Lazarus

The rain is a dull, listless drumming against the flat tin roof and I’ve been lying here for three days straight. Outside the single grimy window, the landscape is flat and dull, too, the air heavy like a damp blanket. There was an oily scent on the cold, humid breeze when it first started raining. Now there’s nothing but the petrichor. Muddy grey puddles fill up the tar-patched roads and dirt-colored streams run down the cracked sidewalks, drowning any weeds that grow there. If I breathe in the air here any longer, it feels like I’ll start sprouting oak roots in my lungs.

It’s funny that they named me Lazarus, because I’ve been lying here for three days. Curled up on a bare damp mattress with a threadbare top sheet over my body, I haven’t been able to stop shivering since the rain started. Purely coincidence. Part of me thinks that as soon as the clouds part and golden sunshine spills out onto the water-darkened pavement, I’ll get better. I don’t have a mirror but I’m sure my face is pale and there are cadaverous half-moons beneath my eyes. My lips are cracked—I can feel that. I keep sucking in crackling breaths of the dank air, and it might be my imagination, but dark shapes and figures keep developing in the corners of this room.

I haven’t been well enough to closely inspect them; for the most part, I’ve been idly watching the strips of pea-colored flower-print wallpaper peel off the wooden beams and the pink insulation spilling through. It reminds me of flesh and bones and guts. The shadows hover above me, shifting and developing like the mold spores they very well may be. They’re either that or hallucinogenic shadow demons. Neither of them would surprise me. I don’t know what time it is, either, or how long I’ve been awake for. I stopped caring about the day of the week a long time ago.

Today, though, I finally have the strength to sit up in bed and grab the backpack that’s sitting about a foot away from my mattress. My skull feels like it’s stuffed with wads of cotton that are probably damp and moldy, too. Normally, I sleep with the backpack held close to my chest, ready to sling over my shoulder and take off in the case of an emergency. Not since I got sick. The worn canvas bag nestled in my lap, I sift through the half-wet contents. My two hoodies are folded up and they’ve been shoved down to the bottom to fit. I pull out my favorite of the pair, thick camouflage with a pocket in the front and a hood drawstring that’s knotted on both ends.

Something falls out of the pocket. It’s a thin New Testament Bible with an orange vinyl cover, a glossy pamphlet folded up and tucked between the pages in the middle. The leaflet says “HOW TO BE SAVED” on the front. I got them when the hoodie was given to me, at a yard sale at the town’s Methodist church. The woman behind the white fold-up table said I could have the sweatshirt for free as she handed me the Bible and the pamphlet. She didn’t even know that I was wearing a cross necklace beneath my T-shirt—or that I grew up in a Methodist church before I came to Arkansas. She just saw a homeless teenager who needed something warm to wear for the damp upcoming winter. Rain in November is a different beast entirely.

My breath frosts in a cloud of condensation with every exhale. The world does a somersault when I stand up on the scuffed linoleum floor, closing my eyes for a moment to catch my balance. Blood makes a whooshing sound through my head and something muffled thumps erratically against my ears. I pull on the hoodie, shoulder the backpack, and head out the door for the first time since I got sick.

Before the rain began, all the yards on the street were filled with dry yellow, overgrown grass. Now it’s still yellow and overgrown but it’s waterlogged and it all sags, a matted hay-colored bed that looks like you’d get your ankles tangled up in if you walked through. The roofs on all the houses are rattier and missing even more shingles, on the verge of collapsing in on themselves. The last porch step on this house makes a sick squelch noise when my foot lands on it. There aren’t many intact windows left here; most of them are boarded up or covered with plastic sheets and secured with painter’s tape. They were all here when I found it. I’ve been staying here for about two months now, but I still don’t like to call it “my” house. I bet most of the people on this street know I’m a squatter. I’m really just waiting on someone to turn me in.

I’m still dizzy and I can’t quite walk in a totally straight line as I traipse down the sidewalk. It’s a good thing I’m not a superstitious person; I couldn’t avoid stepping on a weed-sprouting crack if I wanted to. Every once in a while I’ll look up from the pavement. Not all the houses here have power running to them, but it’s easy to pick apart the ones that do; they have noisy gas generators that hum and shake against the exterior walls. Thick rubber cables run through the weed-eaten yards like snakes, slithering in through windows and cracked doorways. At one point, I see a middle-aged woman in a sundress sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of a darkened house. Her frizzy black hair is streaked with grey and her knobby yellow-nailed hands rest on her knees. She seems to slowly watch me until I’m out of her field of vision. I’m breathless by the time I get away from the homes a few blocks later, staring at a plaza across the street.

A single stoplight hangs across the four-way intersection. It’s a mechanical cube suspended on a couple black cables, swaying in the sluggish breeze. The streets are empty and the sky is colorless. I don’t need to wait for any vehicles to cross.

Mixie’s is a squat concrete building in the center of the plaza, set apart from the rest of the businesses on the horizontal strip. It must be an echo of what this town used to be—a general store, a gas station, and a pharmacy all in one, with dull flickering lights overhead and flecked beige tiles. There’s a counter at the back with a meat cooler, packaged cuts of beef, pork, and chicken plastic-wrapped inside styrofoam trays. It’s the one place in town I stay a little longer at when I visit. Leaning against the brick wall outside is a thirty-something woman smoking a cigarette in a crop-top and low-rise jeans. Her nails are painted magenta and chipped, and thick black makeup rings her eyes like a racoon’s. Her wary gaze follows me to the smudged glass entrance. I nod a greeting at her as I push open the door and go inside.

Dark-green staticky circles fizzle through my vision when I see the fluorescent beams overhead. The aisles are made of grey metal shelves stocked with different supplies and dry goods, and next to the entrance, a tall soda machine glows. A Mountain Dew is the first thing I get. I go through the checkout with it, and the cashier is a guy who’s either twenty or forty years old; I can’t quite tell. He’s wearing a burnt-orange polo and he’s balding with a mousy-brown mustache, a gold crucifix pendant on a chain around his neck. It reminds me of the one I’m wearing. Deep in my pocket, a soggy twenty-dollar bill is crumpled up at the bottom, and I pull it out to pay for the soda. The man doesn’t say anything to me. I sip the nuclear-green drink as I wander the aisles of the gas station, the backpack on my shoulders feeling like one of those army packs, the ones soldiers train with. It might not be a bad idea to enlist when I’m old enough.

Without a basket, I get my groceries and hold them in my arms as I make my rounds through Mixie’s. DayQuil instead of NyQuil—I’ve been sleeping too much lately. It’s the off-brand. I have the Daytime Liquid Cough Suppressant in one hand and the Mountain Dew in the other, toxic yellow-green and glowing orange, and they’re the brightest things I’ve seen in several days. Cup Noodles are cheap, too. I can boil water over a fire and add it to the styrofoam cups. In the clearance section at the back of the store, there are a few dented cans of soup, like beef stew and minestrone. There’s a meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes TV dinner in a plastic tray, too, and it doesn’t even need to be refrigerated. At the checkout, I unload all the contents from my arms onto the counter. The man with the crucifix necklace rings them up and hands them to me in two plastic bags. He still doesn’t speak.

Every step feels like I’m falling as I go home. The woman in the rocking chair isn’t out on her front porch anymore. When I see the house and the cars parked out front, I freeze in my tracks. Dizzy shock nearly topples me over.

Two police cruisers are parked next to the curb, and two officers in bulky black vests are knocking at the door. I can’t hear what they’re shouting because of the ringing in my ears. One of them sees me, and I still don’t move as he comes towards me on the sidewalk. My hands are full with the grocery bags. He asks me if I’m the one living here as he approaches.

Arkansas has squatter’s rights for those living in untenanted establishments. That’s not illegal. It’s because I’m a minor. I wonder if the woman down the street called the police.

“We just want to ask you a few questions,” the officer says, loud and slow like I’m a small child who can’t grasp his words. “Have you been staying at this house by yourself?”

I simply nod.

“Are you a minor?”

I nod again.

“What’s your name?”

I don’t say anything because I don’t want to.

The second one comes over and they ask a few more questions that I answer vaguely. Then they tell me they’re going to take me to the police station to sort things out. When they ask if I have parents or a guardian, I shake my head and tell them I pretty much don’t. They make me sit in the back of one of the cruisers. They don’t make me get rid of my grocery bags, though.

The police station is bright and sterile, and it reminds me of a hospital. I sit in a room that looks like an office, and a man with a sheriff’s badge asks me questions from behind a big mahogany desk. There’s a steaming cup of coffee on a coaster in front of him. I’m tempted to ask for coffee myself.

He’s got a family, because on the wall behind his desk, I see dozens of small portraits held up with thumb tacks. A few tiny knick-knacks sit on the desk itself, like a little carnival glass hen and a miniature bronze train car. I wonder if his kids gave them to him—it looks like there are two of them, a boy and a girl, both with dark hair. In the oldest picture of them, the son is in a graduation cap and a gown while the daughter stands beside him. They must not be much older than me.

“The more you tell us, the smoother this whole process will go,” he says to me. There’s a warning tone in his voice. “What’s your name?”

I hesitate. “You’re going to laugh.”

“No, I’m not.”

I press my lips into a thin line, deliberating as I stare at the objects on his desk.

“Lazarus,” I tell him. “Like the man from the Bible.”

I answer questions with as few details as I can. When he asks where my parents are, I tell him that I don’t really know. He says they must be worried sick about me. I know they’re not, but I don’t tell him that.

An hour and a half passes that way. He eventually sighs, sinking deeper in his chair as he massages the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He has a shiny bald head and salt-and-pepper stubble that covers his chin.

“When am I allowed to leave?” I ask him.

He laces his hands together in his lap. “As soon as we find an emergency foster home. It could be as soon as tonight or tomorrow.”

“Can I leave before then? Just for now?”

“Not by yourself, no.”

“Can an officer drive me somewhere?”

“It depends.”

“The Methodist church?”

He thinks about it for a second. In one of the photos on the wall, he’s standing next to a woman who looks like his wife, in a pink dress with a white cardigan wrapped around her shoulders. She has a gold cross necklace on, too.

I reach beneath the worn, stretched collar of the T-shirt I’m wearing under the hoodie and pull out the gold cross pendant. It’s on a rope chain, not one of the thin dainty ones they typically make for women’s necklaces. It’s gold-plated instead of solid precious metal, but it’s probably worth more than everything else I own combined. He stares at it when I show it to him.

“I don’t see why that would be a problem,” he finally says, his voice softer this time.

I wait in his office for a little while longer. A woman in a navy-blue skirt and a white blouse comes in later, with a large fountain drink and brown paper Burger King bag that has grease stains at the bottom. There’s a paper-wrapped Double Whopper inside with a carton of fries. I wolf it down in no time at all. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, probably, and I could eat fast food burgers for the rest of my life. There’s even a small vanilla milkshake with a straw and a spoon. I don’t need the napkins because I lick my fingers clean. I pick the tiny teardrop-shaped sesame seeds from the bun off the paper wrapper.

An officer comes to get me after that and we load up in the cruiser. My head is heavy and this all seems like a dream. It’s dark outside when we get out to the parking lot, and I have to sit in the back of the cruiser again, on plastic seats and with a hard mesh screen separating me from the cab. It’s a short drive across town to the Methodist church, a building with wooden boards on the outside walls, a steep slanted roof, and a tall steeple. They always keep it unlocked. I know that because I go here sometimes—never to the services on Sundays or Wednesdays, but when nobody else is here. I never even pray. I haven’t been able to since I left home.

The officer follows me inside the grand twin doors. Normally when I come, I just sit in a pew and think, bask in the enveloping silence as I look at the gorgeous stained glass windows. The carpet is deep red and the pews have matching cushions, glossy wooden benches with a wide aisle between them. The altar steps are carpeted and the pulpit in the middle is wooden, too. Sometimes if I’m curious, I’ll go sit at the grand piano to the left side of the altar, and try to key out a simple song or two with my pointer fingers. Tonight I find a seat at the back pew on the right side. The officer sits a few feet away from me.

I look down at my lap, at my knees. The denim is frayed and worn to the point of being a lighter color, bound to tear any day now. I fold my hands and lace my fingers together. Out of the corner of my eye, the officer seems to be eyeing me, too, not wanting to look like he is. He’s young. Blond wavy hair and expressive blue eyes, a curious, waiting expression on his face, he seems like he just got out of the police academy. He stares ahead at the altar—maybe the giant wooden cross mounted to the wall behind it—to feign disinterest. I close my eyes and bow my head, resting my elbows on my thighs, pressing my mouth against my interlocked fingers. My mind feels blank. At first I try going over rehearsed words in my head, even resorting to the Lord’s Prayer. Give us this day, our daily bread… Nothing. I sit up straight and glance over at the officer, who’s been looking at me, and this time he doesn’t try to hide it.

I don’t even feel particularly heavy at this point. I start telling him everything, though.

“I ran away from home. That’s why I’m homeless. And I’m not originally from Arkansas; I’m from Missouri. About two or three hours from here, I think. My parents are schizophrenic. We’ve always been really poor and I mean, they need their medication, but it’s expensive, you know? I grew up in the church, too. Their faith was something they’d cling to when things got bad for them. I don’t know how two people that mentally ill ended up together the way they did. Anyway. They needed meds but when that didn’t cut it, they’d just pray and read the Bible. I don’t know if it worked, but it calmed them down. I got this necklace from them when I was thirteen. That was two years ago.”

I pull out the cross necklace to show him. For a moment, he stares straight at me, then pulls a small notepad out of a pocket in his button-up shirt. He pulls out the pencil stub that’s tucked between the spirals of the plastic coils, waiting for me to say more, but I go quiet. A few minutes pass. Finally, he puts away the notepad.

“It started to get bad. Church didn’t really work anymore. They’d be fine, and then they’d be seeing hallucinations, screaming and throwing things because they thought someone was really in the house. One time my dad shot a hole through the front door with his pistol. They’d forget to do things like cook or wash their clothes or pick up the house. I didn’t really know what to do. I guess people thought we were living like that because we didn’t have money. Maybe they were scared. I don’t know. It scared me for sure.

“They always seemed to be afraid of intruders. Sometimes they’d forget that I was their son, and I was the intruder all of a sudden. My mom did it the most. She would turn her head for a second, and when she looked back at me, she wouldn’t recognize me. I’d just apologize and leave the house for a couple hours. She’d usually be back to normal by the time I got back. But their normal still wasn’t good. They were numb and apathetic. They didn’t feel like people anymore. I stopped going to church and I stopped believing in the things they’d told me there. I wasn’t angry at God. I just didn’t believe in one anymore.”

“I packed a bag and I ran away. That’s all there is to it. I bought a bus ticket to Yellville and then I walked here. They didn’t report me missing because they probably don’t remember me. I can give you their names if you want. I can’t go back to living with them—even though I still love them. It might not seem like I care about them, but I still do. The same thing might happen to me when I get older; it typically develops in your late teens. That scares me more than anything. I don’t hate them at all. And of course I miss them, but it’s not them, it’s a mental illness I don’t think they’ll recover from. If y’all take me back to them then I’ll run away again. The same thing will happen. I know it’s selfish. But I can’t live with them and I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what to do.”

I can’t remember the last time I spoke so much at once to someone else. He’s stunned speechless.

He doesn’t get out the notepad and pencil stub to record the testimony—if that’s even what you’d call what I told him. After a few minutes, I get up from the pew and walk down the aisle.

I take a seat at the front, just a couple feet away from the altar. It’s easier this time when I bow my head and fold my hands to pray.

I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’m sorry. If this isn’t a punishment, if this is to make me stronger and something good will come out of it, just tell me what it is. Please. I don’t even know if I really believe in You anymore and I’m sorry. What did I do? Tell me if I did something wrong. Make me realize what I’ve done—send me a sign or something. Anything.

I press my lips together hard and close my eyes tightly to keep from crying.

What should I do? How can I get out of this? Just tell me what I did. Please, LISTEN to me. Make me feel something. I can’t hear You. If You’re there, show me. This is why I don’t believe in anything anymore. I can’t feel anything. Why are You doing this to me? My prayers don’t sound like prayers anymore. I don’t even want to call you God because you’re not doing anything. What are you? What am I doing wrong? Why aren’t you here anymore?

Hot tears spill off my lashes and drip onto my hands, my shoulders shaking, every breath coming in a short, stifled gasp. I don’t think there’s anything scarier than the bottomless pit that’s opened up in my heart. On second thought, I think it was there all along. I simply discovered it.

I flinch at the sudden sound of a cellphone ringing on the other side of the church, where the officer is sitting. I turn around to look at him; he can probably see that I’ve been crying. He answers the phone. “Hello?”

I wipe at my face with the sleeves of my hoodie. It’s so silent in the church, I can hear a tinny voice on the other end of the line even across the sanctuary, but I can’t make out what it’s saying.

“Yeah, we’re still here,” the officer says, making eye contact with me. “We’ll be there in a second. Thanks for telling me. I’ll let him know.”

He hangs up. I turn around and stare at the massive wooden cross hanging on the wall. It would be a better reminder if it had bloodstains and nails in it.

“They found an emergency foster home for you,” the officer says, and I close my eyes, holding back a sob of relief. “They’re still trying to contact your parents. Thank you for telling me. That’ll make finding them a lot easier.”

There’s ringing in my ears all of a sudden. I don’t know why. I’m getting pulled out of that infinite pit.