Chapter 18
After walking around downtown no less than six times, my hands finally stopped shaking and my cheeks were dry, though my eyes were surely beet red.
Auggie walked alongside me quietly the whole while, though I wasn’t sure if he was silent out of fear of what I’d have to say, or respect for my need to process what had happened at The Pueblo.
As we walked around and around, my eyes flicked and darted over to other Possibilians, wondering if they would randomly and violently throw something at me, too. Would they suddenly boo or hiss at me?
Auggie seemed to pick up on my uneasiness at what had happened during the church service and didn’t offer to explain anything.
He didn’t defend it, either. He simply let me walk along, kicking at the dirt and pavement as I processed my own thoughts.
Walking alongside me through town was his way of keeping me company without being intrusive.
Every now and then, my eyes would dart over to him, and I saw that he wasn’t staring at me, either.
He was giving me as much space as he could without actually leaving me to be alone.
When I finally found myself walking by the backside of Mystic Molly’s tent, I stopped on the side of the road.
Then I flopped down in the grass, my legs jutting out directly in front of me as my hands came to rest in my lap.
My eyes stared out at nothing as I tried to process my feelings about the woman, the violence, the screaming…
my stomach was in knots and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t had any breakfast that morning.
It was probably a good thing because I might have upchucked all of it right there in the grass behind Mystic Molly’s.
Auggie stood on the road for a while, watching me, obviously unsure if he was welcome to sit with me.
However, he finally stepped onto the grass and sat down next to me.
He pulled his legs underneath himself into the lotus position and hunched down, sitting comfortably next to me.
I’m not sure how much time passed before my stomach stopped feeling like acrobats were performing in it, but I finally started to feel somewhat normal.
I pulled my legs in and mirrored Auggie’s position.
My hands felt steadier and my eyes no longer felt like they might start flooding tears at the slightest thing.
A soft, warm breeze blew through town, ruffling my hair and the hem of Molly’s tent behind us.
“Why would you guys do that?” I muttered, my eyes on my lap.
Auggie didn’t respond.
“What does it mean?” I asked the question in a new way.
My sitting partner kicked his legs out in front of himself in the grass and leaned back to prop himself up with the palms of his hands.
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“What do you want it to be about?” Auggie finally asked.
I didn’t have an answer for that. I would have preferred that nothing had happened at all. Then I wouldn’t have felt sick to my stomach, wondering what was wrong with the people of Possibly.
“That’s the church service they’ve been doing at The Pueblo as far back as I can remember,” Auggie said. “We gather and throw fruit at her.”
“Why?” I murmured, my eyes darting around nervously.
Auggie let that question hang on the warm summer breeze, flittering about our skulls for a few moments, then he shifted and sighed.
“The woman?” Auggie asked. “That’s God.”
I just stared.
“To me,” Auggie continued, “it means that no matter how awful we are—humans—no matter how much destruction we cause. No matter how mean we are to each other. No matter how far we stray from God’s goodness, she’ll always welcome us back with open arms. She still loves us.
It’s never too late. To, uh, remember who you are. To be your best self.”
Warm air ruffled my hair again and Molly’s tent rustled in the breeze behind us.
Wyatt’s gun went off somewhere near Lovelorn Pass Bridge.
I could hear the metallic “ding” of Earl Dean’s pickaxe on pavement over on Liberty Lane.
Fill Your Heart by Tiny Tim was AMOR’s choice of song for the day.
The grass tickled at the back of my knees and traced like tiny fingers along my bare calves.
My nose picked up the scent of brewing coffee drifting over from Starbuck’s.
Possibly had gone back to what passed for normal in the space of minutes.
All while I had been walking around in a stupor, wondering what the hell was wrong with everyone.
“It was unsettling the first time I went,” Auggie said. “But I was kinda young then, too.”
I reached up and picked at the salty tracks in the corners of my eyes.
“I probably shouldn’t say this—”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m already so weirded out.”
“—but, it’s kind of performance art,” Auggie said. “Just like any other church. The Pueblo just gets to the point faster.”
“The point?” I hissed, though I didn’t mean to use such a harsh tone.
“All of us—humans—we’re not all that great.
” Auggie turned to me with a smile. “But if we really try. If we’d just pause.
We can be loving, caring, kind people. Take a second to consider how you’re behaving—give yourself a moment to take a breath—and you’ll realize you don’t want to be the person you’re being. That’s all it is.”
“Oh, yeah?” I scoffed.
“The woman in the grass in the toga?” Auggie ignored my tone. “No one forces her to be there. She’s kind of like our preacher or pastor. She’s also an artist. She enjoys representing God.”
“So,” I snorted, “God is a woman?”
“Why not?” Auggie shrugged. “God is all things. Some of those things are female. Why can’t God be female? Also, we can’t really expect God to come to The Pueblo each Sunday. They have better work to do.”
“This town is—” I stopped myself.
Auggie didn’t jump in to remind me that I shouldn’t say what I was going to say.
“We’re different,” Auggie said. “No one is going to make you go back to church at The Pueblo. No one will think differently of you one way or the other. But that is our way of having church. We’ll all still love you and accept you here even if you decide it’s too weird for you.”
“Why?” I muttered. “Don’t want to lose a cult member?”
Auggie laughed. “You know we’re not a cult.”
“No.” I sighed and plucked a piece of grass. “I just—it was—it bothered me.”
“Why?”
“Really?” I snorted, though I still avoided his eyes. “Seeing somebody attacked like that? Screamed at? That’s not right, Auggie, it’s—”
My eyes finally connected with his. Auggie was just staring at me, waiting for me to finish the realization I’d come to on my own.
“—it’s not what God would want.”
He produced a gentle smile.
“And you never have to participate if you don’t want to,” he said.
“Why do you?” I demanded, though I tried to keep my voice calm.
“I don’t,” he said. “Not always. Actually, a lot of us don’t throw the fruit at her on other days.”
“Why today?”
“Today I—a lot of us—needed to be reminded what it feels like to be cruel,” Auggie said. “So that we remember it for a very long time.”
“Can’t you just—crap, I don’t know—remember without doing it?” I grumbled, prying more grass out of the ground.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I guess? But since it’s safe to explore our feelings at The Pueblo—and no one really gets hurt—sometimes it helps to throw the fruit.”
A deep sigh escaped my throat as I considered everything Auggie had told me.
Did I feel differently about my friend now that I’d seen him scream and throw rotten fruit at a helpless woman who was supposed to be playing God?
The snarl of his lip and the anger in his eyes as he stood next to me, grabbing fruit maniacally and throwing it at the woman in a toga flashed through my mind.
But the aftermath—the sorrow in his eyes at what he’d done—the urgency with which he hugged her quickly after, washed away the first memory.
“I guess I get it,” I relented. “I wish you had told me first.”
“Well,” Auggie answered, guilt riding his tone, “it doesn’t have quite the same impact if people know about it first. If people know that it’s going to happen and what it means to other people, they tend to not take it seriously. It doesn’t make them think.”
“Yeah. I guess I understand that, too,” I said. “It just…it was violent and scary and…I felt a little betrayed. Like, why wouldn’t you warn me?”
Auggie stared at me.
“I know we’re not, like, friends yet.” I shrugged, heat rising in my cheeks. “But it kind of hurt that you didn’t warn me first.”
“Another lesson, then.”
My head turned to look at Auggie and our eyes connected.
“And you are my friend.” He nudged me in the arm playfully. “And I’m sorry, too. I hope you’ll forgive me eventually.”
“I forgive you.” I nudged him back, finally able to chuckle slightly. “Just…please warn me if we’re ever going to attack someone with fruit again. Okay?”
Auggie laughed warmly. “That’s the worst thing you’ll see in Possibly. I promise. Everything else is pretty peaceful and kind.”
“Okay.”
“Wanna walk around some more?” he asked. “Shake off the rest of your sorrows?”
I laughed at such an odd question.
“Yeah.”
So, the two of us rose from the grass and, without discussing it, walked west. It was then that I noticed I had chosen to fall down in the grass behind Mystic Molly’s, which was right across the street from The Pueblo.
Why had I chosen to discuss what had happened at The Pueblo so close to it?
Normally, I would have gotten far away from something that had disturbed me so deeply before I sat down to have a calm discussion about it.
Another warm summer breeze blew through town, chasing that thought from my mind.