Sweet Jesus (24 page)

It’s like we couldn’t talk about it, Connie said.

But we never found out what happened, Hannah said. We never really understood why you left home so quickly.

Zeus looked down at the table and chewed his lip for a moment. He lifted his shoulders. What do you expect me to do? Cry about how your parents reacted to finding out I was gay? I mean, sometimes I do. Tim put me through some pretty heavy stuff for a fifteen-year-old. He wanted me to be different than I am. He thought I needed to be cured.

And Mom? Connie said.

Zeus sighed and looked out the window. She did her best, I guess.

A fly landed on the table, then hit the window, buzzing back and forth against the glass. They all sat there in silence, not knowing what to say.

Hannah knew she could never reconcile herself to the way her parents were, but she wasn’t sure how to help her brother. For some reason, she was thinking about the time her mother cured her of an infected mosquito bite with a bread-and-onion poultice.
That
was the kind of thing she loved about her mother, all her homespun traditional wisdom. There was another time too, when Hannah was six years old. Rose got bit by a Great Dane, right through her duffle coat. They’d been walking home from the laundromat – Rose, Connie, and herself – with a basket full of clean clothes, past a neighbour’s front yard with a six-foot fence. They’d heard barking, then a huge dog hit her mother’s back and knocked her to the ground. Rose had left the laundry sprawled where it had fallen and picked the girls up and run home.

When they got inside, she took off her coat and her shirt was soaked with blood, but all she’d cared about was getting her daughters home safely. She’d always had that in her, that instinct to protect her children. Maybe she hadn’t always done the right thing, Hannah thought, but that instinct was in her as strong as anything else. Hannah wanted that same kind of
instinct in herself right now. It would guide her, she thought, in knowing how to help him. Con, what’s wrong?

I don’t want to talk about Mom and Dad anymore, she said. Excuse me. And she got up quickly and left the restaurant.

B
ack at the truck, Connie held the keys out to Zeus and said, You got a driver’s licence? He nodded. Why don’t you take us the rest of the way? And he took the keys and got into the driver’s seat. Hannah got in the middle and gave Connie the seat by the window.

When they were on the highway, Hannah found a classical music station on the radio, and they drove quietly across the grasslands of Kansas. After a couple of hours, Zeus steered the Ranger off the highway and followed directions Connie had got off the Global Kingdom’s website, through a grid of streets on the outskirts of Wichita, where a few resilient fields flexed their shrunken boundaries against the encroachment of the suburbs. They entered an industrial neighbourhood, with grey-and-white one-storey warehouses, storage units, manufacturing outlets. The area was so still and empty for three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and there was something eerie, Hannah thought, but also joyous that only the trees were moving.

They passed an intersection, then located the church, and slowed down as the map indicated a low brick building to the left with a small parking lot out front. On the other side of the street was an enormous windowless building, two storeys high, covered in aluminum siding, with two vast empty parking lots on either side. Across the front was a huge sign that read,
THE GLOBAL KINGDOM OF SALVATION CENTER
. Zeus swung left into the small parking lot and pulled up behind a row of cars. There were three picnics tables out front, and a simple entrance with a large yellow door, and above it a more discrete sign with the church’s name.

Well, here we are, Connie said.

Zeus got out of the truck, walked over to a bench by some planters, and sat down. He spread his arms across the backrest, dropped his head back, and closed his eyes.

The sisters sat where they were, taking it all in. A bumper sticker on a nearby car asked,
GOT JESUS?
She noticed another one, orange flames rising up to consume the warning,
IF YOU’RE LIVING LIFE LIKE THERE IS NO GOD, YOU BETTER BE RIGHT
. It’s going to be okay, Connie thought to herself. You’re here for Jesus, not the people.

Does everybody in this state, Hannah said, have to have a Support Our Troops sticker on their truck or what?

Keep your hat on, Connie said. Things are different in the States.

Let’s call home, Hannah said. Let Mom know that we’ve arrived at this friggin’ place we’ve been hearing about for years. I mean, it feels kind of monumental, don’t you think?

Here, Connie said, getting her cell phone out of her bag and handing it to her sister. You do it. I’m not in the mood.

Hannah dialled her parents’ number. The phone rang and
her dad picked up. Well, we got here, Hannah said, in one piece. We thought Mom would want to know.

Tim admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that he’d taken her to the airport that morning, and that now she was in the air. She was going on and on about how great it would be to be out there with the three of you, Tim said, at the Salvation Center, that I suggested she buy a last-minute ticket and fly herself out.

What? Hannah said, and Connie turned to her sister. Hannah lowered her face and rubbed her forehead with her free hand.

You still there? Tim said.

Yes, I’m still here.

She thought it was a bit risky, but I encouraged her to go.

That’s great, Dad, Hannah said. We’ll talk again soon, okay? Everything’s fine here. We’re all good. You don’t have to worry about us.

I hope so, Tim said. I hope the trip brings healing.

Hannah let her eyes go out of focus for a second. Thanks, Dad, she said. Bye for now. And she closed the phone while new emotions exploded inside her like silent fireworks. Zeus was walking back to the truck.

What’s going on? Connie said.

You won’t believe this, Hannah said, but Mom’s on her way out here.

What are you talking about?

Zeus got back in the truck.

Dad dropped her off at the airport this morning, Hannah said, and she’s flying out to be with us.

Rose is coming
here
? Zeus asked.

Without even speaking to us first? Connie said.

You know what she can be like, Hannah said.

What about my kids? Connie said. Is Dad going to look after them all by himself?

I’m sure he’ll manage, Hannah said, and she turned to her brother. She’s coming to see you too, Zeus. I think that’s a big part of this for her.

Connie got out of the truck, stiff and a little rattled by her mother. She laced her fingers and stretched her arms into the air. Hannah and Zeus followed, and the three of them began to walk towards the church.

A few people sat at the picnic tables, drinking coffee out of takeout cups. Hannah noticed a woman with a small canvas propped on her knees, painting another starburst Jesus, brown-bearded and lily white as a New England hippy, nothing of the Galilean left in him. I’m not sure I can do this, Hannah said, suddenly feeling the full force of her resistance to organized religious movements, and Connie turned to her sharply.

Just for a little while at least, she pleaded. Her eyes looked panicked, almost pathetic. Come in and see what the place looks like, Hannah. Then you can go. I don’t want to walk in there alone.

A sudden compassion overwhelmed her, and Hannah thought, whatever she needs, whatever she’s come for, God,
please
let her have it.

Are you coming in too? Hannah said, turning to Zeus, who gave a resigned
I guess so
, and all three of them walked in through the yellow door.

The reception area was so businesslike they could have been walking into a furniture warehouse. Worship music pulsed out of an open set of double doors to their right, through which they could see into a room with a low ceiling, rows of padded metal chairs, maroon industrial carpet, and walls the colour of
mushroom soup. In front of them, a young woman sat behind a counter, typing into a computer. Nearby on the left, a man with a red rose tattooed on the back of his neck stood cracking his gum and reading something from a large rack of pamphlets.

The receptionist looked up, and Connie put her bag on the counter and leaned forward. We just arrived and wanted to know if there was any accommodation we could get for the weekend. My mother’s been here before, and she said she stayed in some kind of accommodation?

Did you make a reservation? Because I’m afraid the dormitories are booked solid. It’s a big weekend for us, and we’ve already got our six hundred.

Connie glanced at Hannah, who had joined her at the counter. But we just drove here all the way from Toronto,
Canada
, Connie said.

A delegation of eighty people just arrived from
China
, the receptionist said. But there’s a Comfort Inn on the highway, and if you tell them you’re with the Kingdom, they’ll give you the conference rate. I think it’s about seventy-five a night for a double.

The receptionist took a photocopied map of the area and made a red circle where the Comfort Inn was and slid it across the counter. The weekend service will be held across the street, she said, in our big hall. And if you want to hear Chad Dorian, that’s where he’ll be preaching all weekend.

Hannah noticed that Zeus had wandered over to the literature, his hand resting idly on a pamphlet. He was staring at the tattooed man beside him. The man checked his watch and walked towards the music and disappeared through the doors. Then a pretty woman in blue jeans came out of another door down the hall and started walking towards them at a quick pace. A moment later, a happy young man followed, running
after her and putting his arm around her shoulder, and said, Martha, Jesus is going to bless you for those numbers! And they laughed at the good news of it and also disappeared into the room with the music.

You can buy tickets for the service at the door tomorrow morning, the receptionist said.

And what about the prophetic ministry? Connie asked. You have counsellors here who specialize in prophetic ministries, isn’t that right? Rose had told her not to miss this.

Oh yeah, the receptionist said, brightening up for the first time. That’s just awesome. You’ll love it. You can sign up for that in the morning as well. Just ask someone where.

But we can go in there without paying or signing up, right? Connie pointed towards the open doorway where the music was coming from.

Oh, for sure, the receptionist said. That part of the Kingdom is always open and there’s no charge. There’s usually a worship band playing or a prayer team on the go.

Well, Hannah said, pushing herself off the counter, I hate to be indoors on a day like this. You go on in, Con, if you want. Zeus and I’ll go get us a room at the hotel and we’ll meet you there later.

I think I’ll stay, Zeus said, coming over with half a dozen pamphlets. Why not? We can take a cab to the hotel when we’re ready, right?

There’s a shuttle bus you can take, the receptionist said.

Well, there you go, Connie said, and Hannah nodded slowly and said, Okay, and marvelled as she watched her liberal, ex-upper-middle-class sister enter one of the treasured sanctuaries of the American Christian right with her adopted brother, a bereft, gay ex-clown.

~

All manner of people were scattered around the worship hall. Young and old, from all walks of life. Some were praying, some reading, a few chatted softly. There were chairs enough for a hundred more. Up at the front, on a low stage, the band played a powerful, hypnotic song on drums, electric keyboard, and guitar. A young woman in a moss green V-neck sweater swayed behind a microphone, alternating between song and the spoken word. Her prayers sounded improvised and sensual, like requests beseeched in the intimacy of passion. Beside her a man played guitar, echoing every supplication with a phrase of confirmation, spoken or sung in harmony.

Zeus leaned towards Connie and whispered, Are they flirting with us? The man with the red rose tattoo was up near the front.

Kiss me with the kisses of your word, the young woman sang. Tenderize my heart. For you are the lovesick God, who delights in me, even in my selfishness.

Connie stood with Zeus at the back of the room. Eventually, she sat on the floor and rested her back against the wall, and Zeus walked over to a row of chairs and took a seat and removed his shoes. You could do that here. It was okay. Connie admired his ease. I’m too uptight, she thought, always have been. She had a lot of disappointed dreams. Things she hadn’t managed to do. One of them – to become a missionary, like her mother’s mother, who used to travel in convoy around the Canadian prairies in the 1940s. What were they? Nazarenes. Gathered under the canopy of a striped canvas tent in a farmer’s dusty field. Hymns slipping out from the shade to drift and burn up in the sun. Her grandmother sang and played the ukulele and stood beside the preacher and illustrated, on a large sheet of paper pinned to an easel, the stories he told as he conjured up the Holy Spirit.

Connie had wanted to go to Africa as well, dig a well and worship with the beautiful people there. Her kids supported a foster child in Namibia through World Vision. His picture had been on the fridge at home. They paid the small maintenance fee out of their own allowance and wrote letters once a month and received a regular update. Nelson Bundha would graduate from grade school this summer. They had bought him two bunny rabbits last year for his birthday. It was part of a community program. The boy’s letter afterwards had been ecstatic. He did not like to see his mother kill the new rabbits, but he understood. They were so soft. He had names for them, Mandela and Winnie.

Connie looked over at Zeus and in her mind took him home and put him to bed. In one of the kid’s beds. Simon’s bed. Zeus would love her house. But then she remembered it was gone. How much had she loved her house. That was her brace of bunnies. She’d loved her garden and the young magnolia tree. Harlan had planted that tree as a gift, in the middle of the night, so she’d see it in the morning when she went out to get the mail.