Salvation Boulevard (19 page)

“So when our children grow up, they can have higher education without being seduced by an atheistic professor into moral relativism, forced to endorse the homosexual agenda in the name of diversity, taught anti-Americanism in the name of multiculturalism. You truly do not have to be an anti-American, homosexual atheist in order to learn engineering, computers, medicine, or law.

“It will have a medical school. With a teaching hospital. A law school, and from it, our own law firms. With high-technology research labs. God's own Silicon Valley. You have to know that God can make better software than Microsoft.”

When you have a good one-liner, you use it more than once. It got a good response.

“I know what many of you are thinking. Oh, Pastor Plowright, that sounds great, but such things cost millions, tens of millions, even
hundreds of millions of dollars,
even
billions
of dollars.

“Yes, they do. Of course, they do.

“You may be expecting me to say, ‘Oh, let's pray. Let God provide.' You may think that I'm going to remind you of God's law about tithing, that when you fail to give God's one-tenth to Him, He says that you are robbing Him.

“I'm not going to say any of that. What I'm going to say is that God has provided us with sources of funding.

“Yes, he has.

“I am not yet at liberty to say where and how. But in the coming weeks and months, I will reveal it to you as the money comes on line.

“The dream will become reality. I invite you to join us in it. If you don't already live here, think about living in the City of the Third Millennium. If you're a builder or an entrepreneur or a businessman, think about bringing your business to God's own city. We'll
need shops and supermarkets, restaurants, health clubs, and recreational facilities.

“And auto repair. Wouldn't you like to have your car fixed by a mechanic who actually believes thou shalt not steal?”

That got a big laugh.

“Banks and financial institutions that will invest in Christian enterprises. We will have our own mall . . . with a dress code.”

There were cheers for that.

“This will no longer be a cathedral. This will be a city with a cathedral at the center. A city built around love and obedience to the Lord. We will be ‘the light of the world. A city that is built on a hill cannot be hid.'”

So this was what he'd been talking about. Yes, there would be opportunity here. More than opportunity, a way to genuinely bring Christianity into how we all work and live, every day, in every way. I stood and applauded along with the five or six thousand others. We were one. We were a movement. We were going to get things done.

The Angels stepped forward and began to sing “There Is a City on the Hill.”

The cameras focused on them and projected their faces onto the giant screens so we could watch them exalted by the music. I put my arms around my own special angels.

Own special angels, own special angel, ownspecialangel,
my own special angel—
that's how Nathaniel MacLeod had described the mystery girl. The girl with no name. The girl who had to make a secret of going to a class where atheism was taught and then was “seduced by an atheistic professor.”

That was the connection. One of Plowright's Angels had become one of MacLeod's angels. Why was I so instantly certain of it? I searched the faces, wondering. It would be about more than leaving the choir. More than turning in faith for secularism. There were rumors, but I normally dismissed them because there are always rumors about powerful men and young women.

Who was she? Plowright's own little angel? Who had become MacLeod's own little angel? Which one was she?

 

On the way out, after services, Jerry Hobson waved a greeting to me. He gestured to me to come over. I excused myself from Angie and Gwen and crossed the lobby to him.

Jerry said, “Have you seen these disposable camcorders?” displaying one. “Under two hundred bucks. You can pick one up at the drug store, shoot what you need, and download it to your computer.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Pretty good picture, too. Look at this. Come on, look at it.” He pushed a button and the video played on the small viewfinder screen.

I was looking at the side of a building at USW. Then the camera zoomed in. The autoiris worked very well and adjusted to the light inside the room.

My face was in profile, small but recognizable. And there was Teresa, and she was pressing her body up against me. You couldn't see it because the window frame cut us off below the waist, but you could figure our groins were tight together. Then she tilted her lips up toward mine, asking to be kissed.

Then my hand came up and grabbed her hair and pulled her face away from mine. But that didn't make it look less sexual; it made it look more sexual.

“You can practically read her lips,” Jerry said, leaning close to me and whispering in my ear. “Fuck me,” he said, managing to speak in falsetto, slobber, and keep in synch with Teresa saying the words.

I threw her down. Toward the couch that was outside of the frame created by the window. Then I walked toward her, and I too disappeared.

“They're real fuckable lips, aren't they, Carl boy,” he said, still in my ear, and I was unable to push him away, a small blackmail for the bigger one to follow. “Bet you banged that bitch up good. You gonna save some for Jeremiah? Pass her around, like the good old
days.” He moved back a little bit so I could see his face, and we could stare each other in the eye. “When I tell you to stay the fuck away from something, stay the fuck away. Or I will crush you. I will crucify you, you sad little trailer park sheep, and when I'm done with you, I'll do your wife and daughter too. Do you understand me? You don't even have to talk. Just nod your big, square head up and down if you understand.”

Then he smiled, like we were having a normal after-church conversation. “See,” he said, taking my hand and shaking it, “aren't you lucky. You got a message, and a warning. Christ's mercy instead of the Lord's wrath.”

As he finished, Gwen and Angie came over.

“What are you boys talking about?” Gwen asked.

“Just business,” Jerry said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“We were talking about the Nazami thing. Carl's going to drop it. I told him that we here at CTM respect that and care about him, so we're gonna find him some extra business to pick up the slack.”

“Oh, that's wonderful,” Gwen said.

Gwen has very light freckles on her breasts, and her nipples are the color of strawberries. Her eyes are blue. Not the intense blue you see when you look to the north with the sun shining toward it; they're the light blue of southern skies.

I kissed each freckle with reverence and fascination and growing arousal, working my way toward placing my teeth on the engorged tips.

Sunday afternoon. Angie was at her church group. Gwen was very happy with my decision. She was rewarding me for doing what she wanted with a good fuck. What an ugly, angry thought that was.

She began to stroke my arms and shoulders, and one of her hands found one of mine and brought it to her mouth, kissed it, then teased at it with her tongue and sucking lips.

The phone rang and rang, but we adamantly ignored it.

I tried to reconsider. Let us say, instead, she was no longer tense and worried and so was free to open up. I didn't want my wife to fuck me as a reward for being a good boy. I wanted her to want me out of her own love for me, out of her own desires, for the sanctity of our marriage. That's what I wanted. I made my way down her belly and she bit my hand with a sound that mixed a sigh, a whimper, and an inclination to moan. As she spread her thighs, she said, “Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits,” from the
Song of Solomon, and when I did she giggled. There are moments when it's sexier to quote the Bible than just yell “eat my pussy, eat my pussy,” though Gwen can do both.

I do love her, and I know she loves me, and I let my anger slide away in our sensuality.

The phone rang again. We let it be. No one should call on Sunday afternoon when Angie's at church group.

Just before Gwen took me in her mouth, she said, “The roof of my mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly.” I'm not as biblically literate as she, so I just said explicit and obscene things to her, and she seemed to like that just fine.

Afterward, as we lay on our backs, my arm under her, I said, “I have to say I'm sorry. For the other day.”

“Why?” she said, too adrift for serious conversations.

“I threw something at you, and when you didn't react fast enough, the way I wanted, I got angry with you.”

“It's alright,” she said, rolling over and kissing my chest, her hand going down to my cock, using her fingernails to toy with it.

The phone rang again.

When I answered, Teresa said, “I have to see you.”

I said, “I have to tell you, I'm not doing the case anymore.” My nervous system was firing sparks. I hoped it didn't show in my voice or my body, and I prayed that Gwen didn't pick up the extension.

“I thought you were going to help me. I thought you were going to help me get the book.”

“Listen to me, I can't,” I said.

“Now you're hurting me,” she said, pouty and suggestive.

“And besides, it's Sunday,” I said, a good, businesslike statement.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Time to get your fix. Marx thought it was just a metaphor when he said ‘Religion is the opium of the people.' It's not, you know. It affects your mind chemically, and a very versatile drug it is. It can make us happy, bring us ecstasy, soothe our pain, comfort us in times of grief, and give us strength in times of
trouble—which is all wonderful. But like any drug, it can turn us into fools and sheep.”

“What? What did you say?” It was almost word for word, phrase for phrase, what Plowright had said in his sermon a few hours ago.

“If Marx had been alive today, he might have said, religion is the Prozac of the people, the LSD of the mystics, the valium of the agitated.”

“Are those your ideas, or . . . ” Was she reciting MacLeodisms? And if she was, did it mean that Plowright had taken his material from the same source? I've heard our pastor a lot over the years. The rhythm and rhyme of today's sermon had followed a familiar tune. But some of the lyrics had been different, like he'd sampled someone else's song.

“What do you mean?”

“Is that something you said, or something from your husband's book?”

“Well, the point is that we have to remember that thinking, emotion, and brain chemistry are not actually separate entities,” she nattered on. “They're different aspects of the same event. We respond chemically to ideas and symbols. Pornography uses words and images to create chemical responses so powerful it can be addictive. Religion can work the same way.”

“Is that from the book too?” I asked. Were the words in her mouth and in Paul Plowright's both echoes from the same original source, Nathaniel MacLeod?

“It might be in the book. It's almost certainly in the book. He said it often enough,” Teresa said. “It's one of his standard memes.”

“And he said it that way?”

“Probably. I'm sure I picked it up from him. When can I see you?”

“I told you, I'm dropping the case.”

“Please, Carl. Please,” she said, like she liked to beg.

“If you have to call me,” I said coldly, “call me at the office, nine to five, Monday to Friday.”

“Yes, of course. I understand. You can't talk now.”

When I hung up, Gwen asked, “Who was that?”

“Mrs. MacLeod,” I said.

“And what did she want?”

“Her husband's book,” I said. “Seems to have gone missing, and she wants me to find it. She thinks she can sell it.”

“What's she like?”

“Upset, like you would expect.”

Which was not at all what Gwen wanted to know.

“Attractive?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said.

“What's her hair like? What color are her eyes?”

“Her hair?” I said, like that was a weird question.

“Tell me anyway.”

“Well,” I said, like I had to think about it, “it's kind of spiky and short.” But long enough to get my fingers in it and hold her and pull it until it hurt—not a lot, of course, just enough.

“You mean the campus feminist lesbian look.”

“You could call it that.”

“Thin or fat?”

“She's thin.”

“Thinner than me?”

“Gwen, I was just trying to tell her, I'm not working on this thing anymore.”

“Is she?”

I knew better than to say yes. Teresa was naturally slender, small breasted, and angular, with wires of nervous energy darting around in her. Gwen was born to be both rounder and more solid. I answered sideways. “She's older than you. Older than me for that matter.”

“Good,” she said.

“What's this about? You're not usually like this.”

“I don't like women who call you at home on Sunday afternoon.”

“Me neither,” I said.

She came up to me. All she had on was the shirt I'd worn to church and nothing beneath it. Her breasts moved suggestively
underneath it, her nipples clearly defined. It parted with each step, revealing her trimmed blonde bush.

“Come back to bed,” she said. “I'm going to show you I can love you better than any half-lesbian university witch.”