The Incurables Page 11

  “Miracles, miracles, you can perform miracles.”

  Stanton lowered his hand slowly and turned his gaze toward his son, his only son. And then he leapt off the boulder, a sad breeze shaking the leaves, but his eyes remained empty, Dr. Freeman’s doing.

  Stanton sat down on the ground and rocked back and forth, and from somewhere there was the repeat of gunfire. Durango didn’t know what to do so he just stood there watching him, watching his father as he withered away. Then he closed his eyes and whispered his own prayer, but it was empty. He couldn’t make himself believe.

  After so much time Stanton spoke, his voice quieter and slower than usual. A lobotomized slur. But still his voice. “There are some things I should say, son. Some things I should confess to.”

  “No. Please. Now is not the time.”

  “Because the Lord knows these things, but not you.” Stanton peeled at a scab on his chest and Durango gritted his teeth. “Let me tell you. I was a child, only a child. I should have been at school, you see, studying arithmetic and reading and writing. But I played hooky instead, went swinging on the tree rope, went crawdad hunting at the creek, went smoking cigarettes behind the grange. But I ran out of things to do and became lonely. So I went home. Nobody was there, I figured. Into the kitchen I went and got myself a drink of orange juice and a slice of bread. As I drank the juice I heard moaning and screaming coming from inside the house. I was scared. I walked slowly down the hallways, following the noises. And then I stood outside my mother’s room. That’s where the screaming was coming from. Worried that my mother was in trouble, I opened the door. She was on her hands and knees and she was naked and that bastard Potter was behind her, pumping and slapping, pumping and slapping. Listen, Durango. That goddamn pastor was fucking my mother, my own mother! I closed the door quietly, and neither of them ever knew I was there, watching. My mother never knew that I knew that she was a whore. This is my first confession.”

  Durango didn’t want to hear, so he covered his ears with his hands. “Father, please…”

  But Stanton continued, although it was unclear if he was aware of the presence of his son.

  “More sins, more sins. My sister, four years older than me. They all called her ugly, but not to me. Not when she pulled me close on the couch. Not when she kissed my cheek and tousled my hair. She used to shower every evening right after dinner. And then she’d go to her room to get dressed. What did I say about sins? I would sneak behind her and open up her bedroom door a crack, just a crack, and peer in and watch her in her nakedness. And sometimes she would glance around as if she’d heard a sound, sometimes she would smile. Perhaps she knew I was there. Perhaps she knew I was watching. She never said a thing. And I massaged my own penis until it became rigid, until it exploded. Every time I did this, I would feel terribly guilty. But then, the next evening, I would do the same thing again. This is my second confession.”

  The night was filled with awful sounds, of animals dying and being born. As his father continued speaking, continued confessing, Durango remained paralyzed, misery slathering his skin.

  “And what about my father? What about the money he hid between the floorboards? Hard-earned money breaking his back at the factory. But in those late hours, I’d seen him hiding the money, and I paid careful attention to which floorboard it was under. And when he was at work and I was home, I would sneak into his study and pull off the floorboard and take a five-dollar bill and use that money to go to the picture show or to buy candy and cigarettes and a sports magazine. And when the old man struggled to get food on the table, I hid in the corner of my room munching on jelly beans and gobstoppers. My own greed even then, even as a child. This is my third confession.”

  This went on for another hour at least. Confession after confession, while Durango huddled and shivered. This was the cure? A cleansing of the soul?

  “My mother,” Durango said. “Tell me about my mother.”

  And now Stanton turned slowly, his eyes focusing on his son like he was seeing him for the first time. His mouth opened then closed then opened again. “I squeezed her neck,” the old man said suddenly, and the wounds on his chest were oozing pus.

  Durango bowed his head and watched as a tear from his own eye fell, disappearing into the dirt.

  “She was a sinful woman. She’d broken every vow and then some. Whoring her body just to spite me.”

  And Durango didn’t want to hear despite the fact that he’d always known. His father’s sudden belief in God had only been a last-ditch effort to save him from damnation. The creation of Durango as the Messiah only done to shield him from the devil’s flames. No, no Durango didn’t want to hear. But he listened as his mother’s bones lay buried beneath the dirt.

  “Suspicions, suspicions, so I followed her that night. I knew what she was going to do, I knew where she was going to go, and I wanted to see with my own eyes. I longed to feel the rage boil in my veins, longed to see my eye sockets filled with blood. Hidden in the shadow of an oak I stood, smoking cigarettes and drinking firewater, paying close attention to that ramshackle bungalow where my wife and that Negro were fornicating, her shrieks echoing across the valley floor. Just as my mother had done. Whores all.”

  And now Stanton, a lobotomized man of God, paused his story and reached into his pocket. In his hand he held a thick nail, badly rusted. He placed the tip on his forearm and jammed the nail beneath his skin, dragging it down toward his wrist. His arm quickly reddened with blood and his eyes rolled back into his skull. His lips curled into a terrible grin. Durango watched horrified, and he remained frozen while his father continued speaking, his voice harsh and gravelly.

  “It was midnight—the time of the devil—when she finally appeared from the poor man’s shack. I watched as the Negro kissed her, and my insides tore themselves apart. The moon shone, but I longed for the darkness, for blindness.

  “Hurrying, hurrying through the forest she went. A forest just like this one! Leaves and dirt infested with sin. She wore a hood, I remember that, but it wasn’t red, it was black and there would be no woodcutter to save her…”

  Durango was now crying in silence and his father again used the rusty nail, this time on his other arm. A bloody mess he was, but it was too late for the old man to martyr himself, he’d already martyred his son time after time after time…

  “She didn’t fight, son. She didn’t make a sound at all. I squeezed her neck and she stared at me with those terrible green eyes, and at the end, when her breath stank of death, her lips moved and she tried speaking, but her lips were coated in blood, her last words never to be.

  “This is my final confession.”

  Chapter 19

  Durango left his father at the campsite and staggered into town, horrifying thoughts infesting his brain. His father would spend eternity in the fires, face melting from his skull, soul dripping like wax.

  Scent had told him not to go to her house because of her mother, the crazy woman, but Durango was desperate, needed somebody to talk to, somebody to hold. Those tears were bound to come again, acid scarring his cheeks.

  His crown of thrones he’d left with his father, his faith he’d drowned in the river. He stumbled through the neighborhood, and he saw grotesque visages in the windows, heard terrible screams echoing in the chimneys.

  Lungs burning, body drenched in sweat, he stood outside Scent’s house, just like he had a week earlier, watching, but today her window remained darkened. Fingers twitching, he walked toward her front door, wind chimes playing a terrifying tune. He knocked on the door, but his knocking was faint and nobody came.

  He had just turned around to leave when the front door opened and Scent stood in the shadows. She was dressed as if she were going to a funeral—black dress, black heels, black sunglasses. Sinful thoughts pressed against his skull and he tried shaking them away, but it was no good—the final commandment always being the most difficult to fulfill.

  “Durango, Durango,” she said. “What are you doing here?
Didn’t I tell you to stay away from this house? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from my mom? She’s a crazy one, Durango. She’s diseased. I won’t let you see the old hag! Don’t you understand how sick she is?”

  From the darkened living room came a meek voice: “She’s cruel, so cruel.”

  Durango grabbed Scent’s wrist. “I needed to see you. My father, he…”

  But Scent ignored him and turned back toward her mother, hidden in the darkness.

  “You’ll tell me, bitch,” she said. “And if you don’t tell me, I got my way of finding out!”

  Scent pushed past Durango and slammed the front door shut. She grabbed Durango’s arm and led him down the street, the broken moon reflected in the gutter. His father…a murderer! His father…hell bound!

  “A woman like that’s got no right for living,” Scent said. “A woman like that oughta have somebody there to slit her throat every minute of her life.”

  And Durango spoke, saying, “I gotta tell you about my father. I gotta tell you about what Dr. Freeman done to him!”

  “Oh, don’t hate me, Durango, but I’m a mean one. As mean as they come.”

  And as they walked, Durango raised his gaze from the pavement and saw a strange woman gripping a man’s arm for support, just shuffling along, and her eyes were blackened—hammer and pick, hammer and pick! You could tell them because of their eyes: dull and empty. You could tell because of their walk: slow and trance-like. And occasionally the wild grin reserved for the religious or the insane.

  But who was whispering in his ear? Who was calling him the savior? Who was telling him he’d suffer and die for man’s sins? Who was showing him that river of blood, saying, This is eternity? Who was tearing his face with shards of glass, was piercing his skin with barbed wire? Not his father. Not his father this time.

  They came to a darkened creek and there wasn’t anybody around. Stars, but where was the moon? They sat down on a rock and watched the water rush on. Leaves blew in a sudden chill. It wouldn’t be long now…

  As the angels moaned horrifically, Scent took off her shirt and she wasn’t wearing a bra. Durango’s stomach tightened and he turned away.

  “It’s okay,” she breathed. “You can look.”

  But Durango didn’t. He kept his head turned and heard more whispers: “The Lord is watching, boy. The Lord is always watching.”

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Why are you looking away? Don’t you think I’m pretty? You’ll break my heart, Durango.”

  He couldn’t stop trembling. “Sure, I think you’re pretty. But it’s impure. Showing your body that way.”

  “I’m a sinner of the worst kind, Durango. But you’ll be forgiven. You’ll always stay pure.”

  Slowly, he turned his head back toward her. His mouth parted as he gazed at her flesh, battered but smooth.

  “You can have me,” she said. “Now and forever.”

  She guided his head toward her breasts, and he moved his lips across the skin. Tears fell from his eyes, mixed with the sweat of her skin. She guided his hand beneath her skirt, helped him yank down her panties. And as his fingers thrust inside of her, the new voice scolded him, peeled his soul with a paring knife.

  They sinned in the worst way, and the world was getting uglier and meaner, and Durango needed Scent to cleanse herself in the creek, but she only pulled out her flask and drank bourbon or gin or brandy, and she laughed about what they’d just done and told Durango that men paid her for what he’d gotten free, and that he should consider himself fortunate if not charmed.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking about his old man.

  “I guess it was me that convinced him that he was crazy,” Durango said and there was no context, so Scent just looked at him, then went back to drinking her poison, the stink heavy on her breath.

  “I told you about that Dr. Freeman, didn’t I? I told you how he could cure.”

  “Yeah,” Scent said. “You told me.”

  “My old man had given up on account that I couldn’t perform any miracles. He had nothing left to live for.”

  Scent’s eyes widened and her mouth spread into a mischievous grin. “What are you saying, Durango? Are you saying that you did it? Are you saying that you got your old man lobotomized?”

  “He was sick. He believed I was the Messiah.”

  Scent sneered. “But don’t you think all religious people are sick? Just because he thought the Messiah was you don’t make him sicker than anybody else.”

  “This Dr. Freeman stuck the ice pick in his eye socket and hammered, hammered. There was blood everywhere. I had second thoughts. I tried stopping it. But all the carnival freaks pinned me down. The doctor said he was cured. But I’m not so sure. I don’t know what to believe.”

  Scent handed Durango the flask and he took a long swallow, coughed, and then swallowed some more. The wind shivered the leaves, and from far away a coyote cried.

  “You don’t know if he’s cured then?”

  “No. Or maybe the cure is worse than the disease.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “I mean that my father started confessing to terrible things he’d done. From when he was a kid. From when he was older. And then he confessed to killing my mother. Squeezed her neck. Buried her in the well. He’ll probably go to hell. I know that now.”

  Scent was watching the reflection of the moon in the lake, but when Durango spoke about the old man confessing, her body stiffened. She turned toward Durango, squeezing his hand tightly.

  “Just started confessing?” she said. “After the operation?”

  “Yes. I guess deep inside of me I always knew the things he’d done, but I’d chosen not to think about. He’d never said a word about her death. Not until tonight. Not until the surgery.”

  For a long time, Scent didn’t say anything else, just sat there staring straight ahead, thinking. When she spoke, her voice was hurried and breathless.

  “When I told you I had money, I wasn’t lying. Not really. My mom’s got it. A whole shitload of it.”

  “Okay…”

  “But she’s got it hidden somewhere. I’ve looked everywhere for it, but she’s got it hidden but good. One time I saw her out back with a shovel, digging, digging, so I figured maybe the money was buried there, so when she slept, I did my own digging, dug up the whole yard nearly, but I didn’t find nothing except the bones of our old dog Charlie. And then a couple nights ago I saw her skulking around in the attic, so I went up. But there wasn’t nothing but old forged letters.”

  “Forged?”

  “She wrote them letters to herself. Pretending to be my daddy. She’s a sick one, I told you.”

  Durango dipped his foot in the creek and scratched at his eye. “She’s your mother. Couldn’t you ask her for some money?”

  “Oh, I’ve asked, Durango. Believe me, I’ve asked. But she won’t give me a silver dime. She’s saving it all for when her true love comes back, even though that will never happen. Fucking nut ball.”

  Durango pulled his feet from the water and drew crosses in the dirt. “The way I figure things, money usually makes people more miserable. At least that’s what I’ve always seen. The more you get, the more you covet.”

  “Maybe so. But I need money so we can get the hell out of here.”

  “We?”

  “Sure, Durango. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

  “My father—”

  “To hell with your father!”

  The words stunned Durango, caused him to start trembling. “Don’t say that. Please.”

  Scent leaned in close. “I’m sorry. That was wrong. But you don’t need him no more. The two of us could be something. But we need money. We need my mom to talk. And now we know how to get her to talk.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t—”

  “Look at your old man. How he started confessing his sins, detailing terrible stories. Don’t you think Dr. Freeman could help my mother? Don’t you
think she’d tell us what we want to know?”

  Scent stopped speaking and her eyes darted toward the darkened forest.

  “What is it?” Durango asked.

  Scent pointed toward the trees. “I heard something. Branches moving.”

  “Probably just the wind. Probably just—”

  Scent rose to her feet, said, “Who’s there?”

  Moments passed, the night soaked full of dread. Out of habit, Durango began whispering a prayer to the sky. The prayers had never helped him yet, not one single time, but his old man had said God was testing, so he prayed some more. A figure appeared, face hidden in the shadows. Scent rose to her feet, again said, “Who’s there?”

  And then another figure and another. The moon showed their faces. The man in front was the oldest with thick graying hair slicked back into a ducktail. He wore gold-rimmed glasses that made him look learned. He had a long, angular face and wore a white dress shirt tucked into tightly fitting blue jeans. In one of his hands he limply held a book: Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death. In the other hand he held a Smith & Wesson gun. Behind him two other men, both ugly as sin. Thick sausage lips, flattened noses, bulging eyes. It was hard to tell them apart except one of them wore an eye patch. Both of them were shirtless, ribs pressing against browned skin.

  The man in front did all the speaking. “Glad we finally caught up to you, whore,” he said. “A buddy of mine told me you was screwing down by the creek.”

  “I don’t know yous,” Scent said. “So go on away.”

  The older man grinned a blinding white smile, said, “I don’t suppose you do know us. But we know you. Scent the Whore. And Durango the Messiah. You two are famous.”

  Durango couldn’t stop his legs from trembling. He grabbed a hold of a tree branch, steadied himself. “I’m just a boy,” he said. “I ain’t got no powers that I know of.”

  The man pulled out a comb from his back pocket and swooped back his hair. Then he stared at Durango. “‘There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to accept what is true.’ Says Soren Kierkegaard.”