Deimatic Display

You are seven years old. You go to a church called Immanuel Bible Church, which you are told means ‘God is with us,’ and that it is not a Baptist church like the one you’d grown up in. Your parents moved you away from that church when you started pointing at movie

theaters from your car, saying everyone inside was going to Hell—something you learned from the Baptists. Now, you go to a Bible church and God is with them. But it is the first time you are without your family every Sunday: cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents.

You tag along with your parents most Sunday evenings as they have choir practice at the new church. Tonight, you hide from Abby in the basement while playing Hide and Seek. The folds of the heavy velvet curtains that divide the lower rooms surround you as you wait

to be found. The game ends shortly after Abby discovers you. She leaves, and the air suddenly feels hollow.

You walk towards the stairs and hear someone call to you from the kitchen. You don’t really want to go in, but it’s Gabe. He is sixteen, the fourth out of seven children. He’s taller than his sisters and knows how to make them be quiet. You’ve seen him do it. He’s pale, like his skin might fall off in flakes if you scratch him, like he has waited for you in the back hallway for too long. If you ignore him and keep walking, he will follow you to the stairs. You are seven, try to learn your spelling words every week at the private Christian elementary, spend most of your time playing with your American Girl doll, and wear your blonde hair in ringlet curls. The kitchen welcomes you like a gaping mouth when you enter. Seated on a metal folding chair in the middle of the room, Gabe leans back with his fingers interlocked behind his head.

“How would you feel,” he says slowly, his mouth twisting into a smirk, (his voice sounds like a blade being dragged across a stone, and you feel like you want to leave, to run up the stairs, to forget he ever saw you and for your mom to take you away, back to the church with your cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents where you might get strange ideas about movie theaters but aren’t cornered by boys in basement kitchens), “If I took you out on a date, and then I shoot you.”

Ice crawls up your back and cinder blocks replace your feet. What you feel is not exactly fear, but a sense that things are not as they should be, like you have left your hand on the stove for too long and are just now feeling the burn. You don’t know very much about dates, but you know it isn’t something seven-year-olds do. Steven held your hand when you were walking to his bunny hutches together and that felt nice . . . was that a date? You’re not sure, but you know you do not want to go on a date with Gabe, and you also know people do not normally shoot each other afterwards. If he is serious, this is the first time you’ve ever been asked out: an invitation with a threat attached. But you know he isn’t serious. He is trying to scare you. You are determined not to let him win. You force a polite smile onto your face, and say, “No thanks.” The world spins and you walk towards the stairs as quickly as you can

without running. Tears brim your eyelids.

When you tell your parents, they go to the elders and pastors. They are told Gabe’s family is too important—they cannot do anything.

***

Fifteen years later you look him up on Facebook. He has a dog now, is single, and details cars. He’s listed his birth date at the bottom of his profile: 1997.

If this is true, he was only twelve that evening in the church basement. How did he seem so much older? You wonder how many others were convinced he was bigger, stronger, older than they were. How many times he tried to make himself seem more powerful by

looming over little girls. You imagine the conversation you might have with him if you ran into him today—but truthfully, he probably forgot about you a long time ago.