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Chapter Seven
Spiritual Malaise
Suddenly Adam’s intuition was stirred by the
quiet. It was, he decided, as he walked
down the hall, too quiet. Most of the
times, after a period of drinking, he would find her in a conscious or
semi-unconscious state or find her bent over the commode. When he reached the bathroom, he found the
door suspiciously locked. Unless she
was up to mischief as she had been last week, Cora didn’t lock the door. Her normal pattern throughout the day was to
get slowly drunk and sleep it off on the couch or bed. When she locked the bathroom door, she was
planning on an all out binge. This
time, however, he did not find her bent over the toilet, collapsed on the bed
or sprawled on the living room couch.
Once again she had locked the bathroom door.
“Cora,” he began calmly, “open the
door.”
Pressing his ear against the door, he
listened patiently but could hear no response.
“Cora, please open door,” his voice
rose a notch, and he began knocking progressively louder on the door.
From the interior, there was absolute
silence, not so much as grunt or snore.
“Why?…Why?…Why?” He asked, shaking his
head and leaning his forehead forlornly against the door. He tried to pray again, a strange blend of
curses and exhortations aimed both for and against his wife. Help her or destroy her had been the main
gist of his prayer. But, as he listened
to the silence, all his patience might as well have been flushed down the
commode.
“Cora,” his voice rasped, “I’m at the
end of my wits with you. I’ve done
everything humanly possible to help.
Nothing seems to work for me. I
can’t help you. God can’t help
you. Are you listening Cora? Do
you even remotely care?”
As he pressed his ear against the
door, Cora opened her eyes briefly but remained mute. As she hovered between wakefulness and unconsciousness, Adam
began pounding angrily on the door.
“Cora, I’m sick to death of your
shit!” He shouted at the top of his lungs.
Not having the key on him now, Adam
picked feverishly at the lock with a paper clip he discovered in his pocket,
until he found himself bodily slamming the door. At this point, all traces of his Christian charity vanished from
his mind. Cora had become what Satan
had wanted her to be: a millstone around his neck. Now its weight seemed to be more than he could bear.
“You filthy, degenerate wreck,” he
growled, “I ought to drown you in that goddamn
commode! You hear me bitch? Answer me!
Open this goddamn door!”
Moving faintly, an eyelid then a toe,
Cora was again aware of her husband’s ire.
But it was, for a few more moments, at a primitive level of
stimulus-to-response. She was in no
condition to understand what he said or even what she felt. Was it that dream again—the one she had the
other day about the devil in this room?
She couldn’t remember what it had been exactly, but it had been awful:
her very worst nightmare. Perhaps her
regular critters (bugs, bats or snakes) would show up again. Nothing was solid or tangible in her
twilight world, except her husband’s efforts to break down the door.
Stirring more animatedly as a slug
across the floor, she felt the urgency as the lock gave way on the door. But this time Cora had taken something
stronger than rum or gin, and it clung to her thickly as she tried to respond.
A great shaft of light broke the
darkness now as he emerged inside the room.
“Cora,” he breathed heavily “… I’m up
here in the light. Look at me
bitch! Open your bloodshot eyes!”
What is it this time? She wondered, raising her face off the
floor. As a voice cut icily through the
dark, she recalled Satan’s presence in this room. It was like a muddled nightmare, however, its identity mixing in
with a thousand other dreams.
After rolling onto her back, she
stared at the shadow, wondering where she was, then, seeing the base of the
commode directly ahead, wondering if she was still awake. Something must have gone terribly
wrong. After recognizing where she was,
she came to the dull realization, as she had before, that she was high on
something but was not asleep. Once
again, she had collapsed on the bathroom floor and awakened in a stupefied
state. She didn’t remember her original
goal of taking just one pill and going back to bed or, for that matter, that
she had, in her haste, ingested several of the tiny pills. Except for her method of intoxication, in fact,
it was a replay of her recent binge.
Fortunately for her there would be no bats, snakes, or devil this
time. The critter entering her den was
only her husband: the Reverend Adam Leeds.
Cora was still fully clothed, though her blouse was pulled up over her
bra. There were tiny white pills strewn
over the floor, indicating how quickly the drug had taken effect.
“Wha-a-a you-u-u wannnt?” She tried to
form her words, but this time it was even more difficult than before.
Reaching down and picking up one of
the pills, he studied it in the bathroom light, then lightly kicked her head
with his shoe. “What is this, Cora, an upper or downer? Is this the prescription the doctor gave you
last year? Those pills would knock out
a horse!”
“You dumb bitch,” he sighed, crunching
as many of them as he could with his shoe. “These are worse than booze. How many of these did you take?”
“How-w-w minnneee?” Her jaw hung
slackly and her head bobbed over the floor. “I doannn knowww how-w-w
minnneee. Ar-r-re you-u-u ma-a-a-d
ad-d-d me-e-e?”
“You worthless piece of shit,” he
growled, stifling the urge to kick her to death. “Those look like dope, not
sleep aids. Where did you get
these?”
“I dunnn-o-o-o.” she drawled, a drool escaping her
lip.
Adam gnashed his teeth in
despair. As much as he was tempted to
let her slip into a coma and die, he knew he had arrived in the knick of
time. Weighing how this might look to
his congregation against not having this millstone around his neck, he was torn
momentarily by the temptation to just let her expire.
“Let her die! Let the bitch die!” Satan’s icy whisper went
unheard.
Aware of the cold chill in the room,
Adam shuddered inexplicably, convinced he must do the right thing. “Oh Lord,” he whispered to himself, “I
thought it was you. All this time I
thought it was you!”
“Cora,” he rasped, pulling his cell
phone out of his pocket and dialing 911, “I gotta get you pumped out. There still might be time.”
Adam reported the emergency to a dispatcher in a
calm, deadpan voice. Unable to
comprehend his words, Cora managed a crooked, moronic smile. The pills had put everything into slow
motion, including her voice. Although
she felt the urgency in his words, it amounted to mostly racket in her
head. In her present state of mind, she
felt very little emotion, herself.
Reminiscent of that time, in which her clothes were strewn all over the
floor, had been her husband’s cold, angry voice and the dimly felt fear of what
he might do. A new and more terrifying
specter had briefly surfaced, one that had first seemed like a delirium tremens
but, unlike her ordinary DT’s, maintained a constant and unwavering form. Even now, with her husband standing
overhead, it dwarfed all other specters she had encountered, whether drug-induced
or real.
******
“I just talked to the emergency
operator,” he explained in a tranquil voice. “Until the ambulance arrives, I
must keep you awake….You know what that means, Cora. This time you get in with your clothes on!”
Reaching down roughly now, Adam grabbed her
armpits. Lifting her rudely to her
feet, he felt her body buckle at the knees.
Losing his grip entirely, he felt her slither down and grab his
waist. A mocking eroticism played upon
him as she hung there, staring mindlessly into space. A stirring rose inside him similar to the last time when he
touched her breast. This time, however,
he didn’t stop with her bosom and liberally squeezed and fondled her as far as
his arms could reach. During the
meantime, Cora looked blankly up at him, too far gone this time to care. As she held onto his belt for balance, she
had an almost child-like expression on her baby face. Although he was momentarily enchanted with this pose, he became
revolted when another drool escaped her lip.
She was too weak to fight. He was certain this time that he had the
upper hand. But when she heard the
shower running again, she lunged feebly toward the door. In her effort to escape, she tripped and
tumbled to the floor only to be picked up again and dragged over to the
tub. This time there was no argument as
he dumped her in and turned on the shower.
As the icy droplets fell, however, she sputtered, cursed, and staggered
onto the floor. She had just enough
energy to throw a punch. Fortunately
her punch was weak, hitting his forehead instead of his mouth. After watching her lunge repeatedly at him
and bare her teeth, he fled the scene, ducking quickly into the hall. Even though his wife could barely walk, Adam
dashed into his study, giggling hysterically, and locked the door. If he would have to stand his ground, he
told himself, he would have to hit her again, again, and again. Then it would be all over this time because
he wouldn’t be able to stop. All the
evil would be let loose. All his
pent-up anger and frustration would rain on her, until he had finally committed
the ultimate act of no return and no redemption: murder.
When the paramedics arrived, he would
simply point down the hall. Cora was in
much worse shape this time. “Maybe now,
he muttered light-headedly, “I can actually have her committed!” This thought caused Adam to break into
prayer.
******
When the fire department paramedics
arrived, neighbors peaked out their windows or looked through a crack in their
doors. Wallace Schoolcraft, a retired
postal worker, even walked down his driveway to make a cursory inspection. But no one was surprised at this commotion. For the past several months, when the
reverend was away, a constant stream of men had come in and out of the Leeds
household. Wallace, for his part,
wondered if maybe the reverend had killed her.
She had, he was convinced, given him cause. All he needed to justify his suspicion was a police squad pulling
up to their curb. Inside the Leeds
household, however, Cora had, after her second shower and vomiting the contents
of her stomach, actually sobered up.
After yesterday’s fiasco, she wanted no part of hospitals. She did not trust her husband’s motive and
simply refused to go.
“We can’t make her go,” one of the
paramedics explained to Adam as he and his partner headed toward the door. “She
looks okay, but she should go in for a check up. She probably didn’t take more than three or four of those pills. Some folks have a larger capacity for drugs
and medicine.”
“My wife has the capacity of an
elephant,” the reverend replied resignedly, following them out of the house.
“I’m sorry you wasted your time. What
should I do now for her? Should I call
the Poison Hotline or get some kind of purgative to clean her out?”
“It’s too late for any hotline or
purgative,” answered the paramedic with a shrug. Placing his gear back into the ambulance and shutting the gate,
he called out in an amiable enough voice, “Your wife needs psychiatric help,
sir. While you were hiding in your
study, she tried to bite me and kicked my partner in the shin. You’re lucky we’re not calling the
police. Take my advice; that woman
hates your guts. Until she sleeps it
off, stay out of her way!”
******
Adam wouldn’t have to worry about a hospital bill
and wouldn’t be sued for the injury caused by his wife; for this he was
thankful, but that was all. He had
failed to commit her. Because of her
behavior, he was a laughing stock to his congregation. Cora had also become an embarrassment in the
neighborhood. Now, after the arrival
and departure of paramedics, neighbors were left wondering about the goings-on
in their house. Self-consciously, as he
walked back up to his porch, he looked around furtively, noticing Wallace
Schoolcraft standing in his driveway and Felicity Brown peaking over the fence
next store. Unseen by him, yet felt,
were those other neighbors across the street and in back of his house, who had
heard, but not seen, such commotion. In
the past, Adam reflected, Cora had shrieked like a maddened beast. It was a wonder, after hearing her
outbursts, none of their neighbors hadn’t called the police.
When he was back in the house, he didn’t bother
checking on his wife. Hopefully she
would be sleeping off the effects of the drug…. Maybe this time she would stay
asleep permanently.
Because of all this emotional stimuli, Adam’s dream
resurfaced in his mind, causing a shudder up his spine. At the same time, however, an excited gleam
appeared in his eyes as the images took form.
He could not help the impulse and temptation to think of his wife: first
alive on her knees, then dead on the commode: beheaded, the head below her in
the bowel battered to a pulp, her breasts and stomach slashed to ribbons, and
his own righteous hands covered with blood.
Satan could see that look in his eyes.
The draftsman of deceit and architect of evil had seen it untold
millions of times—always in the eyes…. Adam wouldn’t admit it yet, but he was
ready to murder his wife.
******
Reaching the point of emotional exhaustion, Adam
settled light-headedly in his chair.
The sudden shrieking of his wife outside his locked door added emphasis
to his plight. It was a soundtrack for
the snarling thing in his mind: the evil personified by his wife.
“You-u-u ash-hole! You-u-u bash-tard! You-u-u filthy shun-of-bitch!”
“Sticks and stones will break my bones, . . .” Adam
called out light-headedly, leaving the adage unfinished as he listened to her
shout insults threw the door.
Cora attacked every fabric of his being, from his
graying hair to his imagined impotency in bed.
The truth was, of course, before Cora’s personality change, they shared
a good sex life. Even now, in spite of
his revulsion toward her, he was tempted to fondle his wife. Eventually, she would give up her tirade and
probably fall asleep somewhere in the house.
He simply didn’t care. Shutting
his eyes tightly now, he tried sweeping his mind clean. The past several days had been awful, but
the ordeal at the hospital had been his worst period of hell. Weighed against this episode, his experience
today seemed insignificant. Praying
long and hard, he asked God to cleanse his mind and heal his soul. He also asked God to exorcise his home of
its evil spirit as well. After a few
moments of half-hearted praying, though, Adam remembered giving credit to the
Holy Ghost, Himself, for this invasion and was bemused after adding this
addendum to his prayer. Switching to
his old standby, the Twenty-third Psalm, he mumbled his favorite psalm over and
over again until it became a mantra in his head.
When it appeared as if the evil spirit had vanished from his portion of the house and God had the upper hand, Adam concentrated on other matters. He had that meeting tomorrow with Dwight Higgins, Philip Lindley, Tim Billingsley, and Ian MacCallum—all that was left of the elders of Our Savior’s Independent Christian Church. A lump rose in his throat when he considered how they had stuck up for him. For a few hours tomorrow he would attempt to restore the elders’ confidence in him and hope, while he was gone, Cora would behave. In spite of his hopes and prayers, however, Adam felt tainted. In his heart he had murdered Cora. How could he serve God if he really wanted to murder his wife? This question now festered like spiritual cancer in his mind.