The Infinite Sea

Come on, Razor, let’s go. I’ve got one last promise to keep.

Watching the gusher pour from the broken pipe.

69

“DO YOU PRAY?” Razor asked me after an exhausting night of chaseball, while he packed up the game board and pieces.

I shook my head. “Do you?”

“Damn right I do.” Nodding his head emphatically. “No atheists in foxholes.”

“My father was one.”

“A foxhole?”

“An atheist.”

“I know that, Ringer.”

“How did you know my father was an atheist?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why did you ask if he was a foxhole?”

“I didn’t. It was a freaking—” He smiled. “Oh, I get it. I know what you’re doing. The disturbing thing to me is why. Like you’re not trying to be funny but trying to prove how superior you are. Or think you are. You’re not either. Funny or superior. Why don’t you pray?”

“I don’t like putting God on the spot.”

He picked up the queen and examined her face. “You ever checked her out? She is one scary-looking she-bitch.”

“I think she looks regal.”

“She looks like my third-grade teacher, a lot of man and very little wo.”

“What?”

“You know: heavy on the male, light on the fe.”

“She’s just fierce. A warrior queen.”

“My third-grade teacher?” He studied my face. Waiting. Waiting. “Sorry, tried that joke once. Epic fail.” He placed the piece in the box. “My grandma belonged to a prayer circle. You know what a prayer circle is?”

“Yes.”

“Really? I thought you were an atheist.”

“My father was an atheist. And why couldn’t an atheist know what a prayer circle is? Religious people know about evolution.”

“I know what it is. I’ve got it,” he said thoughtfully, dark, intense eyes still on my face. “You were, like, five or six and some relative remarked in a very positive way what a serious little girl you were, and from then on, you thought seriousness was attractive.”

“What happened in the prayer circle?” Attempting to get him back on track.

“Ha! So you don’t know what it is!” He set the box down and scooched farther onto the bed. His butt now touching my thigh. I eased my leg away. Subtly, I hoped. “I’ll tell you what happened. My grandma’s dog got sick. One of those purse dogs that bites everybody and lives about twenty-five years, biting people. So her petition had to do with God saving that mean little dog so it could bite more people. And half the old ladies in her group agreed and half didn’t, I’m not sure why, I mean a God who doesn’t like dogs wouldn’t be God, but anyway, there was this big debate about wasted prayer, which became an argument about if there could be such a thing as wasted prayer, which turned into a fight about the Holocaust. So in five minutes it went from a nippy old purse dog to the Holocaust.”

“So what happened? Did they pray for the dog?”

“No, they prayed for the souls of the Holocaust. Then the next day the dog died.” And now he was nodding thoughtfully. “Grandma prayed for him. Prayed every night. Told all us grandkids to pray, too. So I prayed for a dog that terrorized and hated me and gave me this.” He swung his leg onto the bed and pulled up his pants to expose his calf. “See the scar?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Well, it’s there.” He pushed down the pants leg but kept his foot on the bed. “So after it died, I said to Grandma, ‘I prayed really hard and Flubby still died. Does God hate me?’”

“What did she say?”

“Some BS about God wanting Flubby in heaven, which was impossible for my six-year-old brain to process. There are nippy old purse dogs in heaven? Isn’t heaven supposed to be a nice place? It bothered me for a long time. Like, every night, while I said my prayers, I couldn’t help but wonder if I even wanted to go to heaven and spend eternity with Flubby. So I decided he must be in hell. Otherwise, theology falls apart.”

He wrapped his long arms around his upraised knee, where he rested his chin and stared into space. He was back in a time when a little boy’s questions about prayer and God and heaven still mattered.

“I broke a cup once,” he went on. “Playing around in Mom’s china cabinet, part of her wedding set, this dainty little cup from a tea set. Didn’t totally break it. Dropped it on the floor and it cracked.”

“The floor?”

“No, not the floor. The cu—” His eyes widened in shock. “Did you just make the same . . . ?”

I shook my head. He pointed his finger at me. “Naw, I caught you! A moment of lighthearted levity from Ringer the warrior queen!”

“I joke all the time.”

“Right. But they’re so subtle that only smart people get them.”

“The cup,” I prodded him.

“So I’ve cracked Mom’s precious china. I put it back in the cabinet, turning its cracked side toward the back so maybe she won’t notice, even though I know it’s only a matter of time before she does and I’m dead meat. Know where I turn for help?”

I didn’t have to think hard. I knew where the story was going. “God.”

“God. I prayed for God to keep Mom away from that cup. Like, for the rest of her life. Or at least until I moved away to college. Then I prayed that he could heal the cup. He’s God, right? He can heal people—what’s a tiny freaking made-in-China cup? That was the optimal solution and that’s what he’s all about, optimal solutions.”