1:4
The table in the back of the restaurant was round with a bright red surface. The bench seat behind it was a curved semi-circle of hard plastic. Out in front sat two stools with high backs.
In the first stool, the one nearest the door and the big square trash can, sat John. He ate his French fries heartily, as if he hadn�t eaten in days. He dipped four and five at a time into a pile of Catsup smothered with pepper.
The next one over to his left was Cindy. She was a pretty girl with short, blonde, newly cut and newly dyed hair. She was eating a salad she�d brought from home. It contained broccoli, asparagus, a light sprinkling of bacon bits and fat free ranch dressing, on the side. She had sworn off fast food over a year ago, much to the dismay of her Quarter-Pounder with Cheese loving friends. She always kept a pre-made salad in a carefully sealed Tupperware container in her refrigerator and a clean fork wrapped in a sandwich bag in her purse, just in case.
She looked across the table at Bobby with a please don�t embarrass me in public kind of look. He was paying no attention. He was too busy zooming in the lens of his video camera. The newsman�s face on the television across the room was getting bigger in the viewfinder. He did not look down when he grabbed a handful of fries and stuffed them in his mouth.
To his left sat Sally. She watched him alertly with eyes lined with thick, black eye liner. She was used to Bobby�s video camera addiction, they all were. But no matter how long they�d put up with it, it annoyed her just the same.
Her lips smeared dark red lipstick onto the sesame seed covered bun with each bite. She stopped in mid-chew to announce to the group what a moron she thought Bobby was.
�God, you are a grade-A moron. Do you ever put that thing down?�
He lowered the camera down into his lap.
�If some psycho busted in here and started shooting the place up, you�d be thanking me tomorrow.�
�Why? So next week on Cops we can watch John and Cindy diving under the table while that guy over there gets shot?�
The elderly man at the next table glared at Sally. She was talking too loud again. She was always to loud when she spoke to Bobby.
She smiled at the old man, �No offense.�
Bobby leaned over to her, �Maybe the killer would get away with it if I didn�t get him on film. Maybe��
�Maybe you oughta chew with your mouth closed. You�re grossing me out.�
Cindy added, �Yeah, Sal�s right. Close your mouth. That�s sick, dude.�
He turned back down to his tray.
�Fuck you guys,� he said, taking another big bite.
John swallowed, �If you guys are done Bobby bashing, can we talk about something else?�
�Fine.�
�No problem.�
Bobby said sarcastically, �Yeah,� with a mouthful of half chewed fries.
Sally motioned to Cindy, �So are we going to watch a movie at my place or what?�
�Just not Star Wars again. I�m really sick of that movie,� John said under his breath.
�And what�s wrong with Star Wars?� Sally asked in an annoyed tone.
She hated when John complained about her favorite movie.
Bobby got up to dump his tray, �Well, let�s see. It was pretty cool the first billion times we watched it, but now�I don�t know. Maybe it�s getting a little old.�
Cindy added, �Yeah, we should rent something we haven�t seen.�
Sally said, �Fine.�
The weatherman on the television caught her eye. She soon forgot about the movie as she watched the small man in the oversized suit. He was practically swimming in it. She had to laugh. Nobody in the restaurant, including her friends, could figure out what she thought was so funny, nor did she tell them.
1:5
Jack walked out to the parking lot. The black Nissan was in between an old Dodge van and a Volkswagen bug that was parked too close. He squeezed through and ducked into the small car. On the passenger seat next to him lay a couple of Stacey�s books: Astrology for Lovers and Ways of the Wiccan. He paid little attention when one of them slid onto the floorboard as he made the left turn out of the lot. With a right onto highway 50, he was on his way.
All of the snow they had gotten over the previous week had melted away, leaving dead grass along the median and in the yards beyond. Just behind the row of houses that lined East Main Street, Jack could see a huge metal building. It was tall and yellow, with a white roof. It looked more like a warehouse than it did a church. From Jack�s current vantage point it looked like a building that would be much better suited at the Eastes Model Rocket Plant in Penrose. The only thing about it that looked religious at all was the big wooden cross above the large glass double doors. Of course he couldn�t see that from the highway.
Jack didn�t need to see the crucifix above the doorway to know that it was the First Assembly of God church. He had attended services there with his parents and sister as a child, only in a much smaller building. The new structure itself was less than two years old. It was enormous compared to the one he remembered.
He imagined the inside was mostly the same as his memories from childhood, except maybe the size. He�d bet it had rows and rows of pews leading up to a stage. The stage would have a stand up piano on one side and an electric organ on the other. In the center, a large podium where the preacher would frequently speak of Hell, God�s wrath and the rapture. He would, every Sunday, call for the sinners to come to the front to get prayed for and become filled with the Holy Spirit and what have you.
To a ten-year-old Jack, the idea of going up to the altar was terrifying. He felt like he should go, but never did.
He was quite sure for many years that he was a sinner, (not saved, that is) and if he were to die he�d drop down into the very hottest part of Hell�s fire. He didn�t know why he believed that. Maybe it was because he could feel the eyes on him as the Reverend called out for sinners. He just didn�t fit into the whole church thing and everyone knew it. It was like they could smell it on him, his dirty little non-Christian ways. He was the boy that questioned everything, without saying a word. It was easily seen in his face.
When everyone else was standing and praising God with his or her hands held up toward Heaven, he just watched. He looked all around the room, confused. He wondered what those people were feeling. What made them worship God? What compelled them to cry, to yell Amen? What did they have that he did not? Well, faith, he supposed.
Again he didn�t understand. He could no more comprehend faith than he could achieve it. When he asked others about faith they said things like you can feel it and you�ll just know. Of course that was his problem in the first place. He didn�t feel it, couldn�t feel it and had never felt it. He didn�t just know anything.
For a time he�d considered the idea that he�d been born without a soul. Maybe by some weird accident, he�d been skipped. The supply had not met the demand and he was left to suffer the consequences. But without a soul, there�d be no consequences, would there? He could do whatever he wanted, good or bad, and the outcome would be the same. He toyed with the idea in his mind for a while but it soon became silly to him. He wasn�t a freak of nature. There wasn�t anything special or anti-special about him. If everyone else had a soul, well then, so did he.
This brought an interesting thought into his mind. Maybe he didn�t have a spirit and neither did anyone else. Maybe it was all just some grand deception that the people were pulling over their own eyes. He wondered why they would do such a thing. Why would they want to believe a lie? He guessed they were afraid of death. It made sense. Certainly, the thought of going to Heaven would take the fear right out of being dead. It would be kinda like a reward for making it through the whole dying business.
He realized something at age fifteen. It wasn�t a faith in God that was required to be saved. It was not asking Jesus Christ to wash away his sins that would get his name into the book of life. Those things would come along by themselves if the true faith were achieved.
Jack figured that true faith was believing in the existence of God, the devil, Heaven, Hell and all the rest. A person had to know those things were real in the first place.
It was then that he knew why he had no faith. He could not believe in a religion with no proof. He refused to participate in a belief that had been given to him just because it had belonged to his parents. Jack had his own path to follow, his own questions to ponder and he was sure the answers he�d find would not be his father�s.
So one Sunday morning he told his dad that he would no longer be attending services at the First Assembly of God church. That sparked quite an exchange of words, but in the end Jack stayed home while his parents sped off to pray for their son�s immortal soul.
He watched a rerun of Gilligan�s Island while they were in Sunday school. He listened to the radio while they sang What a friend we have in Jesus. He played video games on his Atari while they listened to the preacher go on about the rapture of the church.
It had been one of the best days he could remember. He had finally liberated himself. He was a free man.
Jack turned on Fifth Street. After another block he pulled into a space in front of the bookstore. He turned off the ignition and sat for a moment.
At thirty years old he was very much the same free man he�d been at fifteen. He had no more answers than he did at that age.
He worked on Sunday�s now and his parents hadn�t asked him to attend church with them in over ten years. That�s the way he wanted to keep it.
copyright �2002 Brian Holtz
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