Lullaby

Chapter 28

The man opens his front door, and here are Helen and I on his front porch, me carrying Helen's cosmetic case, standing a half-step behind her as Helen points the long pink nail of her index finger and says, «Oh God.»

She has her daily planner tucked under one arm and says, «My husband,» and she steps back. «My husband would like to witness to you about the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ.»

Helen's suit is yellow, but not a buttercup yellow. It's more the yellow of a buttercup made of gold and pavé citrons by Carl Fabergé.

The man's holding a bottle of beer. He's wearing gray sweat socks with no shoes. His bathrobe hangs open in the front, and inside, he's wearing a white T-shirt and boxer shorts patterned with little race cars. With one hand, he sticks the beer in his mouth. His head tips back, and bubbles glub up inside the bottle. The little race cars have oval tires tilted forward. The man belches and says, «You guys for real?»

He has black hair hanging down a wrinkled Frankenstein forehead. He has sad baggy hound-dog eyes.

My hand out front to shake his, I say, Mr. Sierra? I say, we're here to share the joy of God's love.

And the race car guy frowns and says, «How is it you know my name?» He squints at me and says, «Did Bonnie send you to talk to me?»

And Helen leans around him, looking into the living room. She snaps open her purse and takes out a pair of white gloves and starts wiggling her fingers inside. She buttons a little button at the cuff of each glove and says, «May we come in?»

It was supposed to be easier than this.

Plan B, if we find a man at home, we bring out plan B.

The race car guy puts the beer bottle in his mouth, and his stubbly cheeks suck in around it. His head tilts back and the rest of the beer bubbles away. He steps to one side and says, «Well. Sit down.» He looks at his empty bottle and says, «Can I get you a beer?»

We step in, and he goes in the kitchen. There's the hiss of him popping a bottle cap.

In the whole living room, there's just a recliner chair. There's a little portable television sitting on a milk crate. Out through sliding glass doors, you can see a patio. Lined up along the far edge of the patio are green florist vases, brimful of rain, rotted black flowers bent and falling out of them. Rotted brown roses on black sticks fuzzy with gray mold. Tied around one arrangement is a wide black satin ribbon.

In the living room shag carpet, there's the ghost outlines left by a sofa. There's the outlines left by a china cabinet, the little dents left by the feet of chairs and tables. There's a big flat square where the carpet is all crushed the same. It looks so familiar.

The race car guy waves me at the recliner and says, «Sit down.» He drinks some beer and says, «Sit, and we'll talk about what God's really like.»

The big flat square in the carpet, it was left by a playpen.

I ask if my wife can use his bathroom.

And he tilts his head to one side, looking at Helen. With his free hand, he scratches the back of his neck, saying, «Sure. It's at the end of the hall,» and he waves with his beer bottle.

Helen looks at the beer sloshed out on the carpet and says, «Thank you.» She takes her daily planner from under her arm and hands it to me, saying, «In case you need it, here's a Bible.»

Her book full of political targets and real estate closings. Great.

It's still warm from her armpit.

She disappears down the hallway. The sound of a bathroom fan comes on. A door shuts somewhere.

«Sit,» the race car guy says.

And I sit.

He stands over me so close I'm afraid to open the daily planner, afraid he'll see it's not a real Bible. He smells like beer and sweat. The little race cars are eye level with me. The oval tires are tilted so they look like they're going fast. The guy takes another drink and says, «Tell me all about God.»

The recliner chair smells like him. It's gold velvet, darker brown on the arms from dirt. It's warm. And I say God's a noble, hard-line moralist who refuses to accept anything but steadfast righteous conduct. He's a bastion of upright standards, a lamp that shines its light to reveal the evil of this world. God will always be in our hearts and souls because His own soul is so strong and so un——

«Bullshit,» says the guy. He turns away and goes to look out the patio doors. His face is reflected in the glass, just his eyes, with his dark stubbly jaw lost in shadow.

In my best radio preacher voice, I say how God is the moral yardstick against which millions of people must measure their own lives. He's the flaming sword, sent down to route the misdeeds and evildoers from the temple of——

«Bullshit!» the guy shouts at his reflection in the glass door. Beer spray runs down his reflected face.

Helen is standing in the doorway to the hall, one hand at her mouth, chewing her knuckle. She looks at me and shrugs. She disappears back down the hallway.

From the gold velvet recliner, I say how God is an angel of unparalleled power and impact, a conscience for the world around Him, a world of sin and cruel intent, a world of hidd——

In almost a whisper, the guy says, «Bullshit.» The fog of his breath has erased his reflection. He turns to look at me, pointing at me with his beer hand, saying, «Read to me where it says in your Bible something that will fix things.»

Helen's daily organizer bound in red leather, I open it a crack and peek inside.

«Tell me how to prove to the police I didn't kill anybody,» the guy says.

In the organizer is the name Renny O'Toole and the date June 2. Whoever he is, he's dead. On September 10, Samara Umpirsi is entered. On August 17, Helen closed a deal for a house on Gardner Hill Road. That, and she killed the tyrant king of the Tongle Republic.

«Read!» the race car guy shouts. The beer in his hand foams over his fingers and drips on the carpet. He says, «Read to me where it says I can lose everything in one night and people are going to say it's my fault.»

I peek in the book, and it's more names of dead people.

«Read,» the guy says, and drinks his beer. «You read where it says a wife can accuse her husband of killing their kid and everybody is supposed to believe her.»

Early in the book, the writing is faded and hard to read. The pages are stiff and flyspecked. Before that, someone's started tearing out the oldest pages.

«I asked God,» the guy says. He shakes his beer at me and says, «I asked Him to give me a family. I went to church.»

I say how maybe God didn't start out by attacking and berating everybody who prayed. I say, maybe it was after years and years of getting the same prayers about unwanted pregnancies, about divorces, about family squabbles. Maybe it was because God's audience grew and more people were making demands. Maybe it was the more praise He got. Maybe power corrupts, but He wasn't always a bastard.

And the race car guy says, «Listen.» He says, «I go to court in two days to decide if I'm accused of murder.» He says, «You tell me how God is going to save me.»

His breath nothing but beer, he says, «You tell me.»

Mona would have me tell the truth. To save this guy. To save myself and Helen. To reunite us with humanity. Maybe this guy and his wife would reunite, but then the poem would be out. Millions would die. The rest would live in that world of silence, hearing only what they think is safe. Plugging their ears and burning books, movies, music.

Somewhere a toilet flushes. A bathroom fan shuts off. A door opens.

The guy puts the beer in his mouth and bubbles glug up inside the bottle.

Helen appears in the doorway to the hall.

My foot aches, and I ask, has he considered taking up a hobby?

Maybe something he could do in prison.

Constructive destruction. I'm sure Helen would approve of the sacrifice. Condemning one innocent man so millions don't die.

Here's every lab animal who dies to save a dozen cancer patients.

And the race car guy says, «I think you'd better leave.»

Walking out to the car, I hand Helen the daily planner and tell her, here's your Bible. My pager goes off, and it's some number I don't know.

Her white gloves are black with dust, and she says she tore up the culling song page and dropped it out the nursery window. It's raining. The paper will rot.

I say, that's not good enough. Some kid could find it. Just the fact that it's tore up will make someone want to put it back together. Some detective investigating the death of a child, maybe.

And Helen says, «That bathroom was a nightmare.»

We drive around the block and park. Mona's scribbling in the backseat. Oyster's on his phone. Then Helen waits while I crouch down and walk back to the house. I duck around the back, the wet lawn sucking at my shoes, until I'm under the window Helen says is the nursery. The window's still open, the curtains hanging out a little at the bottom. Pink curtains.

The torn bits of page are scattered in the mud, and I start to pick them all up.

Behind the curtains, in the empty room, you can hear the door open. The outline of somebody comes in from the hallway, and I crouch in the mud under the window. A man's hand comes down on the windowsill so I pull back flat against the house. From somewhere above me where I can't see, a man starts crying.

It starts to rain harder.

The man stands in the window, leaning both hands on the open sill. He sobs louder. You can smell the beer inside him.

Me, I can't run. I can't stand up. With my hands clamped over my nose and mouth, I crouch inches away, squeezed tight against the foundation, hidden. And hitting me as fast as a chill, me breathing between my fingers, I start to cry, too. Sobs as hard as vomiting. My belly cramps. My teeth biting into my palm, the snot sprays into my hands.

The man sniffs, hard and bubbling. It's raining harder, and water seeps into my shoes through the laces.

The torn bits of the poem in my hand, I hold the power of life and death. I just can't do anything. Not yet.

And maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do.

My shoes full of cold water, my foot stops hurting. My hand slick with snot and tears, I reach down and turn off my pager.

When we find the grimoire, if there is some way to raise the dead, maybe we won't burn it. Not right away.