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   This story is copyright 1999 by Mark Meiss.  All rights reserved.

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	http://death.uits.indiana.edu/~mmeiss/writing/

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   e-mail me at mmeiss@indiana.edu.
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		        Religious Experience
			    by Mark Meiss

Aaron stopped fumbling with the silver-plated crucifix that hung
around his neck and checked his watch again.  It read 9:33 a.m., only
two minutes later than the last time he had checked, and a full hour
before the plane would touch down at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

Irritated less by the delay than by his own impatience, Aaron glanced
at the seats to his right.  Nathaniel bobbed his head as he grooved to
his Walkman, and Doug sat slumped against the window, his mouth
hanging open as he snored softly.  From the seat in front of him,
Aaron could hear the scritch scritch of Pastor Marc's rollerball as he
wrote out notes for next week's sermon.

Well, Aaron had already read the latest issue of his skateboarding
magazine twice, and he wasn't up for a third time.  He'd only gone
back the second time to read an article about the Straight Edge
movement among skaters.  The Straight Edgers' emphasis on clean
living-no sex and no alcohol and no drugs-appealed to him, but he
wished the article had been more positive about combining Straight
Edge with Christianity.  "I'm not a Christian.  I just want to take
care of my body and follow what I believe, you know?  I think
Christians are hypocrites." - Sarah G., Buffalo, NY.  Not that Aaron
thought he was likely at age fifteen to have the chance to get laid or
smoke a joint, but he wanted to know what to think.

Aaron stared to pull the airline magazine from the mesh pouch on the
seat in front of him, but he grimaced and pulled his hand away at the
thought of having to endure its contents.  Instead, he leaned back in
his back and rummaged in the leg pocket of his baggy canvas fatigues
until he finally extracted a folded- up brochure.  For at least the
tenth?-twentieth?-thirtieth? time, he unfolded the brochure and
reviewed the particulars of the conference.  Twenty thousand Lutheran
teenagers, all coming together for a spectacular week of fun and
fellowship in the heart of Texas.  Daily group worship, inspirational
speakers, Bible studies, outdoor events, and lots of opportunities for
spiritual growth.  The chance of a lifetime to meet other teens who
believe in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Aaron always rolled his eyes a little at the ad copy, but the brochure
still made him smile, an expression that fit well with his boyish
freckled face and shoulder-length rust-colored hair.  With such a
small youth group-a whopping three teens-Aaron was grateful that his
church had made the trip possible.  He thought he needed this
conference, that surely some experience in Dallas would finally allow
him to believe, to believe with all his heart that Jesus' grace had
entered his life, that he was truly a Christian.

But that would be then, and the only thing that Aaron could do now was
to wait.  Yawning, he finally admitted to himself that having gotten
up at five-thirty to ride to the Milwaukee airport with his parents
really did give him a right to be tired.  He slouched down in his
seat, making his tie-dyed T-shirt bunch up in the small of his back,
and closed his eyes.

			*	*	*

The airline had transported their luggage down to Dallas without any
problems, and Pastor Marc picked up their rental van with no more fuss
than a Texan's raised eyebrow at his clerical collar.  Finding the
hotel was an adventure, starting with Pastor Marc's discovery that the
directions he'd been given were for the airport Sheraton, and their
reservations were for the downtown Sheraton.  They drove for over an
hour around downtown Dallas while the July sun beat down on the maroon
van, and after a while, the air conditioner could do no more than hiss
out a languid stream of merely-warm air.

When they passed the Texas School Book Depository and the grassy knoll
by the side of Dealey Plaza, Nathaniel stuck a fist into the air in
mock defiance and pointed to the site of Kennedy's assassination.
"Woo-hoo!" he hooted.  Then he whispered loudly to Doug, "Dead
Democrat."

Aaron smiled nervously at the dark humor and grasped the strap of his
seat belt as the van hit a pothole.  Nathaniel was only a year older
than he was, but Aaron always felt as if it were closer to a dozen
years' difference.  No matter what the situation, the fair-haired,
athletic boy always had an answer close at hand.  Aaron admired
confidence wherever he saw it, and Nathaniel had an unlimited supply.

Aaron didn't know about Doug, though.  Sure, Doug was his age and they
attended the same school, but that didn't mean that he and Doug had
really ever talked much.


"Dude," said Nathaniel as the van finally pulled into the parking lot
of the Sheraton.  "This place is almost as big as yours."

"Shut up, man," said Doug good-naturedly.  "So my parents are lawyers.
Big deal."

"They make a big deal.  That's all I'm saying."

"Tard."  Doug chuckled and hit Nathaniel a glancing blow on the arm in
slow motion.

"So where do your folks live, Doug?" asked Aaron.  "I don't think I've
ever seen your place."

Doug hesitated for a moment, and his square jaw moved a little from
side to side as he scrutinized Aaron.  "No, I don't think you have,"
he said.  "We live up in Charles Common."  Aaron recognized the name;
it was a neighborhood where you had to stop at a gatehouse before you
could even drive down the streets.  Once the guy in the gatehouse had
yelled at him just for passing near the entrance to the Common on his
skateboard.

"Well, boys, we're here," announced Pastor Marc as he eased the van
into a parking place.  "Before we check in and bring our things
upstairs, why don't each of you give us a brief devotion.  Nathaniel?"

Nathaniel bowed his head and folded his hands, as did the other three.
"Heavenly Father," he said.  "Please watch over us and help us to see
that this week meets our expectations.  Amen."

Doug said, "I like what Nathaniel said.  I think this will be a good
week."

Aaron thought for a moment before saying, "Lord, as we worship and
live together in this coming week, please help us to reach a better
understanding of your love and your plan for our lives.  Amen."

			*	*	*

That evening they drove to the domed stadium downtown for the opening
worship service, which, their badly photocopied schedules promised,
would feature live contemporary Christian music.  As they found their
seats in the upper balcony and Aaron eased into the red plastic
folding seat, he could not help but gape at the vast expanse of the
crowd.  The stadium was packed full to the roof with other youth
groups.  Every brightly colored dot across the way was another
Lutheran teenager; every tiny ant seated in a folding chair on the
stadium floor was yet another Lutheran teenager.

The lights dimmed all across the stadium, and soft red lights shone up
from the stage as the bishop of the Texas Synod of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America came to the microphone to tell all twenty
thousand teens (cheer!) in attendance how very glad he was they were
there (cheer!), how very hopeful it made him that so many youth cared
enough to come to the great state of Texas (cheer!) from all over the
country (cheer!), and how very wonderful it truly was that they were
together (cheer!).

After the bishop had been going on like this for about half an hour,
Aaron's attention began to wander.  He propped himself up on the
armrest, using his open palm to support his head.  Glancing to his
left, he saw that Doug had already fallen asleep again.  Pastor Marc,
two seats to the right, didn't notice; he nodded in agreement as he
listened to the bishop in rapt attention.

Finally, after the bishop had told him for the hundredth time how
really inspiring it was to see him sitting there, Aaron snapped
himself out of the trance.  He leaned forward in his seat for a
minute, disoriented, before realizing that the source of his confusion
was that everyone else in the stadium had stood up.  Aaron stood too,
and as he looked out over the sea of bodies below him, he realized
that the bishop had finished talking and that a four-member band had
assembled on the second stage toward the other end of the stadium.

The lead singer grabbed the microphone and introduced himself as Leon
Schmidt, leader of The Promised Band.  "We're going to be leading your
worship tonight," he announced.  "We're going to express our love to
God tonight through song, and I need all of you-all of you-to sing
along!"

An explosive cheer rumbled through the audience, and the band began to
play.  Aaron found himself tapping along to the music and bobbing his
head, setting his hair gently swaying.  It was a sound he described to
himself as electric folk, nothing at all like the grinding thrash he
usually enjoyed listening to.

But listen! there came the sound of twenty thousand people singing the
chorus in unison, and the sound washed over him in great acoustic
waves, and his chest swelled, and he felt sure that tonight would be
the night he found his faith.

Aaron stood there, tense, expectant, ready to religion to burst over
him and change his life forever, when his reverie was broken by
Nathaniel laughing and pointing.  "Look!" he shouted over the music
and across Aaron to Doug.

Doug and Aaron both watched in fascination as an unwinding roll of
toilet paper arced out over the crowd from the balcony on the other
side of the stadium.  Then came another roll, tissue streaming over
the audience like a comet's tail as it glided down past row after row
of singing teenagers.

"Ha!" said Doug, clapping his hands together once, loudly.

He and Nathaniel looked at each other past Aaron for a moment, and
then Nathaniel tapped Pastor Marc on the shoulder.  Pastor Marc jerked
violently at Nathaniel's touch as if awakened from a deep sleep and
then nodded absently as Nathaniel told him than he and Doug needed to
go to the bathroom.

"How's it going, man?" Nathaniel asked Aaron as he squeezed past him
to follow Doug down the aisle and out to the main concourse, but he
was gone before Aaron could think of anything to say.

While they were gone, Aaron watched another few rolls of toilet paper
sail out over the audience.  One of them almost landed on the stage
where The Promised Band were performing, and Aaron could see the bass
player shake his head.  Aaron didn't know whether it was in disgust or
sympathy; all he knew was that some poor jerk was going to have to
clean up a whole bunch of toilet paper.

Then Nathaniel eased past him again, holding in the contents of his
lumpy T-shirt with his right arm.  His well-conditioned arm allowed
him to throw a good, hard spiral as he launched his first volley, and
the paper trailed behind in a corkscrew pattern as the roll plunged
down to the stadium floor.

Aaron glanced nervously at Pastor Marc, whose eyes were shut as he
joined along in singing the eighth repetition of the chorus.  Aaron
closed his own eyes and tried to feel the magic of the fellowship, but
by now, it felt just like he expected being in a really big gym with
twenty thousand high school students would feel.

			*	*	*

The next few days brought a variety of events: more worship, more
inspirational talks, more performances from The Promised Band (with
the spoken admonition that the audience ought to express their faith
in a less kinetic fashion), and a pallid loneliness that Aaron found
difficult to put his finger on.

Doug and Nathaniel were inseparable, and every night they came back to
the hotel room a scant minute from the conference's official curfew of
ten o'clock.  The next morning, while Doug and Nathaniel did their
sit-ups to stay in shape for the wrestling team, they would talk to
each other in low voices and muffled snorts and chuckles about the
night before.

Aaron wasn't out with them on those nights or in on those
conversations.  He spent most of the evenings sitting at the hotel
snack bar, drinking Fruitopia over ice through a straw and hoping that
someone (preferably female, he admitted) would introduce herself and
strike up a conversation and they'd discuss issues of faith and
suddenly he'd have the religious insight he was looking for and the
week would be complete.  But nobody ever came over.  He caught a
couple of reproachful looks at his skater clothes and his
unfashionably long (for this crowd) tresses of hair, but no one even
bothered to criticize him in person.

Every night, when he knew that Doug and Nathaniel were asleep on the
cot and the sleeper sofa and Pastor Marc was snoring on one of the two
single beds, Aaron sat up in bed and stared at the shadows of passing
traffic in the city glow that shone on the wall by the bed.  He
pressed his open palms together in what he figured was the holiest way
to do things and said the same prayer.

"Dear God, I don't know what's going on.  I want to believe in you all
the way, but I can't feel you with me.  Please, God, let tomorrow be
the day that I really find you.  Amen."

Aaron then shut his eyes and only in the final brief staticky burst of
thoughts before sleep did he realize that he was lonely.

			*	*	*

On Thursday night, after everyone was back in the hotel room, Aaron
padded out with the brown vinyl bucket to get some more ice.  After
he'd held the button down despondently for about five minutes as the
machine feverishly chewed and hacked and chomped at its frozen
contents, the bucket finally held as much ice as the machine would
offer.  Replacing the lid, Aaron trudged back to their room.

When he reached the door, though, Aaron hesitated before going inside.
He could hear Pastor Marc talking to Doug and Nathaniel, which struck
Aaron as unusual, given the cleric's by now near- legendary
taciturnity.  On a whim, he pressed his ear to the door to listen.

"...worried about him," Pastor Marc was saying.  "I don't think he's
treating this trip like a Christian should.  You boys, you're full of
the Holy Spirit this week and feeling the joy of God's Creation.  But
I don't think that Aaron has the proper attitude toward things."

Pastor Marc cleared his throat, and Aaron could picture him rubbing
the edge of his index finger back and forth across his moustache, as
he always did.  "I'd like for you boys to make an effort to include
him in your conversation tomorrow morning.  Maybe you can do the work
of Jesus in a way that I can't."

Aaron cast his eyes down to the thickly carpeted floor and bit his lip
as he tried to wish away the tears that welled up unbidden in his eyes
before they spilled over onto his cheeks.  He daubed at his cheeks to
make sure that he had kept his misery hidden and noisily rattled the
ice container before opening the door and stepping inside.

Nathaniel looked up and smiled broadly as Aaron entered the room.
"Hey, Aaron!  How's it going, man?"

Avoiding Nathaniel's friendly gaze, Aaron put the ice container down
on the dresser and mumbled that he really didn't feel well, that he'd
better go to bed.  He was sorry to be a spoilsport; he'd really like
to stay up.  Sorry.  G'night.

			*	*	*

The next morning, after Pastor Marc had departed for a brief jog
around the hotel grounds before the Texas sun got too hot, Nathaniel
and Doug approached Aaron as he was sitting on the edge of the bed,
tying his shoes.

"Dude," said Doug, chewing his lip and fumbling around the belt of his
jean shorts before jamming his hands into his back pockets.

Nathaniel looked at Doug expectantly for a while before realizing that
his friend had nothing to add.  "Well," he said, sitting down across
from Aaron, on Pastor Marc's bed.  "We just want you to know that we
want to include you, man.  When we talk about stuff in the morning,
it's cool if you talk too.  That's all I'm saying."

Aaron snorted in his mind, but he pushed a smile onto his face and
quietly said, "Thanks."

Doug apparently took that as a cue to begin the daily routine, because
he sat down next to Nathaniel and punched him playfully on the arm.
"Dude!  Were you out with Jenny again last night?"

Nathaniel doubled over laughing.  "Oh, man!" he howled, slapping his
knee.  "Okay, I was with her in the elevator right?  And so, like, I
took one of the cleaning mops from the janitor's cart and took it in
there and jammed it up against the `Close Door' button, right?"

Doug's brow furrowed.  "What's up with that?"

"So the door wouldn't open, you know?  So then, we start making out
and shit-oh, man, I swear to God that she had the best fucking tits,
man.  And she's all getting into it, and she's like moaning and stuff,
and I'm like, `This is great!'  And I have her down to her
panties. and then, I guess I must have knocked the mop over or
something, because the door opens!"

Doug gripped his flat belly with both hands, lost in a paroxysm of
laughter.

"Oh, man," said Nathaniel.  "It's worse.  Standing right there in
front of the elevator was her group leader!  She started freaking out
and shit, and yelling and cussing at me."

Aaron's face burned hot with embarrassment, but the two were too
engrossed in the conversation to notice.  "What did you do?" Aaron
asked, his voice hoarse and scratchy.

"I bolted, man!  I mean, I just took off running before she could get
a good look at me or anything."  Nathaniel then turned to Doug and
backhanded him across his upper arm.  "So what about you, punk?" he
asked.  "Get anything going with Leah last night?"

"Two words, man," said Doug, grinning and shaking his head.  "Two
words.  Strip.  Poker."

As the two friends cheered and slapped each other's palms in a high
five, Aaron stood up.  "Excuse me," he said.  "I gotta go to the
bathroom."  Unnoticed, he slipped off into the bathroom and sat
quietly on the edge of the tub until Pastor Marc returned.

			*	*	*

This Friday was the last day of the conference, and the big event was
to ride group busses over to the convention center by the stadium and
attend the Ministry Festival.  The organizers of the youth gathering
had filled the main exhibit hall with informational booths and
demonstrations of how teenagers could show the love of Christ in their
communities.  As he paced morosely around the vast room, Aaron figured
he could probably collect his entire body weight in brochures on how
to volunteer to weed old people's gardens or caulk their windows for
winter or read Bible stories to preschoolers.

After a while, Aaron just stood quietly against the wall and leaned
against a pay phone, too emotionally fatigued to handle wandering
around much longer.  He exhaled deeply, finding a little bit of solace
in allowing his lips to flutter with the passage of air.  He closed
his eyes and tried to ignore the bustling crowd around him, imagining
that he was back at home, riding his skateboard and mowing Mrs.
Carruther's lawn and helping his dad trim the hedges.

"Do you like Fugazi?"

"Huh?"  Aaron shivered and his eyes flew open.  He shook his head
wildly from side to side as he tried to return to reality, his hair
following half a second behind.

The speaker giggled at the wild motion of Aaron's hair.  "I asked if
you liked Fugazi," she repeated.  She pointed at his chest.  "You're
wearing a Fugazi T-shirt."

All Aaron could do for a moment was gape at the girl.  She had fairly
short, wiry black hair that parted straight down the middle and hung
over the sides of her forehead.  Her hazel eyes twinkled, and she had
one cheek raised in a half-smile.  She stood a few inches shorter than
he, but she was a little bit rounder.  She wore a black tank top that
was fading to gray, which she had covered with an unzipped purple
hooded sweatshirt.  Her denim skirt clashed merrily with her battered
pair of tightly laced work boots.

"I'm wondering," the girl said, "because a lot of people here might
wear a shirt like that and not mean it.  So, do you really like
Fugazi?"

"Well. well, yeah," said Aaron.  "I mean, Minor Threat was probably a
better band overall, from what I read, but that was in 1982, so it's
not like I remember."  He laughed, suddenly at ease.  "Yeah, I like
Fugazi pretty well."

The girl beamed and extended her hand, which only partly protruded
from the sleeve of her sweatshirt.  "Hey.  I'm Lana."

"Um, Aaron," he answered as he confusedly shook her hand.  "It's, um."

"Damn good to meet you?" Lana asked, giggling.  "That's how I feel
about it.  Hey, I don't want to sound rude about it, but I just spent
the last hour leaning against that wall over there looking like a hurt
puppy, and I saw you looking like a hurt puppy, so I wanted to see if
someone else is enjoying all of this almost as much as me."

"Well, I'm not really getting a lot out of this," Aaron admitted.

Lana tugged his arm and pointed toward one of the exits from the
exhibition hall.  "C'mon, let's walk, and then talk while we walk."
As they began to walk together, she prompted him, "So, you were
saying?"

"I don't know.  It just seems like such a. a. well, bullshit kind of
thing.  I figured that I'd get here and because it was a church event
and not a regular thing, everybody would be over what is and isn't
cool and just talk to each other and try to figure out what's going
on."

"Yeah?" asked Lana.  "I flew down here all the way from North Dakota
with four girls who won't speak to me at home and certainly haven't
condescended to say a word to me down here."

"Especially since they're finding God so much better than you."

Lana laughed.  "Same story, different gender?"

"You could say that.  But really, I came down here hoping that I'd
have this big religious experience, or this revelation or something,
and all of a sudden I'd be really full of grace and everything would
be cool.  All this stuff wouldn't bother me because I'd understand
what it was all about.  But-oh, I dunno.  I don't feel much of God
here, and I don't see such of Him either."

"That's about what I wanted too," said Lana.  "But my most religious
experience so far has been getting hit with a roll of toilet paper at
the communal worship last night.  Some asshole had soaked it in water
first.  Maybe I'm going to hell, but it didn't feel like a baptism."

Aaron and Lana stopped to sit at a wooden bench next to a gurgling
indoor fountain.  As they sat and continued to talk, Aaron began to
creep his hand slowly toward Lana.  It trembled with nervous tension
as it crossed the broad plateau of Aaron's thigh and drew closer to
Lana's hand, and it began to sweat profusely when it felt her body
heat so close, so close.  But then Lana smiled and took Aaron's hand
in her own, and Aaron grinned broadly in relief.

Seeing the glint of copper beneath the bubbling surface of the water,
Aaron rummaged in his pocket with his free hand.  "Want a penny?" he
asked.  "For a wish."

"Sure."  Lana took the penny and closed her eyes tilting her head
back.  "I wish."  A broad smile spread across her lips.  "I wish," she
declared, and flipped the penny neatly into the center of the
fountain.

Aaron tried to flip his into the same spot.  "I wish too."

			*	*	*

They sat by the side of the fountain and talked to one another for
hours.  They discussed what it was like to be an outcast in school,
and how they felt about the church, and how they felt about God, and
how people really ought to treat one another, and so on and so forth
until Aaron happened to glance at his watch and noticed that it was a
quarter after eight.  At first he accepted the information, but then
he snapped his attention back to his wrist, his eyes widening.  "Holy
shit!  We're missing the final worship service!"

Lana put her hand on his shoulder.  "Do you want to go?" she asked.

"Well."  Aaron settled his weight back down onto his buttocks.  "I
guess not, really.  They aren't exactly what I thought they'd be."

"Well, we got them back.  We aren't exactly what they thought we'd be, either."

Aaron stared at Lana for a long moment after that, and they both
leaned toward each other to kiss, a kiss that began softly and
hesitantly until their lips parted and their tongues touched, then
played.  The kiss was the sort that either would describe in later
years as "the first real kiss."

			*	*	*

After the final worship service had let out, they sneaked onto the
last bus that headed out to the Sheraton and the nearby Ramada, where
Lana's group was staying.  They didn't speak a single word during the
bus trip.  Aaron tried to think of charming remarks, but he was
stymied by the emotional impact of meeting Lana and having to say
good-bye to her all in the same week-in the same day.

But when they exited the bus behind all the others, Aaron finally
summoned the courage to begin the ritual of exchanging their distant
addresses and whispering good-bye.  As he opened his mouth to speak,
Lana gently covered his mouth with her hand.

"I don't want to say good-bye yet."  Then she averted her eyes, and
she grabbed her right arm at the elbow with her left.  She stood there
for a while, twisting her right foot back and forth, staring at the
ground.  Then, just as Aaron was hesitantly reaching his arm out to
her, to ask her if she was okay, she looked back up and met him with a
steady, intense gaze that bore a smile.  "You're a good kisser," she
said.  "And I remember things by touch.  I mean, I won't forget-I
can't forget-but I'd like to sit there in North Dakota and, well,
remember things."

Aaron blushed and he instinctively thrust his hands into his pockets.
"I'm not very good."

Lana laughed.  "You're wrong about that.  Look, in one afternoon, you
made this week all worth it.  Heck, you made this life all worth it,
as far as I'm concerned.  It's not like there's anything back home."

"For me either.  I don't have many friends back home.  There's never
been anything like this. I mean, I've never met anyone like you."

"Yeah.  I could say the same thing."  She twirled the hood string of
her jacket between two fingers for a long moment and then burst out,
"Aaron, I love you."

"I-I love you, too," Aaron answered.

She led him by the hand, or perhaps he led her; Aaron didn't really
know the difference at that point or pretend to care.  They found a
thicket of pine trees that afforded some privacy near the kitchen
entrance to the hotel, and on a mat of pine needles they kissed and
fondled with a mixture of urgent passion and adolescent awkwardness.
They did nothing to cause the third baseman to take notice, but each
felt like their experience in love and life had quadrupled a hundred
times before they finally exchanged addresses and solemn promises, and
maybe they had.

			*	*	*

Aaron returned to the hotel room at almost half past eleven.  As soon
as he had begun to push the door open, Pastor Marc jerked it the rest
of the way open.  He was still wearing his gray suit with a black
shirt and his clerical collar, and his face glowed red as he tore into
Aaron.

"An hour and a half after curfew!" he snapped.  "Ninety minutes!  And
you go skipping the last worship like it doesn't even matter!  Is this
all a big game to you?  Is this your idea of being a Christian?  I
know what you were doing-the other boys saw you with that girl.  Have
you no shame?"

Aaron didn't answer him.  He just met the gazes of Nathaniel and Doug,
who both averted their eyes as soon as they caught sight of Aaron's
determined look.

The fury dissipated from Pastor Marc as Aaron stood there silently.
"Go to bed," he sighed as he loosened his collar.  "I just want you to
know that I'm very disappointed in you. You've squandered your most
precious gift."

			*	*	*

At two o'clock in the morning, the receiver of the black princess
phone on the nightstand between the two beds began to ring, and Aaron
snatched it up before the first ring was even half over.  He hadn't
slept a bit yet that night, though he had tossed and turned endlessly
as Pastor Marc's words echoed through his head.  As he held the
receiver, he glanced over the sleeping bodies of his three companions.
As best he could tell in the dim light, the phone hadn't woken any of
them up.

"Hello?" he whispered into the receiver.

The only response he received at first was a soft and desolate sobbing
sound.  Then the caller sniffled and tried to form a complete word.
"Aaron?"

"Lana?" he asked, raising himself on one arm.  "Is that you?"

"Yes. it's me." she sobbed.  "Just not in real good shape.  My group
leader ripped me a new one."

"What?  Did she hit you?  Lana, are you okay?"

"No.  She just screamed at me for an hour and a half.  She said I was
a worthless slut.  She said I was going to Hell and I was the least
grateful little bitch she'd ever seen."

"Jesus."

"She said if she was my kid, she'd kill me.  And then she said she was
telling my parents.  And they will kill me. oh God, Aaron, they will
kill me."

"Kill you?" Aaron whispered urgently.  "What's she going to tell
them?"

"That we did it!  She thinks we spent the whole night fucking.
Christ, Aaron. my parents are Wisconsin Synod.  My dad's going to slap
the shit out of me."

The tears flowed freely from Aaron's eyes, and the hot, salty drops
made the bottom of the receiver slippery against his mouth.  "What can
I do, Lana?  What can I do?"

"You can't," she sobbed.  "Just please, please tell me that you love
me.  Tell me that you love me, and mean it."

"Lana, I do love you."

"Write to me."

"Yes."

"Call me."

"Yes."

There came a long pause.  "I love you too, Aaron."  Another long
pause.  "Thank you.  Thank you so much, Aaron."

"I'm sorry, Lana," Aaron whispered huskily through his tears.

"I don't think I am," said Lana, and then Aaron heard her yelp and
then a loud clunk as the receiver was slammed down somewhere out there
in the night.  Then came the dial tone, and Aaron softly placed the
receiver back in the cradle.

At some time around four o'clock, the tears began to dry up, and Aaron
stopped hearing Pastor Marc telling him over and over again how
disappointed he was in him, and Aaron sank into nervous slumber.

*	*	*

The next morning, everyone else had almost finished packing when Aaron
finally awoke, his head throbbing painfully and his eyes bloodshot
from all the tears during the night.

"Look at you," said Pastor Marc.  "Look at your eyes.  Were you
drinking last night?"

"No," muttered Aaron, shielding his eyes against the light of the
morning.

"Dude," said Nathaniel.  "All he's trying to say is that the Man says
we gotta be out of here by eleven o'clock and it's, like, after ten
o'clock now."

Pastor Marc smiled at Nathaniel before addressing Aaron again.  "We'll
be down in the lobby.  Make sure that you lock the door behind you."
He grabbed his suitcase and a leather satchel.  "Very disappointed,"
he said, and then the other boys followed him out with their
belongings.

It took only fifteen minutes for Aaron to get dressed and get all of
his things together, since a shower seemed out of the question this
morning.  In his haste, dirty clothes got mixed freely with clean
clothes, and he had to pack and repack his carry-on bag several times
before he could finally tug the zipper past the camera and books and
other things.

Aaron trudged out of the room with his old and battered blue vinyl
suitcase and his bag and set them down in the hallway.  He fumbled
with the room key for the last time as he locked the door, and he
picked his bags up again and turned to his right, ready to walk down
to the elevator.

He thought about the week and all the ways in which he had seen God's
love unfold.  He pictured the flying rolls of toilet paper,
Nathaniel's hand on a girl's breast as the elevator door opened, Doug
bluffing with an ace-high in strip poker for a glimpse of young
A-cups.  He saw Pastor Marc's face-- entranced by the bishop, beaming
at the others, and screaming at him.  He imagined Lana's father
backhanding her in religious fervor.

Aaron put his luggage back down and unzipped the carry-on bag.  He
rummaged through it and then unlocked the door one last time.  He
pushed the door open and hurled his Bible into the empty room,
savoring the sound of the pages fluttering in the air until it bounced
off of a sofa cushion and hit the floor.  Aaron locked the door again,
picked up his bags, and began to walk down the hall.

"Very disappointed," he said.