When Roger opened the closet door, several guns fell forward at his feet. Most of them were rifles, weapons his stepfather had collected over three wars. Wooden bolt-action carbines, with worn leather shoulder straps, of this caliber and of that caliber. Both single and double barreled shotguns, bluing turned to rust, of this gauge or of that gauge. Roger couldn't care less. They didn't even make ammo for most of them anymore. They were collectors' pieces, to put it kindly. He had begged his mom to get rid of all that stuff when the Colonel died two years ago. His brother-in-law had offered to come get them too, but he never did.
Roger stacked the guns back up into a pyramid against the inside wall. He had been looking for paper. The printer was out of paper. He opened several drawers before he found the pistol. It was much newer. This one was loaded, because Roger had bought it himself, and given it to his mom as a gift last year for self-defense. She lived at the end of a cul-de-sac. In Texas, it was still considered suburbia. Anywhere else, it would be the sticks. There were no neighbors within eyesight, and behind her house was only pasture for miles and miles. Roger's mother had gone to Europe for a month with her new boyfriend, Carlton, and she asked Roger to watch the house while she was gone. His mother was seventy. She was still very active, and (cough) very attractive.
But the timing couldn't be better for Roger. Now he would finally finish writing his book. Roger was a priest. At present, he was defunct, just waiting on a new assignment. His own vestry petitioned the bishop to formally release Roger as their rector because of his recent divorce. Roger hadn't even filed for the divorce, his wife did. However, because Roger was boring and not so popular anyway, the parish deacons voted unanimously to request a newer, more progressive reverend. Roger was being replaced by a lesbian. If you're gay, they give you a church. If you get divorced, they take it away. Roger picked up the revolver and spun the cylinder. He cocked the hammer. Then he let it back down slowly.
“Where does she keep the typing paper?” He said aloud to himself. There was no one else in the house. He was going to do something. Roger was going to write a grand manifesto. And he was going to hurt somebody with it. He finally found the copy paper on a shelf above all the guns. Roger reached behind his neck, unhooked the stiff white collar, and tossed it on top of the file cabinet closest to him. Then he loosened the top button of his frock. Roger had attended college on a Theology scholarship sponsored by a church camp he attended every summer throughout his high school years.
“Religion?” He could remember the Colonel's first reaction way back then. “Religion is something that you believe. Business is something that you do. You should study Business, dammit.” They fought about it for months. But Roger never cared about business. In fact, Roger never really liked money. Hence, he took an oath of poverty.
The grandfather clock began to strike the half hour. Roger did not like that clock. He had hated it every fifteen minutes of his life growing up. He never much cared for the bell tower at church either. What kind of crazed horologist would invent a device that reminded you when every quarter of an hour had passed forever? He loaded the printer with fresh paper. Years ago, Roger's thesis in seminary was a rebuttal to John Calvin's Doctrine of the Elect. But for the past eighteen months, he had been working on a historical novel about Jonathan Edwards entitled, God in the Hands of Angry Sinners. Nobody gives a damn about that stuff nowadays — least of all, his former congregation.
Roger opened up a working file and clicked to the end of the document. He read the last couple of paragraphs quickly, determined to let the muse take control. Roger had ordered a rather large reference book online, and he expected that the postman would have to hand-deliver it sometime today. The computer said he was waiting to stand by.
“I need a drink.” He said aloud, again to himself. Roger was ordained into the Episcopal diocese of Dallas. Whiskey-palians, they all used to kid each other as divinity students. If you get paid to kneel, then you are allowed to imbibe. Roger stood up and walked toward the kitchen.
His mom still stocked a limited bar in the cabinet above the stove. There were mostly old-school elixirs like Drambuie, Benedictine, Anisette and Chambord. But to the right, behind those fancy bottles, was a cheap fifth of blended Scotch. Roger pulled down a coffee cup from the adjacent cupboard, and poured two fingers neat. The glands under his tongue began to manufacture saliva. His real dad died from cirrhosis of the liver. Roger had just taken his first sip when the doorbell rang.
Taggart got out of prison two days ago. His former cellmate, Betto, picked him up at the curb of a fast-food drive-in that very afternoon. Within a week, they were in a van canvassing affluent neighborhoods in and around the greater metro area.
“Let's go do some crimes, Homey.” Betto grinned at him, flashing his gold grill, as Taggart climbed aboard each morning. Betto was one bad Mexican, with inside ties to the Los Locos cartel. If you couldn't snort it or screw it, then Betto didn't give a shit about it. He had a wide droopy mustache, and deep acne scars like someone had slapped him with golf cleats. Betto had a tear drop tattoo beside his right eye and another on his neck that said: Sangre de Christo. Not because of Jesus, but for some blessed river in his hometown near Juarez.
They were hardened convicts, highly trained for home invasions. Taggart and Betto scouted neighborhoods for a living. They were looking for big homes, ones with no cars in the driveway, on streets with not too many neighbors, preferably at the ends of cul-de-sacs. Betto was the muscle; Taggart ran the con. If someone was home, they did the standard magazine subscription scam. That paid for gas and hotels. If no one answered the doorbell, then they stole the resident's mail and remembered the address for later that same night. They had picked up enough pointers in prison to appear almost human in public, but they were really just wild animals wearing people suits. Neither Taggart nor Betto ever claimed to be masterminds. But they were both highly skilled perpetrators of malefactions. They were social miscreants.
Taggart was full-body tattooed. All of his art could be covered by a long sleeve shirt though, except for one. It was on his hand. And that was his doorbell ringing hand. Between the web of his right thumb and index finger was stenciled: Born to Lose. Taggart's top left front tooth was darker than the rest. One would guess that it happened in the penitentiary. But instead, his own mother had once hit him in the mouth with a big orange butterfly yo-yo when he was ten years old. She just picked it up by the string one day, swung it once around her head, and popped him right in the kisser. She never apologized for that. In fact, the only remark she ever made, was that if he didn't quit pissing her off, she would knock out some more of his teeth. Child Protective Services were not called. Taggart left home at age fifteen.
Roger expected to see a postal carrier in uniform with a big truck parked out by the circle. Instead, when he opened the front door there was some guy in a badly wrinkled dress shirt and a cheap polyester necktie. He sported a homemade haircut and a brand new pair of blue jeans. The young man stood with his arms crossed in front of him, covering one hand with the other. There was no automobile accompanying him. Probably in his late twenties, Roger estimated, too old for college, at any rate.
“Good afternoon, Sir.” Taggart made indirect eye contact with Roger. Then he took a half-step closer into Roger's personal space. “We're here today representing the C.O.P. organization.” He didn't even stop for a breath. “That stands for Christian Outreach Publications.” Taggart pulled a thickly laminated and road-worn brochure from his back pant pocket and flashed it at Roger, careful not to expose the back of his own right hand. “We are out here everyday, rain or shine, heat or snow, in our fund-raising efforts to make this a better country.”
“What are you selling?” Roger could only ask that one question, before the grandfather clock announced yet another hour. They both waited, staring at each other.
“Well magazines, mostly Sir.” Taggart continued after the last chime. “But what a lot of folks do is buy these children's books.” Taggart pointed to the frayed bottom of his dummy flier, displaying some obvious Disney infringements. “Then they just have us donate them directly to your local children's shelter.”
Roger set his drink down on the entryway table.
“You see, Sir, I just need three more points to qualify for our fellowship grant program. If I can just get three subscriptions, today Sir, then I'll win the tuition money to go to the national firefighter's academy. They have this special program where I can go help people in Iraq and Haiti and places like that. “That's my dream, Sir.”
“So, how much?' Roger was a sucker. It was in his job description.
Taggart's demeanor shifted slightly. “Oh, I don't know — how about a thousand bucks?” He smiled broadly, showing his bad tooth. “I mean, you got a pretty nice house here, and all.” He shrugged to suggest that he was only half kidding.
“It's not my house.” Roger tensed inwardly.
“Yeah, sure.” Taggart exposed his right hand momentarily.
Roger saw the tattoo. “I just came to check on the place, for a friend.”
“Where's your car then?” Taggart responded, a little too cavalier.
“In the garage,” Roger started to close the door slowly, “where's yours?”
“Okay, okay”. Taggart stopped smiling so much. “What about you then, huh? Only fifty-five dollars and you will make a lot of kids very happy today, Sir.”
Roger couldn't really afford fifty-five dollars. But he did happen to have about that much in his wallet right then. He really just wanted to get rid of this punk. Roger walked to the bedroom and back. He pulled out two twenties, a ten and a five. He put the remaining five back into his wallet and set it on the little table next to his drink.
Taggart wrote Roger some counterfeit receipt. “God bless you, Sir.”
The house had been built on five acres of land by Roger's stepfather, the Colonel. Just three months after his official retirement party, he suffered a pulmonary infarction on top of a ladder, applying the last coat of paint to the trim of this very home. He was dead before he hit the ground. The house was four bedrooms, but in a rambling ranch-style layout, so it left a hefty footprint. The living and dining area alone were well over two thousand square feet. There was a huge plate glass window facing out the front of the house, and an identical window on the far back wall, displaying miles and miles of pasture. Everything inside was white. White paint, white carpeting, white leather sofas. Huge potted palms and ferns created a sort of atrium effect during the day. But at night, anyone could see straight through the house, yet people inside the home could see nothing of the outside. He had warned his mom about that too, several thousand times, because she never closed the drapes.
Roger walked back into the kitchen to pour himself another highball. White tile, white sheet rock, white counter tops, white appliances. Because white is clean, white is pure. Roger opened the white cabinets and reached for the bottle of Scotch. Roger filled his coffee cup half way. He set the bottle on a white baker's rack and went out into the garage. His mom's white Bonneville was there. The keys were in it.
It had been drizzling when that kid came by selling magazines earlier. But the sun was out again now, and songbirds signaled the dusk. Everything outside looked like it had just been washed and left to drip-dry. Steam rose off the wet driveway. Sometimes the pasture behind his mother's house had mule deer, other times herds of sheep or goats or cattle. As a result, it was cropped shorter than her own lawn, due to the incessant grazing. It offered a very pastoral setting. Plus, Roger was beginning to put a buzz on.
Anglican Estates was a faith-based community just outside Fort Worth. The land was fully developed and intentionally undersold. There were no zoning codes saying you had to be an Episcopal to live there, but the HOA wouldn't sell you a lot unless you were. The two primary thoroughfares intersecting the subdivision were Christ the King Boulevard and All Saints Avenue. You passed neither Mercedes nor Cadillac, and no Hummers — mostly Marquis or Regencies or Ninety-Eights, a few Park Avenues. There were no wooden privacy fences, no chain-link. These homes were separated only by perfectly planted rows of oleanders and crepe myrtles. About every eighth of a mile, side streets turned both right and left, connecting Sacrament Way, Apostle Point, Penitent Parkway, Salvation Ridge, Communion Trail, the Broad Church Bridge (not a bridge at all, just a concrete drainage ditch), Ascension Hill (with no calibrated rise in elevation), Perdition Run and Vicars Chase. At the end of each were either one or two large homes. Roger's mother lived at the dead-end of Atonement Circle.
Betto poured pecan syrup over his silver dollar pancakes, and then reached for the insulated pitcher of coffee. “So, how much?” They were having breakfast at a 24-hour diner in Arlington. It was late that same afternoon.
“Only fifty.” Taggart stabbed at his omelet. “But I think he was just some relative or something — dressed sort of funny. He should be way gone by now.”
“Fifty bucks? Betto looked pissed. “That won't even cover tonight, Vato.” Taggart tossed Roger's wallet on to the restaurant table along with his mother's mail. “Will you just chill-out already, you stupid fucking wetback?” It was term of endearment.
Betto flipped Taggart the bird. Then he motioned for the waitress. Betto always kept at least two weapons on him at all times. He grinned broadly at Taggart, exposing several gold teeth. “Vamos,” they were still partners after all, “Pinche Cabrón.”
Betto opened up Roger's wallet and left the last five on the table for a tip. He stood, then stretched, and finally headed toward the door. Taggart hesitated in the booth for a half moment longer. Then he slid the bundle of mail over the bill, and scooped them all up together. He slapped two quarters back down on the table and followed Betto outside. He grabbed a double handful of toothpicks and peppermints on his way out.
Taggart jogged out toward the van. Betto heard his footfalls in the gravel and turned around to let Taggart catch up. “Where're we going?” Betto's gold-capped canine teeth winked under the pole light in the parking lot.
“We're going to go make some money, you crazy spic.” Taggart walked to the passenger side and waited for Betto to unlock his door.
“I don't like that place, Esse.” Betto reached across the console and opened Taggart's door lock. “It's like a shurch, or something.”
“It's a church, you ignorant greaser, not a shurch.” Taggart pulled down the visor on his side and a compact disc fell into his lap. “If you can pronounce the end of the word, then why the hell can't you say the first part right?' Taggart had been correcting Betto's diction behind bars for over three years now. It had no noticeable effect on Betto whatsoever.
“Still don't like it.” Betto started the van and put it in reverse.
“Listen, you dumbass beaner,” Taggart couldn't get the cellophane off the CD case with his fingernail, so he began gnawing at it with his incisors, “Religious nuts are easy pickings. Love thy neighbor and all that crap. Plus, this place had a grandfather clock. They probably got a lot of guns too. I'll bet you the back door's not even locked.”
Betto tuned the stereo into a Conjunto station. Accordion music and gritos instantly filled the hollow space from four un-mounted speakers in the back. Taggart preferred hardcore death metal. He had the names of several of his favorite bands tattooed on his torso. The recording he held in his hands was hot off the pirate press. The group was called Cannibal Virgin. The album was etitled: Will Work for Flesh. Censors had changed the second word to work. Taggart flipped open the plastic jewel case and slipped his disc into the dash. He reached over and turned up the volume. The beat was beyond thrasher — with growling, guttural lyrics, distorted blast beats, and pounding erratic drums. You couldn't understand a thing. It was the soundtrack of nightmares.
“Turn that skin-head chit off.” Betto hollered at him. Yes, Taggart was a racist. But so was Betto. In the prison yard, Taggart hung out with Aryans, Betto with the Chicanos. Mostly to protect themselves from the Spooks and the Gooks, but Hispanics and Caucasians often shared the same cell in Texas. They had made a vow to watch each others' backs, once they were both turned loose on society again.
Betto punched the eject button and threw the CD out his window going fifty.
”Hey”, Taggart looked back over his shoulder, “I just stole that yesterday.”
Roger wandered around his mom's garage for a few minutes. Gardening tools on a peg board, a bass boat with fitted canvass cover, a riding mower, a propane barbeque grill, a work bench with a bird feeder on top, seeds scattered all over the floor. One of the last white four-door luxury sedans to come off the assembly line before GM pulled the plug on Pontiac. And someday, all this would be his (well, half). Roger walked out onto the side porch. He tried that door and it was unlocked. His mom hired a yardman and a housekeeper. They came on alternate days. Roger locked the door and walked around to the back yard.
His mother grew rose bushes along the side of the house. Every year they produced hundreds of bright fuchsia blossoms the size of your fist. The thing about roses is, the moment they bloom, they begin to wither. Roger could remember his mom, every year, pruning and picking out a perfect dozen, then taking them to different church families each day until they were all gone. It became too much for her after the Colonel passed on. So the new gardener just gathered them up and threw them in the garbage.
It was getting dark. A few crickets rubbed their hind legs together. Two dogs barked at each other from half a mile away. Not much else. Even the birds had stopped calling. There must be a herd of something coming up the pasture to graze, Roger thought to himself. He walked across the patio and tried the sliding door. It was unlocked too. Inside the house, the grandfather clock struck three quarters past. Roger entered the living room and locked the glass door behind him. He left the curtains open.
“Where's my wallet?” Roger asked himself out loud. His pants had no pockets. They were designed to wear only under his robe. In addition to the two giant windows facing front and back, there were two equally large mirrors on the opposite walls, creating a fun house perspective from certain angles. Below the mirrors were built-in bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes of liturgy and literature. The furniture was French provincial. The mantle was Chippendale. A huge portrait of the Colonel hung above the fireplace, surrounded by a gold rococo frame. There was a silver gadroon tea settee on the credenza. Roger glanced into the front dining room. A chandelier with hundreds of oval crystals and fluted lighting fixtures was suspended above the fine oak table. Two Corinthian half columns, carved from white granite, stood guard on either side of the front door. Atop the left one was a cluster of three brass cherubs. On the other, was a marble bust of St. Francis, with a bird perched on his shoulder. Roger had knocked that bird off with a Frisbee when he was a kid, but he glued it back on with household cement before anyone found out. The Colonel would have made him pull weeds in the rose garden for days, if he only knew.
“I had it when I was paying that guy for those books.” Roger began to retrace his steps. He went back into the kitchen and poured another Scotch. Then Roger walked to his mother's side of the house. He hadn't even been back there in months. There were two bedrooms on that wing. The Colonel and Roger's mom kept separate sleeping arrangements. The Colonel's room had two twin beds covered with army blankets, and you could bounce a quarter off them. On the headboard of one, was a run-down alarm clock. On the other was a bottle of Maalox, far past its expiration date. The drapes were closed and strung with dusty patriotic bunting. Roger checked the window. It was not locked, so he locked it.
The wallet wasn't going to be in his mother's room either, but he went in there anyway. Same twin bed set-up, but much fancier — one wall covered in cameos of herself as a young girl, and the other one in ornate oval framed photos of Roger and his sister as children. A huge Queen Anne chair faced the window with two small end-tables on either side. On the left, was a Viscount replica telephone with a receiver like a barbell. The antique rotary dial had been replaced with a push-button face. On the right table, was a pillbox the size of a cheesecake, with little wedge shaped drawers all around the circumference. The bedspreads and draperies entertained a fleur-de-lis motif. There was a whole counter devoted only to empty bottles of perfume. A small stack of self-help books occupied the far corner — but there was no wallet.
Roger walked back into the living room and over to the other side of the house. He had recently bought his mom her first computer, after the Colonel died, and set her up with a home office in one room. Two weeks before she went to Europe with Carlton. Another guest bedroom and bath were right across the hall. The grandfather clock announced a quarter past something. Roger should just face facts. He was going to have to ask his mom if he could stay here for a couple of months, until the divorce was final at least, just until he could secure another parish. He was a homeless monk.
Roger needed a shower. He could look for the wallet later. It only had about five dollars in it anyway. Roger unbuttoned his lesser vestments with one hand and brought the cocktail to his mouth with the other. He almost tripped trying to remove his shoes. Roger stumbled into the bathroom and turned the spigots in the shower on as hot as they would go. His mom's bathroom had a big Jacuzzi hot tub, but he was afraid that he might fall asleep and drown back there. Plus, the guest bath in this house was the cleanest room in the world. It was obvious that the new maid scrubbed it twice a week, and that no one had used it in over a year. The towels all ended in tassels and they were embroidered with monograms, making it impossible to dry yourself. Germs were frightened to enter.
Roger took his whiskey into the shower with him, just in case, and balanced it precariously on the soap dish. It was a claw-foot tub, with rounded sides and a pull curtain. A plastic slip mat was suction-cupped to the wall. Roger peeled it off and tossed it at his feet. There were at least five different squeeze-top bottles in the shampoo rack.
He got suds in his eyes, just as a big thump came through some distant wall, violent enough to knock his drink into the drain, followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass. Roger turned off the water and stepped out onto the bathmat. There was only silence. He padded across the carpet, leaving perfect wet footprints. Roger poked his head around the door frame. Through the reflection on the far mirror, he caught a glimpse of two shadowy figures darting across the huge window facing the back yard. Dripping wet and naked to the world, Roger ran into the office closet and grabbed the handgun from below the typing paper shelf.
“I don't think you got the balls, Pendejo.”
Betto took one more step forward, brandishing his buck knife, right before Roger shot him in the face. The slug caught Betto in his left cheek, spun him around, and dropped him head-first onto the floor. Blood and gore splattered all across the front of Taggart's shirt. The room filled instantly with smoke. Sulphur and saltpetre began stinging his eyes. Taggart had heard gunshots before in his life, but never anything this close or that loud. He raised his arms involuntarily — a defensive stance. When he opened his eyes, Roger was cocking the hammer back on the pistol again, and pointing it directly at Taggart's heart this time. Roger's lips were moving, but Taggart couldn't hear a thing.
“Jesus, God, man!” Taggart babbled, releasing his bladder. “Don't shoot me, please, don't shoot anymore!” He couldn't even hear himself screaming.
Roger jerked the pistol barrel toward one of the white leather couches and then back at Taggart. He did it twice. Taggart understood at least that much. He sat down shakily on the edge of the leather sofa, and looked over at the mess that Betto's brains were making on all that white carpet — like a plate of sweet-and-sour pork at a Chinese buffet. Then Taggart noticed the piss stain across the lap of his own jeans. He thought he might puke too. When he looked back up at Roger, he knew he was about to die. The fact that Roger was still naked made it almost seem funny. But Taggart didn't dare laugh, because of the look in Roger's eyes. Taggart had seen that look many times in jail. And then there was the gun thing, too.
“So what're you going to do now, man?” Taggart needed an angle, any angle. There were flecks of Betto's blood covering both of his sleeved forearms.
“Shut up.” Roger told him. “Don't move.”
Taggart glanced at Roger's stooped shoulders, his big pigeon chest, his lumpy love-handles, his uncircumcised cock. Roger was twice his age, but twice his size too.
“I don't have any money, but you can keep our van.” Taggart began to take personal inventory. “You want a blow job? Seriously, man, I'll do any thing you want.”
“Stop talking, I said.” Roger held the gun straight out in front with both hands and closed the distance between himself and the intruder. He pushed the revolver into Taggart's ribs. “You know what I want?” Roger said through his teeth.
Taggart wagged his head back and forth, from side to side, and tried to swallow. He had no earthly idea. But whatever it was, Taggart was willing to listen.
“I want you to repent.” Roger told him.
“Do the fuck, what?” Taggart's ears were still ringing. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that he made real tears, for the first time ever.
“You heard me.” The grandfather clock started its ritual. That took a while. Roger kept the gun in Taggart's chest the entire time. “I want you to change your wicked ways.” He continued when the gongs eventually stopped.
Taggart evaluated his options. It sounded like a pretty good idea. “Whatever you say mister, I swear to God, I will never do anything like this ever again, so help me….”
“I said, don't talk.” Roger pushed the pistol so hard into Taggart's chest, that it left a mark — a moon-shaped, half-inch indention, just above his left nipple, dead-center, upper vena-cava. “I want you to listen.”
Taggart bobbed his head, up and down, affirmative, anything you say, for sure. Like a bad dog at the end of a spiked leash.
“I'm a priest.” Roger put his face about two inches from Taggart's. “And you just ruined both our lives forever.” Taggart noticed the red rims around Roger's eyelids. He could smell the alcohol on the older man's breath.
“Oh Goddamn, hey, hey Father, I'm sorry man, I didn't know.” Taggart said whatever came into his mind next. “I was an alter boy, swear to God.” He lied. “Anyway, it was self defense, right?”
“Shut your mouth, or I'll shoot you dead.” Roger pushed himself back off the sofa and stood, still nude, with five rounds left in the chamber.
Taggart zipped his lips with thumb and forefinger, and ticked the lock, to indicate he was cool with whatever Roger might have in mind at that moment. He was still going to die. This nutcase just wanted to give a sermon first.
“Not just my career,” Roger was talking mostly to himself, “but your mortal soul, because if I kill you right now, then you go straight to hell.”
Taggart had already contemplated that scenario many times. He was reconciled.
“But if I call the police,” Roger extrapolated, “then you go back to prison. So you will go to hell either way.” Roger shook the handgun at Taggart's midsection.
Taggart tried not to look like he was agreeing with Roger's logic. He simply wasn't qualified to debate a drunk, naked, armed pontiff at that very moment.
“But if I let you go,” Roger looked at Taggart down the sight of the barrel, “then you still stand some slim chance at redemption.”
“Am I allowed to talk?” Taggart flashed his dark tooth.
“Yes or no?” Roger asked him, point blank.
“Okay, okay. I promise.” Taggart crossed his fingers.
Roger lowered the handgun slightly. “Go on, get out of here.”
Taggart mentally commuted his own death sentence to life without parole. This would make three strikes either way. “Why are you doing this, man?”
Roger paused to think about that — because there has to be some kind of balance, because Roger had spent his whole life trying to prove that predestination was wrong, because grace begets grace and we are all instruments of the Divine, because even one slight action can alter fate, and that another latter act might compensate for the former. Roger was pretty sure that Taggart wouldn't understand any of this dogma. So he just fired the gun again and blew the little bird completely off the shoulder of St. Francis. When the smoke cleared for a second time, Taggart was long gone. Roger knelt down over Betto's body and recited the appropriate common prayers, not really convinced that it would do either of them any good. The steel spring inside the grandfather clock wound down to its final tock, as the pendulum slowed to a halt.