My Sister, My Love (60 page)

THOUGH EXHAUSTED BY HIS ORDEAL YET HE HAD TO RETURN THE STATION
wagon to the rectory garage. And in the garage, had to position the vehicle in exactly the place it had been, when he’d backed it out the other day. A vise gripped him tight,
had to
.

Inside The Ark he told them—he interrupted whatever they believed they were doing to tell them—he had to speak with Pastor Bob that night. And when they tried to dissuade him he repeated he had to speak with Pastor Bob that night.

Had to
.

(And if not?)

Had to
obliterates
if not
.

In The Ark they tried to dissuade the flamey-faced youth with twitchy mouth and crazed eyes as often they dissuaded desperate individuals drawn to the evangelical mysteries of the New Canaan church who were convinced that they must, that very hour, meet with Reverend Bob Fluchaus for the salvation of their souls; tried to explain that Pastor Bob had spent the first part of the day visiting a distraught woman being held in the Middlesex Women’s Detention Center on charges of manslaughter, and negotiating between the woman and her family of young children, and the second part of the day he’d been at the bedside of a friend, a dying man in a local hospice, wouldn’t be returning to the rectory until late and when he did return he would be exhausted, and Skyler listened or appeared to listen then saying he would wait for Pastor Bob in the church, not in the rectory but in the church where he could be alone with his thoughts; and again they tried to dissuade him, Skyler Rampike who gave off a fierce radiant
heat like a throbbing artery, it was nearly 11
P.M.
and why didn’t Skyler go home for the night—wherever his home was—and return in the morning—and impatiently Skyler explained he had to see Pastor Bob that night, his life depended upon it. And by this time there came Miriam in sweatpants, pullover Rutgers jersey and flip-flops on her scrawny feet, Miriam’s off-duty attire, frowning and fussing Miriam accompanied Skyler to the darkened church, unlocked a rear door, switched on a few lights for Skyler who stumbled inside so distracted he barely remembered to thank her.

“Help me, Jesus. Or—somebody.”

How stark, how plain the interior of the New Canaan church at such an hour! Here was a space of no more romance or mystery than the interior of a warehouse. Except for the modest altar and the cross positioned above it on the wall and the many rows, shading off into murky shadow, of bleakly empty folding chairs of which it might be said by a neutral observer
No one of any significance or importance will ever sit on such chairs
. In a gesture of self-abasement Skyler knelt on the concrete floor. Skyler knelt despite his painful knee, intending to remain kneeling until Pastor Bob came hurrying in: he would punish himself yet more subtly he would punish Pastor Bob if Pastor Bob did not hurry to him. Yet—how uneasy he was beginning to feel, in the empty church! That sensation to which S. Freud affixed the term
uncanny
came over him. For never in Skyler’s life had he seen any church except when there were people—“worshippers”—inside; never had he seen the New Canaan church except when it was crammed with people, and with life; for the congregation of the New Canaan church was what you’d call a hopeful and expectant congregation, of individuals who have come primed to hear good news. And Skyler had never been in this interior without seeing, at the front, like an upright flame quivering with heat and energy, Pastor Bob Fluchaus. Yet now there was no one. Except Skyler, no one. A shiver of dread came to him as he stared at the rows of empty folding chairs fading into murky shadow at the rear of the room
What if this is the afterlife? This!
Seeing that the plain wooden cross above the altar was considerably smaller than the majestic copper cross that floated above the altar of the Assembly of God. For here was a cross, as Pastor Bob said, of the approximate size of the “original” cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified; as Pastor Bob told his congregation, “Our ministry is human-sized,
flawed and imperfect for we are but God’s creatures, we cannot be as gods.”

Pastor Bob never spoke of Jesus’s miracles, in his sermons or at other times. Pastor Bob did not believe that “miracles” were likely to occur in the vicinity of New Brunswick, New Jersey.

After only a few minutes Skyler could not bear the concrete floor against his knees. The bone-ache of kneeling on such an unyielding floor was beyond Skyler’s capacity for self-abasement and humility and so he slouched in a folding chair dazed with exhaustion and yet determined to keep from falling asleep before Pastor Bob arrived. He had no doubt that the minister would come to him, in his hour of need. Crossing his arms tightly over his chest to keep from shivering convulsively and to contain his excitement so close to spilling over, like crackling electricity. He could not bear it, this sudden knowledge that he
was not
guilty; he was
not the one
; all these years, without his knowing
Skyler Rampike had not killed his sister
. This astonishing fact swelled like a balloon—swelled and swelled to the point of bursting—as Skyler rapidly spoke, gestured with his hands in the anxious/aggressive way of Bliss’s old tutor Rob Feldman—trying to convince a vast audience of ominously silent strangers staring at him without sympathy. Shamelessly Skyler hoped to convince this audience, placate and seduce them with a combination of Rob Feldman’s logic and the boyish-wincing smiles with which he’d faced his father in the Old Dutch Tavern revealed to Skyler now, abruptly as in a clap of thunder, to have been yet another anteroom of Hell.

“Son? Wake up.”

A MAN’S HAND ON HIS SHOULDER, MORE OF A NUDGE THAN A CARESS.

There was Pastor Bob short of breath and short of patience looming over sleep-dazed Skyler, frowning. “What is it, Skyler? They told me at the rectory you had something to tell me that couldn’t wait till morning.”

This not-so-subtle reproach,
couldn’t wait till morning
, Skyler chose not to hear.

Damn he was embarrassed! Would’ve wanted Pastor Bob to discover him on his knees praying, not slouched in a chair sleeping so hard he felt
now as if his heart had lurched partway out of his chest. Neck stiff, head halfway to his crotch and a rivulet of drool across his chin.

Skyler began to tell Pastor Bob what had happened in Spring Hollow.

Something of what had happened in Spring Hollow.

His mother had died just a few hours before he’d arrived. He had gone to her funeral. The letter his father had given him from her, and the videotape Skyler had not seen in ten years and had assumed had been destroyed…Skyler was stammering so badly, Pastor Bob asked him to speak more slowly and clearly. Skyler fumbled to show him the handwritten letter from Betsey Rampike on eight sheets of perfumy stationery but Pastor Bob drew back with a frown saying, “Son, wait. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Your mother’s letter was intended for you alone.” And Skyler said, pleading, “But I n-need you to advise me, Pastor Bob. The way you did when I was sick, in rehab. When I wanted to die, in rehab. And you said, ‘Skyler, there is more challenge in living than in dying. You must be a warrior of your own life.’ But now it’s like I am back in rehab, Pastor Bob—my thoughts are all broken. My skin is all itchy. I can’t think past what’s in front of me, I can’t imagine next week, or tomorrow—an hour from now—Please help me, Pastor Bob?”

And Pastor Bob surprised Skyler for Pastor Bob was not smiling in a way to encourage Skyler but in a way to discourage him, as you might beat back an eager puppy jumping up against your legs; and Pastor Bob said, “Help you how, Skyler? You’re not a child, you are almost twenty years old, what do you expect me to tell you?” And Skyler wanted to protest, hurt
But I am a child! I am a pigmy!
saying aloud, more reasonably, “What to do with the letter, and the videotape. Tell me, Pastor Bob.” And Pastor Bob said, “Examine your conscience, Skyler.” And Skyler said, “I—don’t think that I have a conscience, Pastor Bob. I don’t have a s-soul.” And Pastor Bob said patiently, “Then you must acquire a conscience, Skyler. You must acquire a soul, for no one can give you one.” Skyler said, “Pastor Bob! Should I t-try to think what J-J-Jesus would do? In my place?” And Pastor Bob said, “Why bring Jesus into it, Skyler? D’you think Jesus is a crutch?” And Skyler said, “This is evidence—this is a confession, in a criminal case—should I turn this ‘evidence’ over to police, or should I d-destroy it so that no one will ever see it?” And Pastor Bob said, “That decision you will have to make for
yourself, Skyler.” Removing from a pocket of his soiled nylon-polyester jacket a wadded tissue into which he blew his reddened nose, as Skyler persisted, now more defiantly, “—can’t forgive her for what she did to Bliss, all of what she did to Bliss over the years, and will never forgive her for what she did to me.” When Pastor Bob failed to respond Skyler said, “God damn I wish there was H-Hell, that ‘Betsey Rampike’ would suffer as she deserves,” his voice rising furious and resolute, “—h-hate both of them, him and her, ‘Bix’ and ‘Betsey,’ wish there was fucking Hell for them to suffer in the way they made us s-s-suffer.” And still when Bob, searching in his pockets for another tissue, failed to respond Skyler said, “—turn this ‘evidence’ over to the Fair Hills police, or to the FBI—to expose her—p-punish her,” and when Pastor Bob still failed to respond Skyler’s voice rose sharply, “—or maybe sell this shit. The ‘Betsey Rampike Confession Letter’—the videotape making out nine-year-old Skyler to be a psychotic murderer—the tabloids will go crazy for this shit, they will pay millions, I’ll throw in an interview with m-myself…” So Skyler ranted in the bleak interior of the church, and Pastor Bob listened, or appeared to listen, with strained sympathy; now sitting in a folding chair that creaked beneath his weight, and by degrees through the tears of fury in his eyes Skyler could not fail to see that the minister, a not-healthy-looking man of middle age, was clearly exhausted. Lines of fatigue in the ruin of his face like erosion in a rock facade. In the grudging and sallow light Fluchaus’s burn-scars winking like scales and eyes bloodshot and damp and even in his frenzy of self-pity Skyler was made to understand how in the shallow sea in which the minister bravely waded there were schools of quick-darting piranha (like Skyler Rampike) eager to devour him, to assuage their terrible and insatiable hunger. A shallow sea, a mere man, and infinite hunger: and there was Bob Fluchaus unable to stifle a yawn, a yawn so immense it forced his face into rubbery-cartoon contours; now rubbing his eyes with his big balled-up fists; Skyler could smell—what?—alcohol?—on Pastor Bob’s breath, and Skyler could smell beyond the panic-smell of his own body the older man’s body, for Pastor Bob was a heavy man who perspired readily in even cool places and Pastor Bob had not showered since early that morning, possibly Pastor Bob hadn’t had time to shower that day at all; as his heavy jaws were covered in a coarse silver stubble, and his hair was
matted and tufted and grizzled, like his eyebrows; his nylon-polyester jacket, dark-purple, of the kind a high school coach might wear, was grease-stained, and his trousers were badly rumpled; fingernails broken and edged with grime as if Bob Fluchaus was, not a minister, not a “man of God,” but a manual laborer, at the end of a lengthy shift. And Pastor Bob said, “Whatever decision you make, Skyler, it must be yours. It must come from a place in your heart, that is purely you.” And Skyler said, furious, ‘Heart’—‘conscience’—‘soul’—what the fuck are these? I need you to tell me what to fucking
do
, my skin is so itchy I’m going to tear it off—scratching at his face, his neck, his hands, until Pastor Bob had no choice but to grab his hands, to calm him; and Skyler allowed himself to be calmed; and Skyler said, “The letter is ‘evidence’—that I am innocent. I should show this letter to the world, Pastor Bob, shouldn’t I?” And Pastor Bob said, “But you must have known that you were innocent all along, Skyler, didn’t you?” and Skyler said miserably, “No, Pastor Bob. I didn’t know,” and Pastor Bob said with a mirthless laugh as of a high school coach who witnesses one of his players fumbling an easy play, “For Christ’s sake of course you knew. You are not a murderer, how could you think that you were?” and Skyler said, confused, “I-I-I d-didn’t know. There’s a difference between ‘thinking’ and ‘knowing,’ and Pastor Bob said, “Did you need to believe that you might have been your sister’s murderer, to spare yourself knowledge of who was?” and quickly Skyler said, “N-No,” and again more emphatically, in the face of the older man’s expression of be-mused disbelief, “No.” And Pastor Bob said, “But now you wonder if you should reveal this ‘evidence’ to the world, to ‘prove’ that you are innocent.” And Skyler said, “But isn’t it my duty? My ‘conscience’? Gunther Ruscha—the ‘sex prevert’—the man who ‘confessed’ and ‘killed himself ’ in prison—should be proven innocent, too. Even if the poor bastard has been dead for ten years.” And Pastor Bob said, “Whatever this ‘evidence’ you have, this letter from your mother—I’m guessing that it won’t constitute legal proof of anything.” And Skyler said, pleading, “Pastor Bob: tell me what to do. This is hell.” And Pastor Bob said, “Yes, it is hell. Let me explain, son: my ministry is a ministry for those who dwell in hell. It is a flawed ministry, as my face and body are scarred so I stand before my congregation and before the world flawed, and I don’t present myself as a ‘perfect’ man. I have plenty of sympathy for
Pilate who said, ‘What is truth?’—fuck if I know. Maybe you’ve heard rumors that I will be bringing my ministry to a cable TV audience—these rumors are false, for I have told would-be producers I’m a minister only of flesh-and-blood, preaching to flesh-and-blood individuals in the room with me. To appear on TV you must wear makeup to make you look ‘like yourself ’—what bullshit. Anything that isn’t flesh-and-blood, eye-to-eye, it’s bullshit. You’ve heard rumors that I’d been a prison guard before becoming a minister and these rumors I try to correct: I wasn’t a guard at Rahway, but an inmate. ‘Bob Fluchaus’ served three and a half years of a seven-year sentence for vehicular homicide, son. Driving drunk, twenty-nine, with my young wife and three-year-old son. Driving drunk on the Turnpike—speeding—passing a tractor-trailer on the right and cut in too sharply and next thing I knew my car was skidding toward the median and spun around and struck another car, got hit by another truck smashing my ‘economy car’ like you’d smash a tin can with a sledgehammer. And my son died there on the spot, and my twenty-six-year-old wife I’d known since high school died on the way to the hospital. And another driver died, in the other car. And ‘Bob Fluchaus’ lived. On a life-support machine for two weeks, burns over thirty percent of my body, skull fracture and eleven bones broken and should’ve died and wanted to die but did not. Why in hell, who knows. So I pleaded guilty to all the charges they could rack up against me and they sent me away, to think things over. And not an hour a day now, I fail to think about my young wife and my little boy who’d be my wife’s age if he’d been allowed to live. And I try to think why God spared me, if it was purposeful or just one more freaky accident on the Turnpike. Because my life sure feels like a freaky accident to me. Because I asked myself in the hospital, ‘Why have I been spared?’ and God said, ‘You have been spared to live out the remainder of your miserable life in misery,’ and I did not dispute this, but saw the logic of it, but later God said, ‘You have been spared to bring forgiveness to the world, that you can’t ever receive yourself from any source.’ And I said, ‘I don’t believe in you, God. “God” is a crock of shit and “Bob Fluchaus” was created in that image,’ and God laughed saying, ‘What I am is not dependent upon your belief, asshole.’ Must’ve been high on Demerol in the hospital, never would hear God so loud and so clear as then. So at Rahway I had plenty of time to think, and
there was a chaplain there, and we talked a lot together, and we read the Bible together, aloud we read the Gospels, and it seemed to me the Jesus Christ of the Gospels was a visionary crazed with his vision, made the mistake of falling for his own miracles seeing how the ‘multitudes’ were as little children craving all sorts of bullshit before they’d ‘believe’—but he was a true seer, with a wildness in him, and no fear of torture, or death—and one day in my second year of incarceration I made the decision that I would try to carry the message of the Gospels to as much of the world that I could. For though I don’t believe in much of anything I ‘believe’ in humankind and our need to ‘believe’ which is a need like hunger. And though I’m not what you’d call a happy man, I’m blessed with the power to make others happy. And some of this I see in you, Skyler. In the rehab clinic, last year. If you’d speak what is in your heart. Son, you don’t have to ‘believe’ in Christ if Christ is in you. If the crucifixion-agony is in you. And that is you, Skyler. Or so it has seemed to me. I am almost never wrong in my judgments of people, Skyler, let me boast a little, son, and say that I see in you something of me, at a younger age, except it is finer in you, or might one day be. Am I mistaken?”