05:08:43:25 until Doomsday
“But it is a good question!” Jessica paced back and forth across her living room while Wendy and Cash shared a meaningful look from their spot on the couch. “Why am I white?”
Wendy reached out and grabbed Jessica as she made another lap, forcing her to stop. “You think I haven’t asked that a thousand times?”
Jessica blinked. She had been living in a dizzying fog in the hours since Wendy had stepped forward to the mic, said, “We get the Messiah we deserve,” and ended the press conference.
Jessica had remained in that haze as Chris and Destinee loaded her up into the rented F-350 and carted her back home.
And now, finally, after Wendy, Cash, Jesus, and Jeremy had joined them in her condo for a debrief, she felt like she’d just woken up.
Jessica glared down at her publicist. “You shouldn’t have hung me up to dry right before I went up there.”
“I didn’t. You’ve been avoiding this question for too long. Someone had to ask it.”
A bolt of betrayal ran through her. “Did you plan that with Fiona?”
“Of course not. Don’t be dense. It’s simply an inevitable question for anyone who’s not white. The timing wasn’t ideal, but I knew it would come eventually. Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t come sooner.”
“Then why didn’t you prepare me for it?”
Wendy let go of her arm. “Because I don’t have a good answer for it. I only have deflections. But it demands to be answered fully. Only you can do that.”
Jessica threw her hands into the air. “I don’t know the answer! I don’t know why I’m white!”
“Have you considered asking your Mother?”
Jessica had not.
But she shifted her attention that way.
“Huh?” Destinee perked up from her spot on the stuffed armchair once she realized all eyes had turned to her. “Oh, that’s easy. You’re white because both me and Ross Hawthorne are white.”
Cash looked up from their screen. “Who the hell is Ross Hawthorne?”
“The guy God looked like when we banged. Don’t tell me you’re too young to know who Ross Hawthorne is. Shit.”
Wendy steered the conversation back on track. “Not that mother.”
“Oh, you mean God? Yeah, already asked her. She said I’m white because She made me that way.”
Wendy sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly in a way that indicated she might be asking Jessica’s Mother for patience at that very moment. “And then did you ask why She made you that way?”
“Uh … no. I guess I didn’t.”
But before she could ask the question, God spoke. YOU ARE A WHITE WOMAN BECAUSE, FOR NOW, I AM A WHITE WOMAN. I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA. I AM THE OPPRESSOR AND THE OPPRESSED.
What the actual fuck are you talking about? No, never mind. Why did you make me white?
THE SAME REASON I GAVE YOU THAT GOLDEN FOOT YOU NEVER USE ANYMORE.
Just say what you mean for once!
(Cash waved a hand vaguely in front of her glazed over face, but Wendy knocked it away. “Stop. She’s praying … or whatever.”)
WE’VE TALKED ABOUT THIS BEFORE, DAUGHTER. WHY DID I GIVE YOU THE MIRACLES THAT I DID?
Because they were the ones people needed. Because they were the most likely to convince people that I was for real.
EXACTLY.
But you could have made me black if you’d wanted to, right?
YES.
So you didn’t want to?
I VERY MUCH DID WANT TO.
Then why didn’t you?!
There was no response, but she didn’t need one. She understood, or at least she was starting to, and it left her breathless with a hollow aching in her chest.
She let her vision refocus on the publicist in front of her, and her gut roiled. “Wendy, if I’d been black and claimed to be the messiah, from a publicist’s perspective, what would you say my odds were of anyone listening to me?”
“Anyone white listening to you?”
Jess cringed and nodded.
“Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t have taken you on as a client if you’d come to me and said you wanted white people to believe a black woman was a messiah.”
“And that’s because?” She braced herself.
“That’s because I can hardly convince people that I’m a college graduate, and I have my masters and fifteen years’ experience running my own firm. When I answer the phone for Peterman Public Relations and say, ‘Wendy Peterman speaking,’ people ask me if they can speak with my boss.”
Jessica grunted and dropped down onto the ottoman next to Chris, her arms flopping limply into her lap. “I don’t know what to say. I believe you, but … This is painful.”
Wendy leaned forward and tapped Jessica’s knee in what was clearly intended as consolation. “I can’t believe I’m the one comforting you right now, but … it’s not your fault.”
“Quentin brought all of this up before, and I just didn’t get it.”
Wendy nodded. “To be fair, you still don’t. But you’re trying, and you’re making progress.”
Jessica put her head in her hands, trying to think as Chris rubbed gentle circles on her back.
She’d started this conversation looking for reassurance that the reporter’s question had been unjust, an unfair attack on something Jessica couldn’t help, possibly even a racist jab. Yet now it was clear that not only was there no reassurance to be provided, but she herself had some serious reckoning to do. She couldn’t avoid the question any longer, and every answer that felt true also felt like a knife turning in her heart.
After a few silent minutes of the new perspective churning, she looked around the room at the faces she trusted the most to give her honest answers. “Have I been promoting ...” What was the word? Then it came to her, and a bitter taste blossomed on her tongue. She’d heard it used before, but only in relation to swastikas and white hoods. Was there a milder version of it for what she might’ve done? She wasn’t lighting crosses, after all.
But she was exhausted, and these were people she trusted, so she let the rest of the question tumble out. “Have I been promoting white supremacy?”
Chris and Destinee hurriedly reassured her that it was not the case, while Jesus, from his lounging spot on the rug, asked what white supremacy was, and Wendy, Cash, and Jeremy nodded compassionately. The two camps looked at each other in confusion. And Jesus looked at everyone in confusion.
“Just ’cause she’s white—” Destinee began.
And Cash said, “Exactly, she’s white.”
“You’re the whitest person in this whole room,” Chris snapped back.
“But I’m not claiming to be the messiah.”
Jeremy, leaning against the wall by the window, put an end to the fragmented conversation with, “To be fair, white supremacy serves as the foundation for everything that has happened in this country since the ancient alien race landed on the shores of what we now call Alabama and injected their DNA into the local indigenous populations.”
And the room fell silent.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jessica said miserably.
“I know you didn’t,” Wendy assured her. “You had to play the game, though. At least for a while.”
“But I thought you said I couldn’t win this game, that I shouldn’t even play it. Wait, how many games are there?”
“So many. And I did say that. You had to play the game to get to where you are, and now that you’re here, it’s time to change the rules.”
Jessica craved a beer, but now seemed a racially insensitive time to get one.
However, reading her daughter’s tell-tale signs, Destinee jumped up and headed to the fridge, and as she returned with a long-neck, Jessica said, “Won’t I be a hypocrite if I change now?”
Destinee offered the Dos Equis to her daughter, but Wendy grabbed it first and took a long swig. “No, Jessica. Learning to be better and changing your behavior accordingly i
s never hypocrisy.”
“It’s not, I dunno, too late?”
It was Jesus who eagerly replied, “It’s never too late in the day for a laborer to arrive.”
Wendy eyed him skeptically. “I … wouldn’t have said it that way, but he’s not wrong. Better late than never.”
“Ooh!” Jesus said. “I like the way you put it. Much simpler.”
“Is this why I haven’t succeeded yet?” Jessica asked. “Why I haven’t brought peace to the United States? Because I’ve only convinced white women?”
Wendy nodded. “Our recent polls certainly support that assumption. But white women are a powerful group of people to lead. The most privileged of all the oppressed.”
“Huh.” It was Destinee who’d spoken. “Well, I’ll be damned. Ain’t never heard it put like that.”
“I can’t do this without all women, though,” Jessica said. “So, how do I get all the non-white women on board?”
Wendy opened her mouth to reply, then shut it. Her square shoulders sagged. “Honestly? I don’t know that you can.” She paused. “I always knew we were heading straight toward this, but I just told myself I’d figure it out when we got to it. And now we’re to it, and I still don’t know.”
The rest of the group remained silent. Jesus watched with rapt attention, his eyes wide, Destinee stared at her hands in her lap, Chris looked on the verge of speaking without having any clear idea of what he might say, and both Cash and Jeremy were already buried again in their phones.
The front door swung open, hitting the springy door stop with a bang, and Rex stepped through carrying a large cardboard stack. “I got pizza!”
“Not now,” Destinee snapped. “We’re talking about race!”
The blood drained from Rex’s face as the door swung closed behind him. Then he blinked. “Intersectionality,” he whispered reverently before rushing to drop off the pizzas on the kitchen island. “One second! I’m ready to listen! I want to hear you!” He scrambled over to sit on the floor by Destinee and next to Jesus, where he settled in cross-legged, his belly hanging over his belt to take up most of his lap as he stared wide-eyed at the only person of color in the room.
Wendy arched an eyebrow at him.
The smell of pizza acted as a familiar swaddle, taking the edge off of Jessica’s frayed nerves. A few more deep inhales, and she felt something shift. She could be brave. She could ask the hard questions. And if it all blew up in her face, there was always, always pizza. “Should I apologize?”
The publicist tore her eyes from Rex’s disconcerting attention and shrugged. “Eventually, sure. But I think we both know actions speak louder.”
She could practically feel Chris’s self-control stretching to its limits as he refrained from defending her. Or maybe he was refraining from answering the pizzas’ siren song. Either way, she was grateful for his discretion. She needed to think.
“How much damage have I done?” she asked.
“Nothing you can’t undo.”
“How can I undo it if I don’t even know what exactly I did?”
“You listen, for a start.”
Rex nodded emphatically.
Jessica shot him a sideways glance before asking, “To who?”
“To the ones you haven’t heard yet,” Wendy replied. “The ones who don’t have microphones, the ones who don’t own the networks.” Then to Jeremy: “No offense.”
His face remained buried in his phone as he replied, “None taken. My kind are vultures.”
“And,” Wendy concluded, “listen to the ones who are punished for speaking.”
“I’ve been punished for speaking,” Jess said, sliding comfortably into that familiar role of the oppressed like it was a warm bath after a chilly day. “What about that?”
The publicist didn’t appear especially impressed. “Yes, you have. So you should keep speaking. But you could have been punished more. Or they could have simply ignored you, which is often worse.”
Her shame surged again. “I just wish you would have told me sooner! You let me go out there totally oblivious to any of this, and I’ve made a complete ass of myself. I’ve been promoting … bad things without meaning to.”
Wendy’s voice became that of a strict teacher who had been through this routine before. “It’s not my job to educate every white person about this. But also, I’ve definitely brought this up in so many words before. You just didn’t hear it. By the sounds of it, Quentin’s brought it up directly, and you still didn’t hear it. You weren’t ready to hear it, and that’s the hard truth of it. But now you’re listening, so I’m telling you.”
“Okay. You’re right. You’re right!” She held up her hands in surrender, then took a deep breath as her control returned to her. “So, how do I fix this?”
“First, you have a whole lot of learning to do, and it’s going to be uncomfortable, challenging, and there will be mandatory reading. And then you’re gonna need an audience. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think you’re going to pull much of one on your own. Not after that lackluster showing today.”
Jessica winced. Was reminding her of the day’s almighty flop really necessary?
“However,” Wendy went on, a small smile creeping onto her face, “I do happen to know someone who is already positioned to draw quite a crowd next weekend.”
Ah yes. Jessica got to her feet to face her publicist, already feeling supremely out of her depth but pushing onward anyway. “Then we’d better get—Chris!”
He’d crept over to the kitchen and was folding a giant slice in half to better torpedo it into his mouth. He froze. “What?”
“This is an important moment!”
He didn’t move, but his eyes darted around, no doubt looking for support. “And what better way to celebrate than with pizza?”
Jessica turned to Wendy for a cue on how to proceed, but the publicist just shrugged. “Can’t fight systemic racism on an empty stomach.”
And as it turned out, that was truer than Jessica could have imagined, because as she started on her third slice, thinking about all the ways it would be impossible for someone who looked like her to bring peace to the United States, the seed of an idea dropped through the fresh cracks in her cemented worldview …
She paused, the mushy lump of pizza going temporarily unchewed. If she so much as breathed, she might lose the thread.
So she held onto it gently, following it, asking What next? and Then what? Her heart raced, and in her soul, she knew this was it—God didn’t have to tell her. It was like she’d been born with this answer inside her and only now had she accessed this secret wisdom. She didn’t understand it yet, but she would if she kept asking the right questions.
God’s wisdom from years ago surfaced in her mind, hardly more than a whisper: THERE IS ALWAYS A LOOPHOLE.
Indeed. And she was pretty damn sure she’d just found it.
Chapter Forty-Nine
00:01:05:01 until Doomsday
The vast parking lot of White Light Church was set up like a carnival of doom, lit up against the dark backdrop of the night sky. Its original purpose, to house cars, had been usurped, and all those who believed the end was nigh were being asked to park on the shoulder of the frontage road nearby—what was it to them if their cars were towed once the world was over?
And that freed up space for the many horrors that Jimmy Dean had arranged, including, but by no means limited to, rows upon rows of shiny silver troughs full of communion wine that sparkled bloody under the bright lights; confession circles, where a guilty party would stand, surrounded by all of his closest friends, and confess to his worst transgressions publicly (no going back now!); and, for the children, a pin-the-tail-on-Original Sin wall that depicted the mother of Christ delivering her child on all fours.
Jessica split a rideshare over with Destinee, Rex, and Chris to avoid the parking nightmare. Their meager disguises, which were more camouflage than anything else, were already in place by the time they got out
of the cramped Toyota, thanked their driver, and gave him a rating of five stars in advance for not snitching on social media about who he had just transported to this event.
“I’ve always wanted to be a redhead,” Destinee giggled, straightening her wig as they slipped between two parked trucks on the frontage road.
It was hardly what anyone would call a “natural” shade of red. More like the inside of a grapefruit. And it stood out boldly against the blank canvas of her white clothing.
“You look great, my goddess,” Rex said. “Of course, you know your looks are always secondary to your true essence for me.”
“Just say I look hot, Rex. Jesus.”
The high school football coach wasn’t especially disguised, but that was because he looked like so many people without even trying. Despite knowing him for years now, Jess was pretty sure that if he grew out a beard, she wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup of middle-age white men who hadn’t listened when their doctors told them to cut back on red meat. He had opted for a white pearl-snap shirt, white Wranglers, which she didn’t even know existed until the hunt for camouflage had begun, and cowboy boots to further allow him to fly under everyone’s radar.
Jessica had always believed her appearance to be forgettable, which was why, even after so much press coverage during the course of her life, she could still go most places without being recognized, so long as she didn’t have any accompanying context with her like the pro footballer Chris Riley or the movie star Jameson Fractal.
Or, as the case may be, White Light Church.
She was so closely associated with the damn institution that she would be fresh in everyone’s subconscious—the product of Original Sin, the one who would bring about the End. She was an archetype here. The shadow. The shedow.
Sunglasses and a baseball cap just weren’t gonna cut it this time.
It had been Chris who’d suggested the thick-rimmed glasses, and because she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she wasn’t Superman—so there was no way eyewear would be enough—she’d decided to give it a shot and had ordered a decorative pair off the internet. White rims, of course. All she needed then was a wig (thankfully Destinee had gone hog wild at Party Palace and purchased plenty to share), and now she was basically unrecognizable.
The End Is Her Page 29