Strong Motion: A Novel

by Jonathan Franzen

  The church members from rural AK, from rural MO, from NC and SC, from Buffalo and Indianapolis and Shreveport remained as calm as the hospitalized while they received this dose of filmic sophistication. The rear doors of the hall kept opening, admitting sunlight and weary missionaries who set their placards on the floor and widened the reverent circle around the TV screen. Renée’s mouth hung open. She was thinking what a lucky thing it was she’d come, how incredibly easily she might not have.

  . . . At Sunnyvale Farms you won’t see pornography on display behind the counter. You won’t find birth control on racks within easy reach of your children. Sunnyvale Farms is more than a convenience store, it’s a home away from home—your home. And remember, for every ten-dollar purchase you make at Sunnyvale Farms, we’ll make a contribution to the war on drugs. To help make this world a sunnier place for your children. Sunnyvale Farms: The Family Convenience Store. . .”

  “So what magazine are you from?” a young Southern man at Renée’s elbow asked her. He had a burnished, chubby face and corn-silk hair, and there was an assertiveness to his posture, a pushiness to his glasses and to the angle of his head, that reminded her of Louis Holland. It was Philip Stites.

  “No magazine,” she said.

  “Newspaper, TV station, radio station?”

  “No.”

  “Shoot. You ruined my record.”

  “My name’s Renée Seitchek.”

  Stites leaned closer to her face, obliquely, like an ophthalmologist. “Sure! Of course. What are you doin’ here?”

  “Watching . . . the most disgusting videos I’ve ever seen.”

  “Pretty heavy, isn’t it. Listen, Renée, I’d love to talk to you. Can you come back, maybe? Or you can stay if you want. I’m busy till about six-thirty.”

  “We’ll see how much of this I can stand.”

  “Good deal. Hey.” He made her look at him. There were wrinkles in his navy blazer, and his yellow tie was loosened. “I’m real glad you came. I mean it.”

  He crossed the darkened room, weaving through his flock, and went out by a side door. Several members rose and followed him. The rest continued to watch the advertising, which lasted nearly another hour. When the shades were finally raised, the light in the windows was golden. Three women in white aprons came in through a rear door, followed discreetly by an aroma of pork and beans. The gym teacher who had run the video quieted the crowd and read announcements from a clipboard.

  She was pleased to welcome back June, Ruby, Amanda, Susan Dee, Stephanie, Mrs. Powers, Mrs. Moran, Mr. DiConstanzo, Susan H., Allan, Irene, and Mrs. Flathead, all released today from the Cambridge City Jail. Their twenty days behind bars had set the city back an estimated $11,000, not counting court costs, which the city was suing to recoup.

  The Group of Twelve stood and received an ovation.

  Other good news was that Intrafamily Services of Braintree had indefinitely suspended its death procedures as of today. “To all those who helped them reach that informed decision,” said the gym teacher, “my thanks, the church’s thanks, and above all the thanks of the countless sweet children to whom you’ll have given the gift of life. Praise the Lord, Jesus gets the glory.”

  Another ovation.

  New members present for the first time were Mrs. Jerome Shumacher of Trumbull, Connecticut, Mrs. Libby Fulton of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, Miss Anne Dinkins of Sparta, North Carolina, and Miss Lola Corcoran of Lexington, Massachusetts. After applauding, the congregation was urged to make the newcomers feel part of the family.

  “Bebe Wittleder,” the gym teacher continued, “tells me we also have with us tonight a visitor from Harvard University, Dr. Renée Seitchek, a geologist you may remember from the special broadcast—”

  The congregation swung to gape at her. An image of her small person formed on six hundred retinas.

  “Peace and goodwill unto you in the name of Jesus Christ, Dr. Seitchek. You are welcome to celebrate and break bread with us, we are an open church.”

  Stites returned in time to hear the last few announcements. When they were over, he immediately began a prayer, ending with a group recitation of Our Father. A woman at an upright piano guided the congregation through three hymns. Stites sang along, but it was impossible to pick his voice out. He sat down informally on the edge of a school-cafeteria table, the very tops of his argyle socks showing, and surveyed his flock, allowing anticipation to build. When he finally spoke, his voice rang through the hall.

  “You’ve heard it said: God is love. People, God is love. God is two things: love and wisdom.

  “People, I want you to try and picture God. Picture a being who is Love so much that He’s stronger than atoms or anything, He is pure and total love. Now, in the beginning, God had so much love inside Him that it created the universe, just through the force of love. He created the universe so there’d be something there for Him to love. And there was a Void? And the Void, the Book of Genesis tells us it became the universe, but it was still just a mass of nothing, just stuff. And He loved it and was wiser than it, and the reason it took shape—"

  “Now listen. The reason it took the shape it did was because of the pain in God’s heart.”

  Stites looked aside with an odd grin, as though God were this guy he’d known back in Carolina who did the damdest old things.

  “You see,” he said, “even before He created the universe, He loved and He was wise. And because He was wise He knew that whatever He loved would know less than He knew. He is supreme, and it hurts Him very much to be supreme. He is an angry and hurt God. He knows more than anyone, and He loves everyone more than anyone loves anything, and so when we sin or we have thoughts—even when the smartest philosophers in the world have thoughts—He knows more. He knows we have to become dust again, and He never forgets. And He’s sad because He loves us even in our squalid earthly existence. In fact He loves us all the more.

  “And so everything you see here—the walls, this table, this VCR, this coffee mug”—he held up a mug for all to see—“everything hangs together because of that pain. That’s why I can squeeze this here coffee mug and feel that it’s hard. It’s hard because God is sad. If God were happy, then there wouldn’t be any resistance in the world, your hand would go through everything. There wouldn’t be pain and suffering and death. You see what I’m saying? If things were all right with God, then there wouldn’t be any universe. There’s only a universe because He knows. Because He hurts because He knows.

  “You’ve all heard the expression it’s lonely at the top? Well, that’s how it is with God. And isn’t that kind of comforting? To know that no matter how bad you feel, you can’t feel as bad as He does, because you don’t know how bad things really are. That’s how come He let them crucify His only son. Because He wanted us to know how much it hurt. And you know, when I think about how maybe the world’s going to end and I start feeling depressed because there are all these things I love so much. Well, I don’t despair, and you know why? It’s because I know that feeling of depression is holy. And if there is an Armageddon, then there’s going to be God to mourn us all when we’re gone, and all the things I love that don’t exist anymore, He didn’t forget any of those things, He loved them all along—loved them like you and I never can—and He won’t ever forget them for all eternity, and that’s what heaven is: heaven is living on in God’s love forever.”

  The word “forever” hung in the air like a badminton birdie at the top of its arc.

  “That’s the sermon for tonight, I thank you all.”

  A final “Mighty Fortress” was sung, and then Stites walked back through the congregation, kneeling twice to take women’s hands in his own and have words with them. He ended up in front of Renée. “You hungry?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well I’m frankly famished.”

  A ground-floor apartment behind the hall had had some walls knocked out, extending the existing kitchen. Three additional old stoves had been installed, and there was table
seating for maybe fifty. Stites was given a big plate of beans from an institutional pot. He took four slices of white bread and an orange from the buffet, explaining to Renée that unless he got fed lunch by a rich patron he only ate two meals a day, the breakfast and the dinner here.

  He led her up a dimly lit stairwell and down a plaster-strewn hall, one wall of which was lined with identical pieces of some kind of homemade exercise equipment, built of two-by-fours and galvanized pipe, resembling pillories. “What are these?” Renée said.

  “These? These are pillories.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Here, let me show you.” Stites set his plate on the floor. “All this plaster come loose in the earthquake. We sweep it up, but it seems like all you have to do is look at it, and down comes some more.” He put his head and wrists in slots in the crosspiece of a pillory. “See, you can lower the top piece with your foot, like this.” Foot in a ring, he unhooked a chain that let the upper beam lower onto the back of his neck, closing him in. “Or you can have a friend do it for you.”

  He stood bent but relaxed in his khaki pants and brown loafers, facing the wall, a wallet bulging in his back pocket.

  “Then what?” Renée said.

  “Then you stand here. I think everybody ought to. I do it probably as much as anybody, mind you I’m not proud of it. It’s I have a special need for it, if I’ve been out in Weston all day at rich people’s houses. You stand here and look at the wall. You pray, or you can just relax. It humbles you. It feels really good. Physically, it hurts a little after a while. But that feels good too.”

  With a practiced step, he raised the upper beam and freed himself. He looked at Renée, grinning intently. “You want to try it?”

  “No thanks.”

  “You sure? You kind of look like you do.”

  “No!”

  “You’d like it if you tried it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “OK, whatever. People feel vulnerable when they can’t see what’s going on behind their back and they can’t move. I believe real strongly that vulnerability’s something we oughtta nurture.”

  He marched up the hall, taking big galumphing steps, as though crossing a marsh. His office had no door. Books stood in rough stacks on the red shag rug, which was stained with white paint and strewn with fallen plaster. A printed message on one wall said: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. The window gave onto the courtyard of the complex, where members were picnicking and the gym teacher was organizing a volleyball game.

  “The rest is bedroom and a kitchen,” Stites said. “I share it with two of the men. I took this whole outer room for myself because I’ve got all these books and papers. You can have the desk, I’ll sit on the floor.”

  “No, you’re the one who’s eating.”

  “Well, let’s both sit on the floor. Sorry about the plaster. It’s everywhere.”

  He immediately began to shovel beans into himself. Renée was used to sitting Indian style, but shortness of skirt forced her to use a double-Z leg position. “You’re lucky the whole building hasn’t come down on you.”

  He nodded, chewing.

  “Do you really believe God can save a bad building from an earthquake?”

  He broke bread. “Nope, and I never said I did. I bought this building because it was cheap. We’re here because it’s a place.”

  “And you don’t worry that if it falls down you’ll be responsible for all the people hurt or killed?”

  “They know the risks, same as me.”

  “But you lead by example.”

  “That’s right.” He held his fork genteelly, far up the handle. He seemed practiced at speaking with his mouth full. “I eat and sleep and work in this building by the grace of God. I’m aware that if God wills it, my life will end. That’s how it is for every living person, except the majority spend their time trying to ignore it. But if you live in what the authorities call a death trap, you’re in constant knowledge that your life is cradled in the hands of God. That’s a positive thing. It sure seems more positive to me than living out wherever, in Weston, and feeling immortal in your million-dollar house. Here I value every day. I used to despair because I never had time to do the things I wanted. I thought life was going to be too short. That’s how little I loved God. Now I’m even busier, but since I been in this building, suddenly I’m getting to everything I want to get to, including people like you. This is about as close to happiness as I think a person can be. I can live without fear because I can feel how I’m hanging right over death, in the hands of God. If you get your life in balance with your death, you stop panicking. Life stops being just the status quo that you hope won’t end for a long time.”

  He bent over his plate to scrape his last beans into a pile. He pushed up his glasses with his middle finger on the bridge and sucked his teeth clean, peering up at Renée with penetrating curiosity. “You came here to tell me my building’s unsafe.”

  “I came because one of your women was bothering me at work.”

  “Mrs. Wittleder.”

  “I said something on TV that you disagreed with, and my life has been a mess ever since.”

  “You’re getting calls. Letters, visits.”

  “Very offensive and invasive ones.”

  “Yeah, I understand, it’s sort of the lunatic fringe. People who’re all anger and no love. I don’t know if you saw the news today, the drive-by shooting in Alston? Some jackass blew out all the windows of a clinic yesterday. The little teeny-weeny windows? I mean, that’s real bright. Same thing with the bombings in Lowell. Anger I understand, but not violence.”

  “The only thing I did on TV was criticize you,” Renée said. “Who else but you would care?”

  “How should I know? Somebody saw the show and didn’t like you. See, I personally didn’t even mind what you said. You were honest, you expressed the opposing point of view real nice. You happen to be dead wrong. But I can tell the difference between a geophysicist and an abortionist. I got a lot more useful things to do than picket your lab, frankly. And Bebe Wittleder is a fine woman who I can’t believe was ugly to you.”

  “She wasn’t ugly. Not deliberately.”

  “Well, so. Somehow she still made you mad enough to come down here.”

  “No. I didn’t get mad until I saw the videos.”

  Stites wiped his plate with a slice of bread. “What made you mad about them?”

  “Women who have abortions are vicious sluts who sit around snorting coke. Women who have babies are sweet pretty wives who adore their children.”

  “Understand it’s not journalism. It’s an advertisement.”

  “Which uneducated people swallow as truth.”

  “Ah.” The bread, folded twice, disappeared into his mouth. “So you want me—me who believes that human life is a mystery and not some chemical process, me who believes that in the eyes of God an individual begins to exist at the moment he’s conceived—you want me to show the congregation pictures of mothers abusing their children? And saintly women having abortions? Sort of a balanced view there? I don’t think you understand the essence of advertising.”

  “A Nazi film showing gorgeous Aryans and filthy Jews is only an ad.”

  “Well, except I don’t happen to be advocating genocide. I’m advocating the opposite. Aren’t I?”

  “The persecution of pregnant women.”

  He nodded. “Persecution, sure, that’s your line on it. But not deportation and murder. See, I think what’s bothering you about these videos is they’re effective. They affect you. But there’s even more effective ads on TV for buying jeans or buying beer. Ads that use sex, which is the most powerful and dishonest thing of all. You know, like if I drink Bud Light I’ll get my own hot little beach girl to mess around with. You talk about dishonest and manipulative and harmful. And if you’re up against a pernicious thing like that, you need some powerful images yourself. And the fact is, there is
something beautiful about a mother and her baby, and there is something ugly about abortions. All I want’s an equal shot at the market. And the thing is I can’t get one. There’s no commercial station in America would run these. I’m into radio a little bit, but you can’t do diddly with radio, not compared to video. It’s pretty ironic you think we’re the persecutors here. We the persecuted minority.”

  “Which is trying to impose its views on the majority.”

  “No network station in America will run a single one of our ads. All Americans, every day, watch half an hour of advertising promoting sex for the sake of sex, and another half hour promoting the selfish consumption of material goods. All national news media have a consistently anti-religious, anti-life slant. You want to deny that? The same goes for prime-time programming. And this is going on every single day, seven days a week, year after year, sex sex, buy buy, abort abort. And still forty percent of all Americans are opposed to abortion except in cases of rape or incest. That’s our minority. We’re looking at the hugest propaganda effort in the history of mankind, and still only a little more than half the people are persuaded.”

  A whistle blew sharply in the courtyard. The gym teacher cried, Let’s see some Christian volleyball!