The church in New Haven always sent a quiet itch crawling up my spine. Dust and despair drifted down across the sands alongside the long shadow of that inimitable spire. It rose from the desert like a crooked finger accusing heaven of neglect. When the wind moved through its broken louvers, the whole ruin sighed a thin, dying hymn. Some folks say it was built there so the gods would shine down upon it. I'll tell you truthfully, I've seen it too. At noon every day, sure as the night I was born, Sol would crown that steeple, perfectly balanced like a coin on the lip of the sky. Twelve sharp. The light settles there as though some celestial hand set it in place. It’s a ghastly little miracle. Others claim the church squats atop an old injun burial ground. I suppose I’d believe that too. The earth there remembers things. You feel it through your boots: the faint unease of soil that would rather keep its dead undisturbed.
No, I never liked New Haven much, but this time felt worse, like an untimely meeting with my maker. Like walking through a nightmare I couldn’t dream of waking from. Everything, everyone tried pulling me away, but I kept walking. That’s the job. Or at least that’s the lie I spun myself.
“What the fuck do you mean that’s your job?” Sam’s voice still echoes in my head from time to time, sharp as shattered glass.
“Love,” I summoned sanguinity soft as I could manage. “They need help. It’s just Henry up there and I-”
“Why?” She was pacing the kitchen like a storm, looking for a spot to break. “Why! There are a billion cops, detectives, whatever they need! It’s a whole damn state, Juuls. They could call anyone else.” She stopped in front of me then, eyes burning with that heady brew of furious heartache. “Why is it every time we get anywhere close to each other, you’re already halfway out the door? You’re real talented at finding new ways to disappear.”
“Sam, it’s not like that. You know it isn’t, christ,” I leaned against the counter, arms crossed, already feeling the distance splitting between us like a fault line. “I go where I’m called. That’s the life I signed up for. The man you chose to be with.”
“Exactly,” she said, her finger rapping my chest like the barrel of a gun. “Be. With.” Two words, two wounds. “When do I ever get to be with you?” she queried quietly. “You’re not even here now.” And I wasn’t. All I could think of were the bodies. Three in as many days. New Haven, population: 284. Well, 281 now. The town had one police officer. One poor devil tasked with keeping the peace among cattle. It was calling out to me, a sweet melody, a smell that lingered in my dreams.
I told her they needed me to go. The words tasted hollow as they left my mouth. I needed to go, the tides which flood along my heartstring were insistent, wind and water urging me through. “They don’t have anyone else.”
“Am I supposed to wait forever?” she wrung from her throat after a time.
I rubbed the back of my neck, searching for a kindness I couldn't find within. “Did I ask you to?” Silence followed, heavy as a coffin lid. That was the last time I saw Sam. I miss her every day.
My scrap bucket rattled its way down Route 66, coughing and clanking like an old drunk clearing his throat. The desert stretched wide and merciless on either side, a sea of rot that rolled all the way to the horizon. My radio breathed a cold static line, every now and again catching the whisper of a ghostly broadcast. Half a trumpet, a sliver of song, before dissolving again into white noise. Out there, the world feels unfinished. Like god started the job and wandered off halfway through. Eventually, the pavement of man surrendered to gravel, and gravel to a dirt road that wandered through the desert like a tired snake. In this treacherous wild between worlds, mother nature is at her most keen. I even briefly observed a beautiful, beastly black spotted panther prancing and playing, rolling across rocky terrain. For a while, I thought I’d lost my way, until finally I saw a sign.
WELCOME TO NEW HAVEN
The letters were faded and peeling, half-devoured by rust. One post leaned like an old soul who’s given up on life. A crow perched atop it, studying me with professional curiosity. Carrion always knows. I rolled into town with great hesitation and a shaky hand. New Haven wasn’t much to speak of. A tired gas station. A diner buzzing with sickly neon. A scattering of houses hunched low against the wind. The population sign still read 284. Nobody had bothered correcting it.
My engine echoed down the empty street. Somewhere, a screen door creaked. A dog barked once and reconsidered the effort. Curtains twitched. Held above it all in high honor at the top of the road lay the church. Its steeple cut into the sky like a splinter. The bricks had darkened to the color of dried blood under decades of desert sun. A warped wooden cross hung above the doors like a warning nobody remembered writing. Even from the street, something felt wrong about it. Not decay. Not abandonment. Something quieter. Like the air itself held breath around the place.
I checked my watch. 11:43. Seventeen minutes to noon. Enough time for the sun to climb into its peculiar throne above that steeple. Enough to see the miracle everyone whispered about. I parked and stepped out. The heat pressed down like a palm on the back of my neck. The town’s lone lawman waited at the church steps. Henry Wallace was a thin man with sleepless eyes and a hat too large for his skull. He was the kind of man you could call... homely. The kind of face his mother may have once loved.
“You Julius?” It was more of a statement than a question.
I lit a Lucky Strike and watched the smoke unravel into desert air. “Three bodies,” I said. “That’s what your letter mentioned.”
Henry nodded. His eyes drifted toward the church doors. “And I’m starting to think that ain’t the worst of it.” I followed his gaze up the steeple. The sun was climbing. Closer now.
“Tell me something, Henry,” I had to know. “You believe in god?”
He thought about that for a long time. “Used to.”
The church bell tolled. One vacant note, then another. Deep in my bones, that crawling itch began again.
