The Altar. James Arthur Anderson
and a long way from the gangs, drugs, and violence that plagued any city. Built to his exact specifications, this was his dream house, a perfect place to work and raise a family.
Just then Vickie walked up behind him and slipped her arm around his waist.
“Yeah, Todd, I guess we’re all moved in,” he replied to his son while holding his wife close.
She brushed a stray lock of brown hair from his face and kissed him gently on the lips. Erik stepped back and was once again astonished at her soft, unassuming beauty which was now blossoming with eight and a half months of pregnancy. He loved the sweet but sexy look of her green eyes and the color of her rosy cheeks, framed by the most gorgeous red hair. She reminded him so much of the redhead from the X Files he had lusted after for years before he’d met Vickie. Only, this redhead could quote any of the sixteenth-century poets by heart, if she wished. The fact that she wasn’t pretentious about her learning made her even more attractive to him.
“Ok, hot shot,” she teased, pushing a stray lock of hair from her own face. “Now that we’re moved in, how about unpacking all of this stuff?”
“Unpacking? I thought that was your job.”
“Fat chance,” she said, patting her oversized belly.
“I would just love to unpack,” he said. “But I can’t work on an empty stomach.”
“Oh, so I suppose you want a seven course meal?”
“Complete with three kinds of wine.”
Todd, accustomed to his parents playful teasing, grinned at his Dad.
“That’s going to be tough since the refrigerator’s empty and everything in the kitchen is packed into boxes. Would you settle for Domino’s pizza?”
“Pizza!” Todd squealed. “Yeah! With pepperoni.”
“Domino’s Pizza? Way out here?”
“There’s one right up the road at the plaza? And they deliver.”
“Oh boy!” Todd said, jumping up and down.
“So much for living out in the country,” Erik said. Even the real Walden Pond now had a McDonald’s nearby.
“I already called it in and I can’t eat it all by myself. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Goodie,” Todd said, smacking his lips. “I’ll go downstairs and wait for the pizza guy to come.”
Once his son had gone, Erik turned toward his wife and pulled her close.
“Alone at last,” he breathed in her ear.
She giggled like a teenager and kissed him fully on the lips.
“You haven’t changed one bit.”
He furrowed his brows and cocked his head to one side to look at her.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you’re still crazy.”
“You didn’t expect me to change, did you?” he replied, admiring the way her eyes seemed to dilate when she looked at him. That always caused a shiver of joy to run up his spine.
She caught his look and lowered her eyes as her cheeks flushed.
“Erik...I’m so proud of you. Of all this.”
She hugged him close.
“I’m glad,” he said. “But don’t expect miracles. Once they start filming there’s no telling what they’ll do to my story. The movie might not look anything like the book.”
“I know that. But it’s not just the film. The money’s sure nice,” she added quickly. “But that’s not what I mean, either.”
He put his hand under her chin and turned her face up so he could look into her eyes again. She met his eyes for a long, lingering moment. Then she turned serious.
“I don’t really care about the money. I just want you to be happy. And writing makes you happy, whether you make money or not. I’m just so happy that you can do what you want now and not have to worry about the money. And I’ll be able to stay home and take care of the baby.”
“Well, The Star Warrior isn’t exactly Pulitzer Prize material.”
“Maybe not. But it was fun. And it’ll be a fun movie.”
Erik laughed. He’d spent years working on his graduate degree in English and working any menial job he could find while writing “serious” fiction that no publisher would accept. He’d been a steelworker, a book store clerk, a janitor, a private detective, and even a phlebotomist (he still remembered how they’d call him a vampire whenever he told a patient he was there to take blood). The best he’d done was to sell a short story to a tiny university press in Manitoba, Canada that paid him the kingly sum of two dollars and two contributor’s copies. He’d taught public school and Vickie had taught part-time at the Community College, trying to make ends meet.
Then in a whirlwind three months he’d written a hack space opera that was published and was now about to be turned into a feature length film that was expected to gross millions. It didn’t make any sense.
He shrugged. “I guess it was fun,” he said. “At least some people liked it. But the important thing is that I now have the time and money—and space—to work on the kind of book I really want to write. And mostly the time to spend with you and Todd, and soon with Christine, too, when she’s born.”
Although Vickie admired his self-confidence, Erik knew his serious works were not good enough to be published. When he compared himself to “real” writers like Irving and Updike, he fell far short. His first book had made him plenty of money—but it was merely hack work and he knew it. But now he’d have the time and energy to write and not have to worry about publishing. More importantly, he’d be there for his family, and be able to take care of them.
“Mom!” Todd yelled from downstairs. “The pizza guy’s here.”
“Be right there,” Vickie called back.
Arm in arm, like newlyweds, they walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.
-2-
Later, after they’d finished eating, Erik began unpacking the boxes in the living room while Vickie cleaned up the mess. Todd, ever watchful, wanted to help his father out.
“Here, put this empty box over by the door,” Erik told him.
As Todd moved the box against the wall, a black cat slipped soundlessly into the room and jumped into it.
“Faith!” Todd squealed. “Where have you been hiding?”
“She’s probably getting used to the new house,” Erik said as his son stroked the cat’s soft fur.
“Dad, I think she’s hungry”
“I’d better unpack the cat food,” Vickie said from the kitchen. She’d finished with the clean-up and was now unpacking kitchen things.
The doorbell interrupted their work. Vickie walked into the living room as Erik went towards the door.
“That could be Pastor Mark,” she said. “He’s supposed to stop by.”
At first glance, Erik thought the man standing in the doorway was black. Then he recognized the dark features of a Narragansett Indian, whose ancestors occupied Rhode Island before the first white man set foot on the New England shore. Part of Erik’s back yard, in fact, abutted Narragansett tribal land.
The stranger’s wrinkled, leathery skin betrayed a long and weary life of hard work, as did his coarse, paint-stained Wrangler jeans. His eyes, deep and shiny as obsidian, met Erik’s gaze boldly, while his calloused hands clenched a small package wrapped in brown paper.
“Can I help