Strange Animals (19 page)

After dinner, Karen's
father, Robert, said, “Have you even been outside in the past week, or have you been cooped up in the house like an animal?”

Karen said, “I go out in the backyard and hang out.”

Robert said, “That's not good. You need to be out doing things.”

Karen said, “I don't think that's a good idea. I'd rather just lay low until whatever happens is going to happen.”

Lynn said, “Lay low? You're past that point, I think.”

Karen said, “You know what I mean. Just stick around here and not give them an opportunity to get any more photos of me. I did a fucking CNN interview. That should be the only public appearance I have to do.”

Lynn said, “I don't think that's how it works, honey. When you put something in the world that gets people this fired up,
they're going to want you to continue to be a part of it. What you do about that is obviously up to you, and we're happy to have you stay here as long as you want, but your dad just wants you to be happy, and I do, too. And you can't really be all that happy sitting around watching TV all day, can you?”

Karen said, “Much happier than getting attacked at a grocery store and then seeing pictures of it all over the Internet. And I don't just watch TV all day. I'm working on my dissertation.”

Robert said, “Why? Are you going to try to get into some other school after this or something?”

Karen had considered this, but she hadn't yet committed to it in her own mind. She was continuing her work on the dissertation, in part, in order to stay focused on the purpose behind everything that was happening around her. Whether she used it to apply to a different philosophy program, or even tried to publish it herself, was irrelevant to her in that moment. It was just about continuing her work.

Robert said, “You've gotten into
something
here, that's for sure.”

Karen said, “That is indeed for sure, Dad.”

They finished eating dinner and Karen went to her bedroom. More and more, she found that lying on her bed in a specific position on her side was the only way to ease the pain in her back. She'd lie sometimes for hours at a time reading about herself on the Internet. Although the articles against her were far more violent in tone, she was surprised to find that there were just as many as the number supporting her. The supporters, though, usually defended her more on the basis of freedom of expression than because they supported her challenge to the Christian right. She did find a few prominent articles, however, that praised Karen's project as the event that the pro-choice movement was waiting for but had never had the guts or creativity to do for itself. These were the articles that gave Karen hope that what she was doing was making a difference, was changing people's minds, was
forcing them to talk about this in a philosophical context rather than just the usual right-wing brainless screaming from a pulpit. One article equated what Karen was doing to the Emancipation Proclamation. It claimed that women were the most subjugated group of human beings on the planet and that this was a massive step toward ending that, toward forcing people to see the hypocrisy of patriarchal religious structures that claim to want the best for women even as they work to rob them of their reproductive rights.

She also read countless posts and articles that pleaded with her to give the child a chance to live, even if her financial goal wasn't met. Karen had to admit that the logic of this specific argument was sound. Most of these articles argued that Karen would be able to prove her point about the hypocritical nature of the religious right and take the high road at the same time if she didn't get the money but still had the child and gave it up for adoption or even decided to keep it. As she finished reading one such article, she noticed that she was unconsciously rubbing her stomach. She could feel the fetus moving inside her as she rubbed. The article's final line read, “If you do nothing else, just spend ten minutes thinking about what kind of person that child could become with you as a parent.” She lifted her shirt and looked down at the strange thing her body had become. Two moles on the top of her stomach had begun to grow thick black hair. She had visible stretch marks that she found hideous. But she knew that when this was over they'd serve as lifelong reminders of what she'd done, and she knew that she'd come to love them. Most disgusting to her at this point was how her belly button had pushed itself out. Her new doctor told her that it would return to normal after the pregnancy, but for now it made her gag every time she saw it. In her mind, her protruding navel was worse than her leaking nipples.

The final line of that article struck Karen as a reasonable challenge, and she forced herself to take it. She felt that she shouldn't
have to force herself to ignore her emotions, to close herself off from any thoughts or feelings she might be having. She put her palm flat on her stomach, where she felt the last movement, and thought about the tiny person growing inside her.

On the way home from her last doctor's appointment, Karen's mother had let slip the gender of the fetus, so Karen knew that it was a girl growing inside her. She imagined the girl to have blue eyes like Paul. She imagined them to be curious and smart and beautiful. She imagined this little girl growing up. She imagined herself going to a grade school PTA meeting and learning from the teachers that her daughter was the smartest student in the school, but that she also had a problem with authority. She imagined getting a call from a junior high principal because her daughter had punched a boy in the nose after the boy told her that he didn't think his future wife should have a job. She imagined her daughter telling her that even though everyone else was going to the prom, she wasn't, because she considered it an antiquated tradition that promoted discrimination more than anything else. She imagined her daughter getting into Harvard and being the first female student to do something so important that it forever altered the manner in which the school was run. She couldn't imagine what that would be, but she could imagine her daughter doing it. She imagined her daughter becoming a leader in whatever the feminist movement of her time would be. She imagined her writing books that incensed the public but nonetheless pushed things forward. She imagined her daughter growing old but keeping a photo of her mother with her all the time. She imagined her daughter loving her for a wide variety of things, but mostly for deciding to have her. She imagined her daughter reading through the mountains of words that would have been written about both her and Karen, and she imagined her daughter understanding why she had done it, and she imagined her daughter having respect and admiration for her mother and her project. And in all this she realized that this child was
a part of Paul, too. It was a part of the person she had come to love most in the world. And this child might be the only way she could have some part of Paul in her life. It was something she'd never allowed herself to consider until that moment, and it made her extremely sad to think of this child in those terms, as the last piece of her relationship with Paul.

Karen felt a tear roll down her cheek and immediately told herself it was hormones. Then she imagined a different version of her daughter. She imagined her with the same blue eyes from her father, but then she imagined those eyes without the fire she saw in them in the other version of her daughter. She imagined this more likely child as a girl with little special curiosity about life or anything else. She imagined her daughter marrying an average man and having his average children, and never working, and never contributing to anything or thinking critically about the world around her. She imagined her daughter as a normal woman, trapped by her inability to see the dangers of traditional gender roles and relationships. She imagined her daughter as being happy, but that wasn't enough for Karen.

Karen knew that parents had some influence over the people their children became, but certainly that influence wasn't absolute, and statistically her daughter would be far more likely to be uninteresting than she would be likely to do anything of note or even to be likely to have an interesting conversation with her mother about any of this. For Karen, that would be more heartbreaking than anything else. And there was the dilemma for her. Even if she wanted to have the child and keep it without giving it up for adoption, she knew that the great likelihood was that her daughter would be completely and utterly normal.

She didn't consider herself to be normal by any means. She thought about how her parents had raised her, and how influential they had been in shaping the person she'd become. They had given her the room she needed to explore things for her
self, and they never pressed religion on her or any publicly held views of what a woman should or could be. She knew she'd be the same way with any child she could ever have. But she had no real idea how much her upbringing had contributed to her adult personality, and how much it was the product of innate factors. She couldn't say how much of her would have been the same, no matter what her parents did. Things like intelligence and curiosity, Karen thought, were random. Despite any kind of parental impositions in a child's life, certain things were dictated at birth. And if her child had low intelligence, or no interest in intellectual pursuits, there was virtually nothing she could do to reverse that. This was her worst fear where a possible child was concerned, but it was a fear she'd never considered before that moment. It was a fear that betrayed in Karen a secret desire for a better life for her unborn child.

And beyond that, Karen could feel a bond forming with this child. She felt as though the child was on this journey with her, that some partnership in the overarching plot of this entire ordeal had been formed. That would be a difficult partnership to end. She'd already ended one relationship that meant more to her than anything, and she knew that losing another would be even more difficult.

She tried to put the question out of her mind and think instead about what the next few weeks would be like. She was quickly approaching the end of her second trimester, and although there had been a very significant uptake in donations as the end date approached, the account still had only twenty-seven million dollars. At this late date it was extremely unlikely that she would hit her goal, and abortion was a likely enough prospect that she had started looking into where she would have it done. She knew she would have to keep the location a secret, in order to avoid not only paparazzi but also the potential for harm to herself or anyone who worked there. When she called around, she found that every clinic was open to having Karen as a patient, and most of
them even told her that they supported her and thought what she was doing was admirable.

She knew she would also have to make some kind of public acknowledgment of the results of her experiment. Every major news organization in the country had offered to cover a press conference live, if she chose to give one, but she wasn't yet certain that a live press conference was the way to go. She considered simply posting an update on her site and allowing that to be the only message she gave the public on the deadline. But as she thought more and more about the abortion itself, for the first time she realized that the apprehension she felt had little to do with the end of the experiment, or even the fear surrounding the procedure. She felt fear at the possibility that the life she was ending might just be one of the most amazing women she would ever meet.

Needing gasoline, James
pulled into a gas station in Kingman, Arizona. When he went inside the pay for the gas, he realized that his remaining funds were quickly dwindling. As the man behind the register handed James his change, a dime slipped between his fingers, hit the floor, and rolled to a stop on another patron's discarded hot dog wrapper. On the wrapper was an advertisement for Terry Fator's puppetry show in Las Vegas. James quickly fixed on the sight as another potential sign from God. But this one was more intricate than some of the other signs he'd seen, more difficult to discern. But just as he knew that to hear God's voice he had to listen very carefully, James rationalized that to see some of God's signs a person might really have to look very closely at the things that were right in front of him.

The catalyst for the sign was a dime. James knew the number ten to be of great biblical significance. James had done exten
sive study in the numbers of the Bible, and he knew the following things to be true. He knew there were four biblical numbers that were indicative of perfection or completion: three, seven, ten, and twelve. While all these numbers represented perfection, each was linked to a different type.

Three was divine perfection. It appears 467 times in the Bible. It is the first of the four spiritually perfect numbers. The three righteous patriarchs before the flood were Abel, Enoch, and Noah, and after the flood the righteous fathers were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—both groups of three. There were twenty-seven books in the New Testament, which is mathematically represented by the equation 3 x 3 x 3. This is completeness to the third power. Jesus prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane before his first arrest. He was crucified at the third hour of the day at 9:00
A.M.
, which was three squared, and died at the ninth hour, or 3:00
P.M.
Three hours of darkness covered the land while Jesus suffered on the cross. Three men were crucified on that day. Christ was dead for three full days and three full nights before resurrection. Only three people saw Jesus's transfiguration on Mount Hermon: John, Peter, and James. Only three people were allowed to ask God anything: Solomon, Ahaz, and Jesus. God gave Israel three gifts: his law, the land, and their calling. The Bible mentions only three angels by name: Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Another angel is charged to cry three woes to those on Earth, to warn them of more trials to come. And the most important reference to three was, of course, the Holy Trinity.

Seven was spiritual perfection. It appears 735 times in the Bible and was the foundation of God's word. There were seven days of the week, all created by God, who claimed the seventh as the holy Sabbath. The Bible was originally divided into seven major divisions: the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, the Gospels, the General Epistles, the Epistles of Paul, and the Book of Revelation. The total number of originally inspired books was forty-nine,
represented mathematically by the equation 7 x 7. In the book of Hebrews, Paul uses seven titles to refer to Jesus: Heir of all things, Captain of our salvation, Apostle, Author of salvation, Forerunner, High Priest, and the Author and finisher of our faith. In Matthew 13, Jesus gives seven parables. In the Book of Revelations there are seven churches, seven angels, seven seals, seven trumpet blasts, seven thunders, and seven plagues. And, of course, Jesus performed seven miracles on God's holy Sabbath day.

Twelve was governmental perfection, symbolizing God's power and authority. It appears in the Bible 187 times. Jacob had twelve sons, each of whom represented a tribe, and from each tribe twelve thousand were to receive salvation during the end times. God demanded that twelve unleavened cakes be placed in the temple every week. New Jerusalem contains twelve gates. The walls of New Jerusalem are 144 cubits high, mathematically represented by the equation 12 x 12. Solomon appointed twelve officers over Israel. The first scriptural recording of Jesus's words occurred when he was twelve years old. And, of course, Christ chose twelve disciples with whom to surround himself.

Ten was the
number of perfection of God's divine order. It appears 242 times in the Bible. It was the number of physical creation represented in the design of the human body by God himself, who gave us ten fingers and ten toes. In Genesis 1 the word
God
is used ten times. A tithe was dictated to be one tenth of a man's earnings, and it was said to be returned tenfold by God's grace. A Passover lamb was selected on the tenth day of the first month. Ten generations of man lived on Earth before the great flood. And, of course, God gave us the Ten Commandments, by which all things are to be governed. There was no need for an eleventh, nor would nine have sufficed. Ten was the number of laws man required to honor God's divine power in the way he saw fit. It was, to James, a perfect number.

All of this ran through his mind as he saw the dime lying on a piece of paper advertising Las Vegas. It was clear to him that whatever he was to do next would take place in Las Vegas, and a part of him knew that this is where God would help him gain enough money to complete his journey.

He picked up the dime and put it in his shirt pocket, knowing that it would be an instrumental tool in whatever was to happen next. He asked the man behind the counter how far away Las Vegas was, and the man told him it was only about an hour and forty minutes away. After a moment, James realized that that meant a hundred minutes, represented by the mathematical equation 10 x 10. It was perfection squared. He got in his car and headed to Las Vegas.

On the road, however, he started to worry that he was headed into the heart of sin. He knew Las Vegas was called Sin City, and he knew that it could tempt him in ways he had never thought imaginable. He took the dime out of his shirt pocket and held it tight in one of his hands. He was protected by God, and no matter how difficult his trip to Las Vegas would be, no matter how much Satan might try to pull him from his path, James knew that God would shield him.

As he got closer to the city, the traffic grew worse and worse. There were so many cars, and so many flashing lights, and the buildings were so big. He could almost feel the sin radiating from the city, pulling people in, destroying their lives and souls. He vowed that he would remain steadfast and uphold all his Christian principles for as long as God needed him to be in the city. He knew that if he could get through this, he could get through anything. He would be stronger for having lived through this, and as he parked his car in the parking lot of the Venetian, he thanked God for the opportunity to prove how devoted he was.

James walked from the parking lot into the hotel's casino floor and immediately felt he was in a place designed by the Devil. The noises and lights were so overwhelming that he was slightly
disoriented. The smell of smoke was everywhere, and he knew it had to be a conscious effort by Satan to make himself feel more at home. He surveyed the area looking for an indication of what God might intend for him to do, and he saw an LED display next to a table of people. The LED board was simply a series of numbers. The top number was a flashing seven, and the two immediately under it were also sevens. Seven, seven, seven was the holiest number. James immediately went to the table and asked the person running the game what it was. She explained the basic premise and rules of roulette to him, and he took the dime out of his pocket. He placed it on the black ten before the same woman explained to him that there was a ten-dollar minimum on any bet at the table. James took this as a further sign that he was doing what God wanted him to.

He had a little more than fifty dollars. He put ten of it on the black ten and watched as the woman working at the table spun a tiny white ball around the rim of the roulette wheel. He watched as the ball's momentum slowed, and it finally fell into the spinning wheel where it was kicked around until coming to rest on black twenty. He watched as the woman swept everyone's chips and his ten-dollar bill away from the table, before allowing any more bets to be placed. He quickly tried to interpret what it could have meant. Twenty was twice the number he bet on, and twice the value of his bet. Ten times two was twenty, times two again was forty. This was roughly everything he had left. God sometimes demanded a great show of faith when he was testing his followers, and James knew of no greater show of faith than to trust God with everything in a place of sin. So James took the remaining forty dollars out of his pocket and placed it on the number ten. Once again he watched the woman spin the ball around the edge of the wheel, and once again he watched the ball fall and bounce. And this time the number it came to land on was the number ten. It wasn't surprising to James, and he openly thanked God at the roulette table for his victory. The
woman running the table gave James several chips that totaled one thousand, four hundred dollars in value. He thought about cashing them in, but he started doing some math in his head.

Fourteen hundred divided in half was seven hundred, which was represented by the mathematical equation 7 x 10 x 10, or perfection times perfection times perfection, or perfection to the perfect power of three. This was clearly a sign to continue and place a bet on the number three. But then, just as James was about to put everything he had just won on the number three, he heard someone behind him yelling out the name
Timothy
, and he knew this to be a more certain sign from God. It couldn't be anything other than a reference to Timothy 6:10:
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
He realized that God's symbols in the numbers were a warning to stop, to leave this place with the gift God gave him before temptation swallowed his spirit whole.

James took his winnings to the cashier and left the casino with fourteen hundred dollars, which he knew would easily get him to Los Angeles and help him subsist while he awaited God's further instruction. He pulled out of the casino garage and made his way toward the freeway, where he saw a giant entrance sign reading, “Los Angeles – 270 miles.” He looked at his GPS and saw that the final stretch of highway that would lead him into Los Angeles, where he would complete God's mandate, was the 10.