American Savior by Roland Merullo

Author:Roland Merullo [Merullo, Roland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, Religion, Spirituality, Humour
ISBN: 9781565126077
Goodreads: 3599893
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2008-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

ZELDA KISSED ME as if I had done, or was about to do, something special for the campaign or for the world. Mom chipped in with a warm hug, and my father came over and shook my hand hard, with the other hand on my shoulder and a lot of eye contact. Between all that and the way the others were looking at me before they turned to climb the steps of the bus, well, I might have been saying good-bye before heading off to Parris Island for Marine boot camp. The bus rumbled off, leaving us in the middle of the desert without any wheels. Jesus and I studied its progress until it was a spot on the horizon, and then he put an arm around my shoulders and we walked into the wilderness.

“I assume you have a plan for getting us back to the resort,” I was dumb enough to say.

“O Russ of little faith.”

We walked. I sweated and watched the ground for snakes, but he was lost in thought again. We went along another few dozen steps without speaking. “You seem agitated,” I said. “It’s not like you.”

“It’s nothing. Just that, the last time I went out into the desert, some bad character gave me trouble. This time I wanted my chief of security along.”

“So there is a devil then. I mean….”

“Ignorance,” he said. “Ignorance. Arrogance. Egotism.”

“Not an actual evil spirit, though?”

“Not with any power that worries me, particularly.”

“But you just said—”

“I was joking. I am untouchable, unhurtable. So are you.”

“Why doesn’t it feel that way, then? And why do you even need a security chief?”

“Because, as I once told you, we are locked in a dream.”

I thought about that for a minute. “Let me guess,” I said. “You have the key, and I don’t.”

He smiled. “We both have it. I know how to use it, you do not … not yet, anyway. At the instant of death, if your mind is pure, still, calm, if you have been kind to others, if you have been selfless enough, then you step free of the dream forever, and, in doing so, step free of pain and fear, and you move into a much more pleasant realm of existence.”

“Heaven,” I suggested.

“A sort of heaven, yes.”

“Good to hear. What about hell, then?”

“You make your own hell. You, not the devil.”

“But who would want to?”

He laughed; it was not a happy sound. “You are a strange and masochistic race. I can provide examples, if you’d like. Let’s see, which chapter in the history book should we begin with?”

“All right. I’m just trying to, you know, slip out of the grasp of ideas I was brought up with.”

“Good. That is the whole point and purpose of your existence. Old ideas, bad memories, regret, doubt, fear … imagine all that as the devil in the desert, tempting you. Your job is to cast him away.”

“We used to wonder why he tempted you. I mean you, of all people. Seems like a losing proposition.”

“There was no ‘him.

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