The Light in Zedediah McCumber’s Chicken House
An overconfident theology major delves into forbidden subjects.
I left my dorm and crossed under the roofed atrium. Though it was only 3:00 PM it was quite dark because it was raining again, as it had been off and on all week. Mackenson County is rainier than I ever imagined it would be when I was looking for a school to attend. When you think of Texas you usually think of days that are as hot as an oven. We get plenty of those, but we also get many dark and stormy days. Some say it’s like that because we’re so close to the coast. I don’t know if that’s true, but the area does tend to get a lot of rain, like a far off European city might have, I guess.
I went back to my room, grabbed my raincoat, and headed outside. Ordinarily I would ride my bike, but it looked like it was raining too hard. I suppose I could have called a taxi or asked someone for a ride, but I wasn’t going too far so I wasn’t too worried about the weather. It wasn’t cold; it was just a rainy fall day.
I walked alongside the school’s English Department and some faculty offices until I got to the crosswalk. Here I waited with a few other students for the light to change. When it was safe to cross I headed to the other side of the street and walked east down the sidewalk. Shortly thereafter I arrived at Greene’s Tex-Mex and inside I went.
When I entered I was facing the swinging doors of the kitchen and my friend Mia came out with an order. I could see Mrs. Greene at the grill working on the short orders. She noticed me as the doors were swinging shut and waved. I don’t know what she was cooking, but it smelled delicious. Greene’s has the best fry cooks in Clarkston, not to mention the best pizza. “Sit wherever you want, Hannah,” said Mia.
Greene’s Tex-Mex was, well, green. The booths that bordered the dining area were green, as were the tables that were situated in the middle of the establishment. The tile floor was green and white; the ceiling was bright white. I glanced around quickly and found he for whom I was searching: Tommy Davenport. I sat down in the booth across from him as Mia, smiling, brought some menus.
Tommy Davenport was a junior at Mackenson Institute and I was a freshman. We didn’t have much in common outside of the classroom, where we both maintained superior grades. We were more or less each other’s opponent, one trying to outdo the other. He tried, and most often failed, to get higher grades than I did. I don’t know why it was such a big deal to him. We only had one class together in the theology department: Pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit). For me it was just an interesting elective; for him it was a degree requirement.
Tommy was a good looking guy and a good student. Unfortunately, I (and I suspect many others) found his personality to be a bit off-putting. He didn’t mind letting everyone else know about how good he thought he looked. He was forever pontificating about his studies and various other pursuits. He also had the annoying habit of citing extraneous facts about everything.
It’s just the way he does things; it’s like he can’t keep his thoughts under control. Like this morning, for instance, when we were supposed to be giving reports on the Holy Spirit, but Davenport decides to stop in the middle of his discourse to talk about the god Moloch. The professor shut the discussion down practically before it commenced, saying that Davenport was “going down into a rabbit hole.” Having one’s report stopped by a teacher is considered to be the ultimate embarrassment, so everyone got a chuckle out of it. Everyone except Tommy Davenport. He certainly didn’t enjoy being laughed at. He loved to laugh when others made mistakes in class, and didn’t like it at all when he himself was the object of ridicule.
Just then Mia returned with her notepad and a cup of hot green tea. “I know you’ll be wanting this,” she said, sweetly. “Do you want your usual? You’re having a late lunch, huh?”
“Yes ma’am,” I replied. “It’s a late lunch for me. I want the small garden salad but this time I want to add a small bowl of soup. It’s not cold enough for soup yet but it’s just so gloomy outside.”
Mia scratched away on her order book. “Gotcha,’ it’s always a good day for our soup. Today we’ve got broccoli and cheese and we have potato soup. Which will it be?”
“Broccoli and cheese, please.”
“Consider it done,” she responded.
“And you, Mr. Davenport?”
“Same old,” said Tommy. “A large coke and a double cheeseburger with all the fixings. Well done. Mustard. Put the onions on the side, please. Oh, and fries.”
“It’ll be right out, guys,” said Mia, nodding before heading back toward the kitchen.
Davenport watched Mia until she was out of sight, looked around as if someone might be listening in on us, then met my gaze. I had never really been face to face with him before and so I had not noticed how dark and intense those eyes were. I couldn’t tell if they were attractive or dangerous. Or maybe both. After a few seconds Mia brought his soda to the table. He took a sip before he adjusted his tie and spoke over the rim of his glasses.
“I know how everyone laughs at me behind my back,” he said, almost conspiratorially. “I'm a braggart. I can’t talk about anything for very long before I make the subject ‘all about me.’ I’m ‘full of myself.’ ‘Superiority complex much?’ I’m perfectly aware of what everyone thinks of me, and sure—they’re not entirely wrong. However...I think outside of the box, as ‘they’ say, and sometimes I just go overboard in expressing my ideas.” He paused for another sip of his drink. “Anyway, that’s not an excuse but an explanation. I have the tendency to go too far in whatever I’m doing is what I’m trying to say.”
“Hannah, remember how I got off-track during my report this morning? This semester we’re studying the Holy Spirit of God in the scriptures, right? Well, I don’t know how far ahead you’ve read, but next semester we’ll be treading into the realm of demonology. Have you had time to become familiar with the material?”
“No,” I answered, and sipped my cooling tea. In fact I hadn’t even had time to buy the books, let alone look at them. I could tell that Tommy was building up to something that he thought was a grand idea: I could sense it coming from a mile away.
“Fair enough. The next semester’s books will cover demons, ghosts, and subjects of a similar nature. You know, nature spirits and so forth. That’s actually how I lost my train of thought in class this morning—I unwisely started expressing some ideas that I had jotted down on my notepad: Moloch was a god, but now it’s a demon. I know, it wasn’t my brightest moment.” He took another drink of his soda. I don’t remember what he was actually drinking. I think he ordered coke—but in Texas they call everything “coke.”
“Anyway, I’d like to have a confidential discussion with you about an upcoming project of mine that’s going to require assistance. Obviously you don’t have to help me, but I’d be pleased if you would give it some thought. If you don’t want to participate I might still like to have your input, if you’d be willing to act as a sounding board. Again, you don’t have to commit to anything right now—or ever, for that matter.”
“Okay, that’s easy enough,” I agreed. Confidentiality was something that I could guarantee, but my participation in whatever idea that he was about to pitch was by no means a sure thing. I was suddenly expecting (and dreading) to be asked to do something that I didn’t really want to do. I had zero interest in the paranormal, dead religions, false gods, or anything arcane (or extracurricular, for that matter) and I figured that I was going to get suckered right into some ghost hunting or something of that nature. That was an understatement, having the benefit of hindsight.
“Well then, what’s on your mind, Mr. Davenport?”
Just then Mia returned to the table with our food. Greene’s serves an enormous double cheeseburger and delicious soups and salads. They serve the best Tex-Mex in Clarkston and the best everything else too. They’re often super crowded, and they get a lot of their business from being so close to Mackenson Institute. “Here you go guys,” said Mia. “Do you need anything else?”
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