By M.C. Schmidt
I’m in a cave on an island in the middle of the sea. It’s humid and dark, comfortable. There’s a soft bed of woven grass for me to sleep on, and a little fire pit for cooking. It provides me with warmth in the cold season. There must be an opening in the ceiling to let out the carbon monoxide, or else I would asphyxiate. Shit, no, then rain would extinguish my fire…
I’m in a cave on an island in the middle of the sea. It’s always temperate here, no cold season, no rain. I survive on plentiful fruits and leafy greens. A raw food diet has done wonders for my skin.
There are wolves outside the cavemouth, but I’ve fashioned a door of sticks and palm fronds to keep them at bay. Still, they come. They’re ramming the door, tunneling under. I see the paws first, then the glint of their eyes. I could escape through the ceiling hole, but, no, that’s right, it’s gone. Damn.
Why are wolves always a part of it? Must it always end with being eaten?
“Pastor Morris?”
“Yes, Kayla. I’m listening.” I make my face serious, an expression that suggests I’m present and engaged. “Please go on.”
She seems skeptical. It’s her eyes. Her eyes are skeptical. “It’s just…I mean, should I tell my mom?”
Kayla, it seems, has gotten herself into a situation. She isn’t pregnant. She’s too good a girl for that. But she and her boyfriend, Travis (a scrawny, pale-eyed wiener who’s also in my congregation), recently engaged one another in some heavy, over-the-clothes petting, and it’s tearing her up inside.
I tent my fingers and purse my lips, as I consider the right course. After a beat, I say, “Let me ask you this, Kayla—have you ever seen a dead body?”
It’s a curveball, and her face registers confusion. She answers, though, like the dutiful girl she is. “At my grandma’s funeral.” Gloria. A serious, devout woman who died a few years back. A real-deal true believer who tithed annually and still threw in a few dollars on Sunday. A good parishioner, for sure, but I wouldn’t have wanted her for a grandmother.
“No, not a funeral body; that’s not what I meant.” She looks scolded. I smile to reassure her, but, possibly, it comes off as ghoulish. “See, that wasn’t really Gloria in the coffin,” I explain. “That was an art piece made from makeup and staples and costuming and glue. I’m talking about a body in the wild—what Gloria looked like when they found her on her bathroom floor, for example. Before the morgue prettied her up.” Kayla’s eyes well, but I persist. “Did you know most people die with their eyes open? Seriously. And after a few minutes—a very few, actually—their eyeballs dry out.” She makes a face. “Freaky, right? It’s not like in movies when the actors’ eyes are still glossy. In real life, dead bodies have dry eyes.” I wipe my hand in front of my face, inviting her to imagine me in such a state if she wishes.
“I don’t… What does that have to do…”
I hold up a finger to shush her and then open my phone camera, angling the phone between us so she can see herself. “I want you to look at your own eyes,” I say. “See how they sparkle? They do, right?”
Her lip trembles pitifully, and I realize she can’t answer.
“Okay, I see that this isn’t coming off the way I intended. My point is that you made a mistake the other night, but so what? You’re still here. So is Travis. So will your mom be, whether you confess this to her or not. Do you see what I’m getting at? How things could be so much worse? I think maybe you can be grateful for that. And, while you’re at it, you might consider giving yourself a break for a change.”
Kayla nods but then quickly dissolves into sloppy, wracked tears.
“What’s going on in that head?”
“I just,” she says, and she says it over and over, unable to catch her breath.
“You just what?”
“I just…can’t stop picturing grandma alone on her bathroom floor, staring out into nothing with her dead eyes. And now she has a granddaughter who’s a Jezebel. A Jezebel that’s not even grateful to be alive.”
It should be noted that this is normally the time I eat my lunch. It’s in a plastic bag, calling to me from the corner of my desk. I ignore it, grabbing a bible and rising to my feet. I tell her to bow her head, and then I stretch across the desk and place it firmly against the part in her hair. “Kayla Baker,” I say in my most authoritative voice, “in my power as your pastor at the Fort Rock Lutheran Church, I hereby absolve you of the sin of wanton consensual groping. Included, too, in this absolution is Travis Gregg. Let your hearts be light and your consciences be clean. You are both forgiven, my child.”
Static electricity raises individual strands of her hair when I withdraw the bible. She looks up at me, her eyes a little brighter. “Really?”
Still in character, I give her a benevolent nod. “Yes, on one condition.”
She swallows before she speaks, like a girl whose primary life experience has come vicariously through melodramatic Christian television programming. “What’s the condition?”
“I need you to do one good deed by the time I see you again this Sunday. Travis too. One good deed each. Do you understand?” I’m making all of this up as I go, but I know that a girl like Kayla needs to earn her peace of mind.
“Oh yes! I will! And I’ll let Travis know too!” She nods enthusiastically and rises out of her chair. “Should I meet with you again on Sunday after service to tell you what the deeds were? Like, to get your approval?”
I don’t care to sit through another round of this madness, so I tell her, “No, dear, I trust you. The Lord will know when you’ve paid your debt, and you will too.”
“Thank you so much, Pastor Morris.” Her eyes are still puffy, but she’s all smiles as she hurries to my office door. “Peace be with you,” she says, a phrase from Lutheran sermons that causes me to cringe a little, hearing it used outside that context.
“And also, with you, Kayla.”
As soon as she leaves, I let out a breath and lock my office door.
***
After lunch, I spend time on this week’s sermon, but the Kayla thing continues to bug me. Had the rapture occurred while we were chatting, she would have vanished from my sight, leaving in her wake a chair draped in her clean, modest outfit. Empty socks as long as my arms. Any rational person would recognize that she demonstrated admirable restraint. So, why do I feel like I committed a dereliction of duty by easing her mind? The uncomfortable answer is that guilt is kind of the Church’s whole deal. Kayla and Travis should feel proud of the control they showed over their manic teenage biology. But pride, of course, is a sin, as are those urges.
I close the laptop without saving my sermon, then I push back my chair and go on my knees to pray for perspective. Without it, those two geeky teens could be the final straws that lead me to resign my pastorship and upend my life. Once I’ve made these stakes clear to the Big Man, I lock up the church and go for walk, awaiting His answer.
It’s Wednesday, so I’m out of my collar and tunic. Fort Rock isn’t the kind of place where everyone knows your name, but, when I step onto the sidewalk, I still feel conspicuous, even in my regular clothes. As a transplant here, I’ve never gotten comfortable with the town’s insistent folksiness. Fort Rockers, in my experience, don’t recognize the poverty and addiction that surround them, or the persistent steel mill soot that coats their cars and windows and lungs. They seem, instead, to project themselves into characters from those modern country songs, the ones that praise the wholesomeness of small towns while suggesting that any other way of life is a product of a world gone mad.
I follow the sidewalk around the front of the church, side-stepping a used condom and an empty pint can of Natural Light and I think, not for the first time, that it’s impossible for a community to solve problems that it refuses to see.
For a moment, I stand in the open air and take a breath. In one direction, the sidewalk terminates at the community college. The other way leads to Fort Rock’s main fast-food strip. I head toward the college.
As I walk, vehicles fly by on the main road. On the sidewalk, a down-and-outer unexpectedly passes me from behind, spinning a plastic bag from the Sonoco. He doesn’t acknowledge me, but I stop to put distance between us, watching him. Is the bow in his legs the result of some unpreventable childhood illness or accident? Probably not. More likely drugs played some role. He makes me sad, like everything here. I brush away thoughts about him that are unkind, un-Christian. If I had my Bible, perhaps I could rush to him, lay hands on him, perform a miracle right here on the street to proves God’s power—heal his legs, raise his height by three inches, end his need for the canned malt liquor in his plastic bag. But I can’t, can I? No one anywhere would expect that I could, not even the most faithful. That should be concerning, right? To people who claim to believe? I avert my eyes, studying a flat and broken sparrow on the sidewalk. When he’s far enough ahead of me, I continue on my way.
If I quit the Church, what would I even do? I have a bachelor’s degree, technically. It’s from a bible college, but surely that’s as good as any of those online degrees that are on offer these days. It would be good enough to get me a job in an office, maybe, where I could strive to become the kind of person who looks forward to Jeans Fridays and getting a frozen turkey from the boss every Christmas. It’s a depressing exercise, thinking through the limited options available to me. Maybe I could go back to school, take out loans and get a degree in a field that really means something. Hell, while I’m dreaming, why not go for broke and become a doctor or an astronaut, or maybe an NBA superstar?
A pickup truck honks as it passes me. It gets me out of my head, but I still only see the blur of it before it’s gone. I don’t look back to find out who it was, because I see now that someone is on the sidewalk, headed toward me. It’s dismaying, the thought of passing them, acknowledging them, the exchange of forced pleasantries. Would it be ungodly of me to keep my eyes low, pretending I don’t see him? I could turn and walk the other way, but that would mean dodging a constant stream of cars headed in and out of every fast-food drive thru.
He’s closer when I next look up—a young man, inexplicably dressed in an Army uniform. I find it difficult to look away. Drivers, too, are slowing to get a better look at the spectacle of his uniform, the unexpected color his presence brings to this familiar street. I assume he must be a student at the college, dressed to make some ironic political point. There have been bombings lately in the Middle East, an escalating conflict, but no involvement by American troops, so I doubt that he’s an enlisted kid who’s parading around this way before being shipped off to fight.
Repeatedly, as I watch him, he defies the perimeter of the concrete, pulling sod and grass down onto it with the clutch of his boots. He almost appears to be lost, his eyes darting here and there as if this main road has trespassed onto his planned route. When his gaze finally settles on me, I feel the vivid awareness of being a part of that strangeness, here among the houses and businesses and manicured lawns and anemic flowerbeds and stenciled spray-painted curb numbers of Fort Rock.
When we’re within speaking distance, the soldier stops and says, “Hey, Pastor. You got a prayer for me?”
I fall back on my heels, studying his features, his bulging, wild eyes. I expect to place him as a member of my congregation, but he’s unfamiliar to me. “Do I know you?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“Are you a student at the college?”
“Not big on college, man. You know a college with a uniform like this?”
“Okay, but…I’m sorry, how do you know me?”
“I got eyes is all. You got a prayer for me, though, before Bush sends me out to win his war?”
I hold my eyes on him, waiting for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, I say, “Bush? You mean W.? George W. Bush?”
“The commander in chief.”
There’s no sign that he’s joking, which means he’s either crazy or a ghost. In my current state of mind, either seems possible. Probably, I should walk away. Instead, I quiz him. “What year is it?”
“The year of our Lord.”
“Where are you shipping out to?”
“Wherever Uncle Sam’s got dudes that need shot at.”
“When? When do you leave?”
“Whenever the big man says ‘jump.’”
“Are you screwing with me right now?”
“I’m just looking for a prayer, bro.”
I decide that, yes, he’s screwing with me, so I ask him why he’s doing this.
He misunderstands, thinking I’m asking about his military service. “I don’t know. You folks need someone to do it, right? So, I figured I may as well get it done for ya’ll. I mean, what else have I got going on anyways?”
This answer is less oblique than the others he’s given me, and, in the moment, at least, it strikes me as profound, like this boy might be an honest-to-God answer to my prayers, sent to this filthy sidewalk to give me guidance. It helps that his eyes, which are still shifty, have gone wet, as if he too has been moved by recounting his own sacrifice.
“Fair enough,” I say and bow my head. “Let’s have that prayer then.” Ordinarily, I would place my hand on the shoulder of a person I was praying with, but I don’t attempt to touch the soldier. If he’s mentally ill, then being touched might make him skittish and cause him to punch or stab me, or to run into traffic. And if he’s a ghost…well, then I would be touching a ghost, which is something I decidedly don’t want to do.
He lowers his head, and I say a few words. We must be a sight for the passing traffic, two grown men praying on a public sidewalk—or, if he’s truly spectral, one lunatic preacher standing alone in the open air, praying to himself. When I’m through, he lifts his head slightly and nods in my direction, and then he moves past me down the sidewalk without another word.
I keep my head low in his wake, my eyes flitting back and forth for the seconds it takes me to think through everything that has just happened. Out loud, I mutter, “Was that your sign, Lord? Did I save him?” I imagine the boy as an unsaved soul, as a ghost killed in man’s war when he was too young and brash and seemingly bulletproof to be in a state to enter God’s kingdom, fated to roam the streets of his hometown, seeking salvation. I imagine myself as the tool through which his savior finally attended to him. The thought of it takes my breath.
I’m still staring into the grass beside me, debating if I want to turn to confirm if he’s still behind me or if he has evaporated into the ether when a sedan pulls to the side of the road beside me.
“Hi there, Pastor Morris,” a voice calls, “getting your steps in?” I look up, wipe my eyes. It’s Kayla’s mom, I see. She’s alone in the car with a backseat packed with groceries.
“Yes,” I say, then clear the frog out of my throat. “Just getting some air. How are you, Judy?”
“Busy, busy.” She smiles.
I take a few steps off the sidewalk and lean into the window, angling my body away from the soldier.
“Are you okay, Pastor? Are you feeling ill?”
“I’m just fine,” I say. “Hey, Judy, that young man I was just talking to…don’t ask why, but do you still see him behind me?”
She narrows her eyes and does a cursory glance through her windshield before returning her attention to me, looking hopeful that she’s stumbled upon something deliciously gossip-worthy. “Antony? Sure, he’s still there. Why? Did he try something? Do you need me to call the police?”
“Oh, no. Its’s nothing like that.”
“He’s had run-ins with the law before, you know. He’s just a couple of years older than my Kayla, and when he was still in school, she told me the worst stories about him. Makes me thank the Lord that I have such a good child, myself. I pity his mother. The boy’s just not quite right upstairs, the poor thing. And to walk around wearing his dead brother’s uniform…”
She continues, but I’m focused on the crash, the deflation. When the time comes for me to speak, I say, “Yes, he sounds like a troubled young man, doesn’t he?”
“Did he try to mug you or something? I can call the authorities.” I find it off-putting, the hope in her voice.
“Not at all,” I say. “We were just having a chat.”
“Well, okay, then.” Her voice sounds skeptical, like she’s unsure what to make of a holy man consorting with bad rubbish. “I guess I should get going. Do you want a ride back to the church? I’m headed that way.”
“No,” I say, “thank you just the same, but I have a little more walking to do. Tell the family I said hello.”
She assures me she will. I wait in the grass until she’s able to pull back into traffic, and then I return to the sidewalk, continuing down the same path, moving farther from the church, a rote prayer behind my lips. I look from left to right. To my right, cars pass. Ahead of me, the sidewalk is clear. In the distance, from somewhere not so far behind me, I hear a howl, prolonged and distinct. I don’t turn to look. I only swallow and walk faster.
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