“I don’t know if you remember us, Pastor Bark,” the young man says. “I’m Peter, and this is Miriam.”
Paul smiles and nods. “How’s it going out there?”
“It’s um…it’s going well. They’ll be ready soon. That’s actually what we came to talk to you about.”
Paul cocks his head. Have they not been fucking? It seems impossible. The girl is obscenely attractive, a masterfully crafted temptation, and few possess the self-mastery Paul has achieved.
“There’s something we need to confess,” Miriam says, glancing nervously at the young man, and Paul smiles inwardly; there it is.
Peter clears his throat. “We need to confess the sin of doubt.”
Paul’s smile cools. “Doubt?”
“About what we’re doing. About God’s Jury.”
Paul stiffens his jaw. “Fine,” he says. “You’ve confessed. Now swallow those doubts, repent, and get back out there. Go and sin no more.”
Peter and Miriam glance at each other, surprised.
“Is that not what you wanted to hear?” Paul says. “Were you expecting a pep talk? Did you want me to tell you doubt is only natural and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it? Well doubt is natural, just like all sin, and if you won’t beat yourself up over it, I fucking will.”
Peter swallows hard and avoids Paul’s gaze. “We just…we were hoping you could help us through this. Help us focus, like you do.”
“It’s just so many people,” Miriam says. Her voice quavers. “And most of them are probably unbelievers, so…won’t we be sending them to Hell?”
“We won’t be sending them anywhere,” Paul snaps. “We don’t control the Dead. Whatever happens to that city will be God’s will.”
“But how do we know for sure?”
“Because everything that happens is God’s will.”
“Then…why even do this?” Miriam’s eyes are moist. “Why do any of what we’re doing? Why not just live our lives as righteously as we can and let God handle his own business?”
Paul blinks. His patient smile contorts into a grimace. Oh, they are definitely fucking. How could they not be? Just look at this girl, her back arched with the intensity of her emotion, her tits thrusting into Paul’s eyes, violating his brain, her pussy opening like a trap to drag him down to Hell just like all the other whores all these long years; of course they’re fucking, everyone but Paul is fucking and eating and drinking and sleeping because everyone but him is weak, enslaved to their humanity, and he will walk the empty streets of Heaven alone with his righteousness.
“Miriam,” he says stiffly. “You’re passionate. You’ll make someone a very good wife, and if the Lord keeps us here longer than I hope, you’ll be a good mother too. But it’s not your role to speak out on issues of doctrine.”
Miriam’s spine sags. Her eyes drop to the floor.
“Peter,” Paul says, dismissing the girl and turning his attention to the young man. “I have to say I’m disappointed. God has made it clear to me that you’ve been living in sin with Miriam, and it’s this sin that planted the doubt in your heads.”
Peter drops his eyes too, and Paul smiles grimly. He’s right again. He’s always right.
“You’ve allowed lust to cloud your vision, but remember, it’s not just lust you have to guard against. Even love can tie you to this world and make you forget what you’re here to do: to work and struggle and fight for the world to come.”
The two youths are silent, ashamed, as they should be.
“But you asked me to help you through your doubt.” Paul Bark stands up and looks down at his audience, his squat frame towering over these statuesque youths. “So I’ll say this to you. There is nothing more dangerous than doubt.”
He begins to pace slowly around the room, his boots clicking on the hard floor.
“And that’s because there’s nothing more wonderful than truth!” He feels his bitter rage subsiding in the glow of these words. “When you follow truth, you know exactly who you are, what you are, and what’s expected of you. We talk about the straight and narrow path like it’s some terrible challenge, but it’s actually the easiest way!”
The youths look up, replacing their shame with attentiveness, which is just as good.
“Because you can get lost on a wide path!” He gestures expansively with his palms. “You can bump into people and get turned around and end up somewhere you never meant to go. The narrow path keeps you focused on the goal, no matter what distractions the enemy throws at you. The narrow path is perfect, and doubt is the rain that erodes it.”
Paul Bark doesn’t write his sermons. He doesn’t even think them; the words flow effortlessly from somewhere deep inside, and he speaks them before they can be tainted by the tangled nest of his brain. It’s a rapturous feeling, this freedom from doubt. It’s what he hopes to impart to these confused youths at his feet.
“Fight your doubt.” He crouches down and touches Miriam’s cheek, squeezes Peter’s shoulder. “Don’t let it wash you away.”
He holds their gaze until they give him small, timid nods, then he stands again and stares at the blank white wall. “What we’re doing is right. We’re following the truth like no church ever has. All the way to its conclusion.”
I
LIKE ME, Citi Stadium has lived three lives. It was born as the ultimate expression of the spirit of its era: size, strength, and heedless excess, a sprawling expanse of concrete that smothered six square blocks and could host a football game on one end and a pyrotechnic political rally on the other. Then its life of flamboyance came to a violent end, and it became a grim, gray tomb for people waiting to die.
Now, after a flicker of hope, it’s becoming something else.
From a hill on the edge of the suburbs, I can see the signs of its transformation. Construction scaffolds creep up its walls like dark veins. Oily fumes rise through its open roof. And there’s a new structure sticking up from one half of that roof, a huge, pale lump that I can’t quite identify, like a tumor on a giant’s lip.
Axiom egressed from New York on the city’s dying breath. It floated across the country on a malign breeze. And now it’s here in the city I tried to call home, busily replicating in the cells of its new host. As Julie and I descend the grassy slopes toward the edge of downtown Post, I hear shouts and revving engines, the occasional gunshot. The ruins are crawling with activity, but it doesn’t feel like life. It feels like decomposition.
I see soldiers rounding up the Dead, herding them into fenced-off holding pens. I see soldiers rounding up the Living, herding them into fenced-off refugee camps. Main Street is a solid line of people all the way to the stadium gates; it resembles a protest but it’s the opposite. This mob has gathered to await their government’s pleasure, to be assigned work and housing and to cheer for the troops overrunning their streets. Most will end up in the camps or tenements; some will be brought into the stadium to serve in slightly higher capacities. None will have any idea who or what or why they serve. They will wonder in brief moments, perhaps grumble aloud when drunk or stoned, then sleep it off and return to work with all the old adages ringing in their heads: The way things are. Same shit, different day. Nothing new under the sun.
Black helicopters buzz over the stadium like flies on meat. Unlike me, this place has not found hope in its third life. At least not yet.