The Name of the World - Denis Johnson [32]
I didn’t think often about that which people called God, but for some time now I’d certainly hated it, this killer, this perpetrator, in whose blank silver eyes nobody was too insignificant, too unremarkable, too innocent and small to be overlooked in the parceling out of tragedy. I’d felt this all-powerful thing as a darkness and weight. Now it had vanished. A tight winding of chains had burst. Someone had unstuck my eyes. A huge ringing in my head had stopped. This is what the grand and lovely multitude of singers did to me.
I’m one of those who believes he can carry a tune, and so I sang, too, and nobody stopped me. Until just past six, for exactly an hour by my watch, we praised the empty universe. I felt our hearts going up and up into an endless interval with nothing to get in the way. All my happy liberated soul came out my throat.
Outside after the singing I stood talking with my self-appointed host, who explained that the sect was called the Friesland Fellowship, after its birthplace in the north of Holland, if I got it right. While he explained they didn’t believe in insurance companies, military service, or state-supported education, I looked around for Flower.
She found us first. Apparently she’d noticed me earlier. She said hello and introduced her young companion.
“This is also Mike. Mike Reed, this is Mike Applegate. Mike has a date tonight.”
“Which Mike?”
“Both Mikes. I’m loaning Mike Applegate my car. And Mike Reed could give me a lift to my studio. I could cook you up a little soup.”
I told her I had a bag of groceries and a BMW, and she said that was perfect. All of this she repeated in mime and sign for the younger Mike. Remarkable how the expressions lit up her features and communicated the light to his. The evening’s prospects were brilliant in his face. He held out his palm and she pointed toward her car and said, “The keys are in it.” He understood.
We watched as the young blond Michael got into her hatchback with an angular ease, puffed out two short signals of exhaust, and took off fast.
“Well, this is slick,” she said as we got to my car. “Is it fast?”
“Not as fast as you want it to be.”
“Come on! These guys are built for the Autobahn.”
“I know, but I’m not. I drive under the limit. It handles well,” I said, feeling somehow required to offer a defense.
I took the Friesland Fellowship’s pamphlet from my breast pocket and laid it on the dash while I started the car. Flower picked it up and looked at it, but all she said was, “Do you know what it sounds like, Michael? Like a mechanical animal.”
And truly, the engine had a strongly mechanical yet somehow vocal sound when it accelerated. We entered the queue of vehicles heading onto the highway. The Frieslanders’ will to conform seemed to reach deep into their choice of cars: mini-vans, well-equipped pickups, very few sedans, all of them in darker colors, and all fairly new.
“Where did you say we’re going?”
“To my studio.”
“Back in town?”
“No. Here. About two miles from here.”
“Way out here in the country?”
“It’s in the Tyson School. I’m living there.”
Tyson was a town, or a village, I wasn’t sure what it was.
All of this while I felt lifted by a strange new medium, a strange element—I now tell you that I was newly buoyant in a brighter life. In the midst of a hymn, God had disappeared. It was like waking from a nightmare in which I’d been paralyzed. Like discovering