No Way Back (20 page)

She darts from the car, slams the door shut behind her, and circles around to let me out. ‘Come on, Mr Boss,’ she says, holding the door open for me gallantly. ‘You’ll
like this. I know you will.’

‘I don’t really want to go in,’ I say. I look up at her, refusing to budge. The fun has drained from my voice. I was lured into her cabriolet under false pretences. Now
I’m trapped in a church parking lot with a girl who suddenly seems a lot less exciting than she did twenty minutes ago.

‘Please,’ she says. ‘Do it for me.’

Church is not, as I told Amanda, my thing.

My thing usually comes in bottles. I have, on occasion, snorted my thing, or even lit my thing with a match. There was a time, back in California, when I injected my thing, but that got too
intense and so I went back to drinking my thing, or sucking on a pipe with my thing inside.

But Amanda is persistent. She guides me from the car, down into the church basement. Thirty people are there, sitting on metal folding chairs in a low-ceilinged room with no windows. The chairs
are arranged in an arc, and a pastor sits at the centre. He’s young, far too young, with a bowl-shaped haircut shellacked into place with thick and shiny hairspray. His eyes are watery and
red, as if he’s been crying. Maybe he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and saw his haircut.

He smiles at Amanda when she enters, and the other churchgoers do, too. There’s an easy familiarity in the room, with people slumped back, collars loosened, legs outstretched. Most of the
people seem working class, in retail and fast-food uniforms, one in a white nurse’s outfit. But there are men in suits, too, and they look particularly interested to see me when I enter.

‘Hello, Amanda,’ the pastor says. His accent is Southern, as thick as his hairspray. ‘I see you’ve brought someone. No need for names.’

‘Yes,’ she says. She looks at me mischievously and says: ‘But you can call him Mr Boss.’

‘There’s only one boss in this world,’ the pastor says, stiffly. He senses, a bit late, the chill brought into the room by his humourlessness, and so he adds quickly,
‘But, all right, Mr Boss. I’m Brother Sam. Welcome to our little party.’

‘Welcome,’ someone shouts from the back of the room.

Amanda and I step across the floor, over feet and purses and briefcases, to two empty chairs.

Brother Sam waits for us to settle. ‘Let us begin,’ he says. ‘Let us pray for Jesus to enter our hearts.’

Brother Sam clenches his eyes tightly shut. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he says, raising his chin to the ceiling, ‘we are all of us sinners, all of us seeking your forgiveness and
love.’

Everyone in the room closes their eyes. A few people lift their palms, halfheartedly, towards the ceiling.

I leave my eyes open. How else can I watch the show?

‘Jesus,’ Brother Sam continues, his rheumy eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if afflicted by some terrible allergy. ‘Thank you for filling our hearts with your love. Thank you for
attending our meeting. Thank you for blessing us.’

Amanda opens her eyes. She sees me staring. She shakes her head as if I am a very naughty child. She put her fingers near her eyes and makes a shutting gesture, in case I don’t
understand.

I close my eyes.

‘Jesus,’ continues Brother Sam, ‘we are born in sin, and we live in sin, and we wallow in sin like pigs at a trough. Only with your grace and mercy can we be reborn. So many of
us look for answers. We look to drinking, and to drugs, and to pornography.’ His voice lilts and caresses this last word in that peculiar Southern fashion that sounds like so much intimate
familiarity – por-
nah
-graphy – and I picture Brother Sam pulling his own pud in a rectory, a sticky magazine in his lap. I try to dispel this disturbing image.

He continues, ‘Jesus, your love is the only way. Your love is the only path. There is no other way to be cleansed of our sinning natures. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ everyone says, and so do I. I open my eyes.

‘Now,’ Brother Sam says. ‘Who would like to testify?’

The nurse in the white outfit volunteers. She’s overweight and unattractive, with little eyes and a tiny chin lost in a mound of fat, but she has that well-scrubbed look of someone trying
her best with severely depleted assets. She tells the story of how, this week, John Junior stole from her,
again
, and spent her entire paycheque on booze, but she forgave him, thanks to
the grace of Jesus. It’s not clear if John Junior is her husband, or her son, or perhaps her father, but the people in the room nod knowingly, as if they’ve heard this story before,
maybe from her, maybe even last week, and there’s nothing terribly surprising about any of it.

Brother Sam pretends to listen. Finally, he asks, ‘May I cast out Satan from you, my dear?’

‘Yes, Brother Sam,’ she says, eagerly. ‘Yes, please.’

The preacher walks to where she stands and lays his hand on her sweaty face. ‘Jesus,’ he intones. ‘Enter the body of this woman. Bless her.’ He shuts his eyes and begins
to speak in a gibberish that sounds like a made-up children’s language. A pig-Latin, but with a drawl. ‘
Katanya edanah, katanya edanah,
’ he repeats. I realize that
he’s speaking in tongues. ‘
Katanya edanah, katanya edanah!
’

He presses the woman’s head back, tilting her little chin to the ceiling. Her body stretches backwards, as if she’s playing limbo.

‘Satan, get out!’ Brother Sam screams. ‘Get out, Satan. I command you in the name of Jesus. I cast you out!’ Two burly men position themselves behind the woman. When
they’re ready, they exchange a signal with Brother Sam, a little nod, and the preacher pushes the woman’s face with great force, so that she is shoved back into the men’s waiting
arms. ‘Satan, be gone!’ he yells. The men catch her, and she opens her eyes, and smiles with surprise and delight.

‘He’s out!’ she screams. ‘He’s out!’

‘God bless you,’ Brother Sam says.

‘Amen!’ the other people say.

Amanda calls out, too. ‘Amen,’ she says.

The men lead the fat woman back to her chair. It squeaks under her bulk when she sits. If Satan was indeed cast out from her, he must not weigh a lot.

The meeting continues like this for some time, with other testimonies – a black man who was tempted to drink but didn’t, a muscular tweaker with tats running down his arms, who
speaks a million miles a minute and shifts in his seat, but who insists he’s been clean since prison. Looking around the room, I sense no one believes him.

I’ve been to a dozen meetings like this. All twelve-step programmes are the same – a lot of heartfelt stories about unrelenting personal failure. The squinty-eyed-Jesus stuff, and
the speaking in tongues, is novel enough, I have to admit, and more entertaining than anything back in California, but it’s still really the same old show. I’ve seen it all before.

Which is why I’m anxious to leave this basement. I’m practically at the edge of my seat, ready to bolt and call a cab – Amanda be damned, sexy tattoo or not – when
Brother Sam says, ‘Are you ready to be healed, Mr Boss, and to accept Jesus as your personal saviour?’

Everyone looks at me. I’m ready for many things, but not that.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘That sounds like a pretty big commitment.’

‘It
is
, Mr Boss,’ he says, approaching me. ‘It is a wonderful commitment. It is a commitment from you to Jesus. And from Jesus to you. A
permanent
commitment.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Gotcha. It’s just that—’

‘He loves you,’ Brother Sam says, interrupting. ‘He forgives you. Whatever you have done, he understands. Have you done bad things, Mr Boss?’

‘Oh yes,’ I say, quite truthfully. As I speak the words, the images come too – a rush of them, a slipstream of tragedy and failure: Libby’s tear-streaked face the night
Cole died; his wet blue corpse floating in the water; the black hooker with the blonde wig that I visited that night; the white meth smoke curling in the glass pipe; Gordon Kramer punching me in
the face, knocking out my tooth – everything out of order and jumbled, but all of it painful, and all of it my fault.

Brother Sam says, ‘There is no sin too large. He ate with whores. He died on the cross beside thieves. He is the god of sinners and broken men. Anyone can be reborn. Anyone.’

‘Anyone?’ I say, my voice hoarse. More images from that night come back to me. I recall the long walk down the corridor, how I carried Cole’s body in my outstretched arms, how
I laid him gently down on his bed; how I stood over him for hours, his room lit only by the moon in the window. How long did I stand there, over him? It couldn’t have been hours. But
everything about that night seems wrong. All sense of time twisted. I had left him alone only for a few minutes. Only a few minutes in the bath. I was coming right back. I just needed a few
minutes.

Brother Sam lays his hand upon my shoulder. ‘Rise, sir. Accept Jesus as your saviour.’

Everyone is staring now, and I feel extraordinary pressure to conform. One of the things about being an atheist is that you always find yourself in bad company, with cranks and know-it-alls
– people who take every opportunity to ruin everyone else’s comfort, by telling everyone how stupid they really are. I do not want to be one of these people. After all, if you
don’t believe – if you
can’t
believe – why not just go along for the ride?

Which is what I do. I stand. There are smiles and nods of appreciation. Brother Sam lifts his palm, and puts his sweaty fingertips on my face. ‘Close your eyes, Mr Boss,’ he says, in
a stage whisper. Louder, now: ‘Jesus, enter into the body of this man, whatever be his true name. Cast out Satan from him.’ He starts speaking in tongues again –
‘
Katanya edanah katanya edanah
’ – repeating the phrase over and over, louder each time.

‘Cast out Satan from this man!’ Brother Sam shouts. ‘Satan, be gone! Satan, be gone! Be gone, Satan! Be gone!’

His voice bounds along, faster, graceful and athletic, like a gazelle leaping through savannah. ‘
Katanya edanah!
’ he shouts. He puts his face close to mine. He yells:
‘Be gone, Satan! Get out of this man! I feel you inside. Get out! I can feel you, Satan. Get out, you beast! Leave this man. I command you to leave him!’ His spittle dots my cheek.
‘
Katanya edanah katanya edanah.
’ His breath smells like garlic. ‘Satan, be gone! Get out! I feel you, Satan! I feel you in this man! I feel you! I feel—’

He stops mid-sentence. He opens his eyes and looks at me.

And what I see in his eyes – there is no other word for it. I see horror.

He is staring at me with horror.

His skin is suddenly as pale as moonlight. He glistens with sweat. His eyes are open wide now – not rheumy slits any more – wide, as if he has stumbled accidentally upon an
abomination in this very church. He takes his hand from my cheek, quickly, as if from a hot stove. He backs up a step, off-balance, nearly trips on the leg of a folding chair. A man sitting nearby
reaches up to offer support.

Brother Sam bats the man’s hand away, not very politely, and backs up another step, away from me farther still.

Then, suddenly, he seems to remember where he is – a church basement – and who I am – a sinner – and what is expected of him. He looks down, embarrassed. ‘Forgive
me,’ he mumbles. ‘I must not be feeling well. I think... ’ He glances around the room.

‘Brother Sam,’ a man nearby says, ‘are you all right?’

‘Yes, of course. But... but... ’ He stops, collects himself. ‘I’m sorry. I think we should end here for tonight.’

No one in the basement speaks, but I feel the force of silent stares upon me.

Despite his words, Brother Sam remains still. He does not move. He does not step closer to me. He does not look at me. He does not offer me a hand, nor make a gesture of apology. He stays as far
away from me as he can, as if he wants to be sure that he remains out of my grasp.

I look over to Amanda. She regards me thoughtfully, her head tilted to the side, as if a new and interesting quality has been revealed in me, one that impresses her very much.

Now we’re in her car, heading back to the office, so that I can pick up my own Ford and return home. It’s nine o’clock. I can still make it back to Libby at a
reasonable hour. Perhaps – if I play it right – I won’t even have to explain to my wife where I went, or with whom.

‘Well that was interesting,’ Amanda says drily.

I stay silent.

‘I know you don’t believe,’ Amanda says, staring straight ahead as she drives. ‘But it’s real, you know.’

‘If you say so,’ I say, agreeably.

‘He changed my life,’ she continues.

‘Brother Sam?’

‘Jesus.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘He can change yours, too,’ she goes on. ‘What do you think of that?’

What I think is that Amanda is becoming less sexy with each passing second. Another minute, and my bra-less receptionist with the breast tattoo will be singing hymns and trussing a corset.
I’d like to be back home in my own bed before then.

‘Hey,’ I say, as we speed past the Tao Software office building. In the rearview mirror, I see my Ford grow distant and then recede over the horizon. ‘I think you passed the
office.’

‘We’re going someplace else.’

‘Where?’

‘My apartment.’

‘Why?’

She looks at me, sidelong.

‘What about Jesus?’ I ask.

‘He’ll come too.’

She lives in a complex called Plantation Manor, two miles from the office. Despite its regal name, the place has a decrepit look. It’s a three-storey building, timber and
cement, with open walkways exposed to the weather, overlooking a parking lot. There’s a swimming pool off to the side, fenced in, teeming with debris, and surrounded by rusting sun
loungers.

From one of the balconies hangs a vinyl sign that screams, ‘No Deposit – No Credit Check – First Month Free!’

Amanda leads me up two flights of stairs. The air is humid, and halfway up the first flight, I’m out of breath. I hear the thrum of cars from the highway, just beyond a concrete noise
abatement fence, which doesn’t seem to be doing much abating.