TUESDAY, APRIL 18 – It was only midafternoon, but already it was gloriously dark to Balzor. One of Satan's most experienced demons, Balzor was not visible to human eyes. But he was no less real. And just like a devastating, invisible wind, he was no less deadly. From his vantage point high above the northwest section of the city—his personal responsibility for forty years now—the sun's position was really irrelevant. His whole area had grown progressively darker during his years there, and he was immensely proud of his accomplishments. As he shifted his dark form and exhaled a breath of broiling sulfur, he watched his minions going about their tasks below, content that the long war was now almost won.
Richard Sullivan had a problem. The contract documents for the McKinney and Smith corporate expansion had to be reviewed with Bruce McKinney in the morning, but he had not even looked at the file their investor's attorney had delivered to his office before lunch.
Kristen. Kristen Holloway. They had spent all of lunch—and two hours more—tossing and turning in her penthouse apartment bedroom. For almost three months now they had been meeting there “for lunch” a couple of times every week. A small voice seemed to tell him at times that it was wrong, but it only took one look at her long reddish-brown hair, her young face, and her nearly perfect body to drown out any voice of reason. He had tried to stop, but he was lost in her. Consumed by the passion which swelled in them both—a passion he and his wife of eighteen years had once shared, but which she could no longer understand, he was convinced. And now he had to call her and make excuses for why he had to work late.
The receptionist at the television station recognized his voice on the telephone and put him straight through to the programming director.
“Janet Sullivan,” said the voice in the receiver—a voice which twenty years ago in college, he momentarily reflected, could by itself make his heart leap. But not now; not for years. Why? he started to think, but then stopped himself.
“Hi, uh, honey, it's me. I've had a terrible day and I'm way behind on reviewing this important contract for Bruce and David. It's the capital expansion for their company they've worked on for months. I've just got to get it finished tonight, to review it with them first thing in the morning.”
“But Richard, tonight is Tommy's first game, and he thinks the coach may give him a chance to play in the infield. You told him you'd be there. Even Susan is cutting tennis practice to come. Can't you work on the contract in the morning?”
“I wish I could, but it's too important to chance it. There will be lots of other games, and maybe I can sneak in late if I get through in time. It's at Riverside isn't it?” he added, sounding hopeful, but realizing as he spoke that a late appearance never really happened. “Anyway,” he said, trying to end the discussion quickly before it became another argument, “don't bother to fix me anything for dinner. I'll grab something on the way.”
“Oh, all right,” Janet acquiesced, “but, Richard, you've really got to spend more time with the kids. They're teenagers now, and they need you.”
He could feel the hurt and the pain in her voice, but before he could respond with something that met her feeling, a voice welled up inside him and reminded him that all she did was nag. He knew the kids were important, but what about his work? How was he supposed to pay for all the things his family needed and wanted? Not on Janet's salary! And Kristen never nagged like this. Why couldn't Janet understand him and his needs like Kristen did? Janet was always too busy being an “executive”!
Barely holding back his anger, which erupted almost instantly when Janet's words hit his own suppressed guilt, he lashed out at her, lying as sternly as possible: “Look, I've had a very busy day—I've worked very hard—I'm doing the best I can—I'll be there as soon as I finish this contract. OK?” Hearing his own voice speak the words, he convinced himself that it was in fact his work, and not his affair with Kristen, that was keeping him from his family. That felt much better.
After Janet's quick but unhappy goodbye, he replaced the receiver and took out a handkerchief to wipe his suddenly sweaty hands before he picked up the contract file. Kristen. He smelled her perfume—he had used the same handkerchief only two hours before to wipe the sweat of their passion from her forehead. As he put the handkerchief back in his pocket, he was already visualizing Thursday's luncheon appointment.
He could hardly wait.
Tommy ran up the aisle of the school bus, chasing his baseball cap as it sailed from teammate to teammate. His was the latest cap to suffer this fate on the way to Riverside High, and upon successfully retrieving it, he stuffed it into his back pocket. As he retreated down the aisle, he defended his cap against several spirited grabs and did a fake slide into his seat next to Brent Holcombe, who had already removed his own cap in self-defense.
Tommy was a ninth grader on the fence. Like many fourteen-year-old boys, caught awkwardly in between, he didn't know whether he was a child or a man. A few of his childhood friends seemed very mature now and acted almost as if they knew something he didn't. And maybe they did. He was not very sure of himself. Some of the guys were dating regularly now and talked obtusely about their latest conquests. He doubted that much of their talk was true, but he really didn't know. How could he? A little skinny, with a shallow chest which had apparently not read the health texts about filling out, he sometimes wondered if the girls in his grade would ever even know he existed.
Brent Holcombe shared his uncertainty and his doubts. They had become good friends ever since Brent transferred to Northpark last year Thev were similar, almost like soulmates. They were neither popular nor unpopular. They were neither superior athletes nor bookworms. They were squarely in the great middle, by almost any “standard,” and in a large class it was easy for them to be lost in the crowd. So he and Brent stuck together, a two-boy support team, defending themselves as best they could from those who were bigger, smarter, faster, better looking. And sharing almost everything together, including the outfield on their baseball team.
Having a popular big sister at the same high school didn't help matters. Tommy was always Susan's little brother. Not that Susan was the most popular or most beautiful girl in the junior class—she wasn't. But she was pretty enough and good at most things. People, both boys and girls, just seemed to like her and enjoyed being with her.
And she was generally OK to him. Oh, they had experienced a few knock-down fights several years ago. But as their outside interests grew, an undeclared truce settled on their relationship. Tommy would have to admit, if anyone ever pushed him, that their truce was also a reaction to the escalating war between his parents, which neither he nor Susan understood or talked about much. But on those occasions when the strange mixture of anger and ice that was now their parents’ relationship invaded their own world, he and Susan sometimes exchanged glances, trying to reassure one another.
Without being able to explain it, he felt sorry for his mother. Dad seemed to have no time for any of them, and Tommy could almost see his mother slowly wilting before their eyes. Lost sometimes, she just seemed like she didn't know what to say or to do. And he couldn't help her. He was confused and inexperienced and wanted someone to explain life and women and relationships to him. How could he help his mother? Why didn't his father make her happy? They had almost everything they could ever want. Wasn't that important? What was going on? Were anyone's parents happy? Had he done something? Was it his fault? He didn't know how or why, but he clearly knew that his parents were unhappy, and that added sadness, anger, guilt, and fear to the naturally volatile feelings that swirled around inside him every day.
“Awesome,” said Brent, holding open for Tommy the Petgirl magazine he had smuggled on the bus in his team bag.
“Look at that,” he whispered to Tommy. The boy's reaction was immediate and predictable; the pictures depicted beautiful women in poses hecould not have imagined with a fourteen-year-old mind unless they were captured for him. He wanted to see more, but the bus was nearing the ballpark, and Brent buried the magazine in his bag. Tommy was left with an empty feeling, as if some of the wind had been knocked out of him. A voice seemed to tell him that he needed to see more, but for now he had to think about baseball.
Maybe tonight something good would happen. His ninth-grade team had their first spring game. His dad had said he would be there. Mom and Susan too. His coach had hinted that maybe he would play in the infield It had happened almost by chance. Everybody knew that only the best players played in the infield, and Tommy had been tagged as an outfielder since Little League. For years he had tried not to let it bother him. He never had the confidence to upset a practice by pushing a coach to give him a chance in the infield.
But deep inside he wanted to play shortstop or second base. To be noticed. Perhaps by Becky Thornton, his pretty classmate whose twin brother, Patrick, was on his team. To make a great play. To make his mom and dad proud. To see them smile together again, like they used to, because of him.
And then yesterday, after he had charged and fielded a grounder cleanly in center field, coach told him he was playing well and that perhaps he would get a chance in the infield! Maybe tonight would be a good time for the whole family. If Tommy had known how to pray, that would certainly have been his prayer.
The ever-growing darkness was gratifying to Balzor, but he knew its cause was the even more wonderful noise. If a human could have perched above the city at his height, taking in everything from the river on the west to the university on the east, he would have heard nothing. But to the black, horrendous Balzor there was the cacophonous din of thousands and thousands of voices—some whispering, some shouting—all lying! The combined noise was a terrible, frightening mixture of roars and screams, slowly rising to new peaks as yet more voices were added. To Balzor it was eternal music, and he planned that it would grow even louder, day by day. And as the noise grew louder, his sector of the city would grow darker still.
Down below, just above the trees, the well manicured lawns, and the expensive houses along Devon Drive, the voices did not combine to a single roar for Streetleader Nepravel. At his level, he could make out distinct sentences now and then, as he went about his appointed tasks, his dark shape moving from house to house. From centuries of habit, his blood-red eyes darted constantly for the occasional angel who might still be around, despite the lack of prayer, as he sowed lies and discord with impunity. The spiritual lights were now almost out on his street, and as a part of the darkness, he could move almost anywhere, unchecked.
Tonight he was bringing the demon Envy into the McKinneys’ house at the north end of Devon Drive, to recharge the voice of Bruce McKinney's envy for his neighbor's new second home. As Bruce sat down in his armchair before dinner with a new European car catalog, Nepravel nudged Envy right up behind him; and Envy began speaking words into Bruce's ear, which Bruce heard in his own voice.
“That Tom Bryant is one lucky guy. Where does he get the money to buy a new mountain house in this economy? Isn't he in real estate development? And last weekend when we were up there together with them, Diane commented that the furnishings alone must have cost a fortune. She's already implied we're some sort of failures because we drive a perfectly good four-year-old domestic car. And the kids always want something new. Tom and Nancy only have Amy; we've got four little ones to raise. Is it my fault our new business has taken all of my money, and everything else costs so much?”
Once Envy had started it, Nepravel knew that Bruce McKinney's own internal voice of envy, without anything to stop it, would take over, repeat it, build on it, improve it, and continue the cycle until Bruce had to act. Humans were so predictable. A single session with lies from a demon could start a voice replaying which could last for months, even years!
So long as nothing interfered.
Nepravel pulled Envy back and smiled grotesquely at him, smoke and sulfur escaping from his hideously smoldering mouth. He wished for a moment that Bruce could see them and smell the putrid stench that flowed from them like sewage. But Nepravel knew that there would be plenty of time for that; it didn't look like anything was going to sidetrack Bruce McKinney's rendezvous with him and the other demons when he passed. Oh, how he looked forward to the look in these stupid humans’ eyes when they finally came face to face with him, with Balzor, and with the others! Hopefully some would pass tonight in their sector. He never tired of watching that first realization of where they were going and how they had been deceived. That was what he had lived all these millennia for!
As Nepravel and Envy floated up through the rafters and out of the McKinneys’ house, they shared together a final hideous laugh of hatred for Bruce, and for the whole human race, as they heard him say to himself, with his own internal voice: “Tom Bryant has been looking for a way to one up me ever since Diane and I bought that boat which Nancy likes so much. He may be our friend and neighbor, but he can't stand having to go out on our boat all the time. Now I'll bet he'll want to go to their mountain house instead. Well, we can't quite afford a second home right now, but when this capital infusion comes through for the company, we'll at least buy—or maybe lease—a new car to make Diane feel better. And then maybe next year a new home even nicer than Tom's—maybe at the beach.” Bruce heard just one of the tens of thousands of deceiving voices working in the northwest section of the city that night, virtually drowning out the few isolated voices that were speaking and praying the Truth.
Nepravel nodded to Envy in mutual satisfaction as Envv headed off for another appointment to the south. Sometimes Nepravel lapsed and felt that creating envy over something like a new home was not really very important. But then he remembered that it was a higher power than he who made these assignments. And he had to admit that his meeting with Guilt, which he was now hurrying to make, was to solidify the uncrossable gulf between a mother and her daughter, which started after an explosive argument over just the same sort of small thing. Others like Sectorchief Balzor obviously had the assignments worked out, and Nepravel could certainly see with his own beady eyes that the process was working well.
Still later that evening he had to rendezvous with a demon so powerful and so vile that he almost single-handedly sucked light into himself: Pride. On one of his regular rounds of the street, Nepravel had overheard Mark Davidson, who lived in the middle of the block, near the city park, listening to a tape which a Christian friend had given him on salvation, and Nepravel was petrified to hear almost nothing coming from Mark's internal voice of pride. Someone must have been praying for Mark or talking to him about that accursed Jesus, and Nepravel had missed it! He would have to watch Mark closely for a while, but for tonight he would personally insure that pride was turned up again within Mark. With pride playing loudly again in his head, Mark would never admit that he needed help or imagine to get down on his knees and submit to the Lord.
Nepravel knew he had dodged a close one there. Balzor's wrath flared mercilessly on those rare occasions when someone in their sector was saved from hell by that unmentionable blood of the Lamb. Thankfully, as the voices grew louder year after year, and the city grew darker, fewer and fewer were saved. And he was particularly proud that Devon Drive was almost completely dark now. That one old couple, the Halls, across the street from the Sullivans, had the accursed Light burning in them, and they prayed together every day. But they were almost finished—good riddance—and no one listened to them anyway.
And there was that teenager out in the suburbs, Bobbie Meredith. Every night Nepravel had to watch the answers to her prayers, incoming from heaven, for the Sullivan and Bryant families, like clockwork. Streaks of bright light in an otherwise gloriously dark sky. But by themselves these few answered prayers had little effect on the voices. It wasn't like the old days, when people really prayed, lighting up the whole city, causing Balzor's horde real problems. What could these few prayers do to silence so many wonderful, harmonious, lying voices on his street?
Susan Sullivan lay back on the only part of her bed not covered with the books and papers from her homework, talking on the phone to Amy Bryant, who lived next door to her. “Did you see that ridiculous sweater Mr. Demetry was wearing today? Didn't he look dorky? Do you think he's trying to win the Worst Dressed Faculty Award in the yearbook?”
Amy laughed. “Maybe he's trying to impress Mr. Peters. Petey wears stuff like that, and maybe Mr. Demetry wants to be a principal too, someday. Wouldn't he be just perfect!”
The thought of young Mr. Demetry as a principal made Susan laugh along with Amy—it seemed so absurd. The girls had finished their homework and were comparing notes on the day, before supper.
“Was that Drew walking with Sally after gym class?” Amy asked.
“Yes, but she said they were just talking about the school newspaper; he didn't ask her out or anything.”
“Susan, dinner's ready,” her mother called upstairs. “We've got to hurry to make it over to Tommy's game.”
“Hey, I gotta go. No, not tennis. I told Tommy I'd go to his first game, and now it's turned into a family thing. You know.”
“OK, Mom!” she yelled towards the hall.
She told Amy goodbye, slid off the bed, and carefully arranged all of her books for school in the morning. Susan looked around her room: from the top of her desk to the row of stuffed animals collected since she was a little girl, everything was in order. She stopped in front of the mirror over her bureau to check her hair and makeup, and then she bounced down the stairs to the kitchen with a spring in her step.
The world was reasonably OK to Susan Sullivan. Except for her parents’ relationship, which seemed to worsen every month, everything else was, like her room, in the neat order that most firstborns seem to appreciate. She was a consistent B+ to A-student, a member of student council, one of the junior members of the varsity cheerleading team, and a strong tennis and basketball player in her own right. As importantly, Susan just seemed to exude confidence and quiet strength. She was popular, but she was good-natured and genuinely concerned about others, particularly her friends, of whom there were many. But Amy and Bobbie were her best friends.
Occasionally Susan was struck by how different they all were, yet she truly loved them both. The three of them had been together since sixth grade. Amy Bryant was good looking and very popular with the senior boys; she had even dated one or two college freshmen when her parents were out of town. Amy hinted once or twice to Susan that she was quite knowledgeable about boys and had even come close to “doing it” with a college date. That was all so incredible to Susan that she simply dismissed it as Amy's occasional bragging.
An average student, Amy tended to view her world through how others viewed her. Sometimes the resulting anxiety would make Susan laugh, and she would tease Amy for being so uptight about her appearance. But acceptance and approval meant a lot to Amy, and she sought it through friends, boys, and athletics.
Amy laughed a lot and kidded almost everyone, but she used Susan as her rudder to push her back on course when she became too distracted by contradictory opinions about anything—from the color of her skirt to where they should think about going to college. She even once told Susan that it was as if there were a lot of different voices in her head, and she could only really trust Susan's.
Bobbie Meredith was just the opposite in many ways. Not nearly as striking as Amy, Bobbie was nevertheless quite popular with most of the girls and with many of the boys. While Amy bounced from boyfriend to boyfriend, Bobbie quietly dated two of the brighter boys in their class and one senior. Like Susan, she tended to stay in one “serious” relationship for quite a while. Unlike Susan or Amy, she was not at all athletic, but she made the best grades of the three. She did not live on Devon Drive with Susan and Amy; her family had a slightly smaller home on the northern edge of their school district.
The main thing about Bobbie was her faith. One day, when she was fourteen, she told Susan and Amy that with her father the previous evening she had prayed to have Jesus come into her life. Although she did not parade her faith, she did tell her friends on a couple of occasions in the intervening two years that events or testimonies at her Spirit-filled church had really moved her and that she felt like a different person because she knew that Jesus lived inside her. It had once struck Amy that Susan was quietly strong and confident because she was born that way. Bobbie, on the other hand, was just as strong and just as confident, but it was as if those qualities had been added later to Bobbie. And Bobbie herself occasionally almost marveled that these qualities had been given to her as gifts.
Susan—and Amy and the other kids in their class—knew of Bobbie's faith, and most respected her for it. Only a few kidded her now and then; one or two actively ridiculed her. She was pretty good-natured about it, never seeming to get angry. But Susan, like the others, did not really understand it. On the few occasions when Susan had spent the night at Bobbie's home and gone to church with her parents and two brothers, she had definitely felt something different, particularly from the youth minister, Glenn Jamison. He just seemed to understand teenagers. But Susan's own family didn't go to church, and Richard Sullivan thought that organized religion was unnecessary to a caring, moral person. His voice Susan heard every day, not just on an occasional Sunday. So whatever it was that Bobbie had was definitely noticed by her friends; but it went no further.
Susan, Amy, and Bobbie were best friends, unconsciously respecting their differences and enjoying each other's company. They shared everything with each other. They kidded each other. They supported each other. They imagined that they would always be together. And as their junior year was drawing to a close and they were preparing to look at colleges in earnest, they sensed that a special year was beginning for them, culminating in graduation in just over twelve months. They were looking forward to being seniors.
That thought put the bounce in Susan's step as she walked into their kitchen early that spring evening to find her mother finishing a large salad for their supper. “Where are Dad and Tommy?” she asked.
“Your father is working late,” Janet said, a little too icily, concentrating on the salad bowl, “and Tommy took the team bus over to Riverside. The game starts at 7:30, so we've got to eat and get going to be there on time.”
“Isn't Dad going to make it? I heard him tell Tommy at breakfast that he'd be there.”
“I know, dear. He called and said he has to work late, but he'll try to come directly to the game.” Janet said it as positively as she could, but it was part of an earlier battle for her—a battle she had lost. And she didn't have the energy to recall it again with Susan. She hoped Susan would not press her with it, as she herself had pressed earlier with Richard.
Susan sensed the weariness under her mother's voice, despite the otherwise normal tone, and decided not to push further into the uncharted water of her parents’ relationship right then. So she played the game with her mom, gave a reassuring smile, and said, “I hope so too.”
While Bruce McKinney was listening to the voice of Envy, Richard Sullivan, his neighbor and attorney for almost ten years, sat behind his desk downtown and reviewed the contract for the capital investment which Bruce's company needed to survive.
If the other attorney did a good job, maybe this will be simple and I really can make Tommy's game. God knows I'd rather be there than here, he thought, as he glanced out the window at the long shadows being cast by the tall buildings in the sunset. It was quiet in their space—only one other attorney was working late. For a moment he allowed himself to picture Tommy, Susan, and Janet. How did life get so complicated? Were other families on the same treadmills? When did it start? How would it stop? When could he spend more time with his children?
But then, before those thoughts could build, another voice came up, blocking them out. What else can I possibly do?The mortgage on the house and the overhead at the firm have to be paid every month. Janet stopped trying to understand me years ago; she's so caught up in that idiot TV station that she's forgotten how to be a wife. Susan and Tommy do need me, and I'll try to spend more time with them; but even more they need a roof over their heads. And besides, Bruce is counting on me to represent him in this deal. I've just got to review this contract now.
He turned off that one sided debate and waded back into the contract, still hoping to finish in time for the game. Forty-five minutes later, he knew it would be impossible. He exhaled a long sigh and cursed the other attorney. He's got these conditions for closing all wrong, at least as Bruce explained them to me. I'll have to redraft this whole section. Reaching for his dictating machine, he blotted out a momentary thought of Tommy. I'll make it up to you, son. Then he began dictating.
As so often happens, the baseball game itself was an anticlimax. The important events were those that did not happen, because they had the most lasting effects.
In the bottom of the first inning, standing in center field, Tommy could pick out his mother and sister in the visitors’ stands; but he could not see his father. He imagined that his dad would arrive late, directly from work.
Tommy spent the first four innings in his usual places, center field and on the bench, alternating with Brent. He realized in the top of the fifth inning that he might have made a mistake by mentioning the infield to his mother. While his team batted with a two-run lead and he and Brent sat together, watching, their coach walked in front of them, studying his lineup card. Tommy summoned the courage which had built during the whole day and asked, a note of hope in his voice, “Hey, coach, you remember about me maybe playing in the infield?”
“What?…Oh…Oh yeah. Sure. I meant in practice, to see how you do. Someday. This is a close game, Tommy. We couldn't put you in now.” And he said it just loud enough for four or five of the starters sitting nearby to hear, besides Brent. The other boys turned for a minute to look at him, or rather to look through him, as if he were not there. Several smiled. In an instant he knew the coach was right, that he had been stupid, and that he should never have brought it up. How many more kids in his class would hear this story by lunch tomorrow? What a fool. Now he just turned red in the dark of the dugout and wished he could hide, but there was no place to run.
“No sweat,” Brent whispered to him under his breath, as if to say he understood Tommy's agony. At least Tommy had one good friend.
In the sixth inning Tommy made a spectacular catch over his shoulder; the runner on first was as surprised as Tommy was to see the ball caught cleanly in his glove. The runner had to turn around and race back toward first. Tommy saw a chance for a double play—something he had never done before—and heaved the ball toward his teammate on first, who was waiting with outstretched glove.
Unfortunately, Tommy was off with his throw; the ball sailed up and to the right of the first baseman. By the time the catcher ran after the ball, the base runner had tagged and was standing on second. Tommy cursed. A voice told him it was always like this. Even when he lucked out and did something right, he messed up the next thing. Infielders don't make bad throws like that, he reminded himself.
After the game, which Northpark won by a run, the players, families, and friends all milled around together between the dugout and the concession stand. Janet found Tommy and said, “Good game; you made a great catch. Your father had to work late, Tommy. He called this afternoon and said he'd try to make it, but he was working on a contract for Mr. McKinney, and I guess it just took too long.”
Tommy had a long face. Inside he was stumbling through the complex emotions of what to tell his mom and sister about not playing in the infield, and of whether to be upset or glad that his father had not been there to see it. Before he could say anything, Brent, who had been standing next to him, said, “Mrs. Sullivan, can Tommy come with me and my parents to get some ice cream?”
Janet sensed the general disappointment in her son. She wanted to reach out and hug him to her. Just a few years ago she would have done exactly that; but now he was fourteen, and she felt she couldn't. “I guess so. Sure, Brent, if your parents say it's okay.” The boys turned together and ran off, leaving Janet with a smile, intended for Tommy, frozen on her face and unseen by him.
Just then Susan walked up with one of the boys from her class. “Mom, this is Drew Davidson. He was here watching his brother in Tommy's class. We want to go get a Coke, and then I'll be home in a little while.”
The daughter and mother exchanged looks, unseen by Drew, which communicated: “I really want to go with him—he's neat—pleeease.”.. “Can he be trusted? I don't know him. Is he a good driver? Will you be home on time?”…“Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
Then Janet spoke, “Well…all right. Sure. Hi, Drew. I'm Janet Sullivan Have a nice time, but please have Susan home by 10:30. OK?”
“Yes, ma'am. We won't be late. Thank you. Nice to meet you.”
And as quickly as that, Janet Sullivan was all alone.
As Janet drove home by herself, her mind bounced back and forth between her marriage, her children, and her job. Only her daughter Susan provided a bright spot; her strength and normally positive outlook sustained Janet in what was otherwise a troubling night.
Raised as a Catholic in a parochial school, Janet's primary association with religion was overreaching guilt. As a girl she had been made to feel guilty about almost every indiscretion, no matter how slight. Consumed by guilt, she had finally rebelled completely in college and never looked back. She had decided in those heady days that people—either individually or as the government—could solve their own problems, without any help from God, were He even really around.
As an adult, she knew she could not sit through a Catholic mass, yet she felt out of place in the few Protestant services she had attended over the years. Richard had been raised as a Presbyterian; and after their marriage, the easiest way to solve their religious difference—it was really religious indifference—was simply not to attend church at all.
When the children came along, they had half-heartedly tried some different churches in their neighborhood. Usually one of them dropped the kids off at a Sunday school, then came back an hour later. When they did attend, it seemed that half of the sermons were about raising more money. Finally, when the children were older and complained about having to go to Sunday school, they gave up entirely.
They even had a discussion about it a few years ago, convincing themselves that if they taught their kids the right, moral ways to behave and set good examples themselves, then that was what really mattered. What more could God actually want in these complicated days, anyway, if there really was a God? And that conclusion had the happy result of freeing up their Sundays for other things.
But when Janet reflected on the past several years as she drove home alone on that dark spring evening, genuine guilt started to speak to her. For an instant it occurred to her that even if their theory was right, were they now very good parental examples? And when was the last time they had done something together that was fun on a Sunday—or on any other day? And what about Richard, and their marriage?
As her mind wandered to her husband, the potentially positive voice of convicting guilt, which could have led to real change, was overtaken by the louder voice, planted in her long ago, of personal, unworthy guilt.
“What have I done to our marriage? Is it my job at the station? Should I have stayed home these last five years, like Richard wanted? Was I too selfish in wanting to continue my career after the children were older? Have I valued myself over them? What have I done to drive Richard away? When was the last time we were intimate—not sex—just lying quietly together on the big sofa, or holding hands? Is it all my fault? What can I do? Is he going to leave us?” That thought hit her like a shot, and she almost steered off the road.
A jerk of the wheel snapped her attention back to driving. Her mind rested for a minute, without resolution. Almost in defense, she started thinking about her work, where she generally found satisfaction as the director of programming, responsible, as many told her, for the real operation of the station. She knew that such accolades were flagrant exaggerations, but she didn't mind the compliments, which otherwise were few and far between in her life.
She had taken the job at TV5 four and a half years ago, hoping to put her college training to work. She started as the promotion assistant, under Tom Spence. But she was a quick study, and soon her talents for organization and communication had been noticed by management. Two years later, when the position unexpectedly opened, she was asked to be the programming director, a fantastic opportunity for her. Now she balanced, like so many other women, the dual responsibilities of home and office, some days wishing she could stay at home again, other days filled with exuberance by what her team at work was accomplishing.
But even at work there seemed to be a problem brewing. The network was promoting a new show for the fall lineup to be called “911 Live.” For years several syndicated shows which reenacted ambulance, police, and fire department emergencies had won very high ratings. True to life, these shows were immensely popular. Because they were reenactments, they were edited and generally wound up with happy endings.
But “911 Live” planned to take this concept one step further. The producers intended to put tiny cameras and dish transmitters on two hundred ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks in ten of the nation's largest cities. Then when the show came on the air every week, the directors would monitor the activities at these two hundred potentially live sites from a central control room and cut to the city where the “action” at that moment was the “best.” Anything could be happening. Anyone could be involved. Fires, accidents, murders, rapes, drug busts—anything that the cameras could catch. Real. Live. No script. Anything could happen. A helicopter would be on standby in each city in case something really big started, so that a live reporter could cover it.
The problem was that a couple of the old timers at the station had already told her boss, Bill Shaw, that they thought the show was unsuitable, particularly for the early evening time slot for which it was planned. The scuttlebutt from network was that the producers hoped to capture the first live killing on TV since Lee Harvey Oswald. Or at least a burn victim jumping from a tall building.
These employees, whom Janet labeled as “Christian fundamentalists,” asked Bill in a meeting she had attended not to air the program in their city. They said it just went too far in its potential for death and violence. Real death and real violence. And during the family hour. They even suggested that the wrong people in those ten cities, of which theirs was one, might start planning their violence for the specific day and hour of “911 Live,” hoping to achieve some perverted recognition on national television.
Bill Shaw had listened quietly and promised to take their views under consideration before making a final decision. But after they had left, he confided to Janet that he thought they were squeamish God-squaders, trying to censor America's right to see and to experience whatever technology made possible. The problem for Janet was that she found herself agreeing with these Christians; she simply thought about her own children and what they might see and hear on this show. But the experience of agreeing with them was so unusual, and the issue was so difficult, that at this point she didn't know what, if anything, she should do.
With all that on her mind as she neared their home, hoping to find Richard's car already in the garage, she hardly had time to reflect on Tommy. She felt his confusion and his sadness. It pierced her. But she had been unable to talk to him tonight, not even one word. She had a sickening feeling that they were losing him. She did not know to where. She did not know exactly when it had started or when it would finally happen. But he was withdrawing, from them and from others, slipping through their fingers as they watched. Richard was too busy, and she didn't know how to begin. She wanted to stop and run the tape back, like at the station—about five years—and then start it again. But she couldn't. She had no one to turn to. She would have to force Richard to listen. He had to do something. Tommy was their precious son, and they were losing him.
Even before she clicked up the garage door from the driveway, she knew that Richard was still not home. The lights in the house were on exactly as she had left them.
Thirty minutes later Tommy came through the front door. She called from the kitchen, where she was cleaning up the few dishes from supper. Tommy moved quickly through the breakfast room, opened the refrigerator for an apple, and headed upstairs, mumbling as he went that he had to take a shower and finish his homework.
Susan came home right on time. Thank God for Susan, Janet thought. Susan said she and Drew had shared Cokes and frozen yogurt at the shopping center near the mall. Drew was new for Susan; he had transferred to their school last year, and he was only now being “noticed” by the girls in the tenth and eleventh grades. Susan offered few details and Janet didn't mind—it was just nice that someone in their family was happy.
After Susan went upstairs, Janet's sadness and distress settled in again, like a dull weight on her chest. She didn't know what to do or where to turn. She could have gone to see her sister, but Caroline lived hours away and had much younger children. Janet doubted that she would understand. And Janet suspected that Caroline was still tied to religion—she would probably tell her to pray! A lot of good that would do.
Following a bath and a glance at the news, hoping that Richard would come home so that she could at least tell him about Tommy, about the game, and about the TV station, she finally went to bed, alone. As she lay her head on the pillow, a small voice said “There has to be a better way’…but a louder voice despaired, “How will any of this ever change?” Despair coursed through her that night; dull, aching despair. What scared her most was the realization that she was used to it, that it was almost “normal.” A tear wetted her pillow as she finally drifted off to a fitful sleep, alone, in the darkness of her bedroom.
As midnight drew near, Streetleader Nepravel broke off from Devon Drive and headed up for the nightly rendezvous with Sectorchief Balzor and the other fallen angels who now virtually controlled this part of the city. They gathered above the city in an invisible demonic swarm, like black vipers writhing in a nest, bent on human destruction by any means possible.
Although they did not “talk” in a human sense, they communicated well enough with one another. Balzor was very much in charge, meting out praise when it was due; and disciplining with demonic brutality whenever one of his soldiers fell prey to a plot by members of God's diminishing army on earth.
All of the streetleaders reported the important events in their areas, emphasizing their successes, because they knew that Balzor then had to report to the lord of the city, Alhandra, and he had been known to blast even a sectorchief back to hell for too many failures. Each demon in the city lived in fear of Alhandra, whose bitter hatred for God, angels, and humans was well known and well documented. It was rumored that Alhandra had once been a member of Satan's own ruling council and that he wanted to be there again, no matter what it took to make this city a showplace for demonic power over human lives.
So Nepravel reported his close brush with Mark Davidson and the Christian tape in a way which emphasized his own alertness and his own brilliance, particularly the way he brought Pride in quickly to counter the tape with a strong, clear voice. Balzor congratulated him but also warned him to watch Davidson and his friends closely for the next several months.
As their cabal broke up and Balzor headed off for Alhandra's palace, Nepravel flew back to his neighborhood next to Zloy, a streetleader with a station just to the north of his own.
“Can't you do anything about that Meredith girl?” whined Nepravel. ’Every night her prayers for the Bryants and Sullivans spoil our otherwise quiet street. Each answered prayer hits and diminishes one of our voices just enough to make a lot of extra work for me. Can't you quiet her down?”
“That little twit,” Zloy snarled, “and her whole family. They all pray! Constantly. It's terrible. You're not the only one I hear from. I get complaints and groans from as far away as England, where they have friends. They pray for lost souls everywhere, by name, so they make the prayers stick. I hate them. Ever since the Light came into that family, I haven't had a moment's rest. Can you believe that they have a neighborhood Bible study going on our street? So I not only have to fight them with the voices, to try to throw them off track personally, I also have to run around the whole neighborhood, countering the Word wherever I can, turning up the volumes, hoping that no one else will learn the truth. It's awful! If they don't stop, someone else will repent soon and surrender his life, and I'll get blamed, and I'll have two families at it. Have you got any ideas?”
Nepravel started to boast about how he had dimmed the Light in an entire village, back when the Word was really spoken and most families actually tried to follow God, and about how this particular village had stopped praying altogether, rendering them no threat to anyone else. But just as he was warming to his own key role in this success, he whirled, sensing a passing on his street. “Oh—got to go—a death on my street to handle!” he blurted behind himself to Zloy, as he darted for the fruit of his long labors, leaving a trail of dark smoke in the night.
“Who could it be? One of the Halls, finally?” he hoped. As he neared Devon Drive he saw the soul rising from a house near the Davidsons. It was Hugh McEver! Only thirty-eight years old—Nepravel knew instantly that he was dead in the shower from a massive stroke while he was talking through the door to his wife, Betty. Left three children, all under twelve. Fantastic!
Hovering near to McEver's spirit, which had virtually the same appearance as his earthly body, only translucent, Nepravel waited for the only moment he hated during this otherwise enjoyable task: dealing with one of God's holy angels. The light was already coming; soon he knew it would almost blind him. Fearsome creatures—he was glad that his master, Satan, had dominion over the earth and that prayer was now rare, so demons like him only had to deal with angels on special occasions like this one.
On the angel came, flying down from heaven. The light became brighter still. Six massive wings! Two heads like eagles! Eyes covering his body! Two legs ending in sharp, taloned feet! Nepravel knew firsthand that many real angels were nothing like the wispy characters in human books and films. This creature was simply awesome in his power and his might. On several occasions in years past he had seen lesser demons such as himself crushed and exploded back to hell in those powerful talons. But tonight there would be the usual truce. There was no need in fighting now for McEver; the battle for his soul was obviously over. Nevertheless, Nepravel could hardly imagine that he and some of his fellow God-haters had long ago looked like this, before their rebellion against God, which Satan had led, and their expulsion from heaven.
The light temporarily blinded McEver's soul as well. Although by ancient tradition an angel and a demon accompanied each soul to the judgment seat, the angel often arrived at the scene of the death first. Balzor had laughed at a recent midnight rendezvous and told them that it was because angels didn't have too much else to do on Earth these days! At any rate, the light was very bright; on those few occasions when a soul had left someone's body prematurely and then returned, the subsequent report almost always emphasized the light.
But as the angel, unspeaking, took his station on the right side of McEver's soul, Nepravel slid silently up on the left. Nepravel loved this moment. Because of the blinding light, it was usually the smell which the eternal soul first noticed about him. Now it was a real smell, no longer separated by the slight gulf between the physical and the spiritual. The stench of putrid death was overwhelming, and McEver's spirit, like countless before him, involuntarily turned to discover its source. There! This was the one moment when Nepravel was glad for the bright light. He knew that it must have made his hideous, smoldering form all the more grotesque to the just-released soul, which had until recently lived in McEver's mortal body. Nepravel smiled his practiced smile, revealing the fire in his face, as if to say, “You're mine now.” McEver recoiled in revulsion and in terror.
Only a few seconds before had McEver actually realized that his body was dead, but that his spirit was still living. And somehow he also knew, with his body gone, that he would now live forever. Forever. The light had been so bright and powerfully peaceful. But now this, this evil blob of dark, as powerfully dark as the other was light. Instantly a freezing fear surged through his soul: if this thing was part of his future, he wanted no part of it. Surely there had to be a mistake. Whom could he tell?
He turned back toward the light from the angel, to try to ask why this evil monster was with them. After all, he had been as good as anyone else. He hadn't murdered anyone; everyone said he was a good guy. But before he could point these things out to the light, they were already moving, the three of them, away from his home of ten years, away from his wife, away from his children, from his new car, from his business deals, and from everything else he had known. They were headed together to the judgment seat, where the holy Lord of Lords waited to review McEver's entire life, his every act, and all of his thoughts. He was naked. What would he say to God Almighty? Would “as good as everyone else” be good enough? He had believed the voices that had said so. But what would God Himself expect? Somehow McEver knew their destination and that his place in eternity was about to be proclaimed. His soul suddenly began to weep and to wail. But Nepravel continued to smile.
* * *
The contract rewrite had taken much longer than Richard had imagined possible, but finally he had finished and was pulling into their driveway. He hoped the one light on in the living room meant that Janet was already asleep. What a day!
Just as he turned in, he noticed the red flashing lights of the ambulance stopped several houses away, near the McEvers’. He made a mental note to check in the morning; he hoped that everything was OK with Hugh and his family.
Richard put on his pajamas in the bathroom, hoping not to wake Janet. As he came out and the light from above the sink fell across her sleeping face, his stomach turned with an involuntary reaction to what he was doing to her and to his family. A small voice pleaded with him to stop his affair with Kristen, to talk to Janet, to love her, to spend real time with Susan and Tommy. For just that one moment, he froze with the enormity of his betrayals. He opened his mouth, as if he might speak out loud, his mind confused.
But then the other voices kicked in. “You're tired—you've had a very difficult day. It will be all right tomorrow. You haven't done anything that everybody else isn't doing. And look at the house, the car, and the education you're providing. Take it easy on yourself. You deserve a little on the side. It's not really hurting anyone. Janet seems the same. You'll spend more time with the kids, but this weekend you've got to make that meeting in Atlanta. Next weekend will be better.”
And with those half truths and outright lies, the voices inside Richard Sullivan once again overcame the one honest whisper from the real truth. The real truth could not grow in Richard, because the other voices were not checked or silenced, and like weeds, they choked out the Word.
As Richard slipped silently into their bed, careful not to touch Janet, his mind was almost back at peace, completely fooled by the lies which he constantly and unconsciously told himself. Even before he turned out the last light in their home that night, it was already almost completely dark there, as seen by the red eyes of those who hovered and smiled.