Read Online Blame: A Novel by Michelle Huneven - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michelle Huneven
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, wrote Burt.
Bonnie and I both think life will be better for the kids once we get ’em off TV and onto ponies.
Your father went out to get a haircut and came home with a used Vespa
, her mother wrote.
I’m fit to be tied.
•
Don’t tell Larena you offed a couple JWs, said Gloria.
She one?
All day every day. Armageddon’s comin’, baby.
Larena lived in Gloria’s dorm. She was twenty-two years old and in for cashing a bad check—here in minimum-to-medium, some women gabbed freely about their crimes in group. Patsy found Larena painting her nails in bed. Hey, Larena, can I ask you some things about Jehovah’s Witnesses?
You want me to witness you? Course I will. Larena put down the tiny nailbrush, drew a newsprint magazine,
The Watchtower
, from under her pillow, and handed it to Patsy. On the cover, Jesus in robes looked askance at a big modern church. This will get you started, Larena said.
Patsy rolled the little tabloid into a tube. So what do you guys believe?
Larena blew on her orchid fingertips. Well, personally speaking, I’ve found that God is Jehovah, and my life is all about serving Him. His Kingdom is coming, and I’m just doing everything Jesus tells me till then.
Oh, so you believe in Jesus.
Well, sure. But we know Jesus isn’t God. Only God is God. Jesus is King and God’s son, but he’s a human, same as us, only perfect. And he died on a torture stake and not a cross. That cross business come from pagan times and was just added to make pagans believe.
You sound like a Unitarian, said Patsy.
A what?
Never mind.
You know, Teach . . . Larena gazed at the floor beside her bed, where missing linoleum revealed ridges of crusty black mastic. This idn’t the real world. The real world is yet to come. And it will be paradise. We’ll all live in big ole mansions on wide bullyvards. So hurry up, Teach, time’s running out on you.
When is this paradise supposed to come?
Nobody knows. They used to say dates, but that was a mistake. But there be plenty a warning. The earth’ll crack open, the sky’ll rain blood, the rivers, they’ll boil up outta their banks. The walls of this ugly oleprison’ll crumble down like Jericho. It’ll be the big cleansing of the earth, just like Noah’s time, only the angels’ll come with their flaming swords to sort out the wheat from the chuff.
Her voice had risen almost into song.
But what about forgiveness? said Patsy. Where do you stand on that?
Oh, you gotta forgive. You gotta put shit behind you, or it eat you alive.
Yeah, but what about angels slashing everybody. Won’t they forgive?
God give everybody all the time in the world to come to Him.
Ahh.
Larena handed her an
Awake!
and more
Watchtowers
.
Patsy scanned the little tabloids at her desk, searching for some hint about the sad man who had seemed so fair-minded in the courtroom. She had assumed such generosity was religious. She found an article about “community,” but it only explained that JWs deplored churches and clergy—everyone taught god’s word. Another article said god was angry at the world, the illustration a bearded white man in the clouds, clutching thunderbolts.
Patsy had harbored some religious sentiment as a child—she once dreamed that Jesus liked her in particular. But twelve years of Catholic education had eroded such feeling, and the two summers during high school when she worked in the parish office finished it off. The priests! Each had his own carton of milk in the refrigerator—whole milk, skim, half-and-half, liquid Coffee-mate—and each kept obsessive track of fluid levels, convinced the others were helping themselves. So many accusations, lost tempers, and hard feelings over dairy products! Later on, her training as a historian further demystified the Church and made Patsy immune, even hostile, to institutionalized faith. In every intro-level and survey class she taught, Patsy used the historical Jesus to demonstrate the rigor of historical
, wrote Burt.
Bonnie and I both think life will be better for the kids once we get ’em off TV and onto ponies.
Your father went out to get a haircut and came home with a used Vespa
, her mother wrote.
I’m fit to be tied.
•
Don’t tell Larena you offed a couple JWs, said Gloria.
She one?
All day every day. Armageddon’s comin’, baby.
Larena lived in Gloria’s dorm. She was twenty-two years old and in for cashing a bad check—here in minimum-to-medium, some women gabbed freely about their crimes in group. Patsy found Larena painting her nails in bed. Hey, Larena, can I ask you some things about Jehovah’s Witnesses?
You want me to witness you? Course I will. Larena put down the tiny nailbrush, drew a newsprint magazine,
The Watchtower
, from under her pillow, and handed it to Patsy. On the cover, Jesus in robes looked askance at a big modern church. This will get you started, Larena said.
Patsy rolled the little tabloid into a tube. So what do you guys believe?
Larena blew on her orchid fingertips. Well, personally speaking, I’ve found that God is Jehovah, and my life is all about serving Him. His Kingdom is coming, and I’m just doing everything Jesus tells me till then.
Oh, so you believe in Jesus.
Well, sure. But we know Jesus isn’t God. Only God is God. Jesus is King and God’s son, but he’s a human, same as us, only perfect. And he died on a torture stake and not a cross. That cross business come from pagan times and was just added to make pagans believe.
You sound like a Unitarian, said Patsy.
A what?
Never mind.
You know, Teach . . . Larena gazed at the floor beside her bed, where missing linoleum revealed ridges of crusty black mastic. This idn’t the real world. The real world is yet to come. And it will be paradise. We’ll all live in big ole mansions on wide bullyvards. So hurry up, Teach, time’s running out on you.
When is this paradise supposed to come?
Nobody knows. They used to say dates, but that was a mistake. But there be plenty a warning. The earth’ll crack open, the sky’ll rain blood, the rivers, they’ll boil up outta their banks. The walls of this ugly oleprison’ll crumble down like Jericho. It’ll be the big cleansing of the earth, just like Noah’s time, only the angels’ll come with their flaming swords to sort out the wheat from the chuff.
Her voice had risen almost into song.
But what about forgiveness? said Patsy. Where do you stand on that?
Oh, you gotta forgive. You gotta put shit behind you, or it eat you alive.
Yeah, but what about angels slashing everybody. Won’t they forgive?
God give everybody all the time in the world to come to Him.
Ahh.
Larena handed her an
Awake!
and more
Watchtowers
.
Patsy scanned the little tabloids at her desk, searching for some hint about the sad man who had seemed so fair-minded in the courtroom. She had assumed such generosity was religious. She found an article about “community,” but it only explained that JWs deplored churches and clergy—everyone taught god’s word. Another article said god was angry at the world, the illustration a bearded white man in the clouds, clutching thunderbolts.
Patsy had harbored some religious sentiment as a child—she once dreamed that Jesus liked her in particular. But twelve years of Catholic education had eroded such feeling, and the two summers during high school when she worked in the parish office finished it off. The priests! Each had his own carton of milk in the refrigerator—whole milk, skim, half-and-half, liquid Coffee-mate—and each kept obsessive track of fluid levels, convinced the others were helping themselves. So many accusations, lost tempers, and hard feelings over dairy products! Later on, her training as a historian further demystified the Church and made Patsy immune, even hostile, to institutionalized faith. In every intro-level and survey class she taught, Patsy used the historical Jesus to demonstrate the rigor of historical
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