Prophets for the End of Time| Chapter | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
Prophets for the End of Time
On the second verse of the Memorare, Dickie Lanpher’s right foot kicked Clayton Pinkes’ ankle out from under him, and Clayton fell to the tan linoleum of the classroom floor—a sound smack! on the word "you" in the phrase, "Inspired by this confidence, I fly to you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother." Sister Leo Agnes—who could not have witnessed the assault, since she stood devoutly eyeing the cross at the front of the room during the entire prayer—waited until the recital ended to lift Clayton from the floor with one hand, half by his shirt collar and half by his hair. As he rose, Clayton, who was thirteen, saw himself at the age of thirty-nine, saying to a blonde-haired woman whom he could clearly visualize but whom he had never met: "That’s how life is, Elizabeth. That’s just how it is."
Clayton had grown used to these flashes of himself doing things years from now. They didn’t bother him as much as they had at first. He’d decided they were something that everyone went through but nobody talked about, like new growths of hair on unmentionable parts of the body. So the flash only distracted him for a moment, and he heard Sister Leo Agnes finish her scolding with the words, " . . . without playing the clown! Just once, Clayton, try to behave during prayers. Do you think Our Lord is happy looking down at you and seeing you horsing around while the rest of us are honoring His Mother?"
Clayton agreed with Sister Leo Agnes that God would not be happy if He saw Clayton horsing around during the Memorare, and Clayton decided to rig Dickie Lanpher’s chair during recess so it would fall off its stem when Dickie sat down after grace for lunch.
Which would have been hilarious, and great revenge, except that Sister Leo Agnes caught him in the empty classroom at recess time.
"Clayton Pinkes, what do you think you’re doing?" The question came from behind him, thin and pointed like an icicle, and he felt its chill shoot straight across the room, hit him at the bottom of his neck and trickle down his back, shrinking every inch of skin on his arms and legs a size too small. Well, what did she think he thought he was doing, crouching on the floor with an adjustable wrench (stolen from the janitor’s closet) in one hand and the bolt from Dickie Lanpher’s swivel chair in the other? "Praying," he said, knowing even as he said it that it was the worst possible answer, although at that very moment true. Sister Leo Agnes cuffed his ear and towed him by the shirt sleeve to the principal’s office.
That was a stroke of luck. The principal was Sister Assumpta, a woman who, unlike Sister Leo Agnes, radiated with the love of God, His Mother, and His angels, and who thought Clayton was the most adorable nuisance on Earth since young Saint Augustine stole apples from the orchard. By the time Sister Assumpta returned to her office from lunch, Sister Leo Agnes had gone back to the classroom to supervise students returning from recess. This gave Clayton time to work up a faceful of tears. Sister Assumpta crouched down beside the chair he was sitting in and pinched his cheek. She was smiling.
"Clayton Pinkes, what kind of trouble have you gotten in now?"
So Clayton explained about the squeak in Dickie Lanpher’s chair, and about how Clayton hadn’t been able to concentrate during prayers because of the squeak and was afraid the squeak would distract him during the afternoon math test, so that was why he stole the wrench from the janitor’s closet, to fix the squeaky chair for Dickie, although now he knew that was selfish since he wasn’t really fixing it just for Dickie but also so Clayton could concentrate during the math test. Clayton managed one last tear and told Sister Assumpta how Sister Leo Agnes would probably hate him because she didn’t understand the whole story.
Sister Assumpta shook her head and hugged him. She took a tissue and wiped his eyes and nose. "Clayton Pinkes," she said, "you have the devil’s own knack for walking into trouble." Then she wrote a note to Sister Leo Agnes that said, "I’ve taken care of the situation. Please move Dickie Lanpher to an empty seat for the rest of the day." Clayton read the note on his way back to class.
When Sister Leo Agnes read the note, her face showed nothing, unlike Dickie Lanpher, whose face showed hurt, betrayal, and finally suspicion when he was made to sit in the empty desk in the far back corner of the room.
Julie Ward leaned across the aisle while Dickie was being escorted to the new seat, and whispered, "Smooth, Pinkes. However you pulled that off, real smooth."
Clayton’s stomach lifted a bit, since Julie Ward was the best-looking eighth grader in Sister Leo Agnes’s classroom, and he almost said, "That’s how life is, Elizabeth. That’s just how it is." But Julie was not named Elizabeth, and she had brown curls, not long blonde hair, and saying that would sound stupid. So he said nothing and smiled at her, which he realized was just as stupid. Clayton’s palms were very, very wet, and he checked them nervously to see if any hair was growing there.
As Clayton was leaving the classroom at the end of the day, Sister Leo Agnes stopped him. "I suppose this little matter of truancy, theft, and potential violence now includes a healthy dose of lying, Mr. Pinkes. If Sister Assumpta can’t penetrate your charade, I’m certain Father Dorman can." Then she smiled, much the way Sister Assumpta always smiled at him.
If there was anything at St. Catherine’s parish more frightening than Sister Leo Agnes, it was Father Dorman. The nervous joke among the eighth grade boys was that Father Dorman had personally carved all the "nots" in the original Ten Commandments. So after dinner that night, Clayton asked his parents if the three of them could go to Saturday confessions the next morning. His mother was surprised, and even his father lowered the evening newspaper. "Well, sure, Clay," his father said, and his mother gave an approving nod.
The answer to question four hundred and nineteen of the Baltimore Catechism No. 2, New Revised Edition from Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1962, said, "A sense of shame and fear of telling our sins to the priest should never lead us to conceal a mortal sin in confession because the priest, who represents Christ Himself, is bound by the seal of the sacrament of Penance never to reveal anything that has been confessed to him." Clayton, who along with the rest of his classmates had been made to memorize all four hundred and ninety-nine catechism questions during fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, confessed the entire truth to Father Dorman the next morning, without shame or fear. Clayton told him his name to make sure Father Dorman knew just whose confession he shouldn’t be revealing.
Father Dorman was quiet for quite a while, and Clayton tried squinting through the mesh of the confession screen to see if the priest was still there. Father Dorman’s silence told Clayton that he’d been right—if Sister Leo Agnes came and tried to tell Father the story, now the priest couldn’t even discuss it with her.
"Clever," Father Dorman finally said, and Clayton jerked back from the screen. "You’re a very clever little boy, Clayton Pinkes. But God is not a game, young man. For your penance, you are to go to Sister Assumpta and tell her the entire truth about this escapade. If you refuse to carry out your penance, this sin will continue on your soul in the eyes of God." He paused, Clayton supposed, for the full impact to hit Clayton.
What did hit Clayton was another of his flashes—at first the tingling in his right forearm and the cloudiness behind the outer edges of his eyes, and then the clear picture of himself standing before a seated old man who was dressed in white robes, a red cape, and a skullcap. "I realize Your Holiness finds this amusing," Clayton was saying to the old man, "but it’s my life we’re discussing." As the flash disappeared, Clayton gripped the elbow rest of his kneeler to steady himself against the returned darkness. He made his Act of Contrition and left the confessional to sit in the pew beside his parents.
Clayton was very angry, partly because his plan wasn’t working, but mostly because of the reasons it wasn’t working. What was supposed to be one quick prank for revenge on Dickie Lanpher had been passed up through Sister Leo Agnes, on to the principal, then to the priest, and now through the priest up to God, whom Clayton had never planned on trying to outmaneuver. The whole thing had gotten way out of hand.
"Where are you going, Clayton?" his mother asked.
"Back to confession. I forgot one sin."
"C’mon, Clay," his father said, "I’m sure you’re good for one lousy sin until next—" But Clayton’s mother gripped his father’s forearm, and his father looked away with his hands folded on his lap.
"Father forgive me for I have sinned," Clayton said, squeaking his voice so it would sound different to Father Dorman. "It’s been a short time since my last confession."
"And what are your sins, my daughter?" Clayton hadn’t realized he’d been squeaking his voice that well.
"I didn’t do the last penance I was assigned."
Father Dorman said prayers and, as a new penance, assigned two Hail Marys and three Our Fathers, which Clayton fulfilled and then doubled, just to be sure, before his parents drove him home.
Since third grade at St. Catherine’s, Clayton had received straight A’s in Religion.
That evening there was a telephone call from Heaven. Clayton picked up the phone, because his parents were out at the movies seeing The Paper Chase. Heaven must have been waiting all day for Clayton to answer, because his father had twice gotten the phone earlier that afternoon and been hung up on. Clayton knew the call was meant for him, because after he said hello the woman on the other end of the line said, "Good evening, Clayton Pinkes, this is Mandi calling from Heaven, Management Information Systems division. How are you tonight, sir?"
Clayton said he was good, thanks. The woman’s voice sounded the way a kindergarten teacher’s voice sounded when she talked to you in school, even if you weren’t in kindergarten, even if you were already in eighth grade. Clayton wondered if Sister Leo Agnes were stooping to prank phone calls.
"Mr. Pinkes, we’re doing a Quality Inspection Survey for our Major Account customers, and I was wondering if I could have a few moments of your time to ask you some questions about your level of satisfaction with the services we supply. Would this be a good time for you?"
Sure, Clayton wasn’t doing anything much, except that The Six Million Dollar Man was coming on in twenty minutes and he wanted to see it.
"This should only take about ten minutes, sir."
Even if this was a prank—Dickie Lanpher had an older sister, he remembered, and this was about Dickie’s style—Clayton was enjoying the "sir" stuff. He told Mandi from Heaven that she could go ahead and ask her questions.
"Question one: Mr. Pinkes, have you received training in the new Direct Contact Management Program?"
Clayton said he didn’t know what that was.
"Have you received training in the new Direct Contact Management Program, Mr. Pinkes?"
Clayton explained that since he didn’t know what that was, then he probably never had received training for it.
"Question two: How long ago did you receive that training, Mr. Pinkes?"
Since he hadn’t received it, Clayton couldn’t say how long ago, but Mandi from Heaven repeated the question and he told her it was zero months ago.
"Question three: In which modules of the DCMP did your managing angel train you?"
Clayton had never heard of a managing angel, although he had heard of guardian angels who help us by praying for us, by protecting us from harm, and by inspiring us to do good, numbers forty-two and forty-three in the Baltimore Catechism No. 2, New Revised Edition.
"Would that be modules forty-two, forty-three, and number two, then?"
Clayton was upset that Mandi from Heaven didn’t seem to be listening to him, and repeated, loudly this time, that nobody had trained him in any program whatsoever, that he didn’t know what a managing angel was, and that if this was a prank it was really a stupid one.
Mandi seemed to listen to him that time, because she put him on hold and returned to inform him that he was being transferred to her boss.
"Hello, Clay? Bob here, supervisor for Heaven, Management Information Systems division. How are you today?"
Clayton suggested Bob should ask Mandi how Clayton was today, since Clayton had already answered that question. Bob sounded older than Mandi, and Clayton wondered how Dickie Lanpher could organize such an elaborate prank. He couldn’t. Father Dorman, then? Would a priest have the nerve to pull telephone pranks?
"Listen, Clay," Bob said, "Mandi tells me you’ve never been trained in DCMP. Is that true?"
That was still true, yes.
"This is bad, Clay, bad. We’ll find out who’s responsible and get right to the bottom of this."
Clayton was very grateful for that.
"Now, Clay, if you’ll just give me the name of your managing angel, we’ll make sure he starts making his regular contact immediately."
And how would Clayton know the name if he’d never been contacted?
"Right, right," Bob said. "I’ll track that down for you, Clay, believe you me. This is terribly embarrassing for us."
Clayton was sorry if he’d embarrassed them, and wanted to know if a managing angel was the same thing as a guardian angel.
"Not at all, Clay. Whole new program. End of the world and all that." Bob chuckled. "Quite a heyday up here in Heaven, this end of the world stuff. An administrative nightmare."
Clayton was very sorry about that, and asked if he could talk to God.
Bob laughed. "You Major Accounts always have the best senses of humor. That’s what I love about this job, Clay. Listen, you’ll have that angel in no time. Believe you me. Oh, and Clay—great move with the confession this afternoon. Negotiating for a reduced penalty, and then doubling penance for good measure. I love it! Those kinds of things are the reason I love this job."
Bob hung up. Clayton wondered, How had he known about the double penance?
Clayton’s home was about two and a half miles from St. Catherine’s school, which meant Clayton had to ride the school bus every morning. He resented that. Almost every one of his classmates had been walking to school by fifth grade, and the school bus was filled with brats who were three, four, even seven years younger than Clayton. It was all his parents’ fault. If they had gotten a house closer to St. Catherine’s, or if they had let him go to Brighton Junior High, the public school, he wouldn’t be faced with the humiliation of standing at the bus stop every morning while the neighbors left for work and waved at him, more than likely thinking what a cute little boy he was, traveling with all those little children in the big, yellow school bus, wearing his dark pants, white shirt, and blue clip-on tie, like a little gentleman, isn’t he? and if only our children looked so nice going to school, why it’s a shame all the schools don’t have dress codes.
Years later, Clayton would learn that his hometown’s border was precisely 666 miles due east of the small town of Hell, Michigan. He would use that as a way to explain his difficult childhood.
This morning, though, Clayton suffered with his back to the street so he wouldn’t have to see the neighbors drive by. There was no way, no way, he would go to St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic High next year. Three miles away, four more years of buses. And not just nuns in the classroom . . . priests, Jesuits. He wrinkled his nose at the thought. Jesuits, of all things.
Maybe the St. Catherine bus wouldn’t come this morning. But, no, the bus would come. The bus always came. Even winter mornings when he heard on the radio that Brighton Junior High was closed for a snow day, the St. Catherine’s bus would come, right on time. That school never closed. Clayton supposed that if St. Catherine’s were to burn down overnight, Sister Leo Agnes would be standing in the ruins with the class in front of her, teaching how beneficial tribulation was for the soul.
Clayton’s flashes usually came when he was excited or nervous, so it surprised him that one started now, right there at the bus stop. It was a different sort of flash, with no tingle leading it in, and it was the first time a flash ever scared him. He saw all blackness, and something just a touch blacker than the blackness that said, "Pinkes, right? The one Raphael calls Pinhead? Pleased to meet you, pal." Then it ended, and he was back at the bus stop, but Clayton was shaking. He prayed by instinct, a prayer they’d had to learn in third grade: "Angel of God, my guardian dear, / To whom His love entrusts me here, / Ever this day be at my side, / To light and guard, to rule and guide, Amen."
When Clayton prayed it, he had not said "guardian," but "manager." When he realized that, he laughed, and he was still laughing when the bus came.
Clayton didn’t know it, but at that very moment the Count of the Faithful, as recorded by the Population Numerics Data Base in Heaven, Management Information Systems Division, read as follows:
faithful [defined in this context as the raw number of those who have based their lives, hopes, or beliefs on the words of clayton pinkes]:
roman catholics: 0
protestants: 0
orthodoxed, etc.: 0
other christians: 0
total: 0
total percentage of world population: 0.00%
target percentage for urim/thummim: 2.76%
At the bottom of the screen, a priority memo from the Executive Council flashed in bright red letters:
bob: this is it. start the counter.
Three years after that morning, this is how Clayton would explain the event of first meeting his managing angel: "I arrived at school," he would say, and Elizabeth would lean closer to him, expectant, recognizing the suppressed passion for faith in his tone and in the way his eyes stared beyond her into the past. "It was like any other morning, nothing special about it." He would leave out the part about the previous evening’s phone call from Heaven, which at that time would still strike him as absurd. He would leave out the vision of blackness at the bus stop, which would still terrify him. "And as we were sitting in Religion class, an angel of the Lord appeared to me in disguise. After revealing himself to me, he commissioned me to serve as the Prophet for the End of Time." And Elizabeth would believe him.
That version of the story would be thematically true, although Clayton would be editing some of the substance. For the angel appeared to everybody, not just to Clayton, and the angel certainly never used phrases like "commissioned to serve."
Clayton took his seat amid Monday morning noise from the class. This was one of the few times during the day that the class could speak freely, and Clayton, rather than joining in, felt vaguely annoyed by the screeches of girls and the cracking voices of boys who spoke too loudly to be heard over one another. The voices echoed hollowly off the cinder-block walls, the linoleum, the ceiling. He half-hoped somebody, maybe Julie Ward, would come over to ask him what was wrong; the other half of him just wanted to be left alone to think. He didn’t even acknowledge Dickie Lanpher thwapping his ear once when Dickie took his seat across the aisle from Clayton.
Precisely when the first bell rang, a tall, thin man with curly black hair and a suit coat entered the classroom door and dropped a stack of books on Sister Leo Agnes’ desk. He carried a bright, obviously new, brown leather briefcase in front of him, hugging it with both arms and covering his abdomen. "I’m Mr. Kallur, and let’s get one thing straight," he said. The class immediately dropped to thick silence. "A substitute teacher is not a target. A substitute teacher is not a vacation. A substitute teacher is a dedicated professional who assumes the role of a permanent teacher when the permanent teacher has taken ill. Any questions?"
Clayton had questions like, What is Sister Leo Agnes ill with? and, What did we do that you’re already mad at us?, but he wasn’t about to ask them, and neither was anyone else.
"Good," Mr. Kallur said, "then let’s get down to business. Mr. Clayton Pinkes, please lead the class in morning prayer."
Clayton’s skin buzzed, and everyone looked at him except Mr. Kallur, who stared over everyone’s head, his arms before him, holding the briefcase, waiting. How did Kallur know his name? The attendance book, Clayton decided. The guy just pulled a name from the attendance book. That was it.
Clayton stood and opened with a Hail Mary, which went well even though Kallur stared straight at him the whole time, not piously facing the front-wall crucifix the way Sister Leo Agnes did. During the Our Father, however, Clayton fumbled through some of the phrases because Dickie Lanpher was whispering the recital along with him, changing words: "Our Fatter, Who fart in Heaven, hollow pee on Clay, Thy kinky come . . ." Clayton was as irritated by the attempt to trip him up as he was astonished by Dickie Lanpher’s lack of respect even for prayers. Before the prayer ended, Clayton saw Julie Ward’s hand shoot up.
"Mr. Kallur," she said, "I can’t concentrate because Dickie Lanpher keeps whispering dirty words during the prayers."
Clayton hardly had time to feel proud of Julie, because Mr. Kallur walked straight back to Dickie Lanpher’s desk and said, "When you die, Mr. Lanpher, you’ll go straight to hell."
Wow, Clayton thought, and then a few seconds later, still not sure what to think, again thought, Wow. Clayton saw Dickie Lanpher’s face turn red, and Dickie Lanpher’s lips pressed together tight. Clayton had never, never seen Dickie disciplined so quickly and totally—one sentence, and Dickie was wiped out. Kallur was like a bolt of lightning, a shooting bullet, an avenging angel of God. Clayton thought about that, the angel of God part. He was still thinking about it when Mr. Kallur turned to Julie Ward and said, "You’ll be right there in hell with him, missy, if you think tattling is how you go about getting things done your way."
Kallur walked back to the front of the room. Clayton saw Julie starting to cry, but it was a silent cry, strong, just a couple of tears from one eye and her face like stone. Clayton wanted to reach across the aisle and touch her arm. No he didn’t. Yes, yes he did, he just wouldn’t. He couldn’t do that.
Clayton faced forward, toward Kallur, and thought, Wow.
Kallur finished morning prayers by leading them himself, and immediately started first period, Religion class. He finally set down the shiny, leather briefcase and pulled out a worn copy of the Baltimore Catechism. Then he closed the briefcase again and locked it. The briefcase had a separate combination lock for each of its two gold latches. "Today we’ll begin a four-day review of the Baltimore Catechism. We will focus on reviewing ten lessons per day, with the last day including two of the Appendix lessons. The review will take the form of recital from memory. I suggest that if you’re weak in that area you take your catechisms home for study each evening. Any questions?"
Clayton wondered whether Kallur really expected questions, or if the phrase was a nervous habit.
"Good. We’ll begin; no books allowed." Kallur himself opened a copy of the catechism to ask the questions. That annoyed Clayton.
"Question one: Who made us?"
God made us, the class told him.
"Question two: Who is God?"
God, everyone answered, is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence.
"Question three: Why did God make us?"
God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in Heaven.
"Question three-and-one-half: So if God is such a Supreme and Perfect Being, why does He hide from the things He created?"
"God hides from the things He created," Clayton recited from memory, although the rest of the class didn’t, "because deep down, God is afraid that maybe He screwed up."
The world suddenly became eyes for Clayton: the eyes of the class, for the most part studying the linoleum; Julie Ward’s eyes smiling at him as if he had pulled some joke on Kallur to avenge her; Dickie Lanpher’s eyes wide, saying, Pinkes, you’re a lunatic, you saw what this guy did to me! Kallur kept looking down at his catechism, back up at the class, down again, up, down. "Tell me something," he said at last. "Did this class memorize from the New Revised Edition, Benziger Brothers, Inc.?"
A tingling in Clayton’s forearm, then, and a voice in his head not at all like Kallur’s that said, "You’ve had twenty-six years to think about it, Pinhead. I’m just the angel, you’re the prophet. Your world, not mine; your choice, not mine. Is it the End of Time?"
The flash ended in less than a second, and the classroom door opened. The principal, Sister Assumpta, walked in, her hand on the shoulder of a short, skinny kid with dark skin and black hair. He looked Indian, Clayton thought, or maybe very, very Italian. "Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Kallur," Sister Assumpta said. Kallur looked guilty; he lowered his head a bit and once again picked up the leather briefcase to cover his abdomen. "Class, this is a new student," said Sister Assumpta. "Paolo Diosana. His family just moved into the area, and he’ll be joining us to finish up the school year."
At that point, Dickie Lanpher groaned aloud. At first Clayton thought it was another prank, but when he looked he saw that Dickie’s face was pale. Dickie jumped from his desk and ran toward the door, saying a quick "Excuse me" to Sister Assumpta as he pushed past her into the hall. Clayton heard him heaving in the hallway, and cringed. Vomiting in school, which Dickie had just done, was an embarrassment Clayton wouldn’t wish even on his worst enemy, which Dickie Lanpher was.
"Oh, dear," Sister Assumpta said before she and Mr. Kallur ran into the hall. "He must have the same flu Sister Leo Agnes came down with."
Normally there would have been a commotion from the students in a situation like this one, but the last twenty minutes had been far too strange for anyone in the class to even think of reacting. The only movement was that of Paolo Diosana’s casual saunter down the aisle to Dickie Lanpher’s abandoned desk. After sitting, Diosana leaned across to Clayton and said, "Well, I guess this spot is available."
Clayton looked at him and said nothing. Diosana smiled. "Loosen up, Pinhead. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet."
Which is the full story of Clayton Pinkes’ first encounter with his managing angel.
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