His face, which was usually taut and ruddy as a pilgrim, was pockmarked and lined from pressing into the ceremonial robes. The outline of a dove branded his cheek and the braided pattern of brocade indented one temple.
“Goodness,” he said, “I fell asleep.”
“Are you sick?” She assumed he came in late last night and left before her this morning, but she could tell by his beard stubble that he'd been here all night.
“No, no,” he said jumping up, lifting the robes onto the leather wingback chair where he began hanging each on a wooden hanger. His long-fingered hands trembled as he smoothed out the materials. “Did you see those hillbillies from Deerpath Creek sitting in the back pews yesterday? They talked throughout my sermon and held their hands up during the closing hymn.” A stole slipped off the hanger and he stooped over to retreive it. “This is not a tent revival, where toothless cowboys handle rattlesnakes and people run out of their seats to be healed by some charlatan. What would Luther say? He wouldn't like it,” her father calmed himself, “though ultimately it is his fault. With his fat hand he swept the virgin mother, all the saints, anything exotic and mysterious, right into the trash can. If only he hadn't made it clear that before God everyone who's been baptized is equal, if he hadn't turned God's rituals into a communist meeting of brothers, into a circle of friends, then there'd be no personal savior, no born again." He said these last words with profound disgust. “But it's not all Luther's fault. There was that horrible old hippie Karlstadt, with his imminent apocalypse and his low church love-ins.” His robes hung now, he walked wearily to the leather chair and fell into it, moodily unlatching his clerical collar.
“The trustees came yesterday with several requests. They want me to cancel Klass's minibus. It's not economically viable according to them, and they want me to be more sensitive to the entertainment side of the service. Deerpath Creek has four thousand members and they said if we'd liven things up, use more modern church music, get a drummer and a couple of ladies who can really sing, we'd get more people and they'd be willing to give more too.” Her father was clearly disgusted. “They even went so far as to ask for aerobics classes in the basement.” He looked at her, his lips wet with saliva, and in his eyes she could see already what he was about to say next. “They even had the gall to tell me you're a bad example for the girls in the parish. They don't like how you dress and that you're seen with that boy. They call him a satanist.”
“Write a letter to the synod,” Ginger said. “Tell them this place is going corporate and that you want another parish.”
“No,” he said, “I can't do that anymore. I'm getting too old. I'm not smart enough to teach at the seminary and not slick enough for the big-city churches. If I leave here, it'll be to some tiny ten-pew church in the middle of nowhere. Besides, Mulhoffer's talking about pulling out of the synod anyway.”
“So are you saying that I'm fired?”
“Of course not,” her father said. “Just be more discreet, and try to clean up a little before church, wash your hair, maybe put on a little lipstick.”
“Mulhoffer wants me to wear lipstick?” Ginger's voice went up high.
“I'm sorry,” he said, “but he does.”
Steve pulled the match across the sandpaper, threw it side-arm toward the greasy lake. There was something careless and decadent about the curve of his arm. She figured he'd done this before, figured he'd done about everything in this town one could do to get in trouble. Like a firefly the match arched above the oil-soaked weeds and settled on the gunky surface. The tiny flame quavered as it burnt down the cardboard, then flared up blue violet before squatting down again, moving forward on the water like the spirit of a snake.
Ted had his arms around her; she pressed her back into his chest. Retribution was his idea and he held on to her so she'd know he'd take care of her, protect her the best he could.
“Hell yeah!” Steve yelled. “I told you the fucker would burn.” His voice echoed off Mulhoffer's factory, which stood darkly in back of them. Surrounded by barbwire fences, a few big trucks sat in the back lot, but Ginger knew Mulhoffer would be too cheap to hire a night guard or even buy a German shepherd.
Cement blocks were stacked near the pond, as were tin canisters. Across the field of fool's wheat and wild daisies was the back of Spring Run condominiums, Fox Ridge to the left, and on the other side, through the thin woods, a strip mall that sold only wholesale stuff, hair dresser supplies, and foreign engine parts. Steve pitched matches; some landed in the weeds and went out but a few sat on the surface like red water bugs before igniting, flaring up in tawdry greens and yellows, colors usually reserved for slutty eye shadow.
Steve told them how a baby had been born dead at the hospital that day, that the doctor went crazy trying to get its lungs cleaned out. It was blue and the fetal monitor showed straight lines for several minutes, but then it made a little noise. Its eyes shot open and the damn thing screamed bloody murder. “That,” Steve said, “is what's known as risen from the dead.” Ted said one of his mother's friends had died on the operating table, saw white light, and a silver cross floating out of her stomach. But then the smell of ammonia, had forced her back to earth. And he'd heard about another case in North Carolina where a man had died and they put him in a coffin, but on the way to the graveyard he started knocking on the lid. Turned out God sent him back because he hadn't had time for his last confession and he had a serious sin against him, adultery or murder, Ted couldn't remember which.
“Christ rose from the dead,” Ginger said. “That's the only person I know who's ever done it.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, “now everybody wants to do it.” He twisted his last match off and struck it, but this one he let burn down until it singed his thumbnail, turned the tip black. Ginger watched the snake move along the furthest basement wall, then slide into the fiery lake. Every Christmas, after she said Happy Holidays, showed off her Christmas dress — usually red or green velvet with a lace collar — her father sent her down into the Mulhoffers’ basement to watch the toy train while he sat upstairs in the living room, thanking them over and over for their generous Christmas check.
The train moved along the wall like a black snake, slithered out of Ruby Mountain, where tiny elves wearing red caps and kneesocks picked at the rock all night long. The engine's headlights splayed over leafless wintertime trees and banks of plastic snow. Cargo cars filled with red plastic chips, underlit by tiny hobby bulbs, looked like embers, like crimson jellyfish. The elves lifted their hats, leaned on their shovels, and waved. One danced around the lake, a crazy skipping jig, while he waved his arms and talked to himself. Wind moved in the trees, put out the creeping chemical fires, and smoke rose like swaying spirits from the surface of the lake.
Ted wedged his car between two dumpsters at the back of Orchard Brook Mall. The backstairs reeked of cigarette smoke and boredom, of canned macaroni and Diet Cokes. In the dark, the snack machine gleamed and the soft drink dispenser hummed incessantly. Ted brought along the army blanket to spread over the new couches in case they decided to fuck and locked the department store door from the inside so they wouldn't need to worry about the janitor.