Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Author:Matthew Quick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780316221337
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2013-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Just like I’d hoped, after school today, when I arrive at our town’s subway station, I find Lauren handing out tracts, or rather holding the tracts out to everyone who passes by and doesn’t say a word to her or even give her a glance.

I wonder what crazy bit of propaganda she’s peddling today and what scary pictures are inside—hell flames and bloody saviors and all sorts of Christian gore.

I didn’t come here to mess with Lauren’s head or argue with her about religion or logic or ask for favors or anything else.

I just came to say good-bye.

Lauren’s cut her hair into bangs that hang out under the home-knit beret-type hat she’s got on. A little curtain of blond shields her forehead. The hat’s so homely and old-ladyish that it makes me crush on52 Lauren again so much—even if she did stop praying for me.

It’s like she’s not even aware that she’s so horribly out of fashion. She’s not wearing the hat in any ironic way, like some of the black-nail-polish girls in my high school would. And Lauren’s also got on this off-white jacket that goes down to her knees and makes her look like she’s wearing a robe from far away—like the stereotypical angel a child would draw.

God, she looks perfect.

And no one is paying her any attention but me.

Since I’ve been watching her, I’d say at least thirty people have passed and she’s extended her mitten-clutched pamphlet to every single one and yet no one has even glanced at her.

I still think the idea of god is bullshit, obviously, but I have to tell you, the one thing I admire about Lauren is that she’s not out here because she wants to be right or righteous or make people feel bad about what they already believe; she’s not really interested in arguing with anyone or anything like that—and I’ll admit that maybe subconsciously she needs to prove that her ideas are more important than the ideas of others, but she also really worries that everyone is literally going to burn in hell forever and ever and she doesn’t want that to happen to anyone at all. It’s like she’s living in a fairy tale and she’s desperately trying to keep the big bad wolf from devouring us or blowing down our houses. I love her for at least caring about strangers—for at least trying to save people, even if the threat she perceives isn’t real.

When I approach her, she doesn’t see me at first.

“Excuse me, miss,” I say, trying to do Bogart again. “You wouldn’t be able to tell me how to make Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior would you? Because I’ve been—”

“Stop making fun of me please, Leonard,” she says, as five suits pass by her outstretched hand without taking a tract.

“How many people have you saved today?” I ask just to make conversation.

“Why is there no hair hanging down from inside that hat?” she says, which makes me smile, because she noticed I cut it off.

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