Of Daughter and Demon (12 page)

He stared at me for a moment, I wonder what
he thought I was plannin’ on doin’ with this thing, but he stood
up.

“Absolutely not, Harry.”

Shit Alice, what am I sposed to do now? I
have to get this done and I don’t wanna hafta pull a gun on a man
of the cloth but I’d work the Father over with a pipe if I thought
that would get it…but somehow I don’t think that’d work.

Then the cloth around the cross began to
smoke, just a little, I thought maybe I’d let it get caught up in
one of them candles that are everywhere. Though I’d been getting a
little angry with the Padre, a calmness suddenly fell over me, a
kind of warmth, and I shook the cloth off the cross, letting it
fall to the floor. The cross itself was beginning to pulse with a
weak light.

I looked from it to the Father, and the light
that was in the cross seemed to be in him, too, his whole head
seemed to be surrounded by this nimbus of light, and he was
weeping, the tears coursing down his cheeks. I don’t think the
Father even knew he was standing there, starin’ at this thing,
crying. Right then I don’t know if he coulda told me his own name.
He put a hand out, shaking as he reached forward. The closer his
hand got to the cross the brighter it began to glow. The Father put
his hand on the cross and the light that was in it seemed to drain
out, like it was going out of the cross and into the Father. I
watched as the tears on his face began to steam, and then something
happened with his eyes too, Alice, and Hell, you prolly seen this
kinda thing all the time up there but it was a new one for your old
man. It was the very opposite of what happened to Bobby’s eyes.
Instead of the blackness and flames shining out of his eyes, the
light of all that was good shone out of ‘em, for just a second,
they was lit up like a pair a headlights on a highway. Then the
lights faded out of the cross and out of the Father, he turned to
look at me.

“I’m sorry, Harry. And thank you.” Tears
still was streamin’ down his cheeks and he looked happier than
anyone I ever seen.“My whole life, I heard the small still voice of
God in my heart, and today I heard His Chorus Entire, and the voice
of the
Metatron
, who hath bid me help you in all you
need.”

“So…you’ll do it, then?” I asked.

The Father laughed. “Absolutely, Harry,
absolutely I will do this for you, it’s what I was put on this
earth to do, so spoke the
Metatron
. This is for a good
cause, isn’t it Harry?”

“Yes Father. The only cause I got left.”

“I was wrong, Harry, I see that now. I will
forever be in your debt for bringing this to me today.” The Father
ran his fingers through his hair and looked at the cross, now just
an old hunk of metal. “Where’d you get this, anyway? It looks like
an antique.”

“Might be. I got it off of this fella in
Chinatown, he said it needed blessed.”

“The Voice Of God has told me the same.”

“Thank you, Father. This works out for me,
I’d like to start thinkin’ about comin’ back to church.”

“Come back if it doesn’t work out, Harry.” He
lifted the cross off the desk and I followed him out of the office,
not wantin’ to tell’im that if it didn’t work out, I’d be either
dead or possessed by a child-molestin’ demon, and I don’t think
he’d want either one in the pews.

He closed the doors to the room, I don’t know
what it’s called, but it’s where he gives the service, there’s an
altar and a big wooden cross hangin’ on the wall behind it, and
lots of pews and the organ. We walked to the front of the room, he
took the cross again and laid it across the alter and held these
beads in his hand. I bowed my head cuz it sounded like he was
prayin’ and askin’ God for help in sanctifying this object as a
messenger of His Word and His Love, I glanced up and it was
startin’ to glow. Not real bright, but enough to where you knew
somethin’ was goin’ on, and I felt at peace, I felt calm, and I
knew what was happening was right.

I heard this sayin’ once, that if you talk to
God, you’re religious, but if God talks back, you’re crazy. I felt
him talkin’ back to me right then, Alice, in every cell a my body
it seemed like. In the tingling goose-bumps on my arms and the
standing hair on my neck, in this deep feelin’ of peace that I
ain’t felt in years, since you was taken from us. I spose all the
crazy people think God talks to ‘em, and I spose they all decide
this is what makes them sane, but right then Alice, right then I
felt the same. I know now your Ma was lying to me. I knew you
couldn’ta been dead all these years, Alice, I never coulda forgot
that.

I don’t know why your Ma would say these
things; I think the sadness and the guilt of it all just knocked
something loose inside her head. Whattaya mean it wasn’t like that?
I told you, Alice, don’t be mad at your Ma. She can’t take that,
not with everything else. I think losing you just drove her a
little mad, but you can’t blame her. I think it drove me a little
mad too, just in a different way.

The glow coming from the spear grew brighter,
and it was different from the glow we seen a minute ago, Alice, but
I don’t hafta tell you that I spose, you bein’ up there in this
light all the time, but it was kinda the same glow but more of it,
the whole thing started lightin’ up like it was a giant light bulb
instead of some crummy old piece of iron. It lit up everything,
Alice, the whole world it seemed like. The Father, he seen this and
stuttered in his speech, but kept goin’. The black stain on the end
without the cross, the pointed end, started to smoke, these black
tendrils of smoke was comin’ off of the bottom end of the cross and
I saw I wouldn’t need to sharpen this thing after all, and I doubt
I woulda anyway, I shoulda done that first, cuz it seems like a sin
to sharpen a object that’s been blessed by whatever gods are up
there.

The black stuff was gone, the years of dust,
finger prints, and grime was all gone, it was so clean it looked
like it was made of silver.

“Pick it up, Harry,” Father Malcolm said, his
voice small and shaking. I lifted it the same way I lifted you the
first time, Alice, like my big hands would smash it like weak glass
if I wasn’t just as careful as I could possibly be. This kinda
energy coursed through my hands into the rest of my body.

“Did you see it?” Father Malcolm asked. “Did
you see the Lord give this cross his blessing?”

“I did.”

He said another prayer of thanks and when he
looked back up at me, he was cryin’ again.

“Thank you, Harry, I--”

“No, Father. Thank you. Don’t thank me. I
just got one other favor to ask? Could I do a confession?”

“That’s really more of a Catholic thing,
Harry.”

“Could I do one anyway? I need to have a
clean slate if I should die tonight, and there’s a lot I got to
square with the universe, you know?”

“Well, OK, Harry. I’ve never done this--”

“Me neither.”

“Let’s give it try. Kneel down here.”

We both knelt on the floor in front of the
altar. “Help me Father, help me get forgiveness for all the things
I done. I know I don’t deserve no special treatment, or to even go
to heaven, but all I want is to see my little baby girl one more
time, when I die, I just want to see little Alice and tell her I
love her, and maybe give her a big hug an’ a kiss, and I know this
is askin’ a lot, what with the cross bein’ blessed, but I’m sorry
for every rotten thing I ever done, except for what I done to that
Bradley puke, he deserved what I done. Please let me see Alice one
more time when I die. Amen.”

“Amen,” Father Malcolm said. “Who’s
Bradley?”

“Never mind. And say, you don’t know a Father
Valentine, do you?”

“No, what church is he with?”

“I don’t think it is a church. Thank you for
everything, Father Malcolm. If I can get through tonight I’ll be
here front and center next Sunday.”

“OK, Harry, we got a deal. What’s
tonight?”

“This might sound a little crazy, but you
believe in demons?”

He nodded, his smile gone and a very serious
look on his face.

“Well, tonight I gotta go and find the one
that kilt my Alice.” I shook his hand again and he didn’t seem to
know what to say so I walked out of the church into the sunlight,
wished I had some sunglasses, and walked back to the car and put
the rewrapped cross in, and drove toward the bar. There was just
one more thing I hadda do before leavin’, one more thing I hadda do
in case I got gacked and never got another chance.

I drove to the bar, flipped the sign over to
CLOSED and locked the front door. The only ones in there was Donnie
and Fifties Chick. I made Donnie leave out the back and then locked
the door behind him.

“I got somethin’ to say,” I said, leadin’ her
to my table in the corner.

“Sure Harry. What is it?”

“I got some stuff to do tonight that’ll be
worse than prolly anythin’ I ever done. I don’t really even know
how to do it, I mean, I got a few ideas, but mostly I’m countin’ on
luck, I guess, and God, whatever gods is up there. They already
done a part of it for me though and I think the rest of this is on
me.”

“What do you have to do?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I tole you, and
even if you would, it’s somethin’ I don’t want you even knowin’ is
out there. I didn’t believe it at first myself, when I was tellin’
you I might be goin’ crazy? Remember? Hell, I wish I was crazy, and
then all of this would be over. But I believe it now, I
know
it’s out there, and just knowin’ about it has changed me. I don’t
want it changin’ you, too, cuz it ain’t for the better.”

“Then don’t go, Harry. Stay here. With
me.”

“I can’t.”

“Do you think your daughter would want you
running around out there, getting yourself killed?”

“No, I don’t, but she knows what this thing
is, first hand, and she knows if I don’t do somethin’, it’ll keep
doin’ to other kids what it done to her.”

“Who was it Harry? Do they have a record, or
something? Like a serial killer? I mean, you talk like this person
isn’t even human.”

I just nodded, takin’ a deep breath for what
I hadda say next. I started to sweat.

“I just hafta tell you, that when I walk out
that door tonight, I might never come back through it again, and if
that happens, I want you to know, first off, this bar is yours, if
you want it.”

“No, Harry, I--”

“I decided this a long time ago, about the
bar. You was the only one who stuck around when things slowed down
and helped me, and I put this in my will about a year ago.”

“You’re giving me your bar because I kept
coming to work?”

“Not really, no, and that’s the other thing I
gotta tell you. I don’t know what this will do to our friendship,
and I can’t even tell you what I hope will happen. But I love you,
Fifties Chick. I loved you since the day I met you, and you’re the
only reason they didn’t find me swingin’ from a rafter up there
wit’ my neck popped after Alice was gone for so long. You gave me a
reason to live, and I couldn’t face the thought a dyin’ without
ever tellin’ you that.”

“Ha--”

“No, don’t say anythin’. I got to go now, and
all you can say right now is goodbye. I’ll be back if I can, you
know I will. You know how I am about the people I love. If I die
though, I want to remember you as my friend.”

“Don’t go, Harry.”

“Now, I
tole
you, only say
goodbye.”

She started cryin’ then. “I won’t! I won’t
tell you goodbye until I tell you that I love you, too.”

“You can tell me that when I get back, now
say goodbye.”

She put her arms around my neck and gave me
the sweetest, softest, longest kiss I ever had, right on the lips.
I put my arms around her and it made me whole again, she fit into
my body like she was made to be there, and of course I know she
just tole me she loves me, Alice, and I hope it’s OK with you that
I love her too, and I hope you help me get through this so I can
come home to her.

I kept the tears that wanted to fall in my
eyes, and when I was sure they was dry I squeezed her a little
tighter just for a moment, then let go.

“So you decided I’m real?” she asked, tears
shining in her eyes.

I put her hand on my heart. “This is
real.”

“Harry--”

“I’ll see you soon,” I said.

“Take me with you.”

“I can’t do that, now come on, I gotta
go.”

“You can’t do this Harry! You can’t tell me
you’re leaving, going off somewhere to maybe die, then tell me you
love me, and expect me to just let you just go. You
can’t
.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I have to. I
wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowin’ what’s out there, and
what it can do to people, and that I just gave up and let it go.
Now, tell me goodbye, or I’ll have to just leave without it.
Please.”

“Goodbye, Harry, and you better come back to
me.”

Up above, the sunset spilled across the sky
like sacrificial blood in a dirty blue bowl, and Alice, will this
be the last time I see the sky? If it is I can at least be thankful
that I might get a chance to see you again, to maybe hold you just
for a second. All these years you been gone my arms feel empty cuz
I know you won’t be in ‘em, and that alone is worth dyin’ for.

No knife, no gun, no lead pipe. All I got is
a flashlight, and my iron cross that’s six feet long, sharp on one
end, and blessed official.

I walk into the house where I found you, the
one on the corner a 110th and River Way, the one that sits like a
monument to filth, a pile of bricks and death like this city ain’t
never seen before. My senses are amped, I see everything in the
dark, and I don’t even need this light I brought.

I prolly never tole you this, Alice, but your
ol’ man, he always been a little afraid of the dark. I know, I
know. But it started when I’s a kid, not much older than you was
when you was taken, and it’s stuck with me ever since. The trick is
not to let that fear crush you, and you’ll be my light tonight,
Alice, all the light I ever need.