Shovel Ready (11 page)

We’re in a wheat field.

Belt-high stalks rustle in unison, like a congregation on their knees, whispering prayers. I reach both my hands out to let the stalk tops and wheat flowers tickle at my palms.

T. K. Harrow walks beside me.

—and the most beautiful thing of it is, we can make of this what we wish. This realm is given to us as a second Eden. God made us once in His image, and now He’s provided us the tools, and the know-how, to remake ourselves in His.

A white clapboard church on the crest of a hill.

Steeple bells welcome us.

Harrow hikes toward it, a half-step in front of me.

See, now this here is exactly the kind of church I grew up in. Small. Cozy. Everyone knew everyone. You couldn’t look left or right there wasn’t someone looking back at you, quick with a smile or a steadying word. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I am thankful for my many blessings. But sometimes I think of what we’ve built today and wonder what we lost along the way.

The door is ajar. We enter. Rough-hewn pews on a wide-plank floor. Sunlight spun into stained-glass rainbows.

A vacant crucifix hangs heavy behind the pulpit.

Life-sized.

Harrow takes a seat in the front row and motions for me to join him.

I’m sorry we couldn’t meet in person. But this is much preferable, don’t you agree?

He could have self-presented in any way he chose. A serpent, the angel Gabriel, or simply T. K. Harrow forty years ago, still robust and full of hellfire. But he’s here more or less as you’d find him in life, as he looked on that Radio City screen. Tall, weathered, bristly gray hair, scarecrow thin, a kindly face when it wants to be kind, but one that easily snaps back to rectitude. The only costuming flourish he allows himself is that on TV he’s always in a suit. Here he’s in flannels and wool. Work clothes.

As for me, I look like me. A garbageman.

Harrow claps me on the shoulder with a hand gnarled by age, his fingers folded up like a wounded bird. Still, his grip is strong.

When I was a lad, sitting on a pew not much more comfortable than this one, in a church pretty much just like this, the most terrifying thing to me in the whole wide world was not death, or the wages of wickedness, or the wrath of the Almighty Lord. It was the stares of Miss Savonarola.

Harrow chuckles at the memory.

She was our church organist. Tiny woman. Would sit at the electronic organ, right up there.

He points a crooked finger toward the altar.

She sat facing the congregation. Her eyes could just barely peer over the top of the organ. Yet I remember those eyes like twin glowing moons, hanging low on the horizon. And the funny thing about Miss Savonarola was that, before the service, she was your favorite person in the world. She’d greet you at the door and slip you sweets from her dress pocket, make you promise not to tell your folks. But during the service, let me tell you. She changed. You could hide in the back
row, crouched out of sight, bury your toy in your lap, didn’t matter. You got up to mischief while the pastor was preaching, she saw. She’d find you after the service and
whap!
Rap your wrists with a switch right in front of your parents. Wouldn’t even say why, to you or to them. But she knew. And she knew you knew. And I will tell you, Mr Spademan. I am respectful and awed by my Lord in His heaven, but I don’t think anyone’s ever kept me in line better than she did. She taught me a few things, I’ll tell you that.

I can imagine.

I understand you’re not much one for this spectral world, am I correct?

That’s right.

Have you ever been off-body before?

Long ago. Gave it up.

I understand. As with any dream, a lot depends upon the dreamer. Well, you’ve seen a little of what my dream looks like. But let me lay it out for you. I want to lead my followers here, to this world, a refuge of simplicity and peace. A sanctuary of my own devising.

He sweeps his hand over the church. Through the windows, sunlight sneaks in, pools in the corners, keeps to itself.

You know what’s become of the world back there, Mr Spademan. You better than anyone. It is not a place to waste your days. How you live in that poisoned swamp of New York City, I will never understand. Not when you could live here. Like this.

Mr Harrow, I get that. I do. But why do people need to sign on to your dream? People should dream how they like.

Because I offer them something better. More than the dream. I offer them a new life, Mr Spademan. A life after
life. With no wait list. Something remarkable. That is what I wanted to show you. Do you have time for a short demonstration?

Sure.

Harrow gestures to someone unseen. Two girls walk in through a side door. Identical twins, short hair, bright eyes. Persephone’s age or a few years younger. Dressed in matching pinafore smocks. Prairie-style.

They stand before us, shoulder to shoulder, like soldiers awaiting inspection.

This is Mary and Magdalene. Go ahead, Mr Spademan. I want you to stroke Mary’s cheek. She’s the one on the right. Don’t worry. She won’t bite.

I reach my hand out and pass my knuckles lightly over her downy cheek. Soft. She giggles.

Very good. And now Magdalene.

Same thing. Knuckles grazing. On this pass, though, I get a little charge.

The first cheek was like experiencing the memory of something. Like a reminder of a feeling you once had.

The second one is like feeling it for the first time.

I settle back into the pew.

What do you think, Mr Spademan? As real as real. And that is my proprietary technology. You can’t get that in any other dream.

He dismisses the twins. They curtsy and exit, like it’s the end of a school pageant.

I’m still rubbing my hand.

That’s very convincing.

That it is.

So what’s the secret?

Just that. A secret.

Well I’m sure it will prove very lucrative.

Wait. There’s one more person I want you to meet.

He stands.

You might want to stand up for this.

I stand.

And in she walks.

My Stella.

My wife.

In the same dress I last saw her in. She smiles.

That smile.

Brown hair in a bob. That bob I begged her not to get.

Looks good on her though.

I grasp Harrow’s arm. For balance.

He gives me the satisfied look of a salesman who’s just unveiled the luxury model.

I assure you, it’s perfectly safe. It’s not the real, no. But it’s as real as real.

I look at her.

Her.

Here.

Brown eyes a little too close together. Front teeth a little too far apart. That smile that’s spring-loaded to burst into a laugh.

In other words, perfect.

Don’t be shy, Mr Spademan. Please give your wife a kiss. This is a place of sanctuary. And I promise to avert my eyes.

I turn to Harrow.

Shut it off.

Don’t be afraid.

No. This isn’t real.

I think you’ll find, Mr Spademan, that those kinds of distinctions quickly become immaterial.

I turn back to her. Trembling.

Tell myself it’s not real.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.

As I say this I take her face in my hands.

Feel her face.

Hesitate.

Kiss her.

Like a man drawing breath after years underwater.

I pull away.

I whisper.

I’m sorry
.

Harrow lays a gentle hand on my back.

You understand now? What I am offering?

My Stella smiles. Her hand trails my face.

Don’t worry, Mr Spademan. She will always be here. And I can arrange for you to see her whenever you like. In total privacy. Frankly, if you choose, you can leave that toxic world behind and relocate here, if that’s what pleases you. You won’t be the first. I know you’re familiar with my farm. I can reunite you and your wife and I guarantee, after a time, you won’t remember that you ever weren’t together.

So this is what you’re offering?

Yes.

And I’m guessing you’ll want something in return.

Only something that is already mine.

Sounds fair. Just one question.

Anything.

Not for you. For her.

I turn back to face my Stella. Her look says she longs for me.

I choke back something. Then say it.

What’s my name?

She smiles.

Spademan.

I smile back.

No, it’s not.

She looks confused. Says it again.

Spademan.

I turn back to Harrow.

I want out.

He waves her away. The sales pitch gone sour.

She retreats out the side door. I can’t help but watch her.

The door closing behind her.

Just like that last morning.

Then she’s gone.

I lean on the pew. Struggle to get my balance. Fail.

Look at Harrow.

Tap me out.

Mr Spademan—

Now.

—I know it can be very overwhelming. It reminds me a bit of that first moment after baptism. When people come up again out of the water. Gasping for air, fighting for balance. But new. Brand-new. Like newborns. Come into a new life.

But it’s not real.

No. But after awhile, I assure you, that hardly matters.

I want out.

He grasps my shoulders to stand me up. Steadies me.

All right. But first, let me tell you what I want.

His smile exiled.

I want my daughter back.

I don’t know where she is.

He laughs.

Lying is not an effective tactic in this world. Not with me. And you should be wary of breaking commandments. Here,
of all places, in the Lord’s house. We certainly don’t want to start down that road.

What road?

Breaking things.

I can’t do it.

She is of no consequence to you.

Doesn’t matter.

Mr Spademan, do you understand what I’m offering you?

Yes.

And why exactly are you protecting my daughter?

I don’t know.

Do you even know why my daughter ran away?

I have some idea.

Do you? Well, let me fill in the blanks.

Harrow retreats to the pulpit and pulls down the massive leather-bound Bible. He opens it and flips onionskin pages.

I wipe my mouth, still unsteady. Sit.

I’m not in the mood for a parable, Mr Harrow.

He looks up.

That’s not what this is.

He turns the book around. Upends it, cradling it in his arms, held toward me. Like it’s story time.

On one page, the usual march of verses under a single illuminated letter, painstakingly painted.

On the other page, a large photo of Persephone naked.

This is my daughter, Grace Chastity. Whom I raised from an infant, as you know. Whose diapers I changed. Whose blankets I tucked in. Whose cries in the night I comforted.

He flips the page. More Grace Chastity. More naked.

Girls grow up. I understand that. And mine did too. All of them. Especially Grace.

He flips the page. In each photo, Grace is smiling, posing,
puckering her lips. In most photos there’s a starburst of a cameraphone flash. In each one she is exposed. In some more exposed than others.

My Grace found a boyfriend, as little girls do. They break their fathers’ hearts eventually. But I caught my Grace sending these pictures to her boyfriend. Shaming herself. Before him. Before me. Before God.

Flips the page again. A homemade porn mag, starring his daughter. In the next shot, she’s on a bed, legs spread. Fingers finding their way inside her.

So you can imagine, Mr Spademan, that when I found these I was very cross. Very cross indeed.

Flip. Next photo. Shot from behind. Displaying a gymnast’s agility. Among other things.

You don’t have a daughter, do you?

No.

But you can understand how this might make you feel.

Sure. But she’s eighteen. She’s free to live her own life. Should be, anyway.

Well, she wasn’t eighteen when she took these, Mr Spademan. She was sixteen. And she promised me she’d stop. More recently, she broke that promise to me. Again.

Flip. Young Grace Chastity explores sex toys. Makes them disappear.

Do you know how I found these? A parishioner. A member of my own congregation. He came to me and told me his son had brought them to him. They’d been circulating. At his school.

He closes the book. Mercifully.

So I forbid her from seeing her boyfriend. Forbid her from having a phone. I forbid her from doing just about anything I could think of. And naturally, as young girls do, when the devil has their ear, she ran away.

He replaces the book on the altar.

You’ll forgive the dramatics of my presentation. I just want to make sure you understand why I want her home. Whatever she’s done to break my heart, break my rules, to humiliate me in public, to taint my congregation and flout God’s commandments, I know she will be safer with me, in my care, than rambling around out there, living hand-to-mouth, in the gutters of New York. So I want my daughter back. You’ve already seen what I can offer in return.

You know she’s pregnant.

Yes. Another souvenir of the boyfriend. A worthless sort.

That’s not what she told me.

What are you suggesting, Mr Spademan?

That the father is right here in this church.

Really? An immaculate conception, then?

Not exactly.

Harrow clutches the sides of the pulpit. Enters full-on preacher mode. His cadence sounds something like Mark Ray, but soulless. The stern father, not the kind shepherd, sowing brimstone, not comfort.

He starts in.

For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart
. But ask yourself this, Mr Spademan. How pregnant is my daughter? And when exactly did she run away? Not long ago, correct? A few weeks, maybe? Why, we only just contacted you last week.

He’s right.

He goes on.

So in your version of the story, this foul act was committed, and she—what? Lived under my roof for another few months? And then suddenly one day woke up and decided to flee? Does that make much sense to you?