The Devoted (16 page)

And now we’re two guys staring at each other. The only sound is Beth’s lungs straining.

“Bedside table in my room. Top drawer.”

Does He see my pocket? Can He see through my pocket? Will He pull me backwards-downwards when I turn?

None of the above, apparently.

When I get a new phone, I replace my own.

But that doesn’t mean I’m goddamn checking back in.

Edgar Pike’s Journal

September, 2009

Matthew’s a stupid child.

Last Day –
3:33PM

Again, in our room, she and me. For the last time.

Before dinner is The Eternity Chant. Then food that we’ll have to fight to swallow. Then--

“You have to save me,” Jolie says. “If he catches on. Like if I start talking stupid.”

We’re holding each other. Upright. On our feet. Door locked beside us.

“I save you, you save me,” I say. “Besides, it’s okay. He expects us all to talk weird.”

“Okay, yeah, right.” Then she asks: “What if Jed doesn’t make it?”

This has crossed my mind, as well. Car accidents happen, even amidst rescue missions (and especially when you drive like Jed). And lateness happens, too, for no goddamn reason whatsoever.

Earliness, as well, in terms of The Leader electing to push us along faster.

I picture us running out the back door, but our feet would be no match for The Leader’s car, and I’d like to give the others a chance to join.

My expectation: Beth would come. Michael would stay. Theodore: stay. Cathleen, Paul, and Susan may as well be dead already. The Leader: I don’t know...I’m putting my chips on stay.

Inward sarcasm as danger looms.

That means me, Jolie, and Beth, or one-third. Not horrible, although I’d like to get all of us, Him included.

Could I pull that off? Could I make like Jed? Start talking all slick and get the Big Man to bend?

Not likely, you want to know my opinion.

But to issue them a choice is a step. It’s something. It might end up amounting to a handful of sand, but I’ll take that over my own corpse.

There is one thing – one single thing – that I can do to tip the odds of a clean sweep in my favor, but it’s too ridiculous to even contemplate. Certainly above my pay grade.

I could...

No, never mind. You don’t have half the needed guts.

“No matter what,” I say to her. “We walk out the door. Don’t look back. No matter what, okay?”

“Okay, yeah, okay.”

“Like the guy in the story Jed told, right?” My “right” isn’t nearly as lacerating as Jed’s. “We say ‘why not?’ and walk out.”

She starts to cry. Even if I don’t live, I’m glad I got to share that with somebody. And who better?

We kiss. Two mouths open. I pull away first.

I say, “At dinner, I’m gonna tell everyone that we’re going.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are.”

“Everybody gets the option to come. We don’t care what he does or says.”

“We don’t.”

“We don’t care what he does or says.”

She nods. It’s a crap plan. The worst, but it’s all we’ve got.

“Right around five-thirty,” I go, “I’m going to ask permission to speak. Whether he grants it or not, I explain it. It’ll take ten seconds.”

She moves away from me, does some rocking. Front to back, beats her torso’s rear against the wall.

“There’s no question we can do this. Just think about afterwards.”

I’m liking the way I sound: some kind of leader.

“No, I’d rather -- I gotta stay in the present right now, you know?” she says.

I nod. Right, the present. The Leader would’ve known that.

We eye each other.

“Matthew, kiss me more, okay?” she says.

And so I do.

Edgar Pike’s Journal

July, 2011

I’ll burn this journal. Yet I do want to say in ink that I never raped anyone. That is truth. Why deny it to myself? I wouldn’t. What I did in private with them was wanted on their parts. Laura once said I knew her better than she knew herself, which was true. And is now. She and Allison lived through rapes in their minds -- and live through them again in their memories -- but that was a delusion penned in chaos.

Last Day –
4PM: ETERNITY CHANT

Throughout the chant, I think not of eternity. Despite the concept’s elephantine proportions, I manage to push it away.

Somehow the thought of Beth’s mother is enough to take its place.

What is the opposite of eternity called?

What could that phone call have possibly been like?

Saying goodbye for no goddamn reason. Just ‘cause a megalomaniac who killed a baby got an idea in His head.

We’re all on the floor. All nine of us: The Leader joins. He’s in the center; we surround Him like satellites.

Together, a little solar system.

And we chant (you saw it coming): “Eternity...”

Over and over again, we chant it. It’s the kind of thing where, just when you expect it to get wrapped up, it goes on for another hundred miles.

“Eternity.

“Eternity.

“Eternity.

“Eternity.

“Eternity...”

Jolie’s hand in mine. My hand around hers.

I am your protector, I think.

And Beth’s mom: I am your protector, too.

And all of these people: I am your savior.

Hear me!

“Eternity...”

Love me!

“Eternity...”

Know I’m right.

Know that I’m just a boy, but I’m here to save you.

Edgar Pike’s Journal

August, 2011

I couldn’t take prison. My career was an enemy to me. Prison would be my murderer.

Last Day –
5PM: DINNER

Five’s here. The sun’s wilting. The whole day a flash.

Whenever, in life, you arrive at a point that you’ve been building up to, there’s always a sense of banality about it. You realize, when you get there, that you’re still just you. Same eyes, same senses. And in front of you is still just the world.

Only the context provides it with emotion.

That sense of banality tends to fade whenever you actually do whatever you have to. It may fade for worse or it may fade for better, but before long the situation gets ignited, turns into a heady thing.

Every book report I ever gave.

Every girl I ever finally kissed.

Every time I finally told someone off. (Only once, that. My dad. The kitchen. Orange light from outside. And I hope my words make him sting till the day he dies.)

And here at dinner, right at this moment, there’s that plain, beige, ordinary lilt. Fuck, we’re just nine people at dinner. The Leader may have stuffed the situation fat with notions of unity consciousness and mind-out-of-time-ness, but no such notions have ever stopped a dining room from being just that.

Which is not to say that I couldn’t soil my chair.

Not to say, as well, that Jolie’s fear isn’t as obvious as the sky.

I’m next to Him, near the head. To my right is she.

On every plate is chicken or fish, dead animals put to greater use than He intends to put us to. Every glass has in it juice or wine, also, but no one’s touching a thing.

Bearing more of our attention than the food are the knives.

Nine of them. Center table. Aligned in a sparkling row.

“When the day began,” The Leader says, not bothering to rise, “as I said to Matthew, I wanted it to go quickly. But as we sit here, I realize that it went too quickly even for me.”

He smiles. Everybody but us two smile back.

About Beth, I begin to have my doubts. She beams.

He says, all windy, “If it’s okay with everybody, I’d like to go around the table and collect your final thoughts within this realm...”

The Leader’s hands levitate above the table.

He goes on: “Now, if anybody doesn’t want to participate, don’t worry about it for a moment, just say, ‘Pass.’”

Sounds of breath at this table like you wouldn’t believe.

He says, “Since Cathleen prepared this beautiful meal, I think we’ll all agree that she should go first.”

Cathleen smiles and pushes her hair back from her shoulders. All eyes but mine land upon her.

I eye my knife. Not the suicide one, the dinner one. Could I do what I thought of? Is it not that absurd?

Cathleen says, “Um, I guess you won’t hear anything too original from me. I’m a better cook than I am a public speaker.”

Some laughs are generated. Just a cheery old band of pre-suicides.

“But I guess,” Cathleen continues, “I’d just like to say that I love you all, and that these couple of years among you have been so, so wonderful, and as I look around at all your faces, I find myself bursting with anticipation, because I can’t wait to see what you look like for real, outside of your shells.”

The Leader smiles upon recognizing His own words. He raises His wine-filled glass, presents her with a robust “Hear, hear.”

We all pick up our glasses and repeat: “Hear, hear.”

“A very impressive speaker after all!” He says, a ghostwriter praising the author of record.

Cathleen grins and tilts her eyes downward.

“And who would like to follow Cathleen?”

Jolie looks at me. I look back. Her eyes are like “NOW.”

But Theodore goes, “I would just like to say, ‘Thank you.’”

So all heads turn to face him.

And Theodore says, “I want to of course echo what Cathleen said about loving everybody, but I want to also say, ‘Thanks for everything.’ All of you have made me feel welcome in a way that I didn’t know was possible. And your generosity has continued up to the very end.”

Then he turns to The Leader, and, while keeping the outward peace, raises a kind of raging hell: “And I have to say, I’m so honored to have been selected to make the transition right before you.”

The Leader, unchanged, nods.

My heart gets smashed.

“I’m honored, as well,” The Leader lies, suddenly staring me down via His peripherals.

I tighten up so much that my body could stand without my will.

Theodore then turns to me, and although he’s merely speaking, each word from him hits me as though it’s yelled:

“And of course Matthew is owed thanks for that, for sacrificing his own place in the order.”

His piece said, Theodore looks back at The Leader.

But The Leader, ignoring him, now looks right at me.

I get, now, why Jolie likes to rock back and forth. My chair’s just shy of creaking.

“I...” The Leader is searching. “...wouldn’t have it any other way, Theodore.”

The Leader’s gaze, as He says this, is fixed on me. Surrounds me. Makes itself my home.

Then: “Who goes next?” asks The Leader.

Still: His eyes: All me.

I look right back and think about the front lawn. Should have walked away: naked boy. Gone into town. Explained.

Been on the news. A bizarre folk hero.

Entirely oblivious to the Ascending tension, Beth leans forward in her seat and says:

“I think everybody’s hitting the nail on the head. You’re not only beautiful...and filled with love...and deserving of thanks, as Theodore said, but you’re also so much fun to play with.”

Giggles abound. Briefly, The Leader looks at Beth, sparkles in His eyes.

“You all,” she goes, “have such nice skin and such sweet lips and it’s been so nice with those of you who I’ve touched and laid with and had a chance to explore. And beyond all that...” This part for The Leader. “...I just wanted to thank you for bending the rules a little for me today. That showed great courage, and my respect for you has risen to a height I never thought possible. Thank you.”

Nearly everyone here is a beam of delight.

But only nearly.

The Leader, discarding Beth, goes and eyes me some more. Jolie, too, part of the time.

Michael chimes in: “Um. I want to say that this has been a real transition for me. I know we’ve done a lot of serious work, but I’m happy Beth mentioned how much fun it is, also. Because it really has been spirited and free. And even when we’re not in the best of moo--”

The Leader asks me, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”