Calamity

for even being here. Delaney wasn’t their daughter; she was his, mine, you stupid sons of bitches and if I want to stand silent like this for hours I’ll do it because this is my loss and the rest of you can shove it up your asses for all I care.

He reached into his pocket, withdrew the flier, and pressed it against the top of the coffin. Jesus’ mournful face widened as he flattened the paper with both hands. Jesus’ eyes seemed to spill out of the paper. He must have been in such pain while he dangled on that cross waiting to die. Endured so much misery. And he did it all for us, if the Bible, and all the preachers out there, are to be believed. Why, though? To show how such misery can be endured? That was pathetic. People have suffered far worse fates than the Savior. He got to die and go back to His father, and where was Delaney? Was she headed up to Him as well? He wasn’t her father—that was Anthony, so fuck God, too, for taking his darling baby girl—damn God to hell.

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. The chuckle just came out and echoed through the church like the last cry of a dying animal. The old woman didn’t gasp; perhaps she had fainted. That thought almost brought out another chuckle, almost ushered out a complete slew of cackles, in fact, but he held it in check, squeezing his open hands on the coffin.

Jesus hadn’t suffered his fate as proof of misery; he had endured as evidence of hope. Of empowerment. Without turning the pamphlet over, Anthony recalled the writing on the back: “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Listen to Jesus and let Him empower you.

I have a burden. Boy, do I. And if you can’t help me, fuck, I might just take some pills and join my wife in her perpetual coma.

He didn’t say that, of course. A laugh was one thing, an actual expletive and a surrender to pain on top of that would be equivalent to burning the place down. Instead, he folded the flier, tucked it back into his jacket pocket, and appreciated the audience for a moment. For that is what they were: spectators to grief.

“I loved her so much,” he said and sat down.

The priest waited almost five minutes for the multitude of sobbing to ebb before continuing. Anthony had given them what they wanted. Now, he had to get what he wanted.

* * *

The church hosted a luncheon following the burial, but Anthony slipped out a back exit near the restrooms where a giant sign proclaimed: God heals the sick, but you should still wash your hands. He got in Tyler’s car and headed to Newburgh. His kids would take care of each other. His wife was a lost cause, anyway—Obsolete! He had to find a reason to keep going or he had to accept that there was no reason and jump off the cliff into the abyss.

He found the church between a pawn shop and a beauty salon. Some church. It was a glass-front store like the other buildings around it. Only the two giant images of Jesus plastered in the windows marked it as some kind of religious place. Otherwise, it might have been a closed-down pizza joint or a Checks Cashed Here liquor store.

Anthony parked between an aging Oldsmobile with flecks of rust like freckles across its hood and a shiny SUV with rims so large the tire was only an inch or so thick. On Broadway in Newburgh, it took all kinds. He left Tyler’s car unlocked, keys in the ignition. He wasn’t trying to be stupid; he was, rather, testing a very loose philosophy he had constructed on the drive over here.

The philosophy went something like this: If God wanted Anthony here, wanted actually to impart to him some mystical truth that he had begun to glimpse last night sitting in his mangled car, then it wouldn’t matter what Anthony did with Tyler’s car. He could double park it or even stop it in the middle of an intersection and it would still be there when Anthony got out. He almost tested this completely but decided that leaving the car in the middle of the road wouldn’t be a test of philosophy but a sign of insanity. So, he left the keys in the car; someone merely had to hop in and give the key a turn and they’d be the proud owner of a car a seventeen-year-old boy probably got to second or third base in a few times. If that happened, then fuck God. Simple as that.

Not exactly something for the Sunday sermon.

He knocked on the glass door.

A guy in a tattered sports coat with a scraggly beard shuffled past him mumbling about those damn Jesus freaks eating all his ketchup. Anthony was trying to read something more into that when the door propped open and a woman with short, brown hair and large breasts that a low-cropped shirt barely controlled answered the door. She smiled but said nothing.

Anthony fumbled with words. He sounded less intelligible than the guy mumbling about ketchup. If God really wanted him here, He wasn’t helping Anthony figure out what to do. Anthony removed the flier from his pocket and held it up.

“Our public service isn’t until Sunday.”

Anthony fumbled with words again (ketchup, ketchup, Obsolete!) until he finally squeezed out a one-syllable response: “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, there was a man and he told me …”

“Told you what, sir?”

What had that guy said before his stocky partner walked in with his arm draped over Brendan’s shoulders and all shit broke loose? “Supper,” Anthony blurted. “Last Supper.”

The woman’s forehead furrowed. A man from deeper inside the place asked if she was alright, who was there.

“Sir, you’ll have to come back Sunday, please.” The man inside said something about the damn gate’s supposed to be down.

The fumbling, stammering thoughts congealed and the one-time English scholarship winner regained his functionality with language. “No, you have to let me in now. Something very significant happened to me last night and I need to know if it was God’s doing or if I’m losing my mind.”

“Uh …”

“Please, lady, just let me in. The guy came to my daughter’s wake yesterday and invited me here. I even … beat up his partner a little.”

“Oh.”

“Shelly, what is the issue?” The door swung wider and the short, stocky guy who had taken a hell of a beating from an skinny book editor peered out from behind a face swollen in red patches. A band-aid was stuck to his cheek, some dried blood gathered just beneath it like a zit.

* * *

Anthony expected a revenge punch, even an all-out got-you-back pummeling, and he was willing to take that beating if it eventually led to some form of deeper understanding about what was going on in his life, but the guy introduced himself as Dwayne and invited Anthony inside.

Instead of resembling a church, the room opened up to a large hall in which rows of folding tables with folding chairs pushed in neatly around them made the place look like the setting for a spaghetti dinner benefit. Maybe that’s just what they use it for. That’s how they lure in the masses.

No free dinners were needed to get Anthony here. But this was not what he had anticipated and he couldn’t hide his disappointment.

“Not what you expected, huh?” Dwayne said with a smile. When he grinned, the places where Anthony had really done some damage on his face stood out as white spots on sunburned skin. Anthony had to look away. Shelly, the woman who had answered the door, stood beside Dwayne, arm looped inside of his.

“I’m … sorry for what I did. I freaked out and acted like some crazed maniac. I’m sorry.”

Dwayne was already shaking his head before Anthony finished apologizing. “It’s fine. I understand. You’ve had a rough go of it.”

“Still …”

“No worries. God puts each us through trials. Taking your beating was one of mine, that’s all.”

Anthony marveled at the simplicity of his response. “You believe that?”

“Of course.”