Godless (5 page)

“See? No problem.”

A few seconds later a squad car pulled up to the grassy apron. Gerry Kramer, one of St. Andrew Valley's oldest and grayest cops, got out of the car and walked up to us, shaking his head.

“You kids … is that Henry Stagg? I thought we talked about this, Henry,”

“Talked about what?” Henry put on his
Who me?
face.

Kramer wasn't buying it. Henry trying to act innocent is like a wolverine trying to act cuddly.

“Henry, Henry, Henry … what are we gonna do with you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Henry said, trying to hold back a grin.

Kramer stared until Henry lowered his eyes. “I don't need any more of these nuisance calls, Henry. Next time I get a kid-on-the-water-tower call, you're going downtown.”

“I wasn't
on
the water tower, officer. Did you
see
me?”

“No, I didn't, but that doesn't change the facts. You were seen. I know it was you up there.”

“So how did I get up there? You think I flew?”

Kramer shook his head, as perplexed as the rest of us. “You got up there somehow.”

“I guess I musta flew.”

“Well, you can fly home right now. I don't want to see you—” He crossed his thick arms and looked at the rest of us. “—
any
of you around here again. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” said Dan. Dan is terrified of authority figures.

We edged away, feeling Kramer's hard eyes on our backs. As soon as we were out of earshot, Henry said, “What an asshole.”

“He's just doing his job,” Dan said.

“Yeah, well he can shove it.” We reached the sidewalk and continued walking up Louisiana Avenue. It felt strange to be walking beside Henry Stagg, but the confrontation with the law somehow bound us together.

“Did he catch you up there before?” I asked.

“Just once. A couple weeks ago.”

“What were you doing up there?” Dan asked.

“I like it. You can see forever. You can see the school. I can see my house.”

“You ever go all the way to the top?” Shin asked.

“Sure, all the time.”

“What's up there?”

“All kinds of stuff.”

“Like what?”

“You should check it out, Schinner.”

“You're not supposed to.”

“Well then, you'll never know, will you?”

Shin shook his head and drew his mouth into a knot.

“So how
did
you get up?” I asked.

“Like I said, I flew.”

Father Haynes ends his tedious sermon and launches into the Nicene Creed. I know all the parts of the mass. I used to be an altar boy, one of those kids sweating uncomfortably in their black-and-white polyester robes. That was back before I realized that it was mostly made up.

Henry never told us how he got up to that bottom step, and it's been bugging me. All I can figure out is that
he brought a ladder, or somehow swung a rope up. But where did the rope or ladder go? Maybe it's some sort of religious miracle—but I don't believe in miracles.

Take, for instance, the miracle that Father Haynes is about to perform.

The so-called miracle of Holy Communion is my least favorite part of the mass. It's the part where everybody gets up and stands in line to eat a communion wafer—what they call the host. Have you ever eaten a host?

I once read a short story about some cannibals who didn't turn their victims into steaks and chops and roasts; they made them all into sausages. Because when you're eating a sausage you don't think so much about what you're eating. It's the same with communion wafers.

Hosts are little white disks that do not resemble any kind of real food. The closest thing I can think of would be a flattened, sugarless marshmallow. They have almost no taste, just a faint sourness, and they require no chewing. I think they're made out of some kind of digestible paper.

My point is, the miracle of Holy Communion is when the priest turns these little white disks into the flesh of Jesus Christ. They call it transsubstantiation. So, if you buy that, then the host the priest places on your tongue is actually a sliver of Jesus meat. But they make the host as different from meat as they can, so that even though communion is a form of cannibalism, nobody gets grossed out. Like with the sausages.

Anyway, the reason I hate communion isn't the meat-eating component. I get hungry enough, I'll eat anything. The reason I hate it is because everybody in the church except me, Jason Bock, stands up and gets in line for their little snack. I sit there alone in the pew while everybody stares at me as they file past. I sit there and burn under the hellfire and damnation stare my father gives me. And I feel awful. But what choice do I have? According to Father Haynes, if a nonbeliever takes Holy Communion, he'll be damned for all eternity. Of course, being a nonbeliever damns me anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I figure it's safer not to partake. Just in case I'm wrong about the whole God thing.

So I sit and endure the stares and the pangs and twinges of Catholic guilt, knowing that I am doing the right thing if I'm right, and the right thing even if I'm wrong.

Being Catholic is hard. Being ex-Catholic is even harder.

B
UT A TIME CAME WHEN EVEN THE PLENITUDE OF LIFE FAILED TO SATISFY, AND SO THE
O
CEAN INSTILLED
I
NTELLIGENCE AND
F
REE
W
ILL IN CERTAIN OF ITS CREATURES, AND IT CALLED THEM
H
UMANS, AND IT WATCHED AS THE FIRST CRUDE TOOLS WERE FASHIONED BY
H
UMAN HANDS, AND IT WATCHED THE FIRST WARS BEING FOUGHT, AND IT WATCHED AS THESE LARGE-HEADED APES BEGAN TO RESHAPE THE LANDS AND THE WATERS IN NEW WAYS
.

7
 

In the CTG, Tuesday is the Sabbath.
Why, you ask? Because nothing else ever happens on a Tuesday. Shin, Dan, and I honor the Sabbath at Wigglesworth's, where we all order Magnum Brainblasters. Never had a Brainblaster? You should try one. It's a Wigglesworth specialty.

A Magnum Brainblaster is about a foot tall, green, foamy, and numbingly cold. For maximum impact, you drink it through a straw. Wigglesworth keeps his ingredients secret, but a Brainblaster certainly contains massive amounts of sugar, enough caffeine to wake up a corpse, and I think he throws in a chunk of dry ice just before serving. Think of it as Mountain Dew on steroids.

So we're sitting in the window table at Wigglesworth's Juiceteria, charging up on Brainblasters, and Shin, First Keeper of the Sacred Text, is showing us the Secret Dimensions he has calculated using Trigonometry, Guesswork, and other Holy Mathematical Techniques.

Overall height: 207 feet

Distance from ground to bottom of tank: 154 feet

Circumference of central column: 22 feet, 3 inches

Diameter of tank: 67 feet

Volume of tank: 1 million gallons

Weight of water: 8 million pounds

Distance between legs: 24 feet

… and so on. After Shin completes his presentation we stand up and bow in the direction of the Ten-legged God. Magda Price, who works for Wigglesworth part time, wanders over. She is wearing the official Wigglesworth Juiceteria uniform: a tight pink T-shirt with
Juicy!
printed across the front in lime-green script. On her it looks good.

“What are you guys doing?” she asks. Magda can't stand to be left out of anything.

“Honoring the Sabbath,” I tell her.

“It's Tuesday.”

“We are aware of that.”

Magda wrinkles her forehead. For some reason it makes her look extra sexy. Not that she needs it. “The Sabbath is Sunday,” she says.

“Not if you're Jewish.”

“You're not Jewish. Besides, if you're Jewish the Sabbath is Saturday, and today is Tuesday.”

“We are aware of that.”

“Then you
know
it's not the Sabbath,” she says, as if she's proved her point.

“We are Chutengodians,” I say, making up the name on the spot. “Chutengodians celebrate the Sabbath on Tuesday.”

“Chattenoogians?”

“Chutengodians. It's a religion.”

“Oh. Is that what you were talking about the other day? At TPO? The ten leggy thing?”

“Ten
legged
,” I say.

“It sounds like something you just made up.”

“Blasphemy!”

“So what kind of religion is it?”

“The one true faith.”

“Is it, like, a cult?”

“Not exactly.”

Have you noticed that Magda and I are doing all the talking? Dan just stares at her like a lovesick dolphin, while Shin is paralyzed, in a world of his own. Dan is afraid to open his mouth because he knows he'll say something stupid, and Shin—well, Shin is so terrified of girls he's probably just hoping he won't crap in his pants. That's why what happens next is so bizarre.

“What do you worship?” Magda asks.

“The Ten-legged One,” says Shin in a voice deeper than I've ever heard from him.

We all look at him, startled. He is staring at Magda with the sort of intensity he usually reserves for gastropods.

Magda says, “Is it some sort of giant spider?”

“Do not mock that which you do not understand,” says Shin, still with the deep voice.

Dan catches my eye; I shrug. I quit trying to explain Shin years ago.

“I'm not mocking,” says Magda.

“Well for you then that you are not,” Shin intones. “For he is a jealous and vindictive god.”

“Oh.” Magda is giving Shin a cautious look. We all are. “What does he look like?”

“He is a god of many legs.”

“Ten?”

“Precisely. He is a Great and Powerful God.”

“How come I've never seen him?”

“But you have,” says Shin.

I am wondering, who
is
this guy? He must be channeling a character from some video game. Probably seeing Magda Price as a collection of pixels. We all have our coping strategies.

Shin says, “You see him every day. In fact, you may look upon his holy visage now, if you dare.” He points out the window at the silver dome of the tower rising above the buildings and trees.

Magda dares to look.

Shin says, “He is silver, he is proud, he glitters in the sun …”

“Omigod, are you talking about the
water tower
?”

“The Ten-legged One,” Shin says, correcting her.

“You guys are worshipping a
water tower
?”

I decide to step in. “Think about it, Magda. What is the source of all life on Earth? Water. And where does water—”

I am just getting started when Magda interrupts me. “Can I join?”

“I thought you were a good little Catholic girl.”

“Can't I be Catholic and Chutengodian at the same time?”

Like I said, Magda can't stand to be left out of anything.

Shin looks doubtful. “I'm not sure that females are permitted.”

I frown and stroke my chin for effect. “I see no reason why the CTG should not admit one such creature. However, she is a rather small specimen.” I look at Dan. “What do you think, First Acolyte Exaltus?”

Dan says, “We wouldn't want to be accused of sexual discrimination.”

“True,” I say. “Also, we may require breeding stock.”

Magda's eyes grow wide. She grabs my Brainblaster and dumps it in my lap. I jump up with a howl, brushing crushed ice from my sodden crotch.

“Are you crazy?” I yell.

Dan is doubled over, laughing hysterically. I am dripping green juice all over the floor. Magda is standing with her arms crossed, her pretty lips tightened into a defiant smirk.

“The wench has spirit,” says Shin.

T
HE
O
CEAN WATCHED WITH BOTH PRIDE AND TREPIDATION AS THE
H
UMANS DAMMED STREAMS AND RIVERS, DUG CANALS, BUILT ARTIFICIAL LAKES, AND POURED CHEMICALS INTO THE CLOUDS TO FORCE THEM TO RAIN
. T
HE
O
CEAN WATCHED AS MOUNTAINS WERE LEVELED, AND SHAFTS WERE SUNK DEEP INTO THE
E
ARTH, AND THE LIQUEFIED REMAINS OF ANCIENT FLORA AND FAUNA WERE SUCKED FROM DEEP IN THE CRUST AND MADE TO POWER GREAT MACHINES
.

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