The Home

TWENTY-EIGHT

Bondurant stepped back from the window. Dawn was still an hour away, and he knew he'd be unable to sleep until the sun rose. No matter how much he drank.

Since fleeing the basement, he'd wandered the halls of Wendover, flashlight in hand, trying to forget what he'd seen. Or what he thought he'd seen. The memories were blurred now, softened by Kentucky bourbon and that trick of the night that allowed you to delude yourself.

Now he was checking out the dark rooms on the second floor where classes and group sessions were held. All the rooms were empty.

No, not empty. The stink of something strange clung to the shadows, and a couple of times he'd seen movement from the corners of his eyes. But when he turned his head, the fluttering shapes evaporated.

Bondurant sat in one of a circle of chairs and flipped off the flashlight to save batteries. He closed his eyes and felt for the chair beside him. Kids sat here and tried to solve their problems, trapped in this evil church of psychology, with an overly educated counselor serving as minister. If Bondurant had his way, the little sinners would bend in prayer instead, talking to God instead of each other.

Bondurant felt for the flask in his coat pocket, pulled it out and twisted the lid free. He held the flask in the air.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," he said. The words bounced off the cinder block walls.

He put the flask to his lips, tasting the sting of liquor around the rim. He drank, but only a few drops remained. He pushed his tongue against his teeth and took a deep breath. Wendover's air was full of dust and dead things.

The bourbon was gone. He was alone.

"I don't have a problem," he said to the dark room.

That's what they always say. He'd read enough case files to know that even young children could become alcoholics. But Bondurant wasn't an alcoholic. Alcoholics had problems with drinking, and he had no problems. He occasionally sinned, but his sins were forgiven because someone had died for them. Someone else's blood had washed those sins away.

The solution was so simple that he could never understand why the psychological establishment didn't embrace it with joy.

His head swam too much to wrap completely around the angry thought and he slumped in his chair. This was his church, he realized. Not a church in the way the Baptists built them, strong and expensive, like military bunkers. This was a mental church, standing under a steeple of his own solitude and power.

Out there, in the real world, he was nothing but a suit and a handshake. Even at his expensive home in Deer Run Estates, he was just a shadow passing between the furniture, no more substantial than the photograph of his ex-wife that rested on the mantel. Here at Wendover, he was important. He had value. He was admired and appreciated, even loved.

Loved by the weak, and by those he tried to lead to salvation. Those who sat in this circle of chairs.

His group.

Lost in the blackness.

"What would Jesus do?" he asked the silence. No one answered. Some group this was. You come in expecting to be understood but all you got were stupid stares.

He spoke louder now, a preacher at the lectern. "Jesus would say, 'Take another drink,' mat's what Jesus would say."

"Sounds good to me," came a voice from the darkness.

Bondurant shuddered himself alert, thinking he'd drifted into unconsciousness. "Who said that?"

"Me," said the voice.

Bondurant's hand trembled around the flashlight. He put his thumb on the switch, but was afraid to see the thing that had spoken. It was a female voice, calm and doomed and coming from a chair across the circle. He wondered if it was the woman with the smiling scar, the one who had disappeared into the wall. She had never spoken, though, except with her eyes. This one had a voice.

It couldn't be one of the staff He would have heard the door open, and the halls were all lit by faint security fixtures. No one had entered. Except through the walls, or maybe down from the sky. Or up from the floor. From the deadscape.

"You're not supposed to be in here," Bondurant said.

"I belong here."

"Who are you?"

"Me."

Bondurant's pulse pounded against his skull. He was drunk and dreaming, that was all. He wasn't sitting here talking to nobody. "I'm Francis," he said.

Three voices came in unison from the darkness. "Hello, Francis."

He groped for the flask again, then remembered it was empty.

"Do you have a problem, Francis?" came one of the voices, this one from his left, a female voice scratchy from cigarettes.

He looked at the window, a square of lesser gray against the black. He prayed for sunrise. The Lord would deliver. That was one of His favorite tricks, tempting the Faithful with despair and fear. But Bondurant's faith was strong.

"I don't have a problem," he said, surprised that his voice was steady.

"Sure," came a man's voice two chairs from Bondurant's right. "None of us got problems. Only solutions, right?"

"Amen," said the woman across the circle.

"Wait a minute," Bondurant said. "You guys are talking about my drinking, right?"

"Ah, so you admit it. That's the very first step."

"Step," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

"We understand, Francis," said the scratchy woman. 'We've been there. We know what it's like."

Bondurant wanted to stand and stagger for the door, but his legs were limp. He wiped the sweat from his palms onto his slacks. His necktie was choking him, and he struggled for breath. The room with its invisible walls and invisible people seemed to grow smaller.

"Leave me alone," he shouted.

"We can't," said the man. "We love you too much."

"I have the love of the Lord," he said. "I don't need yours."

"Ah, so you accept a higher power. That's another step toward healing."

Bondurant found the strength to rise, though his legs quivered like saplings in a thunderstorm. "I don't need to be HEALED."

Silence.

Bondurant clenched his fist around the flashlight, ready to lash out.

The woman across the circle whispered, "So much anger. So much pain. Francis, you don't have to fight it anymore. Just surrender."

He sat again, slumped, defeated, scared.

The man spoke from darkness. "We know it's hard. You're under a lot of pressure. All these brats to take care of, who wouldn't need a drink?"

Bondurant put his head in his hands and nodded.

"Social Services breathing down your neck all the time, fund-raisers, a board of directors to please, everybody expecting you to keep on smiling no matter how much shit they feed you," said the scratchy woman, only she was no longer to his left, she was standing behind him.

A new voice came, a child's voice, small and lost. "It's okay, Mr. Bondurant. We forgive you."

"Forgive," he said. Only the Lord's forgiveness mattered. Sins weren't measured on earthly scales, only by He who judged. No mere child had the right to feel sorry for Bondurant.

"For the spankings," said the child.

Bondurant felt as if a sock were stuffed in his throat. He only spanked in those instances when he knew he wouldn't be reported. Like all successful predators, he chose his victims carefully. And now some stupid little snot-nose was telling him it was okay to bend the sinning little shits over his desk.

Well, he knew it was okay, because the Lord had assigned him the mission. Who cared what the Department of Social Services thought when he had higher authorities to please? The rod and staff comforted. He turned their other cheek until they howled for mercy.

Because, beyond everything else, Bondurant was merciful. He'd learned that from the Lord, and from the Scriptures. Mercy tempered all acts, though sometimes you had to be righteous and vengeful.

"You need to open up," the scratchy woman said.

"Open up?" Bondurant didn't know what frightened him more, sitting in a room with people who didn't exist or being put on the spot.

"Don't be afraid," whispered the child, and now his voice was very close, so close that Bondurant should have felt the exhalation on his face.

Bondurant recognized the voice. Sammy Lane, the boy who had died in that botched restraint hold two years ago at Enlo. That was the home's most shameful moment, bringing the Social Services storm troopers into Bondurant's life. Sammy became the poster child for reform, his grinning photo splashed across the newspapers for weeks until another controversy pushed the death to page five. Then he was gone, nothing but a black mark on the system's record.

Until now.

Sammy was back, offering Bondurant forgiveness.

"I didn't have anything to do with it," Bondurant said. "I wasn't even there when you died-I mean, when it happened."

"They said you gave the order," Sammy said. "And I wasn't being mean or anything, this girl pulled my hair so I kicked her, and the counselor twisted my arm behind me and took me to the time-out room, and of course I hated it because nobody likes to be locked in the dark, so I shoved the counselor and he wrapped his arms around me and told me to calm down and I couldn't breathe but he wouldn't let go and I didn't have enough breath to tell him to stop and the next thing I knew I was dead." Little Sammy paused. "But it's okay now."

Bondurant wept, the salt stinging his bloodshot eyes. He was innocent. The investigation had cleared him. Even the counselor had gotten off, taking a plea agreement that barred him from ever working in child services again. Everyone was satisfied with blaming it on the system instead of individuals. Enlo's financial support had suffered a little, but Bondurant waxed his smile and faced the storm and then the storm blew over. And Bondurant took the director's chair at Wendover. Everyone had forgotten.

Except Sammy.

"We all have problems," said the scratchy woman.

The man said, "My shrink asked me all these questions, but she was a woman so I couldn't answer. Reminded me too much of my mom. Later, I wrote the answers on little pieces of paper and slipped them in the back of the television in the rec room."

"That's crazy," said Bondurant, glad he didn't have to respond to Sammy.

"They said / was crazy but I was only in love," the scratchy woman said. "Love is nothing but internal bleeding."

"It's not my fault," said the man from the darkness.

"I didn't love you, I loved the doctor. They took away my cigarettes so I chewed tin foil. I pulled the staples out of magazines and swallowed them. Then I found some loose nails in the paneling and ate them. By the time they opened me up, it was too late."

"I don't want to be opened up," Bondurant said.

The woman who was standing too close behind him said, "Let out what's inside."

A cold touch like the end of a frostbitten finger trailed down the back of his neck. "I'm scared," Bondurant said.

"We're all scared."

"We're all scared," whispered Sammy, in his tiny voice.

The gray around the window had grown lighter. Bondurant closed his eyes. The sun was climbing over the mountains outside, and soon he would be able to see the things that were talking to him in this empty room.

"Well," came a new voice, a strong and confident man's. "That's enough for one session. We don't want to solve all our problems, or I'll be out of a job."

Bondurant forced his eyelids to stay shut, trembling with the effort. The room was as cool as December, and Bondurant caught a faint whiff of dirt and decaying leaves.

Sammy's voice was at his ear. "Bye, Mr. Bondurant. See you around."

One of the chairs fell over, then silence.

After ten minutes, Bondurant opened his eyes, his cheeks wet with tears. In the dim light of daybreak, he looked around the circle of vacant chairs. He reached into his pocket and touched the flask, swearing for the hundredth time that he was through. Then he looked at the door.

Against its metal face he saw an image of the old man in the gown. The man's lips moved, but no sound came out. As the shape dissolved under the sunrise, Bondurant thought he knew what words the ghostly lips had formed We 're getting closer.