Jesus Jackson (10 page)

Seventeen

So I need to give you some context, a little history about those first few months after Ryan told me the truth about God, and we began our quest to find his replacement. Although our original plan was to find a “real” god to replace the imaginary one, after five long months of looking, we still weren't even close. Dozens of secret meetings, hundreds of Internet searches, and countless hours at the library (not to mention my visits to every house of worship within bicycling distance), and we had not come up with a solitary deity that seemed any less pretend than the one we started out with.

By the end of the summer, Ryan decided that our best bet would be to use the process of elimination, and he began to write The List: a complete accounting of every faith, god, religion, and theology that we determined to be absolutely, totally, and unequivocally
not
true. It started with just the big ones (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam), but before long there were dozens of them, with more being added at each of our secret meetings. By Christmas, The List had grown to include more than 250 entries, and filled nearly every page of a college-ruled, marble notebook.

Anyway, it was right about then (January or February, I think) that all of this stuff went down:

I was sitting in the living room, playing the new Batman game on my Xbox, when I felt an icy draft blowing in from the back door (which had been mysteriously left ajar), followed immediately by the pungent odor of lighter fluid and smoke. It didn't quite seem worth pausing my game to investigate, so I just shrugged it off and continued battling the Joker and his minions of thugs…until, that is, my mom started screaming Ryan's name from the backyard.

Ryan appeared at the top of steps. He whispered to me, “What is she doing out there?”

I had not yet actually taken my eyes off the game. “I think she's burning something.”

“Well pause that stupid thing and take a look.”

“Fine.” I did as I was told. When I peeked out the window, there she was, wearing a puffy coat and two scarves, looking livid and disheveled beside a billowing inferno bursting out of the barbecue. She was staring at the flames as she poured on lighter fluid, adding fire onto the fire. “Wow,” I said. “She's going to town with that fire. She looks really mad.”

Ryan's face turned stony. He seemed to know exactly what was happening. “Okay. I see.”

“What is it? Do you know?”

He walked down the stairs solemnly, as if heading for a funeral. He stared at the back door. “I knew this would happen sooner or later.”

“You knew it would happen? What are you talking about?”

He forced a brave smile, but I didn't believe it. “It's The List. She must have found it.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Don't worry,” he said. “There's nothing in your handwriting. You just pretend you know nothing and let me handle this.”

I nodded my assent.

From the backyard, my mother screamed Ryan's name a few more times, with venom in every syllable. Ryan told me not to worry, took a deep breath, and headed out to accept his fate.

I ran to the window, pressing my face against the glass to see what would happen. But my mother must have seen me there because as soon as Ryan reached her, she quieted to a whisper. She grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to the other side of the yard, setting the stage for a more effective interrogation.

The suspense was almost too much to stand. I knew Ryan wouldn't give me up—not on purpose, anyway—but our mother had an uncanny sense about such things, and some powerful means of persuasion. I cupped my hands around my ears, straining to hear, to get a sense of what they were saying. But I got nothing.

When Ryan was finally dismissed, I knew that things hadn't gone well. My mother remained where she stood, her head low, her fingers at her temples. I thought I caught a sob or two, but I couldn't quite be sure. And Ryan…well, Ryan looked haggard, to say the least. With slumped shoulders and his chin at his chest he made his way back to the house, shuffling into the living room like an animated corpse.

“Well I was right,” he said. “She found the list.”

Oh, crap, I thought. “But how?”

“I don't know…I was up late last night doing research in den, and I must have just left it on the couch.”

“And what did she say?”

“It was kind of a blur,” he said, sitting down with a heavy-sounding
thud
on the couch. “But it was pretty clear that she never made it past the parts about Catholicism and Jesus. She seemed to think the whole blasphemous notebook was just about her precious faith.”

“Oh man…”

“I told her you had nothing to do with it, but I'm not sure that she believed me. I doubt she suspects you helped with any of it, though. If anything, she probably thinks that I tried to indoctrinate you, or something.”

That was a relief, but only a small one. “So am I in trouble? Are we getting punished?” I glanced tentatively at my Xbox, wondering when I would next get to play it.

He shook his head. “You're fine. I'm grounded. She wants to talk to Dad before she decides on how long to ground me for, but I have a feeling it's going to be a long one.”

“Well talking to Dad is a good thing, right? He's definitely not as crazy as mom when it comes to things like—” But before I could finish the thought, I was cut off by my mother's appearance at the door. I froze.

Her left hand was splayed over her forehead, still rubbing her temples. “Jonathan,” she said, with barely a whisper. “Can you come here, please?”

Ryan averted his eyes. I swallowed hard and did as I was told.

My mother took me by the hand and led me to dining room. She sat me down at the table and sat herself right beside me. When she looked at me, it was not with anger, but with an intense and surprising look of sadness.

“Jonathan,” she began, “what exactly did Ryan tell you about these …these…ideas that he has? These ideas about God.”

I was on the very edge of panic—leaning against it, feeling the terror pull me toward its abyss. I had been so busy worrying that she'd take away my video games that I never got my story straight with Ryan. I thought hard. Did he tell her that I've known about Ryan's beliefs since the beginning? Does she think that I stopped believing in God too? Does she know about the meetings?

I decided to play it dumb. I shrugged. I made circles on the floor with my foot. “I dunno. Not a lot.”

“But he did tell you something, right? He has talked to you about God?”

“Yeah. A couple times.”

“A couple times? Really?” She sounded angry, but gratified. “I knew it….”

Crap
, I thought.

“And last summer, when you asked me if God was fictional or real—was that because of something Ryan told you?”

“I don't know. Maybe. I don't really remember.”

She put her hand under my chin, gently. She lifted my face so that my eyes had no choice but to meet hers. “Well he is real, okay? It's Ryan's ideas that are made up. It's what he told you that's fiction.”

There was a silence then, as she seemed to calculate whether more explanation was necessary. Finally, seeming unable to make up her mind, she said, “Well at any rate, if Ryan tries to talk to you about anything like this again, you just turn around and walk away. You come right to me, okay?”

“Okay,” I mumbled.

Again, there was silence. While my mom seemed pleased, in her own condescending sort of way, that I didn't argue with her like Ryan, I'm sure she would have liked me to be a bit more penitent about the whole thing—maybe even ask her if Jesus still loved me, or something absurd like that.

In truth, though, I wasn't penitent at all. I was relieved that she had taken it so easy on me. I was a bit worried about how badly she was going to punish my brother, and about what she would do to me if she found out that I had lied to her about what Ryan had told me. But more than anything, as I walked back to take my place in front of the TV, I was annoyed—annoyed that my mother felt it so damned important that we believe the same stupid thing as her; annoyed that her religion didn't allow for any different ideas about the universe, or about life or death or faith or God. And most of all, I was annoyed about The List. We had worked so hard on it, put so much time into distilling our ideas into clear, definitive, and irrefutable facts. And now all that work was gone.

When I got back to the living room I walked right up to the Xbox, hit the power button, and then went upstairs to find Ryan. He was sitting on his bed, his head in his hands, looking sad and defeated. I closed the door behind me.

“We have to start a new list,” I said. “Right now.”

He shook his head. “Jon-Jon, look…no one is more upset about this than me, but that list took us almost a year to write. Even if we did start a new one, it would be months before—”

“Then we'll make a shorter one,” I said, determined not to let our mother win this. “Just the basic ideas. Just the clip notes.”

The hint of a smile came to his face. “You mean
Cliff's Notes
,” he said. “But we can't do it. If Mom finds out that you had anything to do with this, there's no telling what she might do.”

“Let her find out! It's not fair. She can't tell us what to think.” I grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and handed it to Ryan. “Come on. We're making a
Cliff's Notes
of The List, and we're doing it right now.”

Ryan stood up and walked over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. He looked more proud of me at that moment than anyone had ever been of me in my life. “Sure, Jonathan” he said. “Take a seat. I'll get a pen.”

It took us most of the morning, but by lunchtime, we had succeeded in writing an acceptable abbreviation. It was nowhere near as exhaustive as the version we had lost, but it got the basic points across. And more importantly, it strengthened our resolve to continue the search for a god that we could actually believe in.

This is what that the abbreviated list said:

The List (Cliff's Notes): Religions that have been categorically ruled out and determined as 100% false.

By Ryan AND Jonathan Stiles

Section 1: The Big Ones

1. 1.
   Christianity: Obvious reasons: Virgin Mary, resurrection, angels, gay marriage, water-into-wine, communion wafers, etc.
   
2. 2.
   Judaism: Also obvious: basis for Christianity, world created in six days, Adam and Eve, pretty much all of Genesis…
   
3. 3.
   Hinduism: Caste system, too many strange (and silly) deities, Karma, the whole “cow” thing…
   
4. 4.
   Islam: Too similar to Christianity, Sharia, too much praying, waaaaay too strict about everything, fasting, hijab, etc.
   

Section 2: Religions that are basically the same as the big ones:

Sikhism, Baha'i, Shintoism, Christian Science, Eckankar, Hare Krishna, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Rastafari, Seventh-day Adventist, Shinto, Zoroastrianism, Bábism, Samaritanism, Meivazhi, Manichaeism, Sufism, Martinism, Hermeticism…

Section 3: Religions that seem very nice, but don't even have the slightest bit of evidence to back them up at all:

Buddhism, Unitarian Universalist, Jainism, Taoism, Wicca…

Section 4: Religions that are just totally ridiculous:

Scientology

Eighteen

If there's one thing I learned from this whole ordeal with Ryan and Alistair and Jesus, it's that nothing cures depression quite like anger. When you go to a doctor and tell him you're depressed, he'll always try to cheer you up, tell you to look on the bright side, give you some drugs to make you smile like an idiot all day. But that stuff never lasts. Drugs wear off, bullshit fades, smiles fall. What the doctor should do is make you angry—really angry—piss you off to the extent that your sadness is a distant and pathetic memory. Because anger is lasting; anger is deep and abiding and real
.

That's how I got past Ryan's funeral. It took me two full days, two full turns of the clock, until right before school on Wednesday morning. I was walking up the front steps when I saw Alistair, flanked by friends, girls, and well-wishers, pretending desperately to cry right in the middle of Ryan's burgeoning makeshift memorial. Since leaving the football field, I had spent every minute alone with my thoughts, mostly locked in my room, and throughout all of that sadness and misery there was this anger, this hatred and spite for Alistair just boiling and boiling and boiling under the surface.

So to see him there, playing the sad friend, the pitiful teammate, the broken-hearted pal…well, it was all I could do to keep myself from running up and (surely with very little success) tackling him to the ground. I could barely even bring myself to think about Ryan at all—every pleasant or mournful or sad or funny remembrance I would begin would be interrupted by an image of Alistair, with that same rage he had in his eyes in the moments before Ryan saved me, pushing my only older brother off a cliff.

But then Alistair saw me. He raised an arm from the middle of a group hug, inviting me to join. I turned away, and stormed into the school.

I got lucky, though. Henry was right there, waiting by my locker, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his face buried in some math textbook. He looked up when I walked over to him, contorting his face into something resembling a smile, but just barely. I dropped my bag and sank down to the squeaky-tiled floor beside him. “I didn't see you yesterday,” he stuttered. “At the service…and, um…I just wanted to express my…you know, condol—”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “Listen Henry, we've got to kick this whole thing up a notch, okay?”

“What whole thing?”

“The Alistair thing. You know, all the detective work.”

“Oh,” said Henry. Then he stopped to study my face. He looked confused, suspicious, maybe even a little scared. “Yes, of course, the investigation. Did you want to bring the evidence to the police later?”

“No. I don't think we have enough yet, and I don't want to risk hurting Ryan's good name unless we're one hundred percent positive we can make this stick.”

Henry looked relieved. Clearly, he wanted nothing to do with the actual authorities. “Good,” he said. “But, you know, one hundred percent may be hard to accomplish.”

“I know, I know” I looked around to see if anyone was within earshot, then whispered, “But I have a plan.”

Henry swallowed. “Oh yeah?”

“It involves Cassie. And it's going to take a joint effort.”

“Alistair's sister?”

“That's right.”

“Why would she help us?”

“That's the thing,” I said. “She can't know that she's helping us.”

“Oh.”

“I'll explain everything after school.” I stood, swinging my bag over my shoulder. “Meet me behind the bleachers.”

“But why can't you just explain it to me at lunch?”

“I'll be busy.”

So, the first part of my plan (which, to be honest, I was sort of making up as I went along) was set into action on that very afternoon, under the bright fluorescence of the St. Soren's cafeteria. As usual, I bought myself a turkey sandwich from the lunch ladies, and ventured out into the staring hordes of classmates. Walking across the cafeteria floor was like dragging a cinderblock through a still pond—I left a wake behind me of stolen glances, head-turns, and everyone trying to catch their daily glimpse of the Dead Kid's Brother. So many of them were still wearing RIPRS (Rest In Peace Ryan Stiles) bracelets and “45 in Our Hearts” t-shirts (45 was Ryan's football number), or at least the simple RS pins they were selling for a dollar at the bookstore (supposedly to help “Ryan's family,” but I never saw a penny of it). On that day, though, instead of making a beeline for Henry, I tried a different approach: I spotted Cassie, sitting with her friends, and then found a seat all by myself about two tables away, directly in her field of vision.

I sat down and opened my little carton of milk. I ate slowly, stared sadly, and waited for her to notice me.

Within thirty seconds—I kid you not—she had picked up her lunch and walked over to my table, one big sweet smile under bright red hair. Clearly bent on cheering me up, she pretended not to notice my melodramatic play at misery. “Hey, stranger. I was wondering when I was going to run into you again.”

I took a slow, conscious breath before looking up from my sandwich. I was trying hard not to show even a little of my excitement. “Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

“Mind if I sit down?”

“No. Of course not. Have a seat.”

As she took her seat, I forced myself, once again, into a visage of the sincerest sadness I could muster. I chewed my sandwich at a glacial pace. I let my eyes hang on my milk carton and sighed after every bite. She watched my play at melancholy just long enough for me to get bored with it. Finally, she said, perky as can be: “So, how are your classes going?”

I had to stop myself from laughing. I don't think I'd heard, read, or written one word of schoolwork since the year began. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

My amusement must have been obvious, despite my efforts at hiding it. Cassie let a smile slide onto her face. “Well that sounds hopeful.”

“Yeah, I guess I'm a bit preoccupied.”

“Understandably.” She placed her hand on my forearm. I could feel each crease of her palm; I almost closed my eyes, but thought better of it. “No one's going to expect you to be paying much attention to school right now.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Have you spoken with your guidance counselor? They're not good for much, but they can usually help you get out of schoolwork for personal problems.”

“Not really,” I said. “I've kind of been avoiding him. I just don't want to talk about it.”

“Well then you don't have to. You can always just get some extra help and make up the work later. Your teachers will understand.”

This was it: my opportunity. “Hmm. I wonder if you would…oh, never mind.”

She cocked her head. “If I would what?”

“Nothing,” I said. I was trying to appear shy (not, of course, that this was any great challenge), in an attempt to gain her sympathy.

“Really, what? If you need anything…” She gave my forearm a little squeeze. “…anything at all, just ask.”

She was so sweet, so damn good. I could feel the guilt crawling up my back, like ants under my clothes. But then she said, “You know, Alistair and Ryan were such good friends, I feel like you and me already know each other. Like there's already a closeness there, you know?”

That was all I needed to strengthen my resolve. I gave her my most pitifully sad eyes. “Actually, I could use a little help with something. You know, if it wouldn't be too much to ask.”

Well, with that she cracked right open: all grins and jitters and suppressed little giggles. “Of course. Of course. Anything. Of course.”

That twinge of guilt struggled to resurface, to come up and punch me in the face. But I swallowed it down. “I know it's only the second week of school, and my teachers are all being really great about everything, but I haven't gotten one piece of work done yet, and the make-up assignments keep on piling and piling and I was just wondering if—”

She gave my hand and squeeze. “Of course I'll help you with your work. I think I still have some of my notes from last year, and I can totally bring them over to your house later…”

“Oh,” I interrupted. “My house isn't such a great place these days. What with my mom, still so upset, and everything.”

“Right, right. What was I thinking? You come over to my house. Bring all of your assignments and we'll work through them piece by piece, okay?”

I smiled, though for far different reasons than Cassie could have ever imagined. She smiled back, our eyes meeting in a false complicity as we finished our turkey sandwiches and our tiny cartons of milk.

***

Here's my theory about Henry:

When I met him, the kid had barely been out of his bedroom since birth. He was way too close with his parents, he did everything he was ever told, and the thought of punishment—of any kind, from anybody—scared him the way that most people are scared of mass murderers or cancer. But here's the thing: unlike most shut-in, smothered, slavishly obedient kids, Henry dreamed. He dreamed big and he dreamed dark. He read his seedy old noir novels about sex, violence, and the underworld, and he dreamed that somehow, someday, if he could just cross over into that universe, he could be a real hero. He could be exactly the opposite of what he was. And when I came along, I gave him an opportunity to do that…albeit, in a pretty small-town, amateur sort of way.

But the second I told him about my plans for that evening, and how he'd have to sneak into Alistair's room to search his computer for evidence…well, I think it all just got a little too real for him.

“No way,” he said. “No.”

“It'll be simple,” I assured him. “Every Wednesday, there's a scrimmage at the end of practice, so there's no way Alistair will be home before seven. We'll be long gone by then.”

This did not seem to comfort him much. “But what about his parents?”

“Well, that could get a bit tricky. It's just their mom—I think their dad lives a few towns over, or something—but we have to assume that she'll be home.”

Henry sat on the ground, pressing his forehead into his knees. “I don't know, Jonathan….”

“Don't worry,” I said. “Really, I have a good feeling about this.”

“Sure,
you
have a good feeling. You're going to be ‘studying' with the pretty girl while I'm risking my life.”

“Come on now, Henry, it's—” I paused. “You really think she's pretty?”

“Uh, yeah. You don't?”

“Oh, I do. Completely. Totally… I was wondering if it was just me, though, you know? She's sort of unique…quirky, but beautiful…like in a way that you wouldn't necessarily think of right away.”

“Hold on.” Henry jumped to his feet. “Do you like this girl?”

“Whoa there. What do you mean? This is about Ryan…this is about getting Alistair.”

“Just answer the question, Jon. Do you like her?”

I honestly didn't know. Or at least, I hadn't let myself think about it in such black and white terms. I mean, really: I was fourteen years old and I met a pretty, older girl at a party who actually paid attention to me. Did that constitute
liking
her? Could it possibly have constituted anything else?

At any rate, I didn't want to admit it if I did like her. “I can't…I just can't answer that question,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“But you might like her.”

“I might, sure. But this is about Ryan. You know that.”

Henry paused, shook his head. He looked like he wanted to punch me in the face…which I admit, was a bit comical. “Just make sure it doesn't start being about Cassie while I'm stealing Alistair's computer files, okay?”

“Okay.”