The Wind Blows High

Chapter 1 - Deer Creek

She lost Danielle and Arrow at the set break, as they pushed through the crowd to find the bathrooms. The wall of people was a block of black and tan and red and white, steely hard; and then it softened and let them through with a ripple, hand in hand, into the melt. And they were gone. The colored lights from the stage were off, but the bright overhead lights lit up the night, golden faces.

Paige crossed her arms, cradling the t-shirt she bought. Or did Arrow buy it for her, his teeth out like a wolf?

“Paige!” She spun around, far too fast, to see who was calling for her. All she could see were golden faces and shirts and elbows and arms. She had to pee now. She said she didn’t but now she did and she was going to pee herself. A voice echoed her name and the word ‘Tela’ she had a craving as strong as any she’d ever had to move. She had to move, couldn’t stay.

She was pushing against that wall of black and tan and red and white, and now sodium orange and a milky blue as her eyes opened to the overhead lights and she was on the concrete now. The grass was behind her. Her feet were tough from a summer outside, and even though she loved the grass between her toes, she was following and pushing through, down the concrete ramp, onto something rougher like pavement.

She stood and turned slowly, her back suddenly cold and wet as man brushed against her with two tall plastic cups in his hands. He laughed a hideous, vibrating cackle and shot her a deadly glance before disappearing. Paige wanted to scream, but she backed away, looking for a place she could be alone to squat down and lift her skirt so the pressure didn’t make her cry. She could see a bathroom but the line was — not a line at all, but a cloud, solid and foreign.

Now she just wanted to go back to the lawn and wait for Danielle and Arrow so they could help her. Arrow would help; he said he would guide them. She wanted to ask for help and tried to, but she couldn’t talk. Everyone was forming lines, long and twisted, and she didn’t know which one she belonged in. Some were boy’s lines, some were lines to take you to a bad place.

She looked high and knew that the stars were up there if she could see them. It had been cloudy and hot all day, a muggy Indiana August day. Tuesday. And the sky had opened up right before it started, just as Arrow had ripped off the strips of paper and given some to her and some to Danielle and said, “Hold these under your tongue, don’t swallow them.” Were they still under her tongue? She swished around, her mouth so dry she couldn’t tell.

The sky opened up, the gray parting and the blue shining through. She was so nervous but so excited too, and the three of them walked through the parking lot, past the coolers and grills and sad dogs who knew they would be tied to a car bumper in just a little while. She wanted to pet them all.

An old hippie pointed high and said, “The divided sky!”, and people nodded or ignored him, and Arrow put his arm around Danielle but only had eyes for Paige and they walked towards that first long line. The paper in Paige’s mouth was dry and she was afraid to suck on it or do something wrong.

Paige wanted to try to see the stars, and maybe if she could see them she could settle the sounds that she heard coming from all directions and she could wait for Danielle and Arrow would be her guide. Arrow with his mop of blonde hair and the dimple on his chin and the way his teeth looked little and sharp when he smiled. If she could get to Danielle’s car, the black Jetta with rosary hanging from the rear-view and the Stealie on the back window, little, out of the way. She would wait there.

Nobody stopped her when she left Deer Creek. She wasn’t the only one leaving. Some were drunk and sick, some were fighting. As soon as she was in the dark of the parking lot she squatted between two cars, but not a lot came out and she walked. There were no stars, just glum shadows sitting on trunks or in the open sides of vans, with music playing softly. Dogs barked when the band came back on and the crowd cheered but it was muffled out here. Paige’s arms were bare and she had stepped on something. She could feel it cutting into her.

Car after car, she looked for Danielle’s black Jetta. She tried to call out, “Danielle,” but she didn’t want to be loud and it was just a gasp that left her mouth like the last shadow of smoke as a campfire dies. The rows of cars went on forever. Her mother and father were going to be so mad, and that made her scared.

“You look lost, sister.” His voice cut through the smoke, through the honeycomb reflections off red and white tail lights made milky by the pale lights overhead. He touched her elbow, and when Paige didn’t flinch, he put his hand on it.

“You look lost, sister?” Was she lost? She had to look up to see his face, backlit by the sodium glow. The crowd cheered far off, and she recognized a song. Paige smiled, and even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew he smiled. She was lost, but he was a guide. She just nodded, her head spinning.
He kept that pressure on her elbow, not hard enough to hurt but not so weak she could get further lost. When he felt her limp, they stopped and he examined her foot with a grunt, moving to her other side to help pick up her weight. They were far back, far away from noise and crowds, the drunks and scary people who couldn’t get tickets and lived near the heat of the venue. The only sound was the low hum of a diesel engine, and then she saw the bus, long and red as blood, red as a candy apple with a blazing red cross on a glowing white field, the light following her eyes to the letters on the side, white on red: In Justice We Grow.

The lights were low in the bus, but Paige saw a tempest of bleeding colors, candles burning hard and blue and rich. She hobbled up the short steps, the man’s hand under her arm. He was firm. He was there. Not touching her waist, not holding her in any way that could be called intimate. He was just there to hold her as she walked down the center aisle.

She ended up sitting across from him in a vinyl bench seat that felt oddly stiff to her. The world was spinning around the candle on a table between them. She focused on that, and didn’t even cry out when he pulled the glass from her foot and wiped it with burning heat.

“Do you know how you got that cut, sister?” His voice was tender and low. It made her want to listen in, to hear. Her sight was closing but her ears opened to his voice.

Paige shook her head, ‘no’ as she closed her eyes and saw the blue candle flame grow and blossom.

They were quiet, and he bandaged her foot, wrapping it slowly and precisely. There were other people on the bus, Paige was realizing. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them. Coughs and breathing along with the muffled music from outside. Her ear followed the music, and her face must have followed. He engaged the handle and slid the large window to the side, slid it open.

Immediately, Paige felt the summer night air and heard delicate music sneaking in. She must have smiled.

“Do you like this song?” he asked.

Paige didn’t answer, but faced the window, oval then square then deep like the stars. She sat and listened and thought she was someone else. She did like the song and could just make out the lyrics to the ballad’s chorus: 'God never listens, to what I say.'

“You know, God does listen. Sister, can you hear me?”

She turned her head slowly, his face still dark, his long hair back, even the candlelight bending away from him.

“God does listen, when you listen to Him. Did you know that?”

Paige nodded.

“Where are your friends? Do you know?”

Paige didn’t answer. They sat quietly and the candles shivered. She looked at her hands, noting the strangeness of their color, their pallor, how close to death she looked. Fingers long and thin, no flesh to spare, only bone and binding cord. Her skin was grey and green, like the belly of the frog she dissected in biology class, that grey she could never forget, pinned to the mat, sliced open belly – she sliced the belly, her hand, her knife – sliced open belly with eggs inside. How many hundreds, thousands of eggs there were. Her frog was a woman, a mother, ready to give birth to her clutch before she was caught and killed and stored in a cask of poison.

Hundreds or thousands of eggs, and Paige had to cut past them, cut through them, on the way to the organs she was there to observe. And she tried, but the eggs kept coming, little balls black like poppyseeds, slick with fat, and she was screaming and crying and her teacher had to take her out into the hall and tell her to quiet down and hold her hand when the screaming wouldn’t stop.

The man was holding her hand. He wasn’t panicked and sweaty like her teacher. He was firm. His hand had discipline. Strength.

“Sister. Sister, listen to me. Sister, do you know the story of Jericho? The story of how the walls fell? This is important, sister, listen to me. Look at me.”

His words had command and she looked at him and could see his face by the candlelight. Eyes black and beard black. He looked just like Jesus, and they were the same age, she thought, this man and Jesus. She looked at him and stopped screaming.

“After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the lord said to Joshua. That’s how it starts -- the story of Joshua. Moses is dead. Moses was the prophet; he is the one who could speak to God. He was their guide and protector. The people of Israel. Do you understand?”

Paige nodded, feeling the warm night air on her cheek, drying her tears. The candle drew dangerous topography on the man’s face, golden peaks and shadowed valleys, but she couldn’t look away. She nodded again, she understood.

“Moses was dead, but the Israelites still needed a leader, a man in flesh who could speak to God. God spoke to Joshua. Do you know what my name is?” Page shook her head, ‘no’, and the man held her hand tighter. “My name is Joshua. You can call me Joshua.”

Paige nodded. She wanted to tell Joshua that her name was Paige, but was having trouble forming the words, even opening her mouth. She hoped her nodding worked, and it did.

Joshua continued. “God gave Joshua a great responsibility. Bring the Israelites back to their homeland. Take their homeland back. God said to be strong and courageous and obey His law. And in three days, the Israelites took up all of their worldly belongings and left for the River Jordan.” Outside, the crowd in the amphitheater roared, a staccato hissing that made Paige flinch. Joshua slid the window closed. The world grew quiet and she could hear the sputtering of candle wicks.

“The Jordan is a real river. This is a real story that happened a long time ago. All the warriors crossed the river, with the women and children left behind to stay healthy and to eat and to be ready to inherit their new home. The men did the fighting, but the women had a very special job. They needed to be healthy, mind and body.”

Paige watched as Joshua opened a small pocketknife with an ivory-colored handle. It might have been antler, like the knife her father had, back when he lived at home, back when she was little. He cut into an orange, juice like blood pooling on the table. He cut it in quarters, and then in quarters again, and put two slices in front of her.

“This is a gift from God, for your health. Will you pray with me?”

Paige took his hand again, sticky with juice, and closed her eyes.

Joshua spoke, “Almighty God, you bless us with Your justice and Your will.” From behind her, Paige could hear someone else praying, but she kept her mouth and eyes closed. She saw reds of blood, blues of an inner flame. “We are your servants, Lord, and we eat this gift in your Name.” He released her hands, and Paige opened her eyes. She took the orange, and the juice dripped down her face, washed clean by her tears.