there a college for messiahs?”
“I’m not going to college.”
“Really? Everyone goes to college. So what are you going to do?”
I shrug, “Take it to the real world.”
“You think they’ll follow you after graduation?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“I just think that maybe it’s just a high school clique to them. And they’ll get back to their regular lives.”
“No. Why do you say that? You don’t even know most of them.”
“I know Erwin and Garrett. But you’re right. How many of you are graduating this year?”
“I don’t know, a lot of us.”
“And what are the rest of them doing?”
I shrug, “College, I guess.”
“And what do you think they’re going to do there, start recruiting for you at the U-Dub? Or in some other city?”
“If I ask them to.”
“And what about you? What are you doing?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I need to expand things.”
“Expand them where? Here? You’re going to be one of those losers who hangs around school after graduating? You and four other guys. Three drug dealers, a janitor, and the messiah?”
I laugh. “No, not here. This is more than just high school. Maybe I can open a center or something. They could work at it on the weekends and after school.”
“A center. Like a church?”
“No. Well sort of, but not like a community center, it’ll be aimed at enacting real world, um…”
The bell rings, luckily, and we turn toward the front.
The teacher’s written
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
on the board. I write it down in my notebook and then take notes on her lecture on the origins of the Great War.
The bell rings and we pack up our things.
Say something to her.
What?
She zips her bag and I zip mine.
We leave the classroom and I look at her and she looks at me like, yes?
Tricia approaches.
Iris nods at her and then says to me, “It was nice talking to you.”
I nod, “You too.”
She turns and they walk down the hall.
I’m sorry I kissed you.
I should run after her and say it.
Why didn’t I bring it up?
I guess I never would have.
Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
Chapter 24
Sydney, Erwin, Faye, and I find a table outside and sit around it. I zip my coat up tight against the cold. Sydney scratches at his right hand with his left, obviously craving a cigarette. Erwin and Faye ignore each other.
Erwin says, “You always say when I ask you about God: maybe. You never want to just tell us what’s true, why not? I know you know. You must believe.”
“I do believe, you’re right,” I say. “I just think that it’s really the same thing if there is a God or there isn’t. We know life is real. We know we’re real. We know this is real,” I put my hand against the table.
Sydney says, “Do we?”
“We all perceive it. So even if it was fake, that fakeness would still be real because if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t perceive anything.”
Erwin says, “You mean like Descartes, like we learned in History last year, ‘I think therefore I am.’”
I say, “It’s even deeper than that. Look at what God says when Moses asks him his name. ‘I am that I am,’ or I am therefore I am. It’s not one thing justifying another, it justifies itself. It’s the same for everything. Everything exists therefore everything exists. That’s what God is. He is. It is. It is existence. Existence is existence. It is it.”
Faye says, “Wow.”
I say, “And that part of the Bible with Moses, the early part of the Old Testament , is thousands of years old, it came out of a primitive time when almost everybody was polytheistic, civilization and writing were still new, when human thought was so primitive. But that’s something that’s still profound today. To me that is a sign that Moses had accessed something higher than himself when he heard it.”
They’re all squinting from the sun behind my head, dropping early in the winter.
Faye says, “You should write your own
“I’m not going to college.”
“Really? Everyone goes to college. So what are you going to do?”
I shrug, “Take it to the real world.”
“You think they’ll follow you after graduation?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“I just think that maybe it’s just a high school clique to them. And they’ll get back to their regular lives.”
“No. Why do you say that? You don’t even know most of them.”
“I know Erwin and Garrett. But you’re right. How many of you are graduating this year?”
“I don’t know, a lot of us.”
“And what are the rest of them doing?”
I shrug, “College, I guess.”
“And what do you think they’re going to do there, start recruiting for you at the U-Dub? Or in some other city?”
“If I ask them to.”
“And what about you? What are you doing?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I need to expand things.”
“Expand them where? Here? You’re going to be one of those losers who hangs around school after graduating? You and four other guys. Three drug dealers, a janitor, and the messiah?”
I laugh. “No, not here. This is more than just high school. Maybe I can open a center or something. They could work at it on the weekends and after school.”
“A center. Like a church?”
“No. Well sort of, but not like a community center, it’ll be aimed at enacting real world, um…”
The bell rings, luckily, and we turn toward the front.
The teacher’s written
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
on the board. I write it down in my notebook and then take notes on her lecture on the origins of the Great War.
The bell rings and we pack up our things.
Say something to her.
What?
She zips her bag and I zip mine.
We leave the classroom and I look at her and she looks at me like, yes?
Tricia approaches.
Iris nods at her and then says to me, “It was nice talking to you.”
I nod, “You too.”
She turns and they walk down the hall.
I’m sorry I kissed you.
I should run after her and say it.
Why didn’t I bring it up?
I guess I never would have.
Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
Chapter 24
Sydney, Erwin, Faye, and I find a table outside and sit around it. I zip my coat up tight against the cold. Sydney scratches at his right hand with his left, obviously craving a cigarette. Erwin and Faye ignore each other.
Erwin says, “You always say when I ask you about God: maybe. You never want to just tell us what’s true, why not? I know you know. You must believe.”
“I do believe, you’re right,” I say. “I just think that it’s really the same thing if there is a God or there isn’t. We know life is real. We know we’re real. We know this is real,” I put my hand against the table.
Sydney says, “Do we?”
“We all perceive it. So even if it was fake, that fakeness would still be real because if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t perceive anything.”
Erwin says, “You mean like Descartes, like we learned in History last year, ‘I think therefore I am.’”
I say, “It’s even deeper than that. Look at what God says when Moses asks him his name. ‘I am that I am,’ or I am therefore I am. It’s not one thing justifying another, it justifies itself. It’s the same for everything. Everything exists therefore everything exists. That’s what God is. He is. It is. It is existence. Existence is existence. It is it.”
Faye says, “Wow.”
I say, “And that part of the Bible with Moses, the early part of the Old Testament , is thousands of years old, it came out of a primitive time when almost everybody was polytheistic, civilization and writing were still new, when human thought was so primitive. But that’s something that’s still profound today. To me that is a sign that Moses had accessed something higher than himself when he heard it.”
They’re all squinting from the sun behind my head, dropping early in the winter.
Faye says, “You should write your own
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