A Mighty Fortress Read online

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  At Hillside High the drama class’s one act plays were progressing well, largely due to the fact that they had almost no script, and required nothing but subjective “artistic” interpretation of various roles and emotions, so there were no lines to learn, almost no sets to build, and no real way to tell a good performance from a bad one. Everything was subjective.

  Cody managed to avoid being called upon to act, and so he didn’t have to go on stage and bark like a dog, or sing a homosexual love song to the god Apollo, or be Chief Seattle and proclaim his grief over the loss of his people’s hunting grounds to the evil white man. He landed the job of lighting manager, and all he had to do was stay up in the catwalk during the plays and raise and lower the lights on cue, plus handle a few spots and special effects. On her part, Emily managed to evade the interpretative Holocaust ballet solo, but she ended up lumbered with the duckbill platypus. Even Kelly Shipman, who got to be the goddess Hecate and the suffragette Susan B. Anthony with a long declamation on male oppression of women, wasn’t too pleased with the situation.

  “Talent has to be disciplined and shaped,” she grumbled one day when she and Cody managed to catch lunch together without the ever-present Craig, Molly, and the rest of her cool person entourage. “If these people want to learn to act, they have to learn to perform under pressure. That means things like having schedules and lines to memorize, and to take direction. One thing I learned down in Hollywood doing Cheerleader Love, is that even on a piece of grade B crap like that, making a movie is incredibly hard work. On weekdays we got our wakeup calls at the condos at five in the morning, and we had to be showered and dressed and outside waiting for the minibus to take us to the studio by six, to beat the traffic. We had breakfast in one of the cafeterias and then it was onto the set, or out onto location at the local high school, and sometimes we didn’t get back to the condos until nine or ten at night. If Mitch wants these kids to become serious actors then he needs to make them work. We need to be doing real plays that require real effort, not messing around with this so-called avant-garde crap.”

  Cody thought it opportune to drop in one of his very rare political hints. “Have you noticed that avant-garde generally means Jewish?” he said casually. “Like all these totally gratuitous Holocaust references that slide in and out of the plays we’re doing. It’s like drama has some eternal obligation to keep on fighting a war that ended in 1945. But I can understand why Mitch would be attracted to that kind of theater.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” agreed Kelly. “I heard Mitch is secretly Jewish too, but he doesn’t dare let on because he’s scared the spuckies will kill him. After what happened to Emily Pastras, can you blame him? How’s she holding up, by the way?” she asked slyly. “I notice you seem to be giving her a lot of rides home after class, and the little birdies tell me she’s actually got you going to church with her now.”

  “I think that incident over in the city last month where she got snatched off the street really rattled her and she’s going back to basics,” said Cody. “She’s not into Ghoul anymore, anyway. The church thing is mostly for her mom’s sake, to settle her down. I can understand why she’s worried, though. It was a pretty close call.”

  “So how about you?” Kelly asked curiously. “Have you been saved yet, or born again, or whatever?”

  “I’m not really that religious, but some of the people at her church are interesting,” said Cody carefully and noncommittally. High school was a cauldron of gossip, of course, but he was a little disturbed that his outside activities were common knowledge. He tried to change the subject, but Kelly would have none of it.

  “So what’s up with you two?” she asked merrily. “No offense to Emily, if you like her that’s cool, but I think you can do a lot better.”

  “I thought that once myself,” he replied calmly and simply, looking directly at her. That did it. She flushed and immediately got back into the subject of the one-acts. Well, so much for that, Cody thought with an inward sigh. As if I didn’t know.

  In the course of things, Cody and Nightshade did end up hanging out quite a bit together. He found his new girl comrade intelligent and down to earth, if not exactly a barrel of laughs. They both did odd jobs for A Company after school, and most nights they got dressed up and went to church. Cody now sported a short haircut, and he had a blue serge suit which he wore on Sundays as well as a collection of pastel shirts and ties and dark slacks for weekday Bible studies, youth groups, and services. Complete with a little American flag pin for his lapel, of course. Emily’s church attire was equally neat and plain, always a skirt and flat shoes, light short-sleeved blouses, with her hair worn long and straight. It would have been difficult to recognize the Ghoul Girl from the parking lot that night on Capitol Hill. They both appeared at the Bellevue Assembly of God’s Full Gospel Tabernacle with highlighted Bibles and ring notebooks under their arms to take copious notes on various Scriptural points, and matching small crucifixes on chains around their necks. Cody made it clear to everyone in the congregation, right from the first, that he was utterly outraged by the terrible thing which had been done to his beloved Emily by the wicked Nazis, and that he thought this was just the right time for the two of them to come together in Christ now that she’d been scared straight and renounced her demonic heresies. The two of them together came across as modest, respectful, and eager to help the older members out around the church. Cody found he had a good enough singing voice to be invited to join the choir.

  It was a good observation post. He didn’t just sing in the choir, he made it a point to cultivate the acquaintance of certain suspect individuals in the congregation. The head honcho was Pastor Leonard Sheldon, a typical blow-dried polyester preacher with a slick manner and too much aftershave. Sheldon was married to a bouffant-haired woman with a perpetual lobotomy Jesus-grin whose name Cody could never remember, by whom he had a genuinely cute brood of young children. “Sheldon is more of a letch even than most,” Emily had told him in a briefing before they went to their first service together. “He’s one of the reasons I quit going to church, in fact. He will assume that this time around I’m more or less dragging you along to keep his hands off me, and my guess is he’ll accept that as the explanation for your presence, and turn his attention elsewhere. After all, there are a lot more female fish in his little pond. Now, politics. One thing you need to understand about any evangelical church is there are always two factions, one pro-pastor and one anti-pastor, and each of those factions is in turn divided into male and female sections. Because of my past experience with him, Sheldon will expect me to gravitate to the female anti-pastor faction, i.e. the women he’s made passes at, and those who are pissed off because he hasn’t. In fact, he’ll think it odd if I don’t. That means you need to get with the male pro-pastor faction, which is in any case most likely to be where you’ll find any hinky pro-ZOG activity that may be moving in the shade. That’s one of the reasons I need you in on this with me. Ever since I shot him down, I don’t think Sheldon would ask me to join any little underground Zionist sewing circle, if there is such a thing going on. Plus there’s the fact that fundies aren’t exactly big on valiant women warriors such as myself. Good church ladies are supposed to stay home and bake cookies. Evangelicals still think war is supposed to be an all-boys’ club.” So did Cody, but he didn’t insult Nightshade by voicing his opinion. He could understand the difference between the perfect world and the real one. She continued, “I’m your introduction into the church, but you’ll have to worm your way into the inner circle on your own. It will take a couple of services for me to catch up and get my bearings again, and then I’ll steer you where you need to go.”

  “This preacher very big on the pro-Jew and pro-Israel thing?” asked Cody.

  Emily nodded. “He was back when my mom first started dragging me to services, although he’s toned the praise Israel and love-thy-nigger crap down a lot, since a few other preachers around Seattle got tarred and feath
ered and worked over with bats. Some of the congregation members in these evangelical sects are true believers in the Jew thing, but very few of the preachers. For one thing, they actually have some personal familiarity with the Jewish religion and personal contact with Jews in a way that the congregation members don’t. It’s kind of hard to maintain that the kikes are God’s Chosen when you know their own Talmud justifies murder, pedophilia, and every kind of deception so long as it’s directed against non-Jews. That’s one reason you’ll notice that Pentecostalists and whatnot don’t refer to the Old Testament all that much, except in the form of very watered-down Bible stories for the kids in Sunday school. Too many embarrassing incidents of swinish behavior on the part of the Chosen Ones to explain away, things like Elijah sicking the bears on the children who made fun of his bald head, and Absalom going into his daddy’s concubines in the big rooftop orgy, and Joshua praying to God to stop the sun in its tracks so he could go on killing.”

  “Our own CI people claim that the Israelites were white,” Cody pointed out.

  “For all I know, they might have been,” said Emily with a shrug. “I assume you know enough history to know that today’s Jews aren’t the Jews of the Bible. That much about CI is certainly correct. Look, Cody, this isn’t real Christianity. This evangelical horse hockey is to real Christianity what McDonalds’ is to food. It’s composed of artificial ingredients and theological grease, it’s wrapped up in pretty paper and cardboard, and then they market the hell out of it and stick little toys in with the fries. And nobody knows it better than these evangelical preachers. They’re usually a pretty cynical lot. I doubt if one out of ten of them actually believes any of it. It’s a matter of which side of their bread is buttered. They’ve found a way to make money hand over fist that beats the hell out of working, they’ve gotten a taste of the good life, the money and the prestige and the adoring females in the congregation, and they know they can’t enjoy it from a wheelchair. That’s why most of them have shut the hell up about Israel and end times and that bird-brained rapture shit, and the 144,000 Jews running down into a hole in the ground when JEEEE-ZUS comes back and puts his big toe on the Mount of Olives, yadda yadda yadda. They zipped their lips about it when it became hazardous to their health. The prospect of a midnight meeting with a guy like Bobby Bells has got most of them singing I Saw The Light.”

  “Okay,” said Cody. “Look, curiosity question. Do you mind if I ask exactly what it is this preacher did to you?”

  “What, you don’t believe a guy would hit on me?” she said archly.

  “No, I mean, it’s just…”

  “Cody, don’t worry about it!” she laughed. “I find it hard to believe myself. I know I’m ugly as a monkey’s butt, believe me. Sheldon is just one of these compulsive womanizers who doesn’t care what a girl looks like as long as he gets to rack her up on his scoreboard. For some reason the evangelical ministry attracts a lot of those, as opposed to the more mainstream churches, whose ministries attract faggots. Sheldon’s rap with his female parishioners is as old as the hills. I think every false prophet from Rasputin to Jimmy Swaggart must have used it. Here, I’ll give you a rundown. God’s greatest sacrament is the forgiveness of man’s sins, right? I mean, that’s why we worship Him, right? So He won’t throw us into an ocean of burning fire when we die?”

  “Uh, I guess so,” said Cody. “I can think of a few better reasons for worshipping God than naked fear, though.”

  “Yeah, so can I, but remember now, I’m telling you the official fundamentalist version.”

  “I never actually got into all this religion stuff,” he admitted.

  “Well, you need to know the patter so you can blend in,” she said reasonably. “Now, men and women are all imperfect and sinners, by nature, right?”

  “Are we?” asked Cody. “I mean, I know about the doctrine of Original Sin, but it always struck me as kind of stupid. How can a baby be born sinful?”

  “It’s a very handy doctrine, because otherwise it would cut way down on the number of sinners who need forgiveness, and that would accordingly cut down on the number of preachers needed to save souls and pass the collection plate,” she said dryly.

  “Yeah, but assuming there is a God sitting out there somewhere with a set of rules, and assuming those rules are more or less what we’ve been told what they are, sin is still something you have to choose to do. You can’t be held responsible for breaking a rule if you don’t know it’s against the rules, right?” protested Cody.

  “Lord, my man, don’t ever say anything like that in Bible study!” chortled Nightshade. “They’ll stone you and chase you down the driveway with pitchforks and torches! You’re committing a sin right there, applying reason and logic to God’s mysteries. You don’t need reason, boy, you need faith! Remember, with these people, faith is everything and man’s mind is nothing. According to them, all man’s accomplishments are nothing. Good works are nothing. Just gotta have faith in JEEEE-ZUS and you’re in like Flint. And faith means believing whatever some dumb-ass preacher tells you to believe. How else could anyone talk themselves into believing the Jews are God’s Chosen People? Now listen up. Okay, in theory, your baptism washes away the Original Sin, but of course since we’re all sinners by nature, we just keep piling it on and we are in constant need of forgiveness and redemption. Now, if God’s mercy is the ultimate prize, then you want as much of it as you can get. The bigger the sin, the more of that good stuff you get. Who wants just a little speck or so of divine forgiveness for cheating on your taxes or kicking your dog? If you want to be forgiven big, you have to sin big. Right? No, quit laughing, I am not making this up! Therefore little sister, why not come and sin with a holy man of God like me instead of some impure rock and roll bass player, so you can partake of God’s infinite grace? This guy Sheldon could literally quote chapter and verse as to why I was supposed to make like Monica Lewinsky and give him a blow job under his desk while he works on his sermon. He said the presence of the sin of carnality inspired him to fight it all the more and I would therefore be committing a blessed act by polishing his knob while he immersed himself in the Word. Swear to God!”

  “Huh?” said Cody. “Jeez, the last time I heard language like that it was from the hookers when I was living down Pioneer Square!”

  “So I’m a hooker now?” she asked.

  “No, dammit, that’s not what I meant!” he said in exasperation. He was still stuttering for the words when he saw she was laughing at him.

  “You know, I really like meeting a guy my own age who is honest to God embarrassed by the term blow job!” Nightshade told him. “It’s a refreshing change after those dumb-ass jocks and geeks at Hillside who still seem to be nothing but dirty little ten year-olds, and those trashed-out scum rockers up on Capitol Hill. With that air of outraged innocence you will make a great church member! And if it makes you feel any better, no, I did not accept the man of God’s invitation to witness for Christ with my mouth. Yeah, those were his words. Evangelical inside joke. I told him…well, never mind, what I told him would probably shock your tender and gentlemanly ears even more. That was over a year ago. He’ll probably be surprised to see me back.”

  “Uh…,” said Cody, shaking his head. “One thing. If I’m supposed to be your boyfriend now, do I let on that I know about all this holy knob job or whatever…?”

  “No, if you want to get on the inside with these people, you need to act—well, not so much dumb as a little naïve and a little lost. The kind of person who wants to be led. The pastor will be glad to accommodate you. But Sheldon will probably start fishing around trying to find out if you and I getting it on. Find some casual way to let him know we’re not. If he thinks you’re getting some from me where he couldn’t, he’ll get jealous and start back-stabbing you, and he won’t let you into whatever little club him and the Zoggies are getting together.”

  But there was a man in the congregation who had been identified to Cody by Lieutenant Dortmunder as being of more inte
rest to the NVA than the church’s pastor. This was United States Army Captain Jesse Regenthal. Regenthal was a powerfully built, buzz-cut Alabamian with a little plastic Jesus on the dashboard of his armored private SUV, who had begun attending the Tabernacle several months previously, and the Third Section very much wanted to know why, given the risks now entailed in an American military officer showing his face anywhere outside the protection of a base. There were a lot of men like Regenthal who were now attending evangelical and Pentecostal churches throughout western Washington, and it wasn’t religious devotion. There were chapels and church services on post.

  After a couple of visits to the Assembly of God, Regenthal wasn’t hard for Cody to get close to, with a few Biblical questions in study group, and a little feigned hero-worship as he listened to the officer’s bragging war stories. To hear him tell it, Regenthal was a lean, mean, OD green, Ay-rab-killin’, Natsie-stompin’ machine. “Gawd, guns, and guts was what made Amurrica!” he would solemnly proclaim. By special and dramatic permission from the pastor, Regenthal carried a Glock 9-millimeter automatic conspicuously in a belt holster when he attending worship services. “I normally wouldn’t dream of bringing a weapon into the Lord’s house,” Regenthal told Cody solemnly, “But in these times a righteous man has to worry about being attacked by Satan’s powers and minions at any time. I can tell you, there’s a lot of them cowardly Natsie bastards hiding under rocks around here that would sure enough like to put this good old Amurrican country boy six feet under!”