The Project, page 4
Bea nods.
Then let me tell you about Lev, she says, the way it’s meant to be told.
And Bea hears it, for the very first time, out there at the Garrett Farm.
* * *
1980, Indiana. A boy is born.
His mother doesn’t love him; she shows him so with her fists.
He’s hurting, angry and alone. He yearns to be seen.
He’s seventeen when he wanders into the church and feels the pull of God before he has the language for such feelings. The place is warm. The place is love. As he joins the congregants in prayer, a miracle occurs: he is no longer angry. He is no longer alone. The boy is filled with a sense of purpose he’s never felt before. He sees that he is God’s instrument.
God calls on him to follow, and he does.
Their fingers entwined, Casey takes Bea down the path to the barn.
The boy becomes a man. The man’s faith takes him to the seminary, where he will give his life over in service of the Lord, but he soon realizes there is no God in church, only men who hide their sin behind its walls. The man feels its sickness, can feel God’s grace smothered by its sickness, so he turns to the world and finds still more sin-sickness there: for-profit wars, people without, pockets bared by recession, hands outstretched, no hands to them extended. The man is not on the path he thought he was. He no longer knows what the path is. He returns home, to his hateful mother, where she strips him of his ego and he kneels. He prays. He prays for thirty hours and he does not sleep, eat or drink.
They come to a stop in front of the barn doors. Inside, Lev stands in the middle of a circle, his family gathered around him.
All of them, Bea realizes, waiting for her.
In the thirtieth hour, Casey says, God sent Lev a vision. He’s chosen to share it with you.
Casey lets go of her hand and fades gently into the background as Lev makes his way over to Bea, coming to a soft stop in front of her, his eyes only on her. He presses his palm to her face and it is warm, and it is love.
Are you ready to receive it? he asks.
* * *
Bea stands in a field alone, tears silently streaming down her face as the walls of a church build themselves around her heart. She is not sad. She is not afraid. She’s awake. Everything is different than it was before. She stares up at the sun, the sound of bells ringing faintly in her head until she realizes it’s her phone. Texts from Patty.
Lo’s awake, the first one reads.
And the next: Lo’s awake and she’s calling for you.
OCTOBER 2017
There’s a stretch of road between the towns of Chapman and Auster that was once covered in my parents’ blood. They were spread all over the highway and breathed their last breaths there. These days, people drive through it as though it’s not a sacred place—just the distance between where they started and wherever it is they hope to end up. Now I stand where Jeremy stood as travelers hurry to their platforms, unaware of what happened here a month ago. Or, if they remember, they’ve moved on quietly from it to go about their lives.
I wish I was built like that.
I stare down at the flyer in my hand.
THE UNITY PROJECT WELCOMES ALL TO ITS ANNUAL PUBLIC SERMON AT THE GARRETT FARM.
Bea is almost guaranteed to be there. If I want to talk to her, I need to be there too—unannounced, of course, because when Bea gets word of me, she has a habit of disappearing.
I haven’t tangled with The Unity Project in a long time. The last time was supposed to be just exactly that. Since then, I haven’t tried to talk to Bea. I don’t even talk about her. If I’d had to place a bet on which one of us was going to break those rules first, it wouldn’t have been her.
So why, after all these years, did she put my name in a dead boy’s mouth?
And what was he telling me to find?
I step back inside the station to check the time.
Fifteen minutes.
No delays.
“I’m headed there too.”
A woman with deep brown skin with amber undertones and warm brown eyes stands nearby. Her hair is in braids that fall halfway down her back. If I had to guess, I’d put her in her late thirties or the first blush of her forties. She smiles, looking to the flyer clutched tightly in my hand. “To the sermon, I mean.”
“You a member?”
“I am.” No small hint of pride in her voice.
I glance around the station, wondering how many others might be here to scope out potential marks. I should’ve anticipated it. Members of The Project lack enough shame to seize any opportunity. I turn back to her, and push my hair away from the left side of my face for an unobstructed view of the scar. Certain members would know me to see me, and I them. Jeremy shouldn’t have been one, but now I wonder if he was the exception or the rule.
Probably better to find out before boarding.
But the scar doesn’t seem to light on the woman the way it did Jeremy. She registers it, but in that subtle way decent people do. She asks if I’ve ever been to a sermon before. I tell her I haven’t and she says, “You’ll have an amazing time.”
“And what if I don’t?” I crumple the flyer and toss it in a nearby trash can. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s my kind of thing.”
“What else have you got to do today?”
I grimace.
“I’m not going to pitch you, but we’ve got time before the train if you want to get a coffee and talk about it, or if you have any questions you want to ask.” I hesitate. She shrugs. “It’s cool if you don’t, but … I just have to tell you, I was in the same spot you were, like, literally. I was right exactly there deciding whether or not to take the train to the sermon. A Project member found me and helped me make my choice. I felt like I had to say something.”
“I don’t even know you,” I tell her.
She holds out her hand. “I’m Dana.”
We end up across from each other at a small table next to an even smaller café stall. I wrap my hands around a steaming Styrofoam cup and sip the scalding coffee inside. It’s bitter, strong. Awful. I don’t know where to start this conversation. I try to shed the questions I really want to ask for ones that will arouse less suspicion. I’m also curious; I want to hear what answers could tempt sisters away from sisters, tempt lost boys in front of oncoming trains.
“It’s weird, right?” Dana asks before I can say anything. “The Project? On paper it sounds either too good to be true or just really, really—”
“Crazy.”
“Yeah, crazy. There’s no in-between. But I think there’s hearing about it and there’s being in it and those are actually two very different things. I mean, I wanted to do some good and now that’s all I’m doing, so I’m happy. What interests you about it?”
“Warren’s Theory. I’m looking to be Redeemed.”
It comes out of my mouth with just a little too much derision. She studies me for a long moment then decides to call me on it. “Or are you looking to prove some kind of point? This sermon isn’t weekend entertainment for you to laugh about with your friends on Monday. It means a lot to a lot of people and it deserves to be met with respect.”
“Honestly, Dana, I’m looking for anything better than what I’ve got,” I say, and she relaxes a little. “But I have to admit Warren’s Theory might just be the craziest-sounding part of the whole damn thing.”
“I think it’s the most beautiful. Let me tell you something actually crazy.”
“Okay.”
“I was in the army,” she says, and when I don’t reply: “That’s it, that’s the crazy thing.”
“Thanks for your service.” It ends up sounding like a question.
“You’re welcome. Now let me tell you what that’s like: I did what I was told and I didn’t question it, because you don’t,” she says. “You’re not there to question anything. You’re ultimately there for your brothers and your sisters who are in combat with you. By the time I was honorably discharged, I would’ve died for any of them and I damn near did—damn near tried—on more than one occasion.”
She exhales slowly and I see a story unfolding behind her eyes, one she chooses not to share—or can’t, judging by the amount of pain ghosting across her face.
“I lost … so much. I came back, and I felt lied to. And the places I’d been, the things I’d seen, the things I—the things I did … I lost my faith. No idea how to begin again. And no one was giving me what I needed. No one.
“So I go to one of the public sermons and Lev Warren sat next to me and I said, ‘I don’t know how to start over. I don’t know how to put good things back in the world, when I feel like I’ve been part of so much that’s wrong with it. I don’t know how to atone for the things—the things that I’ve done.’ And he looked at me, and he said, ‘The Unity Project has already atoned for you. This is our gift. All you have to do is accept it.’ And”—she swallows—“and I did. And The Project has been looking after me ever since.”
“‘Its good works will atone for the world’s sins and bring salvation to the ends of the earth,’” I say. “You really believe that?”
She leans forward. “When you become a member, you’re accepting your atonement. You accept Lev as God’s Redeemer and in him, you’re redeemed. Your redemption allows you to participate in giving the gift of atonement. If everyone accepts that gift and works together to make this world a better place, what else could it lead to but our salvation?”
“And you’ve always believed in God?”
“Yes.”
“But what if you didn’t? What would you have done then? What about all the people who want to do the good things you’re doing, but lack that faith? You ever think you could probably save the world sooner just by leaving the God parts out?”
“You think Lev should betray his faith and conceal his calling, his appointment from God, to make others more comfortable? You realize in any other context, asking someone to deny a fundamental part of their identity would be very problematic, right? We’d also lose credibility as an organization if we weren’t fully transparent in all aspects of our mission.”
“Then why haven’t you confirmed or denied that Lev Warren sees the future and brought a girl back from the dead?”
There are whispers about Lev Warren. I’ve heard them all, found them in Reddit threads, comments sections, read between the lines of various write-ups. Most people tend to accept Lev as a good man, but leaked audio of a late 2014 sermon where he seemingly predicted the outcome of the 2016 presidential election had them asking, sincerely, whether or not he could be a holy one. I received revelation, the sermon began, and it traced a path to our miserable present. It tends to resurface every time something new and terrible happens under the Trump administration, which is just about every day, these days.
Lev Warren warned us.
That he’s resurrected the dead feels like it must have been hyperbole at some point, but every year it becomes more and more reclaimed in the whispers between believers and would-be believers alike. The Unity Project refuses to engage with any of it, allowing instead for that faint shimmer of something more to attach itself to them. It’s one less ad they have to take out on Facebook.
“We don’t participate in that kind of rumor or speculation,” Dana says, “because it would begin a conversation that would detract from the work we’re here to do. Where did you first learn about The Project, Gloria?”
“Vice. They think you just might be a cult.”
She sips her coffee. “They do.”
“And?”
“And…” She sets her coffee down and starts ticking it off on her fingers. “The Unity Project has never asked me for more than I was willing to give. They’ve never asked for more from me than was fair to ask for. They’ve never asked me to participate in their cause under false pretenses or used me as a political pawn. I have never once felt unsafe or threatened in The Unity Project and I’ve always felt and have been free to leave, should I ever want to.” She pauses. “I couldn’t say the same for the army.”
Her eyes travel over my scar in a way that makes me brace myself for the gotcha, but it doesn’t come. Instead, her gaze becomes more intent, as though she’s trying to see what might be beyond it. It gets to be too much. I look away.
“I recognize your tone, you know,” she says. “I’ve heard it many times.”
“And what’s my tone?”
“Skeptical. Dismissive.”
“You think you’re chosen by God.”
“I was chosen by God.”
“Just so long as you pay the membership fee.”
“Actually, whether or not you become a member,” Dana says, and the brief look of confusion that crosses my face seems to satisfy her. “See, that’s what many people don’t really understand about The Project, Gloria. We have all been Chosen by God. His sacrifice was our calling. Over time, we lost the ability to access it. That’s the gift God gave to Lev: he sees it in us and enables us to see it in ourselves. That’s what’s going to happen to you today and you may reject your gift. You may embrace it. But it will always be your choice. And if you judge us for ours? That’s not our failing.” She appraises me. “You’re young … still in high school?”
“Nineteen. Dropped out. Got my GED, though.”
She nods knowingly. “Ah.”
“What?”
“We have a few members who eschew institutional, traditional paths. They all share a similar—edge, I guess.” She clarifies before I can invite her to: “An aversion to group work. A skepticism of the system. A need to buck it. It’s a certain type. You’re not quite a joiner, but you definitely want to make an impact, and that’s the part of you that can’t help but wonder what will happen if you get on that train today.”
A sharp burst of static crackles over the loudspeakers.
“Attention passengers: train forty-one from Morel to Bellwood, with stops at Peekskill, Croton-Harmon and Ossining, will be arriving in five minutes.”
Five minutes.
I’ve thought about all the ways this could turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. That’s the easy part, knowing that even if this whole experience ends with me feeling so helpless with rage I end up going back to my apartment and breaking everything inside there is to break—it still wouldn’t be the worst of what I’ve lived through. The hard part is this: the small, broken girl inside me clawing against the wall I’ve built to keep us separated. The one who still wants so much for certain things, despite all she knows.
There are more people on the platform now, all of them awash in the golden glow of a beautiful October morning.
No Jeremy Lewis around to enjoy it.
“There was a jumper here last month,” I say.
“What’s that?” Dana asks.
“A boy jumped in front of the train. He died.” I turn back to her. Her eyes widen politely in the once-removed way they do when you’ve heard something bad has happened and you know that’s how you’re supposed to react. “You hadn’t heard about it?”
“No.” She looks me right in the eyes when she lies. “I hadn’t.”
* * *
The silhouette of a weathered barn stands tall against the backdrop of a cloudy sky.
Eight years ago, the Garrett family gave Lev Warren use of their land in exchange for free labor, and it was there, in that barn, where he gathered a small group of people and asked them to imagine their part in the work he was only calling God’s will at the time. A large white tent stands at the front of the property now and I shadow countless bodies navigating the maze of vehicles parked in the mud as they make their way to it. It calls to mind a tent revival, the air thick with easily corrupted, foolish belief.
And my sister, here.
My sister has been here.
I have to push my soul past that reality, through it, just so my body can exist within it. I’ve wasted enough time trying to see all of this through Bea’s eyes, to understand it with her heart, and I can’t. I see it for what it is: the dirt-stained edges of the tent pinned to the ground, the sick scent of desperation in the air, cow shit mapping its edges, Project members moving through the crowd, sizing up the weakest to bring into their fold. Bea was weak. I’m not.
That we’re both here today proves it.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Dana asks.
I swallow hard, find my voice somehow.
“How many here are already members?” I don’t believe half the attendees are unique hits. They’re card-carrying. They know belief is contagious and the most important thing they can do is show up en masse to clap their hands and shout amen.
“Fewer than you think.”
There’s a cold bite to the air that makes me rub my hands together. I see a gap among people and imagine Jeremy there, a smile on his face like in the pictures. I scan the crowd and wait for a sick jolt in my stomach to signal Bea, but it doesn’t come.
“You won’t see Lev before the sermon starts,” Dana tells me.
“Right,” I say, like that’s who I was looking for.
I pull my collar farther up. We continue our way to the tent and I catch threads of conversations as we move. Quite a few people are here at the behest of friends and family. There are several who have left their church recently and are trying to find something that feels “right” and hope this is it. A little girl complains to her mother of the cold, and a stranger assures them the tent is heated. Before I can find out, a man stops me at its entrance, raising his hand and sending my heart crashing to my feet. He’s tall and thin. He has strawberry-blond hair tucked behind his ears. It falls to the nape of his neck, curling at the ends. A tidy ginger beard frames his pale white face. He wears blue jeans, a gray Henley, a camo puffer vest and black gloves. He stares at me for a moment that feels longer than necessary. I stare back because it’s all I can do.
“Foster,” Dana says.
“Dana.” He nods at me. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Gloria.”
