Darcey Steinke - Jesus Saves

“Let's goooo!” she said loudly. And almost simultaneously they heard a thud, saw that the man had bolted up so fast that his chair fell back behind him. His face quivered, underlit by the candle's flame. The girl screamed and ran across the front yard. Without moving his eyes from the window, Ginger watched the man extend a long-fingernailed hand and extinguish the flame between thumb and forefinger. Ginger turned toward the street but hesitated.

“Come on,” the girl screamed from where she'd paused at the end of the driveway. “Are you crazy?”

Ginger heard the man's footsteps crossing the living room and she bolted up the driveway and joined the girl by the mailbox. They ran full speed over the sparkly asphalt. The girl, young enough to still enjoy being chased, shook her hair out and laughed as they beat back driveways. The road tilted up toward the moon, hanging like a gypsy's earring among pinpricks of light. Blood beat against her temple and the intense effort of her legs made Ginger feel light-headed, as if her body flew weightless down the block. She felt more guilt than fear, remembering the night she'd gone with Ted and Steve to the state-subsidized condo complex. Steve made her ring the first doorbell; then they'd all hid behind the boxwood bushes. A middle-aged man came out, bald head surrounded with black fringe wearing a pair of nylon pants and a white dress shirt. His face was grayish, his eyelids so sunken Ginger figured he hadn't slept in days. “Who's there?” the man asked, flaying his open hand out as if to test the temperature of the air, and Ginger realized he was blind.

The girl led her across the yellow grass, up the front steps, where gasping and giddy she pulled a rabbit's-foot key chain out of her raincoat pocket and fumbled with the lock. Ginger glanced back. The man hadn't left his house, though she saw his silhouette behind the curtains, one keen eye in the material's slit watching as the front door swung wide and they rushed inside the house.

“Would you care for a ride?” Mulhoffer offered through the window of his paused Cadillac. “Lucky for you I was late at the factory.”

Ginger hung back by the guardrail. After checking all the window locks and helping the girl wedge a broom handle in the track of the basement sliding glass doors, she was making her way home along the highway.

“I enjoy walking,” Ginger said, “but thanks anyway.”

“It's one o’clock in the morning,” Mulhoffer said, annoyed. “Get in.”

Ginger looked across the road at the deserted mall parking lot; there was no way around it. She pulled open the heavy car door and slid onto Mulhoffer's deluxe leather upholstery, sat so close to the window she felt the cold air coming off the glass. Mulhoffer smelled of wood chips and industrial-strength glue, a stack of his company's furniture catalogues beside him. A cross hung down from the Cadillac rearview mirror, and he had rolls of quarters piled in the spotless ashtray.

“How are you?” he asked formally as he accelerated up the highway. They passed under the streetlight into darkness and then back again into the light.

“Fine.” Ginger glanced at Mulhoffer. His jaw clicked and he cleared his throat. She felt herself trembling. As a little girl she'd put books inside her underwear before getting spanked, and in the same spirit now she tried to build up an exoskeleton that would make anything Mulhoffer said easier to take.

He obviously disapproved of her roaming the highway. He disapproved of her low-life boyfriend and her lack of respectable girlfriends. As a minister's daughter she was expected to act like a lady. Even her father was less concerned with the authenticity of her religious sentiment than with the appearance of propriety. And though her father made less than a shoe salesman, much effort was spent in grooming her with Latin and ballet lessons. She was encouraged to socialize with doctors’ daughters and to date lawyers’ sons. Her father read chapters of Jane Austen to her before bed and her mother's highest compliment was that Ginger looked like a member of that horsey set. She had grown up with the presumption that the circumstances of need under which the family existed were in-appropriate to its quality. She had been taught by her mother to look forward to some betterment of this condition. But her mother's long illness changed all that, cracked and splintered the varnish her parents worked so hard to apply, and Ginger realized she had to give up her phony friends, her intellectual pretensions, and trade her white gloves for bread.

“You know,” Mulhoffer said, “I don't think you're a bad kid. In fact, I think you're a pretty serious gal and that you've probably taken the words of Jesus a little too seriously.” He used the same gentle and instructive tone he employed when flirting with his secretary. “You know that if Jesus came down today he wouldn't say the same sort of things he said back then. No,” he slowly shook his head, “Jesus wouldn't want us to give away all our possessions, ‘that's impractical. If Jesus came down today he'd be a big fan of technology. Heck, I think he'd enjoy a little TV. Let's face it, life is usually a pretty raw deal and good entertainment is as close to heaven as most people are going to get here on earth.” Mulhoffer put the car on cruise control and sank back into his sheepskin-covered seat.

“That's why I manufacture the most comfortable chairs and sofas in the world. I don't care that they look like dead elephants. As long as when a man comes home, he can plop down in my chair and flip on the old Technicolor dream machine.”

Ginger snorted.

“You don't watch much television, I take it,” Mulhoffer said ruefully.

“No,” Ginger said, “I can't stand it much.”

“That's too bad,” Mulhoffer said, shaking his head. “I've noticed at the factory the fellows who don't enjoy a little TV are always the ones making trouble.”

Ginger smiled.

“You think it's funny?” Mulhoffer asked, his voice veined with anger. “Your attitude, young lady, is disturbing. As a representative of the Lord you should have more dignity. You need to shepherd those around you to higher standards. Christianity is evolving. Times are changing. These days people want entertainment. The new members still have mud on their shoes and they've brought their creek-bank mentality with them. They may have gone to college, but they've just come to town and they want to see the same thing they always came to town to see — a good show.”

“So what are you trying to say?”

“That we don't need your father explicating theological passages or exploring his own mystical connection to evil. His sermons are off base. Religion has more to do with personal well-being now. That's why telemarketing is so important to our cause. We need to find out what our community needs. Aerobics classes for the ladies, basketball leagues for the men. We need to lure people to us by offering them services, like baby-sitting and marriage counseling. It's like the visiting pastor said to me after the service last week: Faith is a forward-moving phenomenon. It challenges us to press the very edges of innovation.”

“How do you expect to bankroll all this?”

“That's where TV comes in. We need a half-hour spot on the local channel to telecast our service. Let your father invite the TV viewers to come out and visit us Sunday mornings.”

“Let me out,” Ginger pointed at the McDonald's, “I need a milk shake.”

“Sure,” Mulhoffer said, clearly pleased with himself. “I'll take you through the drive-thru.”

“No thanks,” Ginger said coldly. “I want to get out.”

Mulhoffer snarled at her angrily, his white knuckles clenching the steering wheel. “Let me tell you, young lady, that I won't sit back and watch your father run the church into the ground. Mrs. Mulhoffer wants me to move with caution. She's always had a soft spot for people like your father. She calls them antiquated and dear. ”