The Revelation of Joan

Chapter 9 Luke Lucks Out

"Luke," Mom said as we were preparing dinner, "Have you made any progress toward getting a summer job?"

"Um, no, Mom." All my energies in the past few days had been devoted to thinking about how to protect Joan, but it didn't want to explain that situation to Mom.

To my relief, she went on a different tangent. "I heard from my cousins down South again. The invitation is still open, even though we thought it wouldn't be healthy for Joan. Would you like to visit the farm for a couple of weeks?"

"Gee, Mom, can you see me as a farmboy? I'm into computers, not farm animals."

"Horseback riding can be fun. When I was a girl--"

"Well, yeah. Dealing with horses is a girl thing, nowadays."

"I suppose so." She fell silent a few seconds. "Do you think Grace would be interested? Should we ask her when she gets back from her rally?"

I tried to visualize Grace on a horse, maybe charging at her enemies like Eowyn in LORD OF THE RINGS. Then I realized what was really behind the question. "Oh, so this is really about Grace, isn't it? You don't like the fact that her bedroom is just a few feet from mine, and Joan won't be there this time around to chaperone."

She fell back on the Sex Lecture. "Luke, when two people love each other --"

"Oh, chill, um, please." She looked puzzled, not knowing whether to take that as rudeness or not. "It's not going to happen."

"Are you sure?"

"Grace is very depressed. She just MIGHT ask me to -- you know -- as a way of getting her mind off her family problems. But afterwards she would feel that I had taken advantage of her, and despise me for it. I don't want that."

"That's very mature of you, Luke."

"I don't know about maturity. I just look around and observe. Adam and Joan. Kevin and Beth. You and the man that, uh," I didn't go further. She knew I was talking about the rape incident in college. "Eros is a powerful force, and it needs to be restrained by reason. And looking at things from a reasonable point of view, inviting Grace to the farm might be the best idea. Not to get her away from me, but to put her in a new and interesting environment for a while. Though don't tell her it was my idea."

"I won't."

The front door slammed, and Mom turned to see who came in. "Hi, Joan. How was your day?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she shouted, and ran upstairs.

Mom and I looked at each other, and I said, "I'll go talk to her."

Joan was sitting on her bed and crying. I half expected her to throw me out, but she just looked up. "Did you know Freidmann is on drugs?"

"Um, yeah." I was afraid for a moment that she was going to ask details about that, then I realized another possibility. "Did he try to talk you into using them?"

"Yeah. But that was just a side issue. What he really wanted to do is get inside my pants. Treated me like a whore. Then he admitted that he advised Adam to betray me with Bonnie."

"I'm going to beat him up," I said angrily.

The image seemed to amuse Joan, even in her tears. "Better have Grace do it. She could make it hurt more."

"Yeah," I admitted.

"But Friedmann wasn't the real problem. It's God. He set me up!"

"What?"

"I sailed in, thinking that my mission was to talk Friedmann out of using drugs -- but the real purpose was so that Friedmann could tell me about Adam. I mean, God might have told me himself, but he just has to work his 'mysterious ways'. After all I've done for him!"

At last, the opening that I had been looking for, for days.

"Joan, Grace and I are both worried that this guy you're working for is really God."

"He can change shapes and read my mind and foresee the future. Who else could it be?"

They really have her hoodwinked about their powers, I thought. Maybe if I accept that point of view I can argue with her better.

"Well, that's an interesting question. Put it in a science-fiction format. Suppose you've got an alien who can shape-shift and has telepathy."

"You really think so?"

Wouldn't it be cool if it was true? But I focussed on the situation. "It's a hypothesis. You should consider hypotheses. You've been assuming that your friend is God, and you deduce that you're obligated to serve him. But would you be obligated to serve a shape-shifting telepathic alien?"

"No."

"Or suppose it is a god; what sort of god is it? Have you ever read Dante's Inferno? Dante's favorite teacher gets marooned in a desert with no clothes on, because he was gay. Some girl gets blown about in a whirlwind for having too much sex. Heretics get set on fire -- that could be Dad, you know. And Dante said God did all that"

"I asked God about the Middle Ages once. He said that he didn't approve of all the rotten things his worshippers did in his name."

"He would say that, wouldn't he? How can you check up on somebody when he can read your mind and you can't read his?"

Joan was looking increasingly perplexed. I decided to leave at that, particularly since I heard the door slam downstairs and reasoned that Grace had come in. Besides, I feared that being too insistent might spur Joan to resist (at least, it always had that effect on Grace), while leaving an element of doubt might put her more on her guard.

I went out to meet Grace as she clomped up the stairs. "How was the anarchists' meeting?"

She snorted. "Disorganized."

"That comes with the territory, doesn't it?"

"Maybe. As long as they were talking about what's wrong with the world, I could enjoy it, but when they talked about solutions-- how can I change the world when my own life's a mess?"

I looked back; Joan had close her door and wouldn't be listening. "Joan's right about one thing. Changing the world is beyond us, but maybe you can do good in small doses, by doing errands. Why not volunteer for social work this summer?"

"Yeah. And watch the ripples."

"Ripples?"

"Another Joan idea. Let me tell you." She tugged me into her room, and I didn't resist. After all, our home had no biology closet.