Linda thought her mind would explode.
The dorlis slowly, slowly remembered… remembered it was once a person… whose name was Georges. Who had desired and been desired. Who had loved and been loved. Who was beautiful. And whose true life had ended a long time ago.
There was no longer a need to rage.
And then…
Linda opened her eyes and blinked. She was still laid up on her steps. Could see her arm lying on the sidewalk. The sky shone bright, the dark cloud that had obscured the sun gone.
A few people started to crawl from their hiding places, including several officers who’d taken cover behind cruisers. Everyone was disoriented, in a state of bewilderment. No one noticed Linda. She didn’t have the strength to get up. To shout for help.
She continued to scan her surroundings. Saw that Fonsi hadn’t moved, was still sprawled out on the ground.
“Linda!”
Maxine ran to her side. Linda surveyed her partner. Her hair was askew, her knees were bloodied… but otherwise she seemed all right.
“I need you to stay with us, darling, okay?” Maxine whispered. “Do you understand?Stay with us.” She raised her head, waved her arm frantically to one of the officers. “This woman needs immediate medicalattention!” She turned back to Linda. “You’re not going anywhere, you hear me? You’re going to be okay.”
Linda leaned closer to Maxine, rested her head against her chest, and closed her eyes.
“You got it,” she grunted. “Please… help Fonsi, too… please. I’m going to be fine. Promise.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FONSI
The vaulted mahogany arches of Ebenezer Memorial soared overhead. Fonsi could see why the church was positioned as a jewel of the community. The architecture, astounding in the way that it made him feel small, connected to something larger. Made him regret, just a tad, not taking time to explore if he would’ve enjoyed being part of a church community when he was younger.
There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Fonsi was still quite bruised and moving slow after having been attacked by the dorlis and lying unconscious. He refused to complain; compared to what Linda had survived, his discomfort was nothing. He made sure that he and Matteo arrived early for Pastor Samuelson’s memorial so that they could get a seat in the main gathering space. Tons of folks had to make do with watching the service in the overflow room, including newspeople reporting on the event live.
A choir launched into the ballad “Just You and Me Forever,” the third song of the program, which was listed as having been originally performed by Sylvester. If it was the Sylvester Fonsi knew, the disco gender-bending artist of the ’70s and ’80s, then this was indeed a special service for Ebenezer. The choir’s collected voices soared as theysang quintessential gospel in a composition that made him want to raise his hands high. Exquisite voices lifted the lyrics to the rafters…
“There’ll be legends of my love for you. Lifetimes unending…”
The choir finished to a standing ovation. Douglas Atkins rose from his seat in the first row of the pews and walked to the pulpit. He wore glasses and a cream button-down shirt with an embroidered cape. Two long plates of gold hung from his earlobes. He started to speak, tone austere, slow and determined. An enchanting, otherworldly bass that in another life would have given such exquisite sermons.
“I would like to thank the choir for their gorgeous rendition of Jeremiah’s favorite song,” he began. “He told me I was the first man he had the courage to play it for, to share how much it held the sentiments that shaped his heart.” Douglas took off his glasses. “I’ve often presented myself as someone who’s daring, this creative maverick who likes to shake things up with my work. But Jeremiah was the most courageous person I’d ever met in continually striving to balance the various worlds he loved. A brave human being… a beautiful human being whose heart sang with his love for this world, with his love for art and community. With his love for Ebenezer.”
As Douglas spoke, Fonsi squeezed Matteo’s knee.
“It was difficult for me,” Douglas continued, “to know that he was suffering somewhere, to see his name in the headlines and not be able to share how close we’d become. I thought… it wasn’t my right to disclose our relationship, as I prayed nightly that he would recover. I couldn’t share something about us that would’ve been Jeremiah’s right to reveal when he was ready. But with him gone, I don’t think he would mind the world knowing the truth.
“He struggled to find a way where he could fully express who he was without fear of retribution or ostracization. He should have never had to choose. I very much hope, in our final days together, that he felt safe and free in the spaces we inhabited. In what we created together.
“It’s my hope…” Douglas’s eyes glistened, just for a moment. “I hope the Jeremiahs of today, of tomorrow, can enjoy the fullness of who they are in secular and sacred spaces. To know that they are seen and loved in their fullness, so that they can give that love back to their community freely.”
Fonsi’s heart went out to Douglas, knowing that he probably blamed himself for what had happened to his guy. It had been revealed in an interview that he’d convinced Pastor Samuelson to go to one of Rayo’s lectures, where Fonsi presumed replicas of the dorlis’s amulet were distributed. It was Douglas’s dumb luck that he’d given what he thought was a harmless trinket to Jeremiah. He said he had too much “damn random stuff” in his place to add something else to the menagerie.
Fonsi sensed a weird, tense type of energy in the room. Most of the crowd listened quietly, somberly, already having been moved by Pastor Morgan’s words. He didn’t know what it took to get Douglas up behind the pulpit, what strings had to be pulled (was it because Douglas was a well-known public figure?), or if congregants were simply ready to honor the full breadth of the man who’d devoted himself to their lives.
Matteo, sitting next to him on the right, had rested his hand on Fonsi’s thigh. An old woman perched nearby in a pillbox hat with birdcage veil scrunched up her face. Matteo couldn’t care less about such reactions when it came to showing affection. And Fonsi, to his surprise, found he couldn’t care less as well.
Behind Douglas at the pulpit was theMan of Godpainting that Fonsi had first seen at Pastor Samuelson’s home, now in a golden frame. Bright lights shone upon the canvas, its image enlarged and projected on monitors strategically placed throughout Ebenezer. Their beloved associate pastor still with them in the way Fonsi imagined he most wanted to be seen.
Seeing Douglas up there, all the emotions came tumbling down. The connection these two men had, having to live in the shadows. HowDouglas would never be able to see his love again because of the demon spirit that decided it wanted the beautiful thing that was theirs for itself. The people who had recovered from being Afflicted… those that had managed to survive… their memories of their experiences vague, splotchy. But many saying that it was like the dorlis was feasting on the most precious part of themselves, what they cherished above all. What they hadn’t evenrealizedthey’d cherished. Their desire, what made them feel beautiful, mentioned repeatedly. Fonsi had surmised that was how the dorlis operated from El Gran Libro, but to hear it from others…
For several nights, he’d dreamed of a slithering darkness coming for him and Matteo as they slept. Dreamed of shadow eating away at the oiled flesh of the dancers at Secrets. His delicious, decadent DC that had disappeared. Fonsi could no longer live life like he was in stasis, like everything had to be perfect before he could share what he felt and who he was and what gave him joy.
