Intervention: God's Other Children

by Rob Mclean

  He pulled up outside Angela’s house. The traffic had been better than earlier in the week. The roadblocks and checkpoints that had sprung up downtown after the rioting last Friday night had gone. The National Guard still patrolled, but the alien’s announcement that it wanted to help humanity, albeit with a condition, had calmed things down considerably.

  Now the biggest trouble came from religious fanatics, Jesus freaks and mad Mullahs, protesting the alien’s presence. Did they really think the alien would just go away if they asked it nicely? They were clearly having trouble adjusting to their new place in a bigger universe.

  Speaking of Jesus freaks, John saw the curtain in the front piano room of Angela’s house move. No doubt, it was her mother, Clarice, on sentry duty again.

  John mentally put on his ‘nice to the public’ face, grabbed the flowers he had bought at a convenience store on the way and headed towards the front door. Before he had taken a couple of steps, he stopped. He remembered the portable drill and wood screws that he had brought to fix the front porch step. He put the flowers in the boot, exchanging them for the tools.

  Clarice opened the door to the sound of the power drill. She watched as he fastened the wooden steps flat. Angela appeared and watched over her shoulder.

  “That’s all very good,” said Clarice when he had finished, “but everyone who knows us uses the back door.”

  “Well, now they don’t have to,” he replied, keeping his voice light. “Now they can use the front door without breaking their necks.”

  Clarice glowered. Angela smiled behind her back.

  “There’s no shortage of jobs to do around here,” Clarice said turning to go inside, “but you don’t get to Heaven through good works alone.”

  “Another happy customer,” John said quietly to Angela. He stepped over to her and took her by the hand. He led her down the steps. At the bottom, he gathered her up into his arms.

  “So what do you think?” he asked.

  “Very nice, I have to confess,” she said.

  “Yeah, but what about the steps?” he grinned.

  “A comedian as well as a handyman?” she smiled, her blue eyes twinkling full of playfulness.

  “Hang on,” he said picking up the drill and leftover screws, “I have something for you.” He hurried over to his car and retrieved the flowers.

  Angela received them with a smile. “That’s sweet,” she said. “I can’t remember when I last got flowers. That’s so old school.”

  “You’re kidding me? Zeke didn’t give you flowers?” John asked. “I’m not much of a romantic, but I think they’re pretty much a basic prerequisite when you date a pretty girl.” John watched her and saw that she didn’t react to the compliment. She had probably heard that sort of thing a million times.

  “Flowers? No, not that I can recall,” she said with a wistful smile. “He just wasn’t into that sort of thing.”

  “Well, prepare to be spoiled rotten,” John said. Angela rolled her eyes but looked happy about the prospect.

  “I’ll just put these inside,” she said taking the flowers to the house. John waited.

  The sun was still more than an hour or so away from setting. It had been a hot summer’s day, but relief was still a while away. He wondered if they got a gully breeze through here in the evenings. Some of the neighbours were busy watering by hand. Others had the sprinklers set on their front lawns. He could see one with a group of kids running in and out, squealing and giggling.

  In the driveway of another house, an older group of kids were playing basketball. The heat slowed their movements, but it seemed that they and the rest of the street were content to carry on the same way as they had always done. It mattered not to them that an alien spaceship had arrived. As long as it did not directly affect them, they were happy to keep on doing the same things as they did before. Such was the human psyche.

  Angela returned with a wry smile on her face. She sauntered to John’s car, looking furtively sideways and back over her shoulder. She seemed to John as though she was either embarrassed or maybe feeling guilty about doing something that she knew she shouldn’t but wanted to anyway. Or perhaps both.

  “All good to go?” he asked, searching her face for a clue to her feelings. Finding none, he opened the car door for her.

  It was only then that he noticed the smell of his soccer bag. He hurriedly reached to the back seat and took it out and carried it to the boot.

  “Planning on using the back seat later?” she teased.

  John took a moment to understand what she meant, then he stammered, “I… my… the bag was um, smelly.”

  She looked a bit disgusted at that, so he then quickly added, “But it was all clean. It’s just that the smell, um, lingers.”

  “Okay,” she changed the subject, “so, where are we going?” she asked as she got into his car.

  John gazed at her. The late afternoon sun lit her face with a surreal glow. The harsh sunlight could not find any imperfections. He was suddenly aware that this was the first time that she had willingly been alone with him. He felt certain that he would always remember this, their first date.

  She wore a simple denim, knee-length skirt with a loose, white cotton blouse and slip-on ballet flats. She had her blonde, curly locks pulled back with ribbons and covered with a scarf. It made her look younger than she really was, but reminded John of some wholesome advert from the 1950’s.

  Fashion, he decided was not her strong point. It was probably all the rage amongst her Church friends. Not that it really mattered. Anyone as good-looking as her could get away with wearing a potato sack and still look fantastic. Besides, this is L.A. People wore all sorts of stuff and no one paid them the slightest attention. It seemed as though a large chunk of the city’s denizens were attention whores screaming out for their fifteen minutes of fame, but prepared to make do with a stare as they walked along the streets.

  Angela’s clear, smooth, unblemished skin seemed unnaturally free of the weathering and sun damage which affected most of the west-coast women. That, along with her bright blue eyes, which had an innocence about them, also seemed to belong to someone younger.

  It amazed him that such a beautiful woman would be both free and wanting to be with him, now, at this very moment and in his car. He couldn’t be absolutely sure that he wasn’t dreaming the whole encounter, so he leaned over towards her and gently, with his finger under her chin, guided her face towards him. He kissed her tenderly on her lips.

  At that moment, he felt a rush, a frisson of energy well up within his mind. His head spun. It felt as though his mind wanted to break free of the confines of his skull and soar. His vision blurred. A wave of dizziness made him break the kiss and gasp for air. He felt as though he had swum a mile. His heart was hammering. This is ridiculous, he thought. I‘ve kissed girls before, but this sort of thing has never happened. It wasn’t normal.

  “You okay?” she asked. Her blush and quick look to the house brought him back to reality.

  “Yeah, I think so,” John answered. He followed her gaze. His made his eyes focus towards the house where he saw Clarice standing on the front veranda steps. She was waiting for them to leave, all the time staring at them.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in return. His head had settled down and his mind felt a lot clearer.

  Ignoring his question, she asked, “So where was it we’re going?”

  He got the impression that she was trying to hurry him up to get away. “Have you been to the Observatory?”

  “The Observatory?” she asked. She looked again to the house. Clarice hadn’t moved, except to cross her arms. “What’s The Observatory? Is it a nightclub?”

  John could see that she was only half listening and he smiled quietly to himself. “Yeah, you could say that. I guess it’s sort of a nightclub.”

  He started the engine and drove sedately away from her house. Angela waved a little wave at her mother as they left, which Clarice didn’t return.

  They d
rove past the neighbourhood kids at play, all the time John was wondering just what sort of life she had led up until now.

  Angela turned to him. “It sounds kind of intimidating, this Observatory.”

  “Oh, it is,” he agreed.

  “It’s just that I’m not really dressed for a nightclub and…”

  “You’ll be just fine,” was all he said.

  She sat quietly for a few moments while John negotiated the traffic.

  “So, how are your parents?” John asked. He wanted to keep the conversation going and was genuinely concerned about her father.

  “Don’t worry about Mom. She’s just a bit overprotective.”

  “Really? You think so?” he smiled. “Was she the same with your last boyfriend?”

  Angela remembered beck to when she had first told her mother about wanting to keep company with Zeke. There had been a million questions, starting with those about his religion, his family and his job.

  Then there had been the talk about how all men just want the same thing and how all that should wait until after marriage. After that the subject of sex had never come up again and any attempt by Angela to bring it up had been dismissed as unnecessary. It had only served to make her more curious. She had briefly thought of talking to other women at her church about boys and dating, but knew that her mother would be mortified if she did.

  In retrospect, she thought she should have talked about it with her father. He might have had a different point of view on the subject, but somehow, after her mother’s warning about all men being the same, she didn’t feel comfortable with that. She didn’t want her father to be put in the same category as all the other men and hearing him talk about sex was somehow just not right.

  That just left Zeke to talk with. He soon told her all the things she needed to know about being a good future wife, along with all the practical lessons. She knew she would miss those.

  She looked at John and wondered how she was going to keep her promise to her parents. Her mother would not be pleased.

  “I’m their only child, so I guess she’s a bit more protective than normal.”

  “But was she the same with your last boyfriend?” John persisted.

  “Yeah, she would have been, but by the time she found out about Zeke, we had already, um… gotten together.”

  John raised an eyebrow.

  “They gave us all sorts of hell, you know, how we’d be living in sin unless… Anyway, after she found out that he was a church-going Christian, thankfully she lightened up.”

  “And that made all the difference? Being a Christian?”

  “It did to her.”

  John shook his head, but held his tongue.

  “You see, by her way of thinking, there is not much separating people who are without God from animals,” she said.

  John raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

  “The only thing that separated us from the animals is the Spirit of God, the belief in God and the reward of an everlasting life,” Angela stated. John couldn’t decide if she was for real or just trying to wind him up again. She certainly sounded sincere.

  “So there’s nothing stopping me, since I’m a Godless heathen, from acting like an animal and having my wicked way with you, if I feel the urge.” He gave her what he hoped was a disarming smile.

  “Nothing except self-preservation,” she answered. A furtive smile flashed his way in return. “And the fear that you might get caught. Otherwise, if you can get away with it, then it’s all okay in a world without God’s punishment.”

  “Except that other people get hurt.”

  “But why should you care about them? As long as you get what you want.”

  “That’s fine if you want to live as a lone wolf, looking after only yourself,” he protested, “but we don’t live in a world where the strongest rule; we live in cities and we have to obey the laws of society and live co-operatively if we all want to get along. You give up absolute free will when you abide by society’s laws.”

  “The laws of our society are based on Biblical principles,” Angela said proudly.

  “But isn’t it better to be doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, rather than because there might be a God waiting to punish you?”

  “Sure,” a puzzled look crossed her face. "But that isn’t how it works in the real world, is it? At least not for the overwhelming majority of people.” Angela waved her hand in a circle, encompassing all the people of the world in a gesture. John wondered if she thought herself above the average, conniving world citizen.

  “Well thankfully you’re probably right; otherwise I’d be out of a job.”

  “So that’s why we and the whole of Western civilization have our Biblically inspired laws.”

  “That may be true, but there are plenty of societies that have never heard of the Bible or don’t follow it.”

  “Sure, but they aren’t the leading nations of the world, are they?”

  “What about China?” he asked.

  “How about their human rights?” she replied. “Do you want to go live there? I sure don’t.” She folded her arms, “Free democratic countries have a Judeo-Christian background.

  “How about Japan and Korea? Wouldn’t mind living in either of those countries.” John found he was kind of enjoying this debate, as long as she didn’t take it too seriously.

  “Their democracy was introduced,” she said, “by us.”

  John was quite impressed by her knowledge. Not a typical blonde. “Then how about the alien’s galactic society?”

  She didn’t answer. She pursed her lips and turned to stare out the window. He didn’t want to press the issue.

  He turned the car onto the freeway and headed west, into the setting sun. They both put on their sunglasses and watched the traffic flow.

  John turned the radio on. He had been listening to a news station on the way over to Angela’s place. The ‘expert panellists’ had been discussing the implications of the Visitor’s proposal. In particular, the suggestion by the Governor of California that he wasn’t against the idea. There had been allegations that big business and some interests from Silicon Valley had been lobbying for acceptance of the proposal.

  In contrast, the states of Utah and Alabama had already publicly declared their opposition to any ‘external interferences.’ The discussion now was about how this all might lead to a fragmentation of the United States along religious lines and speculation as to where individual states and counties might lie.

  “Can’t we listen to something else?” Angela asked. She didn’t wait for a reply before she changed the radio dial.

  “Sure, be my guest,” John said. “Good luck finding something that doesn’t have stuff about the Alien on it.”

  “Aren’t you tired hearing about the Alien thing all the time?”

  “No, not at all,” John said, “it’s pretty important stuff, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t worry about it,” she said. He could almost believe she meant it.

  “You’re kidding, right?” John couldn’t hide the disbelief in his voice.

  “I pray that God will look after me and all the people I care about, so I know that we’ll be all-right,” Angela said as she fiddled with the car stereo. She found the station she was looking for. She turned up the volume and sat back to listen to the music.

  “The Fish FM,” she announced.

  He soon discovered that it was a Christian radio station, but the music was pretty good, although it wasn’t anything he had ever heard before. Again, he had the eerie feeling of a parallel, unknown world existing right along side his own familiar one. Still, John had to admit that at least she didn’t brag about her station not having any news on the Alien.

  They drove west along the Foothill Freeway for quite a while, listening to songs about how lonely life is without Jesus, how sorry they were that they ever doubted Jesus and how joyous and blessed they were to have Jesus back in their lives. A lot of the songs had a similar
re-occurring theme.

  The traffic wasn’t too bad for a Friday early evening. Six lanes kept the traffic flowing, and before long John took the turn to the I-5 and soon onto Los Feliz Boulevard.

  He waited until the current song finished before turning the stereo down and asking, “How’s your dad?”

  “He’s okay, thankfully having a good day, so far.”

  John nodded.

  “But that can change pretty quickly,” she added.

  “It must be hard,” John said, “for you and your mother.”

  “Yeah, but all we can do is pray that the medications work and that he’s not in too much pain.”

  John marvelled at how often she ‘prayed’ or ‘gave thanks.’ It must really be a major part of her life, or it might be that she had never known anything else. He thought of his own family and how ‘normal’ they seemed by comparison.

  “Hey, did you want to come over tomorrow night and meet my folks?” he asked.

  “Will you go to church with me on Sunday?” she shot back at him in return. She batted her eyelids and wore and expression of coy innocence that was totally at odds with her blatantly manipulative trade-off.

  John smiled at her. “Sure, but I warn you, I might embarrass you. I haven’t been to church…” he paused to think, “ever.”

  “So it’s a deal then?” she asked putting her hand out for John to shake and seal the deal.

  “The things you have to do to get someone to church these days,” he taunted, but he shook her hand all the same.

  She smiled a wicked smile. “I thoroughly intend to make a good Christian out of you before we’re through.”

  “You know that will never happen,” he said in a serious tone. She turned and frowned at him, but he smiled and added, “Not if it means that you’ll be finished with me.”

  Angela blushed and pulled on her bottom lip with her teeth. Her hands fidgeted in her lap before she turned the music back up. She turned and stared out the window at the passing scenery. ‘Perhaps that was a bit too much,’ his father’s voice suggested. ‘Too late now,’ John thought, once it’s said.