“THIS IS PERSEPHONE AND DEMETER,” Mason announced taping the lithograph over his nightstand.
“I like it,” Tommy Dwyer decided. “I don’t get it. But I like it.”
“They were the grain goddesses in ancient Greece, and they had this whole sort of cult and people would come to it and worship them.”
Mason set out the incense.
“Mason,” Tommy said. “Is this like an altar or something?”
He cocked his head, squinting at the goddesses for an answer.
“It’s more like a meditation space,” he decided at last.
“But it’s got incense and candles and... You should have a picture of Jesus instead.”
“There’s no such thing as a picture of Jesus. Just little cheesy ideas of what people want Jesus to look like. I think I’m going to get something I can feel holy around.”
“But this is pagan,” Tommy said.
“Are you going to start praying for my soul too?”
“Mason, that’s not fair.”
“Well, you’re the one that told me I was building pagan altars.”
“Well, you kind of are. I think you might make God mad.”
“If God’s that easily pissed off, then I don’t think I need to be bothered with him.”
“Take that back, Mase.”
Mason opened his mouth, looked at Tommy and then said. “You know what?”
“What?”
And, suddenly, Mason fell to his knees and began to moan, “Oooom Oooom.”
“What are you doing, Mason!”
He began bowing and scraping in front of the night stand. He mumbled gibberish, folding his hands together.
“Pickledeekadeekadoopooburrybooburryboo. We praise you. We praise you!”
“Mason!”
“We praise you holy Demeter. We worship you. You are God!”
“Mason!”
“And we worship you, Persephone. We love you. You’re better than Jesus. Jesus sucks in comparison to you. Ooooom. We love you, we love you!”
“I’m going to leave if you don’t stop that, Mason.”
Mason fell on the floor laughing. He wanted to open his mouth to speak. But he couldn’t. He just kept laughing and Tommy, frowning, went through Mason’s bookshelf.
“What’s this?” He took a little black book from the shelf.
Mason, still laughing, wiped his eyes and said, “Oh, that’s my Satanic Bible?”
Tommy frowned at him, shocked and betrayed.
“Mason, what kind of Christian are you?”
Mason Darrow answered, “A curious one.”
That night Tommy Dwyer did his half hour of Bible study and then closed the book and took out his list. The List had everyone he prayed for. He prayed for Mason and Addison because they were his two best friends. He prayed for Matt Mercurio on the football team because he didn’t like him and Jesus always said pray for your enemies. He prayed for his mom who was trying to be a good Christian. He prayed for his Dad who had walked out. He prayed for all the kids that dads had walked out on. The only person he knew that didn’t have a broken home was Addison. But Addison was crazy.
Tommy prayed for the old woman without the umbrella he’d see when he was on the bus that morning.
He prayed, “Jesus, help me and Deborah to do the right thing and stay pure for you. My flesh is so weak sometimes. Heavenly Father, give us holy fear and a desire to do the right thing.”
And then Tommy crossed himself, but felt guilty. He wasn’t really Catholic anymore. Well, he didn’t know what he was. He was Christian.
“It doesn’t matter what I am,” Tommy said. “I shouldn’t be thinking about me all the time. Jesus, I know I know I know I shouldn’t be thinking about me but please let me get that pickup truck for my birthday. If it be thy holy will. Amen.”
He got ready to climb into bed and the phone rang.
“Hello?” he said.
“Tommy?”
“Mason?”
“Yes. Are we still going to that convention on the weekend?”
Mason was a Christian. But... it was different. Mason wasn’t Catholic. He wasn’t born again. He was Episcopalian and they were like Catholics except, well, lots of Catholics did get born again. Episcopalians didn’t really believe in it. They were... different.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, Mason.”
“Of course I want to!”
Mason sounded so enthusiastic that Tommy was almost sure it was a lie.
“I just wanted to make sure, make sure my schedule was clear. Addison needs the house for something.”
“Too bad Addison won’t come with us. There’s going to be great music.”
“Yeah,” Mason said, dreading an entire Saturday of praise and worship. “Well, not much chance of that happening.”
“We could pray for it.”
“No,” Mason said, solidly. Some things weren’t worth praying for. Not even for Tommy. “I’m going to bed now. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Mason.”
“Good night, Tommy.”
“God bless, Mason,” Tommy prayed. “He’s a good Christian... Just not... the same kind.”
Episcopalians had gay priests and premarital sex, or at least they did at Mason’s church. Apparently at his church people didn’t get saved. They didn’t go to confession, though they could. They didn’t take life so... seriously. Tommy wasn’t sure how he felt about that. You didn’t really see Episcopalians at Christian Bookstore and whenever Tommy was flipping through Left Behind books at Barnes and Noble, or reading over the Prayer of Jabez, there was Mason, surrounded by books on Hinduism, reading something with a pentagram on the cover.
“But Mason is saved,” Tommy said, drifting off to sleep. “It’s just a different sort of saved.”
“So I was at the bus depot,” Mason was telling them as he sat down for lunch, “and feeling a little bit on the low side. Asking questions about all sorts of things.”
“Meaning of life?” said Addison.
“Why we have to take chemistry?” Tommy added.
“Are Brittany Spears’ tits real?” Seth McKenna offered.
“But we know they aren’t,” Mason said. “All of those questions. And then all of a sudden I saw this man. I mean, his feet were twisted up, he was kind of bald, mildly retarded. I mean, he was really fucked up. But goddamnit, he was happy! What’s that all about?”
Andrew Wehner, the resident philosopher, who was sitting at the same table said, “I would guess it means stupidity is a requirement for happiness.”
“Andrew’s got a point,” Addison said. “Stupid people are always the happy ones.”
“That’s not true,” Tommy said.
“Now you take those evangelicals at Tommy’s church—”
“Hey—!”
“They’re dumb as the day is long. And happy Happy HAPPY!”
Addison threw an arm around Tommy and said, “Just fuckin’ with you. Besides, you were like this before you got saved.”
“Stupid?” Tommy said, bristling.
“No,” Addison told him. “Innocent. You’ve got a joy de vivre.”
Seth snorted. “I’ve never met anyone with less joy de vivre than Tommy Dwyer.”
Tommy frowned, but Addison said, “Now, look, McKenna. If I wanna talk about Tommy I can because we go back and he’s my best bud. But anyone else knocking Tommy—”
“Accept me,” Mason threw in—”
‘That’s right,” Addison said. “Anyone else and I’ll have to get all mad and pretend I’m gonna fight you.”
“I don’t think it’s only stupid people who are happy,” Tommy murmured stubbornly. “I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Mason said. “I’ve never met a dumb happy person, but I’ve met lots of people who pretend they’re dumber than they are just to stay happy. Like a fake happy.”
“And here we come to the difference between happiness and fulfillment,” chimed in Dan Bonner, another one of the resident philosophers. Dan and Whener were taking all AP classes next year, worked on yearbook and preparing to apply to some East Coast schools with big names.
Addison frowned and screwed his middle finger into his left hand so only Mason could see, but Tommy said, earnestly, “Pastor Pitts says it’s the difference between happiness and joy. Like, joy is what comes from God, and it’s real. But happiness isn’t lasting. Only we want the thing that doesn’t last because we’re human and we’re weak and we don’t know how bad the flesh is.”
Tommy was about to shut up, but he realized he had an audience, and it was so rare that he had the floor. It was too much to seriously believe he’d win a soul for Jesus at just this one lunch, but he could begin working on it.
“Like, say, with sex. Or homosexuals. They might think they want to be gay, and people might think they want to have premarital sex just because the urge is there. It’s so strong and they don’t have enough faith, so they give into it....” Tommy, who was very earnest now, did not see Addison eyeing him like a cat with a mouse. “You give into it, you sin, and then you feel horrible for having had sex, especially gay sex, because it’s not in God’s plan.”
“God has a plan?” said Addison.
Tommy frowned because Addison was ruining this. He’d witnessed to Addison several times before.
“For us to find friendship and salvation in Jesus Christ his only son.”
“Because if we don’t he’ll zap us with his pinky finger and we’ll fry in hell forever?’
Tommy looked aghast.
“God doesn’t want to do it,” Tommy said.
“But he will.”
“Because he has to.”
“But he’s like God, right?”
“But God has to be fair.”
“Fuck fair. I mean, if I was God I’d do what the fuck I wanted to do. I’d line all the angels in a row, get some angel condoms and—”
“Addison!”
Addison shrugged.
“But if you just accepted Jesus—”
“And didn’t fuck until I was married, and didn’t get fucked up the ass-”
“You would be saved.”
“Well,” Addison said, “I’m halfway there cause I’d never let anything up in my ass. But the first part...” Addison made a face.
“It’s all in the Good Book,” Tommy said.
Addison shook his head: “That’s one dumbass book.”
Despite himself, Mason cracked a smile.
Joel McKenna didn’t have to explain to anyone who rode the 4:30 Number Seven that when they stopped at the public library they waited a little longer. When he’d first started driving the route he’d noticed Shelley was almost always late.
“It’s everyday,” she told him. “That’s why you hardly see me.”
“He hadn’t really seen her that time. Joel knew that after the 4:30 the bus only came once every hour, and so he decided to drive slower. And then he had just stopped the bus altogether to wait for her. He wasn’t allowed to wait more than five minutes, and there was no one on this bus now who didn’t understand.
She ran anyway, and that’s what he liked about her. She didn’t take it for granted. Shelley knew everyone else wanted to get home like she did. Joel wanted to get home. He wanted to drop this bus off at the Highland Point Terminal and drive back to his apartment.
“Joel, you’re a lifesaver,” she told him.
“Get on,” he told her with his broad smile, and when she took out her fare, though no one saw, he put his hand over hers.
She didn’t make anything of it as the bus rolled on. An old woman got on a few minutes later her wrinkled black hand fumbling for her purse, digging around for her change and Joel told her, “You know you overpaid yesterday Mrs. Hanley.”
“I did?” Her dubious face was like an old dark raisin.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you only owe me fifteen cents. I’m sure” he added putting his large, tanned hand over hers, “you already gave it to me.”
Shelley never sat down. She held on to the rail across from Joel and watched the sun on his hair. He smiled a lot. He had a lot of teeth, not too many, just enough to make a really pleasant smile. And he whistled a lot when he wasn’t asking her all about work. Joel knew everybody’s name and all the gossip at the library. He knew every single thing that bothered her.
“Naomi still coloring her fingernails every shade of the rainbow?”
“Yes!” she noticed his Saint Joseph’s Missal. “How was Mass?”
Joel shrugged. “It was Mass. It doesn’t change much.”
“But you go everyday.”
“Yeah,” Joel shrugged. “I guess. It’s the one thing I can count on.”
Shelley burst out laughing.
“What?” he smirked up at her.
“You’re so close mouthed,” she told him. “Do you know how many times I get tracts on the bus, from a bus driver, all about getting saved? Especially that one guy, the Jehovah’s Witness?”
“They get saved?”
“Something like it. They got the earthly paradise and all.”
“Cause heaven’s too crowded, right?”
Shelley shrugged as they turned on Birmingham. “Something like that.
“But here I am, asking you, and you’re just, um hum, um hum...”
Joel shrugged. “Well, you know Mass. Or maybe you don’t?” he had to stop assuming everyone was Catholic.
“Actually, I went to Francis Cabrini for high school.”
“Then you do know,” Joel said. He shook his head. “It doesn’t change. It does not change.”
He drove awhile, reflexive before he said, “And I suppose that’s why I like it.”