Through Him Who Strengthens Me

Content warning: this story contains gore and mentions of suicide.

—

“I thought this were a Christian town.” He spat at the ground with utter contempt, swishing that stubbled chin of his. “We don’t take kindly to defiling the bodies of others. Ain’t never have.”

“Would you say this was premeditated? Or heat of the moment?”

“Could be both. Wouldn’t change nothin. Blaspheme is blaspheme.”

“When would you say this event took place?”

The wrinkles of his eyes squinted down the unending dirt road. “I was comin in from out of town when I saw the body. Had to have been right around midnight after I left my ol farm.” He touched a light palm to his neck. “It was a real shock. Felt the blood leave my veins. Ain’t never seen this, much less next to a church.”

For the first time in my life, I watched tears pool around an old man's eyes.

“Ain’t never seen this.”

—

I hauled down on the trunk door and shut the thing tight. The flashlight weighed my arm as it swung back and forth from my gait. Surely it’s an isolated event, I told myself.

The body were still strung up to a tall oak. I held the flashlight up to the branch, trailing from the rope, to its big bald head, down along its naked torso. Avoided the parts that scared me most. This were recent, I figured—not yet bloated. Not yet preyed on by carrion crows or worse. Wondered what the tree would think if it knew. Prolly seen worse. I ambled over to the underside of the feet and found dirt built up against the heels.

“Accumulated. Dragged, post-mortem? But for how long?” I examined the fingernails, or what were left of em. “Bit bloody. No signs of clawin ground. Coulda been fighting back, clawing at the rope that dragged him…”

A light breeze pushed the branches, the leaves, and the dangling body ever so slightly. I felt a shiver run through my gut, like nature heard my exact thought. Either confirmed my suspicion, warned me not to go further, or both.

I rubbed the back of my neck, flashlight still in hand. “This is bigger than both of us, isn’t it?” The head on the corpse, slunk like a moping idiot, appeared as though it were smiling at my statement.

—

The sermon had been held in a different church. I assumed it were too inappropriate, if not outright offensive, to have one at the crime scene. But it wasn't just that it were offensive, the family was Catholic, too. Hispanics, Latinos, some other groups, they lived in this here community just outside of our peripheral. Wouldn't had known, were it not for this case.

The homily felt as though it’d go on forever, but as soon as it ended we found ourselves at a loss for what to do next. It were like we got stuck at the end of time and no place to go, no lives to get back to—just meander around the dead body at the front of all the pews.

One woman, the one who wept the hardest, stood out to me. A black, long-sleeve dress covered her wide body and detailed her neckline with a dainty frill of lace. Her wavy dark hair got held back by a clip with an obsidian sheen to it. She wiped streaks of mascara from the plump underside of her eyes.

Naturally I spoke to her. She remained seated at one of the front pews, puttin good use to those kneelers. Her hands intertwined tight with her elbows angled against the wooden barrier attached to the tuffet. "Ma'am," I said to her, "May I ask you a few questions, if this isn't a bad time?"

She looked up at me with sad, determined eyes, and nodded.

"What is your relationship to the deceased?"

"Su madre, Señor. Widowed mother."

"Do you know where your son was that night?"

Her lips quivered, before her whole body began to quake. She lowered her head as though she went right back to prayin, crying while she were at it. I left her alone, knowing it weren't a good time at all.

I gravitated toward the casket. Seen it already, but I had to believe it. As I shifted over to the large, shiny mass of a thing, passing through chattering church-goers, I found a young man on the ground all leaned up against the casket. He sat there as though talkin to the dead himself, his arm lined along the top of the case. Seemed like an odd one. I thought to ask him a few questions, but not so matter-of-factly this time.

"Did you know the victim, sir?" I asked, shuffling my hands into my pants pockets. I made special sure not to get too close to the casket, though he didn't appear to care as much.

The guy turned a slow head to me and I saw he weren't a guy so much as a kid. Prolly high school age. Hair quite short, an unkempt blond. Caucasian and blue-eyed. "Yeah, I knew him. Why you ask?"

"You seem awfully close to the body, that's all," I remarked. "Were you two good friends?"

He craned his head back around and continued looking on at that body like it was still alive. I looked at it, too. I could see the illusion of life just the slightest bit. They dressed him up, gave him miscolored makeup round the neck.

"I dint know him well," the boy spoke up finally. "Just went to school together. Classmates were hard on him. I feel partially responsible for it, never stepped in to help."

I crouched in my slacks and leaned closer, enough to whisper. "You don't think your classmates did it, do you? If you've any information at all, I'll gladly hear it."

The kid glanced at me again like I weren't already a stranger. Sparing me the harsh words, he kept on mouthing. "Them other kids, they don't sound quite happy about his death. But they don't sound surprised either. It's a kinda insensitivity you see when the bullied kids hang themselves." He let out a long, labored sigh, shaking that fair-haired head of his as he turned away again. "Glad they're gone, sad they don't got somebody to pick on no more."

A few attendees quieted at the sight of the two of us by the casket. Prolly a bit suspect, seeing two whities next to each other at a Hispanic funeral, right beside the deceased. Looked like collusion, or maybe I just felt like another victim.

"If you don't mind," I said, pulling a notepad out of my back pocket, "I'd like to write your name. Don't worry, ain't a cop. Just wanna ask a few questions about your fellow classmates."

He refused to look at me and went to fumbling the buttons on his suit. "Not much I can tell ya."

"But you got a school's name. That's pertinent to me."

"Sierra Heights High. But really, I don't got much else to say. Just feel bad for him is all."

I shuffled through the pages in my pad, past the first few clean ones and a used one, and scrawled the name in big letters on a new paper. Pushed up on my knees and stood there, looking at the kid, then looking at the dead kid. No, he didn't look happy at all. It was just my imagination.

The relatives and friends of friends all parted ways and melded back together as I strolled down the aisle. I stepped outside the church and the evening sun had painted long dark strokes across the pavement, orderly and disorderly just like the cars they came from. I nodded to a young man smoking outside, his smile strained under a squint from the sun. Found myself fumbling for the notepad in my pocket again. Nothin in particular told me to, besides the churning of gears in my head. Thought I saw another note in there, previous to the random page I'd scrawled on. Didn't recall ever writing nothin else in there.

And I found it. I'd completely skimmed over it earlier, and it weren't even my writing. Stunned at the sight, my eyes attracted to the smoking man again. Not expecting him to be the culprit, but knowing fully well someone here wrote it. He glanced at me awkwardly and I looked away, containing the excitement and fear built up in my stomach. Had to be someone here, anyone. On the piece of lined paper were shakily scribbled letters from Colossians 3:13:

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.