Forever never ends

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Armfield Blevins gripped the pulpit and looked out over his imaginary flock. The Lord had brought Armfield this station, and now it was his own.

"The time is at hand," he said in his brimstone voice.

"The wicked are among us, poisoning our spirits with their drink, tempting us with the burning vessels of their flesh, reaching into our hearts with hands that turn to claws. They come disguised as angels, as loved ones, as friends. They come dressed in smiles and shapely clothes and flashing jewelry. They come with golden skin and fine hair and beckoning eyes. Because Satan is clever. Satan is mighty. Satan is determined."

He slammed a fist on the pulpit and the sound reverberated off the stained glass and dark wood of the church. With Easter approaching soon, the house would be packed. A wide-eyed hush of faithful, the men in stiff ties, the women in lavender and yellow chiffon, their perfumes floating like incense in the church's sacred air. Children sniffling and dreaming of chocolate eggs, pinned to their seats by the steely stares of their mothers. All wanting Armfield to lift their spirits and beat off the dusty sin, to then return them to the world pure and new and whole.

He would use this coming Sunday to whip them into a holy froth, to drive their sins to the surface so that they might see their own mortal wickedness. He would force them to look inward at their own black hearts so that all could see for themselves how much they needed Armfield. He would burden them with guilt and darken their brows with trouble. He would make them ache for their preacher, the only one who could shape their flawed souls and make them perfect once again.

But only practice made perfect. He dropped his voice from thunder to a whisper, making sure the words carried to every corner of the empty church.

"And Satan walks among us now. He sees the things the Lord has put on this world and claims them as his rightful keep. Satan builds his throne upon our backs, sets up his kingdom in our tall buildings and our space ships and our science laboratories. He walks in the fields of life as if he is the reaper, as if the fruit of this earth has grown ripe for his dark harvest."

Now Armfield scanned the room, silently accusing every imaginary face. He let his voice crack slightly as he continued.

"And we invite him in. We open the gates of our hearts and say, ‘Come in, Satan, come into our homes and hearts and gardens, for you blind us with your glory. You offer us pleasure and wealth and earthly goods, and for that we embrace you. For you are more human than that other one, that faraway God who has no face and who asks us to make sacrifices of time and love, who promises treasure that we cannot see or hold or spend or fornicate with.’"

Now he could let his eyes mist a little, so that those in the front rows could see.

"That faraway God, who seems small and useless in the shadow of almighty Satan. That faraway God who seems not to hear when we ask for pay raises and better golf scores and a multitude of attractive lovers. That faraway God who asks us to give our precious money to His church, who asks us to walk upright and do unto others and ignore the lusts in our heart. That faraway God who seems to take more than He gives."

Now Armfield nodded gravely and lowered his eyes, as if all hope were lost, as if the Lord were extinguishing the sun, as if the storm clouds of the Apocalypse were gathering outside.

"Satan offers much. Yes, his gifts come in pretty packages. He brings joy to our flesh. He speaks our language."

Now the long, heavy silence, so that his words could settle into the flock and the woodwork and the red carpet.

"And God offers only one gift."

Armfield turned and looked toward the crucifix at the heart of the church, that solemn icon that was bought with embezzled church funds. Someone would cough now, someone whose throat was thick with harbored tears. Another would shuffle his shoes in discomfort. An infant would bleat in borrowed shame.

And Armfield would again face the crowd. His head would lift toward the arches of the church, as if seeing through the pine planks and shingles to a brighter ceiling. Now the tears could come, just two tiny trickles at first. He would repeat the hook: "God offers only one gift."

Armfield was fully in the moment now, as if the crowd was actually before him, arching, and leaning forward to hear every divine word. Armfield lifted his arms slowly, as if Satan had weighted his flesh.

"The gift of salvation."

Now the tears could flow, now the tears could glisten on his cheeks, now he had the whole world in his hands.

He spoke, voice rich with emotional tremolo, his shoulders shaking with agonized bliss.

"Because He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross. So that the blood of the Son might wash away the grime of our sins. That one would die so that all might live eternal. That one light might shine so that all darkness is banished. That one heart could hold all our pains and troubles and sins, so that we might be spared."

He rose to a crescendo, and using tears and rhythm and tone and all the weapons of his craft, Armfield could lift them into the light.

"That one named Jesus-ah, who took the nails in His flesh-ah, who endured His crown of thorns-ah, who looked down from His high windy cross-ah, and forgave us for what we had done. Because He knew we were weak-ah and human-ah and full of Satan-ah. Jesus gave His earthly life so that we would not have to die, so that we could dwell forever in the House of the Lord-ah.

"And all God asks is that we let Him in-ah. That we open our hearts so that His love can heal-ah. That we desire the everlasting life He has promised-ah. That we join Him in the Kingdom-ah."

An abrupt halt, so the silence could ring. Then a final husky whisper, squeezing out the last passionate drops of his testimony.

"He asks so little, and His gift is so great."

Now he could droop his head and nod solemnly at the ushers. Now the plates could pass as the organist played "O Sacred Head Now Wounded."

Armfield looked out over the empty gleaming pews and sighed. The Lord had blessed him. The Lord smiled on his work. The Lord had ordained him general of a shining army. While rehearsing, Armfield always felt as if the Lord had invaded him anew. Had bathed him and made him clean. Had briefly taken Armfield's flesh and bones and skin as His own.

He closed his Bible. He could work on a resurrection bit next week. Right now, he was full of glory but empty of food and drink. He would have an afternoon snack and then go into town to see how the church's quilt display booth was coming along. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Satan-infected people would be in town for Blossomfest, all with full pockets and empty hearts.

He allowed his summoned tears to dry.

"As I see it," Chester said, wiping a dribble of moonshine and tobacco juice off his chin as he leaned against the porch rail, "we got some kind of freak-o’-nature thing going on. Like those two-headed calves a body hears about, or when you cut open a tomato and the seeds inside are already sprouting. Carnival sideshow stuff."

DeWalt’s head had stopped bleeding but it throbbed dully with pain. He almost asked Chester for a swig of corn liquor, but then Chester's brown-stained backwash slogged into the jar as the old mountaineer pulled it from his lips again. DeWalt drew his pipe from his pocket and inhaled its gummy comfort instead.

“But why?” DeWalt said around the stem.

" Why is a fuck-all, pardner," Chester said. "Why Windshake? Why the hell not? What is a more likely question. And how? The facts is that my longtime pal and the best damned shine cook to ever set foot in the Blue Ridge Mountains turned into a rotted stack of mush. And my good coon hound ended up more dandelion weed than dog. My hog was pretty much a hunk of soybean squeezings by the time I got to it. Now, I got my eye on those pea-brained chickens."

"Shouldn't we notify the authorities, Chester? I mean, this might be widespread by now. There might be others. If this is some kind of infectious disease-”

"Now, what kind of a disease turns a man into a mushbrained mess like that? Ain't heard no old mountain tales such as that. And I'll bet bear for cornmeal that it ain't wrote down in none of your books, neither."

DeWalt gripped the arms of the rocker. Chester had teased him about his folklore studies for the entire three years they'd known each other. Chester was the voice of experience, the man who had hunted in the Appalachian snow and foraged under the silent trees. Chester carried the mountains in the cracks of his boots and skin, in the linings of his lungs, in his sluggish blue blood. But now the rules of the Living Game had abruptly changed and the rug of natural law had been pulled from underfoot.

And DeWalt was fed up with Chester's digs.

"Look here, you hairy-eared bastard. Just because you're full up to your bloodshot eyeballs with mountain wisdom doesn't make you an expert on whatever's happening now, in a world where trees fall for no reason and animals get turned inside out. So let's just admit we don't know a goddamned thing, and maybe work together to get to the-uh, well, to the goddamned root of the problem."

Chester drew back as if he had been slapped. His eyes narrowed and he looked at DeWalt as if seeing him for the first time. Then he nodded in admiration and broke into a hacking spasm of laughter.

"I was wondering if you had any sand in your gizzard, DeWalt. I guess maybe you're real settler stock after all. Wouldn't have sold you that land if I thought you was a hopeless Yankee sonuvabitch."

DeWalt looked across the farm at the surrounding woods. "Well, you can ridicule me later. Right now, I think it's best we contact the authorities. We don't know what we're up against."

DeWalt's instinct was to turn to the comfort of civilized thought, research, and investigation. To let others worry about the problem. To sit and scratch his balls while the cavalry rode over the hill.

"You expect anybody else will know what the fuck’s going on?" Chester said. "Like you said, things have changed. Something ain't right in these woods. Ever since them damned green lights-”

" Hey.” DeWalt punctuated his shout by slapping his palms on the worn rocker. “I'll bet all this has something to do with that green radiance that permeated the water."

"Oh, that glowing shit, like?" Chester rubbed his rough chin. "Come to recollect, the trees got funny right after the lights started up. Thought I was having one of those heebie-jeebie fits, the kind you get when they run you through detox and you start seeing things. So I sort of paid it no never-mind, the way a body does when they see something that don't fit the big picture."

"Except nothing fits the picture anymore. Where did you see it, exactly?" DeWalt stood with bone-bruised effort and walked to the edge of the porch. His eyes followed Chester's quivering index finger.

"Over that rise. Right at the ass end of my lot and right above-Sweet Mary, Jesus, and Joseph the goddamned Carpenter. Right above Don Oscar's acreage. Probably not far from his cookhouse, come to think of it."

"It might be some kind of chemical spill, or, who knows, maybe a secret nuclear waste dump. It wouldn't be the first time the government's put its citizens in danger without their knowledge."

"Now you just hold it right there with that Commie- liberal talk. The good old U.S. of A. wouldn't ever do such as that. Not unless they were exterminating suicide-bombing trash. Or them that don't pay their taxes."

"I'm just trying to consider all the alternatives."

"Well, I would have heard trucks and such. Old logging roads run all back through there, but the way sound carries before the trees flesh out, you can about hear a squirrel fart. So I ain't buying that idea. Think it’s about time to go have myself a look-see.”

"You saw that deer or whatever it was that I hit. No telling what might be out there. You can't just go off half-cocked."

Chester's shotgun had been leaning against the rail beside him, but now he picked it up and nestled the butt against his hip, the barrel pointed to the sky. He thumbed back both triggers.

"Ain't no half about it. And there's another thing. Cops messing around out there might come across Don Oscar's still. And I think it would be disrespecting the man’s memory to have him go down on the books as a lawbreaker."

Chester worked the jar again, his knobby throat pumping the corn liquor to his stomach. He wiped his mouth on his gray long john sleeve and added, "We got a mountain tradition. Called ‘taking care of our own.’”

Then he swung his bones off the porch. He walked twenty feet before turning. "You comin'? Or are you a yellow-bellied, chicken-livered California Yankee?"

DeWalt debated action.

Permission to risk life and limb, Mr. Chairman?

Oh Brother, you have nothing to lose but your pathetic, directionless life.

And yours as well, Mr. Chairman.

Remember what I was saying about the unknown? Better to curse a thousand candles than to light the darkness.

Better to sit here and scratch my nuts and call it somebody else's problem, right?

That's the spirit of the Lodge, Oh Brother. The Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts doesn't want solutions. We want sympathy, compassion, useless lip service. Passive resistance. Working to promote change within the system. A kinder, gentler self-destruction.

Well, with all due respect, I'd like to resign my membership.

Sorry. It's a lifetime commitment.

Go to hell, Mr. Chairman.

I’m already there, Brother. And so are you.

DeWalt braced himself for the agony of rising, stiffening from the car crash. "Hold on, Chester. I'm coming, if I can get my legs to work."

He rattled down the stairs, feeling as old as Methuselah. He was huffing by the time he caught up. "What do we do when we get there?"

Chester smiled, the late afternoon light making shadows in the valleys of his face. "Daddy always told me to make hay while the sun shines, pardner," he said, leading the way across the fields. "Didn't say nothing about what to do in the dark."

"Look at this fucking rot, man.” Junior stomped the planks of Don Oscar's porch and moldy dust rose in the air around them. The porch was covered with a blue powdery fungus that was about an inch deep. The mold reminded Junior of the blue mold that tainted the tobacco that his grandfather used to grow, back before the old coot had gotten so lazy.

"Where's Don Oscar?" Wade asked, a little uneasy at messing around a bootlegger's house with no one home.

"Probably up the trail doing business. See those cars in the driveway? That Mazda ain't Don Oscar's, it must be some customer."

"No, that's the preacher's wife's car."

"The preacher's wife? How in the hell do you know what she drives?"

Wade looked down. "’Cause I go to the Baptist Church."

Junior let out a chortle. "You're fucking with me."

"Naw, man."

Junior looked at Wade with his head tilted. Maybe the guy was serious. He was from up north, after all. "Hey, how do you reckon getting wasted works in with religion?"

"What's that got to do with believing in Jesus?"

Junior thought it over for a second, until his head started hurting. "Uh, nothing, I guess."

Wade crinkled his nose against the ripe, rank odor. "Shoo. That damned wife of Don Oscar's needs to do some cleaning."

"What is this shit?" Junior said, drawing a trail on the moldy porch with the tip of his boot.

"Who knows? Let's get our moonshine and get the hell out of Dodge."

Junior led the way up the dark muddy stitch of ground that followed the creek. There was more mold along its banks, veins of faded avocado green and powder blue and dried mustard. Puffballs dotted the dead leaves under the trees like leather eggs. The glen smelled like a forgotten laundry basement.

Wade stopped and looked along the creek. "Hey, Junior, is it my imagination, or is all this grass dying?"

"Who the fuck are you, Ranger Rick or something? Let's get up to the springhouse."

But Wade was right. All the plants seemed to be wilted, as if tapped out by a late frost. The trees sagged toward the ground, already tired from holding up new leaves. Some had fallen, their trunks snapped in half, branches stunted. But Windshake hadn’t had an ice storm in weeks. The plants were supposed to be thriving this time of year.

Junior and Wade stepped from under the oak and hickory and balsam limbs into the springhouse clearing. The mold in the clearing seemed to have dried out from exposure to the sun. Junior lifted the heavy padlock on the springhouse door to make sure it was locked.

"Hey, Don Oscar?" he yelled, his eyes searching the edge of the clearing. "You out here?"

"Maybe he's on vacation, man."

Junior giggled at the image of Don Oscar in Bermuda shorts, sitting on the deck of an ocean liner with his shirt off, his Indian-red neck and arms meeting the pale gooseflesh of his bare chest in the perfect outline of a T-shirt. "Naw, man. Bootleggers don't go on vacation. You saw the cars in the driveway."

"Do you want to wait a while, or what?" Wade looked around uncertainly.

"Why not? Good a place as any to smoke a little number." They sat on a fallen log and replenished their buzz, blowing smoke pillars into the clear sky. Junior saw that the stovepipes were bare mouthed, meaning Don Oscar had let his cooking fire die out. That wasn't like the old bootlegger at all. He liked to brag that he kept the still cooking around the clock.

And thin powdery roots had crawled up the walls of the springhouse, veining out across the warped planks. Don Oscar usually took a lot of pride in his operation.

"Hey, look at that," Wade said, pointing into the shadowed pocket of a soggy stump.

"Just some mushrooms. Sons of bitches grow all over the mountains this time of year.”

"But those are the psychedelic kind. Used to pick them out of the cow pastures down in Florida, when we went for vacation. Hippies down there showed me which ones were the right kind. Pop a few, and a half-hour later, you're as fucked as a Homecoming cheerleader."

"I got news for you, Ranger Rick. In case you ain't noticed, this ain't fucking Florida."

"I heard they grew in the North Carolina mountains, too."

"Since when did you turn into a goddamned nature boy? As I remember it, you're making an ‘F’ in Science, same as me.”

"If it's got something to do with getting fucked up, then I'm an expert. Like peyote and acid and stuff. You ever tripped, man?"

Junior's stoned smile was plastered across his face. His cheeks tingled. He shook his head from side to side. That Panama Red was some ass-kicking shit. No wonder those spics just wanted to lay in the shade all day.

And what the hell was Wade doing, going over and picking some fucking mushrooms when they had a pocketful of pot, and maybe some moonshine in the near future as well?

Wade sat back down and broke the moist splintery stem of one of the mushrooms. "See, if the stem turns blue where it's broken, that means it's a magic mushroom, or ‘shroom,’ as the hippies call it."

"You're full of shit, Wade."

"Hell, no, I'm not. We had hippies up north, too. Some of my best connections were hippies. Once you get past that peace and love horseshit, they're just like regular folks. And they know a hell of a lot about getting wasted."

"Give me a joint and a jar, and I'm set. I don't know about that other stuff. Plus, what if it's one of the poison kind, death angels or whatnot?"

"Look here. The stem's turning. It's safe as mother's milk."

Junior looked dubiously at the stem, at the blue-green ring that was starting to emerge where Wade had broken the flesh of the fungus. Junior was starting to get thirsty. Where the hell is Don Oscar?

"You ain't seriously going to eat that shit, are you?" Junior asked. But from the look in Wade's eyes, he didn't have to bother asking. Wade popped a couple of small caps in his mouth as if they were M amp;M's. Wade chewed and grimaced, then swallowed with effort.

He smiled at Junior, and it was a preacher smile, the kind people wore during weddings and holidays, or funerals where they didn't know the dead person too well. Wade held out his palm, and a couple of tan moist mushrooms lay across his lifelines.

"Magical Mystery Tour," Wade said, grimacing as if he had eaten a handful of earthworms.

"I don't know. I want to see if you drop over dead first."

"See you in the clouds, Chickenshit." Wade leaned back against the crisp, leaf-covered bank, oblivious to the moldering roots that threaded across the soil. "I'll say hello to God for you."

Junior was curious now. He hated missing out on a chance to escape from this fuck-up of a reality. What was the worst thing that could happen?

It was almost as if Wade read his mind, because Wade said, "What's the worst thing that can happen?"

"I'll die."

"Well, there's grass in heaven and there's booze in hell, so what have you got to lose?"

"Not a damn thing, I reckon."

He picked up the mushrooms that Wade had left on the log. They were light and innocent-looking. They couldn't be any worse for you than pot. His dad said that nature was there for a reason, and nature always did you right.

Junior put them in his mouth and bit down, then his taste buds were flooded with bitterness.

Wow man Wade is talking but his words are mushy and far away and they're not matching up with the way his lips are moving and the wind is painting my skin and I can feel every hair on my body and that tree has so many tiny flecks of bark, every one is alive, and the leaves are waving hello and the tree is slithering like a snake and the sky is an ocean if you look at it upside down and I can swim in it and Wade is smiling and I thought he said it took a half hour to kick in only how long has it been, hours or seconds, there's no difference because it all feels like NOW and I'm falling into the orange pool of the sun except these vines are holding me down and what the fuck these vines are holding me down and Wade's eyes are glowing, he didn't tell me it would be so fucking weird, no wonder those hippies are so goofy, this can't be real but what is real, and I want to lift my arms only the vines are holding me down but my arms are the vines and the vines are fingers reaching into the ground and I am the dirt and the trees and far-fucking-out I've come from the stars to swallow this land and I must eat the trees that I am and I am shu-shaaa and I must feed myself so I can go home and Wade's eyes are glowing green and he's part of me now and we are all children of the parent and boy am I fucked up and I bite the trees and I squeeze the life in my jaws and I come from space to eat the trees and I'm hungry and that is the wind in my throat and not my heart because my heart is not beating and this is really fucked up because I come from space to eat the life and eat myself who is the earth so I can go home and

I am shu-shaaa Mull but what the fuck is shu-shaaa that is me that is the tree that is the sky that fills the fucking sky and

I can’t feel the end where my skin used to be and I can never turn back until all is shu-shaaa and I come from space to eat the trees and I must go with the flow toward nothing and everything and always all at once and boy am I fucked up