Strange Animals (11 page)

She kissed him on the forehead and said, “I know,” then put her pants back on and went into the living room, leaving Paul to collect the rest of his things alone. She didn't feel like they were breaking up, like this was the last time she would see Paul. She hoped that once things were over, once this was done and its effects had taken hold, maybe there would be a chance to reconcile. If the financial goal was met, however, then Karen knew that Paul's child would be somewhere in the world, living a life that might never involve him. She didn't know if he could ever forgive her for that. She had hoped from the beginning of this that the financial goal wouldn't be met. She had hoped for this outcome for a variety of reasons. It would prove her point. She wouldn't have to go through the agonizing experience of child labor. And she wouldn't be responsible for bringing another life into the world. But in that moment the only reason she hoped for that outcome was so that she and Paul might be able to work things out.

Eventually Paul emerged from the bedroom with a few bags of clothes and a small cardboard box of various items, including books and an iPod. He said, “I got everything.”

Karen said, “Okay.”

He said, “I just really can't believe this is the last time we're ever going to see each other.”

She said, “It doesn't have to be.”

He said, “I think it does. Goodbye, Karen. I love you and I hope this all works out the way you want it to.”

She said, “Thanks,” and watched Paul walk out the front door. Karen smelled her hands. She'd had them wrapped in Paul's hair when they were having sex. They smelled like him. She inhaled deeply, in case she'd never have the chance to smell it again, then flipped her computer back open to check the current donation total on her site. It was unchanged, but she did see that she had a few emails.

There was one from her mother, asking when she and Paul
were coming to visit. Her mother insisted that she and her father should see more of Paul, because they believed it was only a matter of time before he would be their son-in-law. Karen deleted the email without responding and checked the next one. It was from someone Karen didn't recognize. The suffix was cnn.com.

It read, “Hello, Ms. Holloway. We've been covering the story of your website for a few weeks now and we'd love to hear your side of the story if you'd care to comment. Please reply as soon as you can, as we are planning on running a story that includes your name within the hour. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, James Shoemaker.”

Below the email was the CNN logo and general contact information for the network. Karen had no idea how they'd discovered that she had created the website, but they had, and she felt that this very probably was not a good thing.

James woke up
Friday morning, showered, brushed his teeth, and then checked his email to find out his work schedule for the weekend. He was usually required to work two nights out of the three from Friday through Sunday, as dictated by his supervisor. He preferred working Friday and Sunday nights so that he could get enough sleep Saturday night to be well rested for church on Sunday morning.

He opened the PDF file that contained his schedule and found that the days from Friday through Sunday were blacked out. At the bottom of the schedule was a note that read: “There will be no weekend work this week. Dillard's is laying a new floor. Work will resume on Monday. The new schedule will be out Sunday night.”

James closed the file, logged out of his email account, then sat back in his chair. He hadn't had a weekend off in a very long
time. The last one he could remember was when the entire mall was closed because of a flood. He wondered if this was a sign from God but found it hard to decipher the possible meaning. After praying for some help or guidance in knowing how he should use his weekend off, he heard nothing and came to no greater understanding. It was in this silence, this lack of response from God, that James realized the answer was obvious. God had cleared his schedule so that James would be able to listen for his voice without interruption.

James got up from his chair and started making a mental list of the things he'd need to buy at the grocery store for his weekend in. He completed the list as quickly as possible, excited and anxious to begin the three days of focused concentration that were ahead of him. But as he put the list in his pocket, got his car keys, and went to his front door he stopped. He was disappointed in himself, on the verge of disgust. He realized that if God eliminated his job for those three days, it must have been because God didn't want James to be distracted at all. God would supply anything he might need over those three days, and he admitted to himself and to God that he had fallen victim to arrogance. If only for a moment, James thought that he knew better than God what he would need for that weekend, and he sought to supply it for himself. He apologized to God, put his car keys back on the table by his front door, ripped up the list, and took his jacket off before sitting down on his couch in the living room. If God didn't want him to have any distractions, then he wouldn't have any. He wouldn't watch television. He wouldn't check his email or answer his phone. He wouldn't buy food and he wouldn't eat. He wouldn't even sleep. He would just pray and listen as closely as he could to the sound of nothing, until God decided to fill that nothing with the sound of his own voice.

James sat on his couch and looked out the window. He could see some cars in the parking lot. He noticed a few people coming and going, a cat walking near the dumpsters, some birds flying
overhead, and an occasional airplane. After roughly ten minutes of looking out the window, James realized this was just as much a distraction as going to the grocery store would have been, so he closed his curtains and sat on his couch staring at the wall and listening as intently as he could for any sound of God's voice.

He could hear his neighbor's television, but not clearly enough to make out any words. He could hear people talking in the parking lot below his apartment, every now and then, but not clearly enough to understand what they were saying, either. He could hear music coming from cars as they passed by. He could hear washers and dryers in the laundry room turning on and off, and he could hear the low electrical hum of his own refrigerator. None of these things was God's voice, however, and he began to wonder if God's voice was loud enough to be heard through the ambient noise of the world. He realized, even as he thought this, that he was being absurd. God could obviously make his voice as loud as He wanted. So he dismissed the notion that maybe he should unplug his refrigerator.

He looked at his wall, and as the hours passed he counted the small inconsistencies in the paint. They made tiny bumps and indentations that he never noticed before. James watched the shadows crawl across them, and he couldn't help seeing shapes and faces in them. He looked at his phone's clock and saw that it was a little past noon. He had been sitting on the couch listening for God's voice for four hours. Hunger had crept up on him sometime during the morning, and by lunchtime James could feel his stomach starting to gurgle and churn. This was just a distraction, though, one that had to be put out of his mind. He forced himself to think of the pain that Jesus had endured in the final days of his life. It was far more than just hunger from skipping breakfast. James apologized to God for giving his hunger even a second of attention.

When thirst set in, he thought about getting a glass of water, but felt shame at the thought of giving up so easily, after only a
few hours into the three days God had given him. He knew that God would provide him with water if he needed it, and he knew that God would reward him only if he was diligent, if he followed God's plan. So he put the hunger and the thirst out of his mind and he sat.

James closed his eyes so he wouldn't be distracted by the sight of anything, and he thought about what God must have been doing in heaven at that moment. In his mind's eye, James saw God sitting on his gleaming golden throne, looking down through the clouds. God was watching him and deciding whether he was ready to be spoken to. James imagined Jesus there, too, at his father's side. He thought that, although God spoke to different people all the time, each time was a moment of great import, because every person had a part to play in his plan. The moment a person heard God for the first time, and learned of his or her role in his plan, was the most important moment in that person's life. God knew this, and so those moments must have been equally important to him.

With his eyes still closed, he began thinking about all the events in his life that had led him to that moment sitting on his couch waiting for God to speak to him. He knew that all those events were part of God's plan. The various foster homes, the teasing and rejection in most of the schools he had attended, the abuse he had suffered at the hands of his peers as well as his caregivers—it was all part of something he knew was far too complex for him to ever understand, and yet he knew he was an integral part of the functioning of whatever that thing was, whatever God had designed for not just him, but for all humanity.

His memory settled on a specific event in his life. It was the time he first truly understood just how great God could be. In the seventh grade, all of the students in James's American history class had been partnered together by the teacher. The pairings were arbitrary but mandatory. The partnerships required that the students paired would sit with their desks pushed together
throughout the school year, helping each other with assignments and doing class presentations together on various subjects. James was paired with a girl named Natalie Chambers. She was one of the popular girls in the seventh grade, and James remembered initially dreading his required interactions with her. Most of her friends openly made fun of James for being strange or quiet or any of the submissive personality traits he had developed as the result of inadequate foster care and constant moving. But James was surprised to learn that Natalie wasn't like her friends. She seemed to be genuinely nice to him, and she never made him feel bad about himself.

They developed a relationship in which James found a great sense of worth. He had only ever had acquaintances throughout his life, and, although he and Natalie never spent time with one another outside class, he considered her a friend. And, beyond the friendship, he found that she was the first girl for who he formed romantic feelings. So, when the spring dance was announced, he waited after school one day near the parking lot exit where the students were picked up by their parents. When he saw Natalie walking out, he asked her if she'd like to go to the dance with him.

She was polite but refused him, claiming she had a boyfriend. She told him she was sorry, and that if she didn't have a boyfriend, she would have loved to go to the dance with him. James considered this a victory, and for the rest of the night, even though Natalie had turned him down, James felt good. For possibly the first time in his life, he felt like he was normal.

That night, James had prayed to God that his actions wouldn't alter the relationship he had with Natalie. She was really the only thing he looked forward to at school, and he genuinely hoped nothing would change between them. As they sat down next to each other the following morning, James was relieved to find that his prayers had been answered. Natalie was just as polite and nice to him as she always had been. They were still friends, and for that James was grateful.

Leaving school that day, he was happy. He knew that if God wanted him to have a girlfriend, a girlfriend would appear for him, and Natalie simply wasn't meant to fill that role. As he walked home, thinking about what the girl God chose for him would be like, three older boys approached him. They didn't go to his middle school. They claimed to be in the ninth grade at one of the local high schools, and one of them claimed to be Natalie's boyfriend. It was this boy who threw the first punch. Then the rest joined in. They threw James to the ground, kicking and punching him while Natalie's boyfriend called him a faggot and told him to stay away from his girlfriend or he would find James and attack him this way every day.

When they were finished, Natalie's boyfriend spat in James's face and threw his backpack over a fence into the backyard of a nearby house. He could hear the boys laughing as he lay there crying. With no other recourse, he prayed to God for retribution. As an adult, he realized that this kind of prayer should only be used in the direst of consequences, but in the seventh grade he had lacked the understanding to restrain himself. So he conjured in his mind Leviticus 24:20:
If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him
, and he asked God to uphold this biblical law.

As he watched the boys cross the street, still laughing at him, a car struck two of them, including Natalie's boyfriend. Not knowing what to do, and feeling guilty that he had somehow caused the accident, James ran all the way home. He found out the next day that both of the boys would be fine. Their wounds were superficial, some bruises and bumps, not a single broken bone, much like the injuries that James suffered at their hands. James saw no way that those boys could have avoided serious injury after being hit by a car—except for divine intervention. God had answered his prayer. And from that day forward James knew,
in a concrete way, that God was capable of anything and that he was listening.

As the afternoon of the first day of James's three-day weekend stretched on, he tried praying and asking God to speak to him. He assured God that he was ready, that he was listening, just as he knew God had listened to him on that day in seventh grade. Even in his assurance he felt foolish. He realized that God knew him better than he knew himself, and he stopped praying immediately. He apologized to God for having been so arrogant as to tell God what he already knew, what he himself had created. James reminded himself that God had created every atom in his body, every thought in his mind, and every emotion he would ever feel. It must be insulting to God, he thought, when people told him that they were ready to hear his voice. God knew when they were ready, and he must have known that James wasn't ready yet or he would have spoken. He vowed to remain silent for the duration of the three days, and he vowed never again to tell God what God already knew.

The rest of the first day was long. James became very hungry and thirsty that evening, but he wanted to prove to God that hearing his voice meant more to him than the discomfort of fasting. He knew plenty of people had gone through far worse than giving up food and water for three days in God's service. An image of Jesus on the cross materialized in James's mind. Jesus was writhing in pain, but his face was at peace, and he was glowing with holy power of the divine. James thanked Jesus for his suffering and for saving himself and the entire human race.

Eventually the shadows on the wall grew long and then bled into the darkness of night. James could hear people returning to their apartments from work. He heard the man who lived next to him unlock his door and then lock it again behind himself before turning on the television in his living room. James didn't know this man, but he saw him from time to time. They'd exchange pleasantries every now and again, but they'd never had
a conversation that lasted more than a few seconds. James wondered why he had never talked to this man at length or about anything of import. He lived only a few feet from this man and knew nothing about him. He vowed to God that he would be a better neighbor after this weekend.

He listened to his neighbor for a few hours before he heard the television go silent and the door unlock and lock again, followed by his neighbor's footsteps heading off into the night. James wondered where he was going and what the night held for him. His neighbor was roughly his own age, so it stood to reason that he was going out to a bar to meet women. He wondered if his neighbor was Christian. He decided he would ask him the next chance he got.

As the first night wore on, he could hear his downstairs neighbor, a girl who was also around James's age, having sex. He felt ashamed for listening, but he knew she wasn't married based on her lack of a ring, which he noticed the first time he saw her, and James thought that it was necessary for a good Christian to be aware of the world of sin so that he or she could avoid it. When she and her partner finished, they stayed awake talking for an hour or so. James couldn't make out what they were saying, but at one point he heard them laughing. Laughter after committing such a sin made James more than uneasy. He was disgusted.