Always an experiment in curiosity,
Kristof Lang found his mind leading him into occupations less in need of
his attention than others. This curiosity became bothersome, but Kristof
found it quite necessary to avoid boredom.
The attention span of most eleven year old boys is
over-shadowed by their imagination, but this typical behavior was something
Kristof felt he needed to cultivate before he aged and became that same
banal creature his parents had become. Sometimes Kristof's curiosities
weren't just bothersome, they were frightening. When Kristof wanted to
see a picture of a frog's internal anatomy, he wasn't inclined to look
inside books, as other children were, he simply found a frog and opened
it instead. Other, less morbid, curiosities were nurtured by his parents.
These other curiosities were regarded as healthy, and taken as Kristof's
way of stepping toward enlightenment. Kristof's parents
did, however, find his sporadic attention span frustrating.
It wasn't so much the lack of attention towards television, though the
continuous channel rotation infuriated his father, it was the lack of appreciation
Kristof gave to scholastic matters. He could never recall what was said
by his teacher
the minute after it was spoken. What was worse, so
thought the Langs, was Kristof's apathy towards church. Kristof himself
didn't understand why, at such a young age, he had chosen atheism over
his parents Christian faith. Kristof only knew that the idea of a God,
and miracles were all too fantastic
for him to fathom. Though no resentment was harbored
at religion itself, Kristof could still think of ten other matters in need
of his attention on Sunday, not one of them being church attendance. The
back of the man's coat was black, though not the kind of black that tints
average cloth, but a kind of stilted dark, angry and resentful of the sunlight
that shed down on it. Kristof had been starring at the back of the man's
coat for a little over a minute as he climbed the stoned stairs to the
church. Kristof was unsure why, but he wished he had picked someone else
to walk behind. He was a column of a man,
a little over seven feet. A humble build, with a taut
face. His skin was colored a shade of bourbon, and his eyes appeared albino
in contrast; cream white, no visible pupils or iris. A gray button up Polo
shirt was un-tucked from his pants, and his black slacks spilt over the
mouths of two brown leather
Doc Martin boots. His hat was the piece that interested
Kristof the most, a kind of Sam Spade hat, the kind Humphrey Bogart wore
when playing hard boiled detectives. Its rim fell apathetically around
his eyes and ears. Kristof felt a grip close around
his elbow. "Kris, don't stare!" Snapped, for a moment, from his observations,
Kristof looked into his mother's concerned face. Furrowing his brow, making
sure she noted his disdain, he turned back to his studies. Kristof found
the man, several steps in front of him, looking directly back at him. Barry
was an exception to the priesthood. He had blonde hair that ran generously
past his shoulders, a small white '76 Pinto, with an Alice Cooper decal
stretched across the back window, and smoked like an exhaust system. Placing
his hands on either side of the podium, Barry looked around the room, noting
the attendance of the regular Sunday crowd. Just as Barry approached the
podium the organ music ceased. Smiling, Barry opened with small talk of
the weekend, a joke, then guided his talk, slowly, into the area of Biblical
matters.
"...Today, I'm going to read to you from Matthew,
page eight nineteen, if your editions are the same as mine."
Kristof heard the hollow sound
of wood tensing and creaking as bodies shifted to see if their editions
of the Bible, held in the up-turned shelf in each pew, was the same as
the edition Barry held.
Barry listened to murmurs of agreement, then opened
his own Bible. Throughout Barry's introduction Kristof noticed that the
man he had seen entering the church had chosen the pew in front of him.
Not only the pew in front of Kristof, but the seat directly blocking any
view Kristof had of the sanctuary's front. The man seemed haughty when
he sat down. He kept his hat and coat on, whereas others saw it respectful
to remove such articles upon entering the church, and sat with one leg
propped on the other, his arm hung rudely over the back of his seat. Kristof
heard Barry's words only as a
subconscious hum that resounded into the corners of
his mind. When Barry told the people which book he would read from the
man's right eyebrow arched in mild amusement. Kristof swore he heard a
scratchy "humph" issue from the man's clenched mouth. Before Barry
read, everyone stood.
Holding their song books angelically by both covers
they pressed them to their chests, like new born children. Kristof decided
to stand that morning, he wanted the privilege of scenery that did not
include the back of the man's head. Kristof even sung that day. He hummed
the high notes on the fear
that his voice might crack, and give rise to some
sort of disturbance from the other church-goers. All the while Kristof
sang he noticed the man sat still, like a stone at the bottom of a boiling
lake. He seemed unaffected, indifferent even, towards the motion, and the
energy around him. The man remained belligerently seated even after noting
how others him gave shameful looks concerning his behavior. When the singing
stopped, Kristof sat. He shoved his hands in his pockets, they were beginning
to sweat, and tried looking over the man's shoulder at Barry. Again, the
rustle of pews was heard as each church-goer reached for their Bible and
opened them to Matthew. The man, however, remained still. Kristof noticed
a look that began as a knowing smile, but grew into a mask of mischief.
More judgmental looks were
directed at the man, this time the looks belonged to the more elderly women
seated on the man's right. Still, he seemed not to care. He seemed almost
pleased with their looks, and the attention he received. Barry began reading
Matthew 4:1.
"Then Jesus was lead up by the spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil..."
Kristof had a Bible open in his
lap, opened somewhere in the district of Revelation, and scanned the pages
with his finger to give his parents the impression that he followed Barry's
reading. Kristof's eyes were, instead, fixed on the man's face, specifically
his lips, as he spoke the words of the text, along with Barry, in perfect
unison, without the benefit of a Bible. Barry's speech was a long credo
he had conceived himself. Something about how the temptations of the world
are many. He regarded humanity's want for power and notification to be
a form of temptation, some kind of narcissism; people aspired to be more
significant than they should. Barrys serm on was, ritually, intermingled
with passages from one or another Bible chapter he had chosen for that
morning. The next passage Barry read concerned the temptation of
Christ.
"Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he
said to him,
'all these I will give you, if you will fall down
and worship me.' "
Kristof was, by this time, engaged in the practice
of half listening to Barry's sermon, while sparing the rest of his attention
for the man in front of him. Nearly dropping his Bible, Kristof heard the
man utter something, almost inaudible, when Barry finished the passage.
"It didn't happen just like that."
At last, the time for Communion arrived. Kristof's
atheistic views were
unwavering, however he always felt some surge of emotion,
some variety of necessity was satisfied,
when he took Communion. Each row was bade to stand
when Barry motioned them to the front of the church. All the people rose,
respectfully, diligently, and made their way to the altar. Then came time
for the man's row to stand. Everyone stood except, of course, for the man.
He sat still, making no notice of those standing around him. Instead of
rising the man inspected his finger nails for dirt while the people to
his right filed past him, each throwing a disdainful look as they past.
Kristof wasn't sure if she stumbled, or was tripped, but the last of the
elderly women to pass the man lost her footing as she exited the pew. When
the man saw the old woman's spill his posture straightened, and he smiled.
For the first time, it seemed, since the sermon began, Barry noticed the
man. His brow furrowed, and Barry made a peaceful gesture, a pendulum swinging
motion with his arm, inviting the man to join the others. Settling back
in his seat, the man shook his head, not bothering to look at Barry as
he dismissed him. Barry gave the conclusion to his sermon, closed the Bible
that was open before him on podium, and told everyone to drive safely home.
The pews were flushed of human content. People lined the carpeted hallway
that lead to the church's main exit. Kristof felt his mother's
hand take hold of his elbow once more.
"Look at this, Thomas!" She whispered to her husband.
"We have to drag him, tooth and nail, to get him to
come. But this Sunday he doesn't want to leave."
Kristof felt november winds take a home in his
stomach, binding him to his seat with a polar variety of uncertainty. The
man rose from his seat, in a more energetic fashion than Kristof would
have thought, comfortable as he looked, and strolled to the front of the
church. Kristof's hands became corpse-cold as he watched the man, hands
shoved deep into the pockets of his coat, march
up the red carpeted steps to the front of the church.
The man stopped in front of the hanging sculpture of crucified Jesus. Looking
up, the man scrutinized the statue, and appeared deep in thought. His mother's
grip persisted, but Kristof held steady, wanting to see what would become
of the man when his studies of the sculpture were through. It seemed to
Kristof that this curious man had somehow acquired six or seven new inches
since he had been seated. He was a pillar of black and gray, almost as
tall as Barry's podium. His skin, Kristof also noted, was a darker tan
from whence he sat down. His visage looked almost charcoal black, like
smoldering resin.
"Are you new to this church?" Kristof heard Barry's
voice resonate in the quiet of the sanctuary, no longer competing with
the chatter of exiting attendees. The man turned to Barry, looked him up,
then down,
and shook his head.
"Did you sign the guest book? We passed it around
before the sermon? You
were in what row... Oh,... You were sitting in front
of Kris, weren't you? Let's see. Martin Godless?"
"The man nodded his head, ivory columns, serving as
teeth, glowed in his rapidly blackening face.
"Do you have any desire to join our little church?
I saw you didn't come up for Communion."
The man shook his head once more, then turned away
from Barry to study the life-sized plaster statue of Jesus.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Barry had the guest book pressed to his right
leg, his hands at his side to show he meant no persistence in his prior
offer. The man, curiously, cocked his head to one side.
"You've got it all wrong. Every statue has it all
wrong!"
"What've we gotten all wrong?"
The man whispered, another scratchy issue of voice,
"He was much taller
than that."
Barry waited the length of ten seconds, then stumbled
back on his heels, and threw his arms widly into the air.
"I didn't make it!"
Kristof eyes never left the man, but heard Barry storm
into side entrance of the sanctuary, leading to the minister's living quarters.
Outside the church Kristof walked in perfect coordination with his
mother's footsteps. His parents were engaged in a conversation that held
no interest to Kristof. He wouldnÕt have heard the conversation
even if effort were supplied to listen, his head kept swiveling and searching,
trying to find the man in the gauntlets
of people decorating the church steps. At last, the
man exited. His feet angrily pounding the concrete sidewalk, as if to leave
chasms in his wake. Kristof watched as he rudely bullied his way through
the crowd, and stalked down the empty sidewalk toward Debalivier Avenue.
Straining his neck, Kristof searched for a sign of the man, some assurance
that he was finally gone, never to attend Kristof's church again. A throng
of people crossed Kristof's sight, only for a second. When the human cloud
ducked into their waiting car Kristof was given back his view of the sidewalk.
The man was gone.
Kristof's rhythm was broken, he fell behind his parents
pace just as they turned the corner. With the man's absence so came the
dissipation of the parasitic cold Kristof found housing itself in his bowels.
His shoulders slumped into ill posture once more,
his hands ceased their perspiration. He was then aware, for the first time,
that in the coming night, and each night thereafter, he would kneel close
to his bed, press a two-handed fist against his forehead, and recite the
Lord's Prayer. A prayer which, up until that Sunday, Kristof regarded only
as a well constructed poem. Reason took hold of Kristof's thought, and
indulged the idea of reevaluating his stance on faith. After all, reason
spoke to Kristof, if there's a Martin Godless, than what is to say that
there is not another man out there. A man with paler skin, without Martin's
coldness, with ten fold any shred kindness Martin might posses. A man just
the opposite of Martin Godless.