First, a note of caution to the young and sensitive:
There's A LOT of grown up language in this novel. In all my writing, really. So, individuals under 18 years old should not read this post without the permission of their parent, guardian or, probably, their parole officer.
And everyone else should proceed with that in mind, too…
1
It was on a cold, gray, slushy
Sunday morning in Ticonderoga, New York when Norbert Sherbert Jr. first got the
notion to break all Ten Commandments in a week. The notion formed in his
brainpan while he was seated on a hard metal folding chair inside the long
defunct Orange Julius, inside the Route 9N strip mall, now known as the Church
of Abundant Waters and the Splendiferous Blood of Christ. It was Norbert’s
first time inside that house of worship.
Once seated, Norbert studied the church’s modest
décor as he listened to the electric guitar interlude. He could not help but
think that in the beginning it was probably man that created God in his own
image and not the other way around. God: with His long white beard, flowing
robes and beefy pectorals—think Sistine Chapel. God: the literary character.
God: that overbearing fellow those TV preachers jump up and down, bark, whoop,
howl and sob about, whipping their megaflocks into frothy frenzies. The
jealous, vengeful, anthropomorphic Bible God who micromanages the daily affairs
of each soul on the planet.
As I understand that God, thought Norbert, He is
easily perturbed. In many ways, He’s just a grander version of myself. Even
Caucasian, just like me. No, thought Norbert, no. That God probably doesn’t
exist. More likely, that God is the preeminent example of the poverty of the
human imagination.
But just because you don’t believe in a
thing, thought Norbert, that doesn’t necessarily mean that thing don’t exist.
Conversely, just because you do believe in a thing, that doesn’t mean it
does exist. Like unicorns, traditional nuclear families, pots o’
gold hidden deep in forests at the terminus of rainbows, and the Apollo moon landing. Such was the relationship
between Norbert and the Christian version of God that Sunday morning.
Norbert’s existential reverie sent him sliding into
day- dream. In his dream, a football tumbles end-over-end at Norbert’s head. He
watches it through the tubular grid of his helmet’s facemask, head arched
upwards. Norbert’s arms form a basket that absorbs the impact of the
somersaulting oblong spheroid. He takes off running, nothing but green turf
unrolling beneath his feet. The whole length of the field is before him and he
is running. Pumping his fists into the air, the ball buried deep in his armpit.
In his knees, Norbert feels each collision with the turf. He huffs and
stretches and dashes toward the opposite end line. He is happy, so happy and,
without effort, he watches himself from outside his body, running in pure joy
as his coaches and teammates leap and holler and cheer along the side- line.
Norbert recognizes where he is: the State High School Football Championship
game inside the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. Norbert has received the game’s final
punt on his own end line and he is racing the length of the field. Time is
expired. He is almost there. A touchdown wins the game. He thrusts his right
foot forward in a final, victorious stride—but is stopped. Grabbed from behind.
Someone has caught up to him, seizing his left leg. Norbert lunges forward,
extending each tendon from his toes up through his fingertips to the limits of
their elasticity. He crashes to the turf—brought down inside the final yard, of
the final play, of his final game. Norbert has fallen short. He has lost: the
touchdown, the game, that seductive sensation of power, of certainty, of joy.
The opposing team pours onto the field in a churning wave of bliss. Norbert
sits up, removes his helmet. Elbows on kneecaps, he cradles his head in his
hands.
Norbert emerged from his reverie with a spasm,
seesawing his numb buttocks atop the hard metal seat inside the Church of
Abundant Waters and the Splendiferous Blood of Christ. He looked at Arlene. She
knew he was looking at her, but she didn’t look back. How much she’s changed,
thought Norbert. What am I doing here?
Church, he thought. An Orange Julius, he thought.
What a guy does for love.
Norbert and Arlene had been an item since high school. They had remained exclusive while Arlene went away to a private college and Norbert attended a two-year commuter school near home. Then they stuck it out while Norbert was stationed overseas. Back in high school, Arlene had never been one for churchgoing. She was not a religious person. Sometimes, if it was a sunny day, she would call it a “blessing.” If someone sneezed, and she knew him, she would invoke the deity. Things of that nature. But Norbert never regarded such remarks as veiled testimonials of some deeper faith that lurked below.
Norbert and Arlene had been an item since high school. They had remained exclusive while Arlene went away to a private college and Norbert attended a two-year commuter school near home. Then they stuck it out while Norbert was stationed overseas. Back in high school, Arlene had never been one for churchgoing. She was not a religious person. Sometimes, if it was a sunny day, she would call it a “blessing.” If someone sneezed, and she knew him, she would invoke the deity. Things of that nature. But Norbert never regarded such remarks as veiled testimonials of some deeper faith that lurked below.
Arlene was Catholic, though she had scarcely
attended Mass outside of friends’ weddings since wearing curls and ribbons. She
was baptized and took her first Communion in a church named for St. Paul the
Hermit who, according to Catholic myth, had fled to the desert to live in a
cave until he was 113. In Afghanistan and Iraq, Norbert had met plenty of
people who lived in caves: not as romantically monastic as St. Paul must have
wished for it to appear.
Arlene’s parents considered themselves pragmatic
Catholics. Her mother had introduced Norbert to that term over rump roast.
During high school, her parents vehemently disapproved of Arlene’s positions on
contraception (she enthusiastically ingested it), and abortion (which, to their
displeasure, Arlene called “choice”). They told her there was no place for her
at the right hand of the Father unless she changed her style of thinking. They
even pooh-poohed her fashionable low-rider, hip-hugger jeans and tight tank
tops, which Norbert had no objection to. Indeed, Arlene’s fashion sense had
remained little changed over the span of their years together, a testament to
its timelessness. If statistical data were available for such things as Most
Oft-Made Comment My Girlfriend Makes Regarding Her Parents, Norbert was certain
Arlene’s would be, “Those people drive me f’n crazy!”
To be fair, Norbert was also discontented with the
DNA dough from which he had risen. But imbedded somewhere in that colorfully
mysterious twisted ladder his parents had at least passed to him the gene for
keen observation. Norbert had observed, keenly, how Arlene desperately,
frantically craved her parents’ approval. The more Arlene protested her
parents’ values, the more transparent was her need to validate her life
choices—particularly her choice to stick it out so long with Norbert. The
silent voice of her parents influenced dozens of Arlene’s daily decisions,
though she would drink hot motor oil before she’d admit it. That’s even why she
and Norbert now lived together in Ticonderoga, so far from good restaurants and
robust cell phone signals. Her folks had moved there from Syracuse to escape
“The Big City.”
Norbert stole another hard look at Arlene. He
pictured her in those jeans. Delicious.
But Arlene’s attitude toward her faith did a 180
after Norbert’s injury. She started thumping the Good Book pretty steady then.
It became her rock of certainty. Her latest faith-based obsession, after
devouring several books her mom had given her for Christmas, was the Rapture—an
approaching event in which the faithful will be carried away to a blessed
afterlife, while sinners (such as Norbert, Arlene explained) would remain to
face the music, or whatever. To Norbert’s taste, this God talk around the
apartment had become oppressive. Everything was, “Pastor Zack said this,” and
“Pastor Zack thinks that.” This one-sided discourse was the source of much
recent disharmony. Norbert decided it was
about time for him to wake up early on a Sunday and get a firsthand look at
this Pastor Zack character.
Norbert grabbed the tattered paperback hymnal from
beneath the forward folding chair and absently leafed through it. He was a
compulsive reader, reading most of the daily minutiae people pay no mind to—the
backs of toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles, remote control operator’s
manuals, movie credits. Norbert always pictured the author behind these blocks
of text, selecting his words with great care, crippled with the same fear of
rejection, as were the great novelists. The demon on the shoulder! Some writer,
somewhere, thought Norbert, struggled over the wording of: “For optimum
results, wet hair, lather, rinse and repeat.” Or, felt a sense of duty to his
fellow man when he penned: “Apply toothpaste onto a soft bristle toothbrush.
Brush thoroughly after meals or at least twice a day or as directed by a
dentist or phy- sician.” So much information out there, thought Norbert. Is it
possible to know it all? Is it even worth trying? And besides, it’s always the
people who never read anything that ascend to positions of authority (perhaps
because they waste no time in reflective thought). At least that was his
experience in the military.
As an extension of his love for the printed word,
Norbert had kept a notebook since he was sixteen. He called it his notebook
even though other folks—mostly females and men involved in community
theater—might call it their journal, or worse, diary. While he was
deployed in the desert, his ass-crack filled with hot sand, Norbert scribbled
in his notebook more than ever before. He never intended for the things inside
it to be seen by other people—not even Arlene. It was personal, private stuff.
A periodic purge of his gray matter. After his third tour, in the in-be- tween,
he continued to write in it, or draw, or just lie there staring at blank pages,
wondering what might fill them. The notebook had a soft brown leather cover,
scuffed and dark and fragrant as a catcher’s mitt, with a couple of long
strings that could be tied into a bow—which Norbert always double-knotted. It
was thick (about 300 pages), and still, after all these years, only about
two-thirds filled with Norbert’s musings. The notebook was nothing the teenaged
Norbert would have ever purchased for himself. It was a gift from his father’s
father, Grandpa Sherbert. It had not been Norbert’s birthday or Christmas or
any other gift-giving holiday scenario. Norbert’s grandfather had simply tossed
it onto Norbert’s stomach one summer afternoon without explanation as Norbert
lounged on the musty sofa inside his grandparents’ camp on Lake George. As
Norbert asked his grandfather what it was for, the screen door slammed. Grandpa
Sherbert was already down the steps headed toward the lake, pipe in mouth,
fishing rod on shoulder. This was not an unusual style for conferring gifts in
Norbert’s family. Indeed, it was the Sherbert way. Norbert opened the book to
reveal an inscription on the inside cover written in his grand- father’s hand.
It read: A man’s life, if he’s living it right, has many beginnings.
Having received very little from his grandfather,
out- side the occasional sarcasm about his clothing or haircut, Norbert
resolved in that moment to treasure the notebook, making it his constant
companion.
Pastor Zack, head holy man and musical director of
the Church of Abundant Waters and the Splendiferous Blood of Christ, wrapped up
his electric guitar solo—a sleepy, deliberate version of “Stairway to Heaven”
he had been fingering on his Fender knock-off for the better part of ten
minutes. He was seated on an identical metal folding chair, beside a lone
amplifier, facing his congregation inside the former hot dog joint and purveyor
of 16 distinctive juice blend recipes.
Pastor Zack set aside his guitar and stood to address
his flock. There was no pulpit. Only the anticipatory air of discovery
separated them.
“Who’s digging on a prayer?” asked Pastor Zack.
A murmur of approval swept through the
congregation like an August breeze.
“Well then, ‘Get on up! Get on up! Get on up!’”
chanted Pastor Zack, in mimicry of the Godfather of Soul.
In response, all
souls and their worldly containers rose to their feet.
“Let’s start with the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” said Pastor Zack.
Everybody drew a cross in the air in front of
themselves and said, “Amen.”
“The Lord be with you,” said Pastor Zack.
“And also with you,” answered his flock. Norbert
started to sit down, but there was much more.
“Dear friends,” said Pastor Zack, producing a name-brand
athletic plastic squeeze bottle, “this water will be used to remind us of our
baptism. Let us ask God to bless it, and to keep us faithful to the spirit He
has given us. God our Father, your gift of water totally brings life and
freshness to the Earth; it washes away our sins and brings us eternal life. We
ask you now to bless this water, and to give us your protection on this day,
which you have made your own. Renew the splendiferous living spring of your
life within us and protect us in spirit and body, that we may be free from sin
and come into your presence to receive your gift of salvation. We ask this
through Christ our Lord.”
The flock responded with an Amen. Norbert fidgeted
with the hymnal, turning it over in his hands. Arlene’s irritation was
palpable.
Pastor Zack squeezed the bottle. Clear tracers of
thrice-purified water arced above the parishioners’ heads, cascading down upon
their heaven-bent faces and upturned palms. The bottle empty, Pastor Zack again
snatched up his guitar and played the introductory riff to the refrain of “Take
Me to the River.” On the proper note, to Norbert’s dissatisfaction, everyone
struck up in song. Even Arlene. Norbert read the hymnal’s cover: Jesus
Rocks! Contemporary Songs for Modern Worship.
“Washing me down,” sang Arlene with a wriggle.
“Washing me down.”
Pastor Zack let the electric guitar dangle around
his neck from a strap embroidered in some vaguely Native American motif. He
said, “May almighty God cleanse us of our sins and through the Eucharist we
celebrate make us worthy to sit at His table in His heavenly kingdom.”
“Amen,” responded the motley congregants of the
Church of Abundant Waters and the Splendiferous Blood of Christ.
“You may be seated,” said Pastor Zack.
Norbert thought of his mother. She still attended
regular church services with the Episcopalians. Once Norbert had outgrown
Sunday school (physically much later than mentally, for the record), he was no
longer forced to accompany her. “Let the kid play outside,” said Norbert’s
father. “Why the hell should he be cooped up in a church? He should be hitting
a ball, not holding a candle.”
It was for the best.
From his earliest days, Norbert was quizzical. But
his relentless, probing questions had mushroomed into a great source of
irritation for Mrs. Greenleaf, the Sunday school instructor. “Why do we blindly
believe all these crazy Bible stories then laugh at the stories the Greeks and
Romans believed?” Norbert would ask. “Aren’t they all equally ridiculous?” Or,
“Why did Cain need a mark on his head when he was banished from Eden to wander
in the Land of Nod? After he murdered Abel, weren’t his parents, Adam and Eve,
the only other two people alive on Earth?”
Mrs. Greenleaf was eventually compelled to pull Norbert’s
mother aside during coffee hour to inform her that Norbert was becoming a disruption
and that he was wasting class time.
So religiously, Norbert was indifferent. But that
did not mean he was unaffiliated. As far as the United States government was
concerned, Norbert was a Baptist. That’s because, on the first day of boot camp
at Fort Benning, Georgia, Norbert’s large, black drill sergeant not so much
asked as demanded that Norbert scream his religion at the top of his voice.
This was so some P.F.C. in some hidden office could stamp it, along with
Norbert’s blood type and other particulars, into his dog tags just in case he
got shot or blown up or run over or otherwise dispatched in the desert by the
enemy—or one of his comrades. Friendly fire, the army called it. Fratricide.
“I DON’T GO TO CHURCH, DRILL
SERGEANT!” hollered Norbert.
Norbert’s reply only exacerbated his drill
sergeant’s already profoundly dyspeptic disposition.
He said to recruit Norbert A. Sherbert Jr.,
“CHOOSE A RELIGION NOW, SHIT STAIN!”
As an incentive to choose quickly, the drill
sergeant offered to snatch up Norbert by his tiny pecker and swing him in tight
circles above his head until Norbert made his selection. Norbert asked the
drill sergeant which Lord he worshipped, and he answered the Baptist one. Norbert
had no immediate objection, quickly resolving that crisis of faith. And so,
Norbert officially became Baptist. In sorting out that episode, Norbert
experienced what some imperiled souls later recount as a Moment of Grace. It
was an important lesson in young Norbert’s education to the advantages and
expediency of dispassionately regarding the religious beliefs of another.
Pastor Zack’s sermon, or “fellowship” as he called
it, focused on the Bible stories of God’s conversations with Moses and Noah. Actual
conversations! These chats of His invariably centered on something we humans
did to piss God off. According to Pastor Zack, God always wants to be clear
that there are severe consequences for not obeying His laws: the Ten
Commandments. God instructed these men to convince each mortal in earshot that
if they did not follow His laws, He would flood the earth, or smite them
individually (according to His caprice), or command boils to form on their
private regions, or encourage their fellow congregants to stone them to death,
et cetera.
Norbert was surprised to find himself intrigued by
Pastor Zack’s sermon. Hmm, he thought, let’s say this Bible God really does exist—after
all, a lot more people believe He does than believe He doesn’t. I’d sure
like to speak with Him, thought Norbert. I’ll wager He’d like to speak with me,
too. I would hope He thinks I’ve earned that much, given the sacrifices I’ve
made. What makes me so different from those guys in the Bible? They were nobody
special before God chose to speak to them. Moses? Noah? Just the regular
schmoes of their time.
The first thing Norbert would be sure to ask God is
why He allowed a Saudi grad student to blow apart his best friend, P.F.C.
Timothy Sullivan, with a body bomb, turning Sully’s fit, young, radiant body
into a mound of red hamburger on an unpaved road in Tikrit. When Sully was
killed, he was standing exactly where Norbert should have been. Should have
been, but was not.
But God’s conversations with the earthbound have
tapered off quite a bit in recent memory. Hmm, thought Norbert, hmm. What would
a regular guy like me have to do in today’s world to warrant God’s undivided
attention? What could I do that’s so outrageous it would perturb Him enough to
earn me a face-to-face with the man Himself? What if I didn’t just break one
commandment, thought Norbert, or a few commandments, but all Ten Commandments?
And what if I broke them all in a single week?
No, thought Norbert, no. That would be wrong. Or
would it? How about this? What if I broke each commandment in such a fashion
that it was undeniably the morally correct thing to do in each instance?
Breaking His top ten laws as a result of always choosing to do the right thing.
That might piss a guy off. That, thought Norbert, has potential.
“Brothers and sisters,” said Pastor Zack, “Please
rise so we may prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries. Let us call
to mind our sins.”
Plenty of them, thought Norbert. A long silence
fell upon the parishioners inside the defunct Orange Julius. Norbert presumed
this was an opportunity in the program for private prayer and/or personal
reflection. Suddenly, the room began to speak in one voice, “I confess to
almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through
my own fault, in my own thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in
what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels
and the saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord,
our God.”
“May almighty God have mercy on us,” said Pastor
Zack, “forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.”
“Amen,” everyone agreed.
“A-frickin’-men,” said Pastor Zack. “Let us pray.”
“What did everyone just finish doing?” whispered
Norbert to Arlene. She ignored him.
Silence again, then, the flock erupted in
a final “Amen.” After that, everybody was allowed to sit back down.
What are the Ten Commandments anyway, thought Norbert?
He searched the floor for a Bible. It occurred to him that he would not even
know on what page to look for them. Does the Bible have an index? Thou shalt
not kill, steal, commit adultery. Coveting was one. Thou shalt not covet. You
weren’t supposed to work on Sundays. The list got foggy after that. Norbert’s
mind wandered. He did not consider himself to be one of the world’s great
thinkers but he did enjoy losing himself in thick books that didn’t get made into
movies—unlike the Bible.
Norbert loved a good argument. Controversy!
Differences of opinion! Sometimes out of a clear blue sky, just to get a rise
out of Arlene, Norbert would express his thoughts on some hot-button issue. He
loved watching that half- inch between Arlene’s eyebrows disappear as she knit
a crooked unibrow of consternation. Arlene would sit up straight, scoot to the
edge of their denim couch, and load both barrels. That’s when Norbert knew he
had her.
Arlene was not a listener. She was someone who
thought of what to say next while others were speaking. This, in Norbert’s
view, is what made her a below-average debater. He believed her great weakness
was her tendency to generalize, especially when conversation turned to the
nation’s social ills—Republicans, social media, pundits and so forth. Arlene
was feisty, but Norbert felt she ignored the finer points. He would always tell
her, “If you want to win an argument, focus on the details.” When she got
rolling, she loved taking Norbert to task. She was a taskmaster. And
lucky for Norbert, she was just as progressive in the sack as she was with her
social agenda. That was, of course, back when they used to have sex.
“J.C.,” said Pastor Zack, “you said to your
apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on
the faith of your church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom
where you live for ever and ever.”
“Amen.”
“The peace of the Lord be with you always.”
“And also with you.”
“Splendiferous,” said Pastor Zack. “Let us offer
each other a sign of peace.”
Everybody started shaking hands and hugging.
Pastor Zack strummed a medley that began with The Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye,”
and transitioned seamlessly into John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.”
Norbert turned to Arlene, but she was engaged in a
hug, disappearing within the pillowy parts of a fleshy young woman wearing
ill-fitted corduroy kulats and rubber clogs. A young man in a pilled green knit
sweater, standing directly behind Norbert, extended his hand. The young man’s
facial hair was arranged in either a goatee or a Vandyke, Norbert never
bothered to learn the difference. He also sported a tiny barbell pierced in the
nook below his lower lip, just above his chin. Norbert knew from his reading
that this adornment was called a labret. He also knew that it was once reserved
for the male members of the higher castes of the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, but
was now solely the irksome aesthetic practice of hipsters.
“Hey, brother,” said the young man. “I don’t think
we’ve met.”
“That’s correct,” answered Norbert, shaking his
hand.
Norbert moved on to the next hand and gave that a
shake. He received a few puzzled smiles, but everyone seemed friendly. They
offered Norbert peace and Norbert said, “Back atcha.”
Norbert ate the Communion wafer: home-baked,
organic with a hint of olive oil. It was his first time having the pleasure. He
had only read about the procedure and seen it in the movies and on television.
Arlene did not speak while they waited in line, her face as inanimate as a bus
schedule. When they reached the front, Norbert watched what Arlene did, then
copied her when it was his turn. She drank the wine, but Norbert chose not to.
It was flu season and, throughout the Mass, dozens of hacking coughs ricocheted
off the four bare walls of the former Orange Julius. The coughs were
particularly endemic of the very old and very young in attendance.
I suppose I should be impressed by the commitment
of sick old people electing to attend church services, thought Norbert, but I
would just as soon prefer they stay home. I’m not about to share the same cup
with any of them– let alone all of them. When it comes to airborne
illness, thought Norbert, the elderly and children are like pigeons.
The drive
home from the strip mall was a chilly one. Arlene was upset about what Norbert
had placed in the collection plate.
“The only cash on me was a single and a
five,” said Norbert. “And the Ford needs gas.”
“You should have put the five in the plate. If you
need gas so badly, you can borrow money from me.”
“I don’t need gas, Arlene, the pickup does. I can
go for days without gasoline. I’m like a camel.”
Norbert asked her how much cash she had on her. She
replied that she had none. He knew that would be her answer. Arlene never had
any cash on her. She had credit cards, but those were only for things like fair
trade coffee, organic produce, and shoes. Important things. Norbert did not
belabor the point. He’d fought this battle many times and always arrived
nowhere. He also elected not to mention that he could not borrow money she did
not have. And he did not mention that it was she, not he, who had left the
Ford’s tank empty.
Norbert concentrated for a moment on rubbing something
out of his right eye. It turned out to be a dead lash. He held it out to
Arlene. “Make a wish.”
She crossed her arms. She didn’t want to play.
“C’mon,” said Norbert. “You can wish for me to put
a fiver in the collection plate next time.”
“Next time?” said Arlene, in a voice equal parts
shock and annoyance.
“Sure,” said Norbert. “Why not?”
Norbert held his finger aloft until Arlene blew the
lash off his fingertip with a reluctant puff from the corner of her mouth.
“What’d you wish for?” asked Norbert.
“You don’t want to know.”
They pulled into the service station. Norbert
pumped. He enjoyed the smell of gasoline. He kept his window rolled down so he
could talk with Arlene.
“It’s cold,” she said. “I’m rolling up your
window.”
“Leave it down,” said Norbert. “I want to look at
you.”
“The gas smell is giving me an f’n headache.”
Norbert inhaled deeply through his nostrils.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh.” He squeezed the last few pennies so the number was on the nose
and slid the handle back into the pump.
Arlene shook her head, “Five dollars of gas.
Unbelievable. You’re a child.”
“I’ve been saving my nickels for something
special,” said Norbert. He paid inside, climbed back into the Ford and pulled
away from the station. “Let me ask you a question pertaining to your new
fascination with all things holy.”
“Norbert, please. My head is pounding now from the
gas.”
“What’s your take on those stories your pal Pastor
Zack was talking about in his sermon? Do you really think there have been times
when your God has had actual face-to-face conversations with regular people, or
do you think it’s all more allegory and such?”
“My God?” said Arlene. “That’s clever, Norbert.
Very deep. What do you care, anyway? In case you haven’t noticed, which I’m
sure you haven’t, I’ve already given up on your taking an interest in anything
to do with my renewed commitment to my faith.”
“I’m just making God-versation.”
“You’re so vulgar. And just so you know, you were
not supposed to take Communion. You’re not Catholic. You’re not anything.”
“I’m Baptist.”
“I’m not talking about your stupid
army story,” said Arlene.
“National Guard.”
“Whatever. I’m talking about you being baptized.
Taking First Communion.”
“I don’t want to alarm you Arlene, but that was not
a Catholic church back there. It was an Orange Julius.”
“It may have been non-traditional, but it was
modeled after the high Mass. I found Pastor Zack’s service uplifting.”
“I could still smell remnants of Mango Passion.”
“It was a place of worship. Period.”
“Who elected you pope?” laughed Norbert. “Pope
Arlene the First.”
“Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I’m just telling you
how it works. There are rules.”
“Well, this is enlightening,” said Norbert. “Tell
me about the rules. Tell me about the Lamb of God. What did the melodious
Pastor Zack mean by that? He said I’ve sinned through my own fault and then
asked God and the angels to have mercy on me, forgive me my sins and bring me
everlasting life. Like with the water bottle. When he splashed me in the eye
with that water he said it was to forgive my sins and save me from being sick
and to protect me from evil.”
“That’s right. Absolution. To forgive you your sins
for the past week.”
“So according to the Church of the Abundant Water
and Splendid such and such, which you contend is based in Catholic doctrine,
I’m currently sin-free?”
“In the eyes of the church,” said Arlene.
Norbert stood on the brake. The Ford skidded to a
complete stop in the middle of Route 9N. Arlene locked her arms as she and
Norbert were thrown toward the dash, then backward into their seats.
“What are you doing!” screeched Arlene.
“Did you see that?”
“See what, Norbert! See what! Are you insane!”
“I damn near just hit a snowshoe bunny rabbit. It’s
that bugger’s lucky day.”
He started the truck forward again, at a crawl,
then back up to speed. Without missing a beat he said, “But what if I, say,
broke one of the Ten Commandments last week?”
“What?” said Arlene, trying to reclaim her
composure. She retrieved her purse that had slid onto the floor in front of
her, spilling its contents. “What are you saying? Which commandment?”
“It’s a hypothetical. Why? Does it make a
difference?”
“I guess not,” said Arlene, distracted. “Technically,
if you are truly sorry for the sins you committed, you’re forgiven.”
“No shit?” Norbert was silent for a long moment. He
started to speak, then thought better of it. Finally, he figured What the
hell? “What if I broke all ten?”
“You are infuriating.”
“Seriously.”
“That’s just stupid, Norbert. Why would anybody
break all Ten Commandments in a week? You would have to commit murder, adultery
. . . I can’t do this now. My head is pounding. Please don’t speak to me.”
They drove along in silence, past snow-covered
rolls of feeding hay wrapped in white plastic. Past a caved-in pole barn, a
billboard advertising an upstate Indian casino, browning Christmas trees
dragged to the road. Past a dead, frozen possum.
“You know what your problem is, Norbert?”
Arlene had woken Norbert from another daydream, having
fallen under the seductive trance of the dancing mud flaps on the truck ahead.
Norbert didn’t bother to answer. Arlene always answered her questions for him.
“You’re incapable of fun,” said Arlene.
“Fun?”
“That’s right. You’re in a funk, and you’ve been
in it for too long now. You’re depressed. You only talk and think about one
thing and I’m sick of it. I’m sorry, it’s not Christian and it’s not sensitive
to your situation, but there it is. I’ve been with you through all of it,
Norbert. Right at your side. Believe me, it hurts me to say it but I’m tired of
hearing about it. Get over it. Move on.”
A surge of adrenaline howled through Norbert’s corpuscles.
Get over it? I should slap her mouth, he thought. Move on? Instead
he smiled, leaned deeper into the seat cushion, and propped one hand atop the
steering wheel.
“Arlene, have you ever fired at screaming ragheads
with a .50-caliber machine gun from inside a Blackhawk helicopter?”
“What?”
“Have you?”
“Norbert, please.”
“Have you?”
“Of course not.” Arlene folded her arms and turned toward
the window.
“I’m just sayin’, until you’ve done that, you
don’t know what fun is.”
“You’re so vulgar. I see that now. I guess I didn’t
want to see it before.”
“Vulgar? Is that your new word? That must be you taking
your liberal arts degree out for a spin. Excuse me, Arlene. I didn’t go away to
a big college, so I talk how regular people talk. Let me clue you in on
something: not everybody gets shit handed to them. Some people are born, even
though they don’t ask to be. They go to community college, or work, even though
they don’t want to. Thoughts of such things tend to make them bitter. As a
result, they fall into the practice of sprinkling their conversations with
vulgarities because their lives are fucking miserable. And that’s if you’re
lucky. Sometimes . . . Sometimes . . . ”
Here comes the shit storm, she thought.
“Sometimes people get blown up at nineteen because
some raghead in a white Nissan truck hides a body bomb under his raghead
jacket. If the raghead is close enough, they get turned into instant
hamburger in a flash of fire. If they aren’t, they die screaming, crying for
momma. Full of sin.” Norbert cranked up the heat full blast just to occupy his
trembling hand. “Or they don’t die,” he said. “And sometimes, that’s worse.”
“All you can do is live by the Golden Rule,” said
Arlene quietly.
“Do unto others? Bullshit.”
“Obey the commandments,” she said. “And have
faith.”
“You’ve changed, Arlene. A lot.”
“I have changed, Norbert. I have worked hard to
change. Every day, I change my thinking more and more about all sorts of
things. Important things. Those books my mom gave me . . . ”
“About the Rapture?”
“I’m not going to apologize because the spirit of
Christ is alive inside me. You need to prepare your own soul, Norbert. You have
a lot of work to do. I could help you. But you shut me out at every turn.”
Norbert knocked gently on Arlene’s skull. “Hello?
Hello? Has anyone seen Arlene? Is she in there? She’s about 5’8”, dark hair,
used to give me blowjobs in the back seat of my Turismo during study halls.”
Arlene pulled away. Norbert sighed. No words were
exchanged for two miles. They passed a floral roadside memorial fixed to a
speed limit sign. Above the arrangement was a white card wrapped in clear
cellophane with black, hand-drawn letters that read: “You are with the angels
now.” Norbert grimaced. They passed several orange signs warning: Slow! Road
Work. Fines Dou- bled. But it was Sunday, and the road crew was observing the
fourth commandment.
Arlene broke the silence: “Norbert. Listen, Norbert
. . . I’ve met someone.”
Norbert slammed the brakes, pulled the Ford onto
the shoulder. “You’re banging another guy?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I said I met someone, Norbert. Someone gentle, who
honors me. He’s God-fearing and devout. He knows humility.”
“But you’re not fucking him.”
“Just let’s go home.”
“I don’t understand,” said Norbert.
“I don’t expect you to understand. Right now,
you’re incapable of understanding anything about my life. Just . . . just
accept it as God’s will. Just let’s go home.”
Norbert threw the Ford back into gear and spun the
tires. They lurched back onto Route 9N and sped along in silence for about a
mile. Inside, Norbert was devastated but remained cool-cucumber.
“You must have known this was coming,” said Arlene.
“I’ve been pulling away for months. Just listen to us this morning. We can’t
even be civil.”
“I thought this tension was on account of all your
new God stuff. I thought that as I got better, you’d eventually snap out of
it.”
“Snap out of it? Snap out of God? That doesn’t even
make sense. That’s your problem, Norbert. You only see what you want to see.”
Norbert reached up under the dash and pulled down
his cigarettes from their hiding place. This got a mild rise from Arlene, but
only mild. He didn’t make a show of it, and she responded by pretending she
didn’t care. Norbert cracked the window and lit up. The only sounds were the
Ford’s tires dipping into gouges in the asphalt and the ricochet of road salt
inside the wheel wells.
“Who is he?” asked Norbert without moving his eyes
from the road. “Where’d you meet him? How long?”
“I’m exhausted, Norbert. My head is pounding. Just
let’s go home.”
Norbert blew a white rope of smoke into the whistling
gap in his window. He looked at Arlene. This time he waited until her wet green
eyes met his. “This is all because of—”
“No,” she said coldly. “It has nothing to do with
that. Christ almighty, Norbert, how do you expect me to live with you when you
can’t even live with yourself?”
PURCHASE GOD & CALIFORNIA HERE
PURCHASE GOD & CALIFORNIA HERE