Pulling up Stakes and Other Piercing Stories Page 10

  She nodded, sending the ends of her red hair kicking across her shoulders. "Last week. Right after Christmas."

  "Where'd you come from?" I asked.

  "Paris."

  "Wow." I hadn't noticed an accent. Damn, a redhead from Paris. My eyes dropped to her sweater, wondering what was hidden behind the loose draping of wool. I looked away as a dozen fantasies flashed through my mind and a guilty warmth spread through my cheeks.

  "Paris, Texas," she said.

  Not France, though still pretty far from Pennsylvania. I slowed my pace. Even so, we reached the end of the corridor too soon. "The mysterious room 307," I said.

  I followed her in, and dreamed of other ways I could help her feel at home. But all thoughts of learning more about Paris were set aside that afternoon when Mr. Sterns dribbled a crumb of hope into my dismal pit of failure.

  "It's time to start your writing projects," he said. He outlined the requirements. Then he explained his grading system. And there I found salvation.

  "In order to encourage writing and discourage sloth," he said, "I'm awarding an extra credit of one point for every five hundred words in your finished project. So feel free to knock yourselves out."

  There were the usual protests from those who'd rather crawl through ground glass soaked in vinegar than write a hundred words. But to me, five hundred words was a warm up.

  "Any limit?" I asked. I was already running numbers in my head, figuring out what it would take to bring my grade back from the dead.

  "You can get as much extra credit as you want," Mr. Sterns said. "No limit." He probably figured that only a complete maniac would try for more than three or four points.

  I planned to get fifty.

  That meant I had about a month to write 25,000 words. Rough, but doable. Dean Koontz produced a couple thousand words every single day of the year. Alexander Dumas wrote 300 novels. Big, whopping mothers. All by hand with a quill. Hell, I had a computer. I thought about using some of my old stories, but I'd already showed the good ones to Mr. Sterns. I'd have to start from scratch. The moment I got home from school, I hit the keyboard, so eager to start that my hands were shaking.

  Almost immediately, the demon — the one who reveals the dark side of every plan — whispered words of failure in my ear. I could get a great grade in the project and still blow my average by screwing up some stupid little quiz. I wasn't going to let that happen. No way. I studied hard. In a week, I wrote four stories and aced a tough test. I spent so much time hunched over my computer, mushrooms sprouted from my flesh. I hardly saw my friends. I talked with Julia in homeroom, and thought about her a lot as I was drifting off to sleep, but she wasn't in any of my classes, which made it tough to get to know her.

  Julia, on the other hand, found a way to get to know me. I was heading out of homeroom at the end of the second week of my writing marathon when she said, "Hey Michael, got any plans for tonight?"

  "Not really." I had a hot date with a PC.

  "Want to go to a concert?"

  Somehow, I gained control of my nervous system before I leaped in the air. "Sure. That would be nice," I said, trying to sound eager but not desperate. "How much are the tickets?" Christmas had wiped out most of the money I'd earned last summer making French fries in hell.

  "Good news — it's free," she said.

  "Free?" Bad news. Usually when people gave away music, it was stuff nobody liked. But I figured I'd happily sit through almost anything if I was sitting through it with Julia. Except opera. Good god, don't let it be opera.

  That gave me a plot idea — guy goes to an opera with a beautiful girl. It's so unbearable, he leaps from the balcony to end his suffering. As he dies, she reveals that she hates opera, too. She only went because she thought he wanted to go.

  "It's not one of those classical things, is it?" I asked.

  Julia smiled. "No. There'll be plenty of guitars and amps. Drums. Bass player. The works. You'll like it."

  "Great." We arranged to meet at my place since it was on the way to the concert.

  That evening, I had an early dinner with Mom, then went to my room to write. But my mind kept drifting to the concert, and especially to the walk home afterwards. It would be cold. Maybe we'd huddle together for warmth. Maybe she'd forget her gloves. Maybe... I must have fallen deep into the day dreams, because the next thing I knew, Julia was knocking at my bedroom door.

  "Hi. Your Mom let me in." Julia pointed at the computer. "Am I interrupting something?"

  "No, I was just working on my English project." And thinking about you. "I'm writing a book of short stories."

  "A whole book?"

  "Yup." I tapped the bottom of the monitor, where the display showed the page count.

  "Wow," Julia said as she leaned over my shoulder and read the number. A fresh smell — shampoo? — teased my next deep breath. I wanted to touch her hair. Instead, I got up and followed her out.

  We walked through the center of town, then took a side street past the library. After a block and a half, she stopped in front of an old brick building with a wide wooden door.

  "This is a church," I said.

  "Yup," she said. "It's a church."

  I read the sign by the steps. El Shaddai. That sounded like Hebrew. "Are you Jewish?" I asked.

  Julia laughed and shook her head. "No. I'm a Christian. Though my dad says we're adopted Jews." She started up the steps, then turned back. A half formed word dangled from her lips.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  Her eyes shifted toward the door. "The crowd might be kind of enthusiastic. So don't get spooked by anything. Okay?"

  "Spooked? Me? No way. I read Edgar Allan Poe for bedtime stories." I followed her up the steps, wondering what kind of spooky enthusiasm waited on the other side of the door. How wild could things get in a church? My mind answered that question with a story idea about a guy who thinks he's on a date but ends up being a human sacrifice. I stashed that plot away before I spooked myself. Time to stop dreaming up disastrous dates.

  The inside was far from scary. It was the plainest church I'd ever seen. No pictures or stained glass — just a wooden cross on the wall. We found a spot at the end of a pew about halfway down the aisle. After we sat, I checked out the instruments up front. The band's name was painted on the bass drum. Tarsus Express. Weird. That sounded like an ankle bone. Two guitars and a bass leaned against Marshall amps, flanked by an electric piano and three floor mikes. Definitely enough gear to make some noise.

  A moment later, the band came out. They seemed pretty clean cut for musicians. One guy picked up a guitar, hit a chord, then moved toward a microphone and said, "Praise God."

  He hit another chord and the rest of the band joined in. The first song was about someone named Emmanuel. The next song was just like the sign out front — El Shaddai. Even though we were in a church, I hadn't really expected religious music. The Unitarian church across town had concerts all the time, and those never had anything to do with religion. But the band was good, so I didn't mind.

  Around me, kids were standing, clapping along. Julia grabbed my wrist and gave a yank, pulling me to my feet. I didn't mind that, either.

  After a couple more songs, the guitarist said, "Okay, let's get some testimonies. What's Jesus done for you?"

  Huh? I felt like I'd suddenly found myself in German class after taking three years of Spanish. I didn't even understand the question. Testimonies? A dozen hands shot up. I hunched down in my seat and listened as kids spilled their sorrows.

  "Man, I was all messed up," this guy in a torn denim jacket said. "I was on drugs, living in my car. I stole from my parents. Got kicked out of the house." He told how he'd been saved by Jesus.

  A thin girl with haunted eyes confessed she'd tried to kill herself three times before she'd found salvation.

  I felt funny listening to the testimonies, sort of like I'd snuck into an AA meeting.

  When the music started up again, everyone got back on their feet. The air gre
w so warm from all the clapping bodies that Julia took off her sweater. As she pulled it over her head, her t-shirt lifted for an instant, revealing a glimpse of the smooth flesh above her belt. The shirt fell back, but the memory stayed. It was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen.

  I tried not to stare at her. Plenty of other distractions fought for my attention. Kids were hopping in the aisles. Others raised their arms and swayed to the music. A girl behind me kept screaming out stuff that sounded like her own private language. It made me think of the doo-wop lyrics they sang in the sixties....shamma ramma lamma damma, shoo-bop-awooo.

  The band stopped a couple more times for testimonies, and once so the drummer could preach a sermon about going where God sent you. At the end of the concert, the lead singer put down his guitar and said, "If you want to accept Jesus as your Savior, come forward."

  Whoa. Back to German class.

  A handful of kids left their seats and walked toward him. I couldn't imagine doing that — not in front of all those people.

  The guy who'd preached started laying his hand on people's heads and yelling about fire and the Holy Spirit. One kid fell on his back and flopped around. Nobody seemed concerned. More came forward, and more fell. The floor looked like the deck of a fishing boat right after they dumped the net.

  The place was so warm now that I could barely breathe. Up front, the sounds shifted to quiet voices mixed with sobs. Finally, the crowd began to filter out.

  "Well," Julia asked as we merged with the flow heading through the exit. "Like it?" The air had grown crisp. She rubbed her hands together and put them in her pockets. No gloves.

  "Yeah. It was kind of fun." Except for that stuff at the end, I thought. Orion hovered ahead of us, bright points marking his outline. "So..." I said.

  "So?"

  "You're into this?" I flinched at my clumsy wording.

  "I serve the Lord," Julia said. "I've been born again."

  The silence grew painfully obvious as I searched for a suitable response. That's nice, seemed far too shallow. Holy shit struck me as totally wrong. I wasn't used to being around religious people. I figured I'd probably broken all sorts of rules I didn't even know existed. As hard as I tried, I could only remember a couple of the Ten Commandments.

  Other memories were much clearer. Every thought and fantasy I'd ever had about Julia shot back to me like evidence at a trial. That brief glimpse of her flesh taunted me. Forbidden fruit. I wanted to hold her. And I wanted to run.

  "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked. "Never met a Christian before?"

  "Yes. I mean, no. Sure I have. My mom's one. I mean, she was. So I guess she still is. And I celebrate Christmas. Easter, too." I tried to think of other religious holidays.

  Julia's smile tickled at the edge of her lips. As my own words echoed in my mind, it dawned on me how ridiculous I sounded. "I'm babbling. Right?"

  "Maybe a little."

  "Sorry. I guess I don't know anyone who's really religious," I said.

  "You might be surprised. We don't wear signs. Not every Christian goes around shouting scripture. That's no way to win souls. My life is my testimony."

  There was that word again. "The stuff they talked about. You know, the people who told how messed up they were..." I paused, afraid to pry.

  Julia answered my unspoken question. "I've never suffered those things. Some of us come to the Lord more easily," she said. "I've been a believer all my life."

  A believer all her life. That seemed so foreign. And so permanent. "What kind of church is it?" I asked. The sign out front hadn't offered any clue.

  "Pentecostal," Julia said. "Some people call us Holy Rollers. But we're just enjoying the gifts of the Spirit."

  "You go around knocking on doors?" I asked.

  "That's not us. Mostly we stand on street corners shouting about the end of the world. I love to scream 'repent' real loud. It saves tons of souls."

  "You're kidding?"

  Julia nodded. "Yes, I'm kidding. But that's what people think. They think all kinds of weird things." She touched my shoulder. "Why not come to church with me some Sunday? Then you can see for yourself. I know you'd enjoy it."

  "I can't right now. I'm pretty busy with my English project."

  "Maybe another time?"

  "Sure." We'd reached my house by then. I think, if I'd lived closer to the church, I'd have just walked her home. But the strangeness of the evening had faded with distance. And the flesh and blood Julia was still by my side. "Want to come in?" I asked.

  "That would be great."

  We were cold from the walk, so I nuked two mugs of milk for cocoa. Mom peeked into the kitchen, said hi, then left us alone.

  We talked for a while. Just about school and stuff. Nothing heavy. Nothing spiritual.

  "Let me walk you home," I said when Julia got up.

  "You don't have to."

  "Yes I do. It can get a bit rough around here at night."

  So I walked her home, and we talked some more. When we reached her house, she said, "Have you ever read the Bible?"

  I wanted to impress her by saying yes, but I realized it wouldn't exactly be the best thing to lie about. "Not really."

  "Here." She pulled a small red booklet from her front pocket. "It's The Gospel of Saint John, in modern English. Give it a try."

  We said good night. She stepped away before I could think about kissing her, and I watched her glide up to her porch.

  "Nice girl," Mom said when I got home. "Very pretty. You have a good time?"

  "Yeah. I did." Mostly.

  Mom sniffed, then scratched her nose. "I think I'm allergic to her soap or something." She scratched again, then laughed. "You remember what your grandma always said?"

  "Yeah. If your nose itches, it means you're going to kiss a fool."

  Mom gave me a kiss on the forehead. "See, it's true."

  I watched TV with her for a while, then went upstairs. It was too early to go to sleep, so I looked through my stories. I'd written nine, but two of them stunk, so I really had seven, several of which were just first drafts. I needed at least ten stories to reach my goal of 25,000 words. No problem. It wouldn't be hard to come up with three more.

  As I stared out the window and thought about Julia, my mind invented a scene. A guy sees a beautiful girl drift past. He follows her. Wait. Reverse it. What if it was a girl who saw a guy? Yeah. Much better. He's wearing clothes from a different era. And carrying something. What? I traced a dozen branching possibilities as I let the story evolve in my mind.

  I wrote the first paragraph, finding the viewpoint by reliving the moment when I watched Julia walk up her porch. I moved to the next paragraph, where the fiction began. And the next. The writing filled me so deeply that nothing else existed. No world. No room. No chair. Just words.

  I didn't stop until I'd written the whole story. By then, I was beat. I fell into bed and picked up the booklet Julia had given me.

  In the beginning was the Word...

  Cool start. Words were one of my favorite things. If this had been a movie, or one of my stories, I guess I'd have been instantly converted by the power of the written word. But this was life. The Gospel of Saint John was interesting, but I wasn't ready to believe a story just because someone had written it. In a way, I envied Julia. She was able to accept things she hadn't seen. I could never do that.

  God, I thought as I drifted toward sleep, why is it so hard? Would it hurt for God to give people one little sign? A familiar line floated through my thoughts. Ask and it shall be given. Maybe God just wanted people to make the first move.

  "God..." I said aloud, the word hanging in the darkness, barely louder than a thought. I wondered about the crowd at the concert. All those believers. They seemed so happy. Were they mindless sheep? Or had they found something I could never understand? "If you're listening to me..." I stopped again, realizing how stupid that was. If God was God, he heard everything. "Do something," I said. "Just something little."

  What kind of sign cou
ld I ask for? Any god who could create a universe could certainly give me some small signal. I blurted out the first idea that came to mind. "Make my nose itch."

  "Stupid," I whispered at myself. I couldn't believe I'd just asked God to make my nose itch. I was such a moron. Even so, I held still, waiting to see what would happen.

  Nothing.

  I wondered what I'd have done if I'd felt the slightest of itches, a sensation so subtle that I couldn't tell whether I'd imagined it. Maybe that's what faith was — just a form of imagination. Was that the secret of the universe? Was faith an imaginary itch? My last thought, before I fell asleep, was that, real or imaginary, it must be nice to have faith.

  It would have been even nicer to have faith at six that morning when the policeman came to the house. Mom had driven to the corner store. I guess to buy milk for her coffee because her selfish idiot of a son hadn't left any. She'd been mugged in the parking lot. She tried to fight the guy off. The cop told me this while he gave me a ride to the store. Our car was there. A smashed carton lay next to it, the puddled milk tinged with blood.

  "She's at the hospital," he told me. "You okay to drive?"

  I nodded and he left. Then I closed my eyes and saw all the ways this was my fault. If I hadn't used up the milk, Mom would still be okay. If I hadn't gone out with Julia, none of this would have happened. What if I'd gone forward at the end of the concert? Would God have stopped the mugger? Was I being punished for not believing? A worse thought hit me. Maybe I was being punished for my fantasies. Punished because the whole time I'd sat in that church I'd wanted to pull Julia close to me, run my hands under her shirt, and touch the warm soft skin of her back. Kiss her neck. Bury my face in her hair. If only I'd walked out when things started to get weird.

  Last night, all I'd heard was God is good and Praise the Lord! I wished one those grinning believers was here right now. I'd have pushed his face into the blood and asked if this was how his god worked.

  I drove to the hospital, then waited a couple hours before I could see Mom. She had a broken wrist and a deep gash on her forehead. But she'd be okay. A cop came by later to tell me they'd caught the guy.