Pig Eucharist aka: Indian Ocean

I posted this earlier as a different story. I have since re-worked it into this monster down below. I would appreciate any and all discussion of the piece as I continue to edit it for possible publication.

Pig Eucharist (I need a better title)

The vending machine factory where Jim worked was a testament to both Darwinian architecture and the practicality of the Appalachian foothills where Crown Regent Vending Machine Fabricators made its home. The building was a mis-mash of concrete block, corrugated steel with fluorescing paint and the original brick L-shape that now housed the management offices and open cafeteria lined with a working model of every machine Regent ever produced since it opened after Leonard Regent returned from killing Nazis with a vision of Horatio Algerish boot leather capitalism. Jim thought the building was hideous. He cursed himself silently every morning he arrived at the factory. He would back his Dodge into a spot designated for him and open his devotional reader or his bible which waited for him most of the day on the dashboard of his truck. Jim designed the software that ran the newest lines of vending machines.
He spent most of his day in front of an array of computer screens writing and chopping source code for candy vendors, soda vendors, coffee and hot drink vendors and the occasional sandwich vendor. He was also required to head out onto the factory floor and observe the testing and fabrication process. Jim hated going out on the factory floor. He hated passing the listless, hypnotic faces of the fabricators, mesmerized by their machines, nodding like bobbleheads as he passed them at their stations. He hated that he had to wait until the assembly line was down to cross through into the fabrication area, and he dreaded the return trip even more.
The assembly line had expanded like the building. When capital was available, the company bought new equipment and golemized it into the current assembly process. As a result, it became impossible to cross into or out of the assembly area without either exiting the building and walking out and around the brick, then concrete block, then peeling corrugated steel, then newer fabricated steel portion of the building, past the loading area, past the giant fire pit for the spring barbeque, until reaching the employee entrance which was tagged with inexplicable French graffiti. Jim chose to wait for the periodic shut down of the line to enter and exit the fabrication area.

Jim wore a new pin on his uniform polo shirt that designated him as a member of the Promise Keepers, a men’s devotional group that was centered on the image of the nuclear family and promoting “strong, Christian values” among fathers and husbands. While wearing this pin, Jim strolled through the assembly line to ask Rick, the bearded manager of the inspection and safety division and prior-service Marine, about what was holding up testing of the new clear front soda machine. Rick spied the pin and immediately asked Jim about it.
Sensing another confrontation, Jim dismissed the pin, giving a casual answer and attempted to steer the conversation back to the issue of the machine. Rick would have none of it. Soon Jim was surrounded by the boys on the floor, a testosterone laden bunch who wore Harley t-shirts, and talked openly about sex and auto racing and hunting. Jim had found them to be somewhat neanderthalish, but he felt that God had blessed him with an education, and a pretty decent upbringing, something his compatriots on the sweaty assembly line did not have. Jim felt a sense of pity toward them, and he could tell that they were resentful of Jim’s blessings.
“Looks like we got ourselves a fundamentalist fellas.” Rick said, revealing his missing canine with a wily smile.

“Sheeeeeeeit!” responded Jake, a scrawny ex-rodeo clown from Kentucky who often left soda bottles with his tobacco juice and spittle around the building. Jim thought it repulsive, and had complained to Rick once about the matter, but nothing was done.
Jim informed the warehouse cronies that he was not comfortable with this sort of conversation, and that they should return to the task at hand. Again, that notion was vetoed when the other three redneck denizens of the warehouse arrived, straddling the forklift adorned with NASCAR stickers, auto parts decals, and something else scrawled in French that disturbed Jim when he read it, but he was unable to understand why, since he did not understand French.
Rick barraged Jim with serious questions regarding Jim’s Christian faith; was he a fundamentalist? Jim answered in the negative, but hesitated enough to allow for further questioning from his bearded interrogator.
“I think like most fundamentalists, you have failed to ask yerself the following question which is central to your faith - Jim, do you believe that the bible, as published, is the unmitigated word of the Lord?”
Jim answered in the affirmative.
“Well then my boy that makes you a fundamentalist. Now the question remains, are you a Calvinist?”
Jim looked at Rick quizzically, he had heard of Calvinism, but had never thought much about it. When he thought of Calvinists, he thought of Thanksgiving and the Mayflower.

“I take it from the clueless look on your face, that you don’t understand the question. I will restate it – do you believe in predestination, or do you believe in free-will?”
Jim felt the acid in his stomach begin to rise. He pictured the commercial with the purple pill that was supposed to help his acid reflux disease, and he suddenly realized he had forgotten to take his daily regimen. Jim was becoming visibly uncomfortable.
“You see Jim, these things all matter, as we have to define just what sort of fundamentalist you are. If you are a Calvinist, then you believe that everything in your life, including the salvation of your soul, is pre-determined and that the universe is a sort of deux ex-machina that spins without any interference on the part of the players within that universe. If you believe in free-will, then you must believe that in some way your salvation rests on whether or not you perform good works during your life. You get that?”
“Yes” Jim answered, attempting to slide his way toward the exit, but the line was up. The lurching behemoth machines swayed dangerously past them. One of the warehouse guys, the forklift operator with the tattoo of the ugly baby on his arm, stood in Jim’s way.
“Do you believe in free will or not Jim? It is a simple question, and not truly a religious one.” Rick seemed disappointed that Jim was trying to escape.

Jim thought for a moment; and then said: “How about a little of both?”

“I think we got a Spinozan here boys.” shouted Jake, as if he had found a rabbit under his porch.
Rick immediately followed up with another question:
“So Jim, you believe that God thinks in a sort non-linear fashion that allows him to see all of the decisions that could possibly be made, and therefore has an understanding, not so much of what we will do, but understands the consequences of each of our individual steps?”
Jim was stunned. He couldn’t believe these guys were asking him these sorts of questions, who was this Spinoza? What was all this about? How do these guys know this?
The last question formed on Jim’s lips and was audible enough for Rick and the others to hear it.
“Fair enough Jim, fair enough. You see, I and my colleagues here have all come to the same basic point, but through different means. I can understand your prejudice against our intellectual authority regarding these types of matters, so I will gladly explain. When I was in the Corps, I was holed up on a ship with a chaplin as my rack mate; this man made me question my own faith, and could even be defined as the impetus to the ultimate loss of said faith in your lord and savior. But I still thank that man, he was a committed Christian, and understood the irrationality of his situation.”

“Was he a big fan of the Kierkegaard?” piped the forklift driver.

“I suppose, I have to say I hadn’t read Kierkegaard until our recent discussion on matters of faith in regard to atheism and the like, but that makes me wonder if he weren’t one of us. Now, Jake here, he did some time in the joint, and found that he had a lot of time to read. He sort of specializes in the French philosophers of the later twentieth century, Camus, Sartre, and Foucault, although we all struggle with the verbosity of the post-modernists.”

Rick continued:
“ Fat boy over there”, indicating the rotund driver of the forklift who sported a full-on, unmodified, unabashed mullet “he is what we call a pre, or proto existentialist, he is a Nietzcshean of sorts, although his insistence that Nietzsche was a positivist has many holes, but then again, so does Nietzsche’s empiricism, so it only stands to reason.”
Rick chuckled as if reminded of something funny.
“Anyway, Fat boy has a Masters in philosophy from Stanford, which don’t mean shit in this place, but he can drive a forklift like a motherfucker.”
Fat boy smiled with his eyes at the compliment.
Jim was barraged for minutes with questions, his stomach acid rising and his patience quickly eroding. Jim knew better than to fall back on any of his pat arguments when he was approached with the type of drivel that liberals would sometimes throw his way. These men were not making fun of him; they were truly attempting to get him to express his faith in a way that had never been done before. Jim was fortunate that his worries were over for the time being. The intercom sounded, calling Jim back to his office for a conference call.
That night, Jim went home and couldn’t sleep. In church the following Sunday, he felt a sense of emptiness that he had not noticed before, something he could only describe as “a space” that was either newly formed, or was something he had ignored.
The following week, Jim avoided the assembly line. He would send the intern into the fray in order to avoid the possibility of confrontation with the hillbilly intellectuals. They felt dangerous, like the stray dogs that would wander the streets of Jim’s native Boise in the summertime. Once, the intern forwarded a message from Rick about reading Bonhoeffer, something that was lost on Jim and made him even more nervous. The weeks stretched into months though, and after a particularly moving sermon one Sunday about cowardice, Jim decided that it was time to confront his demons.
The following Monday, Jim strolled into the warehouse with no particular agenda in mind, just knowing that he needed to see Rick. He found all of the fabrication cretins busily working, checking the torque on the bolts that connected the belt drive to the rocker arm housing, or lifting machines with the forklift and carting them over to the testing area. He got nothing more than a quick nod from Fat boy and Jake as they sped around the floor on their forklifts. Jim walked up to the line in front of Rick’s desk, spying the photo of Rick’s daughters, and a black and white photo of a wall-eyed man that looked familiar. Rick was busy reading some schematics at his desk.
“What you need boss?” Rick asked.
“Nothing, I just came to pay a social call.”
“Damn, you sure picked a hell of a day to do it. I’m balls deep trying to figure why this resistor isn’t resisting and keeps frying out the circuit boards on the retrieval units. I just got an email from the boys upstairs in the big house and they have assigned you to the meat wagon with us.”
“Meat wagon?”
“Yep, we prepare the Easter pigs for the spring barbeque every year. Since you are our illustrious leader, they put you with us. We’ll see you at the barbeque pit on Thursday night at 11PM.”
“Why so late?”
“Cause we’re making four pigs, and we sure as shit are not gonna microwave them. You know how to roast a pig don’t you Jim?”
The question made Jim feel somehow inferior. He was tempted to feign experience, but decided against it.
“No, I do not.”
Rick paused for a second, looking Jim directly in the eyes.
“Then you are in for a treat on Thursday. Wear crappy clothes, and bring something to drink. We’re gonna be up all night! Nothing like shared sleep deprivation to bond friendships, huh Jim?”
Jim felt the bile rise in his stomach as he pictured the scene. Drunken weirdos, addled on caffeine and alcohol and God knows what else, listening to loud music and half-assed roasting some pigs over an open flame. He suspected that he would be tending to the cooking as well as nursing the drunkards back into lucidity.
The next morning, there was a note scrawled in large block letters on a torn hunk of cardboard pinned to Jim’s office door. At the foot of the door was a copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship.
JIM,
BRING COLD AND WARM DRINKS FOR YOURSELF. BRING A SLEEPING BAG. READ BONHOEFFER!! THE NIGHT’S DISCUSSION IS GRACE. IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED WE WILL HAVE AN EXTRA ROAST FOR THE BARBEQUE.
RICK

Jim looked up the Wikipedia article on Bonhoeffer, and the book, and was surprised that Rick would have Jim read a theologian. Didn’t Rick say he was an atheist? Jim thought of atheists as having severed all ties to the ethereal, adrift in a sea of sex, drugs and communism. Atheists protested nativity scenes and prayer in school. Atheists were Californians and New Yorkers that promoted the homosexual agenda. Atheists did not recommend books by German resistance leaders who wrote distinctly and eloquently on the subject of faith and grace.
Thursday after work, Jim tossed his Army Reserve sleeping bag in the bed of his truck along with a gym bag filled with clothes, snacks, instant coffee and hot cocoa powder. The West Virginia night had an edge to it. The moon was full and obscured behind clouds that did not threaten bad weather, but obliterated any sense of depth to the night sky. Jim was a bit agoraphobic. The clear Western sky, the big sky, with its madgesty stretched out till far beyond horizon lines, made Jim feel exposed, like when he would be undressed as a child watching Romper Room and the woman with the magic mirror would announce that she could see Jim’s naked body. He felt shrunken under the weight of the endless ether. Here, nights like tonight, Thursday night, he felt the warmth of a revival tent.
Two trucks were parked around the barbeque pit, their lights shining directly over the coals reflecting the intense heat within the pit. Rick’s Geo Metro was also shining its lights into the pit. There was an open space in the center of the semi-circle that was clearly there for Jim. Fat boy, a giant beer clutched in his biscuit grabber hand waved Jim into the spot. Rick was standing at the back of Jake’s truck as they wrestled a large metal box down from the bed. Three more pigs, two on spits, the other on a bed of banana leaves, rested inside the dented bed along with several coolers and a few soda bottles filled with spittle. Near the pit were four stumps, a few folding chairs and a couple of coolers along with a backpacking stove on another tree stump.
Fat boy tossed his empty beer can into the back of his truck, opened the cooler and pulled out two tall boys of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He tossed the beer at Jim like a football. Jim closed the door of his truck, losing the can for a second until it appeared in his hand, cold and metallic. He didn’t want to argue, so he simply opened the beer and took a sip, nodding a thank you to Fat boy.
“Jim, glad you got here early! Get your ass over here, you are gonna learn how to roast the greatest pigs in the history of swine!”
Rick and Jake carried the metal box over toward the pit.
“Jim, get that tool box out of the back of my truck would ya?!”
Jim did as he was told, following the two to the fire pit. Rick explained that this pig was be done Cuban style, in a caja china, buried in one of two pits in the ground and covered in hot coals. The second pig was going to be Hawaiian style – buried in the other pit with super heated volcanic rocks wrapped in banana leaves placed inside its torso. These were the easy pigs. They would be left alone for the night. The other pigs, the Filipino pig and the American pig, would be slow roasted over the coals on spits turned slowly and nearly constantly throughout the night. Rick launched into a monologue on roasting techniques and the superiority of the Filipino pig. Jim absorbed as much as he could but Rick’s speech was quick and focused. Jim observed as Rick and Jake placed the caja china on the outside of the pit, shoveling an even layer of coals into the bottom. They then placed the box into the pit and spread more coals over the top, covering the box completely in orange coals.
Jim hoisted the third pig out of the back of the truck, the American style pig. The pig’s flesh, pale and still, reminded him of the Mormon children he grew up with. He could not understand why. He and Rick placed the spit on the low walls of the pit balancing the pole on each side. The pig lay upside-down, like in the cannibal cartoons. The Filipino pig was placed most carefully over the coals by fat boy and Jake.
Rick opened the back of the Metro and called Jim over. Rick had several circuits for the rocker arm assembly lined up in an array and attached to what looked like a wooden raft in the back of the tiny Geo. Jim wondered if the talk of grace and the spiritual conflict he troubled over was going to be forgotten.
“All righty! I suspect you know what these are?”
“The circuits for the rocker arm assembly?”
“Right. Now, the boys upstairs have it in their heads that the problem with the arm is a software problem. That’s why they have you going over your code, and why they have my boy going over your code at home. You write good clean code, Jim. But you rely a little too much on the internet without checking what your getting.”
Jim was simultaneously flattered and embarrassed.
“That aint our problem though, here.”
Rick started the Geo and plugged his circuit array into the ac adapter of the car.
“Now, I want you to let me know if you smell something. Take a deep breath now, I’m going to plug these in one at a time, and I want you to get a sense of the smell before I start plugging them in. Now when you smell something, let me know.”
Rick began plugging the ciruits into the voltage adapter he jerry rigged into the Metro. First one – nothing. Second, third – nothing. When Rick got to the fifth one, a distinct smell of burning plastic filled the back of the Metro. It reminded Jim of when he set fire to his model airplanes as a kid.
“Plastic.”
“Yep. Now, let me finish.”
Three more circuits smelled like crashing model airplanes before Rick was finished with his demonstration.
“Those sneaky fuckers are replacing a few of our resistors with blobs of plastic.”
Jim stood like a stammering moron. Here, in the back of turquoise Geo Metro, a smelly, venison-eating redneck just saved the company millions of dollars, and possibly saved Jim’s job as well. The company that manufactured the circuit boards was replacing one resistor with a shoddy material, which was preventing the rocker arm from functioning properly.
“How did you find this out?”
“Monday, I was looking at the machines with the bad arms, and I also looked at a good machine. I plugged them both in, and then opened the door, and I could smell the plastic. I took a few of the circuits home and wired ‘em into the back of the Metro here.”
“This whole time even I was convinced it was a software problem.”
“That’s everybody’s problem nowadays, Jim; specialization. It makes you nothing more than a part of a larger machine with no knowledge of the rest of the machine. It is the capitalist equivilant to the existential dilemma. You want some of my wife’s award winning pecan pie?”
Jim felt the sense of being adrift, he looked up and the clouds were blocking out the night sky. Rick opened the front door of the Metro and retrieved a box of still warm pecan pie.
“Sure.”
“Gentlemen, I believe we can have ourselves a feast!”
“Is that Sharon’s pie?” asked Fat Boy.
“Why yes it is!”
Fat boy went to his truck and retrieved some plastic plates and forks along with another beer. Rick began slicing the pie with a hunting knife, deftly removing the first piece, the smell of warm brown sugar burst into the chilly night air.
Over pie though, things changed irrevocably.
Jim was about to place a forkful of pecan pie into his mouth when Rick ambushed him.
“Jim, how are we gonna get you to understand the futility of the individual in the universal schemata?”
Jim squinted his eyes while chewing what was the most delicious pecan pie he had ever eaten.
“Good pie ain’t it? I mean, to truly understand one’s faith, one must question it don’t you think?”
Jim nervously shoveled more pie into his mouth.
“You wanna know what I think Jim?” asked Rick pointedly, “I think you are a goddamn fraud.”
Jim stopped chewing the tasty pie and his balls began to crawl into his torso when his eyes met Rick’s bloodshot gaze.
“I think you haven’t ever questioned anything in your life. I think you lack what those of the Christian faith refer to as a soul. The soul Jim, must be earned in most faiths, and early Christianity was no exception to this- the martyrs all understood the precariousness of their faith, and they chose, or so as I see it, to die for that faith. That sort of thing only comes with direct and thoughtful questioning of the origins, the very nature of your beliefs, weighing them emotionally, intellectually and historically. You have simply followed blindly doing what you were told. Christianity requires you to be a shepherd Jim, not a sheep. I think it is time you came to grips with the absurdity of the universe that we reside in.”
“Look Rick, I don’t have to be a thinking man, and a reader of all of this Liberal crap to be a better Christian. I am saved by the grace of God.”
“you are full of shit. You think I’m a liberal? You think Fat Boy here is a liberal? Your bread ain’t done if you think that. Politics have nothing to with this anyway. This is about engagement in one’s life. Did you read the Bonhoeffer?”
“Yes.” Jim lied.
Rick stared at Jim again, sniffing the air around him like an animal.
“You are a lying sack of shit.”
“I read it, its all about cheap grace versus expensive grace.”
“Fat boy, rotate those pigs a bit, and put some savory on the American, thank you. That’s what part of it is about, the part they have on the Wikipedia article. You went to school right? You have a degree?”
“In computer science.”
“Didn’t they also make you take some Humanities courses, some history, some music appreciation?”
“Yes, but that..”
“Wasn’t in your major. Wasn’t going to get you a job. Wasn’t going to help you. Yeah, that English course wasn’t going to help you write with more clarity and precision. That History course wasn’t going to teach you about context. You don’t even know how a circuit board functions do you?”
“I know what a resistor is.”
“Your speech course should have told you that you didn’t answer my question. If you had bothered to do a little more than you were told, you could better appreciate the life your living. Instead, you are living this life like a zombie, because of the promise of the next.”
Jim was silent, the bile gurgling in his stomach.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious about the world you inhabit?”
“I read. I watch documentaries.”
“You read what they tell to read and nothing else. Watching humping zebras, great white sharks and two engineers blow up a dummy on TV does not mean you have an understanding of the physical world. You live here! Don’t you have the slightest curiosity about this place?”
“Why are you singling me out for your lecture? Why me?”
“Because I think there is something there. I think there is a chance for you. I think you just don’t realize the riches that life has for you, if you’d only pay attention and stop doing what you’re told all the time. I tell you this because, like the evangelicals, I fear for your everlasting soul.”
Rick rose from the stump and adjusted the pig, looking at his watch; it was four seventeen A.M. Fat boy was sleeping in his truck bed and Jake was tending the fire. The sky was still grey, no wind
“How can a nihilist have concern for my soul. I may be lazy, but at least im not a hypocrite!”
Jake looked up from the fire toward Rick and Jim. Rick paused and took a long draw from his beer before answering.
“You don’t get it Jim. I don’t care if you are Catholic, Protestant, a snake handler, a Buddhist, an atheist, or a fucking bum on the street. At least get in the driver’s seat of your own life. I’m asking that you not be another one of the faces on the line. Let the cold get in your bones once in a while. Let yourself, no make yourself do everything with gusto, even the shitty parts of life. If you had paid attention, and had the least bit of curiosity about even your livelihood, we could just be enjoying the smell of pigs on a spit.
Jim and Rick fell into silence, mesmerized by the volcanic coals as they glowed furiously under the steaming pig carcasses. Even in the dim light of early morning, the pale flesh was glowing bright red. Rick would rise and stare at the Filipino pig, turn the carcass, lock it in place, then return to his chair and watch the pig intently. Fat boy began to prepare the chickens with Jake. Jim wanted to remain in his seat for fear of another blow up from Rick or the others, but his work ethic got the better of him. He stood up and grabbed a spit, sliding whole chickens one by one onto the narrow steel spike. He ran his hands under the skin to separate the skin from the meat. Jake and fatboy watched him.
“Makes the skin crispy” Jim said, “People like crispy skin.”
“Good idea. You see this Rick? Jim separates the skin from the flesh of the carcass so as to make the skin crispy. We always just salted the skin.”
“I guess salt would get the moisture out. Do have any extra?” Jim asked
Jake handed Jim the salt and they all began salting and separating the skin from the chickens, there were about thirty whole birds, some they rubbed with barbeque sauce, washing their hands in the spigot afterwords. The spits with the chickens were placed across the truck beds until it was time to roast them at dawn. Fatboy reached in the cooler and began to prepare breakfast, eggs and shredded potatoes and bacon. Rick silently minded his pigs.
A whistling sound, low and basso at first, gaining pitch with its momentum began to emanate from the Filipino pig’s ass. Like a flatulent train whistle. Rick waved everyone over.
“When the steam comes out of the pig’s ass, the skin is ready.”
Rick pulled off chunks of candy bright skin the size of a quarter, handing each piece to Jake, who passed it down the line until it reached Jim. Everyone blew on their respective piece, all eyes were on Jim as he waited for a cue.
“Take, eat, all of you.” Rick said solemnly.
The skin, with its salty crispiness and savory fat combined on Jim’s tongue to excite his mouth and brain. He had never tasted something so rich and yet light at the same time. There was an inherent sweetness to the skin itself which combined with the savory fat that began to drip onto the sides of Jim’s mouth, He would have wiped his mouth normally, but his tongue feared the loss of such intense flavor, and immediately shot to absorb and savor every last morsel of the chicarrone. The second bite was just as good, Jim fell into a reverie just as he noticed the clouds dissolving like the buttery goodness in his mouth and he knew he had been saved.

Indian Ocean

I wrote this two years ago for a contest for a magazine called McSweeneys. It was rejected. I am thinking of reworking it for another magazine. I think the piece is quite funny and absurd, but I think it is missing something. if anyone has any suggestions, I will be happy to hear them.

Enjoy,

Blur

The garbled buzzing of the fire door alarm choking, half-submerged in the bathtub warm water awakens him from his sudden slumber. He remembers a flash of the Merv Griffin show, claustrophobic and isolating images of his legs, clad in Legg’s pantyhose and stiletto heels strutting away from his torso, still trapped in the magician’s box. Maybe it was the applause, but he was pretty certain it was Merv’s sweater that terrified him the most. He pushes the fire-door under the water to drown the life out of the alarm. “I suppose I deserve this on some level,” he begins to think, as the plastic key for the Hotel St Moritz drops from his teeth. “I should have known those hillbillies were up to something when they invited me out for barbeque.”

There was an argument, more like discussion really, over home made venison and Mountain Dew in the warehouse of the printing shop one afternoon during work. Jim, who now finds himself adrift in the ocean about a hundred knots south east of Seychelles, was wearing a pin on his uniform polo shirt that designated him as a member of the Promise Keepers, a men’s devotional group that was centered on the image of the nuclear family and promoting “strong, Christian values” among fathers and husbands. While wearing this pin, Jim strolled through the warehouse to ask Rick, the bearded warehouse manager and prior-service Marine, about what was holding up shipment of the Landmark Utilities order. Rick spied the pin and immediately asked Jim about it.

Sensing another confrontation, Jim dismissed the pin by giving a casual answer and attempted to steer the conversation back to the Landmark order. Rick would have none of it. Soon Jim was surrounded by the boys in the warehouse, a testosterone laden bunch who wore Harley t-shirts, and talked openly about sex and auto racing and hunting. Jim had found them to be somewhat neanderthalish, but he felt that God had blessed him with an education, and a pretty decent upbringing, something his compatriots in the sweaty warehouse did not have. Jim felt a sense of pity toward them, and he could tell that they were resentful of Jim’s blessings.

“Looks like we got ourselves a fundamentalist fellas.” Rick said, revealing his missing canine with a wily smile.

“Sheeeeeeeit!” Responded Jake, a scrawny ex-rodeo clown from Kentucky who often left soda bottles with his tobacco juice and spittle around the office. Jim thought it repulsive, and had complained to Rick once about the matter, but nothing was done.

Jim informed the warehouse cronies that he was not comfortable with this sort of conversation, and that they should return to the task at hand. Again, that notion was vetoed when the other three redneck denizens of the warehouse arrived, straddling the forklift adorned with NASCAR stickers, auto parts decals, and something scrawled in French that disturbed Jim when he read it, but he was unable to understand why, since he did not understand French.

Rick barraged Jim with serious questions regarding Jim’s Christian faith; was he a fundamentalist? Jim answered in the negative, but hesitantly enough to allow for further questioning from his bearded interrogator.
“I think like most fundamentalists, you have failed to axe yerself the following question which is central to your faith - Jim, do you believe that the bible, as published, is the unmitigated word of the Lord?”

Jim answered in the affirmative.

“Well then my boy that makes you a fundamentalist. Now the question remains, are you a Calvinist?”

Jim looked at Rick quizzically, he had heard of Calvinism, but had never thought much about it. When he thought of Calvinists, he thought of Thanksgiving and the Mayflower.

“I take it from the clueless look on your face, that you don’t understand the question. I will restate it – do you believe in predestination, or do you believe in free-will?”

Jim felt the acid in his stomach begin to rise. He pictured the commercial with the purple pill that was supposed to help his acid reflux disease, and he suddenly realized he had forgotten to take his daily regimen. Jim was becoming visibly uncomfortable.

“You see Jim, these things all matter, as we have to define just what sort of fundamentalist you are. If you are a Calvinist, then you believe that everything in your life, including the salvation of your soul, is pre-determined and that the universe is a sort deux ex-machina that spins without any interference on the part of the players within that universe. If you believe in free-will, then you must believe that in some way your salvation rests on whether or not you perform good works during your life. You get that?”

“Yes” Jim answered, attempting to slide his way toward the door.

One of the warehouse guys, the forklift operator with the tattoo of the ugly baby on his arm, stood in Jim’s way.

“Do you believe in free will or not Jim? It is a simple question, and not truly a religious one.” Rick seemed disappointed that Jim was trying to escape.

Jim thought for a moment; and then said: “How about a little of both?”

“I think we got a Spinozan here boys.” shouted Jake, as if he had found a rabbit under his porch.

Rick immediately followed up with another question: “So Jim, you believe that God thinks in a sort non-linear fashion that allows him to see all of the decisions that could possibly be made, and therefore has an understanding, not so much of what we will do, but understands the consequences of each of our individual steps?”

Jim was stunned. He couldn’t believe these guys were asking him these sorts of questions, who was this Spinoza? What was all this about? How do these guys know this?

The last question actually formed on Jim’s lips and was audible enough for Rick and the others to hear it.

“Fair enough Jim, fair enough. You see, I and my colleagues here have all come to the same basic point, but through different means. I can understand your prejudice against our intellectual authority regarding these types of matters, so I will gladly explain. You see Jim, when I was in the Corps, I was holed up on a ship with a Chaplin as my rack mate; this man made me question my own faith, and could even be defined as the impetus to the ultimate loss of said faith in your lord and savior. But I still thank that man, he was a committed Christian, and understood the irrationality of his situation”

“Was he a big fan of the Kierkegaard?” piped the forklift driver.

“I suppose, I have to say I hadn’t read Kierkegaard until our recent discussion on matters of faith in regard to atheism and the like, but that makes me wonder if he weren’t one of us. Now, Jake here, he did some time in the joint, and found that he had a lot of time to read. He sort of specializes in the French philosophers of the later twentieth century, Camus, Sartre, and Foucault, although we all struggle with the verbosity of the post-modernists.”

Rick continued: “ Fat boy over there”, indicating the rotund driver of the forklift who sported a full-on, unmodified, unabashed mullet “he is what we call a pre, or proto existentialist, he is a Nietzcshean of sorts, although his insistence that Nietzsche was a positivist has many holes, but then again, so does Nietzsche’s empiricism, so it only stands to reason. Anyway, Fat boy has a Masters in philosophy from Stanford, which don’t mean shit in this place, but he can drive a forklift like a motherfucker.”
Fat boy smiled with his eyes at the compliment.
Jim was barraged for minutes with questions, his stomach acid rising and his patience was quickly eroding. Jim hesitated to fall back on any of his pat arguments when he was approached with the type of drivel that liberals would sometimes throw his way. These men were not making fun of Jim; they were truly attempting to get him to express his faith in a way that had never been done before. Jim was fortunate that his worries were over of the time being. The intercom sounded, calling Jim back to his office for a conference call with Cincinnati. That night, Jim went home and couldn’t sleep. In church the following Sunday, Jim felt a sense of emptiness that he had not noticed before, something he could only describe as “a space” that was either newly formed, or was something he never felt.
The following week, Jim avoided the warehouse. He would send his assistant or the intern into the fray in order to avoid the possibility of confrontation with the hillbilly intellectuals, as he now deemed them. Somehow, they felt dangerous, like stray dogs that would wander the streets of Jim’s native Boise, Idaho in the summertime. Once, Jim’s secretary forwarded a message from Rick about reading Bonhoeffer, something that was lost on Jim and made him even more nervous. The weeks stretched into months though, and after a particularly moving sermon one Sunday about cowardice, Jim decided that it was time to confront his demons.
The following Monday, Jim strolled into the warehouse with no particular agenda in mind, just knowing that he needed to see Rick. He found all of the warehouse cretins busily working, shipping and receiving materials and finished print jobs. He got nothing more than a quick nod from Fat boy and Jake as they sped around the warehouse on their forklifts. Jim walked up to the line in front of Rick’s desk, spying the photo of Rick’s daughters, and a black and white photo of a wall-eyed man that looked familiar. Rick was busy typing on the filthy computer at his desk.
“What you need boss?” Rick asked.
“Nothing, I just came to pay a social call.”
“Damn, you sure picked a hell of a day to do it. I tell you what, Fat boy is having some of the boys over for barbeque this Saturday, now if you want, and we sure would love to have you there.”
Jim felt the bile rise in his stomach as he answered yes.
The following Saturday, Jim was eating ribs and drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon from a can while standing in the backyard of Fat boy’s modest house situated in the countryside about ten miles from the printing factory. The discussion was normal at first, NASCAR, and basketball dominated the conversation. Jim was asked about the absence of his wife, to which he replied that she was in Hagerstown visiting the in-laws. A few canned in-law jokes later, and all seemed to be going smoothly. Over pie though, things changed irrevocably.
Jim was about to place a forkful of pecan pie into his mouth when Rick ambushed him.
“Jim, how are we gonna git you to understand the futility of the individual in the universal schemata?”
Jim squinted his eyes while chewing what was the most delicious pecan pie he had ever eaten.
“Good pie ain’t it? I mean, to truly understand one’s faith, one must question it don’t you think?”
Jim nervously shoveled more pie into his mouth.
“You wanna know what I think Jim?” asked Rick pointedly, “I think you are a goddamn fraud.”
Jim stopped chewing the tasty pie and his balls began to crawl into his torso when his eyes met Rick’s bloodshot gaze.
“I think you haven’t ever questioned anything in your life. I think you lack what those of the Christian faith refer to as a soul. The soul Jim, must be earned in most faiths, and early Christianity was no exception to this- the martyrs all understood the precariousness of their faith, and they chose, or so as I see it, to die for that faith. That sort of thing only comes with direct and thoughtful questioning of the origins, the very nature of your beliefs, weighing them emotionally, intellectually and historically. You have simply followed blindly doing what you were told. Christianity requires you to be a shepherd Jim, not a sheep. I think it is time you came to grips with the absurdity of the universe that we reside in.”

The next thing Jim remembered was the dream of being sawn in half on the Merv Griffin show, something that stemmed from his first erotic memory when those disembodied legs boldly strutted across the floor of the stage. He remembered his excitement, and the nausea felt at the site of Merv’s sweaters as well. When the Cosby Show was aired, he couldn’t stand to watch it because of the sweaters worn by Cliff Huxtable. He felt this sense of Job-like certainty when he awoke on the screaming fire door, that God would come to save him somehow. The keycard bothered him in the same way that the French graffiti had bothered him. He was clinging to a large metal door that fried his arms and shoulders from the reflected heat of the sun. Jim found himself praying that God would come and save him somehow. He noted the irony that he often thought of himself as saved, and would refer to himself as such among his church-going friends, and here he was in need of rescuing.
After two nights in the swells of the Indian Ocean, Jim no longer wondered how he got there. He no longer cared for anything. He understood suddenly that he was completely and totally alone in the universe, and that there was little chance of him being rescued. He came to the realization without fear, or trepidation, but with the same sense of emotion one would have while routinely waiting at a red light. He was ready to accept it. He understood, that this sense of loneliness that he feared his entire life was the reason he shied away from questioning anything at all. He now understood that he was simply a man who had been somehow dropped by rednecks into the middle of some tropical ocean with nothing more than a fire door and a keycard from a Parisian hotel. The thought of the random beauty of it made him smile, which opened cuts on the corners of his mouth. He was not afraid anymore.
Jim was not afraid even when the shark approached him from behind. Kicking around while floating on the door made Jim appear to be a wounded fish of some sort, and the large Mako shark swam up to have a look see - When the shark bit into Jim’s torso, ripping him in half, Jim was surprised, but not fearful. He really had no time to be afraid. A final thought did escape from him as he saw the shark had spit Jim’s legs from his toothy mouth, not finding them meaty enough – “This is absurd.”