Judgment Day
by Abigail Diaz
Arnie was always a strange character - nothing particular, really, but ever since I moved into the neighborhood, he rubbed me strange. Something about his eyes, maybe, the way they never seemed to rest anywhere too long. Or maybe the assortment of crosses visible through his front window. I’d heard of people with cross walls - natural enough, I guessed, albeit tacky. What wasn’t natural was his prize piece: a miserable, life-size rictus of the dying Christ. The Lord’s mouth was stretched into a grimace, and sweat, blood and tears had been lovingly molded onto his plastic face. I thought any man with a bleeding Jesus hanging in agony right next to his TV might have a screw or two loose.
Last week I caught him lugging cases of water into his house - not just one or two, but at least a dozen. I crossed the street and watched him struggle, then spoke. “Hey, Arnie.”
He turned, took a breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Hi, Duke, how goes it?”
“Fine, fine. Arnie, what are you up to, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“What do you mean?”
“All the cases of water. It looks like you’re getting ready for the H bomb to drop.”
He lugged water to his doorstep, smiling. “Funny you should say that.”
“Funny?” I smiled in spite of myself. “Care to explain the punchline?”
He put the water down. “Duke, have I told you about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?”
“Sure have, Arnie. I can see him through your window.”
“Well, He talked to me last night, Duke. Clear as day.” I blinked at him. He read my silence as interest and continued. “Just about scared the tar out of me, I’ll tell you what. He said to buy as many cases of water as I could fit in my car and bring em home. Gonna be a judgment day.” He looked up at the sky - which was clear and bright blue - like a man looking for rain. “I can feel it.”
“Yeah? What all’s gonna happen, or did Our Lord and Savior leave out the details?”
“Gonna be a storm. Hail, lightning, thunder. All that good stuff. Flood, too.”
I looked up into the sky’s blue eye. “Arnie, it’s the clearest day we’ve had in months.”
“The will of God defies nature, Duke. Haven’t you ever read Genesis?”
I hadn’t picked up a Bible in about twenty years. “Maybe. What’s the water for, though?”
“Water’s in case the plumbing goes out from all the flooding. Gotta have clean water.” He paused; then: “Anyway, it was God’s command. I’d be crazy to ignore Him.”
I looked at the water stacked in the trunk of his SUV. “Yeah. That sure would be crazy.”
***
The next day, I woke up and stepped outside to a dry lawn and the smell of spring heat. No rain in sight.
I crossed the street to ask Arnie what he would do now that his Lord and Savior had failed to deliver on His word. I knocked on the door and waited. There were lines in the dirt from his driveway to his front door - at some point, he must have gotten tired of carrying the cases of water and started dragging them. When he didn’t answer, I knocked again. “Arnie? You there, buddy?”
Again, nothing. I shrugged and turned back to my side of the street. We’d talk later.
***
A couple of days ago, on a late gray afternoon, I turned into my driveway after work and was greeted by an ambulance and cop cars in Arnie’s driveway. I got out of my car and crossed to see what was what. Whatever had happened, it was over - paramedics and cops were there, but they were strolling in and out of the house like fat flies crawling over a conquered corpse, absent of urgency.
I approached one from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up from his clipboard and turned, eyebrows raised. “What’s going on?”
“We got a call for a wellness check on the resident. Apparently he didn’t show up for church on Sunday and his fellow parishioners were worried.”
“Is he okay?”
He shook his head. “Had a stroke. He was lugging in a package of water and the strain must’ve done him in. He fell and his body smashed some of the water bottles open. He drowned in spilled water, right at the feet of Jesus.”
“Hm. That’s how he would’ve wanted to go, I guess.” The cop stared like he didn’t get the punchline. “At the feet of Jesus, I mean. Not by stroke. Or drowning.” He was silent again. “Thanks for your time.”
I turned to cross the street. Arnie’s words echoed in my skull: Gonna be a judgment day . . . Flood, too.
What would become of the bust of Jesus? Would I see Him in Goodwill next week? The landfill, maybe, making rats into disciples? Arnie’s crosses would be separated like puppies being sold one by one from a litter, dandelion puffs blown by the breath of God. He was old, unmarried, childless. At best, his fellow church members might take his shrine in and give it new life.
As I walked up my driveway, a raindrop plunked onto the back of my neck. Thunder grumbled overhead. When I got inside, I drew the blinds. If there was anything I didn’t want to see, it was lightning illuminating Jesus in Arnie’s open front window.
Abigail Diaz is a Pushcart-Prize-nominated author of poetry and fiction. She has been published in the Blue Marble Review, the San Antonio Public Library 2019 Young Pegasus Anthology, and HauntedMTL's 101 Proof Horror Anthology, among others. She is currently finishing her Bachelor's degree, with hopes of publishing writing full-time. She can be contacted at abdiaz878@gmail.com.