Reed Coleman - Gun Church

Afterthought, my balls. Looking back, I can’t point to any one thing he said or did after our round of eighteen that betrayed his interest in Amy. He even had the good taste to keep a Daughter of the American Revolution centerfold by his side. Her name was like Zoe Gates-Tilton or Bates-Swinton or some such thing. Bart Meyers would have referred to her as a shiksa goddess.

Moreland didn’t ignore Amy. He was properly attentive. He knew her work and that led to a discussion of her more well-known contemporaries. It was as polite and civil a discussion of painting as I’d ever heard. In retrospect, the chat between Peter and Amy may not have been all that polite because I really didn’t hear much of it. I was jonesing like mad and my internal voice kept at me to order another scotch or take a run to the bathroom for a toot. To distract myself from my addictional callings, I pondered the full shape and color of the fair Zoe Swinton-Tilton’s assertive nipples. The distraction was fleeting because I was scared shitless at the idea of talking future books with Moreland. This was before I’d met the man I would come to think of as McGuinn. Besides, for all my legendary debauchery, I never actually cheated on Amy while she was present. To show you just how fucked up I was, I used to think I deserved credit for that.

Amy recognized the signs of me falling apart and tried valiantly to steer Peter’s conversation to my work. She had, by one means or another, been trying to rescue me from my self-destructiveness for years. It wasn’t as if Peter Moreland didn’t attempt to follow my wife’s lead. He tried several times to engage me in talk of new projects, which in turn led me to order another scotch and to turn my boorishness up another notch. Only after I began to speculate aloud about whether Zoe shaved or waxed did things disintegrate.

In the car on the way home Amy asked for a divorce. I don’t remember my exact response because I was so thoroughly wasted. I vaguely recall begging her to stick it out with me for a few more years. Junkies get skilled at begging. I remember that she started crying and told me that I couldn’t afford her and that she could no longer afford me. She moved into her Tribeca studio that Tuesday night. I think I was at Indiana University when I heard she’d married Moreland.

Jim must’ve noticed the sick look on my face. “Something wrong?”

“Not now. That’s the problem with reminiscing.”

“What is?”

“Starts out good, ends badly.”

“I know what you mean.”

I had seen Jim with his shirt off. The scars on his body from his dad’s belt gave me confidence that he knew exactly what I meant.

“We’re here,” he said, pulling the old Ford off the dirt road we’d been on for the last several minutes. “Come on, Kip.”

We were parked on a low bluff near a waterfall, its ambient spray misting the pickup’s windshield. From the foot of the falls, the river narrowed and the water churned white as it was squeezed into a smaller course and rushed over large boulders that jutted out of the riverbed. Tall stands of reeds and weepy grasses that had begun to turn a dormant fall-brown stood silent guard along the banks. Except for a huge clearing just beneath the bluff, old pine forests lined both sides of Crooked River and extended well up into the hills as far as the eye could see. With the warming sun overhead and the strong pine scent filling up the air, it was difficult not to find this little corner of Brixton serene and beautiful.

Stepping out of the truck cab, I took an icy cold spray in the face and my ears were assaulted by the roar of the river. After a few seconds, the din of the falls and rapids receded into background noise. I was conscious of Jim watching me.

“Pretty here, isn’t it?”

“That it is, Jim. Thanks for showing it to me.”

“Just give me a second,” he said, unlocking the steel tool carrier affixed to the front end of the truck box. Jim pulled out a stained and faded blue Air Force duffel bag that was as patched as the skin on his back and belly. There was a thin rectangular area near the handle of the bag that had been neatly colored over with a black marking pen. My bet was the Colonel’s name was under the black marker. I didn’t need to be a seer to guess what was in the bag. “This way.” He motioned up the hill. “Come on.”

The low bluff was the last flat bit of land my feet touched for the next ten minutes. We spent that time walking up into the hills above the falls and rapids. I slipped a few times on the pine straw carpet thick beneath the trees. Jim seemed to enjoy my unsteadiness, snickering and yelling for me to catch up.

By the time we got to the little clearing between the trees, I was in a full sweat and gasping for breath. Although I’d managed to maintain a fairly consistent weight over the years, I was completely out of shape and probably a good candidate for a massive coronary. Decades of cigarette smoking and drug and alcohol abuse had only enhanced my chances of an early death.

“You don’t look so good.”

“I feel worse than I look,” I said.

“You oughta start running with me.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

As I regained my composure, I noticed that the roar of the falls and rapids was somewhat muted, but still remarkably pronounced. I noticed too the old bullet scars on the surrounding trees, and the collection of beer cans, plastic soda bottles, and piles of spent casings. And there was a neatly stacked pile of wood partially covered by a tarp sitting in between some trees. The stack of wood seemed as out of place up here as the blockhouse had seemed in the hangar. Jim saw me staring at the pile.

“The ashes,” he said, touching his index finger to his forehead, “from the chapel.”

“The chapel? I’m confused.”

He tapped his forehead again. “The white building. The other night, remember?”

“Oh, those ashes. Right. Everybody had that smudge.”

“That wood is from the first tree we ever used for practice. It’s what we burn for the ashes. Can’t enter the chapel without the ashes.”

“About that, I-”

“In time, Kip. In time. For now, are you ready to shoot?” he asked, reaching into the duffel bag.

I suppose somewhere I’d known this is what Jim was bringing me up here for and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited by the prospect. Since that night at the Air Force base, I’d wanted to get on the inside of whatever it was that had gone on in that white concrete blockhouse. In my bones I knew it was where McGuinn was headed in my book, but he couldn’t get there if I didn’t get there first. I had spent a lot of my time imagining the parameters of the world the character of McGuinn would be thrust into, a world even an experienced killer would find both comfortable and disorienting. Being out here with Jim was the gateway to that world.

I was also a little sick at the idea of shooting. I hadn’t liked my father very much, but even if it had been a complete stranger’s body I’d found that day when I was a kid, it would have fucked with my head. There’s something about the cusp of teenagehood, when the hormones are just beginning to course through you, that makes you especially vulnerable. I sensed that once I took my first shot, there wouldn’t be any going back. Maybe it was already too late to go back.

I pointed at the duffel. “That the Colonel’s bag?”

“It is.”

“What you got there?”

“This look familiar?” Jim asked, unzipping a black nylon and foam gun case.

“Yes, it does.” I smiled in spite of myself, because what he held in his hand was a shiny version of the Colt Python that Frank Vuchovich had used to take my class hostage.

“It’s nickel plated and newer than the one Frank had.” He undid the trigger lock and handed it to me. “Go ahead, take a few shots.”