The Good Atheist

by Michael Manto

  “How did you manage to find us here in Queens?” he asked.

  But Haddie placed her gloved hand over his on the table. “Not here, dear. Let’s get home. It’ll be easier to talk there. I’ve already messaged the cab company.”

  • • •

  A beat up old hover-cab met us at the front door of the pub, and the three of us climbed into the back. “Where to folks?” the cabbie asked through a speaker set in the Plexiglas between us.

  Haddie and Dad looked at me. “We should go back to the hotel and get your bags,” Haddie said.

  I gave the cabbie the name of the hotel, and we sped off. It took us twenty minutes to get there. The cab waited out front while I ran up to my room and quickly packed up. On my way out I put the key in the drop box at the counter. The clerk sat behind the Plexiglas watching television. “I’m checking out,” I said.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the television. “Congratulations,” he said.

  “Thanks so much for the warm hospitality,” I said. “I’ll be sure to recommend your fine establishment to all the people I dislike the most.” Maybe the clerk was able to think of a witty rejoinder, but I’ll never know. I didn’t wait to find out. I went out the front doors to the cab.

  “Where to now?” the driver asked Haddie as I got inside.

  “Just drive. I’ll direct you on the way,” Haddie said.

  The cab pulled away from the curb and headed down the street. “Lady, it’ll be a lot easier if you just tell me where we’re going.”

  But Haddie wasn’t listening. She was looking out the back window as we sped down the street. The neighborhoods gradually improved from outright slummy to lower-working-class. “Take the next right, cabbie.”

  The driver obeyed. Haddie kept an eye out the back window. A few blocks later she said, “Next right, cabbie. Then go two blocks and take another right.”

  The cabbie gave me a quizzical look in the rearview mirror but followed directions. I looked at Dad, who just stared out the window like everything was normal. We crossed the main road we had originally been on and proceeded another block. We approached a green light at a busy intersection. “Cabbie, stop right here.”

  “Lady, it’s a green light, for crying out loud.”

  She leaned forward and stuck a roll of Euros into a little slot in the Plexiglas divider. “Just do as I say.”

  He picked it up and whistled, after which there was a noticeable improvement in his demeanor. “For that kind of currency we can sit all day at a green light if that’s what you want.” He came to a full stop.

  Haddie kept looking around and behind as the traffic flowed by. Then a car came to a sudden stop behind us. It bobbed and swayed a bit in the breeze while honking. When we didn’t move, it swished around us, horn blaring, and sped away.

  “Anything?” Dad asked, staring out the side window.

  “I think we’re clean,” Haddie said.

  The light changed to red. Then back to green. The cabbie looked at us in the rearview mirror, waiting.

  “Drive, cabbie, drive,” Haddie said.

  She directed him for another thirty minutes, involving a few more turns and random stops, until we finally came to a stop in front of a deli called Francine’s in a trendy upscale neighborhood. We got out and the cabbie sped off, shaking his head. Haddie led us into the deli quickly, and we found a table at the back.

  “What was that all about?” I asked when we sat down.

  “Countersurveillance measures,” Haddie said matter-of-factly, as if people did that kind of thing all the time.

  “What?”

  “Just making sure we weren’t followed from your hotel or the bar,” Dad said. “The limo will pick us up here. We don’t want the limo to get followed back to the penthouse.”

  “Limo?” I said. “Penthouse? Did you just mention a limo and penthouse all in the same sentence?”

  “Yeah,” Dad said.

  “Why didn’t the limo just get us at the pub? You could still do all the crazy stuff to make sure we don’t get followed.”

  Haddie shook her head. “The limo would have been too noticeable. People would remember it. But it won’t attract any attention here or where we are going.”

  The all-night café was packed. We ordered coffees and waited, talking little. I was bursting with questions, and I could tell Dad and Haddie were as well, but the little round tables had no privacy. We were practically rubbing elbows with the other patrons. Forty minutes later Haddie got a message, and we went outside.

  A stretch limo hovered before us, about two feet off the ground, a long black cylinder glistening under the street lights. There was a fairly stiff breeze, but the gyros compensated so well I couldn’t detect any movement. With a pointed nose and stabilizer fins at the back, it looked like a shiny black torpedo.

  We were going in style, wherever that was.

  A door radiated open in the side like retracting flower petals, and Dad gestured towards the open portal. “After you, Haddie dear.”

  Haddie got in. I climbed in after her and sank into the rich leather seats. Dad sat down across from me and the door whizzed shut. I couldn’t see the driver. We were cocooned in deep black leather, mahogany, and chrome.

  I looked at Dad sitting across from me. “I didn’t know you were rich,” I said.

  He laughed. “Far from it. But we have a few rich friends who take good care of us.”

  We ascended quickly, and I stared out the window. We merged with level-three traffic at two hundred feet. The traffic at that level was very light. Not many people could afford level-three driving permits.

  I seldom rode at this level. I was only licensed for level two. Selene and I had talked about upgrading our licenses, but I didn’t want to spend the money. Insurance was high, and the license for level three also required a higher vehicle rating. The cost was prohibitive to most working people.

  We glided across the river, following the flow of traffic into Midtown, and the traffic got heavier. Once in Manhattan we turned north and whizzed along through canyons of steel and concrete. I looked down, and the traffic below looked like some manic version of Tetras.

  Forty-five minutes later we reached a high-rise apartment complex facing Central Park. The park came into view as our car swung around, then ascended rapidly straight up. We came to a stop at a dizzying height hundreds of feet off the ground and backed towards the building. I hoped someone remembered to open the garage door. It was a long way down if we had an accident. The dark interior of the parking bay slowly engulfed us as the driver expertly backed in.

  Once fully inside, the limo settled to the floor, and we got out. We were in a small parking bay. There were slips for four other limousines, but only two of them were occupied. A sleek white limo sat next to us, almost as long as ours.

  Our limo lifted up and exited the parking bay. I never did get a glimpse of the chauffeur. Haddie led the way through a steel doorway and down a hall to a set of elevators. She punched some numbers into a keypad beside the door, and we got in. The elevator shot upwards, and we watched the floor numbers above the door scroll higher. A few seconds later the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened.

  The first thing I noticed was the black marble floor. It shone like a mirror and looked like it had never been walked on. The entire far wall was glass from floor to ceiling with a view of the city that took my breath away. A huge white sectional couch and white cushioned chairs sat next to the windows. They looked like real leather, and given the obvious wealth of the owner, probably were. There was a glass-topped coffee table with a silver-colored frame between the couch and chairs.

  Dad and Haddie kicked off their shoes and walked in. I followed suit and walked across the floor in my socks. It felt like I could skate on the smooth floor, and if my mood had been lighter I probably would have tried.

  There was an alcove with a kitchenette that had a fridge, stove, food replicator, and an island counter surrounded by tall stools. Haddie went towards
it. “I’ll put on some coffee. I hope you both plan on staying up for a bit. I know I can’t sleep.”

  That worked for me. This was the first time I’d seen Dad since I was eight, and my mind swirled with questions, my emotions on a roller coaster. Sleep was the last thing on my mind.

  I crossed the floor towards the picture window and took in the view. It overlooked Central Park, and we were at eye level with the tops of the surrounding towers. We were in a penthouse suite, in one of the richest neighborhoods on the planet. I looked around the place, taking in the richness of their ‘safe house’. Chauffeurs. Limousines. Luxury Manhattan apartments. “Tough life you’ve got here, Dad. If this is what life is like for intellectual anarchists in hiding, I’m going to have to consider converting.”

  Dad chuckled and took a seat at the end of a sectional. “It’s not mine. Our accommodations are usually much more…modest. It belongs to a friend who’s letting us stay here while he is out of the country.”

  “Nice friends. You have an interesting way of hiding.”

  He looked around. “We’ve been enjoying it, but we can’t stay much longer. We have to move around a lot to stay ahead of the Inquisitors.”

  I turned back towards the window and thought about my next words. Small talk at a time like this felt pretty lame. There were so many questions, so much history to get caught up on. He seemed to be as much at a loss for words as I was. We stood for several long moments in the living room, the weight of the lost years hanging in the air between us. I felt a toxic mixture of hurt, bitterness, and joy. Overjoyed that I’d found him, yet bitter over the life we’d missed sharing while I was still growing up.

  I sat down across from him, and we both awkwardly looked around without saying anything. He seemed to be as lost for words as I was.

  It was a good thing Haddie was there. Without her, we might have remained like that all night. Her laughter and joyful demeanor helped ease the tension. “You two are pathetic. Are you both just going to sit there and stare at each other? I’ll be there in a minute with the coffee.”

  Dad was the first to break the verbal impasse. “It’s been a long time, son. I hardly know where to begin myself, but I know you must have questions. You were very young when it all happened. Anything you want to ask, I’ll do my best to answer.”

  There was one thing I had to get out of the way before I could move onto anything else, and there was no point in putting it off. “Why’d you leave?” It was hard not to sound bitter.

  A pained expression flickered through his eyes. “What makes you think I was the one who left?”

  I straightened up in the chair. “Mother said you ran off.”

  He shook his head. “Hardly,” he said gently.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I came home early from work one day. Your mother had the day off, and I thought I’d surprise her. Things had been very strained between us since my conversion. She’d already arranged a couple of interventions, threatened to report me to the Tolerance Bureau if I didn’t recant. But I still hoped we could work through it. So I came home early to surprise her, thinking we could all do something together as a family.”

  “But when I got home I found the place cleaned out. She’d left, taking you with her. No note. Nothing. I tried calling her cell, but no answer. She’d probably already changed phones. In retrospect, I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Your mother told me she would leave me if I didn’t renounce my new faith. I guess I just never really thought she’d do it. I was still looking around the empty house for some clue to where she was going when a friend from work called to warn me that Inquisitors had arrived at the office looking for me. It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. I couldn’t go back to work. I went straight into hiding that afternoon. Friends in the church put me in touch with the underground. I’ve been in hiding ever since. I guess if your mother had tried to get word to me, let me know where you were, she couldn’t have anyway.”

  “Why haven’t I heard from you in all these years?”

  He looked away from me and out the window. For a long moment he just stared out the window in silence. “I tried, but when your mother left she moved across country and started using a different name. And she was smart about the internet and social sites. She didn’t post any personal information, like your address or anything else that could be used to identify and locate you. I couldn’t find you for a long time. I had no idea where you were.”

  “Why would she do that? You were the one wanted by the police, not her. Seems pretty extreme,” I said.

  He shrugged. “She wanted a new life, I suppose. It was a chance to start over. Escape the shame and public humiliation of my fall from grace. It was very embarrassing for her. I was a well-known, highly respected scientist. We moved in some pretty high circles – even had dinner with the President once at the White House.”

  He continued with the story. “It took me a long time. And I was in hiding, so my ability to travel and use the internet was very limited. All public places - airports, bridges, toll roads, trains, fuel stations. Most cafés, restaurants, libraries – heck, even public washrooms – have electronic surveillance and monitoring. Any hint of my presence on the net would have alerted the Tolerance Police. They had net tracers out for me, probably still do. They were watching you like hawks, waiting for me to make contact.

  “And then the Tolerance Bureau put out that fake report of my death to explain my disappearance to the public. When I finally found you, you had already settled into a new life and believed I was dead.”

  “Mother told me you were dead,” I said.

  “I can’t help what lies you were told. But you seemed to be settling into a new life…”

  “How did you know that?”

  “When I found you, Grandpa drove me across country to see you. We sat in a car across the street watching you play in the park with your mother and her new…friend. I didn’t know what else to do, so I decided it was best to let you keep believing I was dead so you could move on.”

  “You could have found a way.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Hang around the schoolyard? Follow you home on the street and wait for a chance to get you alone? And then what? Pop back into your life for a few minutes, only to disappear again for who knows how long? It’s not like you could have seen me very often, and I couldn’t just keep popping in and out of your life. It would have been cruel to mess with your head like that. You were just a child.”

  He returned to staring out the window. “I don’t know if I did the right thing, but it seemed to be the best thing for you at the time. It’s not how I wanted it, but I had to think of what was best for you, not just what I wanted.”

  Seeing the pain in his eyes, it struck me for the first time that I wasn’t the only one hurt. I looked away, staring out the window at the brilliant night skyline of the city without really seeing it. I wasn’t being fair, trying to assess the level of his guilt. I’d known guys who never knew their fathers, and it didn’t seem to bother them, maybe because they’d grown up that way and didn’t know any different. But we had been close once, which made it all the worse when he was torn away. But whatever had happened, there was plenty of blame to share and spread around. It wasn’t entirely his fault – if there was fault. He’d done his best to cope with what must have been a horrible situation for a young father. I didn’t want to try to assign blame. It was time to move on. Nursing my boyhood wounds would get me nowhere and only keep me locked into childish emotions.

  Haddie came in holding a tray with mugs, a creamer, sugar, a carafe of coffee and a plate piled high with cookies. She set it on the coffee table between us and then sat down next to Dad.

  “How did you find us?” she asked. “Tell us the whole story, from beginning to end.”

  So I told them, beginning with the clues I found at the cottage that convinced me Dad was still alive. Finding Lucius in Iowa and my meeting with him. How I became friends with Jorge and others in
Aylmer who knew Grandpa. And about how Jorge brought me to New York to meet Zuebo. I told them what happened with Zuebo and how I followed him on his rounds to locate the soup kitchen. But I left out the part about Paige and Selene’s betrayal.

  Dad and Haddie shook their heads in amazement through the whole thing. Evidently I had impressed them with my detective work and spy-like resourcefulness.

  “I’ll have to have a chat with Zuebo,” Dad said when I finished. “He’s been a bit over-zealous with my protection.”

  We still had a lot of catching up to do, and there was so much I wanted to learn of his life. What had he been doing all these years? Where had he lived? How did he meet Haddie? So I switched gears, and started asking about his life.

  We talked for hours, as if trying to make up for all the lost years in one evening. The night deepened and blurred into early morning. I found myself liking Haddie. She was delightful, and I’m not sure my visit with Dad would have gone so well if she hadn’t been there. Her presence and insightful questions smoothed things between us, and she kept the conversation going whenever we lapsed into an awkward silence. I was able for the first time to forget about myself and simply feel happy for him.

  “Dad, when I found out that you were still alive after all these years, I felt I couldn’t rest until I found you. And I’ve got a million questions, but there’s one in particular I’ve wanted to ask ever since this started.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Convert. Get religion. Whatever it’s called. Why didn’t you just recant, and save all this trouble? Why did you throw everything away for religion?” The force of emotion that came out as I asked the question surprised me. Dad, however, seemed to take it in stride.

  “I didn’t throw anything away. Just the opposite – I gained everything,” he said.

  “How can you say that?” I said. “You had everything. A home. A loving wife and family. A great career. And you tossed it all away for some fairy tales about Jesus.”