Solitary: A Novel (19 page)

"Okay, I'll touch base later."

I walk through the doors and see a welcome booth in front of me. A sign says in bold type COME AS YOU ARE. I wonder if that's supposed to be a quote from the Bible or from Kurt Cobain. Music shakes from inside the sanctuary. I look and see what appears to be more of a gymnasium than the inside of a church. On the stage are a group of singers along with some guys jamming out with guitars and a drum set.

I scan the foyer, but Ray is nowhere to be found. I see a small area with sofas, windows peering into a nursery, and a coffee and lounge area.

The place doesn't look too bad.

A firm handshake greets me at the door to the auditorium. I'm handed a bulletin that has New Beginnings plastered all over it, similar to the one Ray gave me.

There is a picture of a family on the cover. A father and mother holding hands with their son.

Nice image. Maybe there are families here that actually have all their units still intact.

I shuffle into the darkness of the crowd and find a seat near the back. This not only looks like a gymnasium, it is. I can see the basketball hoops propped up and the wood floor beneath my feet.

I'm thinking there might be five hundred people here, if not more.

I was expecting something smaller, something more old-fashioned.

Then I see Ray.

He's playing bass up on the stage. He's jamming away, singing the lyrics to the song, having a good old time.

I envy the guy, the look on his face.

It's so peaceful.

I wonder if I can get a little of that.

Just a few minutes after the guy who appears to be the main pastor walks up on the stage and starts talking, I begin to feel it.

Dizzy and dangling and out of breath.

I feel like I'm hanging onto a rope-not the kind you're strapped and locked into, but a thick strand of rope dangling out high above a gorge. I feel like the ground beneath me is moving, falling away. Yet even as I sense it I can see everybody else around me, the same dark bodies and faces, staring up at the light of the stage.

The pastor wears jeans and a dress shirt that's not tucked in. He's got spiky hair that looks highlighted and thin black glasses. He certainly looks like he's trying to be cool. Not sure if he does indeed look cool, and no idea whether he really is.

"Good morning, everybody. My name is Jeremiah Marsh. Thanks for coming out on this beautiful November morning. Welcome to New Beginnings Church."

He recounts a story about his young daughter getting up this morning that gets everybody to laugh. He talks in a manner that's like conversation around a dinner table with your family. Nothing about what he says seems anything less than sincere.

Yet I'm sitting here listening (or trying to listen), feeling like I've been drugged.

No, not drugged. Poisoned.

I can feel the sweat beads on my forehead and my cheeks. My neck, too. I have a dry taste in my mouth. The sickly dry taste that comes right before you throw up. I need air. I need water. I need something.

There's a lady sitting next to me, probably in her fifties, laughing away and acting like she's listening to the president. I glance at her, and she gives me a delirious smile that makes me a bit nervous. More nervous than I already am.

"So today let's talk about something that we hear over and over and over again. Your neighbor."

Pastor Jeremiah Marsh keeps talking. I notice he's wearing a headphone mic. There is a small podium near him, but he never uses it. He doesn't carry a Bible or notes or anything else. He waves his hands like a conductor as he speaks.

I can hear something else. Something that's faint, low, almost humming.

It sounds like a rumbling drone.

As if the church is sitting on some kind of ticking bomb, or a reactor of some kind, trembling at its force.

I wipe the sweat away. I don't want to get up and leave-that would be too obvious. But I'm fighting passing out.

Every now and then I focus on what the pastor is saying.

"And sometimes you don't even want to simply go outside and greet him."

This sounds like the "treat your neighbors as you would yourself" talk. I've heard that one before.

I shift in my seat and glance up a few rows at a pretty blonde. It's almost as if she knows I'm glancing at her, because she looks back at me.

"-and then sometimes you decide that the best thing to do is puncture the wound as quickly as you can."

I glance at the stage. I see the moving hands and the moving lips, but suddenly don't seem to quite hear what the pastor is saying.

He didn't just say that. He didn't just say puncture, did he?

"And the thing to ask yourself is this: Who watches over you? Who watches what's in your heart? You know, when I was fourteen years old living in Greer-"

I was hearing things. He's just talking like any pastor. The people around me are listening. I'm almost hyperventilating for some reason. I feel like a bad flu and cold and virus are all coming over me. I'm not sure what to do.

"So sometimes you take everything you think is yours because in the end, we leave with all we can get. So you need to take and ignore the rest."

Again, I focus on the stage and try to figure out if what I'm listening to is real.

The pastor keeps talking.

"We all come from different backgrounds. Different races. But we're all one. Like the U2 song says, we're all one."

Now he's quoting a U2 song? This guy is seriously trying hard.

I must be making things up in my head.

Someone behind me clears his throat. I want to turn-the urge to turn is incredible-but I force myself not to.

"It's okay to let down your guard if you need to. Because sometimes, sometimes my dear friends, death is the only option we have in this life of ours."

What?

I look around to see if anybody else is wondering what this guy is talking about.

"We near a time of thanksgiving, but shouldn't we always carry a heart that's thankful? That's giving? That's loving? That is the right way, my friends."

I clear my throat, and it sounds like I'm wheezing.

I need water.

The pastor keeps talking about being nice to neighbors and family and being real. It all sounds nice and fine and real.

I'm beginning to see double.

I finally stand up and start to walk out.

The voice behind me continues.

"But it's best that when we're faced with uncertainty, we act swiftly. We act promptly. And don't let yourself down. Don't act like you can't or won't. Because in the end, it's our job to give up a life in order to keep it."

You're losing your mind, Chris. You're making up these words.

"Don't fear darkness, friends," Pastor Marsh says. "Fear the light that tries to burn it out. The deeds inside can be covered and hidden, and that's what we all need. Because night is coming. Night is coming for us all."

As I leave the sanctuary, I hear applause.

I make it to the doors and stumble outside into the brilliance of midday, feeling like a prisoner gasping his few last breaths of life.

I manage to mingle with the churchgoers when the music begins playing and they start filing out. I feel better after getting some air and sun and then having some coffee to try to revive my senses. I don't even like coffee, but I need something to jolt me back to sanity. I don't know where all that craziness came from, but don't have time to figure it out.

Soon, as I'm biding my time looking around in the crowd, I hear a voice call out my name.

"Hey, you made it," Ray says.

"Yeah."

"Wasn't that awesome. He's a great speaker, huh?"

"Yeah, he was good."

"See me up there? I've been playing with them for a while. It's fun. Sometimes we even do concerts. Nothing that big, but still something, you know?"

"Cool."

Ray introduces me to a few people and says hi to a bunch more as we stand in front of the coffee area.

"Hey-did you drive here?"

"No. I-I still need to get my license."

Ray laughs. "How'd you get here?"

"My mom."

"Want a ride home?"

"Yeah, sure. That'd be great."

"No problem. You want to have lunch at my house? It's always a big gathering, but nothing fancy."

"Okay, sure."

"Cool. Pastor Marsh usually comes. You gotta get to know him. He's really a great guy."

I nod. I decide to not tell Ray what I was hearing.

My mind sometimes plays tricks on me.

Maybe it has to do with my dad and the whole church thing and my hesitations toward God and all that.

Or maybe this is God trying to tap me on the back and say that He really does exist.

But I doubt God would do that by frightening me.

Ray tells me he's got a few people to see; he'll be back in a minute.

I'm not sure what to think about going to his place at lunchtime.

But it beats going back home.

Ray drives me to his house in a VW Jetta that still smells new. He jams tunes from the iPod he's got connected to the stereo, listing a dozen groups I've never heard of. I feel behind in everything. I don't know anybody, don't have my license, don't have money, don't know as much as I should, don't act the way I should.

But Ray seems oblivious to all of that. He seems eternally up.

This is the second time I've been to this monstrous house, and the second time I've seen it full of people. This isn't Sunday lunch; it's a holiday celebration. It appears that half the people at the church must have come over for lunch.

After navigating through the adults, Ray shows me his room.

It's pretty much how I might have imagined a really sweet room to be. That and more.

A flat-screen television hangs on one wall. Of course, two different video game systems are on a shelf underneath it. Several framed posters hang on the wall. One is of the group Phoenix, with a minimalistic artistic shot that looks like an album cover. There's lots of sports stuff, including lots of indications that his favorite team is the Denver Broncos. I see three tennis rackets, a shelf of really awesome caps, a collection of trophies on his dresser.

Do they really hand out trophies anymore?

I wouldn't know. I've never really been a trophy sort of guy.

"Here-this is what I was telling you about," Ray says as he finds the CD and hands it to me.

"They're a local group?"

"Oh yeah. Awesome. They're going to be huge. I played you a couple of their songs."

We talk music for a while. I tell him about the music festivals I've gone to in Chicago, one of the few things that seems to be able to impress him. Soon we leave his room and head back to the kitchen.

I spend the next half hour meeting strangers and listening to adults talk with Ray. I'm never ignored-Ray always does a good job of introducing me. Everybody in the house seems to know and love him. Why not? I'd probably hate the guy out of jealousy if I didn't like him so much myself.

We eventually take plastic plates full of a day's worth of food outside on the deck. Now I'm able to see the incredible view below. It's breathtaking. I follow Ray to some empty chairs and sit next to him.

"So what's up with Joss and you?"

I almost choke on the piece of chicken I'm trying to swallow.

"Nothing."

"Things go bad after the party?"

"No, it's just-nothing's going on."

Ray nods and takes a bite of his potato salad. He eats like he's in a hurry.

"Look, the thing with Joss is this: It's easy to fall in love with her. I sure did. Everybody does. You have to be careful."

"Careful about what?"

"Careful about her. The girl has got-she's got secrets. She's got some really deep-rooted issues. I mean, we all do, right? But not like her."

"What sort of secrets?"

"They wouldn't be secret if you knew about them, you know?" Ray smiles. "Secrets. Stuff about her family. I don't know-she wouldn't tell me. I've just heard things."

"Like what?"

"Curious, huh? Just things. Things she's been involved with dark stuff. The sort of things we shouldn't talk about, not here."

Ray glances around, says hi to someone passing by, keeps eating like a famished man.