Brother Odd (Odd Thomas 3)

Here in the early afternoon, the Lesser Silence should have been observed to the extent that work allowed, but the monks were voluble. They worried about their missing brother, Timothy, and were alarmed by the possibility that persons unknown intended to harm the children at the school. They sounded fearful, humbled, yet exhilarated that they might be called upon to be brave defenders of the innocent.

Brother Alfonse asked, “Odd, are all of us going to die?”

“I hope none of us is going to die,” I replied.

“If all of us died, the sheriff would be disgraced.”

“I fail to understand,” said Brother Rupert, “the moral calculus that all of us dying would be balanced by the sheriff’s disgrace.”

“I assure you, Brother,” Alfonse said, “I didn’t mean to imply that mass death would be an acceptable price for the sheriff’s defeat in the next election.”

Brother Quentin, who had been a police officer at one time, first a beat patrolman and then a robbery-and-homicide detective, said, “Odd, who are these kid-killer wannabes?”

“We don’t know for sure,” I said, turning in my seat to look back at him. “But we know something’s coming.”

“What’s the evidence? Obviously something that’s not concrete enough to impress the sheriff. Threatening phone calls, like that?”

“The phones have gone down,” I said evasively, “so there won’t be any threatening calls now.”

“Are you being evasive?” Brother Quentin asked.

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“You’re terrible at being evasive.”

“Well, I do my best, sir.”

“We need to know the name of our enemy,” said Brother Quentin.

Brother Alfonse said, “We know the name. His name is legion.”

“I don’t mean our ultimate enemy,” said Quentin. “Odd, we aren’t going up against Satan with baseball bats, are we?”

“If it’s Satan, I haven’t noticed a sulfurous smell.”

“You’re being evasive again.”

“Yes, sir.”

From the third row, Brother Augustine said, “Why would you have to be evasive about whether or not it’s Satan? We all know it’s not Satan himself, it’s got to be some anti-faith zealots or something, doesn’t it?”

“Militant atheists,” said someone at the back of the vehicle.

Another fourth-row passenger chimed in: “Islamofascists. The president of Iran said, ‘The world will be cleaner when there’s no one whose day of worship is Saturday. When they’re all dead, we’ll kill the Sunday crowd.’”

Brother Knuckles, behind the wheel, said, “No reason to work yourselves up about it. We get to the school—Abbot Bernard, he’s gonna give you the straight poop, as far as we know it.”

Surprised, indicating the SUV ahead of us, I said, “Is the abbot with them?”

Knuckles shrugged. “He insisted, son. Maybe he don’t weigh more than a wet cat, but he’s a plus to the team. There’s not a thing in this world could scare the abbot.”

I said, “There might be a thing.”

From the second row, Brother Quentin put a hand on my shoulder, returning to his main issue with the persistence of a cop skilled at interrogation. “All I’m saying, Odd, is we need to know the name of our enemy. We don’t exactly have a crew of trained warriors here. When push comes to shove, if they don’t know who they’re supposed to be defending against, they’ll get so jittery, they’ll start swinging baseball bats at one another.”

Brother Augustine gently admonished, “Do not underestimate us, Brother Quentin.”

“Maybe the abbot will bless the baseball bats,” said Brother Kevin from the third row.

Brother Rupert said, “I doubt the abbot would think it proper to bless a baseball bat to ensure a game-winning home run, let alone to make it a more effective weapon for braining someone.”

“I certainly hope,” said Brother Kevin, “we don’t have to brain anyone. The thought sickens me.”

“Swing low,” Brother Knuckles advised, “and take ’em out at the knees. Some guy with his knees all busted ain’t an immediate threat, but the damage ain’t permanent, neither. He’s gonna heal back to normal. Mostly.”

“We have a profound moral dilemma here,” Brother Kevin said. “We must, of course, protect the children, but busting knees is not by any stretch of theology a Christian response.”

“Christ,” Brother Augustine reminded him, “physically threw the money changers out of the temple.”

“Indeed, but I’ve seen nowhere in Scripture where our Lord busted their knees in the process.”

Brother Alfonse said, “Perhaps we really are all going to die.”

His hand still on my shoulder, Brother Quentin said, “Something more than a threatening call has you alarmed. Maybe…did you find Brother Timothy? Did you, Odd? Dead or alive?”

At this point, I wasn’t going to say that I had found him dead and alive, and that he had suddenly transformed from Tim to something not Tim. Instead, I replied, “No, sir, not dead or alive.”

Quentin’s eyes narrowed. “You’re being evasive again.”

“How could you possibly know, sir?”

“You’ve got a tell.”

“A what?”

“Every time you’re being evasive, your left eye twitches ever so slightly. You have an eye-twitch tell that betrays your intention to be evasive.”

As I turned front to deny Brother Quentin a view of my twitchy eye, I saw Boo bounding gleefully downhill through the snow.

Behind the grinning dog came Elvis, capering as if he were a child, leaving no prints behind himself, arms raised above his head, waving both hands high as some inspired evangelicals do when they shout Hallelujah.

Boo turned away from the plowed pavement and sprinted friskily across the meadow. Laughing and jubilant, Elvis ran after him. The rocker and the rollicking dog receded from view, neither troubled by the stormscape nor troubling it.

Most days, I wish that my special powers of vision and intuition had never been bestowed on me, that the grief they have brought to me could be lifted from my heart, that everything I have seen of the supernatural could be expunged from memory, and that I could be what, but for this gift, I otherwise am—no one special, just one soul in a sea of souls, swimming through the days toward a hope of that final sanctuary beyond all fear and pain.

Once in a while, however, there are moments for which the burden seems worth carrying: moments of transcendent joy, of inexpressible beauty, of wonder that overwhelms the mind with awe, or in this case a moment of such piercing charm that the world seems more right than it really is and offers a glimpse of what Eden might have been before we pulled it down.

Although Boo would remain at my side for days to come, Elvis would not be with me much longer. But I know that the image of them racing through the storm in rapturous delight will be with me vividly through all my days in this world, and forever after.

“Son?” Knuckles said, curious.

I realized that, although a smile was not appropriate to the moment, I was smiling.

“Sir, I think the King is about ready to move out of that place down at the end of Lonely Street.”

“Heartbreak Hotel,” said Knuckles.

“Yeah. It was never the five-star kind of joint where he should be booked to play.”

Knuckles brightened. “Hey, that’s swell, ain’t it.”

“It’s swell,” I agreed.

“Must feel good that you opened the big door for him.”

“I didn’t open the door,” I said. “I just showed him where the knob was and which way it turned.”

Behind me, Brother Quentin said, “What’re you two talking about? I don’t follow.”

Without turning in my seat, I said, “In time, sir. You’ll follow him in time. We’ll all follow him in time.”

“Him who?”

“Elvis Presley, sir.”

“I’ll bet your left eye is twitching