Appalachian Galapagos (10 page)

"Leave him alone, Lukas," Jimmy said. "Stop it."

Lukas shrugged Jimmy's hand away.

"No. I want to hear what the asshole has to say. I want to know why the asshole thinks he's so much better than us. See? Frank here doesn't even go to church. And then he has the balls to make fun of us for
goin
'."

Lukas placed his hand over Frank's face, two fingers pressing beneath each eye, thumb and pinky gripping the face. Frank tried to dislodge the painful grip, but the more he tried, the tighter Lukas made it. He just wasn't as strong as his
friend
.

"Hell yes we party," Lukas said. "We live life. We don't just watch it go by. And Hell yes, on Sunday we try and make up for our sins. Is there
somethin
' wrong with that? We're all human, and make mistakes. And built into the whole religion thing that you like to make fun of is this small, nice, wonderful thing that we call redemption. We apologize to God for bein' human. We apologize to God for
makin
' mistakes. And then, after all of the apologies, we reaffirm our faith. Our faith in God."

Frank rolled left then right and dislodged Lukas' prying hand. He drew up his left knee and struck Lukas in the small of his back, sending him somersaulting against the wall. In a second, Frank was up and in a crouch, hands at the ready.

"Fine. You made your point, Lukas. Now leave me the fuck alone." Frank straightened and massaged his face. "I shouldn't have said what I did." He shook his head. "I am just so fucking angry, I wasn't watching what I was saying. We're going through a lot of shit here, Lukas. I'm not thinking straight."

"Wasn't
watchin
'—"

"All right. Sometimes I feel that way. I admit that. But sometimes, I think the other. Do me a favor, if we are ever captured by a group of crazy 1960's rejects whose idea of God is to worship the first Bigfoot that comes along, you have my permission to beat the fuck out of me. Deal?"

"Deal," Lukas said, the anger dying from his eyes.

"So what would Darwin say about the shit we're in?" asked Jimmy.

"Other than laughing his ass off?"

"Yeah, other than that," Lukas said, anger still threatening.

"Hell, I don't know. I am not the be-all end-all of Darwin."

Frank stalked over to the tray of bread and meat that had been provided. He made himself a quick sandwich and stuffed his mouth while he thought. "There is this," he said. "I don't know if Darwin believed in God or not, but most people who believe what he says do. Me included. I generally think of God as nature, you know? And there are a few conclusions I have come up with.

"One: Nature has no politics. It doesn't care if you are Republican or Democrat or Christian or Muslim or whatever. If you're not careful, it can kill you just the same.

"Two: Nature owes no apology. The rules were laid out long ago. It's a no brainer that a hungry bear will attack a hiker. It is the hiker that makes the mistake and God...nature will not apologize, because it is purely the nature of a bear to eat misguided hikers. Am I right?"

Both Lukas and Jimmy nodded.

"Here is where survival of the fittest comes in," Frank continued. "Forget the interspecies problem, let's pretend that us three and the people upstairs are different animals."

"I can do that too fuckin' easy," Lukas said, smiling.

"Me too," Jimmy said.

Frank grinned. He recognized the apology in his friend's smiles. Until this moment, he didn't know how much he needed it. He continued.

"Okay then. Survival of the fittest is a concept that cares nothing for good or evil. God or nature doesn't choose sides. It allows them to work it out."

"Like when you said God didn't care," Lukas said.

"He lets us do it for ourselves. Right?" asked Jimmy.

Frank stared into the infernal well for a few moments. It was too funny. Between him and his friends, they had solved an equation that had placed philosophers in fits for decades.

"Yes. I think you hit it on the head. God or nature, or whatever you want to call it allows us to do it for ourselves. He gave us the rules. He provided us a guidebook. I suppose it's up to us to follow it." Frank paused, and ran his hand through his thinning hair. "You know, even those who don't believe in God believe in much of what it says in the Bible."

"Maybe he made it that way on purpose," Lukas said.

"Maybe he did."

"So what should I be more worried about?" asked Jimmy. "Whether or not those guys believe in God, or whether or not they understand Darwin?

Frank reminded himself that the former says
Thou
Shalt
Not Kill
, and the latter says
Kill if You Can
.

"Darwin. Definitely be afraid of Darwin."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

Lukas stared toward the ceiling, standing straight, mouth firm. "God was with us until I fucked this up. I dug this grave, I should be the one to lay in it."

Frank frowned. "What do you mean God was with us?"

Lukas turned to face his friend. "We made it down that river. All three of us made it down." He smiled. "The alcohol has worn off now and I think I got some of my sense back. What we did was stupid. We wrecked that boat in the middle of those rapids, and could have been killed. Yet none of us got hurt."

"That's just luck, Lukas," Jimmy said.

"You don't really believe that, Jimmy. Remember when Frank didn't want to carry the Bigfoot? I convinced you that God's hand was involved then and you sided with me."

"I don't know. Maybe I bought it a little...It made sense, but it wasn't like I was totally convinced and ready to chant Jesus' either."

"Just follow me on this. We took a dangerous journey, one that should have gotten us killed. Then, I go off on this rant about God's hand. That's not even like me to talk like that, man."

Jimmy grinned. "I agree that it's not like you, man. A typical Lukas conversation usually involves beer or women or WWF or all three. Certainly not God."

Lukas shot Jimmy a heated stare. "This ain't no time for
jokin
', Jimmy. Those dudes upstairs can be down here any minute. You know me well. I've always believed in God. Anyway, I went on that rant about God's hand. I think I was
makin
' sense, and I was onto
somethin
'. You don't think it's just a little bit fucked up that I talk about God's hand, and then ten minutes later we find out the beast I killed is the newly resurrected Jesus Christ to those people up there? We're
talkin
' about God's hand and then we find a group of religious fanatics. That's a pretty fucked up thing, don't you think?"

"You don't really believe that do you, Lukas?" asked Frank. "You don't really believe that the beast you killed is anything holy?"

"I'm not sure, Frank.
Dammit
, but how do we know?"

"Lukas, you sound like a madman. All this shit about God's hand is one thing. I can buy that. He's about all that's going to save us now. But now you are going to say that those lunatics up there are right?"

Lukas shook his head.

"I ain't sayin' that at all, Frank. I'm pretty sure it's probably just some kind of weird ape that is supposed to have died off with the dinosaurs. It's just the Bigfoot to me. But the truth is, we don't know what the hell I killed. I do know that I shouldn't have killed it. Beer makes me mean and stupid. You're a smart dude. Coincidences are one thing, but there are so many little things that seem to add up into a pattern. Earlier this afternoon we were stupid and drunk. Now we're
sittin
' in a church basement waiting to die. We're
missin
'
somethin
', here. We need to make it right."

"What we're missing is a way to survive."

Lukas shook his head. "I think what we're
missin
' is faith. I think what we need to do is pray. I think we need to ask for forgiveness 'cause I'm not ready to die."

Frank sighed. "You want us to pray, Lukas?"

"I don't see how it can hurt us, Frank," Jimmy added.

Lukas held out his hand. "I'm serious. We need to ask for forgiveness. If we have some faith, we just might get ourselves out of this mess."

Frank took Lukas' hand. "So you're going to ask God for a miracle?"

"At the moment, do you have a better idea?" asked Lukas, holding his other hand out to Jimmy.

The men formed a circle, looking down for a moment in silence. Ten seconds went by.

"I don't know what to say," Lukas said finally.

"You can start by apologizing for killing that ape," Frank said, still looking down.

"The
Livin
' Earth," Jimmy corrected.

Lukas snorted. "Jimmy, be serious for one minute. This might be the last time any of us gets to do much of
anythin
' '
cept
take a long sleep in some backwoods graveyard." He looked up at his friend. "Would you rather go out with a joke, or with a prayer?"

"Can't I do both?" asked Jimmy.

Both Frank and Lukas groaned simultaneously. "I don't think God's listening anymore after that remark," Frank said, head still down. "We are totally and completely, utterly fucking dead."

"He always listens, Frank," Lukas said.

"I sure hope so," Frank said. "Would you do it already?"

"I'm
tryin
'," Lukas said, his voice a whisper. "I don't know what to say."

"God, we're sorry for all the trouble we've caused," Jimmy blurted out. "We're sorry for
killin
' that animal. We're sorry for
drinkin
' too much Budweiser and
smokin
' too much weed, even though you did create the stuff and had to have had an idea that it was bad for us so it really isn't our fault if we did smoke and drink...but just the same, we are sorry. Please, you gotta save us, man."

There was silence, then all three of the men exploded into laughter. They held each other's hands, their bodies shaking with their own mirth.

"That's gonna have to do, I suppose. Even if that's the sorriest prayer I ever did hear. Only way we're going to make it now is if God has one hell of a sense of humor. 'Please you gotta save us, man?' Too fucking funny."

"All that matters was that we meant it, I guess," Lukas said. "Did you mean what you said, Jimmy?"

"Hell yeah, I meant what I said. I just got tired of
waitin
'."

"I have to admit, things are strange," said Frank. "All this stuff about Darwin and God and then when you look at our situation, I guess you really can—"

"—see God's hand?" Lukas interrupted.

"I guess so," Frank said.

The sound of the door opening above interrupted them.

Martha Stewart...Punishment and Redemption...The Invention of Pain...
Shaolin
Master...Conan Who...Oliver Twisted
Sado
-Masochism

They were cordially invited upstairs and into the church by six sturdy mountain men whose idea of Martha Stewart etiquette was to kick only when the three moved too slowly.

Frank, Jimmy, and Lukas gazed at each and every corner of the large room, escape foremost in their minds.