Crossroads

by Jonathan Franzen

  “The answer, I would say, is by listening to your heart. Only your heart can tell you what your true motive is—whether it partakes of Christ. I think my position is similar to Rabbi Meyer’s. The reason we need faith—in our case, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ—is that it gives us a rock-solid basis for evaluating our actions. Only through faith in the perfection of our Savior, only by comparing our actions to his example, only by experiencing his living presence in our hearts, can we hope to be forgiven for the more selfish thoughts we might have. Only faith in Christ redeems us. Without him, we’re lost in a sea of second-guessing our motives.”

  Perry was enjoying his ability to converse on the level of men three times his age, enjoying how well he’d calibrated his alcohol intake, enjoying the easy but unslurred flow of his words. But now Mrs. Haefle, as if she’d smelled a pleasure in need of immediate stamping out, was approaching them. He repositioned himself, squaring his back to her.

  “I understand what you’re saying,” he said to Reverend Walsh. “But what if a person isn’t able to have faith?”

  “Not everyone finds faith overnight. Faith is rarely easy. But if you’ve ever done a good thing, and felt a glow in your heart, then that’s a little message from God. He’s telling you that Christ is in you, and that you have the freedom and capacity to pursue a closer relationship with him. ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’”

  “It’s approximately the same if you’re a Jew,” the rabbi said, “although we tend to emphasize that you’re a Jew whether you like it or not. It’s more a matter of God tracking you down than of you finding God.”

  “I don’t think our positions are so dissimilar in that respect,” Reverend Walsh said stiffly.

  Perry tried to ignore the hovering of Mrs. Haefle at his shoulder.

  “But so,” he said, “what if I feel the kind of glow you’re talking about, but it doesn’t lead me to God? What if it’s just one of the feelings that any sentient animal might have? If I never find God, or He never finds me, it sounds like you’re saying that, basically, I’m damned.”

  “In principle, I suppose that is the doctrine,” Reverend Walsh said. “But you’re very young, and life is long. There’s a near infinity of moments when you might receive God’s grace. All it takes is one moment.”

  “In the meantime,” the rabbi said, “I think it’s enough to be a mensch.”

  “Perry?” Mrs. Haefle said, pushing her way in. “I want you to come meet Reverend Walsh’s son Ricky. He’s a junior at Lyons Township.”

  Her voice was syrupy. Perry’s irritation was more intense than any feeling of goodness he’d yet experienced. “Excuse me?”

  “The young people are in the sunroom.”

  “I’m aware of that. We’re in the middle of a conversation here. Is that so hard to grasp?”

  Evidently, though it hadn’t slurred his speech, gløgg was very disinhibiting.

  “I think we’ve touched on the main points,” Reverend Walsh said. “Is anyone else ready for cookies?”

  Perry appealed to the rabbi. “Was I boring you? Did my questions seem childish? Should I be consigned to the sunroom?”

  “Not at all,” the rabbi said. “These are important questions.”

  With a vindicated gesture, Perry turned to Mrs. Haefle. Open animosity had now replaced her phony sweetness. “Gløgg is not for children,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I said gløgg is not for children.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.”

  “Well, I think you should mind your own business.” The disinhibitions of gløgg were an unfolding surprise. “Seriously, do you not have anything better to do than follow me around?”

  In proportion to the rising of his voice, the living room was quieting.

  “What’s going on?” Reverend Haefle said, looming up.

  “Nothing at all,” Perry said. “I was in the midst of an interesting conversation with Rabbi Meyer and Reverend Adams when your wife interrupted us.”

  Mrs. Haefle whispered something in her husband’s ear. He nodded gravely.

  “So, Perry,” he said. “It was good of you to come. But—”

  “But what? It’s time for me to leave? I am not the one at social fault here.”

  Reverend Haefle placed a gentle hand on Perry’s shoulder. More roughly than necessary, Perry shook it off. He knew he needed to calm down, but the heat in his head was extraordinary.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” he said very loudly. “No matter what I do, it’s always me who’s in the wrong. You’re all saved, but apparently I’m damned. Do you think I enjoy being damned?” A sob of self-pity escaped him. “I’m doing the best I can!”

  The living room was now completely quiet. Through tears, he saw twenty pairs of clerical and spousal eyes on him. Among them, near the front door, to his shame and dismay, were his mother’s.

  Along streets so muffled she could hear the faint collective hiss of snowflakes landing, and then Pirsig Avenue, where cars with snow-blurred headlights proceeded at a funereal crawl, Becky moved as fast as she could in her long blue coat. She felt late for a date that half an hour ago she hadn’t even meant to keep. She had an urgent need to see Tanner again, to give him a chance to redeem himself. Failing that, she needed to make a show of not caring—to plunge into the concert, let Tanner see that other people valued her, and let him wonder where he stood with her.

  Outside First Reformed, three Crossroads sophomores were shoveling snow with a zeal that suggested their work was voluntary. Becky was pleased to be able to greet each of them by name; to be developing the same inclusive popularity in Crossroads that she enjoyed at school. She also knew the names of the girls manning the cash box in the function-hall foyer. The concert wouldn’t start for another half hour, but the hall was filling with alumni and other paying guests, the air already smoky. Amp lights glowed in the shadows of the elevated stage. Current Crossroads members, earning “hours” toward Spring Trip, were lugging crates of pop bottles and arranging tables of desserts and festive breads, whose bakers had likewise earned hours.

  Becky was uneasily reminded that she had to start earning some hours herself. Forty were required, she currently had zero, and Spring Trip was only three months away. It wasn’t an attractive thought, but she wished that an exception could be made for her.

  Crossing the hall to meet her were Kim Perkins and David Goya, who’d recently become an item. Horsey of face, weirdly thin of hair, David was no one Becky would have liked to kiss, but she could imagine him seeming like a safe harbor to Kim. Previous heavy pot smoking had erased all traces of harm in him.

  “The lunatics have taken over the asylum,” he said gravely.

  “Yeah,” Becky said. “Is there anybody over twenty-one here?”

  “Ambrose is hiding in his office. Otherwise, we appear to be unmonitored.”

  “Speaking of which,” Kim said, with a pointed clearing of her throat. Kim had lately gained some pounds, as if to reduce the looks differential between herself and David. Her face was barren of cosmetics and she was wearing bib overalls.

  “Yes, maybe you can help us,” David said to Becky. “We’re having a little disagreement. Kim seems to feel that the concert is a public event, not a Crossroads activity. I would argue that it’s clearly a Crossroads activity—just look at the posters. I’m guessing you don’t have a dog in this fight, so I wonder which one of us you agree with.”

  “Sorry,” Becky said. “What dog? Which fight?”

  “Rule Number Two. No drinking or drugs at a Crossroads activity.”

  “Oh.”

  “I probably shouldn’t have told you that. It could bias your answer.”

  “I don’t know if you smelled it, coming in,” Kim said, “but the alumni are all totally lighting up in the parking lot. Like they’d do for any public concert. Which is what this is.”

  “It’s a gathering at the church,” David said. “To
raise funds for the group. I rest my case.”

  “Gosh, guys.” Becky was happy to be trusted as their arbiter. “I guess I’m kind of with David here.”

  “Oh, come on,” Kim said. “It’s Friday night.”

  “Thursday night,” David corrected.

  “I’m just giving you my opinion,” Becky said.

  “Okay, but here’s another question. What if we did some partaking earlier, in the afternoon, not on church property, and we’re still the tiniest bit high when we show up here. Is that against the rules?”

  “You’re on a slippery slope,” David said.

  “Let Becky answer.”

  “I guess it depends,” Becky said, “on what the purpose of the rule is.”

  “The purpose of the rule,” David said, “is to not have parents pissed off with Crossroads.”

  “I disagree,” Kim said. “I think it’s that you can’t have an authentic witnessing relationship if one of the people is high.”

  “But then why forbid sex? Rule Number One. This is clearly about the group’s reputation.”

  “No, it’s the same as with drugs. Sex messes with the kind of relationship we’re supposed to be developing at meetings. It’s the wrong kind of intensity.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It could be for both reasons,” Becky said.

  “My point,” Kim said, “is that we’re not doing any activities tonight. We’re not trying to relate to each other. We’re just listening to music. If we happen to smoke a little pot on our way here, when we’re not on church property, what difference does it make?”

  David gestured to Becky. “Agree? Disagree?”

  Becky smiled.

  “I personally am beginning to think Kim’s point has merit,” David said.

  Still smiling, Becky looked out across the hall. Through a clearing in the crowd, in a cluster of alumni, she glimpsed the back of a suede jacket. She knew it was Tanner’s because the stumpy one, the Natural Woman, had her arm around him, her wild-haired head against his ribs. It was a posture of secure possession. The smile dropped from Becky’s face.

  “I think you should do whatever you want,” she said.

  “Permission from Hildebrandt!” Kim exulted.

  “Reassuringly untainted by self-interest,” David said. “Or so I presume?”

  Tanner’s suede-fringed arm was now around the Natural Woman. Becky saw that coming to the concert had been a bad mistake. She liked Kim and David well enough, but they weren’t core friends of hers. Nobody in Crossroads was. The best she could hope to demonstrate to Tanner was a skin-deep popularity. Fearing a return of tears, she wondered if she should turn around and leave. But Kim and David were looking at her expectantly.

  “What?” she said.

  “Just wondering,” David said casually, “if you’d care to join us.”

  It occurred to her that they were worried about Rule Number Three: Any failure to report a rules violation was itself a rules violation.

  “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”

  “Not an issue,” Kim said. “You said it yourself—we’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “Just extending a friendly offer,” David agreed.

  Long ago, Clem had scared Becky off marijuana, telling her that the human brain was an instrument too delicate to mess with chemically, and she’d never been much tempted. But now, although she could see other friendly faces in the function hall, she felt she had only two choices—either leave and go home, or go along with her new friends. Wasn’t safety the enemy? Hadn’t she joined Crossroads to become less fearful? To take new risks? It could hardly be worse than standing and watching Tanner be clutched by Laura Dobrinsky. At least her friends were offering to include her.

  “No, sure,” she said to David. “I mean, yes, thank you. I’d like to.”

  Her assent was a bigger deal to her than to David. He simply turned to follow Kim, who was already moving toward the fire exit by the stage. Reacting to some invisible signal, two other senior girls, Darra Jernigan and Carol Pinella, peeled away from the crowd and joined her. By the time Becky and David caught up with them, her brain was already feeling altered, by the rush of blood in it.

  Beyond the exit door, off a hallway leading to the church’s attic stairs, was a second door, dangerously difficult (from a fire-hazard perspective) to push open against the snow. Outside was a narrow alley, lit only by Chicagoland sky, against a retaining wall that marked the boundary of church property. In a nod to the rules, everyone climbed up onto the snow-covered grass above the wall. Becky stuck close to David, feeling safest with him; he was one of Perry’s best friends.

  “For the record,” Kim said to the others, “Hildebrandt gave her okay for this.”

  Becky chuckled in a voice she didn’t recognize. “Put it all on me, why don’t you.”

  “I think her presence here speaks for itself,” David said. From a neat metal case, he produced a doobie smaller than the ones Becky had seen at parties, and Kim reached over to light it with a Bic. The smell of pot smoke was autumnal. Holding it in, David offered the doobie first to Becky.

  “Sorry,” she said, taking it. “How do I do this?”

  “Long, slow breath and keep it in,” Kim said kindly.

  Becky took a puff, coughed, and tried a deeper breath. It was as if she’d swallowed a burning sword. Smoke was deadly—people died from inhaling it—she wondered if this thought was the first sign of being high or just an ordinary thought, and then if wondering this was itself a sign of being high—but she managed, with watering eyes, to hold it longer than David had held his. After Kim and Darra and Carol had taken their turns, the doobie came back to David, who offered it again to Becky.

  “Um,” she said. Her throat was full of scorch. “Is it okay?”

  “There’s more where this came from.”

  She nodded and filled her lungs again. She was smoking marijuana! Either the drug itself or the excitement of smoking it was flooding the same nerves that kissing Tanner had lit up the night before. Suddenly her life was changing fast. She was being initiated into sensations she’d barely been aware were possible.

  When David grabbed her arm, she understood that she was fainting from too conscientiously holding her breath. She let out smoke and took in winter air. What had been a dark alley seemed almost daylit in the whiteness of the sky and snow, as if the darkness had only been her starting to pass out. The taste in her mouth was Octobery. The heat surging in her face and behind her eyes was like molten fudge. She felt walled off by the heavy hot sensation, not at all connected to the other miscreants, who were expertly snapping drags off the dwindling doobie. Which now came back.

  Again a foreign-sounding chuckle, hers.

  “Okay,” she said. “Why not.”

  Her third hit hurt her throat less, not more, than the first two. This had to mean that she was getting high. The molten-fudge sensation seemed to be receding, boiling off through the top of her head, fizzing away through her skin. For a moment, she felt entirely poised, entirely present in a winter wonderland, safe with friends. She wondered what would happen next.

  From inside the fire door, right below her, came a shout and a thud. The door swung open and stuck in the snow; and there stood Sally Perkins.

  “Aha!” she cried.

  A hairy mass in the dimness behind her resolved into the shape of Laura Dobrinsky. Becky violently coughed.

  “Jesus Christ, Kim,” Sally said, clambering up onto the retaining wall. “What ever happened to sisters sharing?” She extended a hand to Laura and yanked her up.

  “I didn’t see you,” Kim said.

  “Ho-ho-ho, right.”

  Becky was definitely high. She seemed to be standing next to herself, wondering where to place herself. She took a step backward, away from Laura. Her foot came down in a hole of some sort, which sent her falling back into a snow-laden shrub. The shrub embraced her and held her unsteadily upright.

  David had taken out his little case
again. “You and Sally have such keen noses,” he observed to Laura, “you could be of service to law enforcement.”

  “Not true,” Laura said. “I can only smell the high-grade stuff.”

  “Well, isn’t this your lucky day.”

  He lit up a second joint and handed it to her.

  “Jesus,” Sally said. “Is that Becky Hildebrandt?”

  “The very one,” David said.

  “My, how the mighty have fallen.”

  Laura exhaled smoke, turned toward Becky, and pierced her with a terrifying look.

  “Becky’s like her father,” she said. “She doesn’t know when she’s not wanted.”

  Becky extricated herself from the shrub and brushed snow off her coat. It seemed important to keep on brushing, down to the last flake, to make herself presentable. Then she found that she’d lost interest in it.

  “Hey, Sally,” she said. “Hey, Laura.”

  Laura tossed her head and turned away. Now no one was actually looking at Becky, but it seemed as if the entire world were examining her. It seemed as if she’d said the wrong thing and had been somewhere else, not present, in the moments since she’d said it. There was no telling where she’d been or what she’d done there. She only knew that she’d broken the law, poisoned her brain, destroyed her mystique. She wanted to run away and be alone, but if she ran away the others would know she was having a less cool experience than they were, which would be even worse than staying. She needed to be cool, but there wasn’t a particle of coolness in her. She didn’t like being high. In fact, getting high was the most horrible thing she’d ever done to herself. She wished she could undo it, but she could feel that, if anything, she was getting higher. In her mind’s eye, her thoughts were laid out like snacks on a lazy Susan. They weren’t evaporating the way thoughts were supposed to. They just sat there, going round and round, available for second helpings. Why had she had to take a third puff on the doobie? Why even the first? Some evil thing in her, whose presence it now seemed she’d always sensed in herself but done her best to ignore, some vain and greedy and sexual thing rooted in a deeper self-loathing, had seized control of her and made the worst decisions.