Suddenly there were words in his mind; and he spoke them almost before he thought of them. "The Lord knows your heart, Stephen, and he trusts you. He brought you into this world to perform works of love, and I promise you that if you listen to the Holy Ghost and make your choices as the Spirit of God directs you, then you will bring joy and peace into the lives of everyone who loves you, both your family and your friends."
As quickly as the rush of words had come, it was gone. "Amen."
The men in the circle immediately turned their attention to Stevie, shaking his hand. Solemnly Stevie shook hands with each man, but without looking them in the eye. And as Stevie headed back to his seat, Spike Cowper glanced at Step a bit quizzically, as if to ask, What was going on there during the confirmation? The bishop put his hand on Step's shoulder and squeezed. Meaning what? thought Step. Encouragement? Consolation? Sorry you couldn't give your own son a real blessing at the time of confirmation.
Yet it had been a real blessing, Step was sure of it, or at least he was pretty sure that he was sure. It had happened a couple of times before, on his mission in Brazil, the words just flowing into his mind like that. It meant something.
On the way out to the car, after the closing song and the prayer, DeAnne hung back from the kids and asked Step about it. "Was that really all? I mean, you didn't even mention him getting married in the temple or anything."
"This was his confirmation, not a patriarchal blessing," said Step.
"Yes, but Step..."
"I said what I was given to say," he answered, a bit uncertainly. That's the problem with spiritual things, thought Step. You knew what was going on, and yet you also didn't know. Because if you really knew, then it wouldn't take faith anymore, would it? And yet you had to live in perfect trust, as if you did know for sure when God had spoken in your heart. Only later, looking back, could you see with any kind of certainty whether there seemed to be meaning in what had happened, whether there was some purpose or plan in things.
On the drive home, it happened that there was one long silence that for some reason made Step uncomfortable, and he filled it with the first thing that came to mind. "Well, Door Man, feel any different now?"
As soon as he said it, Step regretted it. It was exactly the sort of stupid question adults were always asking children. Now Stevie would think, Am I supposed to feel different? Uh-oh, I don't feel different, except maybe still a little damp, and so now what do I say? If I don't say I feel different, Dad will think that he failed. Or that 1 failed. But if I do say I feel different, then that will be a lie. My first lie after baptism. All my sins washed away, and now this is my first sin and so the baptism was only good for about half an hour. At least, that was what had gone through Step's mind when he was eight years old and his father baptized him.
From the back seat, Stevie answered quietly, "Yes, Dad."
He had opted for the white lie.
"Son," he said, "actually most people don't feel all that different, really. It's OK if you don't."
"I do, though," said Stevie. He didn't sound insistent. Just reporting a fact.
"Oh really?" asked Step. "What does it feel like?"
Stevie seemed to think about this for a moment. "Like the Holy Ghost is in me."
For a moment it seemed like the perfect response. For a moment Step thought, Of course Stevie feels the gift of the Holy Ghost, though I never did as a child, because he has always been sensitive to spiritual things, and I never was.
Step thought then of how much Stevie sounded like Lee Weeks just before Sunday school today. God is in me. God is speaking inside me. Whatever it was that Lee had said. Stevie might be spiritually sensitive, or he might be deluded.
Step realized that he was seeing him through the psychiatrist's eyes. How easy would it be for a psychiatrist to distinguish between Stevie's simple language of faith and Lee Weeks's weird certainty that God had chosen him? Probably it wasn't a problem- Lee might be strange, but he wasn't certifiable or anything. And of all people Dr. Weeks would certainly take Stevie's pure faith in the religion of his parents in stride.
Certainly DeAnne was taking Stevie's answer without any kind of skepticism. She reached over and cupped her hand over Step's right hand where it rested on the gear shift. Our son is so pure in heart, she seemed to be saying, that he can sense the Spirit of God when it enters him.
"What did you think when your father was confirming you?" asked DeAnne.
"I don't know," said Stevie.
"I mean, what did you think of the blessing he gave you?"
"Fine," said Stevie.
"Let's not quiz him," said Step to DeAnne. But what he was really thinking was, Do you have to remind him of how inadequate my blessing was?
"Sorry," said DeAnne, her feelings hurt a little.
"Nothing to be sorry about," he said.
Stevie spoke up from the back seat. "Dad?"
"Yes, Door Man?"
"You said that I'd bring joy and peace to my friends."
"And family," said Step.
"Well I don't know how," said Stevie.
"But that's what the gift of the Holy Ghost is for," said Step. "To show you how."
"But what if the Holy Ghost doesn't tell me?"
"Then maybe it isn't time for you to do anything about it yet. Or maybe you just haven't learned how to hear what the Spirit of God is saying. Or maybe you aren't supposed to do anything yet."
"Oh," said Stevie. A moment passed. Stevie said, "I'd really like to."
"Like to what?" asked DeAnne.
"Make them happy."
"Make who happy?" asked DeAnne.
You know who he means! Step wanted to shout.
"Jack and Scotty and David," said Stevie. The imaginary friends. Only now there were three.
"Stevie," said DeAnne. "Who is David?"
"Just another kid we play with," said Stevie. "Me and Scotty and Jack."
Stevie might have been confirmed, and the Lord may or may not have given Step words to speak in his confirmation, but the fact remained that Stevie was still living in a world where invisible friends came to play with him. And today he had added another. Or was it today?
DeAnne asked, "Did David just ... move in or something? I don't remember you talking about him before."
Move in, yes, that's a good one, thought Step. Let's pretend that these friends actually live in the neighborhood and have families and new ones just "move in" from time to time.
"He's been around for a while," said Stevie. "I think he was born in Steuben cause he talks southern and I can't understand him all that well yet. I mean I can, but I have to listen slower."
All right, DeAnne, thought Step. You were right. He needs to see a psychiatrist or somebody, anyway. I've never heard him talk about his imaginary friends this way. As if they had real lives. He must be spinning out their biographies faster than Step was coming up with code for Hacker Snack on the 64. You knew this, DeAnne. You've heard this sort of thing before. No wonder you were so upset. No wonder you insisted. This is too much for us alone.
When they pulled into the driveway Bappy's pickup truck was out front. "On Sunday?" asked Step.
As if he had heard the question, Bappy came around from the back yard. "Y'all at church?" he asked. "I come by at about four thinking you was bound to be back from church but nobody was here."
"We had a special meeting," said Deanne. "Stevie got baptized today."
"Well that's something," said Bappy "That's really something. So y'all don't baptize babies either, eh?"
"Are you Baptist?" asked Step.
"Well, my daddy was a Pentecostal minister, and he was a real dunker, he put 'em all the way under and held 'em down till the sins were all drownded and so were the ones who found Jesus, I'll tell you. Why, some of
'em came up with a mouthful of mud, he pushed 'em down so far!" DeAnne and Step joined in Bappy's laughter, but Step was thinking, I don't like making light of baptism, not today, not in front of the kids.
/> "Well," said Step, "anyway I'm sorry we weren't here. Have you waited long?"
"Oh, I didn't wait at all," said Bappy. "I figured, I know I oughta ask 'em first, but here I am and there's the tent flies in the back yard and I gotta do something about 'em, and it's not like I'm gonna make a mess that I don't clean right up."
"Is that what those cobwebby things on the trees are?" asked DeAnne. "Tent flies?"
"Them eggs hatch and the worms can eat every leaf right off the tree," said Bappy. "So I bag 'em up and prune 'em off. Got my truck mostly filled now, and you won't have any more of them wormy things dropping off on your kids under the trees."
"Yay!" shouted Robbie. "Those are really icky!" He charged around back, Betsy hard on his heels.
"Well I got 'em all," said Bappy. "Or almost. I will have 'em all by the time the day's over."
Step wasn't comfortable having Bappy doing yardwork on the Sabbath. But he knew that it really wasn't his business. Bappy wasn't his employee, he was the landlord's father, and if he chose to do yardwork on Sundays, well, it wasn't Step's job to control it.
"Step, would you go round the kids up out of the back yard?" DeAnne asked.
Step headed into the back yard and found Robbie and Betsy circling the tree like the tigers in Little Black Sambo, though they would never know the reference because somewhere between Step's childhood and his children's, that story had been discovered to be a monstrously poisonous thing that would turn otherwise innocent children into bigots. I guess there's no hope for me, thought Step. I see kids running around in circles, I think of tiger butter.
Bravely Step stuck a hand into the circle of children and emerged with a child attached to it; then the other hand, and the other child. "Come on into the house," he said, "if you want supper."
"He got the webs!" shouted Robbie.
It was true. The tree had been pruned back, and now was missing all but two of the branches that had been covered with a mass of white web; even those were now wrapped in large plastic garbage bags, waiting to be cut off and disposed of. It wasn't hard to imagine Bappy's wiry body climbing around in the trees. He's in better shape than I am, thought Step. But then, he doesn't have to work around the corner from a candy machine.
When Step got the kids into the kitchen and DeAnne had sent them off to change out of their Sunday clothes, she asked him, "Where's Stevie?"
"He wasn't in the back yard," said Step. "I thought he came in with you."
"I thought he took off when the other kids did."
"He's in here somewhere."
"No he's not, Step. I unlocked the back door, and he'd have to come in past me, and I know for a fact that he didn't. So he's still outside, and I don't like it that you didn't see him with the other kids."
She had good reason to be worried. This morning's paper had told of another kid who had turned up missing last night at a Weavers baseball game. It was a minor league team, of course, but there were a lot of loyal fans in Steuben and so the games were crowded. Kid just disappeared. Scary times. He'd be on a milk carton soon, no doubt. Or turn up at a neighbor's house. Or dead. Where was Stevie?
Step went out into the back yard again. Bappy was up in the tree, sawing away at one of the limbs wrapped in plastic. He waved, and Step waved back. "You seen my oldest boy?" asked Step.
"No sir!" shouted Bappy. "You lost him?"
"Oh, he's around here somewhere," said Step.
"Keep your eyes on your kids, young man!" shouted Bappy. "It ain't safe these days. The devil is loose in the world!"
"Oh, I have no doubt of it!" Step called back.
Stevie was around in the front of the house, sitting on the doorstep.
"Stevie, we've been looking for you," said Step. "Your mom and I were worried, we didn't know where you were."
"Sorry," said Stevie. He got up.
"You can't go running off without saying anything."
Stevie frowned. "I was right here, Dad."
"You weren't in the house, and you weren't where we could see you, and so we were scared. That's just the way it is with parents, and you have to humor us and make sure we know where you are all the time or we'll end up putting you on a leash or locking you in the house or something, and you won't be very happy with that."
"Sorry," said Stevie again.
This wasn't how it should be on the day a kid was baptized. Off by himself, and then having to apologize for it. "What were you doing here in the front yard, anyway?" What were you thinking about? What was going through your mind?
"Sitting," said Stevie.
Step knew when he was defeated. "Well, come on in, it's time for supper."
Dutifully, Stevie followed him inside.
The next morning should have been the first weekday of summer. Stevie out of school, a chance for DeAnne to get a little more sleep in the morning, get things moving a little later. But DeAnne woke up before her alarm anyway, and not just because the baby was pressing so hard on her bladder that it held about a half an ounce these days. She lay there for a moment and then knew why her stomach felt like it was tied in a knot. She was taking Stevie to Dr. Weeks at ten.
DeAnne and Step had decided not to tell Stevie about the psychiatrist until the morning of his appointment.
Why have him worry unnecessarily for days in advance? Why spoil his birthday and his baptism?
Stevie wasn't so young that they could play the "this is just a different kind of doctor" game that might have worked with Robbie. Stevie knew that there were crazy people in the world, and doctors who treated them, and places where they were shut away from everybody else. It was the child's version of mental illnessall the old prejudices about madness survived in the subculture of children, passed from nine- year-olds to eight-year-olds, year after year. The loony bin. The nuthouse. Shameful, terrifying. Somehow Step and DeAnne had to make Stevie understand that that was not what was happening here. It would be especially difficult because DeAnne was afraid, deep inside, that that was exactly what was going to happen somewhere down the road.
DeAnne showered. Step had installed a handheld showerhead, which was a lifesaver when she was pregnant-not so much bending and reaching while standing on a slick, wet surface. It felt good to be clean.
There were times, late in her pregnancies, when she felt like she was permanently ugly and vile; her hair seemed to get oily faster during pregnancy and it matted to her head, and she felt awkward and bumptious and her back hurt, and her legs, and she got charley horses and she was tired all the time, too tired to want to clean herself up, and there was always this belly between herself and anything she was trying to do, and there were times when she just didn't want to go through the bother of getting out of bed. Yet if she just stripped off her clothes-a lot of trouble right there, of course-and washed herself, letting the water beat on her body, scour her all over, then she felt better, invigorated. She felt like maybe it was worth dragging herself around for another day.
Step staggered out of bed and into the shower as soon as she got out of the bathroom. Twenty minutes before his usual gettingup time. He had remembered, too. She watched him as he stripped off his nightclothes and pitched them into the plastic laundry basket in the closet. His body was definitely going to seed at this job.
His old regimen of bike-riding back in Vigor, along with some serious attention to what he ate, had kept him trim for the past few years, but the belly was coming back again, the thickness in the buttocks, the softness in the face. He had been pasty and overweight when she fell in love with him, of course; she hadn't really minded, but he minded so much that she knew he wasn't happy with his body that way. So when he got himself under control a few years back and shed the weight and built up his strength in a way he had never done in high school or college, she loved it mostly because he was so much happier, so much more confident. Looking at him now, she thought: Eight Bits Inc. has been destroying him in every way it could.
She wanted to say Quit your job today, Step. Get back on the bic
ycle. Join a health club. Get away from the candy machine.
If only we hadn't moved to Steuben.
It had felt like the right thing to do at the time. Even though she was already pregnant before Step even thought of applying for jobs, it felt right. Almost inevitable. We just have wandering feet, she supposed. We can't stay rooted anywhere for long. Pioneer spirit. It was built into Mormon culture, to be ready to pick up and move to a new land every couple of years. And maybe there was some genetic component to it. People who were born to be nomads.
Then she thought of chopping down trees and building log cabins and sweeping a dirt floor and cooking at a hearthfire and never being able to bathe and having to use an outdoor latrine and giving birth alone in the dark, squatting over the straw, and she decided that she had no desire to be a pioneer. Wanderlust was fine, as long as you could wander from one place with flush toilets, electricity, and a good local hospital to another.
She headed for the kitchen to fix herself a bowl of raisin bran, but when she had the fridge open, getting out the milk, it occurred to her that it was awfully dark. Most mornings the sunlight streamed into the east-facing kitchen window.
The plastic gallon jug of milk in hand, she turned around and glanced toward the window to see what the weather was. Weather had nothing to do with the darkness of the room. Most of the gap between the window and the screen, up to about six inches from the top, was filled with June bugs, their translucent bodies glowing a ruddy brown as the bright sunlight tried to get through into the room.
It was so startling, so repulsive, all those bugs tumbled onto each other, that DeAnne screamed. Then she felt something cold spatter on her legs, and she screamed again. Only then did she realize that she had dropped the milk jug and the cap had burst off, spattering milk everywhere. Now it was lying on its side, gur gling out the remaining milk. She squatted down as quickly as she could to pick it up before it all poured out, but she moved so slowly that before she could get it the flow had reduced to a trickle. About a third of the milk remained inside, but most of the nearly full jug was all over the floor.
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