Blind Sight (8 page)

That’s the thing with the sword. Mostly you obey it because you don’t want to push Nana. Pushing Nana would be like pulling the wings off a butterfly, or knocking over a little kid’s ice cream cone, or something deliberately cruel like that. Sometimes you obey it because you know that Nana really needs it, for her own piece of mind, and since she never asks for anything, you feel like, “Okay, whatever.” That’s why I obey it, anyway.

I’m not sure that Sara was totally clear on how religious Nana had gotten when we all moved in with her. I don’t remember any big discussions about going to Assembly. It was just something that happened. Nana would take us three kids while Sara did other things. Sara is really good at honoring other people’s beliefs, though, and for her rare cameo appearances at Assembly she was always very respectful.

Nana hoped that we would all experience getting Saved. My sisters and I heard stories of other Brethrens’ Savings. Talking about your moment of Salvation is a big thing in Assembly. Normally the Brethren are a fairly quiet bunch, but they can get excited when talking about their special moment. Once, Mrs. Potts, who was Saved in the parking lot of Linens ’n Things, got so emotional when recounting her tale that she lost her grip on her Bible and it went whipping across the room and smote Mr. Federmeier on the forehead.

But when I about ten, Sara and Nana had some sort of Discussion, and Sara told Aurora that none of us kids had to go with Nana to Assembly anymore, if we didn’t want to.

Aurora and Pearl summoned me to a conference in their room to discuss this.

“Sara says we are old enough to choose,” Aurora began. “And I guess Nana agreed to that. So who’s choosing to go?”

Pearl passed around contraband Twizzlers and we considered this question.

“I don’t think we should all stop going at once,” Aurora said. “We might want to work into it gradually, one by one.”

“Nana is gonna sword us,” is what Pearl said. “How bad do you think it’ll be? The kind where she just doesn’t talk about it, or the kind where she looks at you like you just farted during Grace? Or total silent treatment?” Total silent treatment was the height of swording, and pretty uncomfortable.

The upshot of the whole discussion was that Aurora would leave first. That way, Pearl and I would have a chance to assess the level of swording and weigh the pros and cons of the whole thing. Pearl and I thought Rory pretty heroic for offering herself like that.

At that point I wasn’t aware that any of us had any problems with going to Assembly. I didn’t think that going was such a big deal. It wasn’t like anything was expected of us. In some ways it was like going to a meditation session with Sara: you went, you sat, maybe you repeated some chants or prayers, you listened or thought your own thoughts.

Aurora was the first to really voice philosophical dissent with Christianity, although her objections were more of a style nature: she simply preferred the kinds of things Sara would read to us. So the virgin Mary was visited by an angel and ended up pregnant? So what? A similar sort of thing happens in the Mahabharata, only in a much more exciting way. The mortal Kunti is practicing her mantra and then the God Lord Surya appears and the next day Kunti bears his son, who is born wearing earrings and golden armor.

The swording of Aurora was not terrible. On the next Sunday, Sara and Rory were out of the house early and away for most of the
day. Pearl and I went with Nana to Assembly as usual. When one of the New Brethren asked Nana where Aurora was, Nana replied, “Aurora will be spending some time with her mother for awhile.” The way Nana said it, it sounded like some sort of grave punishment was being enacted, and no more questions were asked. Later that night, at dinner, Nana did not speak to Aurora. We were all a little nervous about this, but the next morning Nana was her usual self, and treated Rory just like normal.

Pearl stopped going to Assembly once she got to high school, but I think it was almost because the New Brethren weren’t Christian
enough
for Pearl. Even though she considers fundamentalism to be naive, anti-intellectualist, and anti-women, it’s at least
serious
. Like, she doesn’t call herself a Christian, but she thinks if you do, you should pony up and really
believe
.

“Whatever else you want to say about these fundamentalists,” Pearl has said, “they are at least committed. They don’t pick and choose which parts of Scripture to believe, like they’re picking through a salad. They eat the whole thing. Give me an honest lunatic over a mush-mouth pseudo-Christian any day.”

Nana and I get along really smoothly. I do a lot of things with her. I’m her helper. Sometimes she says things like, “I rely on you, Luke,” or “I know you are going to see the Light, Luke, and I pray for you every day.” I don’t say anything back to this, but I nod. I see it as a nod of agreement: I agree that Nana prays for me, and I agree she believes I will see the Light. Okay, sure, whatever.

There have been some interesting theories floating around lately about what has been called “the God Gene.” Its actual name is VMAT2. VMAT2 codes for a protein that affects levels of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, and studies have shown that it’s those levels that might account for mystical and spiritual feelings. If VMAT2 does have something to do with belief in the supernatural, then belief in God is something that could be, at least partially, heritable. And so then you have to think about whether it’s something
that’s been selected because it confers an advantage. Maybe people who believe in God do better than people that don’t. People who believe in “Love Thy Neighbor,” for example, maybe do better than people that believe in “Tell thy neighbor to suck it.” Or, people who believe that there is an afterlife, or a meaning to their existence, are maybe happier than people who think it’s all just random and they are food for worms. Happy people have more babies, and therefore pass on more VMAT2.

Of course, when you think about it, the most religious people are the ones who are always telling their neighbor to suck it, if their neighbor doesn’t agree with them. Telling someone to suck it in the name of God is, like, most of history. And suicide bombers are obviously not passing along any VMAT2. Maybe suicide bombers have too much VMAT2, or not enough of something else that would regulate it, and the problem should be treated like the way we treat diabetics. If we can capture one before they complete their mission, we shouldn’t interrogate them. We should stick them in an fMRI machine, ask them to think about God, and see what lights up.

Of course, you don’t talk about these things with Nana, or with Sara, for that matter. There’s the whole “Studies show …” problem with Sara, and Nana would not welcome the idea that belief in God is something hardwired, like opposable thumbs or hair color. Some Christians argue that a gene for believing in God doesn’t disprove an actual God because God could have created the gene to help matters along, like His decision to create the Big Bang and Darwin’s brain. So they would say that Darwin’s brain is a secondary cause of the first cause, which is God.

My biology teacher, Mr. Stoddard, gave a speech about “non-overlapping magisteria” before he taught us evolution. This is a theory developed by the biologist Stephen Jay Gould. It’s like a separation of powers. You say that science and theology have separate areas of expertise, and that you should let each side do its business. Science shouldn’t interfere with questions of morality and ethics, and
Religion shouldn’t try to explain physical phenomena. Mr. Stoddard said that if everybody agreed to stay on their side of the fence, then there would be no problems. I think it’s a pretty flawed argument, but we didn’t have any problems in my AP Biology class. However, there were only eleven of us, and we were being graded.

A gene that has something to do with mystical feelings seems reasonable enough to me. And so maybe atheism is an attempt to override a natural instinct. Unless you are missing that gene, and then your atheism isn’t a choice, it’s biological. But of course having a gene doesn’t mean you’ll have what it codes for. A whole bunch of other genes have to be in place supporting it.

Maybe Abigail Perkins didn’t believe in God and that’s why they thought she was a witch and there is a secret history of nonbelievers in my family, passing along a genetic sequence with no VMAT2. Maybe this whole line of thinking is ridiculous.

I think we should all help our neighbors. I am also happy if my remains provide food for worms. Everybody has to eat.

Luke imagines his father reading this last sentence and laughing. He does not think Mark can be very religious, considering the fact that he says things like “Jesus fucking Christ.” Luke takes his laptop into his father’s office so he can hook it up to the printer.

Mark’s office, like the rest of the house, has a surgical neatness to it, although there are a few personal objects in this room. Luke thinks he would like to have an office just like this, with everything at right angles to other things. Luke has already examined all of his father’s books, which are mostly about film, or acting technique, or plays, or actors. He has also inspected the six framed photographs mounted on the wall opposite the bookcase: one large photo of the cast of
The Last
, and five smaller ones of Mark in costume for various roles, standing or sitting with people even more famous than he is. Luke’s favorite is the one where Mark is pretending to lose an arm-wrestling
match to the old British actor whose name Luke always confuses with another old British actor.

Luke sees the pile of photographs he had given his father in a neat stack next to the printer. On top is the one of Luke, in his cross-country shorts and T-shirt, the number 23 on his chest, leading the pack at the invitational against Elmwood High last year.

While the Nana essay is printing, Luke wanders into the hallway and pauses outside his father’s bedroom door, which is shut. He had a glimpse inside this room when Mark first showed him around the house, but Luke had been watching his father show things, rather than looking at what was being shown. He can only remember a big bed and some kind of artwork above it.

Luke wants to look in his father’s room. He puts his hand on the doorknob. For a moment he imagines that Mark has rigged some kind of booby trap over the door, a jar of marbles, or a net, and that he will get caught snooping and Mark will send him back to Delaware in disgust. Luke tries for a few moments to think of a plausible excuse for going in his father’s room, but cannot think of any. He also does not want to try the doorknob, in case he finds the door is locked, which would hurt his feelings.

“I wanted to see inside your room,” Luke now imagines himself saying to Mark. “I wanted to find out more about you because you keep asking me about me, but you never really tell me anything about yourself and we’re supposed to be getting to know each other, not just you knowing me.”

Luke turns the doorknob and opens the door slightly. Nothing falls. Because his father has not rigged the door, or locked it, Luke feels that it would be more noble not to look inside. He shuts the door quietly. You could misinterpret the significance of objects really easily, he reminds himself. If he hadn’t known that his father had been given boxes of things as gifts he might have looked in the garage and thought his father was some kind of thief, because who kept eight boxes of expensive watches in their garage? And if he tells Mark
later, “I wanted to look in your room, but I didn’t,” that will be much better. Because that would be evidence that Mark could trust him.

Luke believes in having evidence. Without evidence, you just have hope, which is nice, but not reliable.

Luke does not tell his father about wanting to look in his room, but when Mark informs Luke the following morning that he wants Luke to meet the girl he has been seeing, that he’s made plans for them all to go to dinner that evening, Luke feels that his respect for his father’s privacy has been rewarded by this inclusion of Luke into Mark’s personal life. So far the only friends of Mark that Luke has met have been the people that work for Mark.

“She’s great,” Mark says. “Aimee. You’ll like her.”

“My sort-of-ex-girlfriend’s name is Amy,” Luke tells him.

“Sort of?”

“Mostly we just hung out in a group,” Luke explains. “As friends. But sometimes we … kind of …”

“Does she spell her name with two ‘e’s?”

“With a ‘y,’ ” Luke says. “Where does your Amy put the ‘e’s?”

“At the end.” Mark shrugs. “There’s also an ‘i’ in there. What happened with Amy with a ‘y’?”

Luke shrugs.

“Yeah,” Mark sighs. “I hear you. That happens.”

Luke is getting ready for this dinner now, physically at least, although mentally he feels a little unprepared. Luke puts on the vintage shirt Aurora gave him for his birthday. Mark had said, “Dinner is casual, jeans are okay,” so Luke puts on the nicest of his jeans. He goes back to the bathroom and gingerly applies a few fingertips’ worth of Aveda Anti-Humectant to his hair. Mark had stocked Luke’s bathroom with a number of products. All his life Luke had shared a bathroom with his sisters, and thus carried a basic assumption that anything with writing in cursive on it was not for him, avoiding
pretty much everything but toothpaste, floss, and hand soap. Some of the products Mark has gotten him have writing in cursive, but the cursive says “For Men,” or “pour les hommes.” Luke really likes his bathroom, and makes an uncharacteristic effort to keep it neat.

Luke decides to wear the leather jacket Mark gave him. He notices for the first time that the label inside the jacket says “Gucci.”

In the living room, Luke finds his father sprawled in one of the leather armchairs, watching the Discovery Channel.

“Am I okay?” Luke asks, indicating his clothes. “Do I need a tie or something?”

“You look great. Don’t change a thing. Aimee is going to be late.” Mark reads a text off his phone. “Traffic.”

They are not picking Aimee up. She is driving over herself, and then Mark will drive them all to the restaurant. Luke wonders if this is because Aimee is going to spend the night. His father has not said anything about that, and Luke wonders if he should say something himself, let Mark know it is okay.