The Bighead (31 page)

“
What I want you to
know—hell, Tom—I was younger than you are now when all this went
down, I was intineraire for the monsignor, hadn’t been out of the
seminary five years. In other words, I didn’t go to Wroxeter
myself, but I overheard the consultation at the time. It wasn’t
good. And I also read the diocesan file.”

“
What!” Alexander
barked.

Halford’s eyes turned dark and very
sad. “Joyclyn, the abbess, and Sister Grace—”

“
What, for God’s sake. Quit
jerking me!” Alexander yelled.

“
They both survived, for a
very short time,” the monsignor admitted.

“
How long?”

“
Oh just a few hours after
they were found. They died before we could even get an ambulance up
there. But a few hours was long enough…”

“
Long enough for
what?”

“
To talk, Tom. What I’m
saying is they lived long enough to report an identical description
of the killer.”

Alexander’s voice rattled when he
said, “Tell me.”

“
It was the strangest
thing—I doubt that even I would put any stock in it. Keep in mind,
these were
cloistered nuns,
Epiphanists, for God’s sake, and they’d been
viciously assaulted and raped by the perpetrator.”

“
Bob, if you keep jerking
my chain, I’m gonna kick your butt from here to St. Peter’s
Cathedral.”

Halford believed it. “Before they
died, they both rendered descriptions of the rapist.” Halford
abstractedly stroked his cheek. “They said it was a
child.”

Alexander’s faced crimped
up. “A
child?
Come
on, Bob!”

“
That’s what they said.
When the diocesan counselor asked what age, they said the
perpetrator looked to be about ten years old. A child, Tom. A
child.”

“
You expect me to believe
that a child killed an abbey full of nuns and priests?”

“
That’s not all they said,
though. But of course, after a trauma like that? I’m sure they were
delusional.” Then a question lit the monsignor’s eyes. “Are
delusions ever shared? Or hallucinations? Can two people have the
same hallucination, Tom?”

“
Yeah, sometimes,”
Alexander replied, exasperated. He wanted answers, not clinical
questions. “But it’s rare. It’s called
Folie a` deux,
there’s plenty of
documentation to make it credible. Multiple-hysterical viewpoints,
di-exocathesis. But these are
psychopathic
labels. Maybe they all
went nuts up there.”

“
Unlikely,” Halford said.
He seemed to be squinting past Alexander, back at the calamity of
twenty years ago. “Downing went up there every month to check on
things.”

“
Downing?”

“
He had your job then, the
shrink for the diocese.” Halford paused. “He’s the one who
discovered the bodies.”

“
But if he was checking on
them every month—a psychologist, mind you—he would’ve known in an
instant if any of the nuns were displaying signs of psychopathy, or
any other serious mental disease mechanism. So that rules out your
shared delusions theory.”

“
Yes, yes,” Halford vaguely
muttered. “It seems so.”

“
I give up!” Alexander’s
glare felt honed to the sharpness of a scratch awl. “This a game?
I’m supposed to guess? What the hell are you talking about, Bob?
What was the goddamn delusion?”

“
They didn’t just say it
was a child, Tom.” Halford’s eyes went astray. “They said it was
a
monster-
child…”

(III)

“
What’s the matter with
you?” Alexander asked. “You’re practically shaking, you’re
jittery.”

“
I’m fine,” Jerrica
complained in response.

“
Fine, huh? You look like
you’re having withdrawal symptoms. If you are, I’ll take you to the
hospital.”

“
Get off my back,” Jerrica
sniped. “Just take me back to Annie’s boarding house.”

“
All right. You don’t want
to talk about it, fine. That’s your business. But I thought we were
gonna talk about things.”

“
I don’t feel like talking
right now,” she said. And she didn’t. What could she say? I just
sucked a drug dealer’s cock for cocaine? I swallowed his sperm?
No…

“
How was your meeting with
your boss?” she asked instead.

“
Enlightening. But it’s
confidential so don’t ask.”

Jerrica slumped. She felt like a piece
of thread twisted out strand by strand. Part of her could only
think of how badly she wanted to get back, to fulfill her need.
Another part could only recognize that Father Alexander himself was
the cure. Still another part reminded her how useless it all
was.

If it’s not one thing,
it’s something else…

She came very close to
putting her face in her hands and crying.
I love you! Can’t you see that!

But what difference did it make? He
was a priest.

They drove back to Luntville, in
silence. All she could be reminded of was the acrid taste of sperm
in her mouth, and the feel of the small plastic bag in her hip
pocket.

(IV)

The Bighead, he could smell it, he
could. Now he knowed somethin’ were up. All this time since he’d
left the Lower Woods, that Voice’d been callin’ ta him durin’ the
night. It had been leadin’ him somewheres, ain’t it?

He stopped at the edge’a the
trees.

Couldn’t help hisself. He
whupped it out right then’n there, thinkin’ ’bout all that fine
splittail he busted in his time. Hot, wet li’l holes he could sink
his pecker in. Too bad he’d never hadda proper nut in any of ’em.
They was all too small! But he thinked about it anyways, an’ jacked
hisself off a
dandy
load’a dicksnot, which landed inna clump’a weeds. Felt good,
it did. A
might
good!

But then he got backs ta thinkin’.
This place…

He knowed, he did!

This was one place the Voice’d been
leadin’ him too, weren’t it?. A place fer puttin’ folks’n the
ground. Slabs’a stone stuck out ’round the grass. He knowed what
this was, ’cos Grandpap’d tolt him.

This shore’s shit were a
cemetery.

—
| — | —

FIFTEEN

(I)

“
Are you feeling better,
Aunt Annie?”

“
Oh, yes, hon, much better
now that I’ve had a lie-down.” She looked rested and chipper as she
diced spring onions on the kitchen’s great butcher block. “Slept
the whole day away, though—gracious! I’ll be late getting supper
ready!”

“
Don’t worry about it,”
Charity said. “Father Alexander and Jerrica aren’t even back from
Richmond yet.”

“
I’ve just got this burnin’
desire to impress Father with some real mountain cookin’. Red Beet
Eggs, Spoonbread, and my famous Squirrel Pasties—how’s that for a
supper?”

Squirrel. Pasties.
Charity’s College Park instinct at first recoiled,
but then she remembered, from her childhood, how good squirrel
was.
Just so long as I don’t have to see
her skin and butcher the squirrel,
she
thought. “That sounds great, Aunt Annie. Is there anything I can do
to help?”

“
No, no, dear. You just
leave the viddles to me.” A “pastie” was one of many makeshift
aspects of southern mountain cuisine, something akin to a burrito:
meat and vegetables wrapped in soda dough, then baked. As Charity
recalled they were delicious, and so was Annie’s sweetened
spoonbread, which she also remembered. Red Beet Eggs were simply
hard-boiled hen’s eggs marinated for several days in beet
juice—also delicious. Just thinking of these treats sparked
Charity’s appetite.

“
So what did you do today?”
Annie asked.

“
I— I went to the
cemetery.”

The kitchen momentarily hushed. “Well,
I thought it only fitting and proper that you see your mama’s
restin’ place.”

“
Yes,” Charity replied,
clumsily. “I have so many questions all of a sudden.”

“
Now’s not the time, dear;
let me get supper on. These pasties take an hour and a half ta
bake. Low heat or else the dough cooks faster than the insides. But
I promise ya, tonight I’ll tell all about yer wonderful
ma…”

Sissy,
Charity thought.
Annie’s sister. My
mother.
What was she like? These questions
had scarcely ever occurred to her, but now?

Now they burned.

Proximity—that must be it. Charity,
after so long, was back home, so naturally the questions would
come. But—

“
Charity!” Annie exclaimed,
her knife poised mid-chop over the turnips and onions. “Your
hand!”

Charity’s muse roused; she’d been
scratching at the bandage on her hand. She didn’t dare mention to
her aunt the entails of what she’d done today—she’d need more time
to ask about the unmarked grave. And she just couldn’t see herself
saying: Well, Aunt Annie, when I went to the cemetery today, I
didn’t just visit my mother’s grave. I also looked at that second
grave you put flowers on yesterday. The grave you didn’t want me to
see. Oh, and I pulled that unmarked stone…out of the
ground.

This she had indeed done,
having noticed something like etching below the base of the
stone.
R.I.P
was
inscribed, in crude fashion, as if by an untrained hand with a
stone chisel. And:
Geraldine, forgive
me.

But when she’d been setting the stone
back in place, she’d scraped some skin off her hand, which had bled
rather profusely.

“
It’s nothing, Aunt Annie,”
she excused. “I just scraped my hand today…” Then she lied. “On the
back fence. I’ve got it bandaged up fine.”

“
You shore, hon? Maybe some
iodine’d help.”

“
No, really. It’s
fine.”

Charity’s thoughts, then,
strayed.
R.I.P,
she remembered. Why inscribed such a thing
under
the stone?
Country ways,
she considered.
Strange ways.
And who was
Geraldine?

“
Whuh-why, hi, Miss
Charity!”

Charity turned, to notice
Goop Gooder standing in the kitchen entry. The boy was attractive,
Charity had to admit: tall, well-muscled, something close to
a
GQ
face, and
obviously, via hard work, bathed in sweat. But still—
Not my type.
However, she
could easily understand how Jerrica had found him desirable, if not
however crudely. “Hello, Goop,” she answered. “How are you
today?”

“
I’se fine, Miss Charity,”
he told her with spark and enthusiasm. “I’se just outside hammerin’
up the vinyl trim thats Miss Annie sended me ta Roanoke fer
yesterday. Say, you know where Miss Jerrica is?”

“
Goop!” Annie interrupted.
“Are you done hangin’ that trim?”

Goop Gooder stalled. “Whuh-well, no,
not yets, Miss Annie.”

“
Then git back to it! An’
don’t’cha be botherin’ Charity’s fine friend. Ya just leave her be
an’ git about yer business.”

“
Yuh-yuh-yes, Miss
Annie.”

Goop, then, disappeared out the back
door, slumped in dejection.

“
Do you need to be so hard
on him?” Charity ventured.

Annie went back to her chopping.
“What’cha gotta understand, hon, is that I know full well Goop’s a
fine, fine boy. But he’s a tad slow in the head, fer one, an’ he
kin get ta be a pain in the you-know-what, when it comes ta lady
folk guests. I love him dearly, I do, but sometimes I just gotta
keep on him. I cain’t have yer dear friend Jerrica bein’ pestered
by Goop.”

“
It’s just a young man’s
crush,” Charity pointed out, but her next thoughts added,
Yes, Aunt Annie, it’s just a crush. To the extent
that Jerrica had sex with him in your garden the other
night!
“I’m sure he won’t bother her,” she
said in replacement.

“
I shore hope yer right,
Charity, ’cos I cain’t bear the thought’a yer friend goin’ back ta
the city thinkin’ we’se all a bunch’a hayseeds.”

“
Oh, Aunt Annie, you’re
impossible!”

Still, though, she
wondered. Goop obviously had no interest in Charity herself.
Why her and not me?
her
insecurities made her wonder.

(II)

Dinner was fabulous, the food
exquisite. But one thing Charity couldn’t help but notice was this:
Jerrica and Father Alexander scarcely spoke. Jerrica seemed
flattened, while the priest appeared distracted, muddled. Not like
them at all. Then, rather early, in fact, they both retired to
their rooms.