“You’ve only been to Austin,” Judith reminded him. “You should try my hometown. Or even Jessica’s, from what I’ve heard.”
“What do you think Seattle is like?” Jesus said, borderline giddy. “I heard it rains all the time!”
“Pretty sure they have a huge heroin problem there,” said Judith. “Like, every homeless person is on heroin.”
Jesus appeared no less excited. “Oh, I know a cure for that! Love!”
“It’s too early in the morning for that shit, Joshua.”
Jessica changed the subject. “So, Brian is okay staying behind?”
“More than okay. He gets to spend his summer break doing whatever he wants. Mostly, that’s waiting tables downtown so he can continue paying his student loans, but you know … almost like a vacation.”
“And your work really doesn’t mind you taking this much time off?”
“They don’t. Because I quit.”
“What?”
“I quit.” Judith shrugged. “It was a crappy job anyway. I can be a barista anywhere.”
“Maybe if I ever open up another bakery.”
Judith pinched the bridge of her nose, “For fuck’s sake. Please don’t.”
“Why not?”
She looked up and met Jessica’s eyes. “Because you starting and running that bakery was the most stressful time of my life. Listen, I’m about to tell you something that will not be pleasant to hear—”
“You and everyone else.”
“You were terrible at running the bakery. I know it’s a hard job, but you were especially ill suited for it, and you somehow managed to make it look even harder than it was. Please, just do what you’re good at.”
Jessica was stunned by the bluntness, but at least it helped wake her up a little. “And that is?”
“I don’t know, whatever comes naturally to you.”
“Messing things up?”
Judith chuckled. “Yes, actually. If you’re gonna convince the country that God is woman, you’ll have to destroy a lot of shit that already exists.”
Jessica waved her off. “You’re no help, and it’s too early for this. I need another glass of orange juice.”
Judith reached in her carry-on and pulled out another tiny bottle of vodka, and this time Jessica accepted.
“Where’s the first stop we’re hitting?”
Judith had taken it upon herself to do most of the research for their route, with Wendy’s help in contacting the various houses of worship they would be visiting along the way. And while Jessica had done her best to follow along and be involved in the practical planning stages, it felt like a losing battle to focus on anything other than the impossible task of helping Dad become Mom. It occupied her every idle moment and many that should have been dedicated to other things, like moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer, showering, and planning a cross-country trip.
Eventually, Wendy and Judith had just gotten on with it, not bothering to get Jessica’s approval on any of their schemes. Everyone was happier that way.
“Small church a couple hours south of Seattle. Looks like we’ll get some great Pacific Northwest views there. The website said their beliefs have a strong focus on the divine feminine, so we thought it might be an interesting place to start.”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s fantastic.” Maybe they’ll know what it means to be a woman. “Great work, Judith. Hey, maybe this trip will be just what I need after all.” She raised her fresh glass of OJ and vodka in a salute, and relaxed into the moment.
Chapter Fourteen
“Drive faster,” Jessica ground out between clenched teeth.
“This van doesn’t exactly go from zero to sixty in three seconds,” Judith said. “I’m doing my best.”
Tall, dense woods blurred past them on either side of the long, empty road. They were the kind of trees that could leave you in awe of their beauty or feeling trapped and disoriented. It depended heavily on the situation in which you found yourself while you were in them.
Jesus was in the second row of seats but moved to poke his head between Jessica and Judith. “That was strange.”
“No shit,” Jessica said, craving more, more, more distance between herself and the commune they’d just left behind. No, not left behind, fled.
Not only hadn’t she learned a single thing about what it meant to be a woman, she hadn’t noticed any specific mention of the divine feminine anywhere in that bleak place. Unless the ritualistic swapping of wives had something to do with that …?
Prior to visiting the Divine Temple of Freedom, they’d spent a beautiful day in Seattle, though Jesus was disappointed by the anomalous sunny weather that the locals wouldn’t stop remarking on, having wanted to see the rain he’d heard so much about.
But big cities like Seattle weren’t the point of this trip. Or they weren’t the whole point. If Jessica was to get a true feel of the country’s attitude toward women, she would need to get outside of the more progressive and uniform pockets of the population. She needed to meet some good country people, salt of the earth. That’s what they’d done.
“I thought communes were supposed to be laid back,” Jessica said, her heart continuing to race from the overabundance of adrenaline flooding her system.
“They are!” Judith protested. “I mean, I thought so. Even Wendy believed it.”
“That one had no chill,” Jesus added.
Both women whipped their heads to look at him, and his eyes shot wide. “What? Did I use that wrong?”
“No,” Judith said, “you used it right.”
He nodded once, pleased.
Once they had a dozen miles between them and the horror show, Jessica felt like she could finally broach the details of what had just happened. “I thought only Texans had that many guns.”
“Yeah, my eyes are officially open about Washington.”
“What even is a free-range kid?”
“A wild animal armed to the teeth who could drop down on you from a tree at any moment like you’re in the jungles of Vietnam in the sixties, apparently.”
“Can we talk about the sleeping arrangements?”
Judith shook her head. “I’d rather not.”
Jesus piped in. “It was a little like a slumber party.”
“I’ll give you that,” Jessica said, “except usually you don’t have adults sleeping among the children.”
“Should we call the cops?” Judith asked.
“Definitely. But let’s get a dozen more miles along before we do.”
The experience had been bizarre from the moment they entered the reinforced iron gates of the place until the moment they left the reinforced iron gates at first sunlight.
Despite the alarming welcome, Jessica had persevered with her reason for being there and, once she and her companions were escorted to the Central Temple of Elders by armed—presumably feral—child guards, she asked the commune elders what it meant to them to be a woman. Unfortunately, their answer had fallen on deaf ears, because as the shirtless man on the throne of scrap metal provided his response in a thick, grumbling accent she had never heard before, her attention had fallen entirely upon one of her guards, a little boy, who was having a real go at a booger in his nostril, just getting up there, two knuckles deep. And her distraction was probably okay in the end, since nothing about this place was to be believed or, if she was lucky, stored anywhere permanent in her memory.
“Maybe we don’t stay overnight at a cult again,” Jessica suggested as they pulled onto a two-lane road with even thicker trees on either side.
“That’s the thing, though,” said Judith, “it’s hard to tell it’s a cult until you’re already in it.”
Ahh, there it is, she thought. That familiar sense of doom.
That had only been their first scheduled visit of many. Was this trip truly cursed?
IT IS BLESSED.
Don’t tell me that.
WHY NOT, CHILD?
Because your blessings feel more like
curses than actual curses do.
YOU HAVE NEVER ENCOUNTERED A TRUE CURSE.
I was born, wasn’t I?
“Shit,” she said, putting her head in her hands. “Are we even going to make it home from this road trip?”
Judith grunted. “Not if God’s only begotten genius back there keeps trying to bless everyone.”
“What?” said Jesus. “No one needs more blessing than the parents of child soldiers.”
“The parents were the ones who made them soldiers!” Jessica shouted. “And they didn’t want your blessings! They literally said, ‘We don’t want your blessings.’” If she had to pinpoint a moment where it had all gone wrong for them, where the tone of the encounter had shifted from curiosity to animosity, Jesus’s unwelcome blessing was it.
He nodded vaguely. “Ah, is that what they were saying?”
“Yes. What did you think they were saying?”
“‘We’d want your blessings.’”
Jessica said, “Why in the hell would they say that?”
Judith gave him an out with, “Well, the constant gunfire in the background could have accounted for you mishearing them.”
“Yes,” said Jesus. “There was a lot of gunfire. I didn’t like that part.”
“Then it’s a good thing our next major destination is in California,” Judith said.
Jessica’s mind jumped immediately to Miranda at the mention of the next state on their trip. Their route would take them not far from where she lived, but Jess hadn’t made plans to stop by for a visit, hadn’t even considered it until now.
“From what I’ve heard,” Judith went on, “Californians feel the same way about guns as you do. They’re level-headed liberal people.”
Level-headed liberal people? Jessica didn’t know much about how politics broke down, but from what she gleaned from Judith’s tone, being liberal meant it was unlikely they would encounter another cult in California. She let herself imagine it, the cult-free haven of California, and breathed a small sigh of relief.
Chapter Fifteen
Almost a week had passed since their narrow escape from the Washington commune, and things hadn’t gotten much better as they’d passed through Oregon and then California.
Turns out, California did have cults. Lots of them. More than she could count. Cults galore.
But they were in Nevada now, not necessarily safe, just faced with a different flavor of threat. The woods of the Pacific Northwest that had left her feeling trapped had long been replaced by flat desert, and now she felt exposed.
All in all, though, Jessica was grateful for the change, and the simple pleasure of stuffing her face with french fries while sitting on a bench in an air-conditioned tourist trap wasn’t wasted on her. At least she was out of the van. And out of California. And in peace. Even if that required spending a little time contributing to the conspiracy theory industry at the National Museum of Extraterrestrials. The small cafe area was clean enough, though. No roaches or crickets or daddy longlegs to speak of, unlike the last two gas station bathrooms she’d used.
“There you are,” Jesus said. He was holding a stuffed green alien in a white Elvis suit, and Jessica knew right away he’d already purchased the thing. She knew it in her gut.
He sat across the table from her and grinned. “Man, I wish Jeremy could be here. He would love this place.”
Jesus’s unimpeachable joy in this conspiracy theory of a “museum cafe” jumpstarted her cynicism that had been put on pause by the greasy food. “He could be if he wanted to. If he’s as rich as he says, he could literally jump on a private jet and fly out here to the middle of nowhere to enjoy this so-called experience. Hell, the landscape is flat enough for him to land the plane anywhere.”
“I think he would like the alien stuff.”
“I know he would, and it’s all alien stuff, bro. This sideshow is called The Alien Experience. I literally had to order ‘potato probes with extraterrestrial sauce.’ I’m not happy about that.”
He sighed and continued grinning as he took in the bright colors of the surroundings. “It’s just so lovely, the human imagination. And so limited. They speculate that time travel is possible, but it doesn’t occur to them that if time travel ever exists on this timeline, the travelers would likely already be back among us. Yet, they see evidence of it, and they call it aliens. Ha!”
Jessica paused, a potato probe hovering in midair in front of her mouth, and squinted at him. Then she tossed back the bite and spoke around the food in her mouth. “I should probably dig into that more, but I really just want to eat these fries and not think about what you just said, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Judith appeared from the direction of the exhibits. She was barely containing her laughter. “Have you spoken with the docent yet?”
“No,” Jessica said, feeling her big chance to decompress with a heap of starch slipping away. “Should I?”
“Oh yes.” Judith bit her lips and shut her eyes for a moment. “Yes, you should definitely go ask that guy what it means to be a woman.”
“I feel like I’m being set up.”
“You are. Set up for a good laugh.”
“I’m thinking it will be more upsetting than funny.”
Judith grunted. “I guess if you’re going to take that attitude it will.” She grabbed a seat at the table. “We have a long way to go on this trip, Jess, and you don’t seem like you’re enjoying it that much.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica replied, “I didn’t mean for you to interpret my pure terror as we narrowly escaped one cult after another as a sign that I wasn’t enjoying it.”
“Jesus Christ. No, not you.” Judith grabbed one of Jessica’s fries without asking. “How have you still not figured out how to enjoy terror and tragedy? It’s your whole life. You’d think enough exposure would give you a dark sense of humor at the very least.”
Jesus, apparently sensing the tension, stepped in. “Why don’t we discuss some of the things we have learned so far? We have traveled many days already and met many… interesting people. I am sure there are lessons to be learned.”
“Yeah,” Jessica said, “Don’t join a fucking cult.”
Judith shared a glance with Jesus. “You know those people didn’t think it was a cult,” she reminded her. “They thought it was a religion. And the right one.”
“Despite all the evidence,” Jessica added. “That one just south of San Francisco … Great Father Kenneth had been wrong about the end of the world three times. Three times! Most folks have never even been wrong about it once, and those people still follow him.”
“Yeah,” Judith said, leaning forward, “and your job is to figure out how to get that level of devotion from people so—”
“One time, and I can see people being like, ‘Oh, he just got the year wrong, but otherwise, he’s completely right.’ But three times?”
Judith was losing her patience quickly. “You heard what they said, though, right?”
Jessica groaned, remembering. “Of course I did. How could I forget? They thought every time the world didn’t end when he said it did, it was because they were able to pray it away.”
“And each time, they felt more powerful and more committed to the cause.”
Jessica threw the soggy fry in her hand down into the boat. “I’m not starting a cult. That’s Jimmy’s thing, not mine.”
“You gotta start somewhere,” Judith persisted. “It’s a fine line between a cult and a religion, and I think yours will be more in the former by definition.”
“Then I don’t want it.”
Jesus leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder. “My dearest sister, if this is the only way to bring peace to the nation of the United States, then perhaps you should consider it.” He let go and leaned back, beaming. “I, for one, think you would make a fantastic cult leader precisely because you do not want to be one.”
Judith stood. “I’m gonna get a coke. Anyone want one?”
Jess
looked down at her fries. She was thirsty. “Yeah.”
“What kind?”
“Dr. Pepper.”
“Joshua?”
“Dr. Pepper!”
Once Judith left, Jesus said, “I can see this is difficult for you. As I have mentioned before, I did a bit of traveling back in my day to learn the ways of the world. It is a trying experience to talk to those who believe so differently from yourself, but it is worth it. For example, coming down to Earth for the second time has been eye opening! Everything is so different.”
“Do you wish you could go back to being dead?”
“Not even a little bit! There is infinite time for being dead, and only a moment to be alive. Sure, life down here is mostly suffering, but there are amazing moments, too. Like this!”
Jessica glanced around at the alien memorabilia on all sides. It felt like her brain was being abducted right from her skull. “What’s so great and amazing about this?”
He laughed, spreading his arms wide. “Everything! Look around you! What a silly place! They’re so confused, and they believe it so strongly. And they sell it to others who then start to believe it. Then there’s you and me and Judith—on a road trip! We get to explore and have experiences most others do not, and we have nothing else we should be doing. We have freedom, sister, and that is a precious and rare thing.”
“Dammit,” she grumbled. “You’re right. I know you are. So why am I so grumpy?”
“Because despite today’s freedom, you feel like tomorrow is already set. Trust me, I understand.”
She thought about it. “You’re right. I have freedom now, but it all seems to be leading to the same destination, no matter what I do.”
“You know,” he said, “I wasn’t supposed to be crucified.”
“You … what?”
“Oh yes. My whole life I was led to believe my life would end by being publicly crushed to death with stones. Not pleasant, but by no means as bad as what ended up happening. At least it would have been over sooner. But then I realized that I did have some control over the way things would go. Of course my mortal body would die—everyone’s does—but I had control over how that happened.”
The End Is Her Page 8
