Gladiator

Fridays at noon is Empowerment Seminar. Dressed as Caesar, Dr. Marcus mounts the cardboard podium and blows the horn. For the next hour it’s a whirlwind of shouts, humiliation, and crying out for God. Dr. White comes at me with a stale French loaf. I’ve got a bunch of hairnets sewn together into one big net. I toss it at him and he ducks and weaves, and then he pops up in front of me, smacking me across the forehead with the bread loaf. I grab his beard and yank him to the floor.

“Good,” he groans as I climb on his back. “You’re learning to work through your problems.” I grab my net and cocoon him in it from head to feet. “Game over,” I whisper.

Jasper is in the corner, kicking ass as usual. He’s got a long sock filled with rectal thermometers. Dr. Kozlowski and Dr. Bennett lie motionless at his feet. I give him the nod and we make our way across the room, straight for Dr. Marcus.

“Gentlemen,” he says, extending his open palms. “So glad you could join my little party. But now I’m afraid it’s time for bed.” He opens his toga and we gaze upon his swarthy, rippling chest, and the enormous golden stethoscope dangling from his neck. “Ah,” he says. “I see you have noticed my instrument.” He springs from the podium and gives Jasper a chop to the groin. Jasper falls, whimpering to his knees. “And now,” Dr. Marcus says, placing the earpieces of the stethoscope into Jasper’s ears, “I must say to you, good night, sweet prince.” Jasper opens his mouth for help, but all I hear is Dr. Marcus screaming into the other end of the stethoscope, and then the sound of Jasper’s head hitting the cold linoleum floor.

Dr. Marcus turns toward me, and a warm, steady stream of urine runs down my leg. In a flash of light I see it: a quiet grove of trees opening up to a clear deep river, where friends hold hands and sing songs of joy, encircling me about in the arms of their love. Off to the side my three young sons are busy tending their little garden, cheered on by my beautiful, busty wife. I cut a quick, elusive pirouette and dash toward the row of open windows, the cafeteria door, beyond which wait hope and love and freedom. I close my eyes as the vision literally lifts me off my feet, my invisible strength carrying me free from the hospital walls, taking me home at last.

Then I’m hanging upside down from the ceiling, blood rushing to my head. The world is a sea of disfigured faces, unfamiliar objects. Dr. Marcus comes toward me with his bouncy walk. “I see you found my booby trap,” he says. “Booby see, booby get.” He grabs the back of my head and buries my face in his hairy chest. His skin is salty. I can barely breathe. I close my eyes and pray for the horn to signal the end of the seminar. Any moment now...

Redemption

He’s flying through space so fast his body can’t catch up with itself, stars and planets passing in the twinkle of an eye. He turns to look down at me and I see his blue eyes watery and rootless. He opens his mouth and his teeth glitter like jewels and his voice is the sound of rushing waters.

Asel, I say. Where are you? Stop moving.

It doesn’t stop, he says. Not ever. Not until you give me peace.

I wake up cold in the rising dawn and get up to stoke the fire. Tendrils of ash rise and dissolve on the breeze. I hit myself in the mouth to keep from crying. Me and my twin brother Asel used to build a fire and sleep out at the old mine on weekends. He’d talk about the buried Indian treasure and I’d tell him what we’d do with it once we found it. One night I pointed up to the sky full of stars and said, That’s how rich we’ll be.

I get up and wander through the scrub oak for hours, my head buzzing in the heat. I break off a tree branch and set down to whittle it into a walking stick. I carve a knob at the top with a place for the red stone from Asel’s ring to fit. It’s been two days and still no water, so I kneel and pray: “Dear Lord, please remember the promise I promised, that though my brother Asel has taken his own life, I will give it back to him.”

I stand up and close my eyes and after a while I hear the tiniest whisper of a voice. I ask, “Where Lord?” and the voice tells me to walk to the place where the shade meets the sun. I open my eyes and look around until I find a little trail going through the woods, and I follow it to a hollowed-out place in the hillside with the sun shining right on top. “Where Lord?” I ask again, and I wait to hear, and then I step into the hollow and drag aside the rocks and thrust the stick deep into the giving earth and a gray flash of water springs up. I drink my fill and then wash my face.

Jesus said that every man must be born of water. Maybe Asel’s didn’t take the first time around. So I dig at the spring until it forms a small pool. The sun sets over the hills, the day’s last light twinned in the darkening water. I pull off my shirt and kneel down in it. I take out my knife and dip it in the water and then, carefully, I carve his name along my forearm. The blood drips from my fingers into the pool.

I feel him coming back to me as I pour out of myself. I close my eyes and say, “Asel Ezra Clawson, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” I bury my head in the cold water, and I hear his voice through the earth.

“Brother,” he says. “I am here.”