Darcey Steinke - Jesus Saves

The silver cross was gone, as were the tall candleholders and the red glass eternal flame. The slab of marble that served as the altar table and the cherry-wood carvings of the apostles had been ripped out. Everything was sold to pay the new church's mortgage. Her father spread his black shirt out so the dark sleeves hung over the raw wood. He stood in his white T-shirt. The tiny glass decanter of red wine and the tin of communion wafers sat ceremoniously on the black fabric. His lips moved silently as he held up a round wafer, broke it, and offered half to the wall. Ginger tipped back on her heels to see that he'd taped up Sandy's school picture and was now pretending to make her eat. Eventually he placed the wafer in his own mouth and picked up the silver chalice, offering it first to God and then to Sandy's lips. Ginger sunk her fingernails into the fat of her palm as she watched him drink from the cup, then place it carefully back with the other implements, shiny and strange in the candlelight, as the innards of a freshly killed cat.

As she came around the side of the church Ginger lost her footing on the weed-ridden sidewalk. In the lot across the street she saw Sandy Patrick hovering between two men, her blurry figure flittering among orange flames. Pale and insubstantial as an angel, Sandy wore her mother's oversized raincoat and a pair of electric blue pumps. Foundation streaked down her neck, silver eye shadow glittered under her brow, and on each cheek was a heavy spot of sparkling rouge. One of the men laughed, the girl said something, and Ginger recognized her voice from the hippie's house and from Steve's apartment.

“What are you doing here?” Ginger asked the girl, who looked less surprised than sullen, obviously trying to decide whether to acknowledge Ginger or not.

“Trying to score some weed,” the girl said.

The man with the blond mustache and ratty eyes shook his head. “Oh man, we don't know nothing about that.”

“These guys said they'd give me stuff to smoke.” The girl looked at Ginger, sucking on a strand of her dirty brown hair.

“You're hearing things, girl,” the second man said, his pale, pockmarked face squeezed like toothpaste out of his hood.

“You said you were going to give me some weed,” the girl raised her voice.

“Now you just calm down,” the first man said.

“I won't,” the girl said and started to scream. Both men turned and ran along the parking lot fence and disappeared into an alley. The guy waiting outside the liquor store started his engine and drove off.

“Shut up!” Ginger said, trying to grab her arm, but the girl swung away and slipped her fingers through the chain-link fence.

“I'm staying here as long as it takes,” the girl yelled, “and you can't do anything about it.” She swung her hair and kicked her leg out awkwardly. “Fuck you.” The girl screamed so loud the noise shot up like a bottle rocket, sent vibrations through the dark air.

“Let's go home.” Ginger pried the girl's hands loose from the metal mesh.

“No! I don't want to go home,” she said. “You go home.”

“Come on,” Ginger said, her tone implying that the girl was childish, “you're acting stupid.”

The girl quieted down, but she wouldn't come off the fence, just hung limply, staring into the fire. Ginger stood with her hand on the girl's narrow wrist and watched her father walk furtively out of the church in his long black raincoat, his Bible with the electrical-tape spine and the leather communion kit under his arm. Ginger realized he didn't believe his prayers worked in the new church on the highway, that to satisfy himself and his God, he had to come down here.

“Okay,” the girl finally said, “just don't tell my mother. She gets mad if she thinks she has to worry too much.”

* * *

Bugs tangled in the yellow halogen streetlight and Ginger watched a man stagger out of a bar to pee against a parked car. His shirt was opened to his belt, his face so pale it seemed like he wore greasepaint and a little black eyeliner. Midway down the old highway, after the car dealerships but before the strip malls, the road degenerated for half a mile into Quonset-hut bars and shops that rented porno videos. The girl talked steadily about how her mother's boyfriend was a dentist, that he wore loafers and smelled of the grape fluoride he used to pack patients’ teeth. Ginger gripped the girl's wrist and pulled her across the deserted highway. She just kept talking about how even though her mother's boyfriend's hair was receding, he still pulled the fringe back in a gross little pony tail and that he thought he was so intelligent just because he'd seen every movie in the classic section of the video store and always won when they played Trivial Pursuit. Worst of all was how her mother wanted to sleep over at his fancy condo almost every night and when she was home she acted like a goofy teenager, giving herself facials and asking if her new jumpsuit looked sexy on her.

“It's just gross,” the girl said emphatically as she steadied herself against Ginger's shoulder and slipped off her mother's backless high heels.

They continued walking along the soft shoulder and she got quiet for a while, then started asking Ginger questions about Ted. How long had he had the scar and why had he shot himself in the face? Ginger said it'd been nearly a year now and that she wasn't sure why he did it, probably just to see what it felt like. The girl said wasn't love a funny thing, horrible and wonderful all at once, like her parents — they'd made the cutest couple but they had to break up because they never agreed on anything. Ginger looked down and saw that the girl's toes trapped in the nylon panty hose looked like the delicate hoofs of a deer. She told Ginger about the boy she liked from school, how he was teaching his dog hand signals and that by using the computers at school he could activate the fire alarms any time he wanted. He stole CDs for her at the mall. The only bad thing was that she'd noticed particles of wax suspended in his ears. Once they made out at a boy / girl party, but she still wasn't sure if he liked her because they didn't really have a choice — everybody paired up on the couch or chairs or laid out over the rug.

Ginger half listened. They were nearly home now and the fast-food restaurants were coming up, each set on its rectangle of striped asphalt, bold signs advertising Coke and burger combinations, happy kid meals, two-for-one fries. Ginger thought she saw a cat jump up on the Dumpster in back of Burger King. But the animal couldn't be a cat; it had coarse, furred hind quarters and thick nailed hoofs.

“What's the matter?” the girl asked.

“Let's just keep going,” Ginger said.

The mall came into sight, lit up like a blank movie screen, the loading doors glimmering in weird green light. The girl sensed Ginger's apprehension and, in cockeyed solidarity, told about a creep in her neighborhood. “Once, a long time ago,” she started, “a girl was selling candy for her school and she rang his doorbell. He answered the door with his penis hanging out.”

“Let's just be quiet for awhile,” Ginger snapped. “Can we do that?”

As the principal made his morning announcements, castigating the students about the home-economics teacher's stolen purse and the rampant food fights in the cafeteria, the unicorn snuck by the school secretary and slipped into his office. Rainbows emanated from the crystal horn, so potent in color that they intoxicated the fat principal, made him drop his donut mid-sentence and fall forward onto his page of notes.

“I have some sad news to tell you all.” The unicorn took the antiquated microphone from the principal's clenched fist. “Carl Levitt shot himself while cleaning his gun yesterday afternoon and Sally Dyers died last night of the leukemia that has kept her bedridden for so many months. It may seem cruel,” the unicorn said, “but eventually everyone has to make the transition from animal to mineral.”