong arms grasped him from behind and threw him to the floor. The knife clattered across the granite and disappeared beneath a pew. He was a fury of arms and legs as he fought, desperate to free himself from the farmers, but they’d have none of it. It was nothing to hold him until he became too exhausted to continue.

The Padre descended, moving swiftly through the crowd, smiling and grasping hands. He motioned for the congregation to take their seats. Slowly, casting concerned and fearful glances towards the man upon the floor, they cooperated.

The Padre placed his hand upon the sweaty forehead of the young man. He stared deeply into eyes that switched from fear to anger and back again in an internal emotional strobe. Spittle flecked the young man’s lips. His chest heaved violently.

“Have peace my son, we are here for you. God is here for you.”

“No. No. Fuck you. Help me,” rasped the man, his voice changing in octave and tenor with each word.

“Join me in prayer,” said the Padre, indicating that everyone else should join him. “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

As the people chanted the ancient words, the man began to shake and quiver, the earlier strength returning to exhausted limbs.

“. . .on earth as it is in heaven. . .”

A pining scream soared to the vaulted ceiling, stilling some of the voices as the man’s soul sounded its agony.

“. . .and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Deliver us from evil. . .”

He gagged and choked. A thick lump of vomit poured from his mouth and onto his chest. The stench made the farmers turn their heads, but the Padre remained steadfast.

“. . .the kingdom and the power and the glory. Forever and ever, Amen.”

As the prayer ended, the man screamed again, the painful pitch rising and rising then dropped into the whimpering cry of a child. The Padre held the man and rocked him, sobs filling the inside of the church. Simon’s own anger had dissolved, replaced by a hard lump in his own throat. He rushed to the Padre’s side and helped him to his feet. The aura of evil was gone, and the man seemed to be himself again.

Then an agonizing scream erupting from the front row, interrupted the silence. It was quickly punctuated by another round of cursing, this time from the mouth of Carmelita—the kind old woman who looked after the Padre and the church, a woman who was grandmother to all and had never done anyone harm, was recreating the untranslatably American word
Fuck
with every other syllable.

The people around her stumbled back, falling and tripping. Within seconds the church was filled with screams as they ran towards the door. Men and women and children found themselves pushed to the ground in the mad scramble. Several younger men leapt over the bodies, using the pews as a horizontal stair until they reached the door, only to fling themselves into the backs of those clogging the door.

It was a full minute of confusion until only a dozen people were left within the church. Simon, bruised and battered, noticed the young man was gone, as were two of the farmers who’d earlier helped subdue him. The church was a wreck. Pews and chairs had toppled. Prayer books and hymnals were scattered everywhere. Simon made his way to the front where an arc of humanity huddled around the seated figure of the cursing Carmelita.

It was as if the young man had somehow infected the old woman.

“Leave me the fuck alone old man. I’m sick and tired of you pimping for that illiterate slut and her ill-conceived idiot child,” she said gesturing towards the figure of Mary and the baby Jesus.

The Padre placed his hand upon her forehead and began praying. The remaining ensemble of terrified men and women went to their knees and joined him, their chant filling the church with hopefulness and the power of their love.

Within moments, Carmelita’s bestial features transformed into the well-remembered visage of the kindly old woman that she was. The feeling of unease left as vomit spewed from her mouth. Carmelita struggled to her feet, a look of embarrassment, stilling the people around her and keeping them from speaking. She rushed across the chancel and into the sacristy, sobbing.

“This service is over,” said the Padre as he stood up and mopped his sweaty brow with a sleeve of his robe.

There was a sadness in his eyes that would remain there for six more days.

* * *

A residue of evil seemed to coat the church of The Sanctified Virgin, a thin film upon the walls and floor that none could see but all could feel. Carmelita wouldn’t speak of the episode and every time Simon had tried to brook the topic, she’d
shushed
him and left the room. It bothered her terribly. She’d thought herself devout and immune to anything the devil could throw her way. Her possession, and by this point everyone was calling it that, had left her haunted by the prospect of evil, and she transformed her anger to cleaning, cleansing, removing any piece of unwanted filth. The flagstones shone with her angry efforts, every nook and cranny cleaned and recleaned, her rags wiping, dispelling Satan.

On Saturday they got the call that they’d all been secretly expecting.

Simon and the Padre arrived near sunset. It was a one-room house, common with most of the population of Nuevo Laredo. The outside was sun-dried mud daubed between two-by-fours. Gregorio and Juanita Lopez lived within and until this day, had been happy for it. By day it was a barber shop, the chairs and accoutrements of the job littering the living room. By night, the chairs were pushed away, the brushes and combs and scissors were placed in boxes, and an old bed was unfolded for the Mother and her twenty-year-old son.

Simon remembered the conversation he’d had with the Padre on Wednesday, sitting over a bottle of tequila, both of them in need of understanding and a good drunk. By candlelight, sitting around an old wooden card table in the basement, they’d drained half the bottle in measured shots as if each were charging themselves for a conversation.

“Padre?” Simon began then stopped. He slung another ounce of determination down his throat. “Padre? When I was in the desert I saw something I didn’t understand. I saw people who knew God. No that’s not right. I saw people who believed, they truly believed. And until that moment, I never really believed.”

“Do you believe now?” asked the old man.

“You’d think I’d say yes after Sunday, but I’m from a different tradition. My father is a psychologist. I know that he’d tell me something that made sense. I know he’d be able to explain it all away.”

The Padre watched Simon closely as the young man shifted in his chair. “How would he explain it?”

“Well, you won’t say it. Hell, I don’t even want to say it, but damn, I mean it was possession. Right? And then some kind of hip-pocket exorcism. That’s what it was, right? Something straight out of William Peter Blatty. I saw the way their eyes rolled back and the green bile, the character change and the language, like they were fighting back or something.”

Simon threw back another shot and glanced around for the pack of cigarettes he’d quit smoking a year ago. He sighed and shook his head. “My father. My lovely father. Yeah, he would have diagnosed it right away. Something like, ‘
Most, if not all cases of alleged demonic possession
,’ began Simon in his best educated voice, ‘
involve people with brain disorders such as schizophrenia or Tourette’s syndrome. These victims of the genetic lottery evidence behavior such as foaming at the mouth, speaking in tongues, projectile vomiting and spinning of the head ala Linda Blair.’
”

“He could be right,” said the Padre.

“What are you trying to say? That what we saw never happened? Are you saying you can’t explain it?”

The Padre stared hard into Simon’s eyes for a moment, his anger close the surface. Recognizing the heat of his own emotions, he looked away into a dark corner of the room and smiled. “I know you’ve been searching for something, an understanding, perhaps. But the one thing you must understand my boy is that God is unfathomable. That is his nature. He can’t be understood.”

“Bull,” said Simon. “I just can’t accept that. It’s out there. I know it. I want to worship. I want to understand, but how can you worship something you don’t understand?” he asked.

“Faith. Pure Faith.”

Simon snorted, spilling tequila. He watched as the liquid darkened the table, mingling with the other wet halos from the bottle and glasses, distorting them. “What is that? What does that mean? Do you know what
faith
is? It’s a word, something created by people who were unable to define something so they gave it a name and said you have to believe it.”

The Padre’s years had been showing since Sunday. Until then he’d worn them well, but now the creases wore shadows. “Some of us have the faith. Sure, you can call it a word. You can call it a false belief. You can even call us stupid for believing in it. In all honesty, we don’t really care. Some of us believe and that’s that.”

Simon leaned back hard. “Padre,” he said, voice low. “I didn’t mean to question your belief. I was only speaking of my own faith…or lack thereof.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Do you think I’m stupid? I have the faith. It’s you who’re on this quest to find what can only be found in here,” said the Padre, jabbing his finger hard at Simon’s chest.

Simon rocked back dumbstruck at the ferociousness of the Padre’s gaze. Yet, was he right? Was it all semantics? Was it merely that his mind couldn’t construct a suitable template for a belief in the unseen? He respected the old man so much, especially after Sunday. He’d been so sure and calm. He’d cured the infected. He’d evicted the evil. But how?

“I’m sorry, Simon. I’ve had too much to drink. I’ve become reckless. At this point, I think bed is the answer.” The Padre stood and twisted, looking for the stairs, but his impetus sent him crashing back onto the chair, chagrin on his face.

“Padre. I didn’t mean to…I mean, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No” said the Padre, his face softening. “You were right to speak your mind. It is what separates us from the animals. The ability to reason. To argue.”

“You know, sometimes I wish I were an animal. Something that doesn’t worry so much, doesn’t care.”

The Padre stood, determination on his face as he sought to control his rubbery legs. He placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder.

“No. We need people like you to keep us honest. To make us explain God. We like you, Simon, because you remind us of who we used to be.”

Simon stared at his glass of tequila and felt the words set in. Even after watching an exorcism, he still didn’t believe. He doubted he ever would.

But that had been before they’d received the summons on Saturday.

The inside of the small adobe home smelled of hair tonic, sweat, burritos and heated sand. The grandma reached out to embrace him. She smelled the same, but more earthen as if she was the house.

“
Madre de Dios
, welcome to our home,” she said simply.

Their reply was cut off by a shriek. The Padre and Simon spun towards the sound as the young Gregorio hurled himself at the circle of neighbors. All farmers, their strong arms kept the young man from hurting them and himself.

Gregorio’s eyes were slick with a white film. His legs and arms quivered and crashed against invisible objects. Great spools of drool wrapped themselves around his face, droplets escaping as his head twisted and shook.

The farmers seemed afraid to hurt the young man, their faces radical masks of concern in the half-light that filtered through the stained clear plastic of the windows. Each time the young man rushed forward, dust from the fields plumed from the farmer’s shirts. They were almost ready to bolt. The insanity of the young man was nothing like a horse, deranged by the heat, or a dog in the midst of rabid frenzy. This was a human insanity demonstrated by a person they all knew and loved—one who was now frothing at the mouth, shouting obscenities and grabbing at his flailing member that had sprouted free from his pants.