Joe Hill - Horns

A crawly sensation worked its way up his forearms. If he was a devil now, could he still speak of God? Would lightning strike him, shatter him in a white flash? Would he burn?

“God,” he whispered.

Nothing happened.

“God, God, God,” he said.

He cocked his head, listening, waiting for some response.

“Please, God, make them go away. I’m sorry if I did something to piss you off last night. I was drunk. I was angry,” Ig said.

He held a breath, lifted his eyes, looked at himself in the rearview mirror. There were the horns. He was getting used to the sight of them now. They were becoming a part of his face. This thought caused him to shiver with revulsion.

At the edge of his vision, slipping past on his right, he saw a blaze of white and yanked the wheel, pulling up to the curb. Ig had been driving without thinking, paying no mind to where he was and with no idea where he was going. He had arrived, without meaning to, at the Sacred Heart of Mary, where he’d gone with his family to church for over two-thirds of his life and where he’d seen Merrin Williams for the first time.

He stared at the Sacred Heart with a dry mouth. He hadn’t been in there, or in any other church, since Merrin was killed, had not wanted to be part of a crowd, to be stared at by other parishioners. Nor had he wanted to get right with God; he felt God needed to get right with him.

Maybe if he walked in there and prayed to God, the horns would go away. Or maybe-maybe Father Mould would know what to do. Ig had an idea then. Father Mould might be immune to the influence of the horns. If anyone could resist the power of them, Ig thought, wouldn’t it be a man of the cloth? He had God on his side, and the protection of God’s house. Maybe an exorcism could be arranged. Father Mould had to know people he could contact about something like that. A sprinkle of holy water and a few Our Fathers and Ig might be right back to normal.

He left the Gremlin at the curb and walked up the concrete path to the Sacred Heart. He was reaching for the door when he caught himself, drew his hand back. What if, when he touched the latch, his hand began to burn? What if he couldn’t go in? he wondered. What if when he tried to step through the door, some black force repelled him, threw him back on his ass? He saw himself staggering through the nave, smoke boiling from under his shirt collar, his eyes bulging from their sockets like a character’s in a cartoon, imagined suffocation and lacerating pain.

He forced himself to reach out and take the latch. One leaf of the door opened to his hand-a hand that did not burn, or sting, or feel any pain at all. He looked into the dimness of the nave, out over the rows of dark-varnished pews. The place smelled of seasoned wood and old hymnals, with their sun-worn leather covers and brittle pages. He had always liked the smell and was surprised to find he still liked it now, that the odor didn’t cause him to choke.

He stepped through the door. Ig spread his arms and waited. He looked down the length of one arm, then the other, watching to see if any smoke would come trickling out of his shirt cuffs. None did. He lifted a hand to the horn at his right temple. It was still there. He expected them to tingle, to pulse, something-but there was nothing. The church was a cavern of silence and darkness, lit only by the pastel glow of the stained-glass windows. Mary at her son’s feet as He died on the cross. John baptizing Jesus in the river.

He thought he should approach the altar, kneel there, and plead with God for a break. He felt a prayer forming on his lips: Please, God, if You make the horns go away, I’ll always serve You, I’ll come back to church, I’ll be a priest, I’ll spread the Word, I’ll spread the Word in hot Third World countries where everyone has leprosy, if anyone has leprosy anymore, just please, make them go away, make me who I was again. He didn’t get around to saying it, though. Before he took a step, he heard a gentle clang of iron on iron and turned his head.

He was still in the entrance to the atrium, and there was a door to his left, slightly ajar, which looked into a staircase. There was a little gym down there, available to the parishioners for various functions. Iron banged softly again. Ig touched the door, and as it eased back, opening wider, a trickle of country music spilled out.

“Hello?” he called, standing in the doorway.

Another ding of iron and a breathless gasp.

“Yes?” called Father Mould. “Who is it?”

“Ig Perrish, sir.”

A moment of silence followed. It lasted a little too long.

Mould said, “Come on down and see me.”

Ig went down the stairs.

At the far end of the basement, a bank of fluorescent lights shone down on a puffy floor mat, some giant inflatable balls, a balance beam-equipment for a kids’ tumbling class. Here by the stairwell, though, some of the lights were out and it was darker. Arranged along the walls were a circuit of cardiovascular machines. Close to the foot of the stairs was a weight bench, Father Mould stretched out on his back upon it.

Forty years before, Mould had been a wingman for Syracuse and afterward was a marine, serving a tour of duty in the Iron Triangle, and he still had the mass and overwhelming physical presence of a hockey player, the self-assured authority of a soldier. He was slow on his feet, hugged people when they amused him, and was lovable in the way of a gentle old St. Bernard who likes to sleep on the furniture even though he knows he isn’t supposed to. He was dressed in a gray warm-up suit and ancient, beat-up Adidas. His cross hung from one end of the weight bar, swinging softly as he dropped the bar and then ponderously raised it again.

Sister Bennett stood behind the bench. She was built a little like a hockey player herself, with broad shoulders and a heavy, mannish face, her short, curly hair held back by a violet sweatband. She wore a purple tracksuit to match. Sister Bennett had taught an ethics class at St. Jude’s and liked to draw flow charts on the chalkboard, showing how certain decisions led inexorably to salvation (a rectangle she filled with fat, puffy clouds) or inexorably to hell (a box filled with flames).

Ig’s brother, Terry, had mocked her relentlessly, drawing flow charts of his own, for the amusement of his classmates, showing how, after a variety of grotesque lesbian encounters, Sister Bennett would wind up arriving in hell herself, where she would be only too glad to indulge in disturbing sexual practices with the devil. These had made Terry the hit of the St. Jude’s cafeteria-an early taste of celebrity. It had also been his first brush with notoriety, as he’d eventually been ratted out (by an anonymous tipster, whose identity was unknown to this day). Terry had been invited to Father Mould’s office. Their meeting took place behind closed doors, but that was not enough to muffle the sound of Mould’s wooden paddle striking Terry’s ass or, after the twentieth stroke, Terry’s cries. Everyone in school heard. The sounds carried through the vents of the outdated heating system to every classroom. Ig had writhed in his chair, in agony for Terry. He had eventually stuck his fingers into his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear. Terry was not allowed to perform at the year-end recital-for which he’d been practicing for months-and was flunked in ethics.

Father Mould sat up, wiping his face with a towel. It was darkest there at the foot of the steps, and the thought crossed Ig’s mind that Mould genuinely couldn’t see the horns.

“Hello, Father,” Ig said.

“Ignatius. Seems like it’s been forever. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I’ve got a place downtown,” Ig said, his voice hoarsening with emotion. He had been unprepared for Father Mould’s solicitous tone, his easy, avuncular affection. “It isn’t far, really. I keep meaning to stop in, but-”