The Brothers K (87 page)

I
rwin was sitting at a table in a big white room.

On the table were colors—eight plastic bottles of bright paints.

In the chair across the table was the volunteer girl.

She opened all eight bottles. She smiled. Paint your life, she said. Paint whatever you feel, said the nice brown-eyed girl in the blue dress and white smock. Someone you love, some place you’d like to be. Anything you like, Irwin. Anything nice.

“Yerrrr shurrr?” he slurred. He didn’t mean to speak this way. The shots. They’d made him a ventriloquist—a tiny ventriloquist, lost in the torso of his own gigantic puppet, struggling to reach up and operate the huge, flopping lips.

But she smiled as she nodded, touched by his effort, or his blue eyes, some remnant of his looks. And it was her. It was the girl in blue he liked. Except for her smock. She must be new, must not know. So he wanted to help her—to simply touch, with color, the dead white of the smock. But could he really?

Anything you like …

Okay. Ever so gently, please don’t be frightened, ever so slowly, Jesus loves us, he reached across the table, a speck of bright green on the tip of his brush. But the instant it touched her he saw that she was weak, that already she felt only her aloneness, saw only his size, remembered only the warnings—
smashed teeth! phantom boys!
Her white smock became a fuse, his brush a flaming green match. He watched her explode, watched her mind turn white:

Dont!
she said viciously.

“Sorrrreee …” Dropping the brush, pulling back as fast as the drugs would let him. But now the slowness made her think he was mocking her,
toying with her. And already she was fleeing, locking him in, doing something terrible, “Nooo …” But she was gone.

Anything you like, Irwin. Anything nice …

He once saved a dog. Nice. Show her. Show her anyway.

He painted the bridge, and the floating house. He painted Sparkle. But there was still no water in his river when he heard Snowmen in the hall. Fighting his fear, trying to use his panic, he painted in an awkward frenzy, clear off the paper, clear off the tabletop. And he got some of the swirling, some of the power, but his river was still too small, too wrong, more a dirt path or road when he ran out of brown.

“Owwwwww!”
Snowmen pounding the window, grinning at his river through the wired glass.

Show her anyway. More brown!

He tried black and yellow, got gray mud, tried red and blue, got purple, mixed it with the gray, got more gray, spilled it, saw the mess, knew she’d never understand, thought
Christ
, thought
Christmas
, thought
Nice
, took the green, started afresh, forced his flopping lips to sing,
O Grissssmuh treee …
O
Crissssmuh …

“Owwwwww! Real purty, Irwin!”

But still he began to decorate it—the lovely ornaments, gifts piled beneath, little star at the top, red blood on the branches, bobbing head in the river, hand that never stops groping, never stops, never stops,
not nice!
But how could he fix it? It happened. And they were coming now, banging the door open:

“Gee, Irwin. Can we watch?”

He painted a box, gave it wheels. “The jeep!” he said loudly, hoping she was still out in the hall, still listening somewhere.

“And what a nice tree growing through it! Owwwwwwwww!”

Show her. He painted the legs, the little torso, tiny wrists, black band of the watch …

“You’ve been naughty again, Irwin. Scaring little girls. And now it’s time to take your medicine.” The Snowmen started for him.

“The boy!”
he shouted, shoving the Mike one away. “Let me show her!” Painting the neck, the thin shoulders. But there was no head or eyes, there was no life when the Denny one, the savage one, grabbed him from behind, wrenched his arm up behind his back, laughed at his scream as the injured shoulder tore, shoved his head down on the table, “Look, Mike. Paint by number!,” his face dragging through the river, “You’re the art now, buddy!,” his eyes, his lips, erasing the little boy.

“Owwwwwww!”

“He wasn’t afraid,” he groaned, still hoping she was listening. “Not afraid!” he gasped. “And neither should we be!” But they were white, head to toe—clothes, skin and minds white—Mike and Denny, Snowmen in hell, taking him to hell too, lashing him to the gurney now, meat now, Jesus wants meat for a sunbeam. Sing it anyway: “God is my father, Jesus is my brother and the blessed Holy Spir—
Aggh!”

“Is my mom!” Mike roared.

The white laughter. Out the door, no, down the hall,
no
… But there. There she was. So pale, so frightened. And crying now. So did she care for him a little?
Tell it
.

“Life is green. Death is white. I only wanted to show you.”

Eyes darting away.
But tell it
.

“This is dying, and dying scares me. So I made you afraid. It was my fault.”

“Awww. The poor little fella. Owwwwwwww!”

Couldn’t see her now.
But tell it
.

“God loves us, but kills us anyway. I forgive Him. I forgive you. Forgive me too. It’s all we can do.”

No answer but the Snowmen: “Fergive me, Denny!” “Oh I do, Mike!” The long stark corridors, white tubes of light. “Fergive us, Irwin!” “Fer sure, man! It’s all you can fuckin’ do!”
Tell it anyway
.

“I do forgive you, Mike. I do, Denny. Forgive me too.”

S
o this is it
, she thought as the wide wooden boat bobbed before her:
the river
.

But someone kept jostling her:
“Mama? Mama?”

Till a reflex snapped:
“What?”

“Are you all right?” Bet’s voice.

The reflex: “Yes.” But she had to look for several seconds before she realized the bobbing boat was an offering plate.
Have I denied my son?
Then she realized that every person in the pew was staring at her, waiting for her to pass the plate.

She tore open her purse, dropped in ten dollars instead of the usual one, bowed her head, and began trying to breathe, to pray, to think. But when Bet took the plate she eyed it coolly,
removed
the ten, stuffed it back in her mother’s purse, and through the insufferable new sneer whispered, “Insult God with your cowardice, Mama, but not with your bribes. It’s embarrassing.”

Slap her!
hissed the reflex. But this was church. And the sickness inside her said, It’s
true
.

Up at the podium Brother Beal had set his flat dead voice to droning: “And the Pathfinders raised over forty dollars at the big spring car wash last Sunday. Hearty congratulations, kids.” And Hugh’s broken voice, their son, her son:
if the Vietcong had him
… “The offering in your envelopes today goes to our fine new TV ministry, and the loose offering will go to the Game Room fund. Heartfelt thanks”
tortured
… “lovely flower arrangements this week the generous gift of Mrs. Beckenhurst, in memory of her husband, Rex. What a treat for us all. Elder Babcock sends his blessings”
slowly, surely
… “giving the guest sermon on the
Bread of Life
program for radio KIND, in Vancouver. But he promised to join us for the potluck dinner out at Deer Creek Park”
killed …
“golden opportunity to taste my famous potato salad”
my son
… “and what a day for it! So please, do come.”

But why? When Irwin’s need was so great, why did it feel so wrong to ask for a shared prayer? Having never challenged the way they worshipped here, she’d never experienced the limitations. But the instant she stood up, alone and desperate, it seemed dreadfully obvious that some antiseptic, ill-tempered god of propriety had built a transparent wall between the congregation and their own lives, and that what they now worshipped was that wall. There was no one to be angry with, no one to blame: it had simply been decided before any of them were born that a hymn, a sermon and a ritualized prayer must meet their spiritual needs. “Well, I’ll not have it!” Mama whispered aloud. “This is Irwin’s church, these are his people. Who is going to pray for him if we—”

Shhhhhh!
People turning.
Please shush!
Behind her too, and the seasickness, the humiliation washed through her again. Then Bet leaned hard against her shoulder. “Get serious!” she hissed. “This place put Irwin where he is. ‘Believe and you’re saved,’ they told him since Cradle Roll, so now he’s believing himself to
death
. And who’s gonna save him? Beal? Babcock? God? You?
Stuff
your prayers, Mama. They’re an insult to Irwin’s faith.”

“When we get outside,” Mama, or the reflex, whispered, “I’m going to
slap your face!”

“Sure you are!” Bet retorted. “Slapping people’s easy. A
thousand
times easier than speaking up for your son. It’s so easy I might slap you back!”

Shhhhhh!
Before and behind them.

“Please!” The woman in the pew behind them placed a well-meaning hand on each of their shoulders. But the words she spoke were too perfect: “If you two have a problem, this is
not
the place to try and solve it.”

They turned, still fuming, to the front of the church. The guest
preacher, an Elder Kim Joon, was being introduced by Brother Beal. “And though he’s a convert from our Korean Mission,” Beal was saying as the little man grinned like a shy Eskimo out of Babcock’s ostentatious igloo of a chair, “Elder Joon has caught on to our ways very quickly. He finished fifth in his class at Loma Linda University. He recently completed the four-year seminary in just three years. But I’ll embarrass him if I keep bragging him up like this. Elder Joon will be preaching today on the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, which, by the way, are a couple of real beauties for all you nature-lovers out there.”

There wasn’t a stir from a nature-lover anywhere. Which left Beal no choice but to slouch back to his chair and sit down. Then Elder Joon stood, beamed his diffident Inuit smile, took a step or two forward—

and out of the darkness to the left of the altar a clown or crazy man, some disturbed-looking young man in a laughably huge suit, rushed straight to the pulpit, and every kid in the place started giggling. It seemed like a skit, some harebrained college kid out to lampoon a preacher. But when Elder Joon saw him he plopped back in his chair and began to pray in audible Korean. And Mama and Bet turned white.

The man was trembling violently. He had a choppy, do-it-yourself-looking haircut, and his jaws and throat were covered with shaving nicks, with bits of blood-spotted Kleenex making tiny Japanese flags of each cut. What looked like a pair of black rubber boots poked out from beneath the cuffs of his huge trousers. When he grabbed the microphone in both shaking hands it let out a feedback squawk, causing a woman in the front pew to do the same. The kids all roared again. But the ushers and several other men were on their feet. Then a deep voice murmured, “Could be on drugs.”

“Could be armed,” said another.

And hearing this, even the children fell silent.

But then Brother Beal stood, held a palm up to the ushers, and said, “Wait! I think I—Yes, I
know
this man.” And with that he turned and said, “Brother Chance! Everett! What on earth …
Listen!
You just can’t
do
this!”

“I’m very sorry to alarm you,” Everett said, not to Beal, but into the microphone. “Sorry about the suit too. Couldn’t find my old one, so I had to borrow my dad’s.” He picked one of the flags off his cheek. “Sorry about these too. I was trying to get spruced up, but it sorta backfired. The razor was Papa’s too. I know what to get
him
next Christmas.”

There was a single hesitant chuckle somewhere, and Everett tried to smile toward it. But the ushers had formed a huddle to decide how to
handle him, and Elder Groth, back in one of the throne-chairs, had snuck out an exit, probably to call the police, and Elder Joon was still babbling in Korean. The smile just couldn’t make it. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he repeated, shaking with terror himself. “But I’m not on drugs, or armed, or anything else. I was baptized here, actually. And the reason I came back today is that this good man”—he nodded sideways at Beal—“and Sister Harg there, and many others among you, used to tell my family and me that this place—this very building—was God’s House.”

Just this opening seemed to exhaust him. His shivering had become almost convulsive. But his first burst of courage had trapped him: no choice now but to speak. He tried to swallow, made an odd, squeaking sound, got another giggle from a few kids. “’Scuse me,” he said. “But if it’s true, about God’s House I mean, then I’ve … Surprising as it sounds, I’ve … I came here to talk about—”

He stopped cold. The ushers had broken their huddle and begun walking slowly toward him, and when Beal caught their eyes he nodded, and eased over behind Everett’s back. Predictable as their plan was, it was a contingency he hadn’t considered. And he had no answer to it. He hadn’t even begun to speak his piece, and he was going to be dragged off like a fool. He was going to prison for nothing …

But when the ushers reached the steps below the podium and Beal seemed about to lunge, somebody stood up back in the pews and shouted, “Leave him alone, Randy!”

Beal froze, and began to literally sway with indecision.

Bet was near tears, and trembling like a Pentecostal. But in a broken voice she managed to say, “It’s just my stupid brother. It’s just Everett. And he’s not gonna hurt anybody. Something terrible’s happening to our family. Okay? And he prob’ly just wants to tell you about it. Okay? So let him.”

Everett turned to Beal and tried, but again failed, to smile. “It’s just Bet’s stupid brother,” he said.

“Make it quick,” Beal said. Then he returned to his seat.

The ushers remained where they were. But Bet did too. And Elder Joon had stopped praying and started to listen.

Everett couldn’t look at Bet. He knew his gratitude would unravel him completely. “Where was I?” he muttered.