When We Join Jesus in Hell Read Online Free PDF Page B

to it, a spring to his step because he’s ready, realizes he’s always been ready, he’s only needed something like this situation to bring out the beast inside him. And there’s always been a beast. He remembers those moments while training, before stepping into the ring, when everyone else faded and there was only the weight of the gloves on his fists and the speed and precision that hard work had earned. He remembers before that, when he was much younger, one of the only white kids going to a predominantly black school. Life had been full of intimidation, those rough middle years between childhood and adulthood, but he didn’t back down. His old man told him every time Fist came home with another bloody nose, Fight till you’re dead, not so people will respect you but so you can respect yourself .
    The memory lingers. The truth of knowing the difference between respecting himself and hating himself and finally owning up to the fact that he really has no one to blame stings. He made his decisions. He says to his family, to Bianca, “I’m sorry I lost my way. I could have done so many things better, with more honesty, with more passion and love. I was weaker than I ever thought I was. So goddamn weak.”
    Karen touches his thigh. She says, You’re so strong .
    He shakes his head. He doesn’t see anything noble in his choices. There were a million things he could have done right if he’d followed his heart and not held back or given in to someone else’s demands or manipulations. “No,” he says, “I could have given you so much more.”
    It was enough , Bethany says in that too young voice she’s pushing to sound so grown up, and he looks back and sees her looking out the window and into the dark and he wonders what moves beyond his natural vision and he hopes whatever she sees it doesn’t frighten her. He clenches his hands and thinks, I’m going to kill Jesus for you, baby .
    He pulls Karen from the car, surprised by how light she feels in his arms, and he sets her gently in the shopping cart. He returns for his daughter, places her between her mother’s legs, both of them looking forward, always ahead, unafraid of the darkness crowding the path in the distance and unafraid of the building looming over them because this moment is important , Fist thinks, the last time they’ll all be together. He kneels in the open driver’s door, not caring that his work slacks are wet with street water. He extends his hand, places it gently on the seat. Bianca can’t see him. Her tongue lashes out and she hobbles nearer, still a little sick but stronger than he ever imagined. She tries to cling to his wrist, force his hand open with her snout so she can lay on his palm, but he can’t take her and risk her life too. Fist wants her to live, to be there when he returns, to help him deal with the sorrow he knows is coming once he’s taken the final action and the darkness closes in.
    He wishes he would have left her with his father.
    He thinks, Maybe something so small and beautiful and innocent could have been the thing to bring us together . But it’s too late to go back now. He can only go ahead. He lets her sit on his palm a moment and nudges a cricket against her snout. After she’s fed, Karen and Bethany sing quietly as he grabs the cart and pushes them toward the entrance where large double doors loom. Echoes issue from within. Wild laughter, prayer, meditation, threats.

Five

    He’d expected crackheads, men with bandanas and tattoos and guns, miscreants and dealers, but the hall is empty and subdued by shifting shadows as if a light somewhere up ahead spirals toward him. Fist clenches the shopping cart and inches forward. A wheel squeals as bats whip by, small, then larger, then smaller again, from murk to light to murk, their leathery wings the sound of a thousand tornados. He stops for a moment and pulls out one of the pistols. He doesn’t want Jesus getting the jump on him. His eyes strain to see