Dead Souls Page 8
There is no bitterness when he says this either.
“So it was all for nothing,” I say.
“Not for nothing, no.” Alejandro aims his camera at the valley below us, the city. “I have an amazing life, and who knows . . . perhaps I would have committed some sin, an atrocity that would have damned me anyway. As you can imagine, I parted ways with the church long ago. When the favor finally gets called in, yes, I will have a hard moment, and I am not looking forward to death or where I’m going after . . . but why think of that now when there are so many other more pleasant things to occupy me?”
“Compartmentalize,” I say quietly. Justin has accused me of doing this too well on more than one occasion, but right now it’s all that’s keeping me from running from the cemetery, screaming.
“Exactly. I have found that this is what the rich do—enjoy themselves without thinking about what, or whom, it costs.”
The cemetery smells of sweet, wet earth, the vaporous release of something intangible. Alejandro looks through the viewfinder, then makes another adjustment to the camera. “Just so you know, there is a small group of us, dead souls. We meet once a month at the New Parish. It helps to not feel so alone.”
“That’s the bar converted from the old church?”
“Yes. It is written in the book that Scratch abhors churches, even if they’ve been desanctified. Too painful, like visiting the house of an ex.”
“What book?”
“The book of dead souls. Really more of a collection of notes, gathered from those who have gone before us. I will let you borrow my copy until you make your own. It may help.”
I notice that small word, may. Woefully inadequate. And then, that turn of phrase, those who have gone before us.
How many? I wonder.
“Did he give you a card?”
Alejandro nods. “He gives us all one.” He thinks a moment, as if he’s wondering how much more I can take, the state of me. Then he makes his decision, pulls his wallet out from his back pocket. It’s slim, black, leather. And hands me the card.
That same rich, strange texture. The same pyrography.
DATE: Sunday, November 13
SOUL: Alejandro Xavier
TIME: 12:15 p.m.
FAVOR:
My hands feel deadened, numb. “Favor is blank, too.”
“Oh yes. It’s better if it is. It is said that when he calls in the favor, the words there will appear. And then . . . you really have no choice.”
The deadened feeling rises from my hands, through my arms, to my throat. So. This is it then. What I’ve really indentured myself to. “What kinds of favors?”
Alejandro quietly pockets the card back in his wallet. “Why, the worst kinds, of course.”
“But I flushed my card down the toilet.”
A kindly smile, a shade on the side of patronizing. “It is not that easy to rid yourself of it. It will find you again,” he says. “It has been nearly two decades since I got my card and I have never been able to lose or destroy it. Do you want to take another?”
At first I don’t know what he means, but then he holds out the camera cable to me, like an adult offering candy to a child after some particularly bad news. Still, I take him up on it, look through the viewfinder. Taking pictures is as good a diversion as any.
I gather the woman with her tombstone rubbings into the frame. It’s strange how, through the viewfinder of a camera, you can look at someone as long as you want, and they’ll never know it, or suspect. It makes me feel oddly powerful, to be able to invade someone else’s private space this way, like peeping through a window. And in the background, the city. Beautiful. The fog has lifted, and the Transamerica Pyramid rises dead center.
A gust of wind curls around my feet.
“Think, Fiona,” Alejandro whispers. “Think of all the souls we are stealing.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I HOLD ALEJANDRO’S BOOK OF DEAD SOULS open in one hand as I ride the small elevator back up to my apartment, in a nervy kind of mood. Shaky, giddy with fear, but also struck with the odd excitement that I used to get in my broke days, when I’d shoplift a can of tuna for dinner, a box of crackers, slide them under my thick coat.
I’m already obsessed with what’s here. The whole Justin thing seems smaller, far away. Alejandro was right—it’s not a book so much as a thick collection of notes, photocopied and then bound with a plastic spiral. Some of the typeset is inkjet printer, some dot matrix; there are five pages that look to be the same typewriter (the j always hits half a line above the other letters); there’re even copies of medieval pages and scraps of what looks like cloth or papyrus. Different people have made notes in the margins, a wide variety of hands. Loopy script, compressed, tight handwriting, slanted cursive, and brief, almost stenographic bursts. Here and there sentences are underlined or highlighted, words circled. Cannot commit suicide until after the favor has been completed—4/18/88. —A.W. Dates, tons of dates, 11/1/53, 6/18/74, 2/6/1902, 12/19/45. Drinking blessed water is no protection—7/3/88. What about free will?—12/6/76 —S.B. S.B. had a lot to say; those initials are scattered everywhere.
It’s a catalog of insight that should not be viewed as fact, Alejandro had said. It’s simply a collection of unverified thoughts, opinions, opinions on top of thoughts. Nothing, he’d told me, is ever thrown away or reordered.
Which makes it read like an elevator full of people with Tourette’s syndrome, no thread or cohesion. Debates scattered across time, parts crossed out, especially the first few that lists crimes believed to have been favors called in. A conspiracy theorist’s dream come true.
Holocaust/Hitler
Khmer Rouge
Charles Manson
228 Incident
Jeffrey Dahmer (classic psychopath), S.B.
Spanish Inquisition. Torquemada??? S.B.
Hiroshima
Columbine
The Holodomor
Then there’s the list of contributors at the end. The ones who have gone before, as Alejandro said. The known debtors, the favors called in, of which there is no doubt.
You should give yourself some time before you look at this.
But I can’t resist.
Adele Cameron, sold 7/18/67. Buried her three children alive, then poured concrete and made a patio over their bodies. Died of natural causes, 2007. Bodies discovered when new owners installed a pool.
James and Frank Aindrea, identical twins, sold 8/14/85. Made a killing in the stock market. Dropped bowling balls from the balcony of their Chicago Gold Coast penthouse in 1994 onto the people and traffic passing by, then got into a fistfight that ended with James throwing Frank over the railing. Five people, including a four-year-old child, died. James spent the rest of his life in prison, and what was left of Frank was mostly washed away with a fire hose.
The elevator clicks past the second floor, the third. There’s always that questionable jolt when it reaches the fourth, like something’s wrong with the gears, worn past comfort.
Volodya Uros, sold 6/3/72. Defected from Russia, lived an unobtrusive, modest life in Missouri until one Halloween, in 2001, when he locked the exit doors of the Fuze Box nightclub and detonated a bomb, having earlier soaked the basement in gasoline. One hundred and twelve people died. Uros was caught trying to escape over the Mexican border and was eventually executed in his home state. And he had a son, noted as Alexi Uros, who sold his own soul in 2002. I wonder if there’s some kind of genetic disposition for selling one’s soul, or if Scratch locks in on our loved ones to further torment us.
I skim through the rest of the book, looking to see if Volodya Uros added pages and find one in badly written English, initialed V.U. I have sold my soul to devil, but give my heart to God. I go to St. Ignacio two times each day, I make rosary three times, I give one third my salary to Sisters of Charity. There will be forgi
veness, this I know. John 5:29—And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. 10/25/01
Apparently there is no salvation from the usual places, not for the likes of us.
But then, I’ve never been a fan of the usual places. For a brief period in middle school I became enamored with faith, incentivized by a new addition to class, a girl with neat, brown-bag lunches and pressed cotton shirts. A Catholic from somewhere in the Midwest with a forgettable name, she was never without a gold cross on a chain—it popped up and out of her shirt when we jumped rope. I lifted a near identical one from Sacred Heart Collectibles, the contradiction lost on me, but I was thinking maybe the whole problem with my life was my atheistic parents. Her life was so much simpler. Better.
For weeks I wore the cross, not even taking it off in the shower, but like the trainable sea monkeys that came in a box for $1.25, it offered nothing for me but disappointment. My clothes still smelled like lighter fluid, as my parents never remembered to empty their pockets before dumping clothes into the washing machine. Also mildew, as they never remembered to put wet clothes in the dryer. No magical paper-bag lunches appeared. I was still stuck with whatever I could scavenge from the kitchen—the heel of a loaf of Wonder Bread smeared with ketchup, the crumbled dust of Cheerios from the bottom of the box mixed with peanut butter. Even the gold in the cross wasn’t real, just a burnished bronze that left a green circle on my neck. Disgusted, I finally threw it in the trash. That alone was blasphemy, sure.
But one good thing came out of it—an interest in marketing. Because it struck me that there were two distinct kinds of people—those who were Oz the Great and Powerful behind the curtain, creating a better illusion of life, a world where you could conjure sea people with tap water, where a purported savior was actually loving and watching over you every day. And then there were the dupes who believed Oz really was a wizard and forked their money over for brine shrimp eggs and religious trinkets.
What does that make me though? Getting drunk and selling my soul. Am I the dupe, then?
For the first time, the horror of the entire situation is tinged with something else, a certain pissy edge that Justin calls my Yankee intuition, a sixth sense that itches when I think I paid two dollars more for a coffee grinder than it would have cost at another store, or the tip is already slyly calculated in the restaurant tab. The itch is telling me that while the first rule of marketing is desire, the second is misdirection, and nothing deceives people so easily as presenting an absolute. Offer ends Thursday! just means you’ll be paying retail until the next sale comes up in a month.
What if this book of dead souls is just a log of what happened to people who didn’t know any better? Maybe it’s not a question of getting out of the contract, but renegotiation. Scratch said he was in sales, a trader, and I know those people, the oily film of them. The only thing they love better than a score is a bigger one, and the possibility of five birds in the bush versus the one in the hand is a no-brainer.
What if I just offer Scratch a sweeter deal than my soul? Contracts are adjusted every day—I do it myself.
There’s another jolt when the elevator reaches the fifth floor, accompanied by a waning ding that also sounds like it’s on its last legs. I have to unlatch the inner accordion gate before I can undo the bolt of the wooden door, which opens out into the hall. Taped on the wall in front of me is a paper sign. DON’T FORGET TO SHUT THE GATE. The elevator seemed charming when I was looking at the place, but if someone forgets to shut the gate, the thing doesn’t work at all, which means taking five flights of stairs until the super finds which floor it’s open on.
I tuck the book under my arm, walk down the hallway, searching for keys in my purse. I want to call Alejandro—so many questions burn. But Alejandro specifically said, Taking in too much at once is never a good thing. Although just because Alejandro knows more than I do doesn’t mean I should trust him in all things.
No, at the moment there is no one, and nothing, I can trust. Not an unfamiliar place, at least for me.
I put the antique key in the antique lock—as usual it takes a good minute to catch. My plan is to pop a quarter Ambien, catch a good nap before I have to face Justin and our “talk.” Maybe add a half Xanax too and a glass of wine . . . or make that half a glass. Don’t want to inadvertently pull a Monroe, although if the book of dead souls is right, I couldn’t kill myself anyway.
But when I step into my apartment, there he is, gaunt, weary, and hauntingly lovely, sitting on my couch. Justin.
And next to him, Pink Coat. They’re locked in a tight, and very emotional, embrace.
THE APARTMENT should be on fire—there’s no way I should feel this thunderous, murderous rage and it not be on fire, bolts of lightning sparking from my eyes before I plunge daggers into their faithless, corrupt hearts, but instead a blend of shock and that other Yankee trait, terminal politeness, takes over. They break apart. Justin awkwardly stands.
You goddamn cheating son of a bitch rises in the back of my throat, but I choke it back down, where it rustles menacingly in my stomach. I quietly shut the door behind me, taking my time to put my keys back in my purse, hands trembling, almost dropping them.
They exchange an intimate look. Two against one.
“I let us in,” Justin says. When he’s really nervous, he always states the obvious, a habitual tic that makes me ache.
Gone. It’s always the strange things you miss when you lose someone you love—the way they used a knife left-handed; their favorite brand of toothpaste, which you eventually got used to; the freckles on their back that they’re not aware of, shaped like a constellation. Justin is standing in the middle of my living room, but the Justin I knew, or thought I knew, is gone, and already I miss him.
Pink Coat rudely interrupts and stands too. The hairs at the back of my neck bristle. And then, and then she actually has the gall to take a few steps toward me and extend a hand, like I’m holding some kind of work soirée and they inadvertently dropped in early.
“Hi. I’m Sarah,” she says.
“Sarah,” I repeat, like there are dead things in my mouth. Pink Coat now has a name, and I immediately hate it. I take her hand though, reluctantly, and she gives it a clammy squeeze.
Justin swallows hard. Apparently things aren’t going well here.
“God, I’ve heard so much about you,” continues Sarah blithely, dropping my hand, looking dangerously like a hug might be next.
How could he dump me for someone so pedestrian? Professionally whitened, even teeth, a slight roll of muffin top over her low-rise jeans, pink turtleneck sweater, and a strand of white pearls that match the teeth. Thick mascara. Pink lip gloss.
“I hope you don’t mind me ‘tagging’ along with Justin,” she continues, “but he could really use the extra support right now.”
Goddamn, the woman just actually made quote marks with her fingers. And then she gives Justin a prompting, Let’s move this along, look. History, and lots of it, between them. I see she’s left an umbrella by the door, a foreign invader leaving watermarks on the floor. I get a quick visual of stabbing her through the eye with it.
“I know I should have told you earlier,” says Justin. “But . . . I didn’t know how you’d take it. The news.” His arms dangle uselessly by his sides, and he looks so lost, so forlorn that a part of me—
“That’s my brother for you. He’s never been good at asking for help,” adds Sarah softly.
The words drop like marbles on the floor. My stomach flips.
My.
Brother.
“So we made a deal when he was eight . . .”
My brother my brother my brother my brother my brother . . .
“. . . if he ever ran into trouble, real trouble, I’d drop everything and come running.”
Oh dear sweet Je
sus, Pink Coat is his sister. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to claw my eyes out.
“So I’m just going to come right to the point and say it for him,” continues Sarah. “Justin has pancreatic cancer. It’s spread to his liver. Fiona, it’s . . . it’s not good.”
My brother. The embrace. A sisterly, tight embrace; a supportive, sisterly visit . . . Oh my God oh my God oh my God . . .
The light touch on his arm before he got into the cab . . .
Brother, her brother . . . he’d mentioned her, sure, but not blond, I hadn’t pictured her blond, in fact the photo of their family—God, I hadn’t really looked, I vaguely remember him pointing to the pictures, names instantly forgotten. I have that tendency with other people’s normal families, I blur the particulars to preclude a series of emotions I am tired of: anger, jealousy, longing, more anger, self-pity. A great, dark vacuum of what should have been.
The tinny sound to his voice, the hair, oh dear God, the hair . . .
“Your hair,” I whisper.
Justin runs a hand almost sheepishly over his scalp. “Wanted to get a head start. Or used to it. Before . . .” His eyes fall to the floor, then up at me, then back to the floor again. Guilty, he feels guilty, but not, of course, for the reasons I thought.
I still haven’t said anything adequate to the situation, but I can’t feel my mouth or my head or my body. My will to do anything has turned to vapor. Sarah—helpful, Pink-Coat Sarah—gently takes me by the elbow, leads me to the couch, where I sink onto the cushion.