The Churchgoer by Patrick Coleman

Author:Patrick Coleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

21.

THROUGH A SEA OF POSTSERVICE CHATTER—BAKED IN A CLAY OVEN OF stucco, concrete, and midday summer sun so potent I swore I smelled cotton candy and the reek of the pig barn at the Del Mar Fair—I waded slowly to the far end of what could only be called a compound. Maybe I just liked the word compound, the Branch Davidian ring that had stuck to it. There I found the building I was looking for, CANAAN HILLS ADMINISTRATION in white vinyl lettering on its tinted door. I went in, toying with the last word, how a “minister” was buried in it.

In the offices the artifice dropped and the decor was all corporate. Cubicles. Cheap walls installed to make private offices. Doors cut into the walls. Names printed on the doors. The glossy leaves of hardy indoor plants. The feng shui of bland fries-and-Coke American power. There were a dozen or so people in there, working. I checked doors for Eddie’s name, and while I walked the place I felt the radiation of each cubicle worker’s welcoming smile on the back of my head. I caught a glimpse of one, the worst kind: the kind that would love me despite anything I might say or do. Screw it, I said to myself, and asked the agape-steeped accountant where I could find the pastor. The man pointed, and then his smile diminished a degree as he turned back to his work, the spreadsheets that failed to provide him an occasion to exhibit Jesus’s sacrificial love of the living.

At the far end of the building was a door labeled EDDIE LAMBERT: HEAD PASTOR. I tried out different titles for myself. Good to meet you, Head Pastor, I’m Mark Haines: Hand Pastor, Past Pastor, Taco al Pastor, Dick Pastor—maybe that was me, the last one.

I knocked. Sometime during my visit to this place, I had decided on talking to Pastor Eddie. It wasn’t intuition or insight leading me. As my knuckles rang against the hollow door, I knew I was being led by a grudge, looking to score a hit or two on a person I could have been, in a different life. It didn’t have anything to do with Emily, not at the root. I didn’t expect he would have ever heard of her, not in a place this large. Deep down, I just didn’t like the guy and couldn’t stand the thought of leaving here without him knowing it.

But I didn’t know what I was going to say to Eddie, how I was going to approach him. Nothing. A big, beige nothing was all I had in my head—the color of stupidity, without expectation or hope. It was my brain again, doing its usual bit, getting ahead of itself, getting me up to my neck in my own messes. But even though it was my brain, it felt a little more like me this time. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, to be on the same page as my malignant neurochemistry.

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