A Good Friday
She
knew it was time to leave for good, but she went to church one last
time. To keep up appearances, as she'd always done.
She
hurried down the aisle and took her seat, alone, first pew, its wood
worked to a shine by use. In somber attire, the crowd was already
seated, waiting in silence. She felt their eyes on her, her clothes,
her hair, her glasses mended with scotch tape. She stood and sat and
bowed in unison with them as had been her practice, fingering the
crimson welts on her arm, unworried now that they would see.
An
empty cross floated, suspended on wires, spectral, above the altar.
No bloody Jesus, no nails. It must be nice to be unseen, she thought.
There but not, here but not. Was nothing something that mattered, she
wondered as the pastor ascended up into the unadorned pulpit. He wore
the black robe and white tippet she’d ironed that morning like
armor.
The
words of the gospel flowed from his mouth, his tone solemn, his eyes
fierce.
“And
it was about the sixth hour,” he said reading from the Gospel of
Luke, “and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth
hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent
in the midst.”
She
sat erect as a pencil, her gaze never leaving him. Both hands
brushing the soft, cool cotton of her new dress, she thought of what
was to come and bit back a smile.
He
continued, “and when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he
gave up the ghost.” As he spoke she felt a shiver run down her
spine.
Behind
her, she knew they were stealing sideways glances at each other to
see who kept their eyes open during prayer, who flubbed the words of
the Apostles’ Creed, who was wearing red.
He
stepped down from the pulpit and spread his arms in benediction.
“Upon you was laid the grief of us all. It is finished. God of
endings, God of darkness, God of the tomb, God of dark days and great
loss, be with us now as we wait with Jesus.” She felt the sadness
would last forever, its black stamp as indelible as stigmata.
She
waited in line with others to touch his sleeve and say what a
wonderful sermon it had been to which he offered no reply. He’d
already moved on to clasp the hands of the parishioner behind her and
then the next, assuring them all that the words he’d shared were
not his, but those of The Lord and all power be to him.
Outside,
she reveled in a deep breath of fresh air. She walked down the
rickety wooden stairs in front of the white clapboard church, her
eyes downcast. No obligatory hellos today, although she’d known
each and every congregant most of her life. At least since her
sixteenth birthday, when he’d driven her to Middle City from the
orphanage in El Paso, a place “corrupted by man, then forsaken by
God” he’d said.
Before
church, she’d told him she had an errand to run afterwards. Yes,
she knew it was the holiest of days, but she needed to refill her
pills. "You know how I get if I don't take them," she'd
said, “but I’ll be home to put lunch on the table on time at
one.” It was to be his favorite, of course, pot roast, potatoes,
and peas and carrots followed by apple pie, “no ice cream this
time,” she’d said. He'd frowned at that, so she'd been quick to
add "remember what the doctor said about your high cholesterol
dear." Aware his flock would keep the fast that day, he hushed
her and pushed her aside, the rough fabric of the sleeve of his robe
scraping her cheek.
She’d
parked her car behind the church, where a pumpjack sputtered and
creaked, draining whatever oil remained entombed below. She saw a
storm moving in the east, blackening stratus clouds strafing the sky,
but she would go west. It took three tries to goad the engine to life
and once it did turn over, she swore not to turn it off until she got
to Las Vegas.
***
The
first day she got as far as Fort Bliss on I-10. The landscape of
cotton fields and tumbleweeds was monotonous which further sapped her
will. She pulled into a rest stop, but kept the engine running. Night
was coming fast and she watched as long haul truckers readied rigs
for sleep and families walked dogs, and even one cat, before getting
back into minivans to go places she’d never been, never go.
She
opened the glove box and pulled out an amber colored pill bottle, the
prescription she’d refilled days before. The label said “limit 2
per day.” She twirled the bottle as she had a mason jar of M&Ms
at the county fair in El Paso and tried to count how many were
inside, but she knew. She picked at the flaking scabs on her neck.
She put the bottle back in the glove box and smiled at the sight of
daylight creeping along the horizon.
On
the second day, she had to get gas in El Paso, at a truck stop that
offered “clean showers 24/7.” She prayed the car would restart,
and when it did she swallowed one of the pills to celebrate getting
closer to her destination. She’d forgone prayers by the time she
reached Phoenix, opting instead for two pills when the car restarted
in the city whose temperature, she’d wager, would fry its namesake,
not free it.
On
the third day, the lights of Vegas erupted out of the bowels of the
desert. The metropolis outlined in neon pierced the onyx, starless
sky. She imagined a dome over Vegas, a toy town inside a snow globe,
but with sand, like the one her father had given her for Christmas
before he disappeared. “Sin City” he’d called it, and she’d
wondered if it was full of devils.
She
liked the name, The Shalimar Motel, so she got a room just for her.
Paid cash. The manager didn’t ask her name, where she was from,
nothing, so she didn’t have to lie. Her room was on the second
floor. Double bed, rusty microwave, lamp with a burned out bulb, and
a TV with rabbit ears antennae. Smelled musty.
Sitting
on the lumpy bed, she tipped the pills out of the bottle and ran her
fingers over their velvety surface. She closed her eyes and pretended
she was floating in the pool across the parking lot, its water azure
like the pills. He’d said women in bikinis were floozies. She
needed to buy a swimming suit and maybe a cap with rubber flowers
like the old movie stars wore. She put the pills back in the bottle
and the bottle in the nightstand drawer.
The
night felt like a warm shawl wrapping around her body as she walked
The Strip. Woman in bustiers and men wearing only body paint strolled
with ease among tourists who were snapping shots of volcanic
fountains and the Eiffel Tower. No one said anything to or at her but
for the woman who sold her her first pair of blue jeans who said,
“those look great on you” and she felt a balloon open in her
chest. She left her dress in the changing room and wore the jeans out
of the store along with a blue T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a
flying red horse that he would have said should have been worn by a
gas station attendant.
She
paused at a storefront selling frozen daiquiris. She liked pink so
she got strawberry. It made her brain freeze and her heart dance
although she never had. She watched the crowd leaning on the bar,
laughing, sipping from foot long straws. She peered through portholes
that looked like smiley faces as the gleaming metal machines turned
water into rainbow ice.
She
was drawn to a silver needle piercing the night sky in the distance,
its apex ablaze with lights the color of Dorothy’s ruby slippers.
The sign outside said “Stratosphere.” The elevator delivered her
to the top in less time than she used to take to say her bedtime
prayers. “Now I lay me down to sleep...”
She
chose the front car on X-Scream, a roller coaster that had been
suspended over the side of the tower by men she imagined must have
had faith. As the coaster rocketed around and around, the world below
became a blurry kaleidoscope of light and she thought about the
rickety wooden coaster at the Middle City fair that had burned to the
ground the Sunday he’d preached that not keeping the sabbath holy
was a mortal sin.
Her
head still spinning from the ride, she walked back towards The
Shalimar Motel. Next to a building shaped like a circus tent, light
flooded through an open door. She stopped and gazed up at a mural of
a guardian angel painted on the facade of the pyramid shaped
structure. She ascended the steps and peeked inside. A huge crucifix
hung over the altar, another mural of a guardian angel looked down
upon Jesus nailed to the cross. She shivered, but before she could
step back outside, a steady voice spoke from behind.
“Good
evening Miss. Welcome to Guardian Angel Chapel. May I help you?”
She
turned and saw a priest standing in the doorway of the sanctuary. She
said nothing. The priest, a hand light on her shoulder, guided her
inside leading her to the front pew.
“You
may pray here if you wish,” he said before kneeling on the ground
beside where she stood.
She
looked down at him, his black cassock in soft folds. She knelt beside
him and looked up at Jesus. After a while, the priest rose and
offered his hand so that she might rise too.
“Happy
Easter,” he said before walking down the aisle and out into the
night.
***
She
rose and washed her face and feet. She noticed the scars on her arms
were gone. She went to the nightstand and took out the pill bottle.
It was cool to the touch. She unscrewed the lid and shook all of the
pills out into her shaking hand letting the bottle and lid drop to
the floor. The room was bathed in first light coming through the open
blinds, rays brighter than she had ever known. She flushed the pills,
one by one, down the toilet.
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