Godless

by Pete Hautman

  “Well I think that sucks. I don’t know how he expects us to be open and honest when he’s going to repeat everything we say to our parents.”

  “Now calm down, Jay. It wasn’t anything like that.”

  “Then what did he say?”

  “He told me that a lot of pretty radical ideas get tossed around in those meetings. I asked him to give me an example. He told me about this one kid who’s invented his own god called the Ten-legged something-or-other. We had a good laugh about that. Then I asked him how you were doing, and he said, ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ So that’s what I’m doing. It’s not like he handed me a transcript, Jay.”

  “Still, he shouldn’t be saying anything.”

  “Maybe not, Jay.” He stands up and claps me on the shoulder. “But I’m glad to hear you’re doing so well.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  After he leaves, closing the door behind him, I pull out the Goddess of Love and get back to work.

  * * *

  AND SO IT CAME TO BE THAT A GROUP OF DISCIPLES SET FORTH TO SPREAD THE WORD OF THE TEN-LEGGED ONE THROUGHOUT THE LAND, AND THEY CALLED THEMSELVES CHUTENGODIANS, AND FOR A TIME THE OCEAN WAS CONTENT.

  * * *

  17

  I watch the worshippers arrive.

  First there is Dan, who shows up a predictable ten minutes early. He strolls up the slope, tips his head back to gaze upward at the majesty of the Ten-legged One, then sits down on one of the leg bases to wait. He does not see me.

  A few minutes later, Magda and Henry arrive together. Henry is carrying a large backpack. Magda is dressed in black jeans and a halter top. Having recently drawn a picture of her wearing far less than that, I feel as if I can see right through her clothing. Interesting. But why is she with Henry? Maybe they ran into each other—they both live on the same side of town. Dan sees them and walks over. I can’t hear what they say.

  At exactly midnight, they are looking around, probably wondering where I am. They move closer and I hear Dan say, “He probably went to get Shin.” Henry says something in a low voice and Magda laughs. I feel myself clench up. I don’t know what Henry said, but I don’t like that Magda thought it was funny.

  “I’m hot,” Magda complains. “It must still be in the eighties.”

  “I bet it’s in the nineties,” says Dan.

  They are right underneath me now.

  “We might as well go up,” Henry says. “There’ll be a nice breeze up top.”

  “How do we do it?” asks Dan.

  “Piece a cake. I’ll show you.”

  Magda says, “Let’s wait a couple minutes. I’m sure they’ll be here.”

  “They can get up on their own. Jay knows how.”

  “It’ll be more fun if we all go up together.”

  I see a ghostly, pale figure approaching from the south, moving slowly, dejectedly, like a man walking to his own funeral. Shin.

  “You guys can wait,” Henry says. “I’m going up.” He starts for the leg.

  “Hold on a sec, Henry,” I say.

  Henry jumps like he’s been goosed, looking around wildly for the source of my voice.

  “I’m up here,” I say.

  They all look up and find me sitting cross-legged on the small landing at the bottom of the spiral staircase. Shin stops a few yards behind them. He is wearing his X-men pajamas.

  “How’d you get up there?” Magda asks.

  “I flew.”

  “Is Shin with you?” Dan asks.

  “He’s right behind you.”

  They turn and look.

  Henry says, “What’s that you got on, Schinner?” He laughs. “Are those pajamas?”

  “The First Keeper of the Sacred text,” Shin says, “can wear whatever the hell he wants.”

  “Oh yeah? What if the High Priest has a problem with that?”

  I don’t want this to go any further, so I yell, “Look out below!” They all jump back and I shove the rope ladder off the landing. It clatters and flops and swings back and forth: a fourteen-foot-long rope ladder with wooden rungs, constructed in my garage only hours ago.

  “The Ten-legged One wishes you all to climb in comfort and safety,” I say.

  Henry gives the ladder a tug. “You think this thing will hold?”

  “I guarantee it.”

  “It’s cheating.”

  “If you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to.”

  “I don’t, and I won’t,” says Henry, turning his back and heading for the leg. “Anybody wants to come up the real way, follow me.” He starts up, climbing the leg almost as quickly as a normal person would walk up a staircase. It doesn’t surprise me that Henry rejected my ladder. He wants to show off his monkey genes.

  “Look at him go!” Dan says, impressed. “Is that how you got up?” he asks me.

  “Yep.” I don’t mention that it took me twenty minutes, with numerous rest stops on the way.

  “I don’t think I could do that,” Magda says.

  “Be sure to tell Henry that. It’ll give him a thrill. Now, which of you will be attending mass this evening?”

  Magda surprises me by coming up the ladder first.

  “I don’t think I can get past you,” she says.

  I want to wait and make sure that Shin makes it up, so I swing to the outside of the staircase to make room. “Go ahead,” I say.

  Magda starts up the staircase.

  Dan says, “You going, Shin?”

  “I want to be last.”

  Dan shrugs, climbs up, and squeezes past me. Magda is a quarter of the way up. Henry has already reached the lower catwalk.

  Shin grabs the ladder and puts his right foot on the lowest rung. He hesitates.

  “C’mon, Shin. It’s just like walking up the steps at school.”

  He climbs the ladder carefully, testing each rung before putting his full weight on it. I look up. Magda and Henry are already on the upper catwalk, looking down at us.

  “You guys okay?” Magda shouts.

  I wave, telling her we are fine. Shin is at the top of the ladder.

  “You want to squeeze past me?” I say.

  “No,” he says. “You go first.” He sounds a little shaky.

  “Whatever you say.” I start up the steps, moving slowly and looking back every few seconds. Shin is following me, but he’s having a hard time, hanging onto the railing with both hands. It’s not a matter of strength or coordination. He’s just flat-out petrified.

  “Just don’t look down,” I say, echoing Henry’s advice to me.

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  I arrive at the top to find Dan clinging to the light post (red flash), Magda sitting with her back to the ladder railing (flash), and Henry hunched over the hatch with his arm pumping back and forth (flash), sweat glistening on his arms and neck, making a scraping, grinding noise. It’s maybe a couple of degrees cooler on top, but still pretty warm. The steel top of the tank is radiating residual heat from the sun.

  Magda looks down the ladder. “Where’s Shin?”

  “He’s stuck,” I say. “Hey Henry, what’re you doing?”

  “Sawing,” Henry says.

  “Is he okay?” Magda asks.

  “Shin? Not really. About a third of the way up the leg he froze.”

  Dan says, “What’s his problem?”

  “I think he’s afraid of heights. He’ll be okay.”

  Magda says, “You just left him there?”

  “He told me to go on up. He said he wanted me to leave him alone a while.” I look again at Henry. “What are you sawing?”

  “I’m going down to talk to him.” Magda heads down the ladder.

  Some Head Kahuna I am, leaving my High Priestess to deal with my wayward Keeper. But the fact is, I am furious with Shin. I went to all the trouble of making that ladder for him, and he freezes up on me. It’s embarrassing! As far as I’m concerned, he can stay there the rest of the night.

  “That flashing light is driving me nuts,” I s
ay.

  “I’ll fix it,” Henry says. “Look out, Danny-boy.” Dan lets go of the light post and grabs for the railing just as Henry swings something at the light. The bulb shatters with a loud pop, sending shards of red glass sliding off the tank in all directions.

  “Are you crazy?” Dan yells, his voice cracking.

  Henry is laughing. I notice that the thing in his hand is a hacksaw.

  “That’s an aviation warning light. Now an airplane could hit us,” Dan says.

  “When’s the last time you saw an airplane fly this low over St. Andrew Valley?” Henry says. He goes back to his sawing. “Besides, I like the dark.”

  It is nice to be rid of the flashing beacon. Our light now comes from the three-quarter moon rising in the east. The top of the tank is shimmering silver. We are standing atop the planet of the Ten-legged One. … Wait a sec, what is Henry doing with a hacksaw?

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He leans to the side to show me. He is sawing through the padlock that holds the hatch closed. “Brain surgery,” he says with a grin.

  * * *

  AND THE SUN ROSE AND THE SUN SET AND THE WATERS OF THE EARTH DID MOISTEN THAT WHICH WAS DRY, AND THE HUMANS DID DRINK THIRSTILY OF IT, AND THE CHUTENGODIANS DID WORSHIP THE TEN-LEGGED ONE AND ALL OF THE OCEAN’S AVATARS, AND LO, THERE WERE TIMES OF GOODNESS AND PLENTY.

  * * *

  18

  “You can’t do that!” Dan says.

  “Sure I can. Look. I’m doing it.” Just as Henry says that, the saw blade snaps.

  “I guess the Ten-legged One does not desire brain surgery,” I say.

  “I got it almost sawed through.” Henry swings the broken hacksaw at the lock, whacking it repeatedly. The sound of the saw banging against the hatch echoes beneath our feet; I can feel the vibration. He gives it one last hard blow, getting his whole body behind it, and the lock snaps off, skids a few feet, nearly stops, then picks up speed as the slope of the tank steepens. As the lock disappears over the horizon, I’m reminded of how near we are to death.

  A second later we hear a loud metallic bonk, then an angry shout.

  “Who was that?” Dan asks.

  “Sounded like Magda,” Henry says.

  “I better go see if she’s okay,” I say, starting down the ladder.

  I meet Magda on the catwalk.

  “What was that?” she asks. “It almost hit me!”

  “Henry cut the padlock off the hatch.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why Henry does any of the things he does.” I look over the railing. “Is Shin still down there?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “He didn’t fall, I hope.”

  “I went all the way down. I didn’t see him anywhere. He must’ve climbed down and gone home.”

  “Oh.” Shin must be miserable. He was so hard on himself the first time he tried and failed to climb the tower; this time must be even worse. I imagine how he must be feeling. Not good. I consider going after him … but what good would that do? I can’t change him. He is who he is. I can’t be responsible for every little glitch in his pathetic life.

  “He’s a funny guy.”

  “I feel bad for him.”

  “Yeah, me too.” I try to recapture some of the bad feeling so that I can share this feel-bad-moment with Magda, but mostly I’m just mad at Shin for being such a wuss. How did I end up with a best friend who raises snails, anyway? I refuse to let Shin’s weirdness interfere with my social life. Or my religion.

  “We’d better find out what Henry’s up to,” I say.

  We climb back up. Henry has the hatch open. He and Dan are peering into the opening.

  “Shin went home,” I say.

  Henry says, “I told you he wouldn’t make it. I don’t know why you bother with him.”

  “He’s my friend,” I say, transferring some of my anger from Shin to Henry.

  “That doesn’t make him less of a loser. Grab my backpack for me, would ya?”

  I push Henry’s backpack over to him with my foot. He digs inside and comes out with a flashlight. He aims the beam down into the hatch.

  “What do you see?”

  “A platform.”

  Magda and I look past Henry and Dan’s heads at a steel grating about seven feet below the hatch. Henry sticks his head and arm deep inside, casting about with the beam of light.

  “Anybody home?” His voice echoes weirdly.

  Magda asks, “Can you see the water?”

  “Yeah … it’s about ten feet below the platform. Here, hold this.” He hands the flashlight up to Dan.

  Next thing I know, Henry’s in the tank.

  “Gimme the light,” he says. Dan lowers the flashlight in to Henry, who is standing on the steel platform.

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s nice and cool in here.”

  “You better come out of there, Henry,” I say.

  “No way! Hey, there’s, like, a chain thing here. Lemme …” A scraping clanking noise echoes up from the hatch. “You can’t believe how rusty this thing is.”

  “What’s he doing?” I ask Dan.

  “I don’t know.”

  There is a sudden rattling and a splash.

  “What happened? Is he okay?”

  “He just dropped something into the water,” Dan says.

  “It’s a chain ladder, you guys,” Henry shouts. “Hey Danny, grab these, would ya?”

  Dan reaches in and comes out with Henry’s cowboy boots. “Take these, too.” Henry hands up his socks. Dan wrinkles his nose and stuffs the socks into the boots.

  “What’s he doing now?” Magda asks.

  “He’s—oh my god—”

  The sound of a loud splash up through the hatch, followed by a shouted “Yee-ha!”

  “He jumped in,” Dan says.

  “Whooo-eee!” screams Henry. “Check it out!”

  “Omigod, let me see!” says Magda, shoving Dan aside and dipping her head into the hatch. “Henry? You okay?”

  “This is awesome. Come on in!”

  She lifts her head up and says, “He wants us to go swimming.”

  I shout into the hatch, “Henry! We came up here for Midnight Mass, not swimming!”

  “Screw the mass! It’s baptism time!”

  “I know one thing for sure,” I say. “I’m not drinking any tap water for the next few days.”

  People will surprise you. You just don’t know for sure what anybody’s going to do. For example, I never would have guessed that both Dan and Magda would climb into that tank and jump into the water. And I never would’ve guessed that Magda would be the first, stripping down to her dark panties and pink bra right there in front of us and jumping into the cold water with a blood-curdling shriek. Dan followed her in almost immediately, only he kept his shorts on.

  Me? I’m alone on the Godhead, standing in the center of a great steel ball with nothing but a broken light, a pile of clothing, and Henry Stagg’s cowboy boots for company. Muffled shouts and screams and laughter echo up through the open hatch. A warm breeze ruffles my hair.

  I think it is totally crazy what they are doing. What if that rusty chain ladder isn’t strong enough to hold them? They’d swim around in circles until they drowned. And what if we got caught polluting the city water with our sweaty, unwashed bodies? We might get thrown in jail.

  No, it’s completely crazy, irresponsible, dangerous, and immature. I look around at St. Andrew Valley, at all the houses filled with sleeping, unsuspecting citizens. What would they think if they knew what was going on up here? I imagine John Q. Citizen waking up in the middle of the night and pouring himself a glass of tap water. Hmm. Tastes like unwashed teenage bodies. Must be having a bad dream.

  I lower myself through the hatch. Cool, moist air surrounds me. The flashlight is on the platform, its beam lighting up the great curved wall of the tank. I point it down and scan the surface until I find Magda’s dark head bobbing in th
e water.

  “C’mon, in, Jason!” she shouts.

  I swing the beam of the light around, marveling at the size of the tank. It seems bigger on the inside than it does on the outside.

  “Hey Kahuna, you coming in or not?” There’s Henry, doing a backstroke. Dan is a few yards away, treading water.

  People will surprise you. You never know what dumbass thing they’re going to do next. I pull off my shoes and toss them up through the hatch. I take off my socks and my T-shirt, but leave my jeans on because I’ve got holes in my underwear. I hang my legs out over the edge of the platform, take a breath, and push off into space.

  Sometimes even I surprise me.

  The shock of hitting the cold water sends the breath rushing from my lungs. I kick and dig with my arms, making for the surface. It can’t be more than a second, but it feels like forever before I break through and suck in a fresh lungful of oxygen. But something is wrong. It’s black. The blackest black I’ve ever been in, blacker than closed eyes in bed at night.

  I’ve gone blind.

  “Hey!” I shout. “You guys here? I can’t see!”

  “Of course you can’t, you dumb ass!” Henry’s voice. “You knocked the flashlight into the water when you jumped.”

  “Oh, “I say.

  “Where are you guys?” Dan’s voice.

  “Over here,” Magda says.

  “Over where?” I say. The darkness seems to amplify the echoes. I can’t tell what direction the voices are coming from.

  “That was a really stupid move, your Kahunaness,” says Henry.

  “Sorry. Can anybody see anything at all?”

  Dan says, “How are we gonna find the ladder?”

  “It’s right in the middle.”

  “Yeah, but where’s the middle?”

  “It must be close to where you jumped in, Kahunaness.”

  Magda, off to my left, says, “I think I see the hatch.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Over here. Up against the wall.”

  “If you swim toward it, you might run into the ladder.”