Imaginary Jesus

by Matt Mikalatos

  Anyway, I asked God to comfort Krista during my absence. I prayed that the kids wouldn’t behave in a way that would bring on bouts of insanity for anyone around them. Then I prayed that Jesus would heal her hands. I focused all my attention on this request. I wanted to make it clear that this would mean a lot to us, that we would love to see her hands healed. Krista thanked me for praying and we talked for a while longer.

  A few minutes later she lifted her hands in the air, twisted her wrists around, and said, “That’s weird.” I could see her hands, a darker shadow in a room full of darkness, and I could see them turning, twisting around like wind chimes. She was flexing her fingers and rotating her wrists.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The pain in my wrists just . . . stopped.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “Do they stop hurting sometimes?”

  “No, the pain has been constant. But now it’s gone.”

  “That’s amazing.” I stared at the ceiling. Or rather, I stared in the direction of the ceiling—I couldn’t see it in the dark. What had just happened? I didn’t feel comfortable with the obvious answer. After we had lain in silence for a few minutes I asked her, “Do you think Jesus just healed your hands?”

  Krista rotated her wrists. “The pain will probably come back tomorrow.” But it didn’t. I called her from my business trip. She said maybe when the business trip was over the pain would come back. Maybe this was a little gift to help her through the week. But it didn’t come back after that trip. It didn’t ever come back.

  As strange as this may sound, this obvious answer to our prayer frightened me. This was an unexpected and slightly terrifying Jesus. I had been told at various Christian outlets, by people who should know, that Jesus doesn’t wander around healing people anymore. In the first century, maybe, but not the twenty-first. Also, they had said, Jesus wouldn’t do it in the “Christianized” world. He would do it in some little tribal group that had never heard of him, deep in some jungle where scientists and doctors feared to tread, as a way of proving his divinity.

  And yet, here we were, the recipients of what appeared to be a genuine healing. We prayed and the damage to Krista’s hands went away. Right there in our bedroom in Vancouver, Washington. We were not unbelievers who needed a miraculous sign of the power of God. We weren’t tribal people who had never heard of Jesus. We were twenty-first-century Americans, Christians from the majority ethnic group of our nation. We didn’t show much evidence of faith, and yet there he was, making the sick well in answer to prayer.

  How do you deal with a God who breaks all the rules that your confident, well-meaning friends have told you he will follow? They had told me that he wouldn’t invade my life with inconveniences like miracles, things that make me stop and realize the fragile, illusory nature of nature. And here he was, showing me that little things like pain and death and the rules of the universe weren’t going to get in the way of his doing whatever he liked. I can remember lying there in the dark and thinking, If this is true, then he can do whatever he pleases. Who knows what he might ask of me? I can’t control him. I can’t box him in with my own beliefs and philosophies.

  Pete, Sandy, and Daisy listened in silence as I explained all this to them. We had found one of Portland’s ubiquitous coffee shops near the SSIJ headquarters. Imaginary Jesus stood off to the side, his arms crossed. He had not received a warm welcome from Pete or Sandy. Daisy ignored him completely and had, in fact, trodden on his sandaled foot with her hoof, studiously ignoring his yowls of pain.

  Pete shook his great bearded head and said, “Matt, the way you’re saying all this, it almost sounds like an accusation. Are you angry at God for healing Krista?”

  “No.” My protest didn’t sound convincing, even to me.

  “There’s something you’re not sharing,” Sandy said. “Something painful.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “People have had worse. A lot worse.”

  Pete drummed his fingers on the table for a long time, staring at Daisy. “You need to talk about this. I suspect that this pain leads to the heart of your imaginary Jesus problems.”

  “I’ve talked about it with Krista. I’ve dealt with this.”

  Pete jerked his thumb at Jesus, who was leaning against the wall and picking at the wounds in his palm. “Why is he still here, then?”

  I shrugged. “He’s close enough to the real thing, I guess.”

  Pete stood up and walked to the door. His face was red and he was clenching his hands. “I need some fresh air,” he said, and he flung the door open.

  “We should probably go too,” Sandy said. “Let’s walk back over to my place and we can talk about this some more.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I followed Sandy and Daisy out the door. Imaginary Jesus tagged along behind. It was raining, and the yellow glow of the streetlights revealed the slanting rain in white relief against the darkness. Portlanders had pulled their hoods up and walked about their business as always, not rushing, not leaping under awnings, just living with it, the fact and reality of precipitation.

  As we walked across the street, a motorcycle revved its engine and came barreling toward us. That one headlight, like an eye, locked on me and came at me, fast. I froze for a moment and a million thoughts went through my head. Had I done something to anger a motorcycle gang? Not that I recalled. Was it possible that I had an identical twin brother who had angered a motorcycle gang? This seemed plausible, but I had no way to know if it might be true. As the motorcycle came nearer I could tell it was a Red Wing, white and red with flames and eyes along the side. The rider hit the brakes and slid sideways up beside me. He yanked off his helmet, and a familiar face with blue, smiling eyes and a curly mop of blond hair greeted me.

  “Dude,” he said. “I hear you need some help.”

  “Motorcycle Guy?” I asked. “Is that you?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Every Cowboy Sings a Sad, Sad Song

  I first met Motorcycle Guy because of Sarah. She and I had dated for a year and a half before she went away on an exchange program to Germany. In those ancient days, one did not use free Internet phones to call loved ones overseas. No! Instead, one worked hard for money, scrounged for it in the sofa cushions, sold recyclables, delivered newspapers, and so on, and then handed one crisp dollar to the phone company for every minute spent hurling one’s voice across the Atlantic. It was the 1990s.

  I called Sarah for her birthday. We talked for about forty dollars. I don’t remember much about the call, other than the fact that the end of our conversation went like this:

  “Good-bye, Sarah. I love you.”

  Pause.

  “Did you get my letter yet?” Sarah asked.

  “You sent me a letter? That’s great! No, I haven’t gotten it yet.”

  “I love you too,” she said. “Bye.”

  The next day I skipped out to the mailbox, tra la la, and what do you think I found there? Yes! A letter from my girlfriend! Hooray! I tore it open, the tissue-paper airmail letter giving way to my fumbling fingers.

  “Dear Matt,” it started. It would be best if we stopped seeing each other. She would no longer be my girlfriend. She would be free to laugh raucously with her friends in Germany. And so on.

  Although Sarah and I had dated only a year and a half or so, in my mind I had constructed a future reality in which we got married and brought forth several healthy, well-behaved children. We grew old together and she still looked like a high schooler but with slightly gray hair, and then we died together, lying in bed and smiling serenely, because we knew we would spend more time together frolicking in clouds and playing harps.

  I took to wandering the streets around my neighborhood, weeping. Full-bodied, moaning, chest-racking sobs of grief. Well-meaning neighbors peered over their backyard fences to ask if I needed something. Thieves hid under their beds thinking my wails were police sirens. Irish neighbors closed their shades, thinking a banshee had come for their children. Nei
ghborhood animals congregated and followed me from a respectful distance. I prayed as I cried, to make sure that God knew about my suffering, just in case he wanted to intervene.

  One evening, as I made my midnight tour of the neighborhood, I realized that I needed something more than a teenage sob-fest. I needed . . . music.

  I cried out, “God, I need to learn how to play guitar so I can write songs that will show . . . you . . . my . . . pain!”

  As these words left my lips I saw a guitar, propped up against a garbage can. Someone had discarded it in the precise place where I happened to pray for a guitar. Amazed by God’s goodness, I picked it up and strummed it as I walked along.

  The guitar was horribly out of tune. Having never held a guitar before, I didn’t know how to tune it, but my ears assured me all was not right. Now I walked the neighborhood weeping, praying, and strumming an out-of-tune guitar. But even this pitiful picture did not satisfy me, and I decided that the depressed vibe from a sad place would fit my mood better.

  A kid my age had wrapped his car around a fence post and died earlier in the week, and the sidewalk near there was festooned with flowers and cards, photos and washed-out chalk messages on the sidewalk. I decided that this place would be sad enough, so I sat down on the curb, strummed my guitar, and felt sorry for myself.

  I hadn’t been there long before a man on a motorcycle came tearing down the road. As he approached me he slowed, then pulled over. A woman was riding behind him, clutching his back. He pulled off his helmet and said, “Dude.” (I grew up in California.) “Did you know that guy?”

  I tore myself from the reverie of my own relentless pain and looked around, trying to think who Motorcycle Guy was talking about. “What guy?” I asked him.

  “The dead guy.” He gestured to the flowers. The candles. The cards. His girlfriend had taken off her helmet now too, and she was beautiful in the way that someone else’s girlfriend is beautiful when your own girlfriend has crushed your heart so she can be free in Germany. I could tell she felt sorry for me and my supposed dead friend.

  “Oh,” I said. “No. My girlfriend just broke up with me.”

  Motorcycle Guy and his beautiful girlfriend exchanged a sad but knowing glance. Then he held out his hand. “Give me that guitar.” He put his kickstand down and sat back on the motorcycle, expertly tuning the guitar. “I’m going to sing you a song.” And he proceeded to do just that. I listened in mute wonder as he sang every verse, every chorus, every bridge and refrain of the song “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” You know the words, I’m sure. Roses have thorns, nights have dawns, and cowboys sing sad songs. Love hurts.

  “That song is really true,” he said. Then he handed me the guitar. “This guitar’s neck is warped; it’ll never hold a tune. It ought to be in the garbage.” Then he and his girlfriend got back on his bike. They waved to me and rocketed away. Doing a wheelie.

  I sat there in stunned, slack-jawed amazement. I looked around for the camera crew, certain that somehow I had wandered into a John Cusack movie. I tried, experimentally, to cry again. But every time a tear welled up, I would think of Motorcycle Guy and I would laugh. Every time I cried about Sarah after that, it ended with me thinking, Hey, be careful or some guy will come up on at least one wheel of a motorcycle, grab your guitar, and sing a rock ballad. I never got a chance to thank him or his beautiful girlfriend. Sometimes I wished I would see him again so I could say, “Thanks, Motorcycle Guy. You got me through a rough patch.” Then I would get all quiet and say, awkwardly, “Is it possible that you and your girlfriend are some sort of angels? Because coincidences like this one are uncommon and have the flavor of something planned, like maybe God sent you.”

  Or maybe I would just say thanks. I never planned it out sufficiently because I didn’t think I would ever see him again. But here he was, in the middle of the street in Portland, the rain coming down and getting in his hair and all over his motorcycle, and I was standing in the middle of the street, trying to think of something to say.

  “How’s your girlfriend?” I asked.

  “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Emergency Room

  Motorcycle Guy took Burnside to the 405. We crossed the bridge and headed north on I-5. I asked him where we were going, but either he didn’t hear me or he was ignoring me. The temperature dropped for a moment as we crossed the Columbia, and Motorcycle Guy hit the gas to speed past the laboring semis. We passed the exit to my place. I tapped him on the helmet, but he leaned forward and hit the gas again. He finally exited at 134th, then headed up Highway 99, turning in at the entry to Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital.

  He pulled into the emergency room parking lot. I got off the motorcycle and he did the same, pulling off his helmet and hanging it on the handlebars.

  “You know someone here?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “But I know you were here a few months ago. I thought you might give me the guided tour.”

  “But I don’t have a tour guide license,” I said.

  “You’re always hiding behind something funny. Let’s talk about your real life for once.”

  I racked my brain trying to think of something funny about the emergency room. And do you know what’s funny about the hospital? Nothing. There have been sitcoms and comedies about hospitals, of course, but the humor comes from the characters and situations, not from the hospital itself. The only consistent joke is about those little gowns that don’t cover your rear, but even that isn’t funny, really. It’s a strike against human dignity.

  This is the closest I have to a funny hospital story: This one time at my church in California, just after I had graduated college, there was this semipro wrestler named American Eagle who had become a Christian. He wore this big red, white, and blue shirt and blue warm-up pants. One Sunday, as an outreach to the community around us, we put up a portable wrestling ring, and some of American Eagle’s friends came to put on a big exposition for us. Afterward, a bunch of us volunteered to help take the ring down and get it all packed up.

  At one point I was helping pick up some of the ropes from the side of the ring, and someone else was unscrewing something from one of the large metal posts at the corners. Then someone shouted, “LOOK OUT!” and in slow motion that giant, heavy pole came speeding toward my head, split my scalp, bounced off, and landed in the grass. I sat there, my head hanging down and thinking, ouch. Then the blood started trickling into my eyes.

  American Eagle came over and announced, “You’re going to need stitches. Don’t wash the blood off. The emergency room serves you faster if you’re covered in blood.” This was true. As soon as I walked in with my gory mess of a head, they immediately escorted me back to get my stitches. And when they were done they took away my bloody shirt and gave me some scrubs to wear home. When it comes to funny hospital stories, that’s all I’ve got. Hospitals aren’t funny. They’re designed to fight against death, and that makes them a testimony to the fact that death exists. The most successful operation, the most brilliant doctor, the most miraculous pharmaceutical is nothing but a detour on a one-way street.

  “You know what’s funny?” I said. “This one time I was helping a wrestler named American Eagle—”

  Motorcycle Guy watched me impassively. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged deeper into his jacket. “Go on.”

  The icy wind bit like it had the jagged teeth of Mount Hood behind it. The emergency room cast a clinical blue light on the pavement, a small rectangle of artificial light in the too-real night. Beyond the grass was the helicopter pad, a reminder that every minute matters. We waste so many of them without thinking, and at the end an extra twenty seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

  I remembered walking through those doors with Krista. The fear, the stress, the unanswered questions of what was happening to her, to us, to our future. I saw Imaginary Jesus walking around the outskirts of the parking
lot, his arms folded against his chest as if for warmth, his eyes avoiding mine.

  I stopped dead. “I’ve seen enough of this place.”

  “You’re going to go inside with me,” Motorcycle Guy said. “You’re going to tell me what happened.” He tilted his head toward Imaginary Jesus. “And then we’ll talk to him about it.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath and shuddered as I exhaled. I walked toward the door and it opened with a deep sigh, a sound of profound weariness.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Death and All His Friends

  No one looks up when you walk into a waiting room. No one wants to make eye contact. No one wants to know your story. Our story, like theirs, led us into this room. People were on their cell phones, telling stories to their loved ones. “Of course I’m fine,” they said. “No, I haven’t seen the doctor yet.”

  I had been out doing errands with the girls. Krista and I were leaving on a business trip to Thailand the next morning, and Krista, newly pregnant, was tired. I took the kids out more to make an oasis for my wife than to buy anything at the store. As I drove toward home, Krista called my cell phone.

  “Hello, beautiful,” I said.

  “I need to go to the hospital.” That was all she said. I dropped the kids off at my parents’ house without explanation, and fifteen minutes later we were in the emergency room. It took two hours to get from the front desk to a hospital room.

  Krista and I took turns calling our parents. “Mom, sorry I didn’t give you much warning before bringing the kids by,” I said.