Moses
TAG HAD ENDED that phone call too quickly. I should have realized something was wrong. But I could tell he was driving and had let him go without protest. I had thought he sounded off, but he’d had me on speaker, and everything sounds a little distorted when you’re hearing someone that way. I thought that was all it was. I told myself that was all it was. I don’t know when I started believing my own lies.
I had grown complacent with the dead. I painted them in pretty pictures, and they no longer hounded me like they once had. They weren’t portends of destruction. They didn’t look like zombies or haunt the halls of my house. They had become manageable. Life had become sweet and soft. Georgia had done that for me. She’d settled me and smoothed out my edges, and with the loss of those edges I guess I wasn’t as sharp as I used to be.
So when I saw Molly Taggert, a soft mirage from the corner of my eye, I refused to be suspicious. Eight years, almost nine? It’d been a long time since she’d demanded my attention. I was in the middle of something, communing with the dead of a wealthy client. His dead were not particularly interested in keeping in touch, and I was pushing, opening myself up wider, trying to find inspiration, something worthy of a paint brush, something I could work with. So far, they were giving me the middle finger, and I didn’t think that would please my client.
I told myself seeing Molly was nothing more than happenstance, that I’d simply opened myself up wide and attracted an old ghost who knew how to slip around my walls. She had flooded my mind with color, streaks of red fear and blue despair shot with purple-hued passion and green regret, all washed in white and dipped in black. Before I knew it, I was painting something completely irrational, completely at odds with the girl we’d laid to rest, years before.
Two hours later, I stepped back from the canvas and stared, dumbfounded, at the picture I’d created. It looked like something from one of my Grandma Kathleen’s books, the ones she’d taken from the church library because they were a tad too erotic and disturbing for the people in the pews. It was David and Goliath in violent detail, and the details were troubling, the details were specific, and I’d let myself miss them.
So I’d called him. And I’d let him tell me what I wanted to hear. What I needed to hear. He said he’d taken a blow to the head. Such a clean, simple truth that left out all the pertinent details. All the violent details. The details were troubling, the details were specific, and I’d let myself miss them.
As Georgia requested, I came straight home from the gym, walked in the house, and without a word, my wife had cued the cassette tape. Then I listened to my conversation with my friend, I listened to all the things he hadn’t told me. Now the fear was twisting in my gut, and I was pacing. Millie was standing when I arrived, as if Tag’s revelation had lifted her out of her seat. Her face was petrified rock—layers of shock imprinted in her expression. By the time we reached the end of the tape and Tag’s voice had broken, Millie broke with him, and she’d bowed her head, fumbled for her chair, and collapsed into it. Henry sat nearby, and for the first time, he seemed to be aware that something was very, very wrong.
“He came looking for you that night, Moses. Remember? You weren’t home, and he didn’t stay very long.” Georgia’s voice shook, and she held Kathleen to her chest, rocking and swaying, something she did even when she wasn’t holding the baby. It had become a habit that I teased her about. Keep moving and the baby won’t cry. Keep moving and the baby won’t wake. I wanted her to hold me too. I wanted her to move with me in her arms so that I wouldn’t wake up, so I wouldn’t cry. If I was asleep then none of this was real. But there was more. And it was all too real.
I KEPT DRIVING. The weather was clear, the sun shining, the sky blue, the air crisp and cool, so I drove and I thought. I pulled into Moses and Georgia’s driveway late in the afternoon, and the sky was so radiant over the crouching hills west of town that I stopped for a minute as I stepped out of my truck and just let the view settle on me. But the beauty just made me ache. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? The chorus started up in my head again.
No one answered the door, and I ended up walking around back to see if anyone was in the pasture beyond. Moses was becoming more and more comfortable around animals, though it was Georgia who was the horsewoman. She was working on her man, and had coaxed Moses into the saddle enough times that he had actually started to enjoy it, though he grumbled and scowled whenever I asked him about it.
Georgia was in the round corral, dead center, running a glossy sorrel around in circles. The sorrel seemed to be cooperating, and Georgia’s attention was glued on the animal, talking, reassuring, applying pressure and then releasing it to draw him to her. She was nothing like Moses. And she was perfect for him. I’d known it the moment she’d opened her mouth, the moment she looked in my eyes and stuck out her hand.
“Hey George.” I called her George because Moses hated it.
“Hey Tag! What’s happenin’ handsome?” Georgia’s face lit up in a smile so big the ache in my chest spread to my gut and made my insides twist. I missed her already. I didn’t want to miss her. What am I gonna do? What the hell am I gonna do? She strode to the fence, stepped up on the bottom rung and reached for me, pulling me into a fierce hug.
I needed that hug. I needed it so badly. But I knew if I gave in to the need to hold onto her longer than I usually did, she would sense my turmoil, and she would know something was up. So I squeezed her tight and let her go, and put a smile on my lips that felt like a lie and called on my God-given ability to bullshit. It was a talent that had served me well in my life.
“Hey baby. Where’s Mo?” Yep. I still had it. My voice was smooth and my hands were steady as I pulled the hat off her head and perched it on my own. Always the flirt, even with my best friend’s wife, even when I was hanging by an emotional thread. It was just my way. And Georgia knew it. She grabbed her hat back and ducked under the fence to join me on the other side. The horse she’d been working with whinnied at the loss of attention, and Georgia looked back and laughed.
“Oh, now you want me around, Sis? You were running from me a minute ago!”
“Ah, but the chase is the best part, George. You know that,” I said, laughing with her, my eyes on the disappointed sorrel. “The moment you turn away is the moment she’ll beg you to come back.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Georgia laughed. “But it’s my turn to play hard to get. Speaking of hard to get, you just missed Moses. He had a session tonight in Salt Lake. I think he was going to drop by and see you, actually. But you’re here. So that’s not going to work. You didn’t bring Millie?”
I winced. I didn’t mean to. But I couldn’t think about Millie. Not right now.
“Tag?” Georgia hadn’t missed the wince, and she studied me, a troubled groove between her eyes.
“Nah. I didn’t bring her. It was a spur of the moment trip. Moses called me, said he’d painted me into a picture last night, and I was curious. That’s all. Plus, I miss my God-baby. I want to hold her. Where is little Taglee?”
“My mom’s got her.” Georgia pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Moses didn’t tell me about the painting. Let’s go snoop, shall we?”
I didn’t really care about the painting—it was just the first thing that had popped into my mind—but I trailed after Georgia agreeably and kept a steady stream of bullshit coming so that she wouldn’t get too close.
It was David and Goliath, but lusty and lush, with bold colors and barely covered bodies, as if the biblical confrontation between a shepherd and a soldier had taken place in the Garden of Eden instead of on a battlefield.
Moses’s David was small and young. A boy really, ten or eleven, younger than I imagined he had actually been. And in the boyish face, I saw my own. The shaggy hair, the green eyes, the strong stance. I hadn’t looked like that at eleven. I’d been rounder, softer. And I’d been big for my age. My size had made me a target, the way physical difference always does.
Goliath was huge, towering over the boy like they belonged to two different species. His biceps and thighs bulged, his calves were unnaturally large, and his shoulders were as wide as the boy was tall. His head was thrown back, and his mouth was gaping, as if he roared like the beast he resembled. The fists clenched at his sides were bigger than the boys head, and young David stood stoically looking up at Goliath, his sling hanging from his hand, his eyes solemn. I leaned in closer, noting the detail, the lack of fear on the boy’s face. I looked at Goliath again, comparing and contrasting, and then my breath caught in my throat. I didn’t just see my face reflected in David. I saw myself in Goliath too.
David was me. And Goliath was me. They both had my face. I was the boy, and I was the giant. I stepped back, distancing myself from the suddenly disturbing image.
“Georgia? Am I seeing things, or did Moses put my face on David and Goliath?”
“Well I’ll be damned.” She was surprised. But she saw it too. It wasn’t just me.
“What do you think it means?” I pressed.
“Hell if I know, Tag. I don’t understand half of what Moses paints. He doesn’t understand it. It’s intuitive. You know that.”
“But it always means something.” And he’d seen Molly. Molly had inspired the painting.
“Maybe it means you are your own worst enemy,” Georgia said cheerfully and winked at me. I swallowed and looked back at the picture.
“So which one are you? David or Goliath?”
“Neither,” I said quietly, a memory resurfacing so swift and so sharp that it swept me away.
“Fight, fight, fight, fight!” The chant rose up around my head, the fact that they were children’s voices didn’t dull the roaring sound or the intimidating taunts. It didn’t ease the pressure I felt to swing my fist or give in to the curiosity to see what it would feel like. I’d never wanted to hit anyone so badly. “Fight, fight, fight, fight!”
“He’s a chicken! He’s a baby. You’re a baby, aren’t you baby Cammie?”
Cameron Keller huddled in a ball, his knees tucked into his chest. Cameron and I were friends. Cameron was small and sickly, where I was tall and heavy-set. Cameron was quiet, and I was the class clown. But we were both outcasts, teetering on the far edges of the spectrum, and normal and acceptable lay somewhere between us. I pushed my way into the circle, my size making it easier than it otherwise would have been. And people parted, more out of surprise than anything. I hadn’t ever gotten physical with anyone before.
Lyle Coulson leaned over Cameron’s shaking form and gathering the spit in his mouth, let it hang from his lips, dribbling in a long, phlegm-thickened strand, before it landed in Cameron’s hair.
With a roar, I shoved Lyle Coulson to the ground and pressed his sneering face into the dirt.
Someone pushed at my back, toppling me off to the side before Lyle was up, swinging and cursing. Someone else grabbed at my arms, trying to prevent me from slugging Lyle before Lyle could punch me. There was a roaring in my ears. Maybe it was my heart working overtime, maybe it was adrenaline dulling my senses, but whatever it was, I liked it. The roaring in my ears made the rage echo in my belly. It was the sound of finally fighting back. I took a hard punch in the back, or was that a kick? I turned, swinging wildly, arms pumping like pistons, landing a few, taking a few more, until suddenly kids were running away, scattering like wildebeest on the African savannah—just like the show on the National Geographic channel that I had watched with Molly on Sunday. This time, I was the lion. I was the predator. But Cameron didn’t run. Cameron stayed huddled like the wounded calf he’d always been.
“Cameron?” I knelt beside my friend. “You okay, buddy?”
Cameron peeked out from beneath the arm that covered his head. “Tag? Are they gone?”
“Yeah, buddy. They all ran away.” My chest filled with pride. I looked at my hands in amazement. I’d used my fists. One knuckle was bloody and torn and the pain was sweet.
“You made them run, Tag?” Cameron was as surprised as I was. I had never fought back. I was a fat kid who tried to make everyone laugh. I didn’t fight.
“Yeah, Cam. I did. I beat the shit out of ‘em.”
My first fist fight. It had probably looked more like a squirming wrestling match between fat puppies, but I had come out the victor for the first time ever. I had been David then. And I had been Goliath too, I supposed. The boy who fought back, and the giant who made everyone run in fear. Now? Now I didn’t know if David still existed or if Goliath ever had, and the picture troubled me. It had obviously troubled Moses too, or he wouldn’t have called.
“Is everything okay, Tag?” Georgia asked softly. I turned away from the painting and met her serious gaze.
I nodded once, just a brief jerk of my head, and Georgia pressed harder.
“Are you going to tell me about Millie? Moses seems to think she’s special. Is she?”
“She’s special.”
“Is she special enough to tame the wild man?” Georgia was teasing me, trying to shake me out of the mood she obviously sensed I was in. Or maybe she was just a girl digging for romantic gossip. My sisters were like that too, or they used to be, when I knew them.
I slung my arm around her shoulders and turned us both away from the biblical standoff.
“Some things are born to be wild. Some horses can’t be broken,” I said in my best Clint Eastwood.
“All right. Well then I guess the question should be, are you special enough to let a blind girl break you?”
“It’s already happened. I just don’t want to break her.” My voice caught, and I pulled my arm from Georgia’s shoulders and shoved them into my pockets, striding away so she wouldn’t see the trembling around my mouth and the panic that I could feel oozing out of my pores. I was so glad Moses wasn’t here. I don’t know what I’d been thinking trying to find him. I wasn’t ready for Moses yet.
“I gotta go, George. Give Taglee a kiss for me. Give Moses a kiss too. He loves my kisses.” Georgia laughed, but the laughter didn’t lift the worry from her voice. I was acting a little strange, and I knew she was wondering what the hell was up.
“Don’t be a stranger, Tag. We’ve missed you.” Georgia called behind me as I strode to my truck.
“I’ll miss you too, George. Every damn day.”
MAYBE IT WAS Moses talking about Molly, but I found myself pulling off the freeway fifteen minutes after I left Levan, exiting at the truck stop in Nephi near the spot where they found my sister’s remains. The dogs found my sister’s body. The dogs found her when I could not. I’d looked. I’d looked so hard and so desperately that I’d almost convinced myself she couldn’t be found. If she couldn’t be found then I hadn’t failed. Not exactly.
Her grave was just a hole in the earth, marked by tumbleweeds and ringed by sagebrush. Almost two years we’d looked, and she’d been waiting in a litter-strewn field near an obscure overpass outside a little town everyone mispronounced. A town that meant nothing to the girl who was forced to make it her final resting place. Nephi. NEE FIGH. When I had first heard it pronounced I’d thought of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, yelling from his castle in the heavens, “FEE, FI, FO, FUM, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” FEE FI rhymes with NEPHI.
NEE PHI FO FUM, I smell the blood of your missing ones.
The dogs could smell her. But there was no blood. Not then. When they found her only bones and bits of fabric and several long blonde hairs remained. Some drug paraphernalia was buried with her, labeling her an addict, deserving of her fate. Suddenly she was no longer missing. But she was still gone. And for years we didn’t know who took her.
NEE PHI FO FUM, I smell the blood of your missing ones.
They say that most murders are committed by the family members. By the loved ones. But the man who killed my sister didn’t know her at all. And he didn’t love her. It turned out, he’d killed lots of girls. So many girls over so many years. All of them missing. All of them gone.
NEE PHI FO FUM, ready or not, here I come. And come he had. I’d put a bullet in the man’s head, avenging the blood of the missing ones, all the missing ones.
NEE PHI FO FUM, pull the trigger, now you’re done.
NEE PHI FO FUM, pull the trigger, now you’re done.
Oh, God. I didn’t want to be done. I sat in my truck and thought of Molly, staring into the field where they found her body. And I talked to her for a while. I asked her what the hell I was supposed to do. And I wondered if she was coming through to Moses because my time was up, if she was suddenly hanging around because she was waiting on me. If my time was up, I could deal. The truth of that settled on me. It surprised me. But I could deal. I could handle it. Moses had told me once that you can’t escape yourself. I’d wanted to once. Not anymore. I had come to terms with myself. I liked myself. I liked my life. Hell, I loved my life.
But I wasn’t going to spend whatever time I had left being sick.
I’d never been good at in-betweens. All or nothing. That’s who I was. All or nothing, dead or alive. Not dying. Not sick. Dead or alive, all or nothing.
Having made my decision, I called the doctor. I actually heard relief in his voice when I told him I was ready to go ahead with what came next, and his relief terrified me. He cleared his schedule and just like that, the craniotomy was set for the following day.
I pulled back onto the highway and left my sister’s shadow in the rearview mirror. I headed back home, back to Millie, suddenly desperate to see her.