Sean Chercover - The Trinity Game

Daniel drank some beer. “Not much to tell,” he said. “Pat was there to protect a politician and I was there to investigate a miracle claim. We helped each other out, I guess, and we became friends. Anyway, we’ll drive to Dulac, stop with Pat one night, maybe two. See, we can’t beat them to New Orleans, so we wait ’til it becomes clear you’re a no-show and they start thinking about where else you might be headed.”

“Then what?”

“One step at a time,” said Daniel. “Pat’ll help plan our strategy for getting you in and out of the Quarter without getting killed.”

Piedmont Park – Atlanta, Georgia…

Drums and guitars and tambourines lay silent on the grass, the time for singing and dancing now past. The Kumbaya spirit had deserted Tent City #3, and Trinity’s Pilgrims were fast falling away.

Families mumbling their dejection aloud as they collapsed their tents and rolled their sleeping bags. Couples speaking sharply to each other, pushing the bitter pill of blame back and forth. Litter strewn all over the place. A girl of about fifteen, who looked like—and probably was—a streetwalker, sitting under a tree, knees pulled to her chest, face in her hands. Weeping.

Andrew Thibodeaux wandered numb through the crowd, taking it all in but unable to form either thoughts or feelings in response to the input. Disconnected from it all. Disconnected even from himself.

A young man stood perched atop a milk crate, a replica Tim Trinity blue Bible open on his palm. He had the look of a straight-A student at some evangelical Christian college. He was saying, “Lest we forget, brothers and sisters—Matthew 11:19— The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Now they say Reverend Tim is a drug addict! It’s the same thing! Don’t you see?”

“Hush your mouth, boy,” called a very large, middle-aged black woman. She stopped to face the loyal pilgrim. “Jesus didn’t snort no damn cocaine, and you got rocks in your head.”

“They didn’t even have cocaine in the Holy Land in those days,” he insisted.

A powerfully built white biker stepped out of the gathering crowd and came to a stop between them. He was bald and wore a horseshoe moustache and black leather pants. He was shirtless—his entire back covered by a tattoo of Christ on the cross. His right bicep featured a cartoon red devil, complete with horns, cloven hoofs, and pointed tail. A buxom Bettie Page angel graced his left. He pointed at the kid on the milk crate.

“The lady’s right. Shut the fuck up, we don’t want to hear it.”

The kid persisted, despite the terror on his face, saying, “Please, Reverend Trinity is the Messiah. I’m just trying to help you see—”

“I’m gonna help you see the inside of an intensive care unit if you don’t shut yer fuckin’ yap.” The biker stepped closer. No one moved, except the kid, who fell off the crate when his knees went wobbly. He managed to recover his footing after one knee hit the grass, and stood there, visibly trembling. The biker said, “The Savior doesn’t run away , dipshit. Here’s what happened: The going got rough, and Trinity saved his own ass.”

The kid fought to get the words out. “I’m-I’m sorry, sir, but the Savior does run away. Jesus ran from the temple the first time, then he came back. Reverend Tim will return to us, and it won’t be long…” Tears breached the levees of his eyelids and flooded down his cheeks. His bottom lip danced violently, and he blubbered in a very small voice, “Please, we must keep the faith.”

The biker took two steps forward and swung with his right, and the kid’s nose popped, splatter-painting his chest crimson.

“Don’t you fuckin’ bleed on me!” bellowed the biker as the kid dropped to the ground. He cocked his arm again, but froze in place. After a few tense seconds, he shook his head, lowered the arm, and started opening and closing his hands repeatedly. “I warned you.” He stormed away, disappearing into the crowd. Nobody tried to stop him.

The kid lay on the grass in the fetal position, hands to his nose, blood running through his fingers, gulping air through his mouth, sobs wracking his entire body. A hippie cowboy who looked like Kris Kristofferson and the teenage hooker rushed to his aid.

Andrew continued walking through the wreckage of the tent city. Probably a quarter of the crowd had already deserted, and it looked like another quarter was making moves to pack up.

This can’t possibly be God’s plan…

He saw a guy he knew slightly, coming his way. They’d met two days ago, standing in line for a port-a-potty. The lines were over an hour long, and the guy was a talker. But now Andrew couldn’t recall anything he’d said. What was the guy’s name?

“Andrew,” the guy said. “Dandelion, remember?”

“Right, yes, of course.” Now he remembered. Dandelion was from Canada. His mother was full-blood Mohawk, his father a Jewish radical, some kind of environmental activist. Dandelion grew up in a place called Hamilton, which he said was like Canada’s Pittsburgh. Spent summers with his grandma on an Indian reservation. He’d shown Andrew some kind of First Nations ID card and said he didn’t have to pay taxes on cigarettes back home because he was an Indian.

“New Orleans,” said Dandelion. “Everybody says that’s where he’s going.”

Andrew nodded.

“I hooked up with some cool guys, we’re heading straight there.”

“You still believe in him, Dandelion?”

“Never did. But I didn’t not believe in him either.” Dandelion laughed. “Either way, something heavy is goin’ down. Some mega-seismic cultural shift, ya know? History is being written, dude, and I want a front row seat.” He hitched his backpack up a little higher on his shoulders. “Hey, you OK? You look a little out of it.”

“Yes. I’m all right.”

“Groovy. Well, I gotta run catch my ride. We’ll be camping in Louis Armstrong Park. If you wanna hang with us, just look for the tent with the big yellow smiley face.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Thanks, maybe I’ll see you there.”

Andrew turned without saying good-bye and wandered away, allowed himself to be drawn into the stream of people heading toward the street, like fans leaving the ballgame in the sixth inning of a blowout, each quietly carrying a piece of the team’s shame, made heavier by the shame of the apostate.

He walked the seven blocks to his truck, and stopped short. What he saw made him sick.

The blue tarpaulin was gone. All his possessions, everything that had been secured under the blue tarpaulin, gone. The gas cap had been pried open and the gas siphoned out, a length of dirty garden hose left hanging from the gas tank like a dead snake.

This was not God’s plan…

Julia glanced down at the business cards in her hand: FBI Special Agents Steven Hillborn (the handsome one with the square jaw) and Gary Robertson (the intimidating one with the ice-blue eyes). To Agent Hillborn, she said, “Like everyone else in the world, I’m betting he’s on the way to New Orleans. In fact, I’m flying there with my cameraman tonight. But it’s only a guess. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“You broke the story. You’ve had inside information since the beginning,” said Agent Hillborn. “And you’ve been in contact with him.”