The Makeover of James Orville Wickenbee

by Anya Bateman

  “So tell me this,” I asked James one day as he studied the chessboard. “As bright as you are and as bright as all your family members seem to be, how on earth can you believe in something like the Mormon Church— or any religion, for that matter? Have you actually thought it through, or were you just born a Mormon and now it’s, well, you know, a way of life for you.”

  James pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I completely believe in it.”

  “But why? I mean how can you? Science has refuted religion on almost every count.”

  “Scientists only believe in what they see and what is there before them. That changes from era to era. What we knew a hundred years ago is a pittance compared to what we know now. Most intelligent people acknowledge that what we know even today in our supposed enlightened era is just a microscopic grain of sand compared to all there is to know.”

  “Yes, but you don’t mean to tell me that you believe in the creationist theory. How can you possibly believe that the world was created in seven days?”

  “Six days,” said James. “And time is not the same from an eternal standpoint. God’s days aren’t the same as ours.”

  “I see, and that’s interesting. But are you telling me that you seriously believe that a supreme being created everything? What about the big bang theory? I can’t understand how anyone could believe in a god. Where’s your evidence?”

  “The evidence is everywhere. I can’t understand how anyone could not believe in God.”

  James started talking astronomy then, and physics and biology— how each related to religion, specifically the Mormon religion. He talked about the miracle of new cell growth and how each cell seemed to come with instructions that helped it instinctively know exactly who and what it was required to become. James claimed we were all created spiritually first in another existence.

  “My stars, you really do believe this, don’t you.” I was in shock. An IQ of 185 and he was telling me about some type of heavenly Twilight Zone?

  “I do,” James said, peering at me again over his glasses. “In fact, I have a book that theorizes how it all fits together. It’s called The Science and Religion Connection and was written by a leader of our church. I’d be happy to loan it to you.”

  Uh- oh, I thought. What have I begun? “Um . . . no . . . no, thank you. I don’t really need to read any literature on your church. I was just curious as to how you can believe something that isn’t backed up by sound evidence.” Why on earth, I wondered, had I voluntarily ventured into this danger zone? It was like jumping across a fence with a sign that says “Firing Range.” I felt I should have known better.

  “No evidence? There’s evidence all around us. Do you really believe that everything needs to be scientifically proven first?” James was still very much engaged in the discussion. He’d pushed his glasses up three times in fifteen seconds.

  “That’s okay,” I said, “I really don’t want to get into this. I’m sorry I brought it up.” I was anxious to move to another topic as quickly as possible.

  But James wasn’t ready to move on. “Truth is truth, no matter where you find it. I’ll get you more information.”

  “Nooooo, thank you.” I lifted my hand to indicate that this was where it ended and that I was there for one reason and one reason only— chess. How foolish I felt for having started this conversation. “I’m just not interested in any religion,” I said quickly. Or fictional hogwash, I remember thinking to myself. “Forget I mentioned it. Let’s just get back to our chess match.”

  That’s the last time I’m going to give James Orville Wickenbee a foot in the door, I also remember thinking.

  Chapter Seven

  •••

  The monitor almost directly above me is showing that Northwest Flight 107, which was on time when it stopped in St. Louis, is now twenty minutes behind schedule. James’s first layover was in San Francisco, but apparently his plane must have taken off late from there. I’m highly relieved because I still don’t feel ready to see my friend. Why? Why am I so unprepared to see James when I’ve known for two years this moment was coming?

  Through the window I can see the flickering of planes arriving and taking off, each with a crew and passengers. Multiply the hundreds of flights that leave and land here at the Cleveland airport by the thousands of airports throughout the world and it adds up to an amazing number of planes flying around the skies. James and I once discussed how surprised the Wright brothers would be today if they could see where their experiments with “the flying machine” had led.

  Even after traveling abroad several times— once with Uncle Bartho and Alex, twice with Mom, and once with Alex alone, I still go into panic mode at takeoff. I know it makes no sense, that statistically speaking the chances of getting injured or killed in a car accident are actually far greater than the chances of being in a plane crash, but there’s something so— I don’t know— unnatural about going up above the world and its buildings and everything here on earth.

  From the reflections in the window to my right, I can see that several more people have arrived to meet James. Where are my glasses? I haven’t worn glasses for years, but my eyes started giving me problems a couple of months ago and the optometrist said my contacts have scraped the outer layer of my corneas. In order for my eyes to heal, they’ll need a good long rest. He advised me not to wear my contacts until the injury has cleared up completely. So where are those nasty things? Did I put my glasses case in the side pocket of my bag? I did! I click open the case, pull the out- of- style frames from it, slip them onto my nose, and peer through them.

  I’m guessing it’s Ruthie who’s come in with the large, silver and blue balloon. Unfortunately glasses don’t do that much good when a woman wearing a large poncho and carrying a tote bag the size of Canada is blocking your view. When she finally moves away, I see that it’s my lovely aunt all right. Even with all the added weight around her middle— she’s expecting her little girl any day— Ruthie still looks as chic as her husband doesn’t. Not that I notice Phil’s appearance that much anymore. What can I say? The man treats my aunt as if she’s made of spun gold. I stopped caring what he looked like about the time I caught him gently and carefully painting Ruthie’s toenails for her. And that was before she was expecting. “It’s so awkward to paint your own toenails,” Ruthie explained. It also became obvious within weeks that, just like his brother, there was much more to Phil than met the eye.

  Maybe that’s why it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought it would when Ruthie made the decision to be baptized a member of the Mormon faith just two- and- a- half months after she and Phillip were married. We’re only afraid of what we don’t know and by that time I was already growing accustomed to these “peculiar”—as they call themselves— latter- day saints. Unlike me, Ruthie isn’t a complex woman and life is far less complicated when a couple is unified in their beliefs.

  Still I didn’t want anyone getting the impression that I planned to be sucked in myself. “Nooooo, thank you,” I had responded

  at the end of January when Mom asked if I planned to attend Ruthie’s baptism. “I’m not interested in seeing people jumping up and down or rolling in the aisles.”

  Alex didn’t find my comment that amusing. “What a clown,” he said without smiling.

  Mom, however, took my wisecrack in stride and joined in. “I think it’s just the Mormon toddlers that jump up and down and roll in the aisles,” she said dryly. “I don’t believe the Mormon adults roll in the aisles.”

  “Ah!” I lifted my eyebrows and nodded into my coffee. But then I lowered my eyebrows and looked up from my cappuccino as I remembered that James and I always played chess on Saturday afternoon. “Just a minute now! What about our chess game? If James is helping with this baptism, does that mean he isn’t playing chess with me today?”

  “Yes, let’s keep our priorities straight here,” said Alex.

  Mom hopped around a little as she attempted to slip her shoe stra
p back onto her heel. “Oh, that’s right. James left you a message that your game is still on. He said to come over at the usual time but that he’d just need to quit a little early so he can get ready.”

  “The way he dresses, it should only take him fourteen, possibly fifteen seconds to get himself pulled together,” I quipped. But as I took a careful sip of my coffee, I felt happily relieved. I honestly wasn’t sure I could survive the week without my Saturday chess match with James. “So I take it you’re going to the baptism,” I said to Alex. My brother had worn a tie probably twice before in his life and he seemed to be having some trouble knotting this one.

  “Sure.” He eyed me warily. “Trust me. It’ll be fine.”

  “Sure,” I repeated, getting up to help him with the final twist and loop through. I trust you, Alex, but be careful, I thought, hoping that no one from Fairport would see him go into the Mormon building.

  In spite of his choice of unusual and out- of- the- mainstream friends, Alex was surprisingly popular with the general school populace and things were looking good for him. But I was fearful that just one rumor about him doing something unusual and out of the mainstream, well, like putting on a tie and going to this baptism, would be enough to cause a whisper campaign that would fling him into oblivion.

  It didn’t take much to get flung. The most qualified candidate for president in our junior high, Ed Parrin, had been a shoo-in until somebody found out that he attended operas and was taking singing lessons. Some of the smart alecks and jocks had had a field day with that. They sang fake arias to him in the halls and tormented him nonstop. Ed not only lost the election, but finally found life among the Roosevelt Raptors so unbearable that he transferred to Lincoln Junior High and became a Hedgehog.

  Further, there was Lyla Fannen to worry about. I considered it nothing short of a miracle that Lyla and several of her Lyla- nites, as Alex called them, were even still with us at our lunch table. When the new semester had started, Sonja had had to switch to first lunch and had been replaced with Melinda Challister, who pretty much wore only Paul van Eckstein clothing and had her hair cut by my stylist: Raphael. Luckily Adriana had our lunch now as well and gave me the fortitude to deal with Lyla and Dolly.

  While Mom and Alex were at the baptism, I looked through a couple of magazines and then perused the Wall Street Journal. When I finally closed the paper, I noticed that either Alex or Mom had left a copy of the Book of Mormon on the coffee table. Without picking it up, I flipped through the first few pages, stopping at an introductory page where some “witnesses” testified they had seen an angel. “Oh please,” I whispered to myself. I shut the book quickly when I heard the garage door open.

  “So how was it?” I asked Mom and Alex with sufficient casualness.

  “To be honest with you,” Mom said, “I was a little nervous about what to expect. But I was very impressed. It was a beautiful meeting and there was nothing strange about it. Not even any rolling in the aisles,” she added facetiously, tipping her head at me—”nothing out of the ordinary.” Then she paused. “I guess the only thing I can think of that seemed unusual is that the parishioners presented the program instead of the pastor. Isn’t a pastor paid to do that kind of thing? But then, let’s see, he’s called a bishop in the LDS faith. There were several bishops there— three or four backups.”

  “LDS bishops don’t get paid,” Alex informed us. “In fact, a bishop never quits his day job, and he runs things mostly at night and on weekends.”

  “It’s unusual to see unpaid volunteer clergy, but I think that’s wonderful,” my mother said. It wasn’t a surprising thing for my mother to say. She was practically a full- time volunteer herself. She was on the Fairport Beautification Committee, the Friends of Flora and Fauna, the Reaching out for Literacy Program, and about three or four cultural and art boards whose names I could never keep straight. It was her charity league that she got the most excited about.

  “James gave an inspiring talk about the Holy Ghost,” my mother continued. “He explained beautifully how the Mormons view the trinity. Let’s see, what did he say, Alex— that they are one in purpose, but otherwise separate?”

  “That’s right,” Alex said.

  “James spoke?” That caught my interest. He seemed awfully young to be considered capable of speaking at such an important function.

  “Yes, James is a fine speaker. It was an inspirational, beautiful, and well thought out talk.”

  I was suspicious now. A talk probably designed to recruit the nonmembers there, I speculated. It was one thing for Ruthie to join, but I certainly didn’t want Phillip or James swooping in on my mother and Alex. It bothered me a great deal that Alex was suddenly acting as though he were some kind of expert on Mormons and Mormonism.

  “I didn’t realize the Holy Ghost had so many functions,” Mom continued. “Maybe I just hadn’t thought that much about this personage as the Mormons refer to him. James said that the Holy Spirit is the mediator between us and the Lord.” Mom continued reviewing James’s talk with such energy that it was really beginning to concern me. But then I’d been concerned for some time about the Wickenbees’ influence on my mother and Alex.

  “It made a lot of sense,” added Alex soberly. “Haven’t you ever felt a warm feeling inside when something sounded right?” Alex had that puppy dog look in his eyes he sometimes gets, which really made me nervous. I rolled up the latest Times and pointed it at him. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re getting caught up in this emotional nonsense,” I said. “It’s fine for Ruthie. Maybe she even needed it. But you still have your life ahead of you, Alex.”

  “All I’m saying is that we’ve all felt that way,” Alex responded. “Who’s to say feelings like that aren’t from a heavenly source? I just know I’ve felt that warm feeling before, and I felt it again today.”

  I came unglued. “You two are not going to let yourselves be duped into any religious foolishness. I don’t want to hear any more about some kind of ghost. You’re home now and away from la- la church- land. It’s time to tune back into reality and the real world! I mean it! Here, let’s watch some television.” I pushed the remote power button on our television just in time to see a woman lowering herself into a container of cockroaches. Quickly I switched to the nature channel where some lions were devouring an antelope. “See!” I said, my eyes stretched. “Great entertainment! Yes, let’s get your minds on something worthwhile.”

  Chapter Eight

  •••

  It wasn’t until the last week of February that I figured out why Lyla was still at our lunch table when people who weren’t even jotted in the margins of Fairport’s social register continued to gather there. One day I caught her gazing at my brother over her croissant, a small, lovesick, half- smile on her face. Lyla liked Alex! As hard as it is to understand now, I was ecstatic at what I considered an astounding and fortuitous development! Then I decided that maybe it wasn’t that astounding. Alex was probably the only male in the school who didn’t fall at her feet in a heap, muttering incoherently when she so much as smiled at him.

  I couldn’t wait to tell my brother. “I have some great news for you! Lyla Fannen likes you,” I let him know that afternoon when I found him in the back shooting baskets.

  “Not interested,” Alex tossed over his shoulder as he aimed the ball toward the hoop.

  “You’re not interested?” I followed him to the other side of the court as he retrieved the ball, my breath visible in the icy air. “Do you realize how many dudes, as you call them, would like to be in your place?”

  He didn’t answer but made a shot from well behind the free- throw line.

  “Hundreds,” I answered.

  “Uh- huh.” Alex glanced at his watch, tossed the ball into the large bin under our apple tree, and hurried to the back door. I followed my brother into the kitchen, rubbing my hands together to warm them. Alex flipped open the pantry and began scouring the shelves for on- the- go junk food.

  “Playing hard- to-
get has worked so far, but if you don’t start tossing out some morsels of encouragement— or if Lyla starts feeling that you never will— she’ll, well, get discouraged,” I said. “Maybe you should sit a little closer to her during lunch t o m orrow. And when we start planning our birthday party—I’m thinking something big—we should make sure she and her friends are invited.”

  “I like where I sit.” Alex shrugged. “And I’m thinking a small party with real friends.”

  I formed a fist, digging my nails into my palm, then stretched my hand and patted it into the air. “Alex, believe me, Lyla’s not going to put up with the way you treat her forever. She’ll get discouraged.”

  “Discouraged” wasn’t the right word really. “Disappointed” was a better word. And a disappointed Lyla Fannen would not a pretty picture make. Oh no. “So far you haven’t said more than two or three words to her. On the other hand,” I continued, “when James and his little friends come around, words come spewing out of you like Fourth of July fireworks. Why are you so nice to those people, and so snobby to the . . .” I hesitated.

  “The snobby?” asked Alex.

  “Okay, yes.” Now he was categorizing people, but I didn’t call him on it. “Do you realize how lucky we are that Lyla and her friends are still with us considering that James Orville is forever bringing the school’s strangest possible people to our table? It’s bad enough that he’s there himself.” I blinked a few times, knowing full well how Alex would react to my statement. When I tried to make it sound better, it actually sounded worse. “It says something about Lyla that someone of her social stature is willing to be seen with James and his friends just so she can be around you, and okay, maybe me and Adriana as well, but mostly you. This is a sacrifice on her part.”