Sweet Jesus

by Christine Pountney

  The girl looked indignant – that her sad pageant should be interrupted at all! I lost my fucking tooth, she said. And now she was all sass, one hand resting on her cocked hip.

  Zeus leaned back and lifted his shirt. He was doing something with his muscles that made his stomach fold in on itself so that his bellybutton disappeared. And I lost my fucking bellybutton! he shouted.

  The girl took a second to decide, then slapped her leg and threw her head back and laughed. Without looking back, she skipped into the restaurant, still laughing out loud. They followed her inside.

  Apart from the girl and her mother, the place was empty. A stop sign immediately inside, asking them to PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED. A waitress waved them to a booth, two over from the mother and her daughter, and came back to take their order. She was wearing earrings made of a dangling cluster of red, white, and blue stars. A coffee for Hannah and an orange juice for Connie. Zeus ordered tea.

  Sweetened or unsweetened? the waitress asked in a southern drawl.

  With sugar, please, Zeus said, and she brought him an enormous glass of iced tea.

  Oh, he said, when she put it down in front of him.

  You wanted hot tea?

  That’s all right, he said, clenching his buttocks to get high enough to close his mouth around the open throat of the tall white straw.

  He moved the glass with both hands, like a child, Hannah thought. That glass makes you look small, she said and suddenly felt the soulless, desolate fact of a place like this. She ordered French toast, Connie had a waffle, and Zeus took the special.

  They were all looking out at the parking lot when a guy on a big Harley pulled up beside the truck, black-and-white markings on the gas tank like a baby killer whale. The driver seemed to have stopped to admire their truck. He was wearing black leather boots with shiny buckles, a voluminous hip-length fur coat, the colour of butterscotch, fur mittens to match, and a skull-cap helmet. He was sitting on a plastic garment bag, laid over his gas tank, with the tip of the hanger hooked around the gas cap.

  Look at that idiot, Connie said.

  I think he looks great, Hannah said. I think he looks really cool.

  The mittens are a nice touch, Zeus said.

  Connie tsked. That kind of extravagant vanity out there, she said, is a slippery slope.

  I’m sorry, Hannah said, but who on this trip’s got the fancy clothes and the expensive European cosmetics?

  Those are transient luxuries, Connie said pompously, pushing a finger through the syrup on her plate. Gone the way as all the rest of my worldly belongings. Nope, as for me now, I’m looking forward to the rewards of heaven.

  You know, Hannah said, Mom said the very same thing once. In a restaurant, in Toronto. In fact, we were all there. Even you, Zeus, although you were just a kid. She said, if Dad ever died, she’d want to die too, or very soon there afterwards. In fact, they were both kind of looking forward to, you know, shacking up in the afterlife, so to speak.

  Speaking of morbid, Connie said. Remember that time Mom told you about that vision a friend of hers had? How you appeared to her in a vision? You were surrounded by people in long, hooded robes and you were naked.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hannah said, and I was inserting a phallic object into my vagina.

  Je-sus, Zeus said, shooting backwards in the booth.

  Nice, eh? Connie said.

  Why was she even talking to a friend about you like that in the first place? Zeus said.

  It was when she was doing exorcisms in the attic of that house in Toronto, Hannah said. Before they moved out west. Did you even know that was going on? It was happening when you were living with them. Mom was casting demons out of middle-class professionals. That was her job.

  Yeah, I’d get home from school and someone would be screaming at the top of the house.

  Really? Hannah said.

  Connie let out a cheerless breath and rested her forehead against her fingertips.

  Don’t you have to have a licence or something to perform an exorcism? Zeus asked.

  Connie raised her head again. How am I supposed to know? she said. I’d already left home by then. All I know is, Mom had a degree in counselling psychology and was running a Christian practice, so I guess she was attracting clients with certain kinds of problems. I don’t think she woke up one day and said, hmm, today I think I’m going to specialize in exorcisms.

  In the end, what she was doing wasn’t all that different from Freudian psychoanalysis, Hannah said. Only, if you happen to be a Christian, like our mom, then you turn it into a religious phenomenon. If it’s evil, it must have something to do with the devil and demons.

  Apparently, Zeus said, where they live now, it’s got the highest ratio of Satan worshippers per capita in all of North America.

  What, in Victoria? Connie said.

  Zeus nodded. It’s a statistic. I read it somewhere on the internet. A lot of cats go missing there just before Halloween.

  Hannah shook her head at this.

  Connie looked nonplussed. So you don’t believe any of that stuff is real?

  I didn’t know what to believe. The point is, Zeus said, at the time, no one was explaining anything to me.

  It’s called the confidentiality agreement, Hannah said.

  But she did encounter demons, Connie said.

  Her experiences were very compelling, Hannah said, but I’m not sure I’d be as quick to interpret the scratches on somebody’s back as the work of a demon.

  But what if those scratches were made in a way that would’ve been impossible to inflict on yourself? I don’t doubt Mom’s stories, Connie said loyally.

  They could still have been self-inflicted, Hannah said. There are more reasonable explanations than demons.

  Connie made an exasperated noise as the woman with the young girl pulled her daughter past their table, making their way out of the restaurant.

  Look, all I’m saying is –

  The fact is you’re trying to discredit her!

  She’s my mom! Hannah said. I’m trying not to be totally freaked out about what it is she used to do.

  For what it’s worth, I think it used to freak her out too, Zeus said. She used to say she didn’t really know what she was doing.

  Connie was spinning the salt shaker on the table. For a moment, it was the only noise in the restaurant. Remember those home movies? she said to Hannah.

  Yeah, Hannah said. We have about twenty minutes of Super 8 family footage, she told Zeus. But I’m not in any of it. They must have run out of film by the time I was born.

  Our mom is like a colt, or something, in those films, Connie said. She’s in her early twenties. Sort of awkward and long-limbed but full of energy and mischief. There’s a lightness there.

  She was really beautiful, Hannah said.

  Thing is, she keeps hiding from the camera.

  I know! Hannah said.

  I want her to just stop being so insecure, for just one moment, so I can have a good look at her. For myself. To know who I come from.

  There must be a connection, Hannah said, between that kind of insecurity and her need to help other people. She’s dedicated her whole life to it.

  It sounds like she’s made it her business to be a rescuer, Zeus said, because she’s always been at risk of getting lost herself. Remember that Bible verse she had in a frame on her desk? I read it so many times I still know it by heart. And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

  The waitress came over, cleared their plates and returned with the bill, and none of them had made a move or said anything. Above the restaurant, a flock of geese was flying south for the winter, their honking audible from inside.

  You know, Hannah said, putting her hand on Zeus’s arm. I know we haven’t been in touch over the years, but I used to wonder how you were doing. I don’t know why we never tried to contact you, not properly
, and I’m really sorry about that. You were our brother and we really kind of failed you, and there was this weird, I don’t know, silence in the family. Hannah made eye contact with Connie.

  It’s like we couldn’t talk about it, Connie said.

  But we never found out what happened, Hannah said. We never really understood why you left home so quickly.

  Zeus looked down at the table and chewed his lip for a moment. He lifted his shoulders. What do you expect me to do? Cry about how your parents reacted to finding out I was gay? I mean, sometimes I do. Tim put me through some pretty heavy stuff for a fifteen-year-old. He wanted me to be different than I am. He thought I needed to be cured.

  And Mom? Connie said.

  Zeus sighed and looked out the window. She did her best, I guess.

  A fly landed on the table, then hit the window, buzzing back and forth against the glass. They all sat there in silence, not knowing what to say.

  Hannah knew she could never reconcile herself to the way her parents were, but she wasn’t sure how to help her brother. For some reason, she was thinking about the time her mother cured her of an infected mosquito bite with a bread-and-onion poultice. That was the kind of thing she loved about her mother, all her homespun traditional wisdom. There was another time too, when Hannah was six years old. Rose got bit by a Great Dane, right through her duffle coat. They’d been walking home from the laundromat – Rose, Connie, and herself – with a basket full of clean clothes, past a neighbour’s front yard with a six-foot fence. They’d heard barking, then a huge dog hit her mother’s back and knocked her to the ground. Rose had left the laundry sprawled where it had fallen and picked the girls up and run home.

  When they got inside, she took off her coat and her shirt was soaked with blood, but all she’d cared about was getting her daughters home safely. She’d always had that in her, that instinct to protect her children. Maybe she hadn’t always done the right thing, Hannah thought, but that instinct was in her as strong as anything else. Hannah wanted that same kind of instinct in herself right now. It would guide her, she thought, in knowing how to help him. Con, what’s wrong?

  I don’t want to talk about Mom and Dad anymore, she said. Excuse me. And she got up quickly and left the restaurant.

  Back at the truck, Connie held the keys out to Zeus and said, You got a driver’s licence? He nodded. Why don’t you take us the rest of the way? And he took the keys and got into the driver’s seat. Hannah got in the middle and gave Connie the seat by the window.

  When they were on the highway, Hannah found a classical music station on the radio, and they drove quietly across the grasslands of Kansas. After a couple of hours, Zeus steered the Ranger off the highway and followed directions Connie had got off the Global Kingdom’s website, through a grid of streets on the outskirts of Wichita, where a few resilient fields flexed their shrunken boundaries against the encroachment of the suburbs. They entered an industrial neighbourhood, with grey-and-white one-storey warehouses, storage units, manufacturing outlets. The area was so still and empty for three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and there was something eerie, Hannah thought, but also joyous that only the trees were moving.

  They passed an intersection, then located the church, and slowed down as the map indicated a low brick building to the left with a small parking lot out front. On the other side of the street was an enormous windowless building, two storeys high, covered in aluminum siding, with two vast empty parking lots on either side. Across the front was a huge sign that read, THE GLOBAL KINGDOM OF SALVATION CENTER. Zeus swung left into the small parking lot and pulled up behind a row of cars. There were three picnics tables out front, and a simple entrance with a large yellow door, and above it a more discrete sign with the church’s name.

  Well, here we are, Connie said.

  Zeus got out of the truck, walked over to a bench by some planters, and sat down. He spread his arms across the backrest, dropped his head back, and closed his eyes.

  The sisters sat where they were, taking it all in. A bumper sticker on a nearby car asked, GOT JESUS? She noticed another one, orange flames rising up to consume the warning, IF YOU’RE LIVING LIFE LIKE THERE IS NO GOD, YOU BETTER BE RIGHT. It’s going to be okay, Connie thought to herself. You’re here for Jesus, not the people.

  Does everybody in this state, Hannah said, have to have a Support Our Troops sticker on their truck or what?

  Keep your hat on, Connie said. Things are different in the States.

  Let’s call home, Hannah said. Let Mom know that we’ve arrived at this friggin’ place we’ve been hearing about for years. I mean, it feels kind of monumental, don’t you think?

  Here, Connie said, getting her cell phone out of her bag and handing it to her sister. You do it. I’m not in the mood.

  Hannah dialled her parents’ number. The phone rang and her dad picked up. Well, we got here, Hannah said, in one piece. We thought Mom would want to know.

  Tim admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that he’d taken her to the airport that morning, and that now she was in the air. She was going on and on about how great it would be to be out there with the three of you, Tim said, at the Salvation Center, that I suggested she buy a last-minute ticket and fly herself out.

  What? Hannah said, and Connie turned to her sister. Hannah lowered her face and rubbed her forehead with her free hand.

  You still there? Tim said.

  Yes, I’m still here.

  She thought it was a bit risky, but I encouraged her to go.

  That’s great, Dad, Hannah said. We’ll talk again soon, okay? Everything’s fine here. We’re all good. You don’t have to worry about us.

  I hope so, Tim said. I hope the trip brings healing.

  Hannah let her eyes go out of focus for a second. Thanks, Dad, she said. Bye for now. And she closed the phone while new emotions exploded inside her like silent fireworks. Zeus was walking back to the truck.

  What’s going on? Connie said.

  You won’t believe this, Hannah said, but Mom’s on her way out here.

  What are you talking about?

  Zeus got back in the truck.

  Dad dropped her off at the airport this morning, Hannah said, and she’s flying out to be with us.

  Rose is coming here? Zeus asked.

  Without even speaking to us first? Connie said.

  You know what she can be like, Hannah said.

  What about my kids? Connie said. Is Dad going to look after them all by himself?

  I’m sure he’ll manage, Hannah said, and she turned to her brother. She’s coming to see you too, Zeus. I think that’s a big part of this for her.

  Connie got out of the truck, stiff and a little rattled by her mother. She laced her fingers and stretched her arms into the air. Hannah and Zeus followed, and the three of them began to walk towards the church.

  A few people sat at the picnic tables, drinking coffee out of takeout cups. Hannah noticed a woman with a small canvas propped on her knees, painting another starburst Jesus, brown-bearded and lily white as a New England hippy, nothing of the Galilean left in him. I’m not sure I can do this, Hannah said, suddenly feeling the full force of her resistance to organized religious movements, and Connie turned to her sharply.

  Just for a little while at least, she pleaded. Her eyes looked panicked, almost pathetic. Come in and see what the place looks like, Hannah. Then you can go. I don’t want to walk in there alone.

  A sudden compassion overwhelmed her, and Hannah thought, whatever she needs, whatever she’s come for, God, please let her have it.

  Are you coming in too? Hannah said, turning to Zeus, who gave a resigned I guess so, and all three of them walked in through the yellow door.

  The reception area was so businesslike they could have been walking into a furniture warehouse. Worship music pulsed out of an open set of double doors to their right, through which they could see into a room with a low ceiling, rows of padded metal chairs, maroon industrial carpet, and walls the colour of mush
room soup. In front of them, a young woman sat behind a counter, typing into a computer. Nearby on the left, a man with a red rose tattooed on the back of his neck stood cracking his gum and reading something from a large rack of pamphlets.

  The receptionist looked up, and Connie put her bag on the counter and leaned forward. We just arrived and wanted to know if there was any accommodation we could get for the weekend. My mother’s been here before, and she said she stayed in some kind of accommodation?

  Did you make a reservation? Because I’m afraid the dormitories are booked solid. It’s a big weekend for us, and we’ve already got our six hundred.

  Connie glanced at Hannah, who had joined her at the counter. But we just drove here all the way from Toronto, Canada, Connie said.

  A delegation of eighty people just arrived from China, the receptionist said. But there’s a Comfort Inn on the highway, and if you tell them you’re with the Kingdom, they’ll give you the conference rate. I think it’s about seventy-five a night for a double.

  The receptionist took a photocopied map of the area and made a red circle where the Comfort Inn was and slid it across the counter. The weekend service will be held across the street, she said, in our big hall. And if you want to hear Chad Dorian, that’s where he’ll be preaching all weekend.

  Hannah noticed that Zeus had wandered over to the literature, his hand resting idly on a pamphlet. He was staring at the tattooed man beside him. The man checked his watch and walked towards the music and disappeared through the doors. Then a pretty woman in blue jeans came out of another door down the hall and started walking towards them at a quick pace. A moment later, a happy young man followed, running after her and putting his arm around her shoulder, and said, Martha, Jesus is going to bless you for those numbers! And they laughed at the good news of it and also disappeared into the room with the music.

  You can buy tickets for the service at the door tomorrow morning, the receptionist said.