lets my hand go.
“Are you going to be the scarecrow who’s looking for a brain? I really hope not, because I know you’re smart. So you listen. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re falling for another pretty little girl who doesn’t belong in your life. You have to learn the hard way. Maybe it will be easy because she’ll move off and leave you, and it will be for the better. It doesn’t matter if your uncle is around or not. What matters is that you do exactly as you’re told from here on out.”
“I know. Staunch made that clear.”
“I’m just here to help,” Marsh tells me for the one hundredth time.
“Yeah, that really felt like helping.”
“Here’s the picture, Chris. Let me paint it to you crystal clear.”
I nod as his eyes narrow behind those glasses. He scans the room, then reaches over and takes a white napkin that my drink was supposed to be sitting on. He opens it up and then puts his palm on it.
“This is what I used to put my faith in. This was my God. White, wholesome, pure. Like the sun and the stars. That’s what I believed, or thought I believed. Did I believe in the Devil and evil and hell? No. Others around me did, but I didn’t. I studied the Bible, but many of those stories were simply fairy tales to me. I could believe in a God, but I couldn’t believe in the other stuff. Then I realized one day that it was the other way around. That from the very beginning of my miserable life all I’d ever—ever—been able to see were the darkness and the evil. I realized that the Devil was very real and that hell didn’t start when you died, but it started when you were here on earth. For some, like me, it started during the teen years.”
This is the most passionate he’s sounded all day long.
It scares me. A lot.
“I grew to realize that maybe God was there, that maybe He was all those things I once thought, but I also realized that He was long gone. If He ever was there, He’s not anymore.”
Marsh picks up the napkin and slowly rips it in half. Then rips it in half again. Then keeps doing that until he takes it and crunches it in his fist.
“And I realized what Staunch has said and what this place has proven and what history has really taught us: that evil has a power, and that power is a wonderful thing. I no longer questioned evil and its place. Nor did I have any problems believing in the supernatural. But I finally realized my place. Because I wasn’t the lion, Chris—I had the guts to admit it to myself and the rest of my world. I wasn’t the tin man, because I’ve always had a beating heart more than most. And I sure wasn’t the scarecrow. I knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I was smart enough to finally embrace the path before me. It’s the only path, really. That’s what you have to realize. Because as I said, you, Chris, are different. You’re special. I’m just crumbs.”
He lets go of the wadded-up ball of paper scraps.
“You can have anything you want. There are things that you’re too young to even know that you want. You will have a long life before you. And you won’t fear anything, not the sunset or the sunrise or your last breath. Because you’ll know that in the end it doesn’t really matter.”
Marsh pauses, his eyes narrowing, his face growing dim. “Nobody’s on the other line, Chris. He left a long time ago.”
The server comes with our plates of food, and I see my hamburger and suddenly feel a bit nauseous. It takes everything in me to eat, but I do it quickly because I have no idea what to say.
Marsh grins, takes one of my fries since he is having a salad, eats it, and then laughs.
“Okay, fine, I take it back. You can’t have everything. When you get to my age, you’ll have to cut back, unless you want to be packing on the pounds. But there again, you’re taller than I am. It’s just unfair, everything you’ve been given. Just completely unfair.”
He takes another fry.
I want to dump the whole plate
“Are you going to be the scarecrow who’s looking for a brain? I really hope not, because I know you’re smart. So you listen. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re falling for another pretty little girl who doesn’t belong in your life. You have to learn the hard way. Maybe it will be easy because she’ll move off and leave you, and it will be for the better. It doesn’t matter if your uncle is around or not. What matters is that you do exactly as you’re told from here on out.”
“I know. Staunch made that clear.”
“I’m just here to help,” Marsh tells me for the one hundredth time.
“Yeah, that really felt like helping.”
“Here’s the picture, Chris. Let me paint it to you crystal clear.”
I nod as his eyes narrow behind those glasses. He scans the room, then reaches over and takes a white napkin that my drink was supposed to be sitting on. He opens it up and then puts his palm on it.
“This is what I used to put my faith in. This was my God. White, wholesome, pure. Like the sun and the stars. That’s what I believed, or thought I believed. Did I believe in the Devil and evil and hell? No. Others around me did, but I didn’t. I studied the Bible, but many of those stories were simply fairy tales to me. I could believe in a God, but I couldn’t believe in the other stuff. Then I realized one day that it was the other way around. That from the very beginning of my miserable life all I’d ever—ever—been able to see were the darkness and the evil. I realized that the Devil was very real and that hell didn’t start when you died, but it started when you were here on earth. For some, like me, it started during the teen years.”
This is the most passionate he’s sounded all day long.
It scares me. A lot.
“I grew to realize that maybe God was there, that maybe He was all those things I once thought, but I also realized that He was long gone. If He ever was there, He’s not anymore.”
Marsh picks up the napkin and slowly rips it in half. Then rips it in half again. Then keeps doing that until he takes it and crunches it in his fist.
“And I realized what Staunch has said and what this place has proven and what history has really taught us: that evil has a power, and that power is a wonderful thing. I no longer questioned evil and its place. Nor did I have any problems believing in the supernatural. But I finally realized my place. Because I wasn’t the lion, Chris—I had the guts to admit it to myself and the rest of my world. I wasn’t the tin man, because I’ve always had a beating heart more than most. And I sure wasn’t the scarecrow. I knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I was smart enough to finally embrace the path before me. It’s the only path, really. That’s what you have to realize. Because as I said, you, Chris, are different. You’re special. I’m just crumbs.”
He lets go of the wadded-up ball of paper scraps.
“You can have anything you want. There are things that you’re too young to even know that you want. You will have a long life before you. And you won’t fear anything, not the sunset or the sunrise or your last breath. Because you’ll know that in the end it doesn’t really matter.”
Marsh pauses, his eyes narrowing, his face growing dim. “Nobody’s on the other line, Chris. He left a long time ago.”
The server comes with our plates of food, and I see my hamburger and suddenly feel a bit nauseous. It takes everything in me to eat, but I do it quickly because I have no idea what to say.
Marsh grins, takes one of my fries since he is having a salad, eats it, and then laughs.
“Okay, fine, I take it back. You can’t have everything. When you get to my age, you’ll have to cut back, unless you want to be packing on the pounds. But there again, you’re taller than I am. It’s just unfair, everything you’ve been given. Just completely unfair.”
He takes another fry.
I want to dump the whole plate
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