Hardcore

By Leonard Schrader

She was lovely, innocent, just fifteen - off on a church outing. And now she's gone!

Her father must find her even if he travels into the pit of Hell itself - into the peep-shows, the massage parlors, into the depths of degradation where the pimps and porno-movie-makers create their sexual phantasmagoria. Afraid, terrified that he'll find her too late.

For the first time ever, the novelization of Paul Schrader's harrowing family melodrama is available for the digital marketplace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Encyclopocalypse Publications
• Release date: Oct 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215802472

Book preview

One

Jake VanDorn was seated firmly in the House of God, but he did not feel at home. Normally the dark-varnished pew made him peaceful. But today something caused his burly frame to twitch with prickly tension.

Fifty-two, flint-eyed and blunt, Jake was a hard-driving man who loved only three things: his factory, his family, and his faith. Nothing else mattered. He never drank liquor or chased women. He devoted his whole life to his Grand Rapids furniture company, his Dutch American relatives, and his Dutch Calvinist religion.

Everything else could go to hell, for all he cared. Straight to hell, in fact, was exactly where his faith said most people were headed anyway. His Calvinism was hardcore.

My life, he often said, is drive and more drive. My daughter and employees have never gone without, and the Lord always gets a double tithe. Anybody who don’t like it can stay in hell.

His fierce devotion had been nurtured by the Dutch Reformation Church of America, the only place his restless spirit found renewal. The Tenth Street Church, where he was a lifelong member, had been built by his grandfather. The building’s massive brick walls had accumulated sixty years of ice cracks while keeping out the brutal Michigan winters. But the inner sanctuary still gleamed darkly with the austere beauty of Michigan’s finest hardwoods handcrafted by the finest furniture- makers in Grand Rapids.

Jake always went to the church early because he loved to be alone with God, listening to the soothing silence of the wordless Word. He was proud that he always sat in the same pew, and even prouder that he always arrived a full hour before everyone else - even though it was torture for his only child.

Kristen VanDorn, a fawnlike girl of fourteen, hated every minute of her father’s extra hour. While sitting through both two-hour services every Sunday, Kristen at least had the rest of the congregation to make her misery seem shared. But her father’s extra hour had to be endured alone. And for the three years since she lost her mother, she’d had to endure it all alone.

The strict silence and rigid immobility had a punishing effect on her tenderly budding beauty. Church always made her blue eyes lose their sparkle and her clear Dutch complexion darken with smoldering rage. Over the years her maturing body squirmed more and more on the hardwood pew.

Twice every Sunday she pleaded, saying, Why does it have to be so early, Daddy? Why can’t we go the same as everybody else?

And twice every Sunday he replied, Honey, my rump’s polished this old pew so long that it don’t fit nowhere else.

He always looked so understanding as he strode into the empty church. But Kristen knew the truth. She was trapped and there was no escape. Twice every Sunday she had to sit on his hardwood pew for three hours.

For years she tried every trick she knew, but nothing worked. Gradually she began to think of herself as a secret Christian martyr, shackled to a dungeon bench and forbidden to mention her innocence. Sometimes she had felt so bound and gagged that she wanted to scream until the whole church exploded. But she didn’t try anymore, because she knew her father would whip her buttocks with his electric-razor cord.

Instead she had spent the past six months developing her own private way to survive. One Sunday while her fists were angrily twisting her long blond hair as usual, Kristen accidently discovered the secret of pain. She had always known that pain made her feel bad when other people caused it. But now, as if struck by lightning, she suddenly realized that when she did it herself, pain made her feel better.

Delirious with excitement, she immediately plunged herself into exploring her amazing secret and testing its magical powers. Using her body as her laboratory, Kristen searched with scientific precision for the best ways to fight pain with pain. What pains were best? How good did the best get? Nothing else mattered. She wanted to know everything except why the secret worked, because she was afraid the magic would disappear and leave her all alone again. The only thing that mattered was that it really worked. She finally had found a way to protect herself. And the world finally had begun making sense to her.

Soon Kristen had created her own secret ritual, the very best way to fight the pain of church. Avoiding anything that might attract attention, she always began shortly after she and Jake sat down in his pew.

First she searched for a single strand of hair and, running her fingers through her long hair, carefully selected the very best one. Then she tugged on it with grim determination, tugging harder and harder until it jerked from her scalp with a hot flash of pain. Though the first rush of pain made her swoon, she maintained her composure and discreetly dropped her uprooted blond hair onto the dark-varnished floor. She felt good enough to at perfectly still for an hour. Savoring her rainbow of hidden sensations, she waited calmly for the hot throbbing to dwindle down to a steady sting. Then, as the two-hour service began, she gritted her teeth and bit fiercely into the tip of her tongue, biting deeper and deeper until her delicate taste buds burst with a warm spurt of blood. Washing her mouth with the blood, she folded her hands neatly in her lap and savored the pain waves jolting all of her body and soothing all of her tension. She felt good enough to enjoy the whole service in silent motionless contentment.

The ritual already had made its marks on her, and every night she examined them in her bedroom mirror. Sticking out her tongue, she softly stroked the jagged scar tissue. Then, pulling back her hair, she fondly rubbed the shiny bald spot above her forehead. For a moment she playfully covered the spot with a shiny coin. At first a dime had been too big, but now she needed a half dollar.

Kristen was proud that her father didn’t know she was drinking her blood in church, and even prouder that her bald spot was growing larger every week - despite his rigorous efforts to keep her hands from her hair.

Jake hated to see his daughter hurting herself, especially her beautiful blond hair. It tormented him so much that he would’ve done almost anything to stop it: move mountains, hurt himself, whatever. He usually did whatever she wanted anyway, spoiling her outrageously because she never acted spoiled. But this was one thing he couldn’t do. He couldn’t contradict the Lord for anyone - not even for his Dutch princess with the sunshine hair, his golden girl, his lovely lemon tulip.

He had no choice. He could do nothing but wait and prevent further damage. Sitting in church, he always put his outstretched arm on the pew behind her shoulders, ready to grab her wrist. But he never saw anything except the bald spot getting bigger.

Every Sunday night they had the same conversation, after he kissed her good night on the forehead and saw that her bald spot was raw and swollen again.

What’s wrong, Kristen? What’s happening to your hair?

Good night, she said, trying to pull away from him.

He gripped her firmly and said with gruff tenderness, It looks awfully sore, honey. Does it hurt much?

No.

What do you think it is?

I’m just getting bald, I guess. Good night. She always looked so innocent as she scampered upstairs to her bedroom. But Jake knew the truth. He understood her confused anger because he’d been the same as a boy. He knew how much it hurt. His only consolation was his certainty that someday, like himself, she would outgrow it.

He knew how it would happen. Someday she’d outgrow her confusion by seeing that only her faith made her life worth living, and she’d outgrow her anger by seeing that only their Lord made their love worth loving. Someday, he knew, she would understand how desperately her father needed his extra hour, because she’d discover how desperately she needed it too. And then, he knew, she would thank him.

His heart yearned and hungered for that day, the glorious day when she discovered the secret of faith. He wished he could go through the agony for her, but took comfort in his growing certainty that she would do it very soon. In recent weeks he’d seen her stop fidgeting in church and almost seem to enjoy it. Soon she’d stop feeling homeless, because she’d discover the church was her home.

Today, however, Jake himself didn’t feel at home. Although it was Christmas morning, he wasn’t feeling joy for the birth of Christ. Instead he was feeling uneasy in church for the first time since childhood. Nestling deeper in his pew, he tried to concentrate on the sermon but couldn’t hear a word. He forced his deep-set eyes to focus on the dark-varnished pulpit, but the whole church seemed to be drifting away into murky darkness. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except his premonition of danger, his vague sense that something sinister was stalking him.

Jake had been having that same premonition for three years. At first it was only a minor inconvenience, which he had chalked up to his anxiety over the loss of his wife, Joanne. But it had continued as though it were a force with a will of its own. As the frequency increased from every three months to every three days, its intensity had grown too strong to ignore. He still couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but recently he could almost smell its presence.

He had learned that the force only hunted him down when he was alone. Usually it crept around him when he was doing the payroll in the office after everyone had left, or when he was reading the Bible in the kitchen after Kristen had gone to bed. Recently the lurking presence had even followed him into the bedroom, keeping him awake for hours. And now it had followed him into church, and for the first time he was beginning to smell it clearly. Previously he had always ignored it or fought it off, but now he decided to stop.

Slouching down in the pew, Jake closed his eyes and sensed a wide variety of faint odors. Gradually he perceived individual scents among the swirling mixture. First he detected the scent of dried blood... and then the scent of steamy sweat... and then sulfur smoke! It smells like hellfire, he thought. Maybe hell