The Night of Passion and Rapture

by Shauna Checkley

Blowing one long, luxurious, smoke ring that hung in the night air like the letter o, Brit was pleased by the sight. It was visible under the porch light. Then she passed to Lurline the cigarette the trio of sisters were sharing.

“Papa Giff probably snuck out for a drink,” Brit giggled.

“Yeah, he usually takes Ringo when he does,” Cass smirked.

“Well, Papa does have back pain, y’know; that might ease it a bit,” Lurline said. The eldest of the identical triplets, she was the only one who ever spoke in Giff’s defence.

They were all assembled on the front porch. They sat on stiff, uncomfortable rattan chairs. To any stranger, they would have seemed like a flock of angels touched down, with their long, wavy blonde locks and periwinkle blue eyes.

They were sneaking a smoke as they liked doing occasionally. Staring into the woods that lay ahead of their acreage, they felt the occasional slap of that dry, unrelenting, prairie wind. The night air smelled softly of mint.

It was a peaceful evening. The sound of a distant train could be heard from where they sat. But then the howling began. Coyotes baying.

“The rapture of Wile E. Coyote,” Brit giggled.

They all laughed.

The girls jolted upright upon seeing the dim outlines of Papa and Ringo the hound as they emerged from the grove of trees. Cass butted the cigarette out on the bottom of her pink Puma runner then flicked it away.

Like a mournful chorus, the coyotes continued to wail in the distance: prairie gothic .

The teenage triplets watched as their father strode towards them. Ringo dashed to the house and was soon on the porch with them, heavy black tail thumping wildly.

“Gettin’ late. Bed time, I’d say,” their father said. He brushed past them and went into their house.

They stood and filed in behind him.

Once in their bedroom, the biggest room in the house, as it had to accommodate all three girls, they visited in the dark. Cass and Lurline shared the bunk beds. Britney had her own single bed in the corner. Ruby, their calico cat, lay with Brit. They all huddled under the patchwork quilts their late mother, Linda, had made for them by hand, stitch by loving stitch.

“Does he seem like he’s getting worse?” Cass queried.

Lurline shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Dunno,” Brit said. “Giff always seemed half crazy to me.”

The girls were passing Brit’s vape back and forth. She had saved all her waitressing tips to buy it. She even preferred having it over cigarettes, as it was so novel and trendy. Brit imagined how cool she was when she paused to take a pull from it. At sixteen years of age, she knew that she was anything but sweet and shy; that was for her sisters and for the other women at church.

While moonlight poured in through their bedroom window, it made all seem surreal, otherworldly. The light caught the cat’s eyes, which glowed in the dark. Their matching costume jewellery was carefully laid out on the top of the dresser and night table; it glittered wantonly.

Slipping her long blonde hair behind one ear, Brit said, “Why does it hurt when I pee?”

The others laughed.

Sighing, Brit remarked, “If only Momma was here, I could ask her.”

“Sure wish that Momma was here,” Cass sighed.

“P-Earl too. Don’t forget him either, He’s still family, y’know.” Brit insisted.

Lurline nodded.

When they had just turned twelve, their mother passed away from breast cancer. It was not long after, her father, the town mechanic, broke his back on the job, nearly crushed by a car that he was working under. All their lives changed irrevocably then.

Their father had to subsist on a small disability pension. They struggled. Times were lonely and hard. Yet he stayed by his children dutifully, even though the pain of losing his beloved Linda and his crushed spine were near debilitating at times.

But the final blow in the trifecta of misery was when the eldest child, Earl, who had just turned eighteen, announced that he was female, began transitioning and went by the moniker of Pearl. It was a shock to all of them except Brit, who secretly knew of his proclivities.

She had caught him once pilfering panties from their room. She also spotted the lacy, pink panties when Earl bent over once to pet Ruby the cat and realized that he was cross-dressing. Still, she kept it secret even from her sisters, which was a torturous and near impossible feat. She loved her big brother after all. They had always had a special bond.

Finally, the vape was hidden under Brit’s mattress and she stretched and yawned.

“Time to sleep,” Brit murmured.

And they did.

* * *

While Cass and Lurline hurried from table to table dutifully attending to customers, Brit daydreamed. The speakers overhead thrummed Blondie’s song, “Rapture.” They all worked the day shift at Maggie’s Diner. It was late in the afternoon. The summer light was lessening in intensity. Trying to earn some pocket money in their youth of poverty, so the trio were.

Besides, it was summer holidays. What else was there to do in the sleepy little town of Hare Valley? Not much. Except wander around the graveyard and try and spook one another. Sneak as many cigarettes as possible. That’s about it.

Brit stiffened as she saw him coming through the door: Papa. She knew instantly that there was trouble by the look of grim determination on his face. Giff stomped past his daughters and corned Maggie, the proprietress, in the back.

“Today will be their last shift. Then they are no longer working here,” he spoke loudly enough for all to hear, including the girls.

“That’s sure too bad. They’re good workers and quite the draw with identical triplets on staff,” Maggie groaned. “But have it your way,” she relented.

Then he stomped out and waited in his battered old eggplant-coloured pickup for them to get off shift.

The girls exchanged sad, horrified looks. Brit cursed. The girls reluctantly piled into the truck when their shift was over.

Their father’s face had twisted almost gargoyle-like. He was flushed with rage. Brit thought she could smell whiskey on his breath.

He flung a brown paper bag at them. The contents spilled out. A half-pack of dried-out cigarettes. Some empty Rock Star energy cans. The vape. CBD gummies. Several issues of Cosmopolitan and True Confession. A sexy black underwear set from La Senza.

“Is this the filth that you spend your money on?” he blared, though he was addressing Brit more than the others. They had always especially clashed.

“What right do you have raiding our bedroom?” Brit cried.

He slapped her face.

The others gasped.

“Don’t you know the Rapture is coming soon! You’re all going to be left here, left behind if you don’t smarten up!” he roared.

Pointing one crooked, grease-stained finger at Brit, he hissed, “Especially you, Missy.”

They drove off. He sped like a bullet for home.

After that, the summer days were especially empty and long. Lurline disappeared into the nearby woods for hours at a time with her mother’s old basket to pick berries. Cass cleaned, as she could not tolerate a mess. Only Brit moped; she missed her waitressing job, flirting with customers, hanging out, overhearing “cock tease” being whispered and bandied about. But she killed time gardening, nevertheless.

Their dad mostly spent his time in the front room, watching the CBC twenty-four hour news channel. He sipped whiskey when he thought no one was looking.

“Listen to that! Earthquakes! Wars! Rumours of war! It’s all there, I tell ya! I can see the Rapture coming. It’s a beautiful thing!” he gushed.

He wiped the tears from his eyes. Grabbing the remote control off the coffee table, he cranked the volume. This in turn, prompted him to shriek even louder. “Plagues! Pestilence! Famine! The signs of the times!”

Brit plugged her ears. Made a face. The intensity of the nonstop TV was wearing on her frayed nerves.

But when he began to drink openly, flamboyantly sipping boilermakers in his boxer shorts, speaking in tongues, rambling about handling snakes, the triplets became fearful.

“Should we phone the RCMP?” Cass wondered aloud.

Lurline shrugged her shoulders.

Mercifully enough, he went to bed and passed out.

The girls then turned down the volume and changed channels. Cass made popcorn on the stove. They stayed up all night watching documentaries on UFO’s, Big Foot, and every serial killer imaginable. It was the first time they had had fun in days.

Brit ate an apple as she watched and paused to lick the juice that ran down its side.

* * *

The next day, out of sheer boredom, Brit gathered up some old pictures and collectibles of her late mother’s. She arranged them on the table at the end of the hallway. Ceramic busts of Elvis. Johnny Cash. Even a black velvet painting of the King in his Viva Las Vegas years was propped up there. She then took a freshly picked vase of wildflowers from the kitchen table and set it down.

Admiring her display, this lunch hour epiphany, Brit thought of it as a sort of shrine to her deceased mother, a tribute to all that she treasured.

After supper, it was too hot to sleep, to even stay indoors. The triplets sat out on the porch. Ringo and Ruby stretched out there, too. Brit felt sorry for them in that annihilating heat. The hound occasionally lifted his head to snap at flies. The night air was cool. They sipped lemonade. Once more, they could hear coyotes lightly baying in the distance.

The TV was blaring as ever. Giff had it on the twenty-four hour weather channel tonight, though, instead of the news.

“Tornadoes! Hurricanes! Wildfires!” he shrieked. Giff wore a stained wife-beater and some old jeans. He no longer bothered with his dentures. Toothless, he drank vodka straight out of a mason jar.

“The Rapture! I know it’s coming soon!”

The girls giggled.

“Looney tunes,” Cass said as she drew circles in the air next to her ears.

They were more flabbergasted then frightened, for it all had taken on a carnival-like air.

Finally, when it had cooled down enough for them, the sisters retired to their bedroom.

Giff raged on. Staring at the TV, he was like under a spell, entranced. “Mudslides! Earthquakes!” he bellowed.

Then just as the girls had fallen to sleep, they woke up to crashing in the hallway.

They rushed out of their bedroom. Giff had a broom and was smashing Brit’s shrine to smithereens. Johnny Cash’s head skidded down the hall, cracked open.

“Idolatry! Smash the idols! Babylon!” he shrieked

“Aww,” Brit groaned.

“And here I always thought that you three, identical triplets even, were a sign from the heavens. But you are just full of the Jezebel spirit!”

The girls returned to their room and climbed back into bed.

“I’m getting really close to calling the cops,” Cass sighed.

Then they listened to him pace up and down the hall. The old floor boards seeming to moan and groan in complaint.

Brit, meanwhile, thought about the Rapture that this mad prophet raved about. What if something really is coming? Who knows? But it soon passed from her mind. For she knew an entirely different rapture when her fingers snaked down her belly and into the opening of her very own lush, moist, garden. Like now. Once satiated, she slipped off to sleep.

* * *

Careening along the highway, P-Earl had the Chevy truck floored. He had stolen it in Calgary and was impressed by how smoothly it ran and by the fact that it had a full tank of gas. I just wanna get home. I just wanna apologize to Daddy and tell him how very right he was about the evilness of this world. The prodigal son is returning. Absalom, Absalom.

“I know better than to steal,” P-Earl continued in thought. “But I think God understands. Why, with those visions of Jesus that I sometimes get in my mind’s eye, with him in his white, billowing robe, beckoning me to him and away from all the dope, it has become very clear to me. I am now as saved as the next. Converted, in fact.”

It was midnight. The Trans-Canada highway was quiet and almost empty of other vehicles, just the odd semi.

“Perhaps I pushed him too far. He accepted me when I became Pearl, a sort of hippy chick like my idol, Janis Joplin. But then when I morphed into P-Earl, the genderless space unicorn, it understandably threw him into a dither. He went hard on the bottle and even harder at the weekend gospel revivals.

“Brit told me he became fixated on The Rapture, of all things, that notion about being sucked up to heaven during the tumultuous end times.

“Giff is a good man, just misunderstood. That’s all. I remember the time he fixed up a beater and then gave it to a homeless family with a full tank of gas to try and help them out. It’s just that with Momma’s passing the serpent of grief nearly ate him alive. It got to him; along with the whiskey, of course.”

Glancing into the rear-view mirror, P-Earl appraised himself. He wore a shiny silver body suit and matching boots. He was completely shaved and without eyelashes or eyebrows. His hair was dyed silver and hair sprayed and molded into a horn shape. Hence the asexual space unicorn. Pleased with himself, P-Earl smiled.

You’ve come a long way, baby! He recalled being that misfit with tics that sat at the back of the classroom, mercilessly teased by the others. Yes, he was that oddball kid that wore his Hallowe’en costume all year round. Spider Man. Or Bunny Punisher. He would eat pixie-stick candy until he was puking sick. But thankfully enough, that was all over now.

He saw the sign. Hare Valley. I’m home! Hurrah!

Pulling over, he ditched the stolen truck and got out. I’ll walk the last mile. Feeling so much pent-up energy after the long road trip, P-Earl longed to move about.

Feeling the cool night air like a revelation, P-Earl broke out into a run.

Sprinting straight past the graveyard, he ran as fast as he could for home. Can’t wait to tell about all the evil I saw in that city: blood drinking, sacrifices, everything imaginable and all carried out by suits, by the most respectable people going! So glad to have broken free of it!

Initially, life had been a big party in Calgary, non-stop clubbing every night. It wasn’t until P-Earl hooked up with Dita, a lesbian dominatrix emigrant from Germany that matters quickly spiralled out of control. She lured P-Earl into the coven, introduced him to the most dangerous people imaginable. P-Earl knew he had to get out of there. Hence, he had fled Calgary for home.

Hearing the baying of the coyotes, Giff bolted upright. They had awakened him from a most fitful slumber. He was dreaming of his beloved wife Linda, the beauteous redhead who was with him again, even if it was just in a momentary, liminal, dreamscape.

He was dead drunk. He staggered to the closet and got his shotgun. I’ll put them outta their misery! Howling all the time! Waking me up just when I had my dear Linda again! Then he wobbled his way outside and headed to the woods.

The coyotes began to make blood-curdling howls. Bats swooped here and there. The full moon made the night strangely luminous. It was like a watchful eye overhead.

Seeing a shining, devilish-looking creature ahead, Giff froze. What the hell! What kind of abomination is that? The Rapture must be starting! The spiritual war is unfolding right here, before my very eyes.

Giff fired at it. Then again. Overhead, he saw the flash of a falling star in the night sky.

The creature dropped. Giff ran to it to have a look at what kind of tricks the devil was playing.

“Oh, my God, no! My child, my child!” Giff dropped to his knees by P-Earl’s corpse and wailed inconsolably. He cried to the heavens. Now he had lost not only his beloved but his eldest-born too. He felt like Abraham and Job rolled into one. Well, I aim to join them, to be with them once again. That’s all. Then he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Brit bolted upright in bed. Omigod! What is going on? Who is shooting? She ran outside and rushed to the woods. She saw two slumped bodies lying there. Brit shrieked.

Dropping to her knees, throwing her arms up to the heavens, she closed her eyes and sobbed. This would-be Rapture had gone sideways and south. There would be no more awaiting it. Not ever. The only grand event coming now would be the spectacle of flashing lights and sirens of the RCMP. That’s all.