The God Patent

by Ransom Stephens

  The horny fog that had shrouded his head disappeared. The smoke stood still under the dim colored lights. The thin woman leaned against the wall at the back of the stage staring down at two crumpled dollar bills. She kicked one of them. The next song started, ZZ Top’s “Legs,” and she stepped toward the center of the platform.

  Her hips swayed, and she rolled her shorts down her thighs, showing off the smooth skin between them, then back up. She turned around and looked back at Ryan. He took another drink. A lusty rush crept down his spine. She bent over slowly and peered at him from between her legs. She wiggled a finger at him to come closer. He took another drink, grabbed a few dollar bills, and did as he was beckoned. She pulled the crotch of her shorts aside, baring herself. Ryan held a dollar up. She pulled the crotch of her shorts farther from her skin. He slid the dollar between her thighs, and she leaned into his knuckles.

  “Do you want a table dance?”

  The horny fog rolled back in, and Ryan pressed his knuckles against her, saying something along the lines of “yuh-huh.”

  She pulled her shorts down, stepped out of them, and squatted on the stage. Her legs open, she leaned back and smiled at Ryan. She put her hands on the insides of her thighs and pulled the folds back, opening herself.

  Ryan plopped into his chair and tossed a few dollar bills onto the stage. He leaned forward and stared at her, his eyes level with her crotch. He winked and said, “When you do that, I can see your gizzard.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “You what?”

  “Yeah, when you open yourself up like that I can see all the way up to your gizzard.”

  She fell back on the platform laughing, curled her legs together, and then sat up on her knees. “Want to play with me, crazy man?”

  He threw another couple of dollars on the stage. “I want to see your gizzard again.”

  When the song finished, Tammi collected her tips in a little purse and stepped down from the platform, taking care not to topple off of her huge shoes.

  “Come with me.” She motioned toward the shadowy alcove and he followed. She carried the bottle, her bony hips swaying back and forth. She took another drink and indicated for Ryan to sit on a couch.

  The music started, and Tammi danced in front of him. Her breasts were too small to sway, but her long sharp nipples traced circles, mesmerizing Ryan. She moved forward, onto his lap, rubbing herself against his groin, practically fucking him through his pants, and holding his face against her breasts. After three songs, she disappeared in the back of the building.

  Ryan stayed in the corner drinking his vodka and smoking cigarettes, his mood cycling from fascinated and horny to self-pity to disgust and back, over and over, ever more fuzzy. He tried to focus on the woman now dancing against the pole on stage. It was her, the woman who had ruined his life. She was beautiful. Her breasts jiggled perfectly, and her nipples slowly grew erect.

  He found himself leaning against the stage, holding the bottle. She took a dollar from his hand and pulled her g-string off. The hair between her legs was cut short in a perfect V. She put the index fingers of each hand along the line formed by her leg and pelvis, pushing them together, squeezing and separating her lips.

  Then she danced away.

  Ryan’s mood cycled back to self-pity and he objected. He objected to everything. He objected to this woman ruining his life, he objected even more vocally to this woman ruining his life but without ever fucking him. The woman glared at him, and he wasn’t sure if he had actually said anything out loud.

  He went back to the dark alcove and stayed there. The thin woman, Tammi, sat with him between her dances. He didn’t notice the other men leave until the jukebox went silent and didn’t come back on. He reached for his bottle, but it wasn’t there, so he lit a joint and took a big hit. The woman behind the bar yelled, “No dope smoking!” Tammi took the joint from him and sucked the rest down.

  Ryan didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t want to stay any longer either. “I lost my job today, my wife threw me out seven months ago, and I barely know my kid anymore. I don’t know what I’m gonna do tomorrow and—where’s my fucking vodka?”

  Tammi pulled him up and guided him to the stage. She held up the vodka bottle, swirled it around, and said, “I’m gonna finish it.” She tipped the bottle back for the last drops. She let the liquid fall from her mouth, and the bottle bounced on the wooden stage. She started to giggle, then slid down until she landed on her ass. “Come ’ere an’ give me some money.”

  He stood, steadied himself, and took the rest of his money out of his pocket—only six bucks left. He swayed over, grabbed the edge of the stage for support, and half sat, half fell. “You watch what I’m gonna do for that dollar. Just watch.” Reaching for the empty bottle, she lost her balance and then struggled to sit up. She started rubbing against the bottle. “Ooooo, it really burns.”

  She pulled the bottle into herself.

  Ryan’s mood shifted well into fascinated and horny, but then the music stopped again, and the turmoil came back. This was it. The high point of his life was watching a bony drunk woman impaling herself on an empty vodka bottle while begging for money. He gave her his last dollar, and when he told her that he didn’t have any more, she started to cry. Then she tried to slap him but lost her balance.

  “You. Have to. Drive me. Home.” Lying there, the bottle slipped out of her and fell off the stage. She took off her shoes, stood up, and staggered into the bathroom. Ryan stood slowly and looked around. He caught his breath and walked across the room, then back. His balance wasn’t too bad. He turned for the door, and as he opened it, Tammi stepped out ahead of him.

  “You have to drive me home.” She struggled to keep from slurring her words as much as he struggled to keep from staggering his steps.

  “Sorry, I really have to go.”

  “You don’t have anything to do tomorrow. Come on, I’ll get you off.”

  It was dark out, cool and moist. He looked up. The sky was empty. Through the haze, he realized that no matter where he went, he’d still have to face himself.

  “Dammit. I need a ride. Right now.” As if changing script in midscene, she put on a warm smile and wrapped her arms around him. “Come on, honey, I’ll take care of you.”

  He looked down at her. She leaned against him, smiling. He hugged her close and said, “Will you?”

  She said, “I’m cold; hold me close.”

  “Let me get the heat going.” He hit the remote on his key ring, and the BMW made clicking sounds.

  “Is that your car?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are we gonna have us some fun!”

  Ryan opened and held the passenger door. She slipped onto the leather seat.

  He got in and started the car. The heat was cranked up, but Tammi was still shivering. Ryan offered her his coat. She said, “It’s not that kind of cold. Just get me where we’re going.”

  It took twenty minutes to drive to White Settlement. She directed him to the parking lot of a townhouse-style apartment complex and then hopped out of the car. She was back in fifteen minutes, no longer shaking.

  “Figures, I meet a guy with a BMW and he’s just been laid off.”

  Ryan sighed and drove out of the apartment complex.

  Tammi lived in South Fort Worth in an apartment complex that had once been a cheap motel. As he parked, she told him that he shouldn’t expect to have wheels on his car in the morning, and Ryan felt a great big sense of, “I don’t care.”

  When they got inside, Tammi pulled a vial of white powder from her purse and said, “You want to snort it, shoot it, or smoke it?”

  “What’s best?”

  She pulled a mirror out from under the couch and sat down. A few minutes later, she was holding a match under a glass pipe, and Ryan was inhaling.

  Ryan felt a deep euphoric glow fill his body. It felt like there was finally a place for him in the universe. Tammi curled around him like a snake, and he caressed her. She was soft. The w
hole world was soft. The shadows along the drab white walls, the big paper light-shade hanging over the simple round table across from the couch, the grain of the wood of the coffee table, and the feel of the couch’s brown velour combined in comfortable harmony. Ryan could feel the universe humming along.

  The two lines that ran up his forehead relaxed.

  As he finished the story, Ryan paced back and forth from the table to the barbecue. “I moved in with her a couple of months later.” He stopped at the table. It had gotten dark, so he couldn’t see their reactions.

  They were quiet for a few seconds, and then Rachel said, “Why did you move in with her?” She said her as though she’d swallowed a bug.

  “I don’t really know.” Ryan sat down. “I had nowhere else to go, I guess. She took care of me.” He grimaced. “It sounds so gross, but you know, when you have nowhere to go, no work, no family, and everything you ever thought about yourself has disappeared, well…”

  Ryan leaned back in his chair, unconsciously copying Foster’s pose. If there had been some light or if he’d leaned forward and looked at his hosts, he might have seen how Rachel, who had been holding his hand when he started the story, had recoiled. He might have seen Foster’s scowl. Instead, he sighed. “Yeah, you were right. As horrible as it is to relive that night, I guess it’s good to have it off my chest. Secrets, you know, even horrible ones.” He laughed and added, “Maybe I should go to confession.”

  The fountain sprinkled in the dark, and Rachel gathered dishes together and walked into the kitchen. Ryan didn’t notice that she walked the long way around the table, away from him.

  Foster did notice. He said, “Let’s go around to my study door.”

  “We don’t usually drink alcohol,” Foster said, as if to make the point that Ryan had helped break some sort of vow. Then he poured two large glasses of brandy. “That was quite a story.”

  The room was lit by a brass lamp on a small table separating the two leather chairs.

  Foster added, “I wonder how your experience fits into His plan.” He swirled his glass, took a deep breath, and coughed. “You know it’s not that alcohol is a sin, it’s that ‘deliver me from temptation’ means you don’t walk right into it. We’re safe here.”

  Ryan took a long sip and swallowed slowly. The warmth flowed down his neck and stretched out to his fingers. “You’ve really got it made, Foster. Fuckin’ A. This house, that car, the job you always wanted…”

  “I am blessed. I was guided here to walk in the Lord’s footprints and understand. Since then, so many capital-T truths have been unveiled to me.”

  “The chancellor told me I’d be better off reading the Bible than working on the PRD.”

  “Remember when we were writing the patents? Remember how frustrating it was that Genesis was so short on details?”

  “Yeah, it’s because the Bible was inspired by God but written by men.”

  “No, no, no. The Bible is exactly the Word of God, but it is short on details.”

  “Foster, doesn’t the Bible say that pi is exactly three?”

  He chuckled, “Yes, ‘it was round all about, ten cubits from one edge to the other and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about’—missed by five percent.”

  “Then the Bible isn’t exact. It’s an approximation. What’s wrong with that?”

  Foster flashed a glare in response, as though something had fallen into place, a big clunking doubt. The look went away as fast as it appeared. “You need to trust the Lord, Ryan. If He had provided the mathematical details, it wouldn’t have meant anything to people thousands of years ago. But now…” Foster leaned forward. “I think that a new book of the Bible is coming. I think that it will have the details that we can now understand. What if God had spoken through Einstein or Feynman? What if God told a mathematical story of Genesis to someone who could understand?”

  “Who, you?”

  “I don’t know. I can only tell you that every seeming coincidence in my life has led me here. I’ve sat with humility before the great math and science texts…”

  Ryan almost choked on his brandy. Foster was a good guy and everything, but he’d never done anything with humility. “Did He talk to you?”

  “I think He was speaking to us when we wrote those patents, and I think that we’ll find out for certain soon.”

  “The chancellor kind of bothered me. He seemed to care more about how the project appears than if it will work.” Of everything he’d learned today, this kept coming back to him, Schonders tapping that gold cross on his desk and talking about the Rapture—it seemed crazy. Ryan tried to grab that feeling of certainty he’d had in Foster’s lab. “You have millions of dollars of equipment. Is there venture capital funding?”

  “The chancellor is a good man. He’s a warrior who’s been fighting a long time.”

  “Right, but who paid for all your equipment, and who’s going to pay my salary?” Ryan realized that he had just assumed the position. It felt good. He put the chancellor out of his mind, and the whole situation started to feel as warm as the brandy in his belly.

  “Ryan, you need to have faith.”

  Ryan clenched his teeth, giving Foster his get-to-the-point look.

  Foster sat up straight and said, “Rachel’s father, my father-in-law, Blair Keene, donated seed money to a lot of projects at EWU, including ours. He and Chancellor Schonders have just signed a deal with a Fortune 100 corporation.” He nodded toward Ryan. “You don’t need to know who it is yet. The main thing is that you not forget who we’re working for.”

  “Well, that’s exactly my question. Who are Creation Energy’s investors?”

  “All right, Ryan, listen. I’ve been hoping you’d see this for yourself, but I can’t wait any longer. Make no mistake about it: we’re working for God.”

  They were quiet. Ryan poured another shot in each of their glasses. “Hey, Foster, I’m a little uncomfortable with how you keep falling back on God whenever it’s convenient.”

  Foster sat up straight and wagged his head as though he couldn’t believe what Ryan had said. “Ryan, listen to me, listen very carefully.” He pointed an unsteady finger at Ryan and held it a few inches from his face. “The Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets the scale for how close we can get to the universe; free will sets the scale for how close we can get to God.” He continued to point that finger and spoke a few decibels louder. “There is no room for questioning who defined those scales—and certainly not by someone like you…”

  Ryan started to react, but one thought worked its way through the alcoholic haze: he needed this job. The only alternatives were to sue Creation Energy, Foster, and EWU, or continue on the road to nowhere.

  Foster was staring at him. His face was red, and he looked mean. Ryan had seen him like this before, of course, back in the day, but this time Ryan needed him.

  Ryan licked his lips, smiled that smile of his, and held out his arms, palms facing up. “It’s okay, Foster. I’m with you, and I appreciate your honesty. You can trust me to follow your lead. I was just airing out my doubts.”

  Foster’s condescending tone turned smug. “Of course, Ryan. I understand. Just keep fighting your doubts and embracing your faith.” He leaned back. “You know what? I envy you. You’re on the path to salvation.”

  “You’re fuckin’ drunk is what you are.”

  “No, Ryan, I’m right. Well, yes, I’m drunk, but I’m right too.” Foster reached a wavering hand to his glass and discovered it was empty. He took the bottle and splashed equal amounts of brandy in his glass and on the table. “Good thing the carpet matches the brandy.” Giggling, he took a long drink that ended with a choked cough. “It must have gotten pretty bad. Linda told Rachel that you haven’t been allowed near Sean in years—what happened?”

  Ryan stared into his brandy. “Oh, Jesus, do I have to tell another story about something I’ve been trying to forget for three and a half years?”

  “Hey! Told you not to curse.”

&n
bsp; “Huh? Oh shit, I’m sorry.”

  Foster giggled again. “That’s better.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes. Then Foster said, “Yes, tell the story. You were such a fine father; what could you have done?”

  Ryan sighed. Then he sucked down the rest of his brandy and refilled. “I don’t know exactly what happened.” But as he said those words, it became clear. It was his nightmare, not his memory, but he knew what had happened. Night after night he’d woken from that nightmare with nothing but smoky images of what Tammi might have done, and now, from a combination of what Sean had told the judge and what he knew of Tammi, his subconscious had finally worked it out. In that instant, it emerged from the haze of brandy in his head.

  He spoke without thinking, listening to the words as he said them, half storyteller, half rapt listener.

  “Three years ago—New Year’s Eve, in fact—Tammi was at work, flashing her pussy for dollar bills. Anyway, Linda dropped Sean off at the apartment, and the two of us watched Disney videos, ate pizza, and played Junior Monopoly. We fell asleep on the couch around midnight. Tammi got home a couple of hours later, and that’s when the nightmare starts.”

  The first thing Tammi saw when she walked in the door was Ryan flopped on the couch with Sean. She reached under the couch for the mirror and her stash, but, of course, with the brat there, Ryan had hidden it. She shook him awake. “Where’s my stash?”

  Ryan stretched and reached his arms around her and said, “Happy New Year, beautiful.”

  She smiled in spite of herself but pulled away. “Let’s get a little New Year’s buzz.”

  Ryan rested his arm across Sean. “Naw, I gotta be Dad in the morning. It’s in the closet on top of your shoes.”

  In the bedroom, Tammi set the mirror on a nightstand, tapped some meth from a vial into a glass pipe, and held a pink lighter under the pipe until the meth liquefied and started to boil. She pulled it into her lungs and leaned back on the bed. The world took on that soft glow again. All better. She kicked off her shoes, took off her clothes, and climbed into a T-shirt that hung down to her thighs. She rubbed the shirt against herself, savoring its soft warmth.