The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [25]
“Where’d you get these old coins?” the baker wanted to know when Diomedes pushed them across the counter.
Where, indeed?
When Diomedes finally got his bearings, he explained where he’d come from, and how. He led the bishop and the prefect to the believers’ hideout, and their resurrection was celebrated with wine, fire, and dancing. When the party was over, the sleepers lay down in their cave-beds with their loyal dog and died for real.
The new Christian emperor wanted to build golden tombs, but the sleepers appeared to him in a dream, saying, “We don’t want anything fancy. Just bury us in our cave. We can rest peacefully now.”
Even death needn’t have the last word.
The emperor had the cave adorned with precious stones, and a great church was built. Every year—to this day—revelers feast, toasting the sleepers’ bodily resurrection, their simple trust.
Some say it’s just a legend—no truth to it at all—but you can visit their tombs outside Ephesus any time you like, read the inscription on the stone wall, see for yourself.
If you toss and turn at night, kept awake by worry and doubt, just build an altar to the seven sleepers, patrons of insomniacs. Light a magenta candle, close your eyes, and repeat like a mantra: “I am dreaming the universe into the future.” Everything changes in good time.
Chapter 9
GOD HATES SINNERS
“Jeez—something else must be going on at the church,” Lupe says as we round the corner. Cars are double-parked on both sides of the street. A mass of sunburned and vitamin-starved bodies sway under the valley sun in front of the tall steeple. “Maybe turn down there?” She points, hopeful.
The baby sings along with Santana on the radio.
“Oh, there’s always some shit going on in Sacramento,” Tony says. “Some rally or something. I wonder if the show got listed anywhere.”
I graze the bumper of a Lexus trying to fit the hatchback into a tiny parking place in front of a Chinese restaurant six blocks from the church.
“Not the Lexus!” Tony laughs.
“Moooo-shu shrimp,” Manny cries when he sees the restaurant’s red lanterns. “I want moo-shu!”
Lupe nods in my rearview mirror. “Chinese sounds good.” She’s always agreeing with her baby, more to make sure he gets his way than for any shared taste in food.
“Right on. I’ll meet you guys over at the church?”
“We will bring for you a doggie bag,” Barbaro promises.
The streets are packed with muscle men in white T-shirts and mothers holding half-naked children. An afternoon concert, maybe. A peace protest or a war protest. On the corner, a legless man in a wheelchair holds a hand-painted sign: “God Hates Sinners.”
Weird. We’ve never been picketed in California before, and this crowd’s way too big for just us. Maybe the Presbies have come out as pro-choice. Are they pro-choice? Presbyterians. I can’t remember.
“Christ died for your sins!” someone yells as I approach the church square like a lost tourist.
Green and purple tents are pitched on the sidewalk.
“Praise be to God!”
There’s a woman carrying a cooler and a book bag. “Pabst Blue Ribbon, one dollar! Bibles, fifty cents!”
I feel disoriented, the sun an iron gate on my back, the crowd like a misplaced county fair without any rides.
Old men and children kneel in a circle, praying. “God forgive us our sins…”
Then a shrill voice from behind me, “That’s her!”
“Hey!”
“Saint Cat!”
“Praise God!”
As I turn, a throng of heavy women moves toward me like a giant sea creature.
A banner waves from a bald man’s bicycle: “1 Cross, 2 Nails, 4 Given.”
Then a banshee shriek: “It’s the blood girl!”
“Blasphemer!”
Sudden panic. Everything in surreal slow motion, blur of blues and reds. More crowd moves toward me from the side. Open air, but I feel claustrophobic.
“Frances Catherine!”
A dozen hands reach for me at once—white, brown, and black; dirty, scratched,