Going Nuclear. Stephen Hart
this year. Is that for class?” She smiled as she asked the question, disconcerting Arthur somewhat.
“No, I’m just killing time. I’m on my way back to school.”
“Where do you go?”
“Northwestern. How about you?”
“University of Michigan. I’m a psych major. I’m Mandy, by the way. I had to come back for my sister’s wedding. She couldn’t wait six weeks for the semester to be over, of course. That would have been asking too much, way too much. So now, I’m going to have to play catch-up when I get back.” She rolled her eyes. “I already have a late paper. I hope my professor understands. How about you? Were you visiting someone?”
“I came back for my brother’s funeral. My name’s Arthur.”
“God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I wasn’t trying to be too personal or anything.”
“That’s okay. It doesn’t bother me to talk about it. These things happen.”
“How did he die?”
“He was killed in Vietnam.”
“God, you hear about that happening more and more these days, but it still must have been a shock for you.”
“More for my family than me, especially my mother.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“She seemed to find a lot of strength in her religious beliefs. I think she’ll get through it okay, eventually.”
“I guess religion can be helpful at times.” Mandy shrugged her shoulders.
“You don’t seem all that convinced.” Arthur replied, tilting his head. She crossed her legs, and he found himself glancing at her exposed knee.
“Well, it may be more helpful for some people than for me. I don’t know.”
“So, you don’t believe?”
“Not especially.” Mandy frowned slightly as she shook her head.
“Is your family religious?” Arthur asked.
“Oh God, yes! They’re devout Catholics, especially my father. He thinks young people today don’t take religion as seriously as they used to. He thinks that’s why things are so out of control these days.”
“I think the war has more to do with things being out of control than anything else. But it sounds like your father’s views didn’t really take with you.” Arthur found talking with this girl easier than he would have imagined. He liked the soft resonance in her voice and the way her face lit up when she spoke. You never know, he thought. You never know.
“Well, I just can’t take religion as seriously as my father does,” Mandy replied. “I guess to me the whole thing seems to be more about ritual and ceremony than anything else. I mean, there just doesn’t seem to be any actual communication with a Supreme Being. I think a lot of the things they teach are good, and I think that following the basic values they try to instill is a good way to live your life. But have you ever tried to pray? For me, it just doesn’t work. It seems more like making a wish on your birthday before you blow out the candles.”
“I guess I tried to pray when I was younger, mostly in church when I was a kid. Not so much recently.”
“What church?”
“Southern Baptist.”
“Did it work?” Mandy raised her eyebrows.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you feel like you were getting through to some higher power, or did you feel like you were just more or less talking to yourself?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t really tell.” Arthur found the directness of her questions interesting.
“But you can tell you’re talking to me now, can’t you?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes, yes, I can. But I can see you, I can hear you.” To put it mildly, he thought, looking at her hair and then into her eyes.
“So, close your eyes. I mean, if you did, you would know I’m still here. You would know you’re not talking to the air.”
“Unless you sneaked away while my eyes were closed,” Arthur deadpanned.
“Well, that’s always a possibility,” Mandy replied, laughing. “But the whole prayer thing just doesn’t seem real to me. And if it’s not, if it’s not real, then the religion itself becomes a house of cards.”
“Maybe God gets tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and puts us on hold. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t get through.”
“I knew it. A blasphemer,” she laughed, pointing her finger at him. “The fires of hell are waiting for you.”
“No, no, no, you misunderstand. I was just trying to explain why prayer doesn’t seem to work for you. I was actually trying to help you renew your faith.”
“And now you’re lying, on top of everything else. I’m going to end up being a saint compared to you.”
“That wouldn’t take much,” he conceded with a smile and shrug.
Her eyes widened. “So, is your family religious?”
“Oh, I don’t know. We don’t talk about it much. My mother’s faith seems real enough, but my dad seems to like the idea of religion more than the actual religion itself, if that makes any sense. He seems to like the idea of people conforming to an accepted set of beliefs that makes them part of the same team. I think his world is divided into good guys and bad guys, and belonging to the right religion is one of the things that makes the good guys good.”
“And easier to control.”
“Probably. He definitely likes to be in charge.”
“That’s what I see as one of the main driving forces behind religion—people wanting to control other people based on authority pulled out of the air.”
“Could be. All organizations seem to have control freaks. I should know about that. My dad’s a colonel in the Army.”
“So, does your dad control you?”
“He tried to when I was growing up. But since I’ve been away at college, it hasn’t been so easy for him.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve done all kinds of things since I went away to school that I couldn’t do at home.”
“Like what?”
“Like boys, for instance. Without my dad around, I can do a lot more.”
“A lot more?”
“I’m still a virgin, technically, but I’ve learned a lot.”
“Okay…”
“And I’ve done grass a few times. How about you? Have you done grass?”
“Yeah, more than a few times.”
“And I have miniskirts my dad hasn’t seen and a bikini he’s never going to see.”
“So, you’ve become a wild child.”
“Not really. I’m not doing anything the other girls aren’t doing. Some of them do a lot more.”
“But you’re not worried about eternal damnation.”
“I got over that a long time ago.”
“How did you do that?”
“Well, when I was about ten— ”
“Ten?” Arthur interrupted, almost involuntarily.
“I told you it was a long time ago. Anyway, when I was about ten, I was in a religion