Heaven

chapter 15: once

Once.

Once Cookie saw his beloved fern standing green and fresh, he called Sina back into the bathroom (actually, Cook burst into the bedroom and dragged him forcefully by the wrist while Sina scowled and told him he was in the middle of a very, VERY important bit in his story; while actually what he was doing was flipping through a graphic novel and day-dreaming about Father Caleb and how it would feel to run the very tips of his fingers along the priest's lips).

"Boy, you're reading a Batman comic, not The Metamorphosis. I think it can wait a minute."

Thoughts of Cal fizzled in Sina's brain. "Seriously?" He scoffed as he was dragged. "The Metamorphosis? Is that what kind of Kafka fan you think I am? How uncouth that you'd think I would read that. As if. Only Kafka wannabes read that story. What you meant to say was The Trial...or..." Sina yelped nearly tripping over his feet as Cookie continued to pull him along. "Ow, fuck! Or, The Castle. Then you are true Kafka fa...aaaaan. Ow." Sina's wrist began to ache from Cookie's grip. "Damn it, Cookie, I'm not a rag doll. My hand is attached to nerves and those nerves feel like they are about to snap."

"Hush, boy! You're nothing if not a drama queen."

"Only queen here is you, your highness," Sina grumbled.

Once they entered the bathroom, Cookie pointed. "Look at her," he gushed before picking up the pot and caressing the plant's leaves. "She looked like shit an hour ago."

"I watered her," Sina said blankly.

When Cookie raised a brow, Sina added, "I also cleaned up her leaves. She didn't need much, just a little affection. A little love."

"Well, boy, you did well." Cookie jerked his chin to the living room and smiled. "Bought two packs of smokes. Opened one. Take the other one."

"Don't need to pay it back?"

Cookie chuckled. "You were never going to pay back any of the others. Forget it. Think of them as a gift."

"Don't need no gift," Sina huffed.

Brushing past him, Cookie rolled his eyes. "But you need my charity," he said casually before taking a few steps back and plopping a kiss on Sina's crown.

"Whatcho do that for you twit? You know I don't care for affection." Sina began to brush the kiss off as a chuckling Cookie headed to the kitchen uttering something about replanting the fern in a larger pot and then celebrating with a slice of cake.

Sina was going to wipe the kiss-stained hand on his jeans but he stopped himself. Lowering his arms as soon as Cook was out of earshot he whispered, "You're good people."

Once.

Once Caleb returned home he felt like punching his fist through the drywall. A floodgate opened and memories came wailing out as soon as he sat at the kitchen table. Burying his face in his hands, Cal recalled a past he wished he no longer remembered.

Once, long ago his faith had been strong and his love for the Lord holy. Caleb Hill had been part of a church in Silver City, New Mexico. The congregation had been something like Delores and the others – but worse. Though violence had never been his forte, Cal ended up killing one of them.

It was a priest named Father Ambrose whose vile spirit had leaked into his congregation and rushed over them like a tidal wave of poison. When Caleb befriended a man called Samuel, he saw firsthand just how horrid people could be.

The friendship between him and Sam turned into something more and the desire inside them spread like wildfire. But their relationship found a brutal end when Father Ambrose's condemnation of two men falling in love led to four of the parishioners kidnapping Sam. While Caleb was away, the four men strung Samuel from a tree near Cal's rented home and left him to die helpless and alone. Finding Samuel hanging was a sight he would never be able to forget. When the men came for Caleb, he was already on his way to the wicked priest.

Guilt had gnawed at Caleb for years. Had he been there with Sam that night, he knew he would have been able to protect him. The What Ifs and the Should Haves hung around like unwelcome guests.

It took one foolish minute for Cal to go from a pious man to a murderer. He did not know that Father Ambrose's oldest son, Mark had returned to his family home to celebrate becoming the newest pastor of a church a few towns over. In the dark of night, all Cal saw was a stray ray of light shining down on the white cleric's collar. When he dug his fangs into Mark it was swift. Yet when the ray of light turned into two then three and it was bright enough to see, Caleb realized it was not Ambrose but an innocent man who lay in the pool of crimson. Trembling, Caleb felt his hands come up sticky with blood. But the scent that wafted to him was poetry. The faint beat of Mark's heart was the singing of psalms. A hunger – so unlike one he had felt in years – came over him like a needy child and tugged at his arm until Caleb gave in. He fed off Mark until the young man's heart stopped and everything fell silent.

Caleb left Silver City that night taking nothing with him but more guilt, Mark's collar, and a rucksack that contained a few changes of clothes, a bible, and whatever was left of his faith.

Traveling for two days, he came to a tiny, forgotten town near Wichita full of dusty roads and blank-eyed faces.

Cal bought a trailer from an old man chewing tobacco who swore he had seen God and the Devil playing chess in his fields last Easter. The man handed him the keys and then turned to stare into the distance. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he asked Cal if he had ever seen an angel.

"No, sir," Cal remembered saying. It was a half-truth. He had seen himself many times, but Kadisin were no longer angels like the ones the stranger was implying. There were no wings on Caleb's back anymore. There was no heaven waiting for him. He was to suffer and perish on earth like everyone else. "Do you believe in Heaven, mister?"

The old man lowered his hand and squinted at Caleb. "Yah. Sure do. Call me Lazarus." He nodded.

"What do you think it's like, Lazarus?"

The old man spat tobacco juice by his boots. "Just like any other little town. Pitiful." Lifting his arm, he pointed south. "Half a day that-a-way if you were to drive non-stop."

"Heaven?"

"Yessiree. Just go south. But don't expect to find nothing worthwhile there. Been once. Wouldn't recommend." Giving Cal a farewell nod, Lazarus jammed his hands into his pockets, turned, and walked away.

Caleb had driven the trailer down the road until pavement turned into gravel and then continued until gravel became dirt. He stopped in a part of the woods he was sure no one would come to. He lived there until the hatred he had for himself and the world faded into a throbbing ache he could fit in his pocket.

He knew it was not God or faith that had caused Sam to be murdered. It was the hatred people carried in their hearts for others who were different. If Father Ambrose had been a kind and compassionate man, Caleb knew Samuel would not have suffered and Ambrose's son would not be buried behind the old, abandoned saw mill where no one could bless his grave. I would not have suffered either. Wouldn't that have been something?

Finding solace in the bible, Caleb spent his days longing to return to church. The desire grew with each passing passage until he could no longer ignore it. But Cal did not want to return as part of the congregation. He wanted to lead it. Not the way priests like Ambrose led but the way true priests should. Righteous and Adoring.

It had taken years for Cal to put on Mark's clerical collar and leave the trailer. For the next few decades, he had made his home in various small towns that didn't care where their holy man came from just as long as he knew how to quote the bible and dish out as many Hail Marys as they needed to feel like their sins had been washed away. But Cal could never stay in one place for too long. He didn't age like humans. Kadisin never looked more than thirty or forty, even when they stood on the edge of the last moment of their 100-year life. To keep people from finding out his secret, after a handful of years Cal would silently slip into the night in search of a new church to fulfill that aching desire to be close to God.

*Fun Fact: The old man had died and was resuscitated. When he speaks to Cal, he's talking about the real Heaven and the town of Heaven but they both blur in his mind so he thinks it's the same place- a pitiful town.