Chapter II, pt. iii

They laugh, the three of them.
Why?
“No one was looking,” she says, “I was curious.”
“Oh, dude,” Thomas says wiping a tear from his eye, “that’s so nasty.”
He adjusts his sunglasses, laughing. He pulls a big handful of grass out of the ground and looks up to the sky. The clouds move in all at once, like troops marching into town square. I guess that’s why they call them storm troopers he thinks. The raindrops begin to fall. Droplets appear on his tinted lenses.
Why me?
He drops her off. He leaves. He drives to clear his head. They argued and now he drives fast. He drives, thinking, going nowhere. This is going nowhere. In the trees, was that an owl? He changes the CD. There is a crash. He dies.
Why must I be made to suffer?
There is a man in the road. Are you God? Fine, don’t answer. He wanders off into the trees. Into a building, empty but full of rooms. He sees God.
Why me?
He doesn’t see God, he knows He is there. He is I, I is him. He knows this. He lost his head in the accident which wouldn’t do him any good at all. The impact chopped his head off. His body is crushed pulp. There are men in the road.
I want to know.
There is an empty room full of God. God is he. But God-he knows all his thoughts, all his secrets, there is no FUCKING AROUND with a being like this. This is not a social creature. Human interaction is all lies and flattery and chest-thumping, asserting, power games. Oh! but not this God. No! this God will rip the top of your skull off and eat your brain but won’t say when.
Oh God, please help me Father.
Oh! and the Cane shall strike the Palm!
Oh God! Please, please Father!
Do you expect mercy, boy?
I want you to tell me.

Adam. Adam wake up.
He groaned as Leah dazedly hit his shoulder. The room was dark.
“Fear Him,” Adam said quietly, “fear God.”

In the morning he finally checked his e-mail.
“Check this out,” he called to her in the other room.
“What?” she said, over the running water as she brushed her teeth.
“Four hundred and forty-six e-mails. A new record.”
They were mostly well wishes and junk mail but one in particular caught his attention. Leah came into the room, white toothpaste foam covered her lips.
“You didn’t shave today,” she said trying stop the white pasty spittle from flying out.
“Nope,” he said reading, “and I don‘t think I‘m going to.”
He reminded her of that kid, Tyrone she thought his name was.
“You don’t need to feel obliged to shave either,” he added.
“I don’t feel obliged,” she responded almost to herself.
What was it, tenth grade? Tyrone was riding in the bed of Marshall’s truck just after school. They were really whooping it up at the girls walking home, not really paying attention. There was an accident. Tyrone flew about twenty feet in the air and landed head first on the street. This all happened in slow motion. When he finally came back to school the next year he was like a totally different person. Like Fred Flintstone.
How could she not feel sorry for him?
He turned to her, beaming, “I’m going to Dallas.”
“What’s in Dallas?” she said.
“Radio!”