Jack O'Connell - The Resurrectionist

He saw the blank look on Sweeney’s face and said, “You’re not a big gospel fan, are you?”

Sweeney shook his head and the Sheep said, “Well I hope you don’t mind, cuz I listen to gospel while I work.”

“Speaking of work,” Sweeney said, and before he could go on, the Sheep had both hands in the air, revival style.

“I know, I know,” he said, “that’s the million-dollar question. How did a chemistry Ph.D. from Stanford end up riding with the Abominations? I get the curiosity, I do. Sometimes I say to Nadia, my life’d be a hell of a movie. But I don’t say it to Buzz. You don’t even kid about stuff like that with Buzz.”

“So how’d it happen?”

“How’s anything happen?” the Sheep said, going all weary and mystical in an instant. “You make a couple of mistakes and, bang, you find out you’re not who you thought you were. You find out the world isn’t what you thought it was. You find out you don’t want any of the shit everyone’s been telling you to want since the day you were born.

“What happened with me,” confidential now, “was I had a full-blown textbook breakdown. I mean I was fuckin’ catatonic for months. Now I’m healed enough, at this point, to face the facts and take the responsibility. But the truth is — and I don’t mean this as any kind of excuse — I had a real asshole for an old man. One of these you-just-can’t-please-’em sons a bitches. And I tried to sort of follow in his footsteps and I couldn’t do it. And the pressure got so bad, my brain just shut the fuck down one day. And I ended up in the psych ward at Ford-Masterson out there. And I’ll tell you somethin’ right now. Wasn’t for Buzz and the boys, I’d still be there. Eatin’ poached eggs and starin’ at The Price Is Right all day.”

“How’d Buzz get you out?” Sweeney asked.

The Sheep gave him a look that said even Sweeney should know better.

“There’s something Buzz wants, Buzz finds a way to get it.”

“I guess what I’m asking,” said Sweeney, “is how he found out about you. I mean, you’re institutionalized at this point. How did he know about you? What was the connection?”

The Sheep squinted at him and Sweeney sensed some real disappointment.

“The connection,” said the Sheep, in a slowed down voice, as if he were speaking to a child, “is your new girlfriend.”

“Nadia?”

“Of course Nadia,” the Sheep said. “It’s always Nadia. I mean, c’mon, Sweeney, huh? She’s a sweetheart. And she’s got a body that’d make Jesus weep. But she’s a born pimp.”

“I’m sorry,” Sweeney said. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Nadia,” the Sheep said, “is a procurer. I mean Buzz might be Moses, but your girl Nadia, she’s the burning bush. Hey, I like that. Burning bush. That works, doesn’t it?”

He saw the confused look on Sweeney’s face and took pity.

“Look, if you’re asking me how it all started, I can’t help you. I came in late. But at some point Buzz met Nadia. Or Nadia met Buzz. And that’s where the thing really begins. You look at us now, okay, and you can say what you want. We don’t much care, you know? We’re nomads. We’re a tribe in the desert. That’s how we see ourselves. You want to say we’re vampires, we’re parasites, well, those’re just words. We know the truth. We’re as much family as those scumbags that run the Clinic. We’re as much family as you and your boy. That’s the truth. And the truth sets you free, every time. You’ll find that out real soon, Sweeney.”

Sweeney tried to pull him back.

“You called Nadia a pimp,” he said.

The Sheep crushed out his cigarette on the fender of the hearse.

“It’s a metaphor,” he said. “Jesus Christ. You know what a metaphor is? I’m not insulting her. In fact — and I think the rest’d tell you the same thing if they had the balls — we’re a matriarchy. That’s what we really are. She lets Buzz think he’s the big bad dad. But the truth is we follow where Nadia leads. All the way to the last clinic. She’s got the plans. She’s the one who’s brought us to this point. And I’ll tell you, she’s gonna bring us across the border. Whether Buzz likes it or not.”

He paused, looked down at his boots and said, “But don’t tell him I said that.”

Sweeney was suddenly thinking too hard to stop and reassure the Sheep.

“Nadia was your nurse,” he said. “In Phoenix.”

The Sheep looked up and smiled and said, “Who says you’re slow?”

“And she knew the family needed a new chemist?”

“The guy before me, the Gerbil, he put his bike down in Oakland. Got run over by a Camaro.”

“So you move from clinic to clinic.”

“You got to go where the work is.”

“And what?” Sweeney said, trying to talk over the anxiety that was rising in his throat. “You do something to the coma patients? What do you do to the patients?”

“We do nothing but help them,” the Sheep said. “This is a total win-win situation here. And if you let us, we can help Danny too.”

“I’m not going to let you near Danny.”

The Sheep gave him a patronizing smile.

“What?” he said. “You’re going to kill us all? You? The pharmacist? Don’t be an idiot all your life, Sweeney. It isn’t necessary. You could turn everything around here if you’d just let go of the fear and let in the truth. I know. Because I did it.”

The stoner voice was slipping a little and Sweeney recognized something behind it.

“You don’t have to be alone,” the Sheep said. “You’re not supposed to be alone. None of us are. Buzz and Nadia and all of us accept you for what you are. You need some family, Sweeney. And we want you. Nadia wants you, I can tell you that. You got to make the leap. That’s all. You think it will kill you, but it’s the only thing that’ll save you at this stage. I don’t think you know how far gone you are. But you can turn the whole thing around tonight.”

“You’re not going to touch my son,” Sweeney said. But there was more panic than resolve in his voice.

“Someone,” the Sheep said, “already touched your son. And it wasn’t us. We didn’t put the boy in the coma, did we? Somebody else did that to him. Somebody else took him away from you. And all those fuckin’ doctors with their fuckin’ promises, they can’t do squat to bring him back.”

Sweeney stared at him.

The Sheep ran a hand over his skull. His head fell back and he closed his eyes for a while before he continued.

“I can help you and I can help Danny. I know I can. I can arrange for a reunion. You want to be with your son again, Sweeney?”

Sweeney sucked on his lips for an answer.

“You got to make the leap,” the Sheep said. “No one can do it for you. You got to be strong and you got to have some faith. I’m not sayin’ it isn’t hard. But you can’t go weak in the middle. This is going to be difficult. I won’t lie to you like those assholes back at the Clinic. It’s going to be frightening. Maybe terrifying. This is dangerous shit. And, yeah, it’s addictive as it gets. You’ve never known real want till you’ve come back from Limbo. But you keep the faith and you’ll make it. Out and back. You trust in Nadia and she’ll take you to the last clinic. That’s the real deal. And you better believe it.”

The Sheep did a little stretch, then he gave Sweeney a quick shoulder hug, stood up, and walked back to his bike.

“You’re not going to be alone anymore,” he said. “After tonight, you’ll be part of the whole thing. Just trust me.”

FROM THAT POINT ON,Sweeney was numb. Wordlessly, he climbed on the back of the Sheep’s bike. They bounced over rocks and bricks as they rolled slowly toward the Harmony, but the passenger felt nothing. Holding on was only a reflex. And so he had no understanding that this was the state toward which he’d been striving for the last year. That place beyond fear and rage. Beyond desire. At last, detachment had found him.