Part 1

My brother had just started the JJJ club with some university drop-out friends of his. He said it was meant to be an alternative to Sunday school. The name of the club didn't have any particular meaning, since Benjamin left it up to each member to decide for themselves what the letters should stand for. Personally, he chose "Jesus, Jed and Johnny". He wouldn't say why - that's just how he wanted it. One thing is certain, Benjamin didn't like the Bible any more. Mama prayed, but it didn't help much, and Benjamin Way didn't think that the God of Israel deserved any more attention. Fifteen years of flannel boards and biblical picture puzzles about the shepherd David was enough.
JJJ dealt with many hidden subjects. Benjamin would often pay me a short visit in my room and look for the missing survivors of that tragic drowning accident in the Middle East. He thought it was so charming that sweet, little children sat on the edge of their beds with their Christian mamas, read about the boat builder, Noah, and looked at pictures of the ark with all the cool animals. He decided to publish a picture book himself - one that showed the sea bottom with all of the beautiful, dead bodies of the people that God had drowned because they were evil. Not to mention all of the evil animals and all of the evil one-year-old children that he had liquidated. What a fantastic God we have. It was a mystery to Benjamin Way why Adolf Hitler had been depicted as a genocidal murderer rather than a saint at the right hand of the Almighty. Of course, this wouldn't have threatened God's position in any way - Hitler only exterminated a few million jews and some gypsies after all. God, on the other hand, was responsible for a killing spree far more extensive, according to the census at least.
I asked him to keep quiet. Even if I could tolerate the mockery, this was far from the case with mother. Benjamin grinned. I didn't need to be worried about our mom, he said. Blissfully ignorant, with the New Testament in her purse, she went to prayer meetings with her God-fearing girlfriends who yelled, "Hallelujah!" a lot and had buttons pinned to their coats with "Jesus Lives" printed on them. They loved God and the Gospel of St. John 3:16, and knew just as little about the theory of evolution as they knew about their own anatomies. They were holy and pure. Worthy of heaven.
Benjamin smiled. I laughed. I couldn't stop laughing. He wasn't really a blasphemer, but he was gifted with an exceptional ability for talking and mimicking others. Besides, he was really only trying to be funny. And as far as he was concerned, it was perfectly alright for mama and I to sing hymns as long as we smiled and were happy.
In many ways, I looked up to him. After father died, he took mama on long hikes up into the mountains, despite the fact that he perfectly hated the outdoors. But, he knew that mama liked heather and ferns, so he went. He was there for his brother, too. For weeks after the burial, there were many trips up to the cabin, with lots of fresh salmon and videos in tow.
Benjamin was a kind atheist. Elisha was an evil champion of God. Benjamin's favorite prophet, by the way. No one was as noble as Elisha from the Old Testament.
"Listen, Terry, if some girls in your class had called you baldy, I'm sure that you would've asked God to command some big, nasty bears to go rip them to pieces, too."
Benjamin fully understood Elisha's reaction.
"Imagine, this God-fearing man had wandered around there in the wilderness for months maybe, all alone. He naturally had time to be annoyed with his rather modest hair growth. Full of complexes and without a toupé, he went back to civilisation, and what was the first thing he heard? That's right. Some insolent neighbourhood kids had actually told him that he had a baldspot! Who did these cheeky kids think they were? Didn't they know that he was a man of God?
Benjamin thought that it was completely natural, not to mention consistent, for God to send some bears after them. It was even creative, far more exciting than a boring, old drowning.
"What is it that bothers us Christians so much? What happened to implementing the death penalty for shoplifting and going over the speed limit? When are the fine people going to uphold the letter of the Bible?"
I reminded him of Jesus' words. We should turn the other cheek to and love loud-mouth neighbourhood kids as we would ourselves.
Benjamin looked at me. He envied me, he said.
"A's and B's on the report card, and still a believer. Amazing, brother. Is your secret for sale?"

Our class was pretty much the same as other classes. Some of the students were clever. Others were somewhere in the middle. Some played soccer or video games. Others smoked, played in bands and went to concerts. Others worked part-time at the supermarket, and a few were interested in role playing or stamps.
And then there were the "Jesus People" - we who were ultra-Christian and loved Jesus Christ just a little bit extra. We had to accept that we were sect members who went crazy on the weekends speaking in tongues and doing exorcisms. Fundamentalists, said the smokers. Fanatics, claimed the stamp collectors. Crackpots, said the soccer players. Who gives a damn? asked the video gamers.
No one, really. The Jesus People were nice guys. We could do whatever we wanted so long as there wasn't any gospel preaching in the cafeteria or revivals in the classroom.
Our class had all the prototypes. The guy who always came late. The girl who always sat in front and was going to be a medical student. Those with long hair and bras who had done their homework. Very well. Twice, for sure. The girl who always blushed when the teacher asked her a question, and the boy sitting in one of the desks in the back of the classroom who always made fun of her with a few dry, amusing remarks. There was also the girl who never said a single word, whether during class or after, and the guy who stretched his sick days to the limit and came to third period three days a week complaining he didn't feel well. And then there was the boy who always sat and rocked in his chair in the middle of the classroom, and about once a month, took a nasty fall that produced a deafening burst of laughter from his classmates. And the ones who had opinions on absolutely everything, and who breathed for the regular discussions in Social Studies. The debaters. The concert boys. The band girls. The smokers who wrote "Anarchy" on the bathroom walls and in their notebooks, and who knew more about Marxism than Marx. A typical modern class.
The teachers were also different - and usual. You didn't get through a school year without meeting the one who regularly gave surprise pop-quiz. The strength-via-discipline teacher. The there-must-be-order principal. Or the teacher who had lost his ideals long ago, and who barely gave tests at all. And when he did, he just said, very relaxed and with a sly grin on his face, "Read this book-list, people, and things should go ok."
And there was the one who everyone liked, no matter what. The man who almost had a personal relationship with all of the students, even with the right-wing extremist smokers who played black metal, or the slightly chubby, red-headed girls who no one had ever heard speak before. The man who even became interested in God, Ezekiel and the Holy Spirit when the ultra-Christian fanatics were in the vicinity.
I was happy. Terry Way, the fundamentalist, had fun. Maybe some of my classmates would have said that I was a prototype, too, but I don't really think so. They never knew what to expect when I opened my mouth, nor where it might lead.
At the end of the day, anything could happen.

Just for fun, I regularly provoked discussions about wages, immigrants and menstruation. I was often well aware that my reasoning was seriously lacking, but it was exciting to see if my co-debaters were worthy opponents.
Once, I recall that I firmly maintained that I was an enthusiastic supporter of abortion, and that I could use the Bible to defend my view. I knew that both Tina and Theresa were proud anti-feminists who hated men who "wore white and carried stethoscopes and weapons in their hands" - or something like that. Even though I wasn't quite as poetic as they were, I at least shared their displeasure at encouragement of pregnancy terminations, but just then, I thought it was fascinating to provoke girls. It was a cynical form of entertainment, but still the best. The conclusion of the provocation campaign was already worked out. No one was meant to leave the classroom without knowing that abortion was genocide driven by egoism and endorsed by the system.
It was sad to see my only two female comrades in the class buckle under to the tamest of argumentation. Both Tina and Theresa brightened up the days like floodlights, and had key positions in the congregation's youth choir. Now, suddenly, they were unexpectedly caught up in a battle against their brother about something that certainly should already be clear to poor Terry.
"God thinks that abortion is ok," I said, emphatically.
Every single Christian knew that, surely. If one had a passionate love for the books of the Bible, one couldn't deny that God was the greatest of prophets who had foreseen everything. Therefore, one would necessarily have to acknowledge that God accepts abortions. Surely, my two sisters in the Lord believed that our loving Creator would have prevented abortion if He thought that it was something bad. He most certainly knew that abortion would come into being, and He didn't actually lack the power or opportunity to get involved. God was love, after all - right?
Tina and Theresa fumed. This was too easy. They had hoped that they wouldn't have to give me an introduction to "free will" - the prime doctrine that even their little siblings were well acquainted with. God couldn't dictate our choices, loving or not. If he did, He would infringe upon all that came as a result of the Tree of Knowledge. This was elementary theology. They were disappointed.
"Ok, girls. We'll say then that you are right that He is forced to accept abortion just to follow his own game rules. People can move the playing piece where they want, to one of the squares on the board. Don't you understand that abortion is on one of the squares? God allows abortion because it is part of his plan. Few are chosen, you know. Not everyone can get a place in the little heavenly Jerusalem. Bank robbery and abortion are just a couple of God's elimination channels - just some of many tempting trees of knowledge. We must see to it that we ourselves stay on the right squares, young ladies, and simply register that others make a number of fatal moves. We shouldn't involve ourselves in God's holy selection process. Let God's will be done, Tina and Theresa," I said, smiling slyly and impressed with my own theological expertise.
"I'm disappointed in you, Terry," I remember Theresa said. "You have to twist everything. We should stick together and focus on what is most important."
I told her that she was wrong, and then gave her the answer.
"It's not about a lack of respect for God's will. Abortion is a product launched by that connoisseur of human beings - Lucifer. God doesn't allow any selling until His servants have taken part in a certain number of pro-life campaigns, complete with posters, flyers and stands at shopping malls. He asks us to 'clean the temple' when we see injustice. We are instructed to inform those closest to us about the venerable commandments and rules. God accepts all - great and small. Abortion is ok when we, His subjects, are lying on the battlefield with nosebleeds. Abortion then becomes God's indirect way of deleting names on the list of participants."
"That's how Theresa should've answered," I said loudly to my class. "It's an answer that leads to endless fits of thought and limited homework, but that's better than inspecting the ceiling and talking about Jesus."
That response marked the start of a school year with little sleep. Were we pails and shovels in God's sandbox? Were we toy cars and dolls in God's playpen? Did our Lord like to eat popcorn watching the nosebleeds he knew would flow?

Once, our class had the honour of inviting Dr. Ruth Hansen. She was a specialist in child psychiatry, and had received the assignment of giving us a short introduction into the normal day of a psychiatrist, "with all of its joys and its sorrows" - as our teacher, Andrews, had expressed it. The visit was part of the curriculum, but was also meant as a guide for us young ones who might one day toil with thoughts and existence. Hansen knew that she was going to talk to many uncertain and perhaps wounded minds, and she chose to put the pedal to the metal as if it should have been the most natural thing in the world to do.
Ruth Hansen told us that people shouldn't be so naive as to think that they were
invulnerable. We had to recognize that we could all suffer from psychological problems, regardless of whether or not there were histories of mental illness in our families.
Forty-five year-old Ruth exhaled. She was pleased with her introduction. She had even remembered to emphasize that it was considered unprofessional to use the expression "mental illness". "Mind-related illness" was better - a lovely re-interpretation, she thought.
Ruth Hansen used the word "profession" as though psychiatry was, or should be, something more than mama's bosom and some warm, comforting words, preferably repeated at regular intervals. It was nauseating, and I decided to stop her dangerous attempt to initiate my rather slow school mates into the accepted reality.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to interrupt you," I said.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to interrupt you? I could see my class. What human right was Terry Way going to arrogantly grant himself this time? The woman standing in the front of the class at the teacher's desk hadn't even been speaking a minute, and Way found it necessary to get involved. It was unheard of, but particularly interesting just the same.
"There are a few bothersome aspects about this that I think it is appropriate for you to explain, Hansen," I politely said.
"Now, now," Andrews said, smiling at Ruth. "I think we should follow the routine and wait a bit for the questions until the end of the lecture. Don't you agree, Way?"
Andrews was alright. He thought of himself as a gifted expert on people with the ability to determine the different characteristics of his students, and use that knowledge when necessary to administer a light-hearted reprimand. And he was basically pretty clever. Never sarcastic. Just slightly caustic in an inoffensive way.
"No, I don't agree," I replied.
I avoided seeming to be difficult. With all seriousness, I insisted that Hansen's introduction had to be confronted because it carried messages of indoctrination that could be used as murder weapons some day. I made sure that I made my statement a little unclear so as to capture the interest of this intellectual and highly educated woman standing in front of me. It was still the case that a muddle of aristocratic words, which formed unintelligible sentences for most people, was an artistic craft reserved for the intellectual elite. Not to say that my objection was incomprehensible. I was pretty sure that Hansen understood where I was heading with it.
"I'd be happy to take some questions," she said smiling, "If for nothing else other than to clear things up a little."
In fact, her speech was dead and buried. Andrews knew it. I knew it, and Raymond knew nothing. The class' intellectual poet, who was long overdue to utter a single sentence in class because doing so would allegedly be an empty experience, thought that it was more rewarding to listen to relaxing music composed by Austrian prodigies, and he chose correctly. Raymond didn't have any hope for the future, ok, but he had relatively good conditions for growth uncorrupted by the nonsense of science.
"How does someone become crazy?" I asked.
I interrupted her when she expectedly began reciting information on chemical reactions and brain structure.
"You're getting ahead of yourself, Ruth," I said calmly, then boldly allowed myself close to three minutes to tell two stories about my father and brother. Father taught me all about authority, honour, the winning spirit, and strong principles. I admired him when I had listened to him speak on the radio about his Jesus with distressed emotion that was born of real concern for his fellow man.
For five years, he was only a guest in our house. His main address was at the state hospital, having been diagnosed with leukemia. We all thought it was a test from God. If the pillar Job could manage, so could father. Mama repeated her promise every day that father would be cured and "see the sons of his sons", and none of us doubted this. Then he died - quite suddenly and unexpectedly, as far as the Way family was concerned.
I laid in my bed and cried after father passed away. Losing him was painful, and in bitter moments, his death felt like God had betrayed me, which made the situation almost unbearable. I had to make some choices. I could lay there stretched out on the bed and just wither away, or deal with the grief with a profusion of positive thoughts. Another alternative was to ask for help from other people. Like my brother did when he went to the local doctor the day after he got his papers stating that he had to report to do his obligatory military service. For Benjamin Way, going to the service would have been tantamount to a year in isolation, and he found it necessary to put up a fight for his own well-being. So, he found a wide, old spinach-green sweat shirt, and a close-fitting, grey velvet pair of pants that came up to mid-calf. This outfit went perfectly with an ashen face brought about by an indisputable talent for drama, and impressive make-up. Slowly, with his eyes unwaveringly directed towards the skirting boards of the floor, Benjamin told his doctor that he hadn't been able to go outside in six months because he suffered from anxiety and a feeling of emptiness - likely from many other things that he probably creatively came up with as well.
In any case, the doctor was in no doubt. It was a clear case of "claustrophobic-neurotic behaviour", Panic type, NUD." Just like that. He was given a referral to a psychologist, and of course, a recommendation to the state that his required military service be delayed.
"I think we'll stop you there, Terry," interrupted Andrews, who had been listening intently. I know that he was curious to hear the rest, but probably sensed an increasing displeasure emanating from the speaker at the teacher's desk. I needed to be quiet for a while.
Ruth Hansen's sense of direction was dismal. She, seemingly embarrassed, took on the job of excusing this doctor who had admittedly behaved somewhat unprofessionally - anyway, who had been a little nonchalant, if nothing else. She didn't want to draw any conclusions that might harm a colleague without undertaking a thorough analysis of the case. What in the world did she do with her time? I had tried to discover the best alternative to me gasping for breath on my bed - that was the issue. My brother came to his doctor with a credible description of his daily life. He left that doctor with a name for it. Within five minutes, he hadn't said anything other than that he was having a tough time. By the time he came home, he had received the written proof that he was no longer having a "tough time". He was sick, and there were lots of weird words involved.
"Now we can start talking about chemical reactions in the skull, Hansen," I said. "The painful thoughts that could've been driven away by mamas soft voice and care have been transformed into an unexpected verdict. The diagnosis transformed good, old-fashioned depression into an insurmountable impediment that steadily gets worse. In the end, I think that anyone with good hearing and confidence in their scribes would pass out and fall down trying to get through a description of the brain's mess of components, or whatever you all call it."
I spoke loudly, and observed a disdainful Andrews give me the signal to tone it down. Maybe he didn't agree with what I said, but I spoke with sincerity and enthusiasm - and I was his student.
"It's easy to shape a caring mentality. The diagnosis is one thing - what about this horrible myth about mental illness being hereditary?"
No one could stop me now. No one wanted to stop me. Leo had already sent me a note with a humble suggestion for an alternative attack strategy. Tim was quick to follow up. He eagerly authored suggestions on the back of a stencil which contained an outline of the different job positions in a psychiatric ward.
"You all can show me as many statistics as you want," I said, "and I'll tell you that they created themselves. Many hundreds of years ago, there was a man who didn't have a soft-hearted mama's shoulder to cry on. He wasn't good at thinking positive thoughts either. Chemical reaction. The same thing happened to his son. My goodness! There's clearly a connection here. His poor grandson and son!
I stopped briefly and looked at Ruth. She smiled. That irritated me. I didn't like her smile, and didn't like that she smiled. I started talking about the grandson who might have been called Tom, and who might have had a son named Sam.
"Yes, yes, my boy - you will most likely suffer from the same problems that my father and I do, and that's when it will be important not to give up, you know."
Sam grew up and was happily married up until his wife suddenly died of illness. The grandson's son wept and grieved at the grave of his wife. That was natural. He loved her.
"It hurt. Don't you all understand that? He experienced pain because of how he felt about her. But that's not all, class. Sam was constantly reminded of his weak mind. Sam had to fight something that couldn't be fought. He was made that way. His body carried the disease."
Then, not really knowing how it happened, I stood up from where I sat and began waving my arms around. Spit was flying every which way and my mouth moved at record speed. I glanced over at Robert. He smiled good-naturedly and winked.
"You ARE nothing, Ruth. You can think that you are something concrete, and after a while, become what you think you are, but in the beginning, you're nothing in particular when it comes to personality. Sam was weak. He was fooled by a myth that, in the end, infested his mind. My own grandfather was admitted to some mental hospital or other in his time, but I'm not going to be fooled, Ruth. You can claim that then I'm ignoring reality and living a lie. Well, then I'm going to cling to that "lie" for dear life, Ruth!" I practically yelled at her.
"I am what I want to be. Don't accuse me of being false and wearing a mask when I tell you that I have infinite confidence in myself. It's possible that I force on a mask sometimes - absolutely - but keep in mind that it is I who is putting on the mask. It is a conscious decision," I proclaimed.
I had said that to my class before. Twice. Once even during an English class. I had talked about a Frida or a Tommy who had decided that they were going to toughen up. Be brave. Stand up and say what they really meant.
"Right, Tommy. But you've always been shy. That's not you”, people had told him.
Tommy was phoney, they told him right away. He tried to be something that he wasn't. He wasn't himself, they said.
I started talking about Tommy again then. To Ruth Hansen.
"What was Tommy, if not those decisions that he made on the spur of the moment, and lived by after? Call his self-confidence a mask if you want to – he wore it, if so, consciously and with pride. Was he born to be shy? Was his bashfulness an indication of his permanent, unchangeable 'I'? Show me the logic, and I'll fight with my only weapon," I said, and bordering on the theatrical, firmly insisted that, "I control my own thinking. Therefore, I am master of my own 'I'."
A quick, "Amen, Way!" came from the right side of the classroom. Roger's usual, good-natured contribution. Usually, the class chuckled in unison, but this time, there wasn't time for simple, pleasant mockery. What was around the next corner? Would the coup be maintained? Almost all eyes in the classroom were on Terry, who sat on the bench in the back.
Now I was prepared to get a lesson on sexual identity and instincts. Uncontrolled thoughts. I spoke again.
"Alright, I'm willing to admit that I will probably always be a man with an unexplainable interest in girls, regardless of how much I would like to wear masks that give the opposite impression. But, if - once in a while - I can't prevent a bird from flying over my head, I should still be able to prevent it from building a nest there, if that's what I want to do. Grandpa's favourite quote."
It was good news. It was possible for each and everyone to control what their constrained 'I's did, and if that possibility was there, one was still the dictator (of one's own mind).
"You're a man of many thoughts, Way," Ms. Hansen said with a strained laugh, as she casually looked over the class. She looked at the clock and said that the lecture had taken an unexpected turn, and of course, there was a great deal to refute with regards to what I had shared with them, but there wasn't enough time for a deep analysis of the issue. In the meantime, she thought that one should be careful about knowing too much. My theories, afterall, didn't carry much scientific weight. Certainly, she understood all of this about dictating one's own thoughts, but things weren't that simple when we lived in a communication society, and are being bombarded by hundreds of different opinions and understandings on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the picture I had painted was characterized by too much faith in people.
And that was that. She then thought it appropriate to begin talking about her duties at the hospitals.
How dared she reject my thoughts so indifferently! It was disrespectful to me, and more importantly, indefensible to a group of teenagers with indoctrinated confidence in school books and science.
I recall that I just sat and stared at her for several minutes. I noticed how she consciously avoided eye contact with me, almost as though she wanted to make a point of how tiring it was to have to deal with ignorant know-it-alls. I was just an achievement seeker with too much free time and a few too many documentary channels on the TV that broadcast entirely too many critical documentaries.
Unfair speculation, maybe. Still, she had shown negligence as some sort of an authority, and she wasn't ashamed of herself. She was one of those who killed using the law as her alibi. She had no insight and humility.
And while I sat and stared at her mouth, which eventually took on a rather unappetizing and unattractive shape, I gave Grandad's crazy spirit a little exercise. Standing with fiery eyes consumed with anger, I commanded attention from the teacher's desk with a booming voice.
Andrews jumped in his seat, and Ruth got a dumbfounded, almost amusing look on her face. I, however, didn't think it was amusing. Everything about Ruth was ugly now, and I told her so.
"You are someone who contributes to and maintains an idea that clouds over the simplest fact. When we wake up in the morning, we're free. We're able to go where we want to go. I can run in the forest and take off all of my clothes and lean against a tree for the rest of my life. If I want to watch the stars from a bridge tonight, I can do it. I can decide tomorrow to sell my car and build a straw hut in Indonesia. And it is only I, myself, who is master over those decisions. Isn't it fantastic, Ruth?" I hissed.
The bell for recess rang, but everyone in class - with the exception of Raymond - ignored it. Andrews was stunned. He who ordinarily had the upper hand with his students was put to the side. This was between Ruth and Terry.
But Ruth couldn't handle any more. She got up without a word, looked at Andrews with resignation and wandered calmly towards the door.
"You're not leaving this room, Ruth!" I howled furiously.
You have to believe me when I say that the rage didn't have anything to do with wounded pride. This was business - nothing more.
I strode towards her. Had the normally cool and collected Terry thought to get physical? Andrews moved in.
"Terry, sit down! This is idiocy!" he yelled.
Andrews had a role to play, and I calmed down. The criminal got away, and I got a black mark and a formal reprimand from the vice principal.

The girls in our class practically always thought it necessary to roll their eyes when I shared my noble thoughts. Usually the eye rolling was followed by an "Oh, my God", or a search for a girlfriend's contemptuous eyes. I detested them then. They were so pitiful in their need for support from their like-minded friends who really didn't have any minds at all. They just thought that I was so stupid - the one who always thought he was so important with all of those thoughts. They liked being on a team. It was exciting to see if I would bow down. To what? An expression of vexation in the form of a loud - "Oh, my God, how stupid!"? It would've been so much more challenging if they had at least managed to take on some of my confrontations with a sentence that consisted of more than three words.
I asked myself where they got their strong points of view from. I often brought out seemingly deep frustrations, which were expressed now and then via some intense anger and a sharp pencil flying at impressive speed and precision. Then "Oh, my God!" and the dull choir of girls was temporarily put to the side. Rachel was fuming.
I basically thought that it was fascinating. It was intriguing sociology and it repressed the need to preach about the sacred exchange of views. Because I certainly knew that Rachel would roll her eyes again soon. It must have been difficult for a clever girl like her to sleep at night, clearly aware that she had many very strong opinions, without knowing what the basis of that passion was.
I ventured a guess that she saw herself sitting and stuttering in front of a class that was full of anticipation and just waiting for that timely verbal tackle, that elegant parry, but was instead served a sound that could only bring on thoughts of resignation. The sound was appropriately enough concealed behind two eyes rolling up towards the ceiling, and an "Oh, my God..." - but come on, you need better camouflage to conceal a natural mental block. At least I thought so. Nora and Karin, on the other hand, understood well that Rachel struggled a little with the language. I was agitating rabble that twisted everything that was said. I was unreasonable and expected answers that clearly demanded insight into the protocols of the hereafter. Good gracious.
"So tell me, dear Terry, how could the disciple Thomas doubt? He had seen the lame walk and the blind see. He had even greeted the dead Lazarus, who had quite suddenly regained his breath, balance, motor and all other physical skills, just because Jesus had said that he could. Isn't it just a little suspicious that this Thomas constantly thought that everything was so difficult to buy, no matter how many supernatural things he experienced? Some might use the word 'unrealistic', Terry."
It was discussion hour and Rachel was delighted. How had she managed to track down my weakness? The class stared at me. Rachel Bloom had swung the sword for two whole minutes, with an almost evil grin on her face. As she spoke, I had feverishly contemplated on who her source was. I refused to believe that she had actually opened the Bible on her own. Linus? He was on the same sports team as her brother. But even if our youth pastor was a talkative guy, it was doubtful that Sean Bloom would suddenly be interested in God and Jesus, and on top of that, be open to hearing about the troubles of Terry Way.
"I don't know, Rachel."
I knew right when I said it that a historical moment had taken place. Even Raymond took calm interest in the event. The religion teacher, Gerda, was composed, but no one could deny noticing a couple of hefty wrinkles show up in her otherwise sullen face.
Yep. It was an occasion. Pride goes before the fall, and all of that. But I didn't care. Without realizing it, Rachel had reminded me of the thing that plagued me on a daily basis. Earlier in the day, during math class, I had a sudden loss of motivation - reminded of absolute truths and the lack of them. Pathetic, yes. Suddenly Moses was in the picture again, the Tree of Knowledge swung in time to Cain's thorough stab to his brother's body, and Thomas, he wept from doubt. Logic and realism - my two children lay on the fire, and Rachel waltzed around with gasoline and matches.
And I didn't care. Principles and honour and other wonderful words had to abdicate to that which meant something - my faith. That which saddened me.
I was willing to be cut down. I was willing to be called a fool who believes without knowing the fundamentals of his belief, someone who believes only to have comfort when it rains and grandma passes away.
I couldn't discuss this with her. It had been several days since I had decided to do as Linus - focus on Jesus. Try, anyway. I didn't have the strength for more mental excursions into ancient Judea and the Garden of Eden. I might have been able to give her a creative explanation of Thomas' doubt, but I wouldn't manage to convince myself. Rachel might not have been able to run me in right then and there. Myself, I would have seen a defect in myself unveiled. I didn't want to win a debate that I realistically couldn't win. At least, not this time.
"I don't know, Rachel, and I admit that Thomas bothers me. I don't want to talk about him."
I looked at her firmly in the eyes when I said it. The class probably thought that I was an arrogant guy at times, but I felt they respected me for the most part. Terry Way was certainly a self-proclaimed candidate for state leadership with a prevailing preference for himself, but he was fair and never took sides. He bowed to no one, and above all, Terry was cheerful, and had no reservations about putting his hand on a stranger's cheek.
I think that my classmates actually accepted what I would call necessary and unlimited self-confidence. I was always prepared to state my case even if it often demanded a breach of pious modesty and other such nonsense.
But I never stood on the street corner and sang songs of praise for myself. My class accepted my supposition that I hadn't met my equal yet because they understood the concept. They understood that my tool on the way towards that which I wanted to achieve was an inner monologue that raised me up and convinced my head that my thoughts were exceptional (definitely a little far-fetched, but very effective. It is quite difficult to give evidence against my convictions.) They knew as well that I didn't think I was better than others. On the days when I decided to take my backpack to school, everyone could take a look at my self image.
"I am a rather intelligent speck of dust," I wrote in big, red letters on the front.
They knew that I meant it. It was because of this that there were no bad intentions behind the mumbling about pride going before the fall when the disciple Thomas was brought up in the classroom.
"Thomas is a tool, Terry. A trick. The person that put the New Testament together naturally understood that it was important to find a companion for those who would eventually be stubborn enough to doubt his masterpiece. Thomas is an aid, someone you can identify with and find comfort in. Imagine, he doubted despite his powerful experiences. Thomas was human."
By way of conclusion, Rachel had decided to quote the Lutheran, Samuelson, who was invited once in a while by our religion teacher to give us some expert insight into the Scriptures. I remember the lecture on Thomas well. I sweat for forty-five minutes in fear that Samuelson's gripping tale about the weak humanity would be wiped out by a primitive and well-defined angle. My goodness, how hard it was to believe, Samuelson had said. We people were hard of heart, without humility and will. We were ungrateful and often let ourselves doubt, and it was entirely alright, he thought. God accepted it. He loved us so much that He was willing to overlook our disloyal thoughts. He even included the greatest doubter of us all in his beloved son's inner circle. What mercy!
From my side, I was thinking how easy it is to create nice stories so long as you hide the problematic things in the closet, and stuff your head so full of hallelujahs and amens and Jesus that your forget the hiding place. Thomas should have been silenced, hidden away in a clause or in a labyrinth in a cave in Sinai. It was a mistake to go on and on about a defect for minutes on end without at least attempting to tone down or dampen the extent of that defect. Preferably turn the defect into a charming little trifle. Samuelson had made a fool of himself, and no one knew it except for me, and possibly Rachel as well.
"Thomas is an unrealistic project whose value shouldn't be minimized. It's irrelevant to talk about mercy for doubters when Thomas wasn't a believable doubter. Right, Terry?"
Rachel spoke calmly and impressively slowly. The words were salt, and I was an open wound. But I didn't touch the pencil case, or glance up towards the ceiling either. I acknowledged my famine of words without appealing to indigestible facts. Rachel was understandably talkative.
"Let us now say that I had painstakingly cut you up with a knife, Terry, preferably in a good number of little pieces. Just afterwards, a man with long, dark-blond hair and dressed in a long, white coat, had patched you up with a, 'stand up, your faith has saved you'. Then, Terry, I would have traded these comfortable jeans with a bag and some cinders, right on the spot. After that, I would've put myself under house arrest for life and locked myself in a storeroom, giving uninterrupted attention to the Bible instead of magazines, and focusing specifically on John the Baptist and the Proverbs of Solomon."
Rachel stopped momentarily and took a sweeping glance over all of the desks in the class. She smiled when she saw that Raymond - for the first time in class, and probably, for the first time ever - had decided to put his music on hold for a second and removed both earphones. When her gaze reached Terry Way, she stopped smiling. She had decided to give me a well-deserved, seriously stern look.
"Thomas had doubted, Terry. Thomas would have played soccer during the next recess or talked about a video game with Leo during the next class. Maybe he would have mentioned that about that man in white, right after he gave a little critique on the graphics used in the newest game machine, but that's not absolutely certain."
We all knew what she had mercilessly used up a good deal of time to reveal. Thomas had seen and doubted - we don't see and believe. Thomas had seen and doubted without good reason. We haven't seen, but still believe. Without good reason.
It was quiet in the classroom. Tina and Theresa sent confused looks my way in the hope that their brother would save the situation with some mighty gem from the Bible. They were never concerned about Rachel's revelation themselves. Still, they enthusiastically rolled their eyes, and were of the opinion that Rachel wasn't qualified one way or the other.
Their behaviour was a monster. I got out the pencil case. And I regret it. I think everyone is capable of putting a leash on themselves, but every once in a while, I think a conscious person allows their temperament a little breathing room, usually when they get the strong urge to set impartiality aside in favour of the desire to eradicate a detestable standard. But then it must be extremely detestable. Thus, I was being unreasonable when I blew up at my sisters in front of the whole class. I see now that my loud judgements weren't only due to my hate of the contemptuous control of opinions, but also due to my frustration because Rachel words were going to keep me from my sleep. I was a dimmed and humbled Terry, but even worse, I could expect to have many sleepless nights ahead of me.
"Snake spawn," I said loudly. Then, staring directly at Tina and Theresa, "Don't ever think that I would conspire with anyone, at least not with those who unashamedly broadcast their opinions without having spent many hours in constructive thought and due consideration!" I bellowed.
Things really heated up. There was still thirty minutes left of the discussion hour, and I had already lost my head. Admittedly for only the second time in three years, it should be said.
The scene consisted of two stunned female Pentecostals. A beautiful, little blond girl was also present, now she provoked two other rather volatile girls. A young man, who sort of had friends and opponents in both camps, and who had just breached his sacred rules of discussion rather severely, was also on stage.
Anything could happen and it was great.
Thought my class.
Personally, I was not the slightest bit happy. Tina and Theresa seemed pretty much wiped out over there where they sat and stared at me, their nostrils inflamed and eyebrows raised. They seemed almost as though they had given up on life. I had surprisingly and indirectly taken sides with the atheist Rachel, and blew up at my travelling companions on the narrow path.
Didn't I understand that they were only trying to defend our common beliefs? I should be able to be a little flexible when it came to two girls who had some difficulty expressing themselves, but who had noble intentions.
That was possibly what they thought, and it was reasonable.
Terry Way had chosen to declare war because of a relatively minor issue, and at an appalling moment. It was like asking the archers to ignore the attacking infantry of the enemy, and instead tell them to launch a few arrows at the slower ones in their own unit. I had surrendered to Rachel's army because it was too painful to fight with an unyielding flesh wound, but it hadn't been necessary to liquidate my own soldiers in the process.
Rachel seemed perplexed after the unexpected twist of events, but she had no intention of letting the focus be deterred from the trap I found myself in. She looked at me and sneered slightly. During the previous day's discussion hour, I had shamelessly, yet respectfully, insisted that her father lived a lie. Now, she was determined to have her revenge.
"It's a legitimate conclusion," I had said to my class. Then I really got on the wrong side of her with respect to her father.
" 'I was young myself once, Terry. Wait until you get older.' My dear class, Mr. Bloom said that to me with pride almost. He unreservedly used parts of last year's graduation speech to tell me how naive and full of dreams he had been as a lad, on a restless quest for absolute truths that he could base his life upon. He gaily made fun of his youth and himself, apparently without realizing it. That way of looking at things was completely foreign to him, so it had nothing to do with wounding his honour. It was simply about being humble enough to admit to one's mistakes. The life-long experience of those who were older should overcome one's absolute certainty in one's principles. That is what made honour”.
I scrutinized him while he taught me, I had said to my class. There was a kind, yet contemptuous quality about him. Mr. Bloom was a survivor - one who had the ability to make a victory out of a loss. Maybe at one time he had had a girlfriend that he had shared grand predictions with. Eventually, he was forced to take stock of his life. He had not succeeded. He was neither a chess champion nor a professional soccer player. Success hadn't come. His great prophecies had not been fulfilled. The path to a comfortable sofa and a well-deserved, cold drink seemed long. Edward Bloom wanted to die.
"Then one day, he saw a glimmer of hope, my dear class. Humility. He had been an egotist. He had strived to reap the glory of his own flesh, and so failure was the deserved outcome. Why had he stopped caring for his surroundings, his fellow man? Rather than lying down then, he rose up and became a pillar of society, a soldier of solidarity. The ballot box and the socialist party ticket became a natural combination”.
"But humility wasn't a truth. It was just a way to deaden, and eventually, get rid of the pain. A hypocrisy that can't be ignored, unfortunately. Rather than smiling in resignation in the shadow of the thoughts of his youth, Edward Bloom should have praised the brave attempts of his youth to establish principles. He should have nodded and smiled warmly at the thought of that kid who had once critically and with difficulty developed an opinion on the basis of his own sensitivities and impressions, and the experiences of his father, grandfather and teacher. He should have been proud of his young mind," I had said to an attentive class.
It could be that, after a while, Edward would experience things that didn't coincide with his worldview, and because of which, for the sake of fairness, he was necessarily forced to overturn his previous conclusions. However, that didn't mean that it was a given that the preparatory work on the principles of his youth was carried out too carelessly. A person didn't need to have lived for seventy years himself in order to reap the benefits of the experiences of a long life. We had a mouth and ears, and it wasn't really difficult to talk to people who were getting close to death. Some were even pleasant.
Rachel had stopped me. She thought that my speech was hideous. What was this nonsense I was imagining? Her father was a respected citizen with a genuine desire for justice, peace and happiness. For all. As far as she was aware, her father hadn't entertained thoughts of any grand ambitions that after a while only led to feelings of loneliness and emptiness. Edward Bloom was an unselfish man - the St. Stephen of our time. Right up until the introduction of his car.
"So what?" a shrill voice from the east side of the classroom had asked.
"Father deserves some credit, too!" Rachel bellowed.
Personally, I thought it was entertaining to watch the middle-aged Edward cruise around in his beautiful German. Putting money on the table at the car dealership and leaving in a fairly decent Asian vehicle probably wasn't even considered. Perhaps it's easier to forget about unfulfilled prophecies when one speeds around in a German power machine with nice leather seats and a proper emblem on the hood. There's actually a more than decent motor in a Korean car, and the seats - well, there's five of those.
"Room for both your mother, Sean and you, Rachel," I said. "But, of course, your father needs maximum comfort. He is naturally one of those who deserves only silk of the most outstanding quality. We're talking about a royal philanthropist, afterall. Right up until the lights go out for Agnes the pensioner, that is, who was thrown out of her apartment block because, confused and in need, she helped herself every day to the wooden railings in the stairwell in the hope of getting a little nourishment. With some nickels in pension and three loaves of bread a month - of course she would've, in her confusion towards the end of the month, planted her tongue where she thought there might be food".
"I certainly understand that your father likes a soft, comfortable seat, Rachel, but it isn't quite in keeping with his noble transformation after his application for that top job in the oil company was rejected. The socialist party candidacy was natural when he had to be satisfied with a consultancy and 10 square meters of office space, likely for all of eternity."
I hadn't been too sarcastic. This wasn't an attempt to engage just for the fun of it. I was just sharing fascinating pearls of wisdom from grandfather's treasure chest. Had I been making fun, the pencil lead would've hailed down.
I knew that Rachel admired her father. Edward and Rachel had a father-daughter relationship of the highest order. I knew that I had hurt her. And maybe I was a little sorry when she broke the noteworthy silence in the classroom.
"I can't stand being here any more right now. I'm going to go home to my Dad and give him a hug."
She said it calmly. It had been quiet for about 10 seconds. I had stared at her intensely before she answered.
The whole class had been looking at her, in fact. There were undeniably some fascinating sides to Terry's public castigations, no doubt about it. And there was no reason for Rachel to get hold of a pen case with ammunition. Terry had been polite and had spoken with a serious tone.
That's why there was some tension surrounding Rachel's reaction. If there had been time, we would have seen an eager Roger taking bets between the desks, with good odds, as usual. I don't think anyone wanted to fleece the capitalist and the class' only independent businessman of all of his money, at any rate.
Rachel left, and during Andrews' English class, no less. It was sensational and unacceptable. It was art.
She got up from her chair - her back erect, as usual. When she reached the door, she stopped and met with looks of wonder from each and every one of her classmates. She smiled slyly. She then turned her attention to the would-be sociologist, Andrews, who still hadn't managed to collect himself after that which he later characterized as the climax of his career.
"I have to go home, sit on the sofa and drink a little cold drink with my Dad."
It was at that moment that I was forced to forgive her for all of the sharpened pencils, unnerving stuttering, and lack of drive. For a little while, I assessed whether or not I might be in love with her, but quickly came to the conclusion of how dangerous it was to let oneself be torn by spiritual stimulation. Rachel had behaved beautifully. I would actually use the word, "monumentally". Our class had received an introduction into the day-to-day creativity some people would pay considerable sums for. While my words would have caused chaos in any other girl with affection for her father, Rachel had shown a wisdom and calm which I didn't realize she had the ability for in such circumstances. It was clear I had hurt her. I think I also got her to insist on a serious conversation with her Dad on the ability of businessmen to create a demand. But most of all, I had sharpened her claws. And I bow to her.
"Terry, I'm waiting for an answer from you. You're not well-known for 'I don't know', now are you?" Rachel firmly asked.
I temporarily got out of answering. To everyone's great amazement, Raymond signalled that he had a contribution to the discussion. If Thomas' doubt seemed unrealistic, this was utopian.
Earlier in the hour, Roger had suggested eight alternative outcomes of the hour, and the odds were good, as usual. He looked forward to counting the evening's winnings. Dan and Minh had put goodly bets down that Theresa would leave the classroom in tears. Sander had confidently placed a huge bet that Terry would get at least one of the Pentecostal sisters to swear. That one was a daring bet, but considering how the situation had been before Raymond's entrance, anything was possible. Now it was just Roger and Robert who smiled. Robert had been clever enough to go for alternative number seven - "Other outcomes". The odds were appropriately modest, but 1.3 was good enough to see to the latest issue of the soccer magazine and a nice evening at the bowling alley.
"You're pathetic, Way."
A few of the girls had scarcely heard Raymond's voice. They liked what they heard. This was authority and control, force - and not least - an exemplary request for unconditional attention.
Raymond said that he thought that it was perfectly alright that we found it rewarding to talk about the doubter, Thomas. Personally, he thought that the hammer god, Thor, wasn't anything more than really fun meteorology, and that Jesus, the carpenter, was just a Galilean who was a little more radiant than a prominent Pharisee.
I looked at him. He knew he would be allowed to speak uninterrupted. The three girls had forgotten everything about disciples and realism. Raymond wasn't just a boy with a remarkable voice and attitude. He was an Adonis with a fortress for a face. The girls swooned.
"I understand where you're coming from, Way."
Raymond said that he understood why I always spoke with conviction. I had to naturally be faithful to the preliminary work of these basic thoughts of mine that I talked about. Of course I had to assert and maintain the truth. How could I love myself otherwise?
"You're right. Everyone else is wrong. It's a completely natural way to think. You would never hear me talk about an arrogant clod when I tell my friends about you, but you would never see me smile warmly when I think of you either, Way."
I looked right at him the whole time. I squinted a little, and almost didn't notice that I had bitten my lower lip. This was undeniably fascinating because I knew that it had an ending. Raymond had started reading out a verdict that was signed and conscientiously evaluated.
The poet wanted to remind me of something I had shared passionately with the class a few weeks earlier. Quoting with amazing precision, Raymond said,
"I would have maintained the same principles even if I had rejected belief in the supernatural. The rules of my life are weaved from an assortment of all the impulses I have received. The Bible is just one of many sources," I had said.
It was clear that the statement had made an impression.
"You degraded yourself with such a sermon from being something a good deal more interesting than a loathsome little fashion girl, to a lower lifeform on the level of a nihilistic politician," Raymond said in a monotonous and indifferent tone of voice. "Your time is limited, Way. Stop fussing!"
It wasn't entirely understandable speech, but it was enough to get the point, anyway. Raymond was a young man who wrote poems about trees, tractors and train crashes. And all the poems had the same, moving ending:
"And it doesn't matter a damn bit".
Once during recess, I took the liberty of raiding the man's grocery bag (while the rest of us had leather backpacks, Raymond had a plastic bag). The only thing I found was five poems. Some of them filled with rage. Raymond had been zealous. Once.
"Why do you bother being principled when you'll soon be nothing but a patch of grass to your great-great grandchildren? Let Rachel roll her eyes at you just as much as she wants to. Stop worrying about the state's insistence on managing half of all you have worked hard for. Just register it in your head. Then you can enjoy the colours of the trees and the movie screen, and write some poems, or go parachuting for a little fresh air. Stop using your time trying to behave properly, as though life was some sort of a final examination for a university degree that you had to pass. Stop thinking. Do something fun instead and worry about dying. 'Seize the day', and all of that," Raymond said indifferently.
Before he looked away from me, he made sure to strangle any clear inconsistencies by saying that it was the first and last time he would express an opinion about me. I shouldn't interpret his words as criticism, but as well-meaning advice. I should either take back the statement I had shared with them a few weeks earlier, and go on pretending that Jesus was something more than a loveable character, or I should drop meaningless principles.
I smiled broadly. A few minutes earlier, I had an uncomfortably high pulse, and had snapped at two classmates. Now, I was more relaxed than my brittle-boned grandfather. Raymond's artillery was like Rowan berries compared to Rachel's high-tech ammunition. Almost tempting. If there was anyone in the classroom who expected a declaration of surrender from the most uncompromising one in the class, they would be quickly branded as mental weaklings lacking in direction. I liked Raymond, but I couldn't just stand by and watch while a poet tricked an entire class into being hedonists with sporadic bouts of depression.
"You are forgetting hope, Raymond," I said, smiling both warmly and slyly.
A trite opening, but it was a point that had to be brought up at once. I had no intention of holding a long speech. I was just going to point out a fact that Raymond had forgotten to mention, and which was really the most important. The speech, of course, turned out to be long anyway.
"I love life. Every day, I play soccer a few hours. Every day, I weigh my words according to my own standard. Because I want to achieve something. And every week, I reach some goals, and it gives me a rush. You can all think that an irrepressible tingling sensation on your back is a mediocre experience if you want to, but personally, I will never lose my appetite for it".
I smiled warmly with the usual seriousness. Humbled, I was looking for an easy way to make the difference clear between enjoying the colours of autumn and stating that one has achieved a demanding goal while abiding by “meaningless principles”.
"Sure, a person can enjoy zooming around in a bumper car, but this pleasure doesn't succeed at producing irrepressible biological reactions. A bumper car ride doesn't involve the same process as an achieved goal," I said.
I then started to tell them about the months leading up to the district soccer team qualifications.
"I was fifteen years old with a lot of free time and a soccer ball. And most importantly, a pillow and a head full of dreams. During the afternoon, I raced around the soccer field to improve my skills. In the evening, I exercised my brain. My dream of having the district team jacket draped over my shoulders was in my head for hours before I fell asleep, and it was wonderful, but it didn't give me a rush. It was a nice evening at the fair - nothing more. I liked living.
"A month later, my name was read out by the county talent scout. The dream I'd dreamt from my pillow was realized. That little boy felt a fire course through his body. He loved living, class."
I paused briefly. The class was in unusually good form. It was a momentous occasion in the classroom. No one sent any notes. No one interrupted. No one said anything at all. People barely breathed, and concentration had never been sharper.
"I like myself when I respond proudly to a serious statement with a quick rhetorical hook pulled from my own well-kept repertoire. I love life when I'm fighting alone against a united horde, and calms the storm with spit in my face. I don't waver. A fire burns. I get a confirmation that I have reached the goal of asserting and defending my thoughts."
I was interrupted. Raymond thought it was getting boring.
"Ok, Way. I actually get it, for the sake of getting on with things at least. You crucify one institution after the other to feel a little electricity. Large-scale thought industry to get the most out of life, eh? But it's a dangerous thought, Way. Maybe the tingling is a little nicer than a breath of fresh air, but it's much more expensive as well. Who thinks about Grim Reapers when they're having fun at the fair, or eating a burger at the corner hamburger joint? In the first place, Way, the greater the pleasure, the harder it is to realize that it is short-lived. And the more one thinks, the greater the chance there is that one gets back to basics and down to earth.
Raymond thought it wasn't accidental that many of the great philosophers suffered from depression that ended in despair and a sudden interest in millstones and oceans. He didn't surprise me. No detours. Right to the point. I liked Raymond.
"Listen, my noble poet," I said warmly. "I personally believe in a heavenly existence with both hamburgers and tingling. At the very least, I hope and dream that we will join the flowers and come back after we die. When you scribble down your poems with that elegant closing phrase, Raymond, you assume something for which you don't have the qualification to establish. Why bother with theories when you have a hope that can't disappear as long as you're breathing. Of course, it can be difficult to imagine that 100 years is the maximum when you're scoring the decisive goal in the last minute of the finale, but why imagine it? It's indefensible, and I'm not sure it should be all that understandable either. If someone has alternatives, they always choose the best one.
Raymond wondered if I had ever seen an old acquaintance come back from the hereafter. Smiling pleasantly, I told him that I didn't want to write it off. The person in question would in any case be too young for me to recognize if he did come back - it wasn't even a certainty that he would have lived in my region. Raymond didn't shift his gaze from my eyes as I spoke. This was more rewarding than anti-depressives a la classical music magicians. He smiled.
"Alright, Way. Life is wonderful and lasts forever. Hallelujah! I'm bored already. The tingling was great the first twenty times, but damn if I can handle more than a hundred years of bumper cars and thought intoxication. You'll get tired of it soon, too".
It was a frivolous statement, and he knew it. I couldn't give a firm explanation for that tingling I got on my back after I had defended my principles, nor why the tingling felt so wonderful. I just knew that it exceeded all of the other good feelings with a good margin. I didn't want to reject Raymond's prediction, but it seemed quite unlikely. Chocolate had lost its grip on Terry Way three years ago, but then chocolate is not exactly a psychic phenomena. Regardless, that eventual time…that sorrow.
Raymond grew quiet. Even though there may have been a lot he wanted to state, he chose to stop. He knew that Terry Way wasn't a guy who rejected cynicism unless it was absolutely necessary. Raymond Mark looked as though he accepted the idyllic perspective. And in that moment, all I wanted to do was to climb mountain top after mountain top with Raymond and some hot chocolate. I wanted to stay overnight at the Marks' and talk disparagingly about women's groups. I had just fallen in love with a mind that normally didn't address itself to any others apart from a small group of five people who thought that the letter of the law was about as understandable as the confusing lines of the runes. They called themselves, "Damn, we're gonna die soon" and composed and played melancholy symphonic rock four times a week. Raymond played bass and wrote the lyrics.
The local newspaper had repeatedly pointed out that the band would have had potential if they had only cut out tracks like, "I'm going to kill father with a knife if he doesn't cut it out with Siv the check-out girl", and "Skillful and creative bullying is alright". The paper always made sure to point out that the music was a pleasure to listen to - it was just the lyrics that were too creative.
The band had five pending libel actions and had been reported to the police for two indirect death threats signed by the lyricist, Raymond Mark. "Damn, we're gonna die soon" couldn't have cared less. The drummer's father was a persuasive trial lawyer with good connections to a sensitive, not-so-masculine district attorney. There had been a lot of dismissals and concert tickets sold.
I think Raymond liked me early on. At long, regular intervals, he gave short comments on some of my letters to the editor that had been published in the local newspapers, always closing with a wink. Once he even sought me out in the cafeteria to ask if he could quote me in some of the things he wrote - shortly and concisely, with a thank you and steady eye contact.
Terry Way was tolerable despite his long and meaningless stream of regulating principles. And while I sat there and looked at my dear poet, I realized that during our first exchange of opinions I had unofficially become an honorary member of "Damn, we're gonna die soon". Raymond had responded to my spiritual enthusiasm. It tingled. For a little while anyway.
Rachel was, in fact, not the least bit interested in my new love. After having ridden for nearly a quarter of an hour on a white horse with Prince Raymond, she picked up the word "heaven", and bang! - Thomas was up to bat again. I could believe just as much as I wanted to in streets paved with gold in outerspace, and soothing sounds of the trombone behind high walls made of the finest gems, but I shouldn't demand respect. Where had my honour gone? How could I believe in a god who introduced characters now and then who were as believable as cartoon classics?
"Don't think that we're going to let Raymond Mark ruin this discussion hour," Rachel said cheerfully, smiling slightly at the poet. "You're not getting away, Terry. You, who for three years now, have arrogantly branded your classmates as nonchalant, lightweight thinkers."
When I thought about it, I had actually used this description sometimes. And, in all modesty, I had also used the words "stunted" and "intellectual puppets" in the same sentence. Now, I was to be united with my classmates - at least if Rachel got what she wanted.
"Don't talk so much, woman!"
It was Raymond, making a debut by making eye contact with a female in our class for the first time. Raymond was a confirmed woman hater, even though he had been unpleasantly intimate with scores of girls in all shapes and sizes. Rachel irritated him.
"The disciple Thomas just had a crazy father and a neighbour who reminded him of it. He was disturbed, poor guy, and it all came to light because of an abnormal insecurity about amusing delusions. That's easy to see," Raymond said somewhat apathetically.
Rachel shook her head as she coldly replied, "I don't think Terry agrees with you, Raymond. Terry, in fact, uses time to think instead of concentrating all of his energy on scribbling that constantly belittles people, and isn't even well-written."
The dependent clause could've been dropped. Still, I liked Rachel's drive and her claws. I didn't like the attack strategy, even though I understood it. Every obstacle had to be gotten rid of in the name of her father. Terry Way needed to know what pain felt like.
"You're inferior. Don't you get it?"
Raymond suddenly seemed genuinely engaged. He continued.
"You're clinging to an explainable and immaterial detail in the hope of overturning a throne that you can't take yourself. You're no clever woman. Don't take up the time of a clever man."
Yes, it was flattering talk from the bass player, but it disgusted me. Full of compassion, I looked over at the humiliated Rachel who, rather than responding to the fiery words, bowed her head. I could imagine a weeping, confused girl attempting to stifle the strong accusations against her father. I could see her curse this Terry who had lit a fire under her own misgivings about her father's life of luxury. I had crushed her. Now, her right to avenge herself had been eliminated by someone who could see her motive, but who didn't want to give her a fair chance. Raymond was moved enough by our mutual feeling of a sort of strange brotherhood that he saw it as a duty to defend the honorary member of his group.
"I don't think that that was wisdom, Raymond," I said quietly.
The class was a group of obedient extras who had respect for the three main actors, but this was too intense for Robert, who shared a long, "Wow...." with those gathered. Leo, too, let out a few strained sounds.
"What?" Raymond eventually managed to quietly ask. He turned towards me, looking confused. I couldn't look at him. I looked at Rachel.
"She's been reasonable, Raymond. I owe her an answer."
I meant what I said, but it should have gone unsaid. It didn't help much that I spoke in the softest and kindest voice I could muster. Raymond looked thoughtfully at me a long time. His gaze hardened. He took out his headset and turned away. I was going to really regret it.

Raymond's father was a man of culture. He found comfort in beauty and creativity, and weekly went to the theater or attended an art exhibition to find himself and everyone else. In addition, he taught our class social studies and geography.
Sven Mark was really quite a boring person. To him, "flexible teaching methods" was an obscene and inappropriate expression. The curriculum was sacrosanct and should in no way be desecrated by "responsibility for one's own learning", which unfortunately resulted in knowledge that didn't stick - most definitely. Group work in Mark's classes was therefore out of the question. We would become social scientists via good hearing and concentration on the "green wonder" - the chalkboard. The chalkboard was, according to the candidatus magistratus Sven, an under-rated discovery, one which was basically more ingenious than the telephone itself.
"You all don't actually believe that Graham Bell was a physics-freak from birth, do you?" he asked, grinning. Yes, it probably was a chalkboard involved at some point, and even though we thought it was a bit daring of him to compare the importance of that with that of the invention of the telephone, we let him live in his belief. He had, afterall, been a clever strategist and served up a youthful version of the word "physicist".
Raymond didn't think much of Sven Mark. In light of his worldview, he couldn't understand how his father and his teacher could defend dictating several years of his short life, when he had a 140 horsepower vehicle with a hood on the back parked in his parking place. I assumed that the discussions had been numerous in the Marks family for many years, and it was nice to see that Sven refrained from playing the judge, for Raymond enjoyed listening to just as much music during his father's classes as he did in all the others.
Sven's entrances were kind of nice. He kindly greeted our class while sending a pleading look in the direction of his son, which was followed by two arms simulating a person removing headphones from their ears. He quickly registered that his suggestion had been ignored, and then with a sly smile, began talking about political parties or nation building.
There were two alternatives in Raymond's dad's classes. Either you fully participated, or you exercised your right to take full responsibility for your own grade. So, it was allowed for everyone in our class to listen to music quietly, or read the latest issue of the soccer magazine, without this effecting the lesson. I think that we could have actually seen Sven conscientiously steer thirty deaf people through the Cold War, and at the conclusion, as a bonus, make a list of different predictions regarding the likely future consequences of the east-west conflict. In that sense, he was great. He wasn't like the natural science teacher, Berg, who demanded an unreserved passion for spore plants and the periodic table. We knew that he had a latent sympathy for the cane. We knew that he was one of only a few teachers who used the pointer during class. Even Raymond was all ears during his class.
Our class liked Sven Mark, even if he was about as spontaneous as a whale. I liked him too, but he was stubborn. During the course of three years, I had called him a murderer more than once, and every time he had declared himself innocent, even though he had an alibi that was extremely thin, which he never had any intention of fattening up. At least not in class. I was informed I could pay him a visit at home, but that didn't work out either. Every day was dedicated to party meetings, the sports team or bridge, and when the remaining hours were to be used, it was much more tempting to use them with his wife of many years than with accusations that didn't threaten to result in a considerable maximum penalty. He hoped this didn't seem too brutal to a young and ambitious social critic.
"Luckily, there isn't a prison sentence for teaching," Sven said smiling. "What an honourable culture we have," he continued mockingly.
Once I stood in the hallway talking with him. I had to smile even though my judgement was solid. How could he, every year, strangle young Da Vincis, and still be able to calmly eat sandwiches in the teacher's lounge? He wasn't at all bothered by an upset stomach - quite the opposite - he saw his deeds as invaluable services. Sven Mark was a sympathetic man, but he contributed to dangerous ideas, just like Ruth. Daily he ruined royal human potential by talking about international alliances, the media's role in politics and ocean currents - things we had already covered two or three times before during our years in school. Didn't he understand that enough identical introductions into the importance of the role of spore plants in the plant kingdom could make the most motivated student into a laid-back industrial worker with no interest in developing themselves? Sven thought that general knowledge made us fit to observe and extend the social contract, and that was all well and good, but he was mistaken if he also considered the school to be a farm for producing talent and a Judea for those who wanted to sharpen their skills.
"What is it you want then, Terry? An elite school for you and three others?"
Mark wasn't really interested in the answer. He knew what I wanted. Now, he just wanted a little entertainment in the form of the mediocre thoughts of boys. I didn't think it was very friendly to remind me of the unenviable fates of those like Edward Bloom.
"I think that the social contract is a brilliant idea, too," I said. "And I like that we have a school that sees to it that we adapt to this contract, but what in the world do woodwork and correctly washed dishes have to do with this adaptation?" I asked him, and suggested sports fishing and "How to Create a Proper Stamp Collection" as supplements to the curriculum.
Mark's colleagues had prepared things poorly, I could tell. What is the minimum level a citizen must be at in order to call himself fit for daily life? It was a question that should have been the focus when the school system was founded. Then subjects like English, social studies and natural science should pop up, along with an evaluation of what might be considered reasonable to do with the last two mentioned subjects of the curriculum regarding what was sufficient for one to manage in society. I was more convinced than I had been in a long time.
"After that, Sven, you service-oriented people could have used your time to establish an evaluation system in order to establish when the student had reached the minimum requirement. It's so simple, Sven!" I said joyously.
Sven grinned warmly. He thought that I was a young, fascist pup who should be tamed with a few electric shocks.
"You do see that we get a lot of sad people here, don't you?" He stole a glance at me, and continued to smile warmly.
Oh yeah - I knew that I swore in his socialist church which was very fond of its members. The word "differentiation" was worse than "damn" or "hell", and therefore, should never be said in his presence.
I asked him to get a hold of himself. When was he going to stop pretending that everyone was the same? Why obstruct an entire class when three of them were ready to go up a level? Yes, we should treat the ones left behind humanely, and not create bad feelings that made the hearts of small people bleed.
I shook my head. What kind of utterly boring approach was this? Why not focus on Per's presentation positively, rather than as a demon out to crush Paul's self-image?
"Not considering your rebellious offspring, it's easy to shape a young boy's perspective," I said somewhat carefully. "Encourage Paul to challenge Per and then back him up and follow-up regularly. When Per, and after a while, Paul, have the basics down, they'll decide themselves how they will use their allotted 80 years," I added, being willing to assume that Raymond's gloomy predictions were correct. Seen in this light, the many school years of immaterial subjects and repetition became even more aggravating.
Mark listened, apparently not entirely uninterested.
"It doesn't matter if they're twelve, sixteen or eighteen years old. When Per and Paul have the necessary foundation, these two precious people with very little time will decide for themselves what they want to specialize in, " I pointed out, and added that when the choice was made, Sven and company could create a quota system where those with the best grades would be granted their first choices. We certainly couldn't have a situation where almost all of the people quoted clauses to empty courtrooms, and just three policemen wouldn't be a powerful enough force in the fight against bad people.
"Is that right?" replied an easily amused teacher, who immediately advised me to make the Proverbs of Solomon my first priority from that time forward.
"You're a little naive, young Way. You've been clever so far. You've responded to my questions before I've asked them, and we predictably ended up where we are now. But now, my young man, it's about time for the finale."
Sven turned his nose towards the teacher's lounge at the end of the hallway. He continued to talk as he calmly strolled towards his colleagues with a curious Terry at his side.
"Just as I am a giant in the educational field, young man, so is a twelve year old a little young to understand legal methods and critically apply the law to a comprehensive precedent," he clucked, and said hello to one of the students who passed us.
It was friendly and entirely acceptable mockery. Mark was making a little fun of me. And it was disappointing. Not because I felt hurt. Mark's sarcasm was loveable. The disappointment was because the ace up the sleeve turned out to be just a three of clubs. The socialist loved his fellow man, but didn't have a lot of faith in him.
"Standards of maturity are defined by those who create the viewpoints," I said, and asked him to stop for a second.
I looked at him intensely, unsmilingly. What kind of logic says that a person had to be nineteen years old to practice law? Sven squinted at me. He wasn't smiling either.
"Prepare the child on the new system from the time that they're born, and the person will be adaptable. Your educational experiences aren't relevant here, Sven. You can't evaluate the objects of a newly created system on the basis of the conduct towards the objects in the old system. The toddlers in Terry Way's ideal situation would take on the assignments with a far more goal-oriented focus because the goal would be defined and impressed upon them, and within their range. You know very well that motivation and a competitive spirit are found out there among children far younger than twelve years old, Sven. Stop killing, using myths as your alibi!"
I looked Sven straight in the eyes. I wondered once in a while if I could seem threatening sometimes. Still, my intention was only to share my understanding of things. I continued.
"Now you're thinking about talking about developmental play for kids, right? For you, it's unheard of that civilized nations in other parts of the world can allow children as young as fourteen go to business meetings, complete with briefcases and business suits. You're not interested in whether or not the boy or girl has the social and educational capabilities to fill such a role. He or she should climb trees and play house and be healthy people. When are you going to stop defining 'quality time', Sven? When are you going to start seriously encouraging your grandchildren to learn from all areas of life so that they can define 'quality time' themselves?"
I spoke quietly, but with determination. Sven scrutinized me.
"I hear what you're saying, Way," he said quietly.
The conversation had been unusually long. Normally, Mark would have been in the teacher's lounge ages ago, discussing the last bridge night with Andrews. Now he wanted more than anything else to be serious.
"Never think that theories are beautiful things, Terry. The day that you see Per and Paul enjoying each other's company without Paul hurting Per because he is envious of him, and without a Thomas or a Jimmy showing up who cries themselves to sleep because spelling is just as difficult as it was five years before that, then you can look at me confidently. It won't be rude and intolerable then. But by all means, Terry, think a little bit more, and feel free to be arrogant when you cut down ideas and institutions. But be wary of overconfident thoughts about - let me quote you - "precious people".
He gave me a clap on the shoulder and disappeared into the teacher's lounge. That made me angry. Even if the next day he went a long way in making it up with some good jokes, I never forgot that nauseating "love for humankind" that strangled humankind.
A while later, about two weeks after I had humiliated Raymond in front of our class, I recalled that very well. Geography class had already started when Raymond Mark entered the classroom. His father smiled, shook his head and asked him to sit down. Raymond obeyed the order. The lyricist had been cold since that unnecessary rebuke I had given him. Despite numerous apologies, I never got anything other than stern looks and once in a while a "go to hell, Way". Doubting Thomas didn't have control over how much sleep I got anymore - now it was the poet, Raymond, that kept me awake. I cursed myself. What kind of vision had I had during that class period? Whatever it was, I shouldn't have proclaimed my displeasure with Raymond's blow-up to the entire world. Why couldn't I have just calmly stepped over to his desk and whispered a good piece of advice into his ear?
"Listen Raymond, considering Rachel's sensitivity, just let her get out what she's thinking. We don't need to agree with her - just let her talk."
I was a poor analyst. Stupid. That's what I was. Imagine. For the first time in three years, he had turned the music down just to give me some constructive criticism. He had then set down his sword and applauded his opponent. Finally, on top of it all, he had actually defended his opponent. I was evil. And I was guilty of bringing down a human being.
We'll all be marked for life - me and my classmates. None of us will ever be able to delete the picture of a beautiful, noble poet who stood up with his right arm raised. We will never forget the clear, trembling voice that commanded attention from the teacher's desk. I can still hear the vowels ring out in concert with the music of a drowsy cello.
"Father was safe, so safe. With Siv the check-out girl obediently on her back. But his devoted wife stood outside and cried. She who had washed his clothes with love".
Raymond never shot his father. Instead, he stepped quickly towards the teacher's desk as he decidedly took out a hand gun from his jacket pocket and put it to the roof of his mouth.
"And it doesn't matter a damn bit".
I got the letter the day after. It was postmarked the day before, probably minutes before the suicide. He briefly told me that he wanted to forgive me. That he didn't want to bother a man who was happy. Personally, he was tired of parachute jumps and the rare tingling, he wrote. "Tell my mother I loved her".
That was the last thing he wrote, plus the obligatory closing phrase.
And I cried. I did. Even if I didn't know much, I always knew that Raymond greatly admired his mother. Even if I wasn't exactly a great fan of, "Damn, we're gonna die soon", I had to admit that I had a few of their singles in my CD holder. "Hymn to mama" is particularly beautiful.
The rumours about the teacher, Lorna Helmer, and Sven Mark were true. There had been a number of theories suggested over the last several months as to why their geography classes always went on the same field trips, and why Lorna and Sven always shared a somewhat smaller tent. The class trips had definitely increased a lot after a while. Still, at first, there were few who really believed that an extramarital adventure was going on. Lorna Helmer had deep roots in a local religious sect, I think, and Sven was quite simply entirely too nice to be unfaithful. But Siv the cashier wasn't fiction. Sven was an adulterer who had a relationship with the harlot, Lorna Helmer. That was the verdict passed by the Lord Chief Justice Raymond, followed by the horrific sentence. Sven Mark immediately went on leave. Our class established a closer relationship to Ruth Hansen's people.
Personally, I found my psychiatric help in the arms of Linda. For several days after Raymond's suicide, I laid my head on my fiance's belly and talked. One night, I recited continuously for four straight hours, her warm, clammy hand resting on my arm. There was no unreasonable feeling of guilt. I had exterminated a young man's self-image and honour with two misplaced comments. Semantics, whatever: I had shot Raymond Mark.
Linda gently told me that I was wrong. And she was disappointed in me, she said. Her Terry was not a fool. He would never insist on an answer that could not be confirmed. Raymond Mark was probably behind several high-profiled assassinations. Maybe he had even been an absent-minded controller at a nuclear plant in the Soviet Union once during the mid-80's. Not strange that he felt the pressure of it all after a while and blew his head off. His father's whore was just an excuse, Linda calmly said. She warmly, if somewhat slyly smiled while she looked down at me. I realized then that I could never hate women. Abortion, pencil tips with impressive speed and precision, weak Eve and perverse equal opportunity for the sexes. I still couldn't discard Woman. In the presence of my beloved rock, I knew that there was at least one in the world who could resonate with me for more than ten minutes without showing signs of instability. It wasn't right to proclaim that the female was a subspecies. Maybe all women waltzed around every day with gold that was difficult to distribute because of a poor sales division. What do I know? Maybe I would have thrown pencils around too if I had to deal with bleeding for days on end every month. I had maybe even convinced myself that men are chauvinists, depraved wolves who oppress women and get all the management positions just because that's how it was meant to be. Of course one is allowed to be a little paranoid and neurotic when corporations produce tanning creams that aren't waterproof. Menstruation and beauty ideals. Insecurity, sensitivity and abortion. Nah - we'll buy it for Linda's sake. Not for Mary Mark's sake.
"Don't think that what Raymond did was noble."
Good God. How brave she was, Raymond's mama. Only four days after her son's death, and she wanted to come in and enlighten our class. We shouldn't see Raymond's actions as something superior and poetic. It was the act of a fool.
"I loved my son. I want you all to know that. But what he did is worse than anything else anyone has ever done to me," Mary said quietly, but loudly enough so that we all heard it. We understood. Sven's infidelity was a bouquet of fresh tulips compared to Raymond's suicide. She could understand that her son wanted to show his disgust for his father's behaviour, but that goal didn't warrant suicide - particularly because doing so only created more pain.
I remember how impressed I was by her. Standing proudly, she faced the entire class. Even though she had lost her only son, and had been humiliated by her husband's whore, she spoke with self-restraint without wavering in the slightest. The observer from Ruth's army nodded to her without interruption every other second from the back of the classroom. A tear rolled down Tina's cheek.
"It is easy for all of you to judge my husband, and easy for you to sympathize with Raymond. I want you all to listen closely to what I have to say now. Sven is a good person, but even an unselfish man can sometimes lose to temptation. Believe me, although my son couldn't learn to live with my husband's desires, it is something that I had accepted since we got married. And one more thing. Raymond was a good boy, but he was rarely happy. I don't want to speculate too much, but don't believe that his suicide was only because of his father. Raymond was a melancholic. You all know that," Mary said, forcing a small, bleak smile.
The observer nodded and nodded. Another tears rolled down Tina's cheek. Terry Way cried. For Raymond. Had Sven been granted an exemption to violate his wedding vows, with the excuse of a relatively high hormone level? Did the poet know of his mother's acceptance the whole time? That dark, fair lady at the teacher's desk was almost exonerating her husband and proclaiming her son guilty of foolishness. No one in the class reacted. I had hoped for a surprised look from Robert, but even he didn't find anything odd about Mary's speech. Perhaps, in one blessed moment, he had thought it was showing just a bit too much solidarity to clean up after an adultery, but maybe ideally, that was how everyone should act towards their spouse. Ignore the list of defects. Nurture the good things about marriage.
Mary was a meek woman, a bride one could only dream about. And Raymond had loved her deeply. That's why I cried. I saw in my head a depressed, little seven year old boy come home with a drawing for his mama. As usual, he found her on the sofa. The telephone receiver laid next to the phone on the coffee table. His mother cried, and he wanted to comfort her. He asked if she had fallen and hurt herself, and whether or not he should go get some bandages. He didn't understand at that time that he was just witnessing a wife who hadn't yet mastered focusing on the good things about marriage.
"Are you alright? We can take a walk outside if you like," I heard a deep voice say as I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I looked up. The district mental expert looked at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. The whole class stared at me. Terry Way was showing his sensitive side. It was beautifully human. They thought that I was mourning the death of a classmate. They didn't understand that I was crying because of a woman's self-inflicted suffering that lead to her son's desperation.
"I'm fine," I said softly.
I straightened up, determined to keep quiet. Mary gave me a feeble smile from the teacher's desk. She had gotten the message from her son.
"I'll stop there. I want to emphasize that from now on I am going to spend my time healing my own wounds, and those of my marriage. I bear no grudges at all towards Sven. None of us are perfect. Remember that, kids."
Mary trumpeted her brave anthem for her dearest husband. Was it really possible that she really thought that infidelity was ok modern behaviour? Something just a bit worse than hair in the sink or socks thrown on the floor? She wasn't choosy.
I avoided metaphysical assumptions regarding her nature, if such existed, and thought that it was highly unlikely that she had lived a life free of pain. Personally, I would have smashed most of my mother's good china if Linda had so much as sensually touched Roger or Robert's shoulder blade. After that, I would've slapped Linda in the face - not so very hard - and asked her to stay out of my life. Why? Because she had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. I'm not any more unreasonable than my God. Roger was a fruit tree who I had defined as off limits for no real reason. I was personally the Garden of Eden. She had accepted the rule. She ate nevertheless. Get out of the Garden!
Sven knew that he ate from the Tree of Knowledge when he had his workouts with Lorna. Had the gymnastics only taken place in their dreams, it would have been nothing more than just a little amusing.
"What about will, Mary?
I asked the question just as she was about to get up and leave. It came just as spontaneously as the tears had done earlier. Mary looked at me. She remained sitting.
"Raymond's?" she asked. "What do you mean, Terry?"
"Sven's," I said, almost whispering. "Is it relevant to estimate your husband's testosterone levels when he had a choice?"
I spoke very calmly. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but I owed my bass player a clap on the shoulder.
"What do you mean?" Mary asked.
I told her that I could certainly be agreeable enough to accept that there are a few men who have more powerful sex drives and more lively imagination than other men, but unfortunately, I couldn't be so kind as to describe Sven as braindead. Virile and relatively lustful, yes, but still a man with his own thought joystick.
"Will, Mary. That was all you should have demanded of him whose clothes you washed - with love," I said, still quite softly.
The class was silent. My classmates thought about their fellow human being, Sven Mark. There were no liberal clauses in the contract between Mary and our social studies teacher. The man who loved his fellow man had deliberately hurt the woman who loved him, well-aware of the main reasons for the increase in the suicide rate. Love - Sven knew so well that this could often prevent a person from controlling their own thoughts, and lead the most cynical person to ruin. Still, he broke his promise and failed those he loved. On the other hand, he never failed Paul. That little boy who still struggled with the multiplication table and verb forms, should absolutely not suffer from Per's crushing march forward towards quadratic equations and writing of "to do" lists.
I thought about Raymond. What had he thought of our cheerful teacher for all of these years? How was it for him watching his father rail from the podium in the battle against egoism, at the same time that he had to go get bandages for his mother? I wanted to punch Sven Mark in the face - hard.
"He didn't love her, Terry. That was probably what was wrong from the start."
Robert was convinced. The class period had culminated in silence without my having managed to get rid of the theory that Sven was a closet warrior in the battle for polygamy. Semi-religious, Robert Still, sat in the front seat of my little automobile with the red hubcaps. He brooded non-stop.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I don't know, exactly, but I hardly believe that he would've had anything to do with Lorna if he had really loved his wife. Love would have bound him, I think."
Robert had suddenly become interested in the world. Normally, life was just about the local soccer team, the pools and bowling. Now he talked about love as if he knew what it meant. Like they do on TV and in books.
"No. I mean, what is it 'to love'?" I inquired further.
Neither of us smiled much. The atmosphere in the classroom had been gloomy.
"You should know that. You're the one who's engaged," came the quick answer.
"No, I don't know," I replied, perhaps a little too quickly.
"Then you're not ready, Terry. Then you should wait."
"Why?" I asked.
"You'll know when you're ready," Robert answered.
"How?"
"I don't know. It's difficult to describe. You just feel it. That's what makes love so unique. You can't describe it generally. You just know when you have it inside of you."
I didn't deserve this after what just happened in class. I didn't think it was very nice of Robert to serve me up old, worn-out nonsense. That's why I hit him hard in the stomach. All in a friendly way, of course.
"Listen here, my friend," I said, cheering up a little. "You shouldn't lead your poor friend astray, you know. He might just leave Linda. Imagine if he didn't love her!"
Robert looked at me.
"Do you seriously mean that you don't know if you love Linda?" he asked.
"Are you sure that you love Milly?"
"Of course, I am. I wouldn't have stuck my tongue in her mouth otherwise," he answered grinning.
"You feel it in your heart - eh, Robert?"
He punched me hard in the stomach. Entirely correct and acceptable. I tried another approach.
"Are there any physical symptoms involved here, Robert?" I asked. I smiled a little now. Robert was impatient.
"I'm not going to talk about this, Terry. Of course you love Linda. Just like I love Milly. Sven, on the other hand, got married without feeling that ultimate attraction, which left him open to a dialogue with his genitals. For you and me, it is unthinkable. Milly and Linda are part of our flesh and bones, they are sacred."
Both me and Robert smiled. I thought his conclusion was fascinating. The word "bound" was interesting. Maybe Sven didn't love his Mary. What was wrong with him then? He must've felt something for her when he tenderly kissed her.
I thought back to the weeks just before I proposed to Linda. Even though mama had taken a liking to her, she took great care to ask me if I had taken Jesus into account when making the decision, and if I was sure that Linda was the one I loved. I knew it was futile to look for a definition of the word "love". As always, it was only Jesus who could shed light on that.
Had I loved Margareth? I asked Jesus and I asked myself. A smile and a little praise had been enough to shake up a promising fourteen year old boy for half a year. Not even a spectacular hat trick during the semi-final of the school soccer tournament had distracted my thoughts from that sweet, little girl with the beautiful smile. I stopped eating bread with cheese and raspberry jam, which I had always eaten after soccer practice. Hours of sleep were reduced to five by a sudden and impressive fantasy that put me in a lion's den with Margareth ringside. The thumping and the sweating were the worst. It was sadly usual. Even though I hadn't exchanged more than nine words with her, she was my everything for six whole months.
"But did I love her, Robert?"
We were parked outside of Robert's meagre, little apartment downtown. The soccer fan had just provided a list of the symptoms of love. It was frightening.
"According to your calculations, Robert, Margareth was my great love, but Linda is my Mary."
I had to admit that my pulse never went wild when the telephone rang and it was highly likely that Linda was on the other end of the line. My appetite for grilled cheese sandwiches hadn't declined much at all in the beginning of our relationship either. Didn't I love Linda?
Right then and there, the threat was unveiled. I hated the parents of my forefathers. Who had taught my mother to use the word "love" as though it was just like any other auxiliary verb. I thought sadly about happy couples who had been broken up by uncertainty and not getting enough points right on Robert and great-grandmother's list. I drew a picture in my head of a Sandra and a Todd who looked forward to being in each other's company every day - two people who enriched each others lives and who were attracted to each other both physically and spiritually. It was all they knew. Neither of them had noticed any uncontrollable biological reactions apart from a little tingling once in a while. Nor did they hear anything in their hearts that sung of love. They were, unfortunately, not so poetic. They just knew that they were happy when they were near each other. That was it. And that wasn't enough. They wavered thinking about Margareth - she who was nothing more than a fascinating bit of biology. Maybe Todd isn't Mr. Right? Is there a Sandra out there who is capable of controlling my internal organs?
"What is a soft smile compared to a devoted hug given out of care and respect? What is a pretty word compared to a rewarding train of thought, followed by a trusting kiss. Answer me, my good friend," I urged Robert.
Terry Way was healed. Raymond's forgiveness was finally accepted. I didn't notice it myself, but Robert said that he noticed. He was glad, he said. And maybe I was right. His list might be evil. It wasn't relevant to him anyway. He knew that he loved his Milly, regardless of whether or not he had a good appetite. He looked at me.
"Just a humble inquiry here, Mr. Omnipotent," he said smiling. "Could you have proposed to me if you liked my body?"
I thought for close to fifteen seconds before I answered him. It was an interesting question that I had often asked myself. Why would I rather spend time with Linda than with my close friend, Robert? Would I long to be with Robert all of the time if he had been equipped a little differently?
"I don't know, Robert. And I think it's immaterial. Will, on the other hand, is central. I met Linda first. I care about her. It's about making a choice. I could undoubtedly find a new Linda within a month. It doesn't interest me. I've chosen to adore Linda. I promised her that."
"All hail Terry! The thought guardian," clucked Robert.
I nodded and smiled.
"And it doesn't matter a damn bit."
Robert said it softly. It was ok. He looked at me good-naturedly and blinked.
"Maybe he was right, our friend. Why be true to principles that, strictly applied, limit our elbow room. Damn, we're gonna die soon, Terry. We should be wading up to our knees in women!!"
Robert grinned and gave me a slap on the stomach before he got out of the car and set course for Milly and the sofa. I thought about Margareth again. What kind of phoney teaching had given falling in love such a prominent and significant role in world literature? What halfwit had established the relationship between sweaty hands and Amor? For all I knew, Margareth was a person with sympathies for anti-semitism and high taxes. Nevertheless, she had controlled my days. Allow me to use the word "pathetic". I'm ashamed. There wasn't anything beautiful about being in love. It was spiritual confusion and brain functions gone haywire.
Don't write poems and tear-wrenching essays about Mindy or Brigitta with the beautiful, wavy hair that you could never touch. Don't read about these wonderful butterflies in the stomach. "What a blissful moment it was when Alf waved to me from the bus. I felt the heat course through my body like a babbling brook in the gardens of En Gedi."
Yeah, maybe. Wonderful wounds of youth with riverbeds and the whole nine yards, but no one to grow old with. No Alf showed up. Alf didn't even exist. But there were many Stans and Toms - even a few stylish and intelligent Davids, tender and warm. But no babbling brooks. Consequently, no wedding bells. You can't get married unless you love your partner, you know.
I was embarrassed as I sat there in the car and thought about what I had said to my brother. "Don't get married if you're not sure that you love her, Benjamin". I had said it three months earlier. Just said it, like a Tina or a Theresa. It was painful to realize that I was a factor. I depicted Margareth as the standard, even though she was nothing more than the blueprint for a dream house.
I made a beating heart into something fascinating and essential, even though the beating was just a result of simple desire decorated with sentimental fantasy.
I loved my Linda.

"He said that he loved me, but he just wanted my body."
Rachel's voice was full of hate. I sat next to her in the cafeteria and listened as I drank some hot chocolate. It was two weeks after Raymond's suicide, and five days after the rape.
The classroom wasn't a boring place any more. It was the centre of the earth. An arena for human dross. Roger had recently worked out a more professional design for his pools coupons. The outcome alternatives were better arranged using a flexible form, and a comprehensive set of rules made it difficult for even a gambler of Roberts' ilk to find unlikely alternatives. Business had been relatively modest the week after Raymond's suicide, but Rachel's police report promised better days. There were rumours that he had already taken bets on ten top alternatives, and it was still several weeks before the court case would begin. Cynical, yes, but he had a profit margin he needed to take care of.
"How can he do this to me after what I have been through?" Rachel wondered aloud.
I smiled warmly. Roger may or may not have been a fledgling nihilist, but he certainly didn't care a bit about existential questions or his fellow man. Sustainable development was an insult, and the rain forest was about as interesting and worth saving as the shoes he wore, or an endangered species. Roger only liked Mammon and his customers, and he loved his life. No one was going to put him in a bad mood. Things were nothing but milk and honey for Roger when he rattled around behind his desk with his notebook and calculator. When he was occasionally berated by an unsatisfied wagerer, he just smiled and referred to the libel laws and the police station where the person could file a report. Afterwhich, he apologized nicely and raised the odds. There was no one like him. He was, quite simply, extremely interesting.
"You know Roger, Rachel. He thinks that feelings are just an artificial need. Tell me what happened that night instead."
I hadn't talked to her since Raymond killed himself. Doubting Thomas was still on the sideline, well warmed up and ready to get out on the field in the final minutes of the game. Rachel looked out the window.
"Are things going well with you and Linda?" she asked.
"Oh yeah. She compares different political views just like that. Aerobics, choir and other congregational duties. Sure an active girl. Not much time for my stiff calves," I said, and smiled tenderly.
Rachel was still looking out the window towards the playground at the bohemians with cigarettes in the corners of their mouths. They gathered at the tool shed during every recess to talk about liberalism and multi-cultural cooperation. She nodded and said that I was lucky. The only thing she wanted was a man with a little more warmth than Roger and a decent set of biceps. She was hurting. I don't like to say it, but it was undeniably attractive. A week earlier I had stared into those two sad eyes. I saw now for the first time five flood disasters and an earthquake with very tragic outcomes, all at the same time. Rachel Bloom was in need, and good Lord, how strikingly beautiful it was. I knew then without a doubt that beautiful, mournful, teary eyes are something that should be avoided outside of the safety of the home. Even though Lorna Helmer's eyes were fish pupils compared to Rachel's, I didn't have any trouble imagining that life had maybe been difficult for Sven Mark. But I still owed him a punch.
"You'll find a good man someday, Rachel. I know it," I said, and believed it.
" In the meanwhile, I'm here as your friend. I'll be glad to listen to your troubles," I continued, and asked her to look at me.
"I can't talk, Terry. It hurts too much."
I didn't know many of the details of the rape. It wasn't a brutal gang-related incident with hoods and bamboo sticks. The legal term was "date rape" - the assault had happened at a party. It was an inflamed case. The rumours were flying all over the place. Everyone knew that Peter had forced himself on Rachel at another school in the neighbourhood. Roger had to take his share of the blame. And if that wasn't enough, alternative #9 on the ticket indicated that there may have been passive onlookers in the bedroom. Robert had courageously bet two big ones that Neil Tanstad and Ernst Los would in one way or another be involved in the court case. The odds were significantly low. Neil and Ernst were angry.
Tina and Theresa were in a very anxious state. The events of the last few weeks were difficult to deal with, and they went around with very sad and dejected faces. I had to admit myself that I sorely missed the occasional neighbourhood murder or local forest fire spreading out of control. Sad events for those they touch, and absolutely not something that I would wish for, but the suffering of others is, despite everything, still entertaining to talk about until something better comes along. That's natural when one has grown up having only TV's police inspectors for daily excitement. If I hadn't felt so guilty about Raymond's suicide, I would have likely hung out with Tina and Theresa, as rotten as that seems. I would have taken on the role as the grieving classmate in search of the reason for the tragedy. I would have cried and cried and felt wonderfully connected to all of my classmates. Suicide and rape were definitely unifying. What was Tina's odd-looking pimpled nose compared to a rape? How wonderful it was that others were worse off than oneself. How nice it was to feel warm in one's surroundings. One's nose and pimples were forgotten. They were people who shared the pain. The sense of community was intoxicating. That's rotten, yes, but we'll let the hypocrisy quietly pass us by.
"Do you want to go to the movies with me and Linda tonight?" I asked Rachel.
Rachel and I didn't have a close relationship, but the talk earlier in the day made me think that she badly needed a little kindness. I drove her home. And I was going to regret it.
"I have always been in love with you, Terry Way."
It was unexpected. I was just going to give her a good-bye speech I'd practiced about positive thoughts and tacos. Instead, I received a serious admission given cautiously in strict confidence. She didn't say it to find out what her chances with me were. She just wanted to be nice to me, she said. She had written my name on scratch paper ever since the episode with Ruth Hansen. I had said a lot to her that had upset her, but she had almost always thought that what I said was reasonable. I had taught her a lot, she whispered to me.
I looked at her. She sat beside me, overheated, and with her gaze directed at the dashboard. She was irritatingly attractive. She didn't have Linda's playful eyes, but certainly the same warm and tender gaze. It was enough with one puppy. This was unhealthy. And it was going to get worse.
She wanted to thank me for the greatest experience of her life, she - the local chess champion, Rachel Bloom, said. Jumping to e6 and check mate couldn't be compared to the joy she had felt when I had made the gesture to her with respect to Raymond. She was smart enough to see the sacrifice I had given when I stood up for her. And she cried. On the dashboard. Tears are really rather tiresome, at least if they are too many in a short space of time. Now, they were like a temptress. I took her hand.
"I'm going to write these words down on parchment and put them up on the refrigerator," I told her tenderly.
I gave her a hug and told her that she could count on my help. Very unsophisticated and naive, but a well-considered, Christian decision. I was the brave and noble Joshua - a merciful samaritan who could not turn away from a troubled Rachel. My fiance didn't need to worry for the time being. I had never felt any magnetism when I was in the same room with Miss Bloom. Certainly, her behaviour was appealing, but I felt it was sufficient with an admiring smile. No more. I often smiled.
You wouldn't find the usual girl stuff in Rachel's backpack. While all the other girls quoted the right popstars, Rachel quoted Socrates and Thales. In sheer defiance. She didn't want to state something, just because the general consensus was that girls should identify with certain commercial artists to show that they were girls. It was girls' gibberish. A way of creating a sense of belonging - something she found nauseating. Tina and Theresa rolled their eyes. Rachel didn't care.
I remember one episode in particular. Andrews had gone through an analysis of an article about cell phones that had been published in the local newspaper. The analysis was rated an A and written by Fred Hall - the class' master of theory. Hall was modern. His responses always contained a lot of short sentences with profound metaphors and personal experiences, such as observations of the daily life of an ant and its parallels to the life of a person. Fred was an artist who enjoyed creating intricate descriptions of plants, faces and apartment blocks. And blue oceans. His language was for thoughtful people in cafes who had the key to the living language.
"Personally, I hate cell phones."
What a moving conclusion. He must have been proud as he moved his pen over the paper. Hall believed that increasing accessibility strangled freedom, mystery and harmony. It was wonderful to hear. This man understood the things that had meaning!
Where had the letters gone? Where had the great word hidden itself? He could no longer find the written word - those deep images from the labyrinth of the soul that he could enjoy with a glass of red wine and the thought of himself as a man of culture. The living word was his antidote against his fear of death. No Satan with a pair of antennae was going to destroy his peace of mind.
Our class was obedient. Titles and good grades were sacred. One didn't quarrel with the bearers of such. I personally tried to decide whether or not I should stab him right away, or if I should flog him a little bit first. It was tempting to claim that "the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind", just to make him feel a little good at first, but I was all worked up and ready to torture.
"You know that there's an 'off' button on the telephone, don't you?"
Rachel beat me to the punch. She continued.
"Seclude yourself up on a mountain top, Fred, and read as just as many poems as you can manage. When you're done, you can turn your telephone on again, if you don't want to feel free and harmonic a few more hours, that is.
Fred actually seemed disarmed. Did he really believe that the cell phone was a demon that couldn't be exorcised? He couldn't really be such a well-educated man afterall then, could he?
"I agree, Rachel," he said at length. "But the problem is that we don't choose correctly. We simply don't make use of this 'off' button. We're almost bewitched," he maintained.
The value of the article analysis was immediately diminished. Rachel could accept it if cell phones had to sit in our pockets with their flashing signals out of necessity. But since everyone controlled their own accessibility with the help of a button, it was nothing to whine about. Instead we should be glad for the fact that there were different options available.
"There aren't any telephones that demand that you limit your reading time, Fred. Those who think that poetry can get to be a little boring might not have anything against a call here and there. Some might find it more rewarding to talk to their friends about the soccer game than to read about depths of the soul," Rachel said, almost as indifferently as Raymond might have said it.
It tingled. I mean it. And she wasn't finished. Fred was just another grey creature among the masses, she said. She was so tired of all the people who were so upset about cell phones. It was chic to dislike them. It unified people. She had often met people on the bus who looked at her, rolled their eyes and pointed to the person sitting in front of them who talked on the phone. She had looked at them as though she didn't get it every time, and wondered what the big problem with it was. It disturbed them - that's what it was. As if people didn't talk to each other on the bus without a telephone receiver in their ear. Oh yeah - and the ring tones. For her part, Rachel thought that some of the tones were charming. Some were even quite nice melodies. A lot nicer than the roar of the engine, the screech of the brakes when the bus stopped at a bus stop and the doors when they opened and closed.
Rachel Bloom owned the classroom. Even Theresa and Tina had to keep their eyeballs steady. Terry Way enjoyed himself. Sharp pencils and a few slim arguments were forgotten after performances such as this. She threw a few bombs my way once in a while as well. How could I fuss so much over life's lies? It wasn't like I was some kind of a poet who needed unrealistic events in order to create a story or something. Cynic that I was, I couldn't believe that a person could tell a lie to themselves and then believe it, just because he repeated it often enough.
Illogical, I speculated unenthusiastically. What had happened to my world of thoughts where everything was simple? Of course I answered her, but I mostly wanted to just listen. She was eloquent and engaged. She wanted to win. Tons of appeal.
Rachel and I still sat in the car, and I noticed that she was reluctant to go. She didn't have too many people that she could talk to. I knew that. She was different. She didn't like to talk about dresses, future weddings and movie stars, and there weren't many girls who could handle too many pearls of wisdom from Thales. But even if she didn't have too many close friends, she did have two good parents. I knew that, so I wasn't worried about her. We said goodbye.
During the next few days, I saw her often. Linda thought I was kind, and had steadfast belief in my abilities as a spiritual advisor. She didn't know about Rachel's declaration of love since I had chosen not to tell her. What did she have to fear? She was the chosen one, and I was stability and security in the flesh. I just wanted to spare a girl some sleepless nights. Terry Way, the fool, was just a little compassionate, that's all.
I'm not sure what eventually started my heart pounding. Maybe it was a combination of a few too many romantic ballads and the great sympathy I felt for that lonely, assaulted girl. I don't know. It pounded for a few days after the episode at the dashboard at any rate. Margareth came on the scene again, but this time she was more than a smile and a compliment. She was a person I knew.
My principles began to shake.
Didn't I love Linda? Was this pounding at the sight of Rachel a sign that Linda was just a good friend with a nice body? Didn't I have that exalted love afterall? I couldn't pass off the pounding as just an exciting biological reaction this time. Rachel had shared her thoughts with me, ladled from her cup. Rachel Bloom had taken over my helm. Linda was just an amusing evenings entertainment. Did I love Rachel? Maybe I had even loved Margareth. Ok, I hadn't talked to her, but what did I know? Maybe who I would love was something that was decided for me before my birth. Maybe this pounding and sweating was a sign from God that this was love.
I prayed a lot, I remember. Should I stay away from Rachel? It was painful to realize and admit that I longed for Rachel only hours after I had left her. Maybe I should listen to my heart, just like all the pop stars do every day on the radio. Linda was amusement. Rachel was intoxication. Terry was crushed.
The disciple announced his arrival. Thomas had done a good warm-up and came onto the field raring and ready to go with stretched-out calfs. I was back in Galilee again. Why had God involved Thomas in the gospels, now that I was in need of the shoulder of a credible God? I was willing to get down on my knees for hours and pray to the Creator for a confirmation that my simple world was justified. That Linda was my love. But was he there? Could I defend believing in one who hadn't even bothered to give us any insight into why he had created us?
It got more difficult to pray. Linus, the youth pastor, said that I wasn't alone. He was going to pray, too. He focused on Jesus, and he smiled. I wished then that I could have been just as little picky as my pastor.
Rachel had shaken me. I thought about Edward Bloom, Sven, Mary and, not least, about Ruth Hansen. At the end of the day, was I just a young man with too much free time and a few too many documentary channels that broadcast entirely too many critical documentaries? Maybe psychological problems were as real as a broken foot. I had worked myself all up about the power of thought, but what did I know? Maybe schizophrenia was the result of an unbalanced brain cell. Like leukemia developed because some red and white blood cells went their separate ways. Not brought about because of sorrow or diagnoses - just a reaction that takes place that you have no control over, maybe having something to do with genetics. I thought about people with autism and older people with Alzheimer's disease - people who were somehow damaged mentally. Not people diagnosed as borderline manic-depressives. Not alcoholics either. I didn't know much about them, but I had understood that we were talking about brain damage that destroyed one's possibility of controlling one's own thoughts. I could certainly claim that a manic-depressive person was an individual who hadn't had a comforting mama to go to when his wife died, but what about those with autism? Was it possible that the difference between someone with autism and someone who was manic-depressive was just that a manic-depressive person had brain cells that were in better balance than the autistic person? Was it just a matter of degrees of injury, or messed-up brain structure, if you will?
I began to wonder if I deserved the description, "a rather intelligent speck of dust". Maybe I was just a naive achievement seeker. Just an alright speck of dust. Who was I who mass produced truths and then tried to sell them afterwards. I saw myself raging at Ruth. I saw a driven Terry Way give advice to a middle-aged woman on marriage, and this only four days after her son had died.
And Edward Bloom. I had called him a loser who hid his defeat behind a lie. How could I really assume that he even wanted to win in the first place? Was I really right to think that we all strive to be good - hopefully, the best we can be - and that we all want recognition? Maybe Edward Bloom voted for the socialists because it was a family tradition. Maybe he liked their stance on taxes. I labelled socialists as cowardly losers who reject their goals in life and call themselves egoistic, just so that they can raise themselves up again. How could I claim that they mocked their own principles when my knowledge of their principles was based only on the thoughts of myself and four or five others?
I couldn't sleep anymore. Sleep was a luxury I took care not to indulge in. I had a head that needed to be repaired. I don't want to trivialize this. It hurt. My thoughts turned out to be vulnerable. I even doubted Per and Paul. Maybe Sven was right. The kind of schools I envisioned might make hospital patients of large parts of the population. Would Per's achievements matter to Paul three years down the line? Was there a risk that Paul, despite a great deal of support, would become impatient and give up after a while, and in the end, believe himself to be inferior? Maybe I really did just play with people, like Sven claimed.

The trial started. It was scheduled to last four days. I still knew very little about the circumstances surrounding the crime. All I knew was that I wanted to beat Peter Trent up. I watched him as he sat there in the dock with his back hunched over. I watched him the whole time, hoping to get eye contact so that I could let him know what I thought of trash like him. He just looked straight ahead, his eyes glued to the venerable symbol of our nation. The courtroom was packed. Peter had mustered a large crowd of his friends in the spectator gallery. Rachel had myself and her father on her team.
I hadn't been with her for several days. My heart hadn't stopped pounding. Fever and colds had become normal. My days were one long hunt for self-calming explanations. Thomas and Margareth wreaked havoc, and I defended myself as well as I could. I searched for a strong weapon, but for the time being, all I had were some sticks and a slingshot.
Why did I long to hug her? How could I have a conscience when I wanted to kiss Rachel, when a loyal Linda sat at home in her apartment knitting winter socks for me? I was trapped. I swear by the Sermon on the Mount, I couldn't leave the courtroom. A test had been indirectly given to me on God's commandment that we love our neighbour. Rachel needed me. She was just about to testify.
The prosecution's opening statement shocked and numbed me. Had she gone home with him? Wearing only a short velvet skirt and a low-necked top? What happened to Peter's muscular arms that had taken her into one of the bedrooms at the party? I had imagined the throbbing body of a boy carrying a screaming Rachel towards the bed. I had imagined shredded shirts flying through the air, and ripped underwear following quickly behind them. Now the district attorney was talking about warm kisses and tender touching of the curves of the torso as preceding the event. I looked at Rachel. She was completely unaffected. Of course, she knew the whole story. Was I here to hear about a sexually aroused boy who had overstepped a girl's arbitrary boundaries? She could've allowed a finger perhaps, but she wouldn't hear of anything more than that. Peter had wider boundaries. Rape. A two-year prison sentence. It was a law that was just as real as freedom of expression. It was passed by the government.
The continuation was my crucible. Every witness' testimony was like a glowing cigarette butt on the thin skin of my face. I was completely burned up before the verdict was passed. Peter Trent had come to the party with the same intentions as all the other party-goers. He was going to find himself an amusement park on two legs. With a new hair-cut and the usual five pints of beer in his veins, he was ready. To hell with honour. You needed alcohol to give a girl an uninhibited introduction into intimacy. At least when you were going to handle the very incarnation of preciousness itself - Rachel Bloom from the neighbourhood school.
Peter was honest. Since the spring ball, he had fantasized about her graceful body. He had wanted her, quite simply. It was nothing more than plain, old, boring, unoriginal lust. After three hours on the sofa, his patience had been exhausted. Rachel had talked about cultural politics and meaningless European money grants for a whole two hours. It didn't help things much that Peter had little interest in international politics. If he was going to sit next to her, he had to accept that what was said at a speaker's platform on the other side of the planet was far more important than a moist tongue. Peter gave in. He quietly admitted to a surly judge that the centralization of power and sympathy for the farmers had suddenly become a pronounced part of his life. If he was going to get the girl, he would need to exhibit a little knowledge of social studies. And what was wrong with that? he had asked the court. He just wanted to have a little fun. He shouldn't be judged just because he had a relaxed attitude towards morality. According to Peter, Rachel had been in the mood. After a half an hour of making out, they had left the sofa and continued the political debate in Peter's car.
Rachel was of a different opinion. Just before they had gotten into the car, Peter had told her that he loved her. The conversation in the car had absolutely been a tribute to her, she cried, not a continuation of the discussion. She cried throughout the entire questioning. Peter had been so romantic. She had always been interested in him. It was like a river of warm cream flowed through her, she said.
Now, both at least agreed that they had reached the bedroom. Both agreed that things were cheerful and a little stimulated. Rachel had even said that she had felt extremely happy. They were two drunk individuals with sensitive skin. Peter was so intoxicated from his happiness that he was almost dead drunk from it. There he had sat with his tongue in the mouth of a girl who he had only imagined in his head or while reading porno magazines. Milk-white legs, a mini-skirt - size small, cotton, no lining - and the proprietress of the wares was willing. Thank God for European politics, he thought.
Her blouse was put on the nightstand. Rachel had to admit that, but the condition had been clear: the panties were not to be touched. Peter had signed, but hadn't respected the agreement, Miss Bloom gasped. Peter protested. It wasn't he who had groaned and moved his hand towards her private parts. It wasn't he who had moved his hand towards a soft surface.
"All of a sudden, he just pulled off my panties. He held them up in the air and smiled."
Rachel was about ready to collapse. The bailiff became a cafeteria waiter with cold water and various flavours of iced-tea on his menu.
"I asked him to give me my panties back. He just laughed," she stammered.
She got angry. Two warm hands had just stroked beautifully over polyester and brought her ecstasy like she had never known. He then disgraced her.
"I didn't understand anything," Peter said in a hushed voice. "I stopped smiling and looked at her. Sweat ran down her face and she was so beautiful. I entered her."
"Did she resist?" the prosecutor asked without looking at the accused.
"Yes," he heard from the witness stand.
It was a subdued answer. Peter regretted it. The rumbling thump of his ravenous organ turned the screams of the girl lying under him into shame. It was over in 10 seconds. The bruises on her upper arm and thighs hadn't gotten there by themselves. Determined male muscles had been involved.
The defense attorney delivered a terrible closing argument. Where were all of the counter arguments he could have produced? What good did it do Peter Trent for him to lead the judge through the story again, and to end by only barely suggesting that Rachel had been somewhat encouraging? This wasn't denying guilt. It was pleading for mercy. The attorney didn't want to bring up anything controversial, and that meant Peter's downfall. A year and two months. The verdict of the court had been unanimous.
It occurred to me that I had witnessed a drama with cut-and-dried characters and an unimaginative script written by the pen of social opinion. The judge was a man in his fifties who knew the nature of his fellow man. No one was going to come into his court to tarnish the name of a poor teenage girl who had been a victim of the uncontrollable desires and superior physical strength of a man. He was a wise and well-versed gentleman. An educated academic with unreserved respect for women. This man had never seen any other naked women apart from his wife. Cohabitation wasn't something primitive. It was spiritual intoxication, mental satisfaction above all else. Sex was something almost intellectual. He wanted to reach the woman's level. He wanted to be a romantic with a fireplace and spikenard oil. A quick visit to the bedroom should be replaced by tenderness and long-lasting strokes of the woman's throat, preferably with sky-blue wallpaper adorned with roses in the background. He wanted to be an Eve, Love's perfecter, a delicate soul in search of the seemingly meaningless details. Animalistic moaning was no longer the way to do it. It was time for "your hair smells like an alabaster jar" and "your kisses taste like an apple from the fruit groves of En Gedis". He didn't want to be a simple, dirty Peter Trent. One could blame a lack of wisdom, but still, the young man had attacked the being of a girl who only wanted closeness and blue wallpaper. Her 'no' came from her wish to preserve her purity and dignity in the bedroom. Peter's desires defiled her natural ability to be gloriously romantic. Was there a more abominable action? The young boy had injured her body, but above all else, he had wounded the noble nature of a girl. She now cried wounded tears, Rachel Bloom.
She was just as predictable as the judge. She hadn't been able to get out of there fast enough. She was going to go to a rape crisis center and share her terrible experience with understanding people. They had asked her to come. It was on flyers and posters all over town. Young girls shouldn't hesitate to seek professional help if they felt in any way violated or offended. It might be that a person didn't think that the situation was all that onerous or dramatic, but the crisis centers had experienced advisers working in their offices. They would undoubtedly manage to find something dramatic. You shouldn't underestimate their expertise. They were experienced people in the service of others. They had mastered the art of getting people to reveal repressed feelings. In Rachel's case, there wasn't any need to reveal anything. The case was uncomplicated, and it was despicable. Rachel's dark suspicion had been confirmed. She had been raped. Hadn't Peter read the rules? She was a girl, and had a duty to her sisters. He didn't think that she was a whore, did he? It didn't make any difference that hot-blooded heroines of the women's liberation movement had written enlightening pieces on female anatomy in countless newspapers the world over, and had stood and sung in unison and shouted about the needs of women from the rooftops. Women were still whores, and men admired conquerors. Of course she should've refused to give Peter what he wanted. That's how girls were supposed to be. She didn't want to be one of those girls who wore green and yellow pants, and smoked questionable substances, and were very liberated and tired of their parents. She was one of the decent girls who had dignity.
And no one had the right to say that she hadn't made her sacrifices. Peter was extremely well-built, and his face was spectacularly nice. It wasn't so strange that she had let herself move to the bed. She had been naive enough to believe that he wrote moving poems about her every day. He didn't write anything but somewhat racy short stories for men's magazines, often involving descriptions of well-known body parts and facial expressions. She had figured him out just before his improper question. Love hadn't been the reason for his touching her, just a lot of perverse propositions. Peter Trent had let down a decent girl.
The judges said that there were extenuating circumstances. Edward Bloom shot up from his seat. Unheard of, he told us. And I mean all of us, including county court judge Tower. Peter had hurt his daughter, drunk or not. How could five beers take the blame for the accused? It didn't matter how right the judges might be about whether or not Peter Trent would have been contented with less if he had been sober. What mattered was that Peter had caused his mental state himself and was well aware of the consequences. Apart from that, he was convinced that the alcohol had functioned as an outstanding detective and had revealed Peter's "real I". He thought that those who claimed that intoxicated people disgrace themselves hadn't taken a good enough look inside of their own heads. Five beers had quite likely taken away young Trent's inhibitions and unveiled the boy's secret thoughts - the real Peter Trent - not Peter Trent, the product of his environment.
Tower called for order in the court. This was behaviour that he wouldn't tolerate. Where in the world did this blustering man-creature imagine he was? This was a courtroom with a history. He would be kind enough to sit down and behave properly.
"In this place, we have a habit of waiting a little while before appealing, Mr. Bloom."
Tower didn't spare any sarcasm. His arrogance was overwhelming. It was, quite simply, a brutal reprimand. And to me, the remark was an introduction to a hymn of praise that only Solomon could be proud of. I was an exiled heir apparent in the valley of the shadow of death, besieged by Doubting Thomas. Suddenly, it was as though a searchlight had gone astray in the valley. The judge wanted to add a short addendum to Bloom's psychological masterpiece. Bloom was wrong, the judge said. Of course, Edward Bloom had a point when he said that the beer bottles shouldn't take the blame for Peter, but still, the alcohol was no detective. It simply prevented one from controlling one's own thoughts.
"People organize their thoughts, Mr. Bloom. Some are deemed worth keeping, others stay stored," Tower said monotonously, and added something along the lines of, "they govern, and they create their 'I' ". Something like that anyway. According to how Tower saw the world, there was no doubt that everyone went around with thoughts that would make commercial national perverts blush with shame. Some of these people were very talkative, and would gladly tell passersby about the time they had seduced a homosexual feminist by playing a harp and singing psalms. Others wouldn't even say what kind of pattern they had on their underwear, or if there was a pattern at all. It was their sober choices that were their 'real I'.
Tower continued to read out the verdict. I froze. Monster tingles. The circuit court judge had probably shamelessly pronounced the sentence against Trent the same day that he had received the case document on his desk. Now the judge was almost a little bit excused. It was sweeter than wild honey and Psalm 91.
I had sat next to those two victors, and looked ashamedly at a lynched Peter. The judge's speech was like two healing headache tablets that brought my troubled thoughts away for a moment, and reminded me of life's possibilities. I forgot that I had not confronted Rachel with my real thoughts about what happened in the bedroom. I hadn't dared for fear that she might mess around with some dangerous pills, or completely lose control and purify that entire venerable courtroom with petrol and fire. The Sermon on the Mount was still in the Scriptures. I was forced to be a hypocrite towards my neighbour.
I left the courthouse immediately after the sentence was announced. I had done my duty to God's creation. It was enough. I contented myself with a stern nod and a quick good-bye. That was going to be my last word to Rachel. Someone said once that the way from love to hate is short. The first time I heard that, I laughed and mumbled something about extremely boring attempts to create profound and apparently unreasonable truths. I now accepted the quote, if with one qualification. I still wasn't sure if I had loved her. Everything was uncertain, really. Dreary. I built castles on sand. Peter was in jail. Linda was untalkative. Mama recommended Jesus, and Benjamin Way talked about Elisha and Noah, as usual.
Benjamin knew that I wasn't any youth pastor in the Corinthian Pentecostal church, but he didn't know that I laid awake at nights. I wondered about Elisha. The Flood was also difficult to defend and understand. And had God changed his mood during the story? Why did he burn men, women, children and animals - entire groups of people - only to a little later sacrifice his son for our sins?
My class understood that I was struggling. I was a Raymond with a headset the weeks before Christmas. I completely dropped the discussion hours with Andrews. I had a motto to follow, and for the time being, I definitely didn't enjoy myself every minute of the day. I was just as unhappy as Roger. Sales related to the date rape had been staggering, and the loss equally so. There were few who had faith in an acquittal, and no one had put their money on a court drama involving weapons. Robert had bet on a verdict with mitigating circumstances. A big one in winnings meant poor answers on preparatory exams and a lot of bowling. Everything was really the same as always in our class. Tina and Theresa had a lot of opinions. Andrews shared literary history with us. Fred was genuinely interested in teaching and Rachel was obstinate. It was just Roger and I who hadn't found any peace yet. I couldn't look at Rachel. Did she understand where I stood? She was probably angry because I had so abruptly left the courtroom and hadn't answered the phone in the days following. She didn't come over to see me, anyway. I had hurt her, and I didn't care.

I got a new face in January. The diagnosis was nodulecystic acne, which I accepted. This wasn't hidden brain cells suffering from poor balance. This was big, red boils, concentrated on the back, chest and face. Quite suddenly, my body had acknowledged that it was bored, and decided to considerably increase the production of tallow. I was a macabre sight. The boils were not only red. At times, they were much more colourful, often with green and yellow nuances made by slimy puss. And as if that wasn't enough, my body thought it was alright to develop inflamed eczema at the base of my nose.
The nights were no longer dedicated just to the rehabilitation of my shaky principles. I was now forced to lie completely still on my back to avoid physical pain. That was painful, too, but it was still a lot better than brushing my sore, aching face against the pillow. I slept four hours every night - tops. And often, I woke up to discover that I had popped a ripe boil on my chin that had a diameter of at least three centimetres and contained quite a terrifying volume of puss. The pillow case often resembled a work of modern art. And mama was the one who had to wash it. That was the worst. I could tolerate my own pain and lack of beauty, but mama's pain was the heaviest to bear. Several nights I heard my mother in her bedroom, strangling in her tears, distressed about her child and complaining to her Lord.
In the mornings, she and I would have our usual short hour of devotion, and the usual bubbling joy was now replaced by poorly hidden pity. She suffered far more than her son, and I asked her to exorcise the sadness. I was fine. No fat-splitting enzymes and cysts were going to conquer her son, I said. But mama's wounded eyes would never leave me. They pierced and wounded me much deeper than any immutable, unchanging eczema. Mama suffered because I suffered. I suffered because Mama suffered. A situation that would have been avoided had I had an alcoholic mother who watched TV. Mama's care and concern brought forth a draining feeling of sentimentality in math class, at soccer practice and before I went to sleep. She cared. I forgave her eyes.
Linda both cared and heard my prayer. Instead of feeling sorry for me, she called me "pimple face" and said that, on good days, I reminded her of a decent roadkill. She gave me a pat on the back afterwards, and made tacos. Benjamin didn't think it was cause for tears either. My face was a phenomenon, and should be utilized. He regularly sent pictures of my head to various newspapers and magazines. A local Christian youth magazine accepted, among others, an article entitled, "This is what happens when you don't believe as strongly as Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego". Next to the heading was a rather vile picture of his boil-infested brother. (The three companions of the prophet Daniel had, as you know, survived a stay in a furnace in Babylon.) Benjamin didn't like the circumstances. Where had God been when his pious brother had, with a heart full of faith, stuck his head in the fireplace?
I laughed. My appearance bothered me once in a while, but not so much that he didn't get permission to publish as many pictures as he wanted to. It was the physical pain that gave me trouble. Naturally, it wasn't a positive experience to be called "pizza face", "clown" or "space man" by strangers passing by, but it was very fascinating. I noticed that the comments often came from seventeen-year-old girls with very little cleavage or strange facial features. I'm a vent, I thought. What were crooked teeth or modestly-sized feminine body parts compared to a gigantic, walking flesh-wound? It was tempting to beat them with a cane for using me to forget their own pathetic burdens, but only for that reason. I found no reason to be hurt. Why should I be? I hadn't made the boils myself. The eczema and the brightly coloured clumps in my face weren't a work of art signed by Terry Way, anymore than my tanned, muscular thighs were designed by me. That was why I didn't feel any pride when young girls told me that I had beautiful legs. If the seventeen-year-olds on the street had called me a minor-league writer, and pointed out a self-contradiction in one of my letters to the editor, then I would've welcomed being hurt. I asked myself why fashion models went around with their heads high in the air, as if they had discovered the cure for some fatal disease or something. Several of them probably still had trouble with basic multiplication, but they were still very impressed with themselves. It irritated me. Mostly because average citizens around the world shared their admiration.
Just a few weeks after my diagnosis, I got an evening job with an insurance company as a door-to-door salesman. It was depressing to see the unstable sales curve after a month's work. Believe it or not, but the times that I sold the least insurance were the times that I had a lot of boils on my face. The days I sold the most were when my skin was relatively cleared up.
Who did I think I was? Did I think that I could just come storming in up their stairs with a face like that? I shouldn't talk so much. I should take the consequences of my appearance and bow my head. Is that what they thought? Why did they think that way?
It wasn't just insecure girls who felt the need to loudly make comments about my appearance. Grown men with shiny skin and high foreheads also suggested that I should hide myself. What kind of satisfaction did these people get from making such suggestions? Did they enjoy making their fellow human beings unhappy? Why did people use their time expressing opinions about other people's bodies? The insurance policies still had the same advantages regardless of who or what offered them. I became extra aware of people around me. Unfortunately, not everyone had a conscious relationship with thinking. Many people accepted that disfiguring pimples meant that one had reduced value (as a person).
I thought about Brigitta, the girl who sat in front of me in class. She never said anything. If I talked to her, she blushed and smiled nervously. She was lovely. Her body was hand-tailored. Still, she was shy. I damned the careless boy in ninth grade who had said that she had a big nose. I cursed the girl who three days later confirmed that evaluation in a fiery argument on the handball court. Maybe it had to do with her mouth, or her bum. In any case, no matter how impeccable she really was, in her own head she had a big nose that got bigger for each day that passed.
Brigitta was the victim of a fascinating phenomenon. Why were people in general obsessed with judging the faces or bodies of other people? Girls with freckles, pale eyes and weighing 90 kilos never got through a day without being persecuted by boys. It didn't matter much that these girls wrote imaginative short stories in their free time that would have made the school essays of those bullies look ridiculous. They were hideous. They strayed from a standard. They were entertainment, nothing more. And those plump girls cried their tears when they came home to mother. They didn't want to care, but it hurt so much to always be alone writing in their diaries. Why would the idea that you weren't responsible for how you were created be important when you were an outcast regardless?
Brigitta looked down and hid herself behind a book because she couldn't handle any more comments that she had a swollen nose. She was the precautionary principle. That's what she was. Not someone who thought they were someone special, and went around and sold insurance. It was better to be lonely, than lonely with a lot of sores.
I admit I was blessed. Terry Way could never be lonely. Soccer made sure of that. If you could juggle the ball fifty times with your heel, it was ok to have nodulecystic acne. If you could also make a technical maneuver against three opponents with a firm, well-timed twist of the ankle, it was almost a little cool to have boils. No protrusions could take the crown from me. I was still the local soccer magician with matches at national team level. The local newspaper thought that I was the main ambassador of our town.
"With technique like that, it's realistic to proclaim our area as a future tourist attraction." Sports journalist, Ron Gers, was generous with his words, as usual. But even if I didn't become the next international superstar, it was still likely that I would one day wear the uniform of a team in a top division. Because if there was something that didn't bother me during the nights, it was my quick technique. My marginal long crosses and dribbling were very real.
Soccer was my balancing pole. When I went out on that green rectangle, there was nothing that could make me depressed. Ruth Hansen could talk as much as she liked about genes, and young seventeen-year-old fashion girls could point until they were worn-out. An easy ball reception followed by an unexpected inside turn was enough to show my daily difficulties to the door. I lost all respect for weighty thoughts on the soccer field. I loved the game. We had a coach who smiled warmly and asked us to have fun with the ball.
"I'm just here to fill out the referee card," he said before every match.
Claus Strand wouldn't tell us how we should move our legs to prevent or make a goal. If we wanted to, we could sneak down to the sidelines and ask for advice, but he assumed that we knew the times table, so it should surely be easy enough to take the ball from an opposing player and kick it to one side of the goalie.
Soccer was very easy, he said. At least for his players, who could even do the advanced times table. We won everything. We had lifted up four trophies the previous season and had won the district championship with an impressive 7-0 in the final. Forty-three proud victors testified to this dominance of the county.
"Claus is quitting."
It was Kenneth who brought the bad news. March was just around the corner and we were heading for another golden season. Now our coach was leaving us because of an increased work-load at his job.
"Where did you hear that?" I asked.
"Andy told me. I think it was official today."
Kenneth and I were always first in the locker room. We used to practice penalty kicks and plays before the others came out on the field. Kenneth was one year younger than me, and he'd played in a lot of matches. He was incredible. He might not have had the same sensitivity in the right foot as I had, but he had great ball control at unbelievably high speeds. And when he had the balance of a one-ton rock, fifty goals in one season wasn't surprising.
"I think the club has already gotten a replacement," Kenneth said.
"Oh? Who?" I asked.
"I don't know, but I've heard rumours that it's someone from the district."
"It's not Perry Lem, is it?"
Kenneth smiled.
"No. Then you all would've lost your top scorer, that's for sure," Kenneth said laughing.
Perry Lem was the district coordinator and the so-called talent developer for the county's youth players. He had taken the top soccer course. He knew soccer. Even though he couldn't juggle the ball more than twenty times, he was an acknowledged soccer expert, and he had a diploma to prove it. Claus had a list of accomplishments which included some international matches, but what was a well-trained left foot compared to a signature from the national soccer association? Perry Lem had handed in a brilliant soccer exam. He had researched and done field work on goal-keepers for a year and had surely discovered a lot of fun things to write about. Still, it was an achievement to write ninety typed pages about standing at the goal. His previous exam was also exemplary. "The role of the sideback in the transition phase" was precisely defined and indeed just over seventy typed pages.
Creative and ridiculous. Why did a middle-aged man sit in his office at home and write words about what his son was enjoying down in the parking lot? Soccer wasn't a science or a stressful school essay. Football was passing, dribbling and scoring. Cheap and easy fun. What did "field work" really mean? It reminded me of geology students and the department of highways and transportation. One could use the word "work" when talking about bureaucrats and engineers, not when discussing the effort needed by a person to see that the football didn't roll over the line between the poles. And what in the world did transition phases and roles have to do with sports? Soccer wasn't an epoch in world history, or a drama with a manuscript and clearly defined characters. Perry Lem was a destroyer. As my coach on the national team, he made science out of a game, and a craft from art.
"Believe me, Kenneth. I would never have been able to play with the flag on my chest if I hadn't had Claus to vent to. No one is going to dictate my plays and passes to me," I said.
Kenneth still smiled. "Relax, Way. There aren't going to be any science terms on this team. There's no reason to be dissatisfied with gold," he said.
He was disappointed. Two hours later, the scientist Perry Lem was introduced to the whole team. The club manager had watched TV, and had found out that we needed an extra dimension so that we could compete with the big national clubs who had been introduced to the teachings of 'soccer professors' ages ago.
My balancing pole was on the verge of breaking. Was denied creative soccer magic going to mean the end of being able to forget my thoughts on aching sores and the disciple Thomas?
We got a compendium that we had to study. It was a manuscript with a table of contents and chapters. The terminology was magnificent - naturally. If you were going to make a science, you had to do it right. Not just anyone could adorn themselves with the title of top educated coach. Soccer was for gifted people who knew how to use phrases like "achievement insuring tools", "peak competency" and "role attire". At the national team practices, they stood on the sidelines and argued while we played. Dressed in big, dark-blue sweatshirts and with their hands behind their backs, they evaluated every situation in relation to the manuscript. They might have disagreed once in a while on the interpretations, but it still didn't result in any kind of crisis - just a mind-broadening and stimulating discussion between learned scholars.
I think they liked each other. They spoke the same language and felt honoured to be a part of the academic brotherhood. They didn't know that there was a midfielder running out on the field who fought back tears in despair because they had reduced him to a remote controlled robot. Four men with some sheets of paper had stolen his sense of play and freedom to choose how he would reap his own honour. They had stolen the tingling feeling on his back. I was just a tool used on the quest for good results and newspaper headlines. "Coach's tactics succeed – our country wins.”
'Play the ball forward!'. Forward - a word in the same family as piracy and racism. I would accept to manage both zone defense and increased intensity, but no Perry Lem was going to get me to move the ball towards the opponents goal every single time I got the ball. When I had the ball, I wanted to decide for myself which direction I would run in - or walk in - for that matter. Damn effectivity. If I thought it was fun and smart to pass the ball in reverse or tack between three opponents across the field, I thought that I should absolutely be allowed to do it.
"Terry, have faith in the system. The ball has to go forward on the field. Effectivity, Way. Effectivity!" screamed Perry Lem constantly from the sidelines.
I never listened, and as long as we won every match, it didn't matter so much. Terry Way would be allowed to be disloyal so long as he was only an exception and the team won.
Then we lost. It was in April and during the league opening against our arch rival. The explanation was simple and not surprising.
"I'm mad. I can tell you all that," thundered Perry Lem.
We sat in the locker room and the 1-2 score tasted bitter. Most of the players on the team had chosen not to dwell on the disappointing change of coaches. Some had even come to support Lem's effective games, and even Kenneth had almost stopped being annoyed with it.
"Tell me, Way. How can we win a soccer match when your tactical choices almost always delay the attack build-up?" a very irritated coach asked.
I sat next to Andy and took off my leg pads. I looked at Perry Lem. He continued.
"I counted ten potential breakaways, and you wasted seven of them with ineffective passes and hopeless solo raids. Henry and Todd ran their asses off in the flanks and had an ocean of space that you could have utilized with a simple inside pass. Instead, you naturally had to execute a pirouette. Beautiful to watch, Terry, but not particularly dangerous. I don't think I need to remind you of the objective of the sport you play."
Perry Lem snapped. There was no getting past it. He was snapping. Not striking out or roaring - snapping. Accumulated displeasure. Lem was apparently disappointed about the loss, but I was convinced that he got what he had wanted - an opportunity to publicly chastise a disobedient subject.
"No. You don't need to remind me of anything, Perry Lem," I firmly answered. He was provokingly predictable. It was so easy to trace the joy in his eyes.
"Football is about having fun, coach. Just a reminder," I said calmly.
Perry Lem was ticked. He quickly stepped towards the locker room door and slammed it. He looked at all of us. His eyes almost pounded. He roared.
"That's enough, Terry Way! Ever since I came to this club, you haven't listened to a single word I've said. I don't approve of this behaviour. It lacks respect and above all, is a burden on the team. If you want to make pirouettes a hundred times, you can do it in the parking lot. On this team, you'll put the ball where I want you to put it. Every node has to function like it's supposed to if we're going to win a match. It's called team work, Way."
It was sad to watch spit come out of his mouth. Perry Lem slobbered in front of our team's very eyes. I'll admit that his thundering speech shook me up a little. He seemed almost threatening. But I kept my cool. I couldn't let a middle-aged academic disturb my calm.
"I can't map out your problems, Perry. Why don't you just put me on the bench? Why don't you replace me with a player from the second division? All he needs is a manuscript and good oxygen intake. What do you want with my well-formed feet and quick thinking if I don't get the chance to use them?" I spoke in a quiet, slow tempo, my eyes concentrated on Lem's face the whole time.
"Your clan brothers have made a hero out of the one who was chosen as fifth best out on the parking lot. While the best one, the one who outdid them all with his divine skills, the one who doesn't fit in the system, is called the delayer. You don't need polished technique, Lem. Strictly speaking, you don't even need a soccer player. You need someone who will listen and obey, an extended foot."
Kenneth looked at me. I could see he was holding back a grin. He gave me a quick wink. Perry Lem saw it. He asked my teammates to think about how they had executed the tasks they had been given before the match started. They could do it while they showered, and then we could all discuss our viewpoints at a meeting the next evening - with an overhead projector and a blackboard and other great, theory-related things like that.
"You come with me, Terry." A firm order from my coach. I obeyed. Even though a private chat with him felt like it could be dangerous to my health, I thought it might be interesting.
"Listen, Terry. We both know that you operate on a different level than your teammates. You earn respect through a technical repertoire that can't be matched by anyone else in your age group. Don't you understand that your constant obstinance weakens my authority in front of the other players?"
Lem had calmed down. He was almost gentle. This was an interesting project. Many beautiful words were meant to make Terry Way an ally.

I quit school in the middle of April, just a few weeks before the final exam. I had to get away from everything that weighed me down. Getting some documents with numbers on them wasn't important if there wasn't a heaven and a saviour. I longed to make my God and Thomas believable. I left mama's compassionate looks, and my brother's jokes about Noah the cabinet maker and Jesus the carpenter. I left a crying Linda behind, whom I knew I admired and cared about. I left Edward Bloom, Ruth Hansen and Mary Mark. And I left my soccer ball where it was. The world could be as complicated as it liked. The next year was going to be dedicated only to God's plan and the Man from Nazareth at a bible school on the south coast. I didn't want to become a Raymond, someone without hope, peace or certainty.
No one had any serious objections to my decision. Everyone saw Terry Way change his posture in a short time. Everyone understood that I couldn't live well with a miserable back. Even Benjamin took my decision seriously - at least, as seriously as he was capable of taking it. Naturally, I saw a glimmer of a grin, but that was certainly because the Christian youth newspaper, Salvation, had just published his latest contribution on the people of Israel's divine torture by fire of the Midianites, illustrated with a photograph of his brother. Salvation was liberal enough that it thought that one should be able to wonder about the things that were written in the Bible. Benjamin Way's article stretched established boundaries, but was published because the editing department allegedly understood that there were traces of a real frustration regarding what seemed to be God's volatile temper. Benjamin was delighted. He had already sent in three new articles.
In the first one, he focused on the thought that God was perhaps the most absent-minded person in the whole world. How could that infallible fortune teller, he who had foreseen everything, create mankind when he knew that some years down the line, he would regret that he had done so? Did God, just before molding Adam, forget that he would regret having made his creation? Benjamin began the article by characterizing God's rather weak memory as charming. Imagine God being merely a little unfocused. It was so unbelievably sweet.
Genesis, 6:6, "The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth...."
Hmm. Maybe it was just a slight fault in his logic, Benjamin philosophized. Maybe those who wrote the Bible forgot that God had regretted his work in the books of Moses when they later - in the Proverbs, Psalms and all the others - stated that God had foreseen everything. Benjamin thought that God was, at best, just a little simple. The president of JJJ was convinced that God would have bet huge sum on Blackblaze in the third race, even though he had seen beforehand that Pony Hoddle would stroll in with a clear victory, leaving Blackblaze in an unmentionable fourth place. God was quite simply not very good at doing the right things. Benjamin himself considered following Jesus and God so that he could finally justify his wish to carry out meaningless acts.
"God saw that he would regret it, but he created him anyway." What a wonderful, illogical sentence. It should be his motto. A person couldn't go to hell if they followed in the Almighty's footsteps. And by the way, hell didn't exist. Not if you assumed that God was a nice, jovial man anyway.
In the second article to Salvation, the reader met an elated Benjamin Way who had a joyous message to all the residents of the sanatoriums, those who dreamed every night of seas of fire, the devil and third degree burns for all of eternity.
There was no hell.
The article just beamed with joy. Benjamin was a sincerely relieved teenager. He had seen in the Scriptures that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit loved everyone on earth - he had been optimistic up to that point. After that, he had thought a little bit about how he had never seen God or Lazarus. Why should he believe in something he hadn't seen? He could certainly do it and be a fool, but the problem was that God had given him an instrument that advised against doing so. The brain. It was a fine gift. So, if God told the truth when he said that he loved us, then how could he ask us not to use what he had given us, and threaten to burn us if we did? The brain was a pistol that God knew would go off in our hands. Was God really just the world's most evil man? The flood backed up this idea, but all those cute birds and that blue sky dismissed it.
There was no hell. God loved us. Even Judas would not have given his mother a defective pistol.
Half-way through the article, Benjamin came across a problem. He had been generous for a second and ignored God's unpredictability. Of course God could burn those he loved. Of course he could pass out defective pistols.
There was no rhyme or reason to God's actions. It wasn't a healthy pattern. God just did things. It was just like playing bingo, really. Maybe there could be a hell afterall. If he could create something he had seen he would regret creating, he could also beat to death all the male children of the Amalekites, as he did a few thousand years ago, and in a few years, burn all of the reasonable people he loved. And not least, he could unashamedly line up seven hundred beautiful wives for King Solomon, and at the same time, precisely and carefully, kill another man who in a moment of bad luck, messed around with someone other than his one bride. And Abraham - God closest friend among humans through all the ages - it wasn't the slightest problem that he exchanged intimate skin cells with women other than his Sarah.
The third article was called, Long Live the Monarchy, and was a tribute to Solomon. Benjamin was so glad that God had given Solomon enough wisdom for him to be considered the wisest man in the world. This meant, in fact, that it was a good idea to have a lot of beautiful wives. It was only a bit curious that some years later, Jesus and Paul maintained that it was a sin to even steal a glance at a girl other than one's wife, but pretty much in line with the earlier divine instability. Benjamin was of the opinion that it was alright to regularly sleep with different girls. It was wisdom - short and sweet.
So, he did. He was "married" with about fifteen girls in town. All of the consecrations took place on the "premises of the JJJ club" - naturally according to good, old Israeli tradition, complete with broken glasses and sealing kisses. The wedding prelude was always the hardest guitar riffs known to man. Benjamin liked to conclude the ceremony with Asian folk songs because these were the best songs to listen to before going on an enjoyable walk with his new wife.
I admit that I smiled when I occasionally visited the JJJ club and heard spectacular guitar sounds coming from the attic. By the time the soft voice of a Korean girl came on the scene a few seconds later, I was no longer smiling. I longed to be "whole" for my God, but what should I believe in? How could I be law-abiding when I didn't understand the wording of the law? Should I be a Solomon, or should I be a Paul? Should I be the king of God's chosen people, or should I be God's first apostle? And why should I pay heed to the laws at all when I no longer trusted the law giver - he who sent bears after Elisha's talkative neighbours? I was willing to do without Linda for an entire year so that I could repair this relationship of trust.
"I'm here because I'm desperate," I said, my eyes directed at the teacher.
It wasn't a usual introduction. The bible class had most likely expected a decent, but boring resumé. Instead I presented myself as a theatrical prodigal son.
"Unlike all of you, I haven't come here to get to know Jesus better. I just want to know that he exists. I want someone to tell me why I should believe that he exists, when the only thing I have to base my belief upon is some writings on an unstable God who burns little children in Jericho and tortures men who have intercourse with their menstruating wives."
Of course, they were captivated. Of course, they stared in open-mouthed amazement. Several of them had barely heard of Jericho, even though they had been fervent, young Christians during all of their twenty years. I knew that most of them were like me - maybe all had had a mother who had sung psalms to them at night from the edge of the bed since they were little. Naturally, the mother had left out the stories of torture and bizarre murders, staged by He whom she sang so beautifully about. 'Dear God, I am happy. Thank you for all that I have received. You are good, you, my keeper. Dear God, never leave me. Look after my little....' .
"Swoosh," I said. "Mama was interrupted, dear bible class. God decided to set that evil little two-year-old baby of hers on fire. Horrific? Yes. It seems so much worse when it happens in a modern boy's room with toy cars and posters of angels who stroll over bridges, but it must not have been particularly nice to be a mother in Jericho either."
Why did I say this? I had barely said hello to my new brothers and sisters in the Lord. Why couldn't I just let them be? Did I have to bother them with my frustrations when all they wanted was to get to know Jesus? I was egoistic, and thought that it was ok to be that way. I wasn't going to be a hero anymore, and go to my death for all the women and children on a sinking ship. I was going to save myself. As long as there was a good chance that eighty years was all we were going to get, that we were going to just become mold and not have to answer to a heavenly court of justice, then I should just think about myself. But what was really the problem? These spiritual people around me certainly took all of this at arm's length, didn't they? They wouldn't really be burdened by people who were just having a little trouble communicating with Our Lord, someone who didn't have insight into God's world. I should have been able to expect an answer from people who burst with the joy of having Jesus in their hearts. I was just an intellectual bump on a rock who didn't have an active spiritual life, right?
"Right. What should I say to that then, Terry?" came from the podium.
Our advisor, Glen, smiled jovially at me. I don't think that he disliked the unusual introduction, because I spoke in a different way than Benjamin did. Benjamin was a joker. I showed real desperation. He saw a young man who didn't want to turn his back on the God of his mother just because he saw the sides of that god which seemed unsupportive and unfair.
"So, you want to give God a chance, Terry," Glen said smiling. He put aside the Gospel of John and gave me time to speak. "Why, Terry?"
The whole classed looked at me. I wondered what they were thinking. I was a pale, pimply boy who talked about Jericho with wounded eyes. I didn't say "Thank God" and "Amen" and "Selah". I was different. During the course of their young, Christian lives, they had certainly met one or two people who could be characterized as different, but that was because these people either started their prayers with "Dear, warm Jesus" instead of the more current, "Dear Jesus", or underlined their bible verses with heavy marker pens instead of using a more discreet pencil. None of them talked about Jericho.
"Because I'm afraid of dying without finding my way to Jesus, who is waiting for me in my heavenly abode with my earthly father," I said quietly.
For close to twenty years, I had taken heaven for granted. There had never been any question of whether or not it existed. The element of excitement was in wondering how much the gates up there were made of gold or boring gold imitation. Little Terry made drawings of heaven that mama hung up on the refrigerator. It was comforting to know that mama would be waiting for me with Jesus. She would die one day, but that just meant that she took a long vacation from me and Benjamin. We would see her again soon, surrounded by palm trees and hymns of praise, dancing beautifully with our father. I looked around, looked at all the eyes that stared at me in wonder. Was it really true that they didn't know about Jericho, or did they hide their knowledge in fear of losing that comforting thought of heaven? Did they profess a belief in God, just in case he existed? Did they think, "Ok. Maybe we have to stay away from lying and stealing and other fun things, but we'll make that sacrifice in case God is where mama says he is"?
"What about all of the healings that take place at today's revival meetings? Doesn't that mean anything to you?" a nimble girl in the middle of the classroom cautiously said.
"You mean, does it give me strength that a sixty-year-old lady can suddenly hear a little better in her right ear, or that a young man is miraculously cured of a stiff neck?" I replied.
She looked at me. A few people giggled. Yeah, there were suspiciously many "invisible" healings. A kidney that healed itself, a lung that suddenly began to work. Never a missing hand that suddenly grew again, or a torn-off nose that was put back on again in front of everyone. The healings were depressingly lame. The total lack of "visible" healings made it tempting to disregard healing as such.
"Glen, could we spend a little time on St. John maybe?" interrupted a girl. She stole a glance at me, screwed her eyes up and then rolled them ever so slightly. It was almost unnoticeable, but I saw it. Who was I who could just come in the classroom and be so bible-literate and brief them on meaningless details of the Old Testament? Maybe she was irritated because I, with a face full of boils, dared to speak at all. There was something woundingly contemptuous about her interruption. She didn't roll her eyes to provoke. She rolled them because she found me hopeless. It came from a girl who had perhaps struggled with many questions herself, and who had decided that the way to deal with them was to simply forget the problems by packing them all into the phrase "God works in mysterious ways". Suddenly, a naive guy comes along who hadn't yet learned how to deal with the problem. That irritated her, and it irritated her that I had boils. But at the same time, she couldn't be so calm and collected that she left no room for sympathy. She had cried for the small children in Jericho, I thought. That's why she didn't hiss at me. She just stopped me. Her name was Mona.
After class, a few people came over and shook my hand. Mona was one of those who didn't even look at me. I hadn't tampered with the brakes on her car or cut off one of her toes. I had messed with her drawing of heaven that hung on her mama's refrigerator door. That was far worse than the unfortunate loss of a toe, and I knew that better than anyone. I didn't say the things I did to render my brothers and sisters speechless. I just wanted peace. This wasn't a game.
During the next few days, I had long, private conversations with several of my fellow students. I always avoided group discussions, which usually culminated in spending an hour trying to put an end to a hundred misunderstandings. In addition, it was nice to have a certain amount of control since the one I spoke with looked at my eyeballs, and therefore didn't focus on the almost bizarre development of a cyst just over my right eye. The conversations weren't rewarding for me. They instead weighed quite heavily on me. I became more and more aware that people believed in Jesus just because their mothers and fathers did. Ever since they were small, they had experienced warmth from and looked up to their providers. Of course their parents wouldn't believe in what was in the Bible if it wasn't true. They were too smart for that. And what about all of those millions of other Christians around the world? No one could really mean that all of these people were wrong. I understood then that it is tradition that is the saviour. A hundred years ago, there were people in our country who thought about the thousands of Christians in the world, and thought that so many couldn't be wrong. That's how our numbers increased, we Christians. It was my secret. The snowball effect. I didn't tell anyone - except Mona.
"We believe because the others believe," I said.
She sat with her back facing me, playing the piano in the Bible school's sitting room. She didn't hear me come in. She turned.
"What did you say?" she asked, continuing to play.
She had ignored me ever since that first class period. Had barely looked at me. She had just walked right past me, grinning sometimes. I had decided not to worry about it. It was easier for her to be mean to me than to let me in - she couldn't handle any more talk of charred bodies in Jericho.
I thought.
And I was wrong.
Mona didn't talk to me because she simply didn't like me. It might be cruel of her to say it, she said, but that's how it was, so I needed to accept it and respect that she didn't want to associate with me. She didn't care a bit about Jericho. She was at Bible school because all of her friends were there. And God knew that she wasn't a firm believer, but then, she believed at least, she said.
"I don't like people who ruin a cheerful atmosphere," she said.
I was surprised. Mona had given up.
"What you say isn't news, Terry," she continued nonchalantly. She knew that God was strange. He was just as vague as her crazy uncle, she said. That's why he had to be merciful. It was really not very exciting. She thought I was foolish because I had to confirm that he existed. It was well-known that thinking people believed in God because it was the best alternative out there. She firmly believed that flowers and bloodveins were too fascinating for the whole thing to just be about a big bang a few billion years ago.
"God just has to tolerate that we believe because there aren't any better alternatives. Be satisfied with that thought," she said dryly, then added, "And be a little kind to those who live happy lives without knowing. Don't ruin the mood!"
She wanted me to leave, or at least, to not talk to her. She grinned. Why did she grin? I had to weigh up the situation. I put on the one side my disappointment that she had given up and that she criticized my continuing quest for answers. On the other side, I put my fascination for my sister, Mona, and her grin. I was sober enough not to confuse reserve with mysticism. Still, I saw her as something veiled, exciting, mysterious. I decided to unveil her. Try, anyway.
Second book of Corinthians, 12:9 - "My grace is sufficient for you..." But God couldn't place conditions on that. God had to be merciful. If he was fair. Mona said.

Part 2

I don't know if he ever tried to unveil Mona. I would imagine so. It's been several years since I last talked to Terry. He never came back from Bible school. We knew then that when he decided to do something, he did it, but we didn't think that he would stay on the southern coast for good - not when we thought about Linda, anyway.
I found his text while going through some old photo albums that were stored in mother's cellar the day before yesterday. It was in an envelope in a plastic bag, along with some old school books. When I read the text that night, the thought occurred to me that it had been consciously hidden away with all the knowledge that he had been through with long ago. He had taken a step up from spore plants and student assignments - and maybe Thomas. I don't know.
My brother never came right out and said that he didn't want to talk to me any more, but I knew it. I already understood by then that Bible humour wasn't so funny any more. Even though I smiled and laughed as I threw shit on God and created a good mood, I also created despair. Maybe too much despair. He must have felt that he had to distance himself to stay focused, and if he was going to do it, he might as well do it properly. He didn't dislike me. He was entirely too sensible for that. But, he got tired of hearing shit about God. Not tired of it because it was boring, or hard to understand, but because they were sad stories that had the right to exist, that meant something.
I saw him laugh. I really thought that we were alike. Two brothers who laughed a little at God in a laid-back way, but who really didn't think all that much about him. I knew that Terry went to the Corinth church meetings regularly, but who didn't? Our childhood friends were there, afterall. Even I could tolerate a dull sermon once in a while to be able to take part in the friendly get-togethers in the basement afterwards. But Terry had been listening. He had struggled and talked to Linus about God. Often. He had expressed genuine distress. He had called the Jews the "people of Israel". He had called God "the Lord". He had been engaged in it, and I hadn't known it. At least, I didn't know that the Bible had caused him sleepless nights.
It will soon be four years ago that he went to the south coast, and three years since I last spoke to him. I became disdainful. If he didn't even have time to visit me or mother during the summer, he didn't need to call either. He made the excuses that it was difficult to get days off from his holiday and weekend jobs, and when he did finally get a few days off, there was always someone at the Bible school who had a mother who was a drug addict, or a father who had been violent once and needed some spiritual guidance.
I remember that I screamed at him on the telephone. What was wrong with him? It wasn't enough that he had dropped out of school just a few weeks before he was supposed to get his diploma, he also didn't care about the trefoil that father had left us. Didn't he think of mother? Didn't he understand that she was crushed? He was going to be a lawyer and defend those who were hurting. Just like Jesus.
I remember that I was convinced that he took off because of his pimples. And I told him so. I called him a coward. He didn't say anything. Didn't get angry. He said at the end of the conversation that I was wrong, and to say hello to mother. He had tried to explain to her. That's all he could do. And then he said good-bye.
He asked me not to say hello to Linda. Not to Robert either. My brother was through with his old life. Everything went out with the undertow. I was shocked when I read about Linda. How could he doubt that he loved, or whatever it's called now, the world's best and most beautiful girl? Mother thought of her as her own daughter. She was so gentle. That's the right word. Terry would've probably used the word "meek". She was the kind of girl who could take care of old, bitter women in the retirement home for hours, and sincerely apologize if one of the ladies ungratefully and loudly complained towards the end of the shift about the sponge bath, and called her ugly or a whore. But she was no yes-woman. She was an anchor.
And she wouldn't get to see Terry again. My brother had decided that a few years ago. I met her just a few weeks after he had broken their engagement. She was unrecognizable. The sight of her was almost too maudlin. I was walking downtown and saw her coming towards me. She had a hooded sweatshirt on. I saw that she saw me, and suddenly, she backed up and slipped into a side street. I ran after her, and she turned. She didn't have a chance. She broke out in tears.
She had gotten incredibly thin, and didn't manage to say anything. She looked at me, backed up and put her hand on her mouth. Then she turned and started running. Away from the brother of him she had lived for. I knew that it wasn't right to go after her. That was the last I saw of her. Mother told me later that she had gone back to her family in the north. She never became a political scientist.
What happened that year at the Bible school? What made him choose this "final solution"? The realizations had accumulated. He hadn't been able to appease Doubting Thomas, and he stripped all of my wisecracks and subjected them to pure analysis. Jericho and hell became too hot to handle, and God had a good time with nose bleeds he knew would flow. He saw the two problems in the Corinth congregation and unveiled them both - the old ladies were bible-literate and still ignorant, the young ones were unconscious and liked Jesus. He even talked about the snowball effect. He had finished his education and become a fully-fledged doubter.
What happened? Why did he sit a few years later behind a mixer at the Zion church, controlling the bass and treble levels while the youth choir sang and the pastor talked about Jesus? Or the people of Israel. Or Sodom and Gomorrah and men who sleep with other men.
I realize that he would have taken an uncompromising direction no matter what. But why did he kick Linda and I instead of God? Neither Linda nor I could be compared to Adolf Hitler, and we were both innocent when it came to torture by fire. We were predictable. I studied and goofed around. Linda knitted potholders and massaged her boyfriend's legs. Nothing more adventuresome than that. We never set Terry on fire, or drowned him because he didn't always think like we did. We even thought that differentiation was a reasonable and fitting expression, and that soccer scholars weren't quite as fitting. At least I didn't. Still, I had to tolerate being rejected.
A face with big pimples. Fixed interpretations that lose their balance. Sleepless nights. A soccer coach that ruins the joy of the game. Should I feel sorry for my brother? Should I have felt sympathy when I read through these pages?
Ask Mary Mark. Just a few days after her son had blown his head off, she was put up against the wall by my brother. How difficult it must have been to sit in front of a class who had experienced the suicide of one of their classmates, and who found out why he had done it. Her son was dead. Her husband was unfaithful. And everyone knew. Her world had been turned upside down in a second. Where did she get the strength from? When others would have left and gone far away, or gone into a deep depression, Mary chose to work towards ensuring a good future for her husband. No one was supposed to look down on her husband. No one was supposed to rake him over the coals because he had destroyed his family. She wanted to inform his students so that he could continue to go to work. My brother spoke about will loud enough for all to hear, including the strong woman behind the teacher's desk. A few weeks earlier, he had cursed himself because he had told off her son in front of everyone. He had called himself a poor analyst who chose to bring something up at the wrong time. This time, the guardian of thoughts had placed a woman who was as sturdy as a rock in the shadow of his own needs.
Ask Sven Mark. The killer in the classroom. He who strangled future kings. They were pompous accusations, but Sven knew that my brother meant it. That's why it wasn't actually funny. I don't know if it really sank in that a man, young or old, could so enthusiastically and thoroughly judge him, his way of life and his convictions. Maybe in a quiet moment he felt a sudden pang. I'm sure he understood what my brother meant, and he had surely discussed the same problems with himself long before my brother became his student. Sven Mark might have liked his job. Maybe he had always felt that he did one of the most important things that a member of humanity can do. To help advance the human race. Help advance everyone in the human race. Still, he was a murderer in the eyes of Terry Way. A-student in social studies.
Ask Milly. Robert Still's old girlfriend. From what I can make out, it was only a few weeks after the talk in the car with my brother that Robert was really wading up to his knees in women. Terry wasn't just a friend. Terry was a mentor. A guru. And my brother knew it. Robert began to think. I talked to him once in a while, especially when he was visiting Terry. It's true that I made fun of Elisha and Noah as much as I could, but when I talked to Robert, it wasn't the people of the bible that were talked about most. Everything was about Milly. You couldn't render Milly speechless. Milly was resourceful. Milly was funny. No one made better coconut cookies than Milly. But she wasn't enough. Not after the talk in the car. What do I know?
Ask me. I had a brother who was on a witch hunt for absolute truths, in capital letters. Mary Mark was a spineless wife. Capital letters. Sven Mark ruined Paul's chance at becoming foreign minister or an astrophysicist. Capital letters. And God. God was the way, truth and life. Capital letters.
Ask Linda.

"How is he?" I asked mother today.
"He's happy," she answered. "Happier than before."
Terry and mother keep in regular contact. She's happy, too. One of her sons will get to heaven at least. She prays for me every day. So she says when I visit her a couple of times a month to have a chat. She hopes that I'll put aside my common sense. She says so straight out. Doesn't even try to candy-coat it. Just like Jesus. Become a fool, he literally said to the masses. Even more direct than mother.
I would like to meet my brother again. Is he the same as he was a few years ago, even though he's now a radio technician at the Zion church and a clerk at a Christian bookshop on the south coast? Will he, like a good Christian, greet me warmly and forget that I once said that his God was unfocused and had a poor memory? Will he ignore the fact that I yelled at him the last time we spoke and called him a coward? How does he move when he walks? Do his arms still move quickly in all directions when he is excited? Does he come bursting through the door singing victory songs from the British Isles, like he did when he had won an away game with a flat shot in the far corner? Would he grab his older brother, shake him and yell, "Beeeenjamin, you monster! Where in the world were you when I made that shot?", and stare me in the face with the world's biggest grin and pour a big glass of black currant juice? Followed by an indian war cry? Is he still what no one knew he was to me, what no one thought he was to me, what I never said? A role model.
It was I who was the big brother. It was I who was supposed to say all the funniest things and be the most relaxed and cool and liberated and forward thinking. During family gatherings, it was I who was supposed to churn out all the family Way jokes. I liked watching my uncles and aunts roar with laughter at the new jokes, but nothing was like the pride I felt at seeing my brother howl with laughter, impressed at his brother's steady delivery. I saw it on him. He glowed. He was so pleased, so happy that I said things that gave something to others. Even if it was only laughter. I was a contributor, and I was his brother. He always glowed. A positive outlook on life, it's called.
He was a locomotive engine. Not like the rest of us. He had a different drive, a different acceleration that is difficult to describe. There was a wholeness about everything he did. He was the head waiter that made sure that everyone was pleased. A quick, laid-back and appreciative wink at his brother, a warm smile for his mother, followed by a mischievous grin for Uncle Jan. At the same time, the internal difficult dialogue went on as usual in his head. Thomas, Rachel Bloom, Raymond. Completely relaxed. Just after that, "Come on. Put on the video". He had gotten the whole get-together on tape from a hidden camera behind the family photo on the wall behind the dining room table. Now we were supposed to watch a film. He lightly poked Aunt Thelma in the ribs while he laughed hysterically at Uncle George. It was fire and flame. A normal evening with my brother.
On the soccer field, he was a man among men. Noble, calm, almost arrogant - he guided his team. He didn't even need to be good. He would have gotten respect anyway just because of his bearing, or the way he ran or directed his troops. I went to almost all of the home games. He was tackled hard a few times by slow, rusty defenders who weren't keeping up, but as long as he could continue the match, he just shrugged his shoulders, smiled and squinted a little at those who were behind the offence. On the other hand, if he had to sit out the rest of the match, he almost always lost his head, being really irritated over the fact that the guilty players were allowed to play soccer. Soccer was an art. Why should people with sharp buttons and kneecaps attack him? He would scream it loudly, often peppered with a few expletives. But he never used words like "damn" or "fuck". "Snake spawn" was used quite often. Inspired by John the Baptist.
He was never a greater role model than when I saw him in the arms of Linda. Why was that gentle angel, who was just as old as I was, completely absorbed in my little brother? Because he drove up to her school and chewed out her professor who had said that our country's education politics was a good example for others to follow. Because he dropped the waffle sale on a 'school solidarity day' and instead waltzed into an office building downtown and managed to convince a local business mogul to turn over 100,000 to children in some starving countries in under an hour. Because he called her the Rose of Sharon and wrote his own hymn to her on 30 closely written pages. It was meant to be an alternative to Solomon.
"Has he found someone new?" I asked mother.
"No one since Mona," she answered. Then smiling gently, she said, "He must want to be like St. Paul."
What did he do during the day? I didn't see any letters to the editor anymore. I did hear that he had written an article for Salvation about half a year ago, on Israel and borders and promised lands. But that was a short one. Had he stopped playing soccer altogether? The local newspaper had become the center for debate after the local soccer hero quit just a few days after the series opening. Suddenly, everyone in the area had become interested in sports and assumptions. The sports editor suddenly saw trends everywhere, and called off the national soccer academia adventure every day for a week. Terry's coach was ridiculed in a number of letters to the editor from people who barely knew what football even was. They had just heard that the "ambassador" had quit, and had seen American films about how important it was to seize the day and let young people make their lives extraordinary. A few of his teammates had something to say, and one of them, maybe it was Kenneth, started a petition to get some new blood in the team leadership. The campaign was going to go all the way to the offices of the soccer federation. The community was ecstatic. Things almost got crazy. Terry didn't care.
It was then he did something that he had never done before. And it was then that I thought for a second that this all had to do with more than soccer and no longer enjoying sports. He laid into mother. It was an afternoon. Why didn't she ask questions herself? Why did she always ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word to his brother instead of asking it to answer the questions about Noah and all the evil children? He talked about Jericho. He even talked about Hitler. Terry Way. To mother.
And there was no humour involved. Not from this son. He screamed. There were accusations. Panic. The last resort. "Help me. Why was her son so angry at her?" There was no compassion. She wasn't going to be allowed to be blissfully ignorant. It was an almost bizarre defence for his brother.
What did she expect from Benjamin Way? With resignation and no remorse, she would ask his brother to stop looking for mistakes in the Bible and "read the Scriptures with an open heart" instead. Benjamin had to want to know God. Really want. Maybe she didn't mean anything by what she said. Maybe it had just gotten to be a worn-out phrase that she just apathetically said sometimes. Like a "hello" or a "good-bye". And Terry didn't accept it. It was unfair and cruel to say something like that to his brother who had folded his hands in prayer over his bed from the time he was little onwards, and had eagerly told God that he definitely wanted to get to know him. That was all little Benjamin could do. The rest was up to God in heaven. He had tried and tried. For years. Even when he had become a scholar, he still folded his hands. But he never heard any voices coming from up there. There was no holy spirit that suddenly dropped in one day to explain all of this about the Flood.
I remember that I stormed into the kitchen and cut him off. That was enough, I said. I preferred the humorous version of his rant. Mother didn't deserve this. I could say so because I didn't care any more. About God and Jesus. I wasn't on one side or the other. I had just gradually drifted away from God as I found new, disappointing, and eventually - funny - discoveries in the Bible. I simply wasn't interested in God anymore. I didn't think about him. That's just how it was.
And I know now that I didn't understand then that my brother took my approach to the problems seriously. It was unnatural for me to think otherwise. It didn't even occur to me. I had my perspective, and only saw that. I thought that maybe he was just a little irritable at the time, because of soccer and the pimples, and that he took his frustration out on our kind mother because he knew that - I don't know - that he had a legitimate message. I don't know what I thought, really. I didn't understand that my brother fought whole-heartedly to the very last minute, anyway.

I called my brother today. He was taken aback when he heard that it was me. It's sure been a long time, he said. Yeah, I said, and asked how things were. Everything was fine. Wonderful. He was even in great health, he said, and laughed heartily. It was a short call. He had to hurry - was going to take some marzipan cookies downtown for the neighbour. It was good to hear from me after all this time. We should meet, he thought. He was going to send me an email. Then he said good-bye. Quickly. I didn't even get time to give him my email address.
Later in the afternoon I got an email. He had found my address on my company's website. He apologized for having been so abrupt. He thought about me after I called, he wrote. Wondered how things were going. If I had finally picked out some lucky girl. I can't remember ever having read a more proper letter. Everything was correct. Compassionate. It was unbelievable how fast time went, he wrote. Had three whole years gone by since the last time we spoke? Absolutely unbelievable. Oh yes, we had to meet. He might be able to make the trip in a couple of months. Or at Christmas. We'd see. In the meantime, we could email each other. "Have fun. Terry." He didn't mention Jesus or Thomas. Just said that it had been a while. Things like that happen. Boy.
I sat a long time and looked at the screen. I read his email at least three times. Should I answer him? Should I finally say something? I thought for a while. Then I just did it. Wrote and wrote. Everything I had thought and thought of. Bible school, the acne, that I had yelled at him, Mona, Mary Mark, mother in the kitchen, the heavenly Jerusalem, what was he up to?, soccer, father, the fruit groves of En Gedi, Raymond, Linda, no compromises, the final solution, Hitler, God, Terry, and what had happened to Thomas?
Then I deleted everything I had written. On purpose. I quickly stood up and pounded the desk with my fist. Many times. Fast. As I swore. Then I kicked the sofa and stomped on it hard a few times. Tensed up all of my muscles. Then I calmed down and went into the bathroom and got a glass of water. Afterwards, I sat down and started writing again - a lot - then sent the email to my brother.
Why? What do I want? Why can't I just go on and analyse the stock market, play squash, go to parties of friends and colleagues and climb mountains and go rafting? What do I want to see? Is there something inside me that hopes that Terry will say or do something definitive? Do I want acknowledgements and confirmations, or do I just want to experience something?
Terry didn't write a word about our sister. That's so strange. No one looked up to Helene more than Terry. He often dropped in on her at her apartment downtown after school. Maybe it was an unusual relationship. He was a lot younger than her. They often talked for hours, just the two of them. Helene was proud of her brother. I think she liked to show him off to her friends. Her little big thinker. He said when he was twelve that they would get married some day. He and Helene. He was completely taken by his sister. And that was perhaps not so strange. Helene was like Ruth in the Bible. Gentle. Happy. Smart. She was like dad. Strong. And that's why she died. She was eight years older than me, and died a year before my father of leukemia. She was twenty-seven when she died.
She had faith enough to move mountains, Helene. That was our sister's goal. In all situations, no matter what she did. She had decided that she should take God at his word. She should put her trust in him, and go in faith. Without fear. Without blood transfusions. That was her own choice. It was only gloomy sects that were capable of doing something like that. Plus Helene Way. The doctors gave up. I gave up. Mama and father just looked at her. What could they say? Yes, what in the hell could they say? They were gagged. By the Word.
"Ask, and you shall receive". "Cast all your troubles before him". "The Lord your God goes before you, and he will fight for you". "Ye of so little faith".
And yes, she had received her prophecies. She wasn't going to die. God had a plan for her. She had received a Bible passage. In her heart. While she dreamed one night, God had spoken to her.
Book of Judges 6:23 - ""Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."
When she woke up, she found the passage in the Bible at once. She wasn't going to die. Amen.
No! She died.
What happened to that little boy who was going to marry her? What happened to the teenager who looked up to her and loved being with her after school? His sister had sought the kingdom of God first. Terry took second place. That's just what happened, and there was certainly no shame in it. She was a model Christian, a flagship God could only dream about. She almost became a status symbol for mama and dad in the Corinthian Pentecostal church. Naturally, no one would have faulted her if she had put herself in the doctor's hands and given them control. God used doctors to serve him also, afterall. But she had shown a faith that no one had ever seen since Joshua and the walls of Jericho. It didn't matter that it crushed my little brother.
What is it I want? Maybe I want to talk to my little brother about Helene Way.

I've been irritable the last few days. Everyone around me has noticed it. I just want to jog and jog until I don't have any more strength. Or hit something, until I've had enough. I want to send more emails. Long emails. To Linda. Ask how she's doing. Tell her that she was just one of many who went out with the undertow. Terry Way's. God's flagship. That persevering and uncompromising cliff. He had met Linda first. It was about making a choice. Wasn't that how it was said in the car with Robert?
I'm not going to send anyone any emails. I'm not going to care. I can't. Don't have time for it. But it's useless, and I know it. I can't put it away. I have too much to say. I have too much compassion. Too much anger. Confused feelings, maybe. Maybe I'm curious as well. Of course curious, but wanting to know what he's doing and thinking - do I want that to be at the expense of my daily life? It's been three days, and he hasn't answered my email yet.

He's coming tomorrow. I had just taken a shower after a long jog, and I just picked up the phone and called. Said that I had to talk to him, and that I wanted to look at him when I talked to him. Hm, it wasn't a good time, he said. No - he had to come! I said. It was urgent. Something has come up, I said. Nothing dramatic, but something important. And it was urgent. I couldn't say that I had to talk to him just because I was unfocused at the time. Because I had begun to feel like I desperately needed a long talk with my little brother. We were only talking about one day, I said. I would, of course, pay for the trip.
"Ok," he eventually said. "Alright. I'm coming, Benjamin. Taking a plane tomorrow morning. I'll work it out some way or another. It'll be good to see you again, by the way. There will be a lot to talk about after all these years." He laughed softly. He didn't ask about what it was that was so terribly urgent.

I met him today in the cafeteria of the same school that we both went to some years ago. I eat lunch there once in a while with a friend who teaches social economics. I saw Terry the moment he stepped into the place. I sat alone behind a group of high school students. He looked good. His skin seemed healthy. He was straight and tall. A relaxed look. I saw that he winked at a lady working in the cafeteria and said something to her. She laughed. He looked around. I raised my right arm. He smiled.
"Well well," he said cheerfully, and sat down at the table.
"Hello, Terry," I said with a crooked smile. "Aren't you going to give your big brother a hug?"
He laughed, and said I'd have to wait until we were alone in the woods. Besides, he wasn't sure yet if it was really me behind all of those wrinkles.
I smiled. A little. Took his hand and looked him in the eyes. We both looked at each other without saying anything for a little while.
"Good to see you, Terry," I said.
"Good to see you, too, Benjamin."
Like me, he said it somewhat seriously as well. Then he suddenly noticed that they had rearranged the furniture in the cafeteria since the last time he was there. Did they take out a wall over there? Yes, they did. That was a good idea, he said, as he nodded to the sister of someone who had been in his class. They should've done that ages ago, he said. It was amazing what taking out or putting in a wall could do. He could see that now. Didn't I agree?
"There's a lot of people here," I said. "Why don't we see if we can find an empty room?"
A few minutes later, we were back where he had once tried. Had once fought. It had been his room. His display window. It was there that he had shown everyone how laboriously and thoroughly he had thought when he put his head on his pillow. It was there that he had proudly exposed myths, titles and institutions as he yelled, smiled, screamed, sweat, slobbered and yes, almost foamed at the mouth. It had been his victor's arena. Up until Thomas was introduced. The disciple had conquered his life. Doubt in God made him doubt everything else, too. Why? Why had that been the consequence? Why didn't he choose a different and clear focus in life? The thought guardian. The mighty cliff.
He had understood what I meant with what I had written to him about Mary Mark. Typical him, he said resignedly. Couldn't keep his mouth shut. He wasn't like that anymore, he said smiling. Sven Mark. He laughed a little. Poor man, he clacked good-naturedly. He had to put up with hearing a lot of strange things, boy. It was great that he could take it with a smile. He wouldn't talk about Linda. Not about Jesus either. Or Thomas. What about the Flood? And wasn't God obligated to be merciful?
He looked out of the window in the classroom. Did they make a new work-out studio behind the plant conservatory? Goodness, how fast the time went, he mumbled as he got up. He had to go out to the cafeteria and get more soda. He stepped towards the door.
I might have focused on the wrong things, he suddenly said.
He was happy. Relaxed.
"Some things, only the Lord knows," he mumbled as he went out the door.

[end]

© 2008 Fripolitisk Bevegelse / Free-political Movement