Gun Church

Thirteen

This time, we had only a cold wind to keep us company. When we got out of his pickup, I was distracted by the woeful groaning of the desolate hangars and by the creaks and shrill whines of the huts. Their complaints were like the laments of humpback whales. Jim seemed not to take notice. His flashlight cut careless holes in the blackness as we dragged the generator out of its storage spot. When it sputtered to life, the generator killed the mournful romance of the night.

Before we entered the hangar, Jim took me by the bicep. “Listen, this isn’t like up in the woods. This is serious. Pay real careful attention to what I’m doing and the way I do it. You’ll have to do it exactly like this or you can’t come back.”

“I understand,” I said.

That wasn’t enough for Jim. “I’m not kidding, Kip. The last time was a one-time-only thing. There aren’t second chances. Inside here, the rules always apply.”

“I get it, Jim. I do.”

He nodded with confidence, but he looked worried. This meant more to him than I realized. He couldn’t have known how important it was to me because I didn’t discuss, except in the most vague terms, what it was I was writing about. I couldn’t, not yet, maybe not ever. Haskell Brown wasn’t the only potential obstacle blocking my way. If I couldn’t get back inside the chapel, Terry McGuinn and I were fucked. Both of us would be remanded to the purgatory we’d only escaped from a month ago. Even I knew there were no words I could say that would reassure Jim. I had to perform.

We walked down the same lighted path the St. Pauli Girl and I had come down the night of my first visit. And I was once again struck by the incongruity of the white blockhouse in the midst of the huge hangar, and of the elaborate wooden door set against the concrete.

“What’s with that door?” I asked.

“We scavenged it and the pews from the base chapel.”

I had my answer. That’s how this place got its name.

“Everything in here,” Jim continued, “except the generator was scavenged from the base. Even the mattresses and white paint. There’s all sorts of basements and tunnels and things underground here that people on the base either didn’t know about or forgot about. You’ll see, but first things first. Wait here a minute.”

Once he stepped out of the light, it didn’t take long for him to be completely swallowed up by the darkness. I followed the sound of his footsteps scraping grit between the floor and the soles of his boots. I heard him clambering up a metal staircase and in less than a minute, come quickly back down.

“Here,” he said, coming into the light, holding out a white T-shirt so large it was like a shroud. “Put this on.”

“Why so big?”

“It’s going to be covering a lot of stuff,” he said.

I did as he asked. Only after I got it on did I notice Jim had removed his jacket and was wearing the T-shirt he had worn the last time. It was covered in way more red crosses than I had realized. And there was something else. Tucked in his left arm, against his ribs, Jim held a helmet that looked like it was designed by a hockey-playing gladiator. What I assumed was the face mask was a curved piece of padded steel with only a tiny slit for an eyehole.

He said, “You’ll wear this once or a few times at most, but either way it takes some getting used to.”

“Once, if I fuck up?”

“Or if you get killed.” He smiled sadly and handed me the helmet.

Heavy as it was, I understood why it might take some getting used to. I didn’t put it on. “Ashes first, right.”

And for the first time that night, Jim smiled at me with a bit of confidence. “The ashes represent the origins of the chapel and the practice we put in. Also reminds us of where we’re headed if we make a mistake.”

And there it was again, the repulsion/compulsion thing. Jim had alluded to death twice in twenty seconds and I should have run. Instead I stood there and let him dab ashes on my forehead. As we rehearsed the rest of the rituals, I asked what each one meant.

“You have to earn the right to understand them,” he said. “And there’s only one way to earn the right.”