White Oleander - Janet Fitch [30]
Afterward, we went out to Church’s Fried Chicken to celebrate. Nobody had ever given me a party before. Starr gave me a white leatherette Bible with passages highlighted in red. From Carolee and the boys I got a box of stationery with a dove in the corner, trailing a banner in its beak that said, “Praise the Lord,” but I knew Starr must have picked it out. Uncle Ray gave me a tiny gold cross on a chain. Even though he thought I was nuts to be baptized.
“You can’t really believe in this crap,” he whispered in my ear as he helped me put the necklace on.
I held up my hair so he could fasten it. “I’ve got to believe in something,” I said, low.
His hand rested on my neck, warm, heavy. His good plain face, sad hazel eyes. And I realized he wanted to kiss me. I felt it inside me. And when he saw that I felt it, he reddened and looked Away.
Dear Astrid,
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?? You may not 1) be baptized, 2) call yourself a Christian, and 3) write to me on that ridiculous stationery. You will not sign your letters “born again in Christ”! God is dead, haven’t you heard, he died a hundred years ago, gave out from sheer lack of interest, decided to play golf instead. I raised you to have some self-respect, and now you’re telling me you’ve given it all away to a 3-D postcard Jesus? I would laugh if it weren’t so desperately sad.
Don’t you dare ask me to accept Jesus as my savior, wash my soul in the Blood of the Lamb. Don’t even think of trying to redeem me. I regret NOTHING. No woman with any self-respect would have done less.
The question of good and the nature of evil will always be one of philosophy’s most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I’m not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to be the center of one’s own universe, to live on one’s own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth clichés lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind’s destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race.
Three cheers for Eve.
Mother.
I prayed for her redemption. She took a life because someone humiliated her, hurt her image of herself as the Valkyrie, the stainless warrior. Exposed her weakness, which was only love. So she avenged herself. So easy to justify, I wrote to her. It’s because you felt like a victim you did it. If you were really strong, you could have tolerated the humiliation. Only Jesus can make us strong enough to fight the temptations of sin.
She wrote back, a quotation from Milton, Satan’s part in Paradise Lost:
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
UNCLE RAY was teaching me to play chess from a book, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. He had taught himself in Vietnam. “I had a lot of time to kill there,” he said, running his fingers over the peaked hat of the white pawn. He’d carved the set there, Vietnamese kings and Buddhas for bishops, horses with sculpted cheeks and combed manes. I couldn’t imagine the months it must have taken him, patiently carving with a Swiss Army knife while all the bombs blasted around him.
I liked the order of chess, the coolness of reason, the joy of its patient steps. We played most nights when Starr was at AA or CA meetings or at Bible study, while the boys watched TV. Uncle Ray kept a little pipe of dope next to him on the arm of the chair to smoke while he waited for me to make my move.
That night the boys were watching a nature show. The littlest one, Owen, sucked his thumb, holding his stuffed giraffe, while Peter twined a bit of his hair around his finger, over and over again. Davey narrated the show for them, pointing to the screen.
“That’s Smokey, he’s the alpha male.” The light from the screen reflected