under all that piety but refused to admit it. I called the secret me Satan and shut it down whenever I could. But you can only shut the real you down for so long. The real you is not having that bullshit, will only abide being referred to as Satan for a short time before it revolts and shows you what true havoc it can wreak. So the secret me, a.k.a. Satan, would watch my girlfriend weep and pray and inside he would be smiling to himself thinking, she’s never going to pull it off. At the bottom of it, she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t have it in her. She’s not a social person — she doesn’t even like people all that much. But you can’t be born-again and not be full of love for your fellow man, not be trying to bring people into the fold. It’s all about community and fellowship. If you’re a natural introvert — if that’s the secret you — you call it Satan, and you kneel and try to pray it away. And you fail.
“You ever in touch with her?” Gord asks after a while.
“No — of course not, Gord. I left the church.”
“What, the born-agains can’t intermarry?”
And now I get it. Now I understand why Gord has neglected this whole time to remark fondly on Kirsten’s cup size or recall the tightness of her jeans. Gord saw Kirsten as a potential Sylvie. Kirsten was pious. She may have been the wrong religion, but she was still the kind of girl you marry.
“No, Gord. You don’t marry someone who’s going to hell. I leave the church, I’m going to hell. I’m hellbound. The whole idea is you’ll be together forever in heaven after Judgement Day. You don’t want to look down and see your beloved waving at you from a pit of fire.”
“Jesus,” remarks Gord, impressed at such zealotry. Both of us have barely taken our eyes off the TV during the entire conversation. A woman in a hot pink power suit is swaying and singing into a microphone with her eyes closed as tears pour down her cheeks. I don’t know how she can sing and cry at the same time. Kirsten, I remember, could not even verbalize when she cried. She’d just gasp and flop around like a fish on a pier.
Meanwhile, I lean forward to grab another pinwheel off the tray. Gord grunts, so I chuck one into his lap as well. There are only a couple left, but we’re not worried about running out because Father Waugh shows up with his baked goods like clockwork every Monday afternoon.
“Maybe you should look her up,” suggests Gord at length. “Maybe she’s fallen from grace since then.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that, Gord.”
“I’m serious.”
“I wouldn’t know where to find her.”
But then I remember you, and Kyle at Winners, and realize I know exactly where to find her. At least, I have an idea where to start. But I’m not telling Gord that, obviously.
“What’s stopping you?” Gord persists. “What else you got going on these days? You’re up on that computer surfing the porn or whathaveyou all hours of the day.”
Gord’s limited experience has informed him that the internet is basically a Disneyland of porn, and computers are manufactured for no reason but to offer up a sleazy gateway to this magic kingdom. He therefore thinks the worst of anyone who sits all day at a computer unless they work in a bank or office. And even then, he regards them with a suspicion tinged with envy.
“Hey Gord,” I say, pushing myself into a sitting-up position. “I have a life, you know? Outside these four walls. I have a job, which I’m going to have to get back to at the end of this summer. And I told you, I’m working on a project right now, and I’ve got to get it done before September.”
“What project,” grunts Gord, sullen. “Whacking off to the naked pictures. And you won’t even show your old man.”
“Dad! I’m not surfing porn. I’m writing a — book.”
I let this word dangle in the air for a moment. It never occurred to me to call it that before.
“What kind of book?” Gord asks finally, scowling at the still crying, but no longer singing, woman in pink. She sputters praise into the microphone.
“I guess it’s a biography or something. My life story, kinda,” I say, learning this as I say it.
Gord continues to scowl silently for quite a few moments. I’ve picked