offered drugs. We imagine that Jesus is there to step between, say, Angus and the drug dealer. Or me and the dealer, say, not that it happens.
That’s right, said my father, you’re beer drinkers, as I remember. Does Jesus snatch the cans from your paws? Empty them on the ground?
That’s what we’re supposed to visualize.
Interesting, said my mother. Her voice was neutral, formal, neither caustic nor falsely enthusiastic. I’d thought she was the same mother only with a hollow face, jutting elbows, spiky legs. But I was beginning to notice that she was someone different from the before-mother. The one I thought of as my real mother. I had believed that my real mother would emerge at some point. I would get my before mom back. But now it entered my head that this might not happen. The damned carcass had stolen from her. Some warm part of her was gone and might not return. This new formidable woman would take getting to know, and I was thirteen. I didn’t have the time.
The second day at Youth Encounter Christ was better than the first—we got our T-shirts that morning and put them right on over our clothes, patting the thorn-encircled sacred hearts printed over our own hearts. We went down to the lake and started lip-synching the songs everyone else in the group knew. Neal was our best friend now. The other kids from the reservation, real devout ones whose parents were deacons and pie makers for the funerals, had told Neal that the four of us were the worst bunch in school, which wasn’t even true. They were just trying to help Neal feel impressed with himself as from the beginning he had confessed low self-esteem. Unfortunately for us and for our chances of long-term salvation, Youth Encounter Christ was only a two-week camp. We had been converted with only a day left. So we were in wrap-up sessions. And since they were wrapping up the insights gained over the two weeks, we didn’t have much to contribute.
One girl whose sister we knew, Ruby Smoke, stated that she had been delivered of a serpent. I felt Zack shaking beside me, and I elbowed him hard. Angus knew the score and murmured praise, but Cappy said, What kind of snake was it, in a deadpan voice, and Father Travis bent forward, giving him a sideways stare.
Ruby was a big girl with short, sprayed hair, streaked with dry red, and hoop earrings. Lots of makeup. Her boyfriend, Toast, I don’t recall his real name, nobody did, was there too—very skinny with basketball shorts and a sad slump. He looked over at Cappy not with malice, and said, None of your business. A serpent is a serpent.
Cappy put his hands up, Just asking, man! He fixed his eyes on the ground.
But since you’re interested, said Ruby, it was a humungous serpent, brownish, with crisscross lines. And its eyes were golden and it had a wedge head like a rattlesnake.
A pit viper, I said. You were delivered of a pit viper.
Father Travis looked ominous, but Ruby looked pleased.
It’s okay, Father, she said. Joe’s uncle is a science teacher.
In fact, I went on, encouraged, it sounds to me like you were delivered of the fer-de-lance, which is hands down the deadliest snake in the world. If it bites your hand they chop off your arm. That’s the treatment. Or you could have been delivered of the bushmaster, which can get to ten feet and waits to ambush its prey and can take down a cow. You can’t see it when the fer-de-lance strikes, it moves at lightning speed.
Everyone nodded in excitement at Ruby and someone said, Way to go, Ruby. She looked proud of herself. Then Father Travis spoke: Sometimes things happen very quickly, like that, which is why in this encounter group we work to prepare you for those lightning-fast moments. Those moments aren’t temptation, really. You react on instinct. Temptation is a slower process and you’ll feel it more in the morning just after waking and in the evening, when you are at loose ends, tired, and yet not ready to fall asleep. You’re tempted then. That’s why we learn strategies to keep ourselves occupied, to pray. But a quick-acting poison, that’s different. It strikes with blind swiftness. You can be bit by temptation anytime. It is a thought, a direction, a noise in your brain, a hunch, an intuition that leads you to darker places than you’ve ever imagined.