It wasn’t home that she returned to, but an evangelical empire. The Parousia Foundation campus had multiplied like cancer cells beneath the ozone hole that had opened above Southern California.
The gatekeeper who led her through a maze of corridors and gardens into Thomas Flood’s presence remembered her as a child with braces on her teeth. To play the prodigal daughter she’d removed her earrings and nose ring and dressed in simple, modest outfit of black silk. Her tattoo and the ring in her clit hood would protect her back and front.
The decision to come was her own. There was no one she could discuss it with. Dollar was still missing: hadn’t been seen at the Pussy Palace in days. She called the Hotel Napa, but its number had been changed to a lawyer’s answering machine — there’d been a fire. Laura and Baron were on a retreat in Big Sur and could not be reached.
Thomas Flood greeted her on the steps of the picture-perfect white chapel he’d had built to use for exterior shots to open the Evangelical Evening News. He held open his arms and she screwed up her courage and stepped into the strong circle they made.
She thought that he looked different than she remembered, as if television had somehow magnified the impression made by his good looks and erect, athletic body. She noticed that he was wearing makeup.
“How are you, father?”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling with the crow’s feet of satisfaction. “We have prospered, Robin, as I prophesied we would when you were a child, and I started this ministry.”
“I don’t want my picture taken.”
“Come inside to my office. We’ll talk.”
He touched her arm to guide her to the sleek building where his office was. She stopped her instinct to jerk free. The touch of his hand, his punishing hand, repulsed her, but she bore it. The sound of his voice made her heart clench like a fist, but she bore it. Her nightmares and dreams had driven her to him to ask one question. His answer might save them both.
He sat behind his massive mahogany desk and his secretary, Mary Ruth, brought them tea, staggering under the weight of the silver service while Thomas Flood beamed. It was a family reunion.
The ornately carved pulpit caught Robin’s attention.
“That’s beautiful. Eighteenth century, isn’t it? Maybe Munich?”
He was pleased. “Vienna, they tell me. I see your education hasn’t been wasted on you.”
“No. I did an art history minor. Once I did a paper on the evolution of pulpit design, of all subjects to choose.”
“Like father, like daughter. Do you think I can get away with using it on television? I don’t think so.”
“I haven’t watched you that often, father, but I would say not.”
“We hit 40 million households. It’s a big ministry, Robin. Big Nielsen ratings. I should wait, I suppose, until you tell me why you wanted to visit here — but I’ll say it anyway. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, they say. There’s a role here for you at Parousia. I couldn’t wait to tell you that.”
She was stunned.
He looked expectantly at her, as if he’d offered her the keys to his kingdom. She saw in his eyes what she had never seen clearly before: the pressure inside him was so great that it might erupt from any of a hundred places in his psyche. He was chillingly possessed. His demons were responsible for his charisma.
“I’m a minister without a helpmate, Robin. I won’t marry again. Who could step into the role more naturally, than my own flesh and blood? Oh, I won’t rush you into anything. But if down the road you could see yourself serving as my... what shall we say...?”
He waited for her to speak, allowing for the shock of his proposal to be absorbed. When she simply stared at the pulpit without speaking, he asked: “Robin?”
Her reply was a mumble, he thought at first, but he heard what she said. Her words struck in him a deep organ note of despair Yes. He heard what she said: “Am I your flesh and blood?”
But he asked: “What?” He spun around in his chair so that his back was to her. He fought to control what rose up in him.
“I wanted to see you so that I could ask you. You said that my mother was a slut. If she was, how do you really know that I’m your flesh and blood?”
“I am your father.”
Suddenly she was filled with an anger that etched her next words into the air as if she’d written them with a flame thrower: “If you are my father, I hate you so much that if I could explode your head right now I’d eat what’s left on a plate. And then I’d vomit your brains in someone else’s face, some derelict. And I’d kiss his dirty mouth and fuck him in your Baroque pulpit!’
When he spun back around his smile was crocodile sharp, and he sounded almost grateful for her anger when he spoke, “Shh, child, don’t. Don’t injure yourself and your immortal soul.” He put his hands up, as if to ward off her attack.
“You have killed me inside.”
Thomas Flood frowned and closed his eyes. He stood up slowly and walked to the window that looked out over the Parousia garden. Another golden afternoon was dying, its long crisp shadows playing over the carp pool. He wanted her to explain, but he couldn’t bear to hear her answer. He knelt on the floor by the window to ask for guidance.
— She is the only one who can save me, and she reviles me. I will burn in hell without her.
— What do you want me to do? You’re scheduled for hell in my book. She won’t forgive you.
— Help me claim my punishment, Lord.
He spoke to her.
“I am guilty, Robin. In my soul, I am guilty. There’s something inside me that wants to come out, some foul thing that lives in me...”
“You don’t have a soul!” she hissed at him, backing away. His kneeling frightened her. She watched him crumple slowly until his forehead touched the floor. He sobbed.
“It lives inside me. It has since I was little, since the clown put his snake in me and the snake grew and now...”
His shuddering sobs were so heartfelt she felt herself relax her guard. What was he babbling about?
“You killed my mother! You burned me!” she almost wailed, controlling her voice just in time. “You raped me!”
“Then punish me! Burn the thing inside me! Do whatever you want with me!”
He pushed himself up to his knees again and began tearing at his tie, fingers scrabbling down the buttons of his custom made shirt.
“Whip me!”
She felt cool and dry and hard inside. It was unique, hearing her father beg. She felt a perverse curiosity about how far he might go. She imagined black slime oozing from him, inky exhalations of evil billowing into the room.
He exhaled, she inhaled. What was inside him would be inside her then. Unless she forgave him. She tried to imagine punishment serious enough for his crimes. Punishment that she alone could administer there and then. Punishment so that she could forgive him.
He pulled his belt out of his trouser loops and held it out to her. She took it because of Emily. He had bared his broad hairy back to her, and she struck him with all her force with the buckle end of the belt, then dropped it. One for Emily, but nothing for herself.
She imagined degradations, but they would be no more than tokens, innocuous theatre. Shitting in his mouth would probably get him off, she thought bitterly.
“Use the belt as hard as you can. Burn me!”
Maybe if she could pull him down as he had her, hold him down as he had her, she could burn him, scald him as he had her. But what good would any punishment do? There was no forgiveness in her heart.
“Forgive me, Robin. Asmodens can be beaten out of me. I can vomit him out, you’ll see. Please, little Robin, I never meant to hurt you, or Rebecca. This devil inside me has its claws in my heart.”
“Father, I wouldn’t piss down your throat if your heart was on fire. There is no punishment for you but your own hell.”
He looked up at her with cold, tired eyes. They were dry. Sadly, weakly, he stood.
“You are my daughter, and you are cursed. Your mother was a whore and I was weak with her, and when you came I hated you as the devil’s spawn.”
Then Robin wept. The question was answered. If he was her father, then for her to live he certainly had to die. She was too weak to punish Thomas Flood, but not Buddy Tate. He was strong. She could make him kill for her.
Buddy Tate, bang, bang.