High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel (3 page)

Josiah shakes his head, no. “I like Royal Crown anyway.”

“Your boyfriend doesn’t even like Shasta. You know that girl, Josiah?” Havi likes talking at girls. He learned it from his older brother Carlo. Issy’s more shy, and the girls like that about him, they like that he doesn’t know he’s handsome. Havi knows Issy’s good-looking, but he’ll never say it. Havi’s in charge anyway.

Josiah says, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know nothing, man.” Havi sucks at his teeth. “She’s looking at me.” Havi with his small chest pushed out, always ready, pre-confrontation. He learned this from his big brother, too, all five feet and five inches of bulldog Carlo. He checks himself in the silver backsplash of the water fountain.

Josiah surprises himself, and says, “Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you go talk to her?”

Havi straightens up. “Say what?”

“Yeah,” snaps Issy, laughing, a little bit anxious. “Thas a nice one!” He puts up his hand for a high five. Josiah looks at the hand, and then he looks at his own. Then he presses his hand against Issy’s. He realizes he’s never seen them outside of church before.

Havi says, “You two stupid.” His face goes a little pale. “Why don’t
you
go talk to her? Tell her how smart you are? Faggot.”

Josiah wants to tell Havi to stop it already, teasing him hard for over a year. It’s not like they were best friends ever, but Havi used to leave him alone. Until last summer, when Havi started dressing like his brother and wearing a thick gold necklace. The new clothes make him act like the biggest jerk Josiah’s ever met. But sometimes the teasing is better than not talking with anyone at all.

Issy says, “I told you to leave him alone. Nobody’s going to talk to her.”

It’s not like Josiah’s timid, not at all. Sometimes he has a problem of saying too much. And face it, he knows it, he is more comfortable around adults. Other kids usually make him nervous. But who doesn’t want friends? And Issy has always been good. Look how he’s looking at the girl. Issy is in love. Josiah sees it, and it makes him smile. He draws a long breath and says: “Yeah, she’s not for you anyway.” He’s nodding at Issy.

“Excuse me?” Havi scratches at his ear, puffs up.

Issy puts up his hand for another high five. “Havi got schooled,” he sings.

Havi sucks at his teeth again. “Please.” He flicks Josiah’s ear.

Josiah flinches.

“You gonna tell your daddy?”

Josiah turns and looks at his father, who is still talking with the others.

“Huh?” says Havi. “You looking for your mommy, too?”

Maybe his father has forgotten he’s here. He looks back at Havi, and suddenly wants to punch him in the face. He’s never hit anyone before, and definitely not with a punch in the face. How would it feel? Would it hurt his hand? He thinks about this morning, in the kitchen, when his parents were yelling again. His father had said this time it was different. The Holy Spirit had spoken directly to him. Josiah walked into the kitchen, and he asked how it sounded. His father said, almost yelling, Would you please leave the room while your mother and I … Josiah wondered, Why tell Mom? Not me? I’m the one giving a sermon … He didn’t like it when his father raised his voice to his mother. Josiah’s mind was racing. Did the Holy Spirit say, Not Josiah? Anybody but him? Can the Spirit talk to anyone it wants?

In 1975, Josiah was only seven. Too young to remember, really, but here his father was talking about 1975 again. About Armageddon. His father talked so much about Armageddon. Josiah knew the scriptures, what the End was supposed to look like. Fire in the sky, like a war. His father said it would happen maybe in 1980, maybe now. But he couldn’t be sure, only that we have to stay faithful. Look for signs. He heard his father say there was a rumor an announcement would be made. Today. When Josiah thinks of Armageddon, it makes him feel older, and bigger, stronger like his father.

Havi says, “You just gonna stand there?”

He steps up to Havi—right up. Makes a fist.

“Oh, shoot,” says Havi. “Look it, stepping up like he’s gonna go ballistic. Please.”

Josiah says a quick prayer and asks for the Lord God’s blessing. And then, surprisingly, he relaxes his fist, but lifts his foot up above Havi’s sneaker. Because he wants to hurt Havi. He wants to smash Havi’s toes with the hard heel of his own dress shoe.

Issy shakes his head: Don’t do it.

But they can’t tune the voice out forever, and Kizowski is coming on strong. His father crooks a finger—Get over here. We have to get backstage.

The amplified voice speaks out: “You pretend to know the mind of God? The hour? The day? There will come God’s great war,
Armageddon
!” And this word is like a wooden chair thrown against a concrete wall.

Issy says, “We should get back to our seats.”

The voice surges through the halls like rushing dark water: “That Last Day will come like a thief in the night! Hear the psalmist! Who is there knowing the strength of His anger? His fury? You think His anger is like our Mount St. Helens?” A long pause … then, percussive, his lips closer to the mic, touching mesh: “Bah! A bee sting! A headache! For our God has come to prove to you that
His
fear will be before your faces.” A laugh, expelling his breath: “The Lord God has shaped every mountain with His hands, and the heavens themselves. Little lady Helen is no different!”

Josiah unfreezes. Lets down his foot, away from Havi’s. His brain swirls with the TV footage. The bursting of Mount St. Helens’s rock face, the hellish smoke and flame spewing from the hole, the shower of black ash rain. He looks at his father, who looks back at him, tapping on his wristwatch. What was his father talking about with those brothers?

Josiah says, “I gotta go.”

Havi says, “You so weird.”

The speaker box says: “The insistence of this world is on hurtful things, on evil things. But our Lord God has no fear. You think God is only love? Don’t you cherry-pick your scripture! Our Lord God is love, but also power! And fury! And that Last Day will be like none since the Flood. And God’s army will come riding forth on horses, and the sinners’ blood will run in the streets, thick and deep, high as a horse’s bridle, and just as fast.”

Issy says, “Nah, man, Josiah’s cool.” Issy swallows a gulp of air, his eyes still on the girl.

Josiah waves goodbye. He walks over to his father as the boys leave off. He sees Issy looking back as he runs, tripping on his way to the stairs. He nods hello to the girl in the yellow dress. But she looks through him, right past him, over and around, behind him. With every sense she follows Issy. Josiah wants to shout, “Hey Issy! She likes you, too!” But they’re gone, the boys, like animals let off their leashes.

*   *   *

His father walks him down the aisle toward the stage, and alongside the audience. They enter the doorway that leads backstage. Soon they are alone. Josiah stops before going any farther, the muffled echo of sermon behind the concrete walls. “What were you and those brothers talking about?” he asks.

“Don’t you worry,” his father says. “You’re young yet.”

Josiah considers this, and does not like it.

Whenever his father doesn’t want to involve him in a conversation at church, and sometimes it seems important, he says it’s only for the older brothers. But Josiah knows so much scripture by heart, even more than some of the elders. He has displayed this scriptural knowledge in the past. As he gets older, the more he displays, the stronger he feels—at least here he does, in church, among believers. Even though he is powerless in school. Or around the block. Or in his neighborhood. Last week his father stopped a bully from stealing Josiah’s bike.

“Were you talking about Armageddon?” he asks.

His father looks him up and down, smooths the face of Josiah’s tie with his hand. “You’re becoming a real young man. And you will get taller, I promise. But not today.” It’s an old joke between them. But Josiah doesn’t smile.

He asks the question again. “Were you talking about Armageddon?”

His father touches the boy’s cheek and says, “The first book of Corinthians, you remember? The faithful ask the Apostle Paul lots of questions. What about this, and what about that? But he doesn’t answer them all. And why? Because not everyone was ready. Even to the faithful I give milk, he said, and not solid food, because you are not yet ready.”

Josiah considers this.

“Isaiah, chapter three, verse four,” he says. “And I will make the boys their leaders, and the children shall govern over them.” He does not look away from his father.

Gill is silent.

What is a boy like this?

Can a father love his son and release him? Sacrifice him, and still love him? Is this not what God the Father did for the Christ? Jesus taught the Temple fathers when he was only twelve … And it seems like this has been the case ever since Josiah’s third birthday, when he dropped his Dr. Seuss and picked up Genesis. Maybe even before, since his mother went underwater in a long white T-shirt and a modest black one-piece swimsuit. Baptized at thirty-five, her stomach was so swollen with Josiah, it took two men to get her underwater and rebirth her to the Lord. You were there, Josiah, she always says, my miracle boy inside me, and when I finally went under you dragged me down, so every last inch of my belly got saved. My belly button bobbed till you pulled me down, you keep my faith from drifting. I was thinking of 2 Kings, Gill always says, when you came up from the water. And I knew it then, this special boy would be nothing less than kingly. Born with a breath of God’s power in his infant lungs. And your name would be Josiah, like the anointed boy-king of old. Only a child, but touched by God’s great hands, the very thing we needed, the answer to our every prayer.

Josiah, Josiah, Josiah, hang on the boy’s every word …

He kisses Josiah’s head. “I’m proud of you,” he says. “I love you. Your mother and I are very proud. You come from a long line of godly men. Got your notes?”

Satisfied, Josiah taps his jacket pocket, turns away, and heads for the backstage door.

His father never answered the question—and that kiss, what was that kiss? He could have picked so many scriptures to show his father he wasn’t a kid anymore. He turns back, and sees him. He takes the notes from his pocket, and raises them. He waves them and can’t keep from smiling. Neither of them can. He opens the door to the stage. Takes two stairs at a time.

*   *   *

Josiah calls out, as Bob Pullsey walks right by him. The sound man rounds a temporary wall backstage. Puts up a finger, Just a minute.

By now Josiah is starving. Kizowski’s been at it for nearly twenty-five minutes. It seems like he’s finishing up, stopping for consenting applause after almost every line. That’s the way to do it, but Josiah can’t imagine being onstage for twenty-five minutes. Thank goodness he has only ten. He shouldn’t have listened to his father, should’ve taken one of those heroes with him! Can’t stand still; he walks over to Pullsey’s wall. He looks up for the stars and the projected clouds, the night sky and ceiling lights, but he sees there instead the hanging ropes, the electrical cords, cabling, and catwalks that hang from the backstage ceiling.

He walks around the temporary wall, taking Brother Pullsey by surprise.

“What’d I say?” Pullsey raises his left hand, and it looks like he’s actually going to swing at the boy, but he brings the butt of his fist down on a rusted pair of pliers. Tries to turn a stubborn nut, and says, “Nothing works like it should.”

Josiah stops. He doesn’t know how to react to this. Pullsey says, “I told you a minute. Now get back where you were until I say so.” Pullsey keeps fiddling with the pliers.

Not Josiah’s father, not his mother, not one person in his congregation, not even the elders talk to him like this. And Pullsey knows
exactly
who Josiah is, and why he’s here—not sitting with his parents, but backstage, all on his own.

“Now,” Pullsey says. The boy obeys, slowly walking back to the curtains. He peeks between the curtains, to see if he might spot his mother.

There she is, in the front row, Ida, just like she promised. He needs her to see him.

But she doesn’t see him, not yet.

Josiah’s father, now returned to his seat, is nodding along with Kizowski’s cadence. Ida Laudermilk scratches her head, looking from side to side, almost like she’s bored. She looks his way—Josiah! She mouths his name, and her face blooms like a late morning glory. Josiah waves, his soul is enlivened, and this catches his father’s attention. Gill Laudermilk squeezes Ida’s right leg: None of that. Keeps a light, corrective grip on her thigh. He looks Josiah’s way, nods approval, and then turns back to the pastor.

But Josiah keeps staring at his mother, and as he stares her face becomes suddenly estranged, the way a familiar word turns alien if you say it enough. A frightening vision forms there and grips him entirely: his mother sitting hairless, stifling a smile, her pale skull like a bulbous root pulled from the earth. He shakes his head, shudders, and she takes again the form of her old self. He is chilled from it, and watches her mouth move. She’s saying, “Stop it, silly, you’re getting me in trouble.”

He looks at his father, who squeezes her leg again, and the shake of his father’s shoulder tells Josiah this time the squeeze is more vigorous. Maybe even painful. He wonders whether his hands are large enough to squeeze his father’s leg. Arm? Neck?

Gill looks at his boy, and then immediately away. Then he looks back just as fast. He cannot take his eyes from his son. Who is this boy? So unlike other boys his age. What does he know? What is he thinking? There is strength inside him, and Gill wonders where it comes from. Maybe Ida.

“So tell me, then.” Pullsey’s now behind the boy, arms at his sides like triangles. His face wears an expression of impatience, bottom lip over top, his mouth eating itself up.

Josiah says, “I thought you were over there.”

“And now I’m here.”

“I’m hungry.”

“And?”

“I need something to eat. Is that part of your job? You know why I’m here.”

“So you’re hungry, wait until lunch.”