18. Trinity’s New Testament
Trinity’s New Testament
The future rarely announces itself; sometimes it simply shimmers on the horizon like something half imagined, waiting for the foolish, or the brave, to paddle toward it.
Every story reaches a point where the present’s ephemera burns away until it’s just a whispered remembrance, the future beckons boldly, and all you can do is climb aboard and believe the world is ready for the next version of you.
The air smelled like pine and optimism, laced with the faint acrid tang of marine varnish Ronald had slathered on the night before with a brush meant for painting baseboards.
It took a while, but he got the coverage he was seeking.
It glistened now, sticky in a few still drying patches, attracting a small swarm of fruit flies who, depending on your theological leanings, were either a minor inconvenience, eager first-class passengers or the first plague.
Ronald paced the lawn in cutoff shorts that had once been jeans and a basketball jersey he’d had embossed with the words HOOPS FOR JESUS.
He kept patting the wooden hull of the Ark as though reassuring a skittish horse.
A hammer dangled from his waistband, the way a sheriff might wear a revolver, though Ronald’s weapon of choice was far more likely to strike his own thumb.
His face was bright with pride but also taut with the kind of terror one associates with new fathers or people waiting for a soufflé not to collapse.
The Ark looked less like a vessel of salvation or seaworthiness and more like a very determined shed that had decided it was sick of being landlocked.
Ronald’s backyard had never seen so much activity.
The grass bore the scars of tire treads and dragged lumber.
The fence was draped in extension cords; strung up strings of Edison bulbs bobbed in the breeze overhead; and a pair of sequinned hot pants had finally been found and returned to their owner after having been over boarded in a hurry during a game of capture the pirate’s bounty that we unfortunately don’t have time to revisit, but trust me it was a wonderful watch party.
The air smelled like sawdust, Teen Spirit, and blissfully na?ve ambition.
Underneath it all, was the faint persistent sweet tang of the river. The Napanee lay a few blocks away, patient in its flow, waiting for whatever foolish thing the humans decided was worthy to try to skip across it, attempt to submerge and have forgotten, or occasionally to float upon.
The Ark itself was squatting on a trailer, hitched to the back of a borrowed pickup truck.
Ronald had overbuilt it in every possible way.
Its sides were reinforced plywood, sanded smooth and painted an optimistic sky blue.
Japheth had painted a sweeping rainbow across one side, with a cartoonish dove carrying a CD in its beak.
On the other, Carrington had christened it 96. 5 THE ARK Good News, Good Tunes.
Inside the hulking hull it was pure creative chaos.
Wires snaked like ivy across the walls. The salvaged mixing board from WWJD sat on a sturdy table, polished until its faders gleamed.
There were three microphones on swing arms, each adorned with a small personal touch.
Rebekkah’s mic stand wore a back-up scrunchie.
Japheth’s had a shaving mirror so he could ensure his hair stayed in place while on air, and Ronald’s had a small basketball net fixed around the neck of the mic like a tutu or an Elizabethan collar.
The ON AIR sign, rescued from storage, had been rewired and hung above the doorway, ready to glow. Fairy lights looped from corner to corner, casting a forgiving golden hue over everything. Foam panels, cut to size, had been stapled to the walls in an optimistic attempt at soundproofing.
There was a small couch under one window, its floral pattern barely visible under a heaping pile of throw pillows.
A hot plate and electric kettle huddled in one corner ready to soothe hunger and sore throats.
A whiteboard that was slightly askew outlined show segments scrawled in five different handwritings in five different colours.
And in a nod to their ancestry, a little wooden plaque was screwed just inside the door, the old WWJD Bless This Hot Mess handmade sign.
Its carved praying hands or loaf of bread or inert doves were newly sprinkled with sawdust from getting the ark in seaworthy shape but were otherwise still intact and good as new.
“Ready?” Ronald asked, sweat gleaming on his forehead as he tightened the last tie-down strap on the trailer.
“No,” Carrington answered, straightening the collar of their cobalt-blue wind suit.
They dragged behind them a plastic tub labelled STUDIO ESSENTIALS in purple Sharpie.
Out of it spilled a microphone stand, a fistful of cassette tapes, a lava lamp, and something that looked like a karaoke machine from a clearance bin at Zellers.
“But I’m dressed for rain or wind, and I have my bathing suit underneath just in case. ”
Carrington had gone full launch-day glam.
The wind suit cinched at the waist with a wide silver belt, sleeves rolled to show a stack of bangles, white sneakers so pristine they might have gone through the dishwasher.
Their hair, in a high curly ponytail, bounced with every movement.
A headset rested around their neck as they’d be doing triple duty going forward as receptionist, stylist to the stars and studio engineer even though Trinity generally insisted on doing everything by vibes.
“Ronald,” they called, “I’m proud of you.
Who’d have thought we could outfit the Ark as a radio station. You built this dream for all of us.”
Ronald, hammer in one hand, a roll of coaxial cable in the other, grinned in a way that always pierced Carrington’s icy heart.
“I’m not doing anything that hasn’t already been done before.
Noah did it. I’m pretty sure he outfitted his with satellite TV because forty days at sea?
That’s gotta get rough without some entertainment.
And he didn’t even have a Canadian Tire. ”
Rebekkah emerged from the Ark and shouted to Ronald, “You’ve read exactly half of Genesis.
Don’t make me fact-check you.” She tugged at the hem of her new dress.
It was black and polka dot on top with a plunging neckline, and the skirt section was an array of long black strips of fabric, as if there’d been an emergency and medical sheers had been used to cut someone out of it.
At any rate, when she walked, all the long strips of fabric created beautiful movement and one could imagine if she were to spin, she’d look like a giant squid, so it certainly fit the nautical theme of the day.
Her bangs, such as they were, had been coaxed into a soft side sweep by Carrington, disguising the worst of the Jim Carrey asymmetry.
“If this thing sinks on launch,” she announced. “I want it noted that I died in an outfit appropriate for the cover of our posthumous greatest hits album.”
“You’re not dying, no one is dying today,” Suwarna said briskly, though she personally had packed, in her oversized leather tote, a laminated emergency evacuation plan, three whistles, a flare gun, and a Ziploc of ginger candies for motion sickness.
Her usual office attire had been modified for nautical duty.
She wore navy trousers, a striped boat-neck top, and a red blazer.
She looked like a very serious cruise director determined to ensure no one dipped into anything fun until all waivers were signed.
“Before we set sail,” Suwarna said crisply, “ground rules. One: No open flames. Two: Life jackets are mandatory. Three: Have a reasonable amount of fun.”
Japheth was perched dramatically on the bow, looking like an Abercrombie and Fitch model who had been sexily shipwrecked.
His six pack was a ribbed washboard like the fish hadn’t been biting and his hair was somehow already adopting a salt-sprayed surfer wave though they were still blocks from the riverbank.
His legs dangled; a notepad balanced on his knees.
He was scribbling furiously, every now and then glancing toward the curb, as if half-expecting Rino Ferrari to deliver some more wood and encouragement.
His face was sun kissed and his cheeks still greedily held onto the blush of last night’s encounter.
He was reworking the lyrics of a love song, and his handwriting reflected his mood. Every i was dotted with a little heart.
He hopped down from the Ark, nearly twisting an ankle because his cowboy boots were not meant for maritime anything.
They were intended to inspire oceanic ideas though and had been embroidered with blue waves and little silver anchors stitched along the sides.
It was remarkable they’d stayed in a clearance bin at Value Village for so many months without any other takers before he spotted and rescued them.
“I’m ready,” he said, grinning. He wore an open button-up sky-blue shirt with tiny clouds printed all over it, unbuttoned and tucked into high-waisted white jeans.
A yellow bandana was knotted jauntily around his neck.
He looked like a gay televangelist’s idea of a sailor, which was to say practically perfect in every way.