Penitente - Part 3

By Jane Hammons

"Which way to the Blood of Christ?" Dunway stuck the key in the ignition. It had been in the glove box just like the dumb kid said it would be. He didn’t like the rattle that clattered throughout the engine, but he ignored it. He had no choice now.

"Blood of Christ," repeated Chapman.

"Yeah. Sangre de Cristo. Those goddamned mountains we been staring at for an eternity."

"That way," Chapman pointing to the mountains that usually turned a deep bloody red in the sunset. Today they were the hard glimmer of ice.

"I can see that, you idiot. I thought you might know a quick way out of this shithole. I should have known better." Dunway shivered. He was excited. He zipped up the down vest that Chapman had given him. "Thanks, pal." He patted Chapman on the arm.

Pal. Pally. Little Pal. Give Papa sugar, Little Pal. Feeble old man bouncing the little fat boy on his knee. Licking his neck. Sticking his sloppy tongue into the little boy’s clean pink ears. Give papa Sugar. Chapman kissed him. Little Pal kissed him everywhere he wanted to be kissed. Old man’s stinking flesh. He’d have to kiss it and lick it and suck it. Or Papa Sugar would hit him and hit him some more. Give Papa sugar. Chapman gave Papa all the sugar he had. But when he tried to be Papa Sugar to that little boy back in Virginia, Papa Sugar didn’t have any patience with him at all. Papa Sugar said it was disgusting to pick up a stranger. And Mama Shug, who pretended she didn’t know about all the sugars that had been given away in her house, said he was disgusting.

She said she would pray for him, but that she never wanted to see his face again. Papa Sugar came to the prison to visit, but Chapman wouldn’t see him. When he got out of prison in Virginia, he had planned to go back and kill those two coots. After all, Mama Shug prayed that he’d do some good in his life. He’d learned a hundred ways to do good in prison. Do good sugar. He thought he owed it to them to go back and sugar them to death.

But he didn’t. Instead, he came to New Mexico and tried to live in one of those communes. He tried to follow the spiritual light of Reverend Sunny so he could get a little of that free love he’d been hearing about. But he should have known that there was no such thing. Nobody was giving away love for free. Not to him. Not until he met VeraMae. She couldn’t keep her hands off him. VeraMae was always playing with his thing. She loved to search for it beneath his rolls of fat. Whenever they ate at the communal table, VeraMae liked for him to have a finger somewhere inside her. They disgusted the freelovers, so they were kicked out of the commune. Bad vibes.

"Where exactly we headed?" Dunway asked.

"Up to the commune. Go up to Truchas, and we’ll head into the mountains from there."

"What commune?"

"Where I met VeraMae. There’s nobody up there now, but the houses are still standing. We can stay there for a while. Maybe steal a truck from a rancher. Get some guns."

"How the hell would you know that the houses are still there? You’ve been in prison for six years."

"Anaya, the kid in the clinic. The orderly."

Dunway laughed. "The little whore that knifed that basketball player last year at the high school tourney? Yeah. What about him?"

"He told me him and some buddies used to go up there a lot. Take their .22s, shoot at beer cans. Screw girls. He’s from Truchas so he knows about the Brotherhood," Chapman drifted into the real reason he wanted to go to the commune, "in the wilderness."

"Don’t give me any of that hippie brotherhood shit. I never met a hippie who’d give the pus out of his zits to anybody. Tight-assed bunch of dicks. But we need a place to spend the night. Just hope there aren’t any asshole hippies or stupid spicks up there diddling each other. Might have to kill them." He patted the gun, warm against his side. “I’m in a mood.” He smiled at Chapman and turned on the radio. He fiddled with the dials and tried to sing along with a couple of songs he didn’t know. "Goddamned music," he growled, "I hate music."

Chapman folded his soft fat hands carefully in his lap, resisting the urge to clap like a child at the circus. He couldn’t believe his good luck. He was going to the Brotherhood, the Penitentes that Anaya told him about. He could be one of them. Carry the heavy wooden cross. Whip himself with leather straps. Die in the wilderness and rise again in another body. A good one this time. A clean one. Not this one that Papa Sugar and other filth had ruined. He would wander deep into the forest and find the secret place of the Penitentes, the place where they nailed the one who became Jesus to the cross. Let the blood flow. When the body was dead and the spirit flown to heaven, they took it down from the cross and ate it. Ate the flesh of Christ and became the flesh of Christ. Chapman wanted to eat Christ, too. Drink the blood. Suck the marrow from his bones.

Dunway stared at Chapman who made strange smacking sounds as he pursed his fat lips. He thought he should have killed Chapman by now. But the sun was setting and soon it would be dark. Chapman had been in the mountains before. Dunway did not want to be alone in the deep darkness of the Sangre de Cristos.

"Turn right here." He directed Dunway east into the mountains along a narrow bumpy road. After a few miles the Tornado rattled then died.

"Hunk of shit," Dunway said through his clenched teeth. He slammed his fists against the steering wheel. "Let’s go for a hike, fat man." Dunway loaded the four bullets into the cylinder. "In case of bears," he explained, brushing the gun warm from his pocket against Chapman’s pink flushed cheek. "Or Injuns. Want to kill yourself another Tonto?"

Chapman just grunted as he leaned over the backseat and grabbed the grocery sack Starr had filled with food. He took the blanket that covered the rips and stains on the backseat and wrapped it around his shoulders. It was cold and he knew it could only get colder. He followed Dunway who was talking out loud to himself.

"Head up to Colorado. Maybe over to Utah or Nevada. On out to California. Settle down out there. Live on a beach." Dunway had no sense of direction. The trees were too tall, the shadows too deep. He kicked a small pine tree. "I hate trees," he muttered. He remembered this feeling from the last time he was free. Crowded. Everything in his way. He had gotten in bar fights, beat up a few women, shot at some white trash. Finally he’d had to kill somebody before they put him away for a while. He’d gone out and slit a wetback from stem to stern then dumped him in the Rio Grande, his natural habitat. Dunway laughed. He hated the openness, the depth of the sky above him. He could feel himself falling into it. Colorado was too far away. California was a fairy tale. He was trapped in the Sangre de Cristos.

Died and gone to heaven. That’s what Chapman thought as he crashed through the low trees and thick underbrush. He was in the mountains that he had stared at for the last six years. They reminded him of the mountains back home in Virginia. But he wouldn’t think about that, about all the bad things he’d done to people. He was looking for the Brotherhood. And when he found them, he’d be saved. He huffed and puffed along behind Dunway who slid easily between branches and over rocks.

Finally Dunway tired and stopped when he saw a clearing beneath a rocky overhang. “Let’s rest,” he said. He hated the cold air that crackled in his lungs.

Chapman was more than happy to stop. His head pounded miserably from the strain of walking for so long in the high altitude. His heart kicked like a boot in his chest. He sat down and burrowed into the grocery sack, stuffing Cheerios by the fistful into his mouth, the way he had as a child.

Dunway nestled into the hard smooth space beneath the windswept cliff. He stared at the angry, frowning moon that watched him through the smoky veil of clouds rolling across its face. He was scared. He had never been so afraid of anything or anyone as of this forest of snapping twigs and moaning branches. Sometimes an animal called out and was answered by another. He couldn’t shoot the noises that filled him with loneliness and fear. He couldn’t tie up and insult the darkness that reached out for him. He held the pistol limply in his hand. He’d shoot those animals if he could see them. He listened to Chapman gorge himself, crunching down cereal. If he opened those pig’s feet, he’d kill him. Shoot his fucking head off.

Chapman watched Dunway fiddle with the gun. He wasn’t about to die before he found the Penitentes. He kept an eye on Dunway and crammed a fistful of Fritos into his mouth. He offered the bag to Dunway, but he just glared at the bright mottled moon as dark thunderheads began to roll across it.

Dunway surrendered. "Kill me," he whispered harshly.

Chapman stopped munching corn chips and listened to Dunway plead with the moon.

"Kill me," he screamed, holding the words like nails between his teeth.

"Kull fu?" Chapman asked, his mouth full.

Dunway leapt to his feet and sprung toward Chapman. He shoved the barrel of the revolver into Chapman’s mouth and reamed out the soggy corn chips. "Do it Fat Chap, or I’ll kill you right here and now." Dunway knew that Chapman, lost and crazy as he was, wanted to live. He pulled the barrel out of Chapman’s mouth and wiped it clean of saliva and chewed bits of food. "Wait til I’m ready," he said smoothing the vest, running a hand quickly through his hair. He handed Chapman the gun and sat back straight and stiff against the smooth gray wall of the overhang.

Chapman grinned as he approached Dunway who looked like he was posing for a picture. He giggled. "Smile for the birdie."

Dunway screamed and lunged at the fat shit. He’d ruined the one moment in his life he cared about, the one instant he’d put some thought into. He knocked Chapman to the ground and jumped on top of him. Just as he was about to smash Chapman’s face with both of his fists, Chapman fired the pistol and watched the bullet rip through Dunway’s throat. He fired another that took off part of Dunway’s head. Dunway continued to scream. A frothy gurgle erupted from his throat. He fixed his angry eyes upon Chapman and spent his hate.

Shit. It was no more than this. He felt the burn in his throat explode out the back of his head. He looked into the startled eyes of the lunatic he had begged to kill him and knew he would gaze into them forever. Hell. Death was no better than life. He tried to protest, but his words were drowned by the blood that filled his throat. He hated death.

***************

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