The Lives of the Apostates Reprint Edition

By Eric O. Scott

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright © 2012 Eric O. Scott
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78099-910-4

CHAPTER 1

I have this fantasy about throwing a brick through the windowof the House of Jesus. I want to see it buckle in, want to watch theshards of glass rain down among the aisles of inspirational booksand Precious Moments figures. I want to hear the music, likefrenzied wind chimes, as the pane falls onto the wooden floor. Iwant to laugh like a Viking setting fire to a monastery. And thenI want to run like hell.

I can’t decide whether I would steal anything or not. It seemslike I ought to. Destruction for the sake of destruction seemspetty, but thievery still has a little romance to it. You can stillsympathize with a burglar. But there’s nothing at a Christiansupply store for me, and I wouldn’t want to take something I hadno use for.

I would never actually do this, of course. I’d get caught.Kirksville, the town where I go to college, is too small to getaway with anything like that. Maybe on graduation night, wheneverybody’s distracted … But probably not even then.

Still. It might be worth it.

I remember this one time, in my sophomore year, when I wasdriving through the town square and saw the clerk from theHouse of Jesus struggling with a package. She’s an older womanwith roller-tight auburn curls. She had a FedEx package in herhands – a big, monstrous thing. She could barely lift it. I stoppedmy car and jumped out to help her. The labels said it was full ofcopies of The Purpose Driven Life.

I hefted that package, and I had this thought: I could take thatbox of books, these books that were full of pabulum and condescension,and I could run off with them. Throw them into thealley, maybe, or jump back in my car, drive to campus, andabandon them in the basement of Baldwin Hall. Anything to getrid of them, to deprive the House of Jesus of its best seller.

But I didn’t do that. I pussed out and carted the box inside,asked the old woman where she wanted the box to go. Shepointed me to another stack of Rick Warren books and thankedme for being such a kind young man.

I don’t know why, when given the chance, I didn’t take it. Icould have gotten away with the box, I think – she’s an oldwoman, slow, bad eyes. Then again, I don’t know why I have theurge in the first place. I guess it’s to prove a point, but I couldn’ttell you what that point is.

Anyway, that was a year ago. Right now it’s late August. Thefreshmen will be arriving next weekend in their droves,crowding the streets and the sidewalks, slavering at their firsttaste of college independence. For the moment, though,Kirksville was quiet. Nobody walked through the steamingsummer heat except townies and the few students who stayedover between semesters, like me. The summer had dragged.Nobody to talk to, no parties to attend. Nothing to do but go towork and then come home to an apartment without air conditioning.

I turned onto Scott Street and headed up to a complex ofgeneric buildings – half a dozen of them, so similar that only theaddress numbers tell them apart. A wooden sign out front read”CHERITON VALLEY”. I parked and headed to building 3A.

Before I could get my keys out to unlock the door, I heardheavy metal playing from the television inside. I rubbed myforehead and opened the door. This was a bad omen for the nightto come.

The living room, clinical white and covered in a thin lair ofdust, held three men. Two of them were sitting; the third jumpedup and down in a frenzy.

Mike, my counterpart, sat in a tan armchair staring at thetelevision. Mike was one of the few black guys native toKirksville. He was a couple of years older than me, 27 or 28. Hehad a body like a scarecrow: incredibly tall and impossibly thin.”Hey Lou,” he said. “You’re early.”

“I thought I’d come in and get my paperwork done.”

I looked at the television and saw two huge, sweaty men inunderwear grappling, confirming my suspicions: the heavymetal had been Stone Cold Steve Austin’s entrance music.

The boys (I shouldn’t call them boys, I should call themmentally-handicapped-adults, but I can’t help it) loved prowrestling. Or at least Donny – who at the moment wasscreaming, “Un-der-taker! Un-der-taker!” – he loved prowrestling. He demanded to watch every WWE show we couldget on Cheriton’s basic cable plan, even the crappy Sunday nightshow that never had any big name wrestlers on it, and when noshow was on, he had eight wrestling tapes that he played againand again.

Jimmy was the other resident of the house. He was an olderguy, though I didn’t know exactly how old – forties, maybe – withthick glasses and a gray beard we had to keep cut for him.He sat on the couch, staring into space. I don’t know that Jimmyliked anything. I’m not sure Jimmy was high-functioning enoughto understand joy.

I grimaced at the tape. “Hey, Mike. Can I talk to you for asec?”

“Sure.” Mike didn’t stand up so much as he unfolded fromthe chair, raising up to nearly six and a half feet. We walked outof the white-and-beige living room into the white-and-beigekitchen. “What’s up?”

“It’s eight o’clock,” I said in a whisper. “Why the fuck are theywatching wrestling?”

“Donny wanted to watch his Undertaker tape. He wouldn’tshut up about it.” He looked at the television, then back at me.

“It’s almost over, I promise.”

I glanced over to see a Hell in a Cell match from the late ’90s– the kind where they put a big cage around the ring that looksto be made of spools of aluminum fencing. The Undertakerchoke-slammed his opponent, Mankind, through the top of thecage and down to the ring, some twenty feet below. Mankindwould lay there for a few minutes, unconscious, with a brokentooth up his nose. Then he would get up again despite thescreams of the announcers to stay down. Eventually they’d call ina stretcher, and then he would bust off of that, too. I knew theentire sequence by heart. I’d been forced to watch this tape abouttwelve times already.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “It just gets him all wound up. He’ssupposed to go to bed in an hour and a half.”

“He’ll calm down. Seriously, Lou, he would have been moreaggravating if I hadn’t put it on. Kid loves his Undertaker.” The’kid’ was in his thirties, years older than either of us, but, like Isaid – it’s hard not to think of them that way.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Putting him to bed’s going to be hell, butoh well.” I shrugged. The boys had given me worse nights.”Anyway. I’ve got my paperwork.”

“Let me know when you get done so I can start mine.”

I was essentially a baby-sitter, especially on the midnight shift.I made sure the boys didn’t hurt themselves, that they got fed andtook their pills, that they got a healthy amount of sleep. Giventhose responsibilities, the paperwork always struck me as unreasonable.

There was a form for clocking in, another for clockingout, a timetable for meals, a timetable for meds. There was theminor incident form – I had to use that one once, when Donnytripped over an end table and twisted his ankle. There’s a majorincident form, too, but I never had to use that one. And therewere more forms than those, too – reimbursement forms and thelike, for when we took the boys out for groceries, things like that.

I filled out my clock-in sheet and initialed the meal timetable.I looked up towards the living room. “They had dinner, Mike?”

“Yessir,” he said, his gaze on the TV. “Finest SpaghettiOs inthe state of Missouri.”

Jimmy briefly stirred at the mention of SpaghettiOs, but oncehe realized we weren’t about to cook anything, he went back intohis usual catatonia.

I finished my beginning-of-shift duties and went back into theden. “All yours, chief.”

“You have the bridge, Number One,” he said, and went to thekitchen to start filling out his sheets. It took him about tenminutes, during which time approximately three minutes andwrestling and seven minutes of commentary flashed by. I heardhim close up the paperwork binder and slide it back onto theshelf. He walked back into the living room and waved goodbyeto the boys and me. “See you guys on Tuesday.”

“Not working tomorrow?” I asked.

“I haven’t taken my girl out in a month, man. I’m taking thenight off before she stabs me.”

“Right on,” I said, and immediately hated myself for sayingit. It sounded like the kind of thing a lame middle-class whiteboy would say, and I hate to admit the truth about myself. “Havefun, man.”

He opened the door, gave us a last wave, and left.

“Bye Mike!” Donny yelled.

Jimmy said nothing.

* * *

I got Donny to sleep around ten o’clock, much later than heshould have been in bed. We argued for an hour over a wrestlingmove called the Tombstone Piledriver, and whether it belongedto the Undertaker or his ‘brother’, Kane. (At least I think it wasan argument. It’s hard to tell with the boys.) In the end we agreedthat the move belonged to both of them, but ‘Taker used it first.

Usually it wouldn’t have mattered much if Donny stayed up,but he was high-functioning enough that the company hadgotten him a job at the Ponderosa Steakhouse, so he needed to beup early for that. Unfortunately, that also meant I had nocompany for the rest of the night. The boredom was the worstpart of overnights. The boys weren’t scintillating conversationalists,but at least they gave me something to do; once they werein bed, my job consisted of not falling asleep until six AM.Thankfully, we traded overnights every few weeks, so I didn’thave to do that all the time.

Mostly I watched TV. I became acquainted with the slow driftfrom the end of primetime into late-night news and talk shows,which eventually dissolved into the faerie country between twoand five AM. I had watched too many infomercials for strangekitchen appliances and seen too many evangelistic pleas frommegachurches in my time at Cheriton Valley. At least when thesemester started, I could do homework to pass the time.

I sank into the easy chair and flipped the channel over to TheDaily Show. Funny, but forgettable – some Bush gaffes, a segmentwith the bald guy ‘on assignment’ in South Carolina.

I itched for someone to talk to. At the commercial break Istarted to look through my phone, trying to think of somebody tocall. Names scrolled past: Kyle Favazza, Tony Lacey, MikaylaPlinkett. A whole repository of relationships, sorted by ringtonesand thumbnails. People I hadn’t talk to in years, people I’dprobably never talk to again, but at some point, had beenimportant to me. I couldn’t bring myself to delete them.

Hailey Thomas … Alan Von Alman …

Lucy Walstead.

A photograph flashed next to the name, a smiling girl withturquoise hair. You might have mistaken it for a wig, but only ifyou didn’t know her.

I sent her a text. Hey. You busy?

About a minute later, I got a reply. Not really. What’s up?

I hit the call button and muted the TV. Garbled closed-captionsappeared. IT’S A WONDERFUL IDEA, the captionsinformed me long after Jon Stewart’s lips had formed thepunchline, EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE IT DOESN’TWORK.

“Hello?” said Lucy, her voice tinny over the phone.

“Hey, kid. How are you?” I asked.

“It’s a little late for you to be calling, isn’t it?” She yawned.”Don’t you have class?”

“Not until next week. Anyway, I’m working tonight.”

“Oh, right. Night shift, huh?” Lucy always sounds like she’stalking in her sleep: her voice, high and quiet, full of strange liltsand musical notes. “That must be rough.”

“I’ve been doing it for a little while now. Eventually youforget what the sun looks like, and then it’s not so bad.”

She chuckled. “How’s the semester look?”

“Okay, I think.” I paused, trying to remember my schedule.

“Mostly major classes … Logic should be interesting; it’s got agood professor. The only one I’m dreading is History of ChristianThought.”

“You’re taking Christian Thought?” she asked. “Really?”

“Blame the dean. It’s a major requirement. Or at least,something from the Abrahamic religions is, and every other classthat fits the requirement starts at seven in the morning. It’s thatProtestant work-ethic for you.”

I pictured her nodding on the other end of the line. (The linethat doesn’t exist anymore because we’re using cell phones. Yes,I know. Look, language has some catching up to do.) “LouDurham in a course on Christian Thought. I never thought I’d seethe day.” She paused. “That’s got to be a short textbook.”

We both went silent, and then at once burst into laughter.

“That’s terrible,” I said, once I had caught my breath. “Andyou’re a terrible person for saying it.”

“You laughed.”

“I never said I wasn’t a terrible person too.”

She chuckled. “Well, good luck, I guess. What’s the plan? Sitin the back, try not to fall asleep?”

“Miss Walstead, you offend my honor as an academic and ascholar,” I said. “I intend to confront these ideas from a positionof cautious respect and thoroughly interrogate them as a studentof comparative religion ought to approach any system.”

“Uh huh.”

“… from the back row, while doing the crossword.”

“That’s my boy.” She paused. “The whole history? That’s a lotof time to cover in one semester.”

“Nah, it’s just the first section. I think there’s three in all? Thisone just goes up to the beginning of the Middle Ages … 600, 700,something like that.”

“The Romans, basically. Well, hey, there’ll be some neat peoplein there, at least. Hypatia, maybe? And the Emperor Julian, he’sgot to have a chapter or two dedicated to him.”

“Yeah, I’m really looking forward reading about how the lastPagan emperor fucks up and dies, Lucy. That’s going to be alaugh a minute.”

“It’s better than old men excommunicating each other.”

“Root canals fit that description.”

I hadn’t talked to Lucy in months – not since June, when myparents held the Midsummer sabbat at our house in St. Louis. Wehad all made it to that one, for once – me, Lucy, her brother Andy,and our friend Dottie – the little tribe of Pagan children who hadgrown up together in our parents’ coven. We almost never allmade into town for the sabbats anymore. Mostly that could beblamed on distance – Lucy lived in Madison now, studyingLinguistics, and I lived here in Kirksville. Dottie and Andy stilllived in St. Louis, but neither of them went to many festivals. Notsince they broke up. I guess they both worried they’d die ofawkwardness if they had to stand next to each other for an hour.

Lucy wore a white robe at Midsummer, cotton, and when thewind blew I could see the nubs of her breasts push against thefabric. We stood next to each other in circle, like we always have,ever since we were little kids. We held hands and watched mymother and father drawing figures in the salt and the water,invoking the elements and the gods, blessing the wine and thecakes. I can picture every detail: our overgrown yard, drenchedin sunlight and greenery, and Lucy’s violet hair catching aglimmer of the Sun God’s glory.

I can think of my life as a succession of pictures like this, aparade of Lucy Walsteads that stretches back into the darkness ofyouth. Lucy at eight, dressed in magenta for Beltane, her hairstill blonde; Lucy at 14, standing with me at Samhain in a deepemerald dress, the first time she dyed her hair Tinkerbelle green.Lucy at 21, in my parents’ yard, tall and violet-haired andbeautiful beyond words.

I had watched her grow up, from a little girl to the radiantValkyrie I saw at Midsummer, and I had grown up with her,starting squat and short, becoming taller and broader andhairier. And I held her hand all the while.

She wore a white robe that day, the last time I held her hand,the last time I’d passed her a chalice and a plate of home-madebread. The last time I had wished that she would never thirst andnever hunger, that I had kissed her and tasted the white wine ofthe Goddess.

“Are you going home for Harvest?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I hadn’t really thought about it …” Iheard a noise from the boys’ room. “Hey, Luce, hold on aminute.”

“Sure. Is something wrong?”

“Not sure. I’ll be right back.”
(Continues…)Excerpted from The Lives of the Apostates Reprint Edition by Eric O. Scott. Copyright © 2012 Eric O. Scott. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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