End Times by Erin Fitzgerald

People get right with the Lord in different ways. I only know how it finally happened to me. I was brushing my teeth and standing in front of the bathroom mirror. I stopped looking at my forehead and started looking at my toothbrush. It was a kids’ toothbrush with Buzz Lightyear on it because I have sensitive gums. I watched the brush go back and forth in my mouth, bright green in the white foam. It was pushing away all the poison of my past. Once I spit, I realized, all would be new again. It was truly that simple. I spit, and there was one final comma of blood in the sink. I ran the cold water tap, washed it away, and began.

I called her later that morning, on a break from work. I told her I had found a new path, one that did not include sinning in the ways we had been sinning. “But I’m not going to preach to you,” I told her. “I’m also not going to judge.”

She didn’t say anything right away. She never had to. I knew what she was thinking. You already are.

* * * * *

We met for coffee. She put one of those bright green grocery bags that says I CARE ABOUT THE EARTH on the table. Inside was a stack of books and CDs and DVDs I’d lent her over the years. I’d forgotten about a lot of them, but not all of them.

“I don’t feel right about keeping these even though maybe now you don’t want them,” she said. “Or maybe it’s a sin for me to have them. I’m not sure what to do, but I guess you are.”

I took the bag and set it next to my chair. They called her name for coffee and as she plodded to the counter. I looked at her one last time in the way I was accustomed to looking at her. She was scrawny and her dark hair was greasy and her makeup was crooked and there were fuzzballs all over her sweater. She wasn’t beautiful. No one had known about her, because no one would understand. I would have to atone for that the most.

* * * * *

The evangelist is on TV at 2am every Sunday morning. Every week, she calls me up right after he’s done talking about how pleased he is that the Lord is indeed on His way, just before the announcer starts in about his CD and DVD sets.

“Do you think it’s gonna be this week?” she asks.

“I hope not,” I say. “I have things planned for every day, and there’s no room for atonement.”

She laughs. “For what could you possibly need to atone?”

The last time I heard her real voice, we were in my car. I had a CD on. The key of a song changed at just the right moment and we looked at each other. That was not easy to do, since I was driving and the roads to her house twisted and turned. She punched me in the arm gently when it happened, the key change. I still have a small plain brown bruise. Two minutes later, she got out of the car at the end of her driveway, and said she would see me soon.

“Have a good week,” she says now. “Look busy.”

I should leave the TV on when she hangs up on me, and we move that little fraction more away from each other. I should let the evangelist fade into a food processor, or an exercise machine, a chance to work from home and make ten thousand dollars a week.

The remote’s right there. I just have to reach.