Living Witness(113)
“Sort of.”
“Yeah, my point exactly,” Eddie said. “I mean, for God’s sake, Mr. Demarkian. Henry’s an atheist and he’s been shouting it from the rooftops since he was in high school. People roll their eyes, but they don’t bother him about it. He’s even got a secretary straight out of some Christian television program. And it’s not that I agree with Alice on this, either, because I don’t. But that’s the thing, see? If it was censorship or whatever it was to keep that book behind the librarian’s desk when the Christians complained about it, then why isn’t it censorship to keep that Pandas book out of the library when the atheists complain about it? It always seems like there are two different sets of rules for different people. One rule for the Christians and another rule for the atheists.”
“Miss Marbledale says she isn’t an atheist.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Well, you know.”
“What?”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Eddie said. “The Bible lays it all out. In the beginning, and then it says how God did it, right?”
“Maybe,” Gregor said.
“I don’t see that there’s any maybe about it,” Eddie said. “I’ve read that part of the Bible. I read it in my Bible study group at church. And it seems to me, you know, that it’s clear. If that evolution stuff is true, then the Bible can’t be true. And if the Bible isn’t true in that place, it might not be true in any place. And then what happens? There’s no Jesus Christ, and no salvation, and no life after death. There’s no anything.”
“A lot of Christian denominations see Genesis as a metaphor,” Gregor said. “They think it’s poetic, a kind of allegory—”
“Meaning a lie,” Eddie said. “That’s all all that stuff means, Mr. Demarkian. A lie.”
“I don’t think fiction is a lie,” Gregor said carefully. “Bennis—Bennis is the woman I’m about to marry—Bennis says that a writer named Ken Kesey said that literature is something that’s ‘the truth, even though it didn’t happen.’ That you can tell the truth about something through scenes and images that get to the core of what you’re trying to say, but are still imaginative and dramatic renderings.”
Eddie was staring straight ahead. “I still think that comes down to a lie,” he said. “But I’m not going to argue about it. There’s no point in arguing about it. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I’m going to trust in him, and not in a bunch of science books. And I think evolution is just a theory, not a fact, no matter what Miss Marbledale says. And I think the least we could do is say so, so the kids don’t get the idea that there is no God and the Bible is all a lie. You know what kids are going to do with that. They’re going to think that if there isn’t any God, there isn’t any reason to behave themselves, and then it’s all going to go to Hell in no time flat. You can’t get around it, Mr. Demarkian. No matter what Miss Marbledale says, or what the Pope says either, you can’t have evolution and God at the same time, and anyone who says you can isn’t a real Christian.”
Gregor would have given some thought to this restrictive definition of what made a Christian—a definition that wiped out not only all liberal Protestants, but all Roman Catholics and most of the Eastern Orthodox churches as well—but they were coming around a long curve in the road leading back to town, and something three-quarters of the way down had caught his eye.
He leaned a little forward in his seat and squinted. There was yellow police tape, which made sense. That was Annie-Vic’s house, which was still a crime scene. There was a police car—that made sense, too. There were two state policemen standing guard, which was something Gary Albright should have thought of when Annie-Vic was attacked. Still, there was something. He leaned forward even more, until his seat belt strained and his forehead nearly touched the windowshield.
“Is there something wrong, Mr. Demarkian?” Eddie Block asked. “If you’re not feeling well, I could always pull over and let you get out for a little air.”
“I’m feeling fine,” Gregor said. “We have to stop at Annie-Vic’s house.”
“At Annie-Vic’s house? What for?”
“Because I think something has happened.”
Gregor sat back in his seat and bit his lip. By now they were halfway down the hill and he could see it clearly: the red and white ambulance with its lights pulsing convulsively in the grey late-morning light. Another ambulance meant another body, that might or might not be dead.