by Moses Roth
I go to the free throw line and both teams line up on the key, watching me.
I bounce the ball.
Everyone in the gym is watching me.
I shoot.
I miss.
The coach grabs the ball and tosses it back to me.
I shoot.
I miss.
We win and Erwin and I sit back on the bleachers with Sydney as the girls get divided into teams.
Sydney says to Erwin, “Aren’t you gonna go home?”
Erwin points to a girl throwing the ball in from out of bounds, and says, “I want to say hi to my friend Faye. We haven’t spoken since last year.” She’s pretty good looking. Well, more than pretty good looking. He says to me, “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about last year. Do you remember? About, you know, existence.”
“I remember, what did you think of?”
“I don’t know, I guess I didn’t come up with much. But I guess I’ve always been looking for a reason I’m alive. Like why am I here and what am I supposed to be doing? But I don’t know if I agree with what you said, that God talks to us and tells us what to do.”
“Well, you shouldn’t believe it just because I said it, you should try to talk to him yourself.”
“You mean like pray?”
Sydney snorts. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I say, “What do you mean?”
“You can’t talk to God, that’s just you talking to yourself.”
I say, “Maybe you’re right.”
“And when you jack off, that’s not God giving you a handjob.”
Erwin and I laugh.
Erwin says, “Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t even know if I believe in God.”
The coach blows the whistle and the scrimmage ends.
I say, “Yeah, I mean, I get that.”
He’s not listening to me, he’s waving at Faye.
She approaches.
He says, “Hi!”
She says, “Hi,” and then to me, “I saw you playing out there, you did real good.”
“Not really,” I say a little high and I clear my throat.
“You too, Erwin,” she says, touching him on the leg.
“Thanks,” he says.
I say, “Maybe you can give your opinion on something for us.”
“Okay,” she says, looking at me again.
I say, “Sydney is of the opinion that God doesn’t talk to us, but I think he does. Erwin doesn’t know.”
She laughs. “Well, I don’t know.”
“Come on, what do you think?”
She’s uncomfortable. “Well, I guess, sometimes I think I can. I mean, I don’t… My mom once did a séance where she talked to her mom, my grandma, so I guess if you can talk to dead people, you can probably talk to God, I don’t know.”
I look at Sydney, breaking eye contact with her. “What do you think about that, Sydney?”
He mumbles, “You can’t talk to dead people either.”
She says, “But she totally knew like personal stuff, stuff the psychic couldn’t’ve known.”
Sydney shrugs. “Yeah.”
She says, “Erwin, I wanted to ask you something about my Russian homework, do you mind?”
He says, “Sure,” and gets up and follows her over to where her friends are and her backpack is. I stare at her butt. I shouldn’t.
Sydney says, “What I really want to know is how to talk to girls like that, not how to talk to God.”
I laugh and say, “What are you doing this weekend?”
He says, “I don’t know, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know.”
Erwin comes back and sits down.
I say, “My mom’s in Portland this weekend for a conference. Do you guys want to come over Saturday?”
Sydney says, “Sure.”
Erwin says, “Yeah maybe.”
I say, “You can invite your friends too. Those guys you hang out with. Or Faye.”
Erwin says, “Yeah. Cool.”
Chapter 14
Sydney opens the door and it’s Erwin and his friends Jim and Brad. Then Faye shows up with Tim and Gale.
We hang out in the living room, chatting. The guys and Gale talk about the new Star Trek movie. Faye looks bored.
I need some way to bring up my mission. Maybe someone will ask about my announcement. But I should be careful because if the dean finds out—
I say to Sydney, “Did you tell your dad what we’re doing today?”
He says, “I told him we were hanging out at your place, why?”
“Oh, no reason.”
“No, what?”
“It’s just… I could get in trouble.”
“For what?”
“Never mind, it’s stupid.”
“What’s stupid? I’m confused.”
The doorbell rings. Pizza’s here. I grab plates from the kitchen and Brad carries the pizza in and people gather around.
I get a slice and sit on the couch, taking a bite.
Faye sits down next to me on the couch with her slice and says, “What were you and Sydney talking about? You could get in trouble with the dean for having us over?”
“No it’s fine.”
“I don’t understand.”
I sigh, “Because the announcement I made last year, about being the messiah, he doesn’t want me talking about religion or anything.”
Erwin, putting a slice on a plate, says, “You’re not talking about religion.”
“I know. Anyway, it’s stupid, I don’t care if I get in trouble.”
Faye says, “Why not?”
“What’s he really going to do to me?”
“I don’t know, give you detention? Suspend you?”
“So what? I’ll be fine. Teachers and parents control us with the fear of things that can’t really hurt us.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Erwin comes to the couch and says, “Is there room for me?”
I scoot over to make a gap for him, but then Faye scoots all the way up against me, so he sits down next to her, with her in the middle of us.
Faye says, “Well, why did you say you were the messiah?”
I say, “Because… A lot of reasons, but you know this is the most important time in history.”
She says, “Yeah, I agree. The present is the most important.”
“Yeah, but this time in particular. It was prophesized in the Bible.”
Erwin says, “Now we’re talking about religion.”
I say, “Because the end of the world is almost here.”
Sydney, mouth full, says, “That’s bullshit. How long have they been predicting that? 2000 years?”
“2500.”
“Well, it should be here any day now, right?”
Everyone laughs including me, but I say, “Well, yeah. God created the world in six days. And the world is six thousand years old, according to the Bible, like if you do the calculations. And the Bible says, ‘a day to God is a thousand years.’ So just like the seventh day is to rest, we’re approaching the thousand-year peace. But first, at the end of the six thousand years, there will be a final war. And that war is now, soon. It was prophesized.”
Erwin says, “But isn’t the universe billions of years old, not thousands?”
I say, “Well yeah, but the Bible isn’t meant to be taken literally. That’s the mistake a lot of people make, really religious people and really non-religious people both. Civilization is only about six thousand years, so it’s really about the history of people, when we became people, not just animals wandering the Earth. And now it’s the end of history. So it’s not literal and it’s not scientific, but the lessons and the allegories and the prophecies are real, they’ve been shown real before and they’re our oldest traditions, passed down by our ancestors to help guide us. Told to us by God.”
Erwin says, “But why do you believe that?”
“Because if we can’t believe that, then what can we beli
eve in? It’s tradition and belief. That’s all there is. That’s all we have. Without that there’s nothing. Nothingness without end. Hell on Earth. ‘The blackness of darkness forever.’ You have to have faith. You have to have belief and hope. Don’t you hope there’s something more? Don’t you believe that?”
Erwin says, “Yeah, I guess. I mean I want to.”
Faye says, “I’m not religious.”
Erwin says, “Yeah, me either, really. I mean my family’s Jewish, but that’s like just Passover and Hanukah.”
Faye laughs, “Yeah for us it’s Christmas and Easter.”
I say, “Well, this isn’t really about religion. It’s about all life on this planet. In the universe. I mean religion didn’t used to be a separate thing, that’s a modern thing, it used to just be how people thought of life. Messiah didn’t used to be a religious term, it was a political one. It really just means the leader, the one who saves the world.”
Erwin says, “Save the world from what?”
“During the final war. To lead the good against the evil. It’s inevitable. I mean, we see the evil every day, horrible things happening from mass murders, right down to the the corruption in our school. I don’t care about being messiah, not for my own glory, I just want to stop the suffering.”
Faye says, “Stop it how?”
I say, “We can fight. We can do everything we can to fight. We spend everyday in a facility where they try to force us to embrace their system and become a part of it.”
Erwin says, “Yeah but is the system evil?”
I say, “I think so. Do you like it? I mean it’s run by the government, and they start pointless wars and imprison innocent people and kill people, and they use the school to train us to accept their system and become workers for it. That’s why we need to fight the authority in our school. Like the dean.”
Erwin says, “Yeah, but he’s not evil. Right, Sydney?”
Sydney says, “He’s kind of an asshole.”
Everyone laughs.
I say, “He serves evil. It doesn’t matter if he’s not evil. He’s following orders and that’s the same thing. That’s why I don’t care if he wants to punish me. Because we need to fight people like him. And then fight the evil all over the world.”
No one says anything. They’re all just looking at me.
I say, “A war is coming. A war with Satan. We need to fight him. Because if we don’t, no one will, and he’ll win.”
Erwin says, “But what are you planning to do? What can you even do?”
I say, “I don’t know what method we would use. If it would be through the media or through politics or even through armed resistance. All of them, maybe. But I do know this, I can’t fight the system by myself. The first thing is to gather people with me. Then the way ahead will become clear. But I can’t do it alone.”
They’re all looking at me, except for Sydney who is looking down at his lap.
I say, “Pizza’s getting cold,” and everyone laughs and starts eating again.
Chapter 15
Sydney and I are eating lunch in the cafeteria and Erwin comes out with his tray, followed by Jim and Brad. I nod at Erwin, and he sees me. He says something to Jim and Brad, but then Jim leads them over to another table on the other side of the room.
Sydney, following my gaze, sees and looks back at me and says, “What did you expect? You make one little speech at a party and then you have your very own cult?”
“I’m not trying to start a cult.”
“Sure. No one’s ever going to believe you’re the messiah. You know that, right?”
“If I have to do it alone, I will.”
“You said you couldn’t do it alone.”
I huff. “Well why don’t you believe in me, Sydney?”
“Cause you’re an idiot.”
“Seriously.”
“I am being serious.”
“Come on.”
Sydney shrugs. “I don’t even believe in God.”
“Why not?”
“My dad always wanted me to believe. He always tries to get me to fast for Ramadan and makes me go to the mosque with him on Eid. But it’s stupid. I’ve never seen God, God’s never done anything, why should I believe in him?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t.”
“I don’t know, I mean, maybe there is a God, maybe there isn’t. Maybe this is all like a chemical reaction or something or maybe somebody created it. But either way, I don’t believe in God, not like the way you believe in a person.”
I say, “What?”
“Okay, I believe you exist, well sort of, right? But that doesn’t mean I believe in you. The same for God. What’s he ever done for me? What’s he ever done for anybody?”
“He gave us life. He gave you life.”
“I don’t like being alive.”
“Come on, Sydney…”
“I don’t. That’s just the truth. It would have been better if I’d never been born. I told you why. And the world sucks, it’d probably be better if it never existed at all.”
“Do you believe in anybody or anything?”
“Why should I? What’s anybody ever done for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“And I certainly don’t believe in you. And if I don’t, then who will?”
“Can I sit here?” I look up and Erwin is standing there with his tray.
Chapter 16
The bell rings and all the students start to clear out. I pick up my notebook from my desk and put it against my pants to hide my erection as I stand up. I pull my backpack up from the ground and put it on the chair and stand against it as I slip my notebook and textbook into the bag.
It isn’t going away. I use the back of my wrist to push it up behind my waistband, and carry my backpack out of class in front of me.
Out in the hall, it’s finally shrinking, so I put my backpack over my shoulder.
2:05 on a Wednesday, I have a free period, she’s got math.
I go down to Math Lab 203, and sit, not directly across, but a few feet farther down.
I pull out my notebook, and I’m getting another erection, so I put the notebook over my lap and open it. Uckh, it aches, I wish they would just go away, I don’t know what I can do. They were never this bad or this often before.
The bell rings and kids file into the classroom, Iris among them. I watch her but I’ll shift my eyes to the book if she looks my way. She doesn’t, she goes inside.
I find my lecture notes and my History textbook and write my essay on Matthew Perry and the opening of Japan.
The bell rings and I watch the door.
“Manuel!” Erwin, walking down the hall. My nerves finally make it shrink, but I give it time, slowly packing my bag before standing up.
“Hey,” I say and then Iris comes out of class.
He says, “Hey,” to her.
And she says, “Hey,” back.
And then the three of us are standing in sort of a triangle and Iris and I lock eyes for the first time since—
“How are you, Manuel?” she says.
“Good, how are you?”
She half-shrugs, “Okay.”
I say, “You guys know each other?”
Erwin says, “You guys know each other?”
Iris says, “We do all go to the same school.”
I laugh, too shrilly.
She says, “See you guys,” and heads down the hall.
Erwin and I go in the other direction.
This is good. This is right. The messiah can’t have that. No marriage, no kids, no… well, no love, no sex. This is how it’s supposed to be.
Chapter 17
I lead Sydney and Erwin to our usual table and we sit down and start eating.
Erwin says, “I guess the question I keep coming back to is, why are we here? Not like what you’re always talking about, like what are we supposed to do, but how did we get here? Like I know scientists say the Big Bang, but why is the universe e
ven here for the Big Bang to happen? Like why is there something instead of nothing? But you’d just say God, right?”
I say, “Maybe, I don’t know? I guess I think the universe itself is all one thing. Like at its most basic level, all the particles are made of the same stuff. And it’s all one system. So that system, which is much more complex than a person, is it, in a way, intelligent, but like beyond intelligence, like beyond our comprehension? And we’re all part of it, everything is a part of it. And you can call that God or just the universe or whatever.”
“If that’s all God is, just like the universe, and not like, God, in like the traditional way, then why would God tell you you’re the messiah?”
“Maybe it’s like our body sends a white blood cell, or a whole bunch of them, to fight a disease. It’s not that you choose to do that, your body just does it. And the universe just sent me.”
Sydney says, “If there’s a God, how could there be so much misery in the world?”
I say, “Why does our body have pain? Systems are complex. The pain’s a part of it. God’s in everything we do and everything we are. The joy and the misery. And that’s why I’m here, to end the misery.”
“Good luck with that.”
I take a bite of my sandwich.
I look at the other kids at our table, on the other side. It’s a few of the same group of rotating loners it always is. There’s the fat kid wearing this bright red ski jacket that his mom probably picked because it was on sale or at Value Village or both. There’s the older kid, maybe a senior now, he’s reading a book, just like always. I can’t see the cover but it probably has a rocket or a dragon on it. And there’s Garrett, who I recognize from Geometry, chewing with his mouth open. None of them talk to each other.
I say, “I’m having some trouble with geometry, I don’t think Mrs. Kamprad is doing a very good job.” It’s awkward.
Sydney shrugs and says, “She’s a bitch.”
I say, “What do you think, Garrett?”
He looks up, startled, “What?”
“What do you think of Mrs. Kamprad?”
He says, “I don’t know, I guess she’s all right?”
I say, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Sydney’s glaring at me.
