God's Way 02.21.08 #1

I hear a voice, ambient. I turn off the TV, but it still hangs there, projecting. I try to ignore it, but it tells me, he tells me--it sounds like a he (Shit! I'm genderizing something that does not exist.)--that God is in purple. God is in Four Corners! I take a shower, letting the water blast my scalp, but my ears are assailed with the sounds of a train derailing.

#

I tell myself I want to get dressed, but he tells me a purple shower curtain will suffice. God is in purple. God is in that purple shower curtain. God is on your bike. God is on the way. Pulling each corner around my form, I go for a bike ride to feel the crisp air on my body, the purple shower curtain pulsing and billowing around me. I stop by the Corner Store to get a quick beer.

#

I skip church to go buy the maps I need. I buy every single map at the Corner Store, the extra-convenient convenient store that has the five or six different types of knock-off, Frozen Slurp drinks, the only one that sells beer on Sunday just because no one else cares. I greet the young blonde running the register with a good morning. Purple is a good color on you, I tell her as I put a six-pack on the counter with the maps.

She tells me to get the hell out before she calls the cops.

#

I wake up in a bed of wet morning dew. The maps I bought yesterday are all soggy from lying in the grass. On each one, in purple ink, there is a bold cross marked along the collision of Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

God is in Four Corners. Where have I heard that from? Jehovah's Witnesses? Mormons?

On one of the full-sheet atlases is a long line in yellow highlighter with the purple words above it, “God's Way.” The line follows northwest until it collides with I70 westbound, where it glides along until it meets a small town in Colorado known as Grand Junction.

That is the way to Gateway and Four Corners. God is on that path.

I carry them inside. If I hurry I can still be on time for work. Look at these, I tell my wife. She asks me how many times I am going to show her those damn maps.

#

He reminds me that my wife thinks I am crazy. How the hell can she know? He reminds me that she is throwing my maps away, burning them even. There are little bits of ash in the fire place to prove it. I dig my hands into the soot and fling the bits into the air to flutter down on the white carpet and smudge the white walls and white leather couches. I shower in those dregs, so I don't forget.

#

I'm leaving you, she tells me. She will not tell me why. She will not tell me where she got the purple bruises on her arms. I'm not leaving yet, but soon, she says, I'll take the boys with me.

I hide myself in my office the whole of the day.

#

That voice, soon, he tells me, God is in Four Corners.

#

My office is packed away. The contents of my bank account are bulging in my back right pocket. My safety deposit box is empty. That bitch can feed herself and the kids on her own money. She can't understand me. I shove the last of the zillion copies of God's Way into the big white trash bag I brought with me. They'll be pissed I used all the paper.

When I get home I rip off the purple shower curtain and stuff it into the trash bag. I strip off my nice work clothes and pull on a purple t-shirt and a pair of purple sweat pants. I shove a carton of Camels, a tin of peaches, and a butter knife from the dishwasher in beside the maps.

God is in purple. God is on the Way. God is in your blue Jeep. God is in Four Corners. Do not let them poison you. Do not fail. Do not perish.

I get a couple six-packs from the Corner Store for the way.

#

All of the walls are white. My bed is white. My shower curtain is white, hanging next to the white toilet with and a white sink. My clothes are white with white shiny buttons. It is so sterile and hard to breathe in, so unnatural. This must be purgatory.

God is not here. God is not here. God is not here.

#

Where am I? I ask.

God is not here.

Take these, the nurse tells me as she hands me two white pills. She looks like my wife.

God is not in those. Put them in your mouth and you will taste nothing but ash and hate and death.

What are these? I ask.

Anti-psychotics. Death.

They will poison you.

#

You can end the suffering now if you like. You failed.

No, I cry out.

You let them poison you. God is in Four Corners. God is not here, and you will perish here.

No.

You can end it.
You can end it.
You can end it.

Sounds like a train derailing.

#

I shove my fingertips into my eyes until they ache from the pressure.

How? I ask. How do I make it stop?

He points to the purple shower curtain.

God is in that shower curtain.

God is around your neck, releasing you.

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