谎言书：20

“No . . . uh-uh. No offense 1 to Sunday school, but spare us the lecture,” I
shoot back. “Just tell us why it’s important.”
“Cal, this guy tried to kill you. Both of you,” Roosevelt says as my father
shoots me a look. “Dontcha wanna hear why?”
On the highway, the car plows 2 over a flat sheet of ice. We don’t go flying or
spinning out of control, but for a full two or three seconds, I turn into the skid 3
and know — as we glide 4 in perfect, soundless silence across the ice — that
I’m not in control. Since the moment I found my father, that’s my life.
“Just listen to him,” my dad insists, sounding like a dad.
I hold tight to the steering 5 wheel, and the tires again gain traction 6.
“So back to brother Cain,” Roosevelt says through the speaker. “God created
Adam and Eve — making Cain the first human ever born. First killer 7. First
human villain 8, correct?”
“Depends what you want to believe: the Bible . . . ” I say, “or every single
carbon-dated archaeological dig of the last hundred years that proves people
existed fifty thousand years before Adam and Eve ever supposedly went on
their apple rampage.”
“Here — exit here,” Serena calls out from the backseat, and I tug 9 the wheel
and veer 10 toward the sign for I-90 East. Behind us, the Jeep with no lights
does the same. I slow down, giving it a chance to pass, but it doesn’t.
“The Bible ain’t just a bunch of stories about dead people, Cal. It’s the
greatest and oldest book of human civilization — a book that people through
the centuries have given their lives for. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t
problems of translation. It’s like Adam and Eve and the apple, right? Like you
mentioned, one of the Bible’s most famous tales, except for the problem that
there was no apple.”
“Says who?” my father asks.
“Look at the text, sir: The word apple never appears in the Bible. It ain’t
there. Eve ate a fruit — probably a fig 11 — but in ancient Greece, when the Old
Testament 12 was translated from Hebrew, the scribes put in the word apple
because at the time, apples were the big symbols of desire and destruction.
And those slight editorial changes — over time, they start affecting how we
think about the Bible, even though they’re not even in the original text.”
“But now, thanks to the wonders of Bible college, you’ll reveal the far more
interesting alternate history that’ll surprise us all,” I say.
“Cal, this ain’t about what you believe. It’s about what Ellis believes. And
right now, you gotta understand that he’s coming at you with what he
perceives is the power of God on his side.”
We all fall silent. Serena scootches up in her seat and scratches my dad’s
shoulder. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose.
“So to understand the tattoo 13, we need to understand Cain,” I say as Serena
points to the right, signaling for us to get off at the next exit. In the rearview,
the Jeep with no lights is barely two car lengths back. I tap on the brakes and
slow down to get a better look. Annoyed, the Jeep pulls around us and passes
on our right. I get my first good look at the driver: a pissed-off mom with
three kids in the back.
“It all goes back to how we view him,” Roosevelt says. “Cain’s the ruthless
brother-killer, right? For thousands of years, he’s the symbol of our worst sins
— the bad man who makes us feel better about ourselves. But when you
check out the earliest theories — like those geniza fragments they found in
Cairo centuries ago — those fragments are as close as we get to the earliest
copies of the Bible, and in there, they question the entire premise,” he adds
with a brand-new seriousness in his voice. “Or to put it more bluntly: Instead
of thinkin’ Cain’s the ultimate villain, what if he’s the good guy in the tale?”
“Yeah, except for that part in act one where he kills his own brother,” I point
out.
“Forget your Sunday school, Cal. Sure, over the years, we all demonized
Cain. But the Bible doesn’t.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “When Cain asks, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ —
those’re hardly the words of a saint.”
“And that’s fine. But the story of Cain and Abel isn’t just about fratricide. It’s
about what happens after Abel’s death. God’s reaction. Punishment versus 14
redemption.”
“So now the Mark of Cain is God’s way of rewarding Cain?”
“Again, look at the translation. According to most modern Bibles, Cain thinks
God’s punishment is too much — ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear,’
is what the text says — which is why Cain is seen as such a remorseless
monster. But when you go back to the original text — like in the geniza
fragments — that same passage can just as easily be translated as ‘My sin is
too great to forgive.’ See the difference there? In this version, Cain feels so
awful . . . so sorry . . . for what he’s done to poor Abel, he tells God he should
never be forgiven. That’s a pretty different view of Cain, no?” Roo-sevelt
asks, letting it all sink in. “Of course, most religions prefer the vicious Cain. A
little threat of evil is always the far better way to fill the seats. But sometimes
the monsters aren’t who we think they are.”
In the backseat, Serena has long forgotten the map. My dad stares down at
the phone. “So God forgave Cain?” he asks.
“Think about it: What if that’s the whole point of the story? The Mark of Cain
wasn’t a punishment. It was God’s reward: to show Divine mercy — to teach
us that those who repent 15 get forgiveness.”
“So the Mark of Cain could be something good?” Serena asks.
“This is a gift straight from God,” Roosevelt replies, his southern accent
lingering on the final word. “So, yeah, I’d wager 16 ‘good’ covers it.”
“C’mon, you’re telling me that the whole reason we’re running around — the
reason my dad got shot—”
“I think he got shot for the address,” Serena interrupts. When I glance in the
rearview, she adds, “From the comic. It’s just a feeling, but it’s the only thing
that makes sense. You said there’re other copies of the comic. But the
address . . . That’s the new piece of information, right? Maybe that’s their
meeting place. Or their storage place.”
“Or their hiding place,” my dad says without turning back to either of us.
“Whatever it is, they wanted that address on the comic,” Serena points out.
“They thought your dad had it. Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . you think that’s
why Mitchell Siegel got shot eighty years ago, too?”
“Perfect, just perfect,” I continue. “So what Timothy and Ellis and everyone
else — what they’re really all after is the long-lost, barely believable Mark of
Cain, which is somehow on a Superman comic from some crappy
neighborhood in Cleveland?”
“I’m not saying it exists,” Roosevelt’s voice goes on as we reach the exit for
Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. “You asked about Ellis’s tattoo; I’m telling you
what it stands for. And when you look at what the Bible says about the Mark
— ‘The Lord set a mark upon Cain, that whoever found him should not kill
him.’ Look at the last part there — ‘should not kill him.’ The images in Ellis’s
tattoo, those are God’s gifts to Cain: things that’re gonna protect him from all
the wild beasts in the wilderness 17.”
“Y’mean like weapons?” my dad asks.
“Or a dog,” Roosevelt says. “Named Benoni.”
Everyone is silent as I tug the wheel to the right, and we all sway to the left,
curving around the exit. At the red light, it’s no different from the Martin
Luther King Jr. street at home: Even with the darkness, it’s clear we’re in a
rough neighborhood. Within a few quick turns, nearly all the businesses are
either burnt out or boarded up. On each corner, there’s some kid in a thick
winter coat bouncing in place to find some warmth. Not one of them gets on
the passing buses. I work in these neighborhoods every day. I know drug
dealers 18 when I see them.
“You still there?” Roosevelt asks.
“You were saying about the dog,” I reply as Serena and my dad glance out
their respective windows. Both of them sit up straight. Like they know we’re
close. “That from Bible college, too?”
“Nah, that was Google,” Roosevelt says. “Benoni was apparently 19 Abel’s dog,
then when Abel got killed, God supposedly gave the dog to Cain as
protection.”
“Okay, so Ellis renamed his dog,” I say. “Big deal.”
“Maybe it ain’t just the dog,” Roosevelt says. “Most people are taught Cain
wandered through the Land of Nod for seven generations. But another
interpretation 20 says that God’s gift — that no one should kill Cain — was
literal. That God let him live forever.”
“You mean Ellis thinks he’s Cain?” Serena asks.
Next to me, my dad’s now mesmerized 21 by our surroundings, staring out the
window. “I think it’s the next right,” he blurts 22. When I look at him, he adds, “I
saw it on the map.”
“It’s only been a few hours. I gotta do more research,” Roosevelt says. “But
for a book like the Bible, where nearly every major figure’s death is pointed 23
out — Noah lived for X years; Moses lived for Y — the Bible is completely, and
almost strangely, silent about the death of Cain.”
“This is it — Kimberly Avenue,” my dad blurts as I turn onto the narrow
block that’s lined with small, beaten two-story houses and barely any cars.
It’s one thing to be in a bad neighborhood; it’s another to be in an abandoned
one.
“Do people live here?” Serena asks as the car bangs through one of the
street’s ice-filled potholes 24. On both sides of the block, the sidewalks are
barely plowed 25. I check the windows and front porches of every house we
pass. It’s only four-thirty. There’s not a person in sight.
“Roosevelt, can we deal with the rest of the nutty Cain stuff later?” I ask.
“You’re missing what I said, Cal. Ellis thinks he has God on his side. Take it
from the former pastor 26: The true believers are the ones who’ll burn you the
worst,” he says. “Though what all this has to do with an address on a comic
book, now you’re out of my biblical league.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,” I say as we reach the middle of the
block and pull up to the peeling blue two-story house with the even more
peeling red trim. Unreal. The whole house, including the front steps: bright
blue and red. Like Superman.
From my backpack, I pull out the old 1938 comic and its protective wax
paper.
If found, please return to:
10622 Kimberly Ave. Cleveland
I scan the alleys 27 on both sides of the house (dark but empty), then doublecheck
the numbers on the front porch: 10622. This is it. The address from the
coffin 28.
Before I can even stop, my father’s out of the car.