Strange Animals

by Chad Kultgen

  Karen’s mother continued on without pausing to register Karen’s comments. She said, “You said, ‘I’d never marry anyone who would kneel for anything.’ Then you took that ring from him, put it in your mouth, and crunched off all of the candy in a few quick seconds while he sat there with his mouth hanging open. You handed him back the plastic part of the ring, with no candy left on it, and he started crying. I was watching from the doorway and I laughed pretty hard at the time, I’ll admit it. But I knew we were in trouble from that day forward.”

  Karen laughed and said, “I think I’d still do the same thing today.”

  Karen’s father said, “I think we all know that your mother and I are never going to fully get why you want to do this, but we’re here for you and we just want you to be safe and careful.”

  Karen said, “I will be.”

  They ate dinner without any further discussion of Karen’s website or how it was affecting her life. They talked instead about what Robert was doing at work and what Lynn was planning for some new additions to their home. When they finished eating, they watched television together for a few hours until Lynn and Robert went to bed and Karen was left alone.

  Before she unpacked her things, she went outside into her parents’ backyard. They lived far enough out of the city that the sky was darker, and the stars were brighter than she was used to at her apartment. She remembered as a child spending hours in that backyard, lying in the grass looking out into space and wondering what might be out there. Her favorite thing to imagine was some other creature on some other planet lying down in some alien version of a backyard, looking out into their equivalent of the night sky and wondering if anyone was looking back. And then she’d imagine a million more planets with a million more creatures doing the exact same thing. Even as a child, Karen understood that the universe was vast and rich, and she lamented how she would very likely never get to see all the mystery and beauty that it held. She would very likely never even get to see all of the mystery and beauty held even on her tiny speck of dust called Earth.

  After a few minutes of contemplating the endless possibilities of the universe, and forgetting why she was staying with her parents, Karen went back inside to settle into her bedroom.

  It was strange being back in the room where she grew up. It hadn’t really been changed since the day she left for college. The room had been dusted and vacuumed over the years, but her parents had never turned the room into anything else. They’d never felt the need to use the space for anything other than the memories it held.

  Karen looked at pictures of herself from high school and tried to remember the events they captured. She hadn’t thought about the boy she went to prom with for a very long time. In high school she was the president of the feminism club, which had only two other members. She regularly openly debated boys about the irrelevance of sports and sports culture. She tried to convince any girl she saw wearing a boy’s letterman jacket that it was a symbol of his ownership over her. She made better grades than everyone else in her class, and took pride in it. And she could regularly be found in the cafeteria during her lunch period talking with female teachers about the inequality of pay between themselves and their male counterparts. Karen was certain that no boy would ask her to prom, and she was fine with that. Not only would she view it as a personal victory if no boys had the courage to ask her, not a single boy stood out in her mind as a worthy candidate anyway. So when this boy in the photo, whose name she could no longer remember, asked her to prom, she was shocked enough that she accepted. The boy, who sat next to her in calculus, was smart, and seemed well-intentioned enough, and prom was a rite of passage that Karen felt she should experience, if only to make her more informed in denouncing it.

  She had viewed the idea of prom as purely platonic, but her date had other ideas. As the night wore on at their table, where they remained the entire night because Karen refused to dance, he told her that he’d had a crush on her for the entire year and he’d just been too afraid to talk to her because she was so intense. She remembered laughing at him, and she had always felt bad about that. He asked her if she wanted to go to an after-party a friend of his was throwing because his parents were out of town. She agreed, resigned to carry out this experience to its conclusion, to fully engage in prom.

  Once at the party, she quickly became aware that it wasn’t really a party. Four other couples were there at the house, along with three six-packs of beer. Shortly after Karen and her date arrived, most of the couples went off to find their own secluded spot in the house, and he suggested they do the same. Karen told him that she had no interest in having sex with him that night, and he argued that they should. He wasn’t forceful about it, instead trying to appeal to her logical sensibilities to get what he wanted. She thought it was amusing then, and still did, but she also realized how lucky she was, that it could have been much worse.

  He told her that if she actually was interested intellectually in the full experience of prom, as she’d said a dozen times that night, then logically she should also want to engage in the most common culmination of such a night. He further argued that, even if it was bad, it would only strengthen whatever final negative judgment she would pass on the tradition as a whole. And if it was good, that that would give her at least one element of the night that she actually enjoyed, and that would be a victory in itself.

  It was a sound argument, but Karen refused him bluntly, and the two of them shared a beer while they listened to another couple have sex very loudly in the next room before she asked her date to take her home. At the time the experience was absurd to Karen, but now in retrospect it was very sweet in its simplicity. She knew she’d never again in her life have an experience that simple.

  She went to a dresser and started putting some of her clothes away, trying to ignore the pain in her lower back. She noticed one of her favorite pictures of her mother in a tiny frame on top of the dresser. It was taken the day before Karen was born. Her mother, Lynn, was smiling, standing in their backyard with the sun shining behind her and her hands on her belly. She wondered if her mother and father had ever thought about aborting her, or if they’d known from the beginning that they wanted to have a child. They never had a second, and she always assumed she was an accident they couldn’t bring themselves to correct, and Karen always felt some guilt about that, even though she knew it was irrational.

  She moved the picture from the dresser to her nightstand and looked at it as she lay in bed, resting on her side in an effort to ease the cramps she was starting to feel in her legs. Her mother had always described it as a picture of the last day the world was “Karenless.” She knew that eventually the world would be without her again, but before she left it, she was determined to change it.

  chapter

  twenty-two

  James had been driving for much longer than he ever had before in a single trip. It was starting to take its toll on him physically. His shoulders and legs were sore, his eyes were getting heavy, and the landscape was less and less stimulating as he moved through the Oklahoma Panhandle and into the Texas Panhandle along Highway 54. Everything was flat, and there were few buildings in the small towns he passed through. James thought that this was God’s way of preparing him for whatever he would need to do once he got to California, of removing any distractions so that he could mentally strengthen himself. James knew that once he arrived in California he would have to remain vigilant against Satan’s efforts to distract him from whatever the subsequent steps of God’s plan would be. Worse yet, he knew that Satan might try to trick him into believing in a false goal. God hadn’t yet revealed his entire plan, and James suspected that Satan might see this as an opportunity to make him fail. After all, James was carrying out God’s will, which would necessarily be counter to Satan’s own plans for humanity. He would encounter distractions of all kinds. There would be confusion. There would be temptation. And once he got to his ultimate goal in Los Angeles, once he was close enough to be a serious threa
t to Satan’s own plans, there would likely be hopelessness and despair. James knew he would have to overcome all of this in order to succeed for God. He thanked God for giving him this time in the beginning of his journey to focus, to clear his mind and purify his spirit.

  James felt his stomach churn and realized he hadn’t eaten since he got in his car and started driving. The pain in his stomach reminded him of what he’d felt at the end of the first day of his fast. He remembered the pain fondly, but he was glad he wouldn’t have to continue feeling it for two more days. He had brought no food with him on his trip, because he knew that God would provide for him. James began thinking about finding a grocery store, but then he saw what he took to be a sign from God. It was a Dairy Queen sign just off the highway in Dalhart, Texas.

  No other fast-food restaurant would have had the same personal meaning to James as the Dairy Queen, and he knew that God knew this. When James was young, his first foster family had been devoutly Christian. His foster father was strict and physically abusive, though he always justified the abuse with the Bible. James couldn’t understand this rationale as a child, but as an adult he reflected on the times his first foster father would whip him and his foster brothers and sisters with a car antenna, and understood that pain can sometimes be a better teacher, a better expression of love, than anything else. But as a child he had found this impossible to understand.

  While he was with that foster family, Dairy Queen was his favorite place. James had a Sunday School teacher who was kind to him, and she would take all the children from her Sunday School class to Dairy Queen every Sunday. She’d buy them ice cream and encourage them to get to know one another, and it seemed that she chose to express her love and obedience to God through compassion and understanding. It was a brief reprieve from his foster father, and the caring his Sunday School teacher showed him was unique in his life at the time. As a result, Dairy Queen was the place he most closely associated with happiness as a child. It was the place where he felt closest to God.

  His foster father’s temper was not confined to his wards, however, and eventually the man beat his wife so badly that he was sentenced to some time in jail and their foster children were all removed and dispersed to other foster homes. He wasn’t very close with any of his foster siblings, but he sometimes wondered where they ended up and if they felt the same way about Dairy Queen as he did.

  As he walked through the front doors, the familiar smell of the soft-serve machine and the grease from the fryers transported him right back to those Sundays. He ordered the same thing he always ordered as a child: a double cheeseburger, fries, and a Heath Blizzard. Every bite was justification that what he was doing was what God wanted, and it filled him with excitement at what God might have in store for him on the rest of his journey.

  He looked around and noticed that he was the only person in the place besides the staff, which included a young cook who was very likely a local high school student and the older lady who had taken his order. It was late, and glancing at the store’s hours posted on the door, James saw that they were about to close. He looked at the older lady who was wiping down a table near him and apologized for keeping them in the store later than they had to be.

  The older woman said, “Nonsense, young man. You eat your dinner and stay here as long as you like. We have to clean up anyway, and I don’t mind having some extra company.”

  God was innately good, and individual happiness was his greatest gift to any person. Science and the study of space and planets were fine, but those things weren’t for most people. Most people couldn’t have a true understanding of science, so those endeavors were best left to those who could grasp them. Being kind to one another and making life pleasant were what most people should focus on. Sex and love were for the young. After a certain age, after having enough experiences, life eventually became about finding something to pass your time while you remembered the things that made you truly happy. Having children was essential, because it was easier to remember your own youth if you surround yourself with young people. These were things that the old woman understood to be true.

  James thanked her and wondered if she was an angel. He knew it was certainly possible that God would send angels to help him along in his journey. If she wasn’t an angel, he hoped he would encounter one or two on his journey, and he looked forward to recognizing them.

  After finishing his meal, he said goodbye to the older woman and told her that he appreciated everything she had done for him, to which she responded, “I just gave you dinner, son. You needed it and I gave it to you. Anyone else would have done the same.” James took this overtly humble response to be further evidence of her possible divine origin. As he walked out into the parking lot and started wondering where he would sleep, he gave a brief thought to going back inside and asking the angel if she knew of anyplace to stay for the night, but he thought better of it. He didn’t want to insult God’s generosity by asking for more. God would provide him what he needed as he needed it. So he got in his car and got back on the freeway, looking for a divine sign. No more than a minute farther down the road, he saw a sign for the Corral RV park and pulled off at the next exit.

  Once he got to the RV park, certain that this was where God intended him to spend his first night on the road, James found that they were closed. There was a small building in front of the park labeled “Office,” but it was dark and the door was locked. James was silently asking God if he had misinterpreted anything, if he was meant to have gone somewhere else, when a man emerged from a nearby RV and lit a cigarette. James asked him if he knew where the supervisor was, or if there was some way to contact him.

  The man said, “I think they’re closed for the night. I doubt you can make a reservation or anything for tonight, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  If there was a God, then humanity was better off without him. Any creature that had absolute power over everything on planet Earth clearly only wanted to cause us all pain and misery in some of the most sadistic ways possible. The universe was vast and mysterious and beautiful, but no human being would ever get to experience it. The knowledge of such things was only the taunting insult of a paradise we could never experience. Instead most people would spend their lives performing a job they didn’t care about and wondering if anything in their life would ever have real meaning for them. Ultimately they would conclude that there was no meaning. Sex was the only thing worth living for, but the trappings of a regular relationship were too high a price to pay for it. Taking small vacations with a prostitute in an RV was the only thing that could keep a man sane. Children were not only disgusting and inconsiderate, but they were also evidence of the futility of life, of the disposable nature of everything, the inherent obsolescence in each and every person’s excuse for a life. These were things that the smoking man understood to be true.

  James told the man that he was trying to find a place to stay for the night. He explained that he’d been on the road for a long time, and he had no problem sleeping in his car, but he wanted to find a safe place, not just the side of the highway. The smoking man said, “Well, you can see my RV here. It’s an Airstream Incognito, on the smaller side, but I accidentally booked a full-size spot here for tonight. Your car could probably fit right behind me if you wanted to pull in for the night.”

  The stranger’s generosity surprised James, but it solidified his understanding of just how invested God was in him and his journey. Clearly God had sent two angels from heaven to help him on his first night of the journey. James kindly accepted the offer and pulled his car behind the RV as the stranger finished his cigarette.

  James asked the stranger how long he’d been on the road and what his final destination was. He hoped the answer would reveal some hint from God about what the next day of his own journey would hold. The stranger said, “Today’s the first day of a little road trip I’ve been planning for a month or so. I try to get out in the RV at least three or four times a year. Clear my head. And I don�
��t really have a final destination. Back home I guess. I just drive around for a few days, see the sights, meet some people like yourself along the way, and then head back home.”

  James understood the stranger’s home to be heaven. He didn’t want to pry too much further, as he felt that God would have instructed the angel to be secretive where details were concerned. He knew that God wouldn’t want to give him every piece of information he needed, but rather to allow James to learn some things for himself. He silently thanked God for sending him two angels in a single night, and then he thanked the stranger again.

  The stranger said, “You’re more than welcome. It’s really no trouble. We might be out of here tomorrow pretty early, so if I don’t see you in the morning, good luck on your own trip, wherever it takes you.”

  The stranger threw his cigarette butt on the ground, stomped it out, and headed back into his RV. James couldn’t help smiling about the small bit of information that the angel had let slip. He referred to himself as “we.” For James there was only one way to interpret that. Not only was this stranger an angel, but God was present as well. God wasn’t just up in heaven looking down on James. God was also there with him.

  James got into his car, reclined the seat, and breathed deeply. He rolled down his window and let the night air into his car. He could feel God in the way the air felt heavier than normal for that time of year. He could smell God in the faint lingering smoke from the angel’s cigarette. He could hear God in the cars passing by on the highway. He could sense that all this was part of God’s plan, in a way that he never could before.

  He opened his sunroof and looked up at the stars. The night sky had always fascinated James. It seemed so vast and so endless. He didn’t understand how anyone could look up at the heavens and not know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a great and awesome God had made it all. He didn’t dwell on how every star was just a ball of hydrogen floating in space like our sun. He didn’t wonder what other planets might be locked in their own orbits around those stars. He never thought about what forces might be at work holding it all together. He only took in the immensity of it, and imagined the greatness of the God who created it all.