Chapter Six

Martin Grant hadn’t been avoiding Mike’s calls. He had fully intended to call back once he had the energy. It couldn’t have been an emergency anyway; Mike had only called a couple times and left a single voicemail. Had Martin listened to it, he might have responded that he wasn’t angry about their last tryst. They had met after a long break, fucked, fought, made up, and went home alone. It always went like that. Who could be angry anymore?

What was different this time was that Mike was ringing him up so soon afterward. Of course Martin wanted to see him, but he wasn’t ready yet for the drama that always accompanied a night with Michael Heaney. What if it was an emergency, though? The unanswered voicemail hung over Martin all week.

The guilt won out on Thursday night and Martin picked up the phone. Prepared to offer all the comfort and support he was capable of, he was taken off guard by how happy Mike sounded. 

He wouldn’t explain anything except in person. They made plans to meet at their normal coffee shop the next day before Mike clicked off like he had a million things to do. Martin was more concerned than ever. When had Mike ever called when he wasn’t in the depths of some terrible funk?

Martin’s unease multiplied when Mike hugged him as he came through the door the next morning and sat across the table, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“So, you remember that kid I told you about who ran away from home to join the Star Touched group?” Mike began.

“Yeah.... Did you bring him home? Is that why you’re so effervescent?”

“Kind of. So, I track them down, and they agree to let me come to their ranch to talk about the kid. And at first it’s really weird.”

“I mean, that makes sense, but weird how?”

“Well, they ... They’re like hippies. Their boss is this slimy little potato guy in a white robe and sunglasses. I didn’t like him.”

“M-hmm.”

“So they’re showing me around the place, and one of my parishioners is there. Her name’s Agnes, and she’s had cancer for a long time. So close to death I had actually given her last rites. But I meet her at this place and she’s better! Sitting up in bed. Talking. She even seemed happy.”

“Okay, so they got her hopped up on painkillers or something.”

“There’s no way. She was doing backflips.”

“Backflips!?”

“Literal backflips, a woman in her eighties. The last time I saw her, she couldn’t get out of bed!”

“It can’t be the same person.”

“I know Agnes Ross, Martin. She’s been coming to my church since before I was the priest there. And the little potato guy? Next time I see him, he’s shirtless and looks like young Marlon Brando!” 

“Alright, alright! They brainwashed you! That’s what I was worried about.”

“I’m telling you what I’ve seen with my own eyes!”

“Well, all I see is that my gloomy ol’ bible buddy visits some cult’s ‘ranch’ and comes back as Mr. Positivity. It’s weird, Mike.”

“I’m not saying it’s not weird but, Martin, have you ever known me to be gullible before?”

“Tacky Jesus stuff aside?”

“God. Well, you’re going to think I’m insane if I tell you what happened next.” Mike paused. “I saw a flying saucer.”

Martin lapsed into silence. Mike leaned forward, his turn to be concerned.

“What?”

“I saw it, too. A lot of people did.”

“Well, there you go!”

“I don’t know it was a flying saucer! I saw a weird purple light in the sky. It was eerie though, I have to admit.”

“I must have been closer to it than you. If it was a car, I could have read the license plate.”

“So, what? You saw a UFO and an old lady doing backflips and you’re joining up with those guys now?”

“Well.” He vacillated. “Kind of.”

Martin was about to jump in with his opinion, but Mike cut him off.

“I want you to come with me next week. You know, as a kind of check to make sure I’m not being fooled somehow.”

“You know I’m not religious.”

“It’s not a religion. They even told me to go back to my church!”

“Pfffft.” Martin took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Mike smiled patiently and watched his friend’s thoughts march nakedly across his face. He already knew what Martin’s answer would be.

“I feel like I should say no, but I would like to see it for myself. I wouldn’t mind being able to do backflips in my eighties either.”

“Thanks, Martin. You’ll see, though. The backflips are only part of it. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m involved in something that matters. I finally feel like I’m back on the right track.” 

*

It had been a busy day. Ecstatic as they were, Samyaza’s followers had questions. It wouldn’t have done to disappear and leave them to come up with answers of their own. Now that he had managed to placate everyone who needed it, there was no time to waste. Samyaza had his own questions.

The sun was setting as he and Sister Love slipped out of the compound. They walked a few hundred yards until the trailers and buildings were made indistinct by the distance and low light. It was lucky that they had been forced to wait until dark. The air had already begun to vibrate. The hairs on the back of Samyaza’s neck stood at right angles.

He took a breath and nodded to Sister Love. She returned it, and they started forward again. In a few steps, they were sweating with the effort. A few more and they were straining, unable to put another foot in front of the other.

“Okay, stop!” commanded Samyaza. The pair stumbled backward, half hopping, as if repelled by the ocean’s tide. 

They lay on the desert floor panting, regaining their strength. When Samyaza judged Sister Love sufficiently rested, he nodded to her again. “Alright, give it a try.”

 She rose, walked back a dozen yards, and lowered into a runner’s crouch. She sprang forward, yelling, covering the distance in a fraction of a fraction of a second. As she passed Samyaza, she hurled herself forward with her full strength. The air exploded like a flashbulb.

Sister Love was stopped dead only a few feet farther than she had made it previously, her body at an acute angle, her toes dug into the desert floor. Her muscles quivered and bulged unnaturally as the air popped and crackled. Sister Love’s deep grunt grew into a high-pitched scream.

She managed to push forward another inch before crumpling as if felled by hurricane force winds. Her unconscious body rolled grotesquely backward. It came to a stop at Samyaza’s feet. He sighed and knelt to attend to her.

Sister Love wasn’t badly hurt. Her eyes flittered open after a few pats on the cheek. She looked up at Samyaza like a confused child. It irritated him. He scowled, snorted, and looked away.

“It’s for the best. We’ll have to start operating differently, though.”

*

“And I told you, I don’t want to hear it!”

Luis Cielo raged behind the wheel of his BMW SUV. He could see his son’s small mouth and coquettish eyes in the rearview mirror. Damn it. Even when he was dressed right, that boy still looked like a sissy.

“Why don’t you turn on the radio, Dad!? Everyone but you says it was a UFO.”

Maria Cielo sat nervously in the passenger’s seat. The other children bickered and played next to Alejandro, in their own private world.

Luis attempted to smooth over his irritation with the professorial demeanor that was second nature to him. “That’s never a reason to believe in anything. Everyone but me might be stupid.”

“That’s what you think about everyone anyway,” Alejandro grumbled.

“Can we stop fighting?” Maria chimed in. “We’re almost at church. I was so embarrassed last week.”

Silence reigned for nearly a full minute, but Luis Cielo was never one to let anyone else have the last word. He softened his voice. “Okay, Alejandro. There was a weird light in the sky last night. There’s a million things it could be. A satellite, a star, a cloud that caught a reflection. People just want it to be a spaceship because they like the idea of spaceships being real. Uninvestigated ignorance.”

“You’re always going on about uninvestigated ignorance, but you won’t even come to Home Ranch to hear what The Prophet has to say.”

“The Prophet? Ha! Even if it was a UFO, even if the little green man came out of it and shook my hand, I’d still think your ‘Prophet’ was a big ol’ dummy.”

“We’re here,” Maria said icily.

The Cielos piled out of their car.

Alejandro muttered under his breath: “You fuckers are in for a big surprise.”

No one else in the family heard him. They weren’t paying attention. 

*

It was a good turn out by the standards of Father Mike’s parish. Chalk it up to a slow weekend for sports. A pleasant hum of chitchat filled the church while everyone waited for mass to begin.

Ancient loudspeakers crackled alive with a female deacon’s voice. “Our opening hymn will be ‘Gather Us In,’ number 273 in your hymnals.” Piano melody cascaded from the balcony at the back of the church. Underneath it, ushers pulled open the wooden double doors that led outside. The procession entered.

The preteen altar servers in their flowing white robes were as solemn as their chubby, freckled faces would allow. The girl in the lead held aloft an ornamented golden cross on a pole. Father Mike towered above them in the center. His embroidered green vestments suited his stern face, giving him a medieval dignity. He sang in a loud, clear voice as the procession advanced toward the sanctuary.

“Here in this place new light is streaming,

Now is the darkness vanished away.

See in this space our fears and our dreamings ...”

His face remained pointed toward the altar as ceremony demanded, but his eyes swept his parishioners with a new curiosity. Tired parents mumbling through the opening hymn, the exhaustion of their work week evident on their faces, but still here to give thanks. Elderly couples leaning on each other to stand, singing as loudly as their aged voices would allow. Children. Bored but absorbing this place and its messages in ways they couldn’t comprehend.

“Gather us in, the lost and forsaken,

Gather us in, the blind and the lame ...”

Father Mike passed the Cielo family near the front of the church. Father and son looked surly as ever. Maria forced a smile and nodded.

“Call to us now and we shall awaken,

We shall arise at the sound of our name.”

The piano played the song’s coda and fell silent as Father Mike ascended to the pulpit.

“Good morning!” he bellowed.

“Good morning, Father,” they mumbled back.

He frowned and looked down at the typed notes for his sermon—a toothless piece about the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus that he recycled at least once a year. He glanced back at his flock. No wonder there were so few of them. He discreetly ripped the page out of his binder, crumpled it up, and began to ad lib.

“Last week I met a very special group of people ...”

*

Even the surprise higher attendance today didn’t account for the crowd that stuck around after mass to talk to Father Mike on the steps.

“I can’t say I normally remember homilies but that one’s going to stick with me,” admitted a woman whose children attended the parish’s grade school.

“Good! But don’t just remember, act on it!”

An elderly man with a cane broke in. “Were you talking about those star people you see around town? I can’t say I think much of them when I see them on the street.”

“I had my own bigoted opinion, too. Then I went there and saw everything they’re doing. So refreshing to see people who care more about helping others than how they appear to the rest of the world.”

Even a few teenagers dragged to mass by their parents were curious. “Don’t they believe in like, aliens and stuff?” questioned a girl. “I’m not into that kind of thing, but the UFO last week was cra-zy!” 

“I—” Father Mike’s answer was cut short when he noticed Luis Cielo striding angrily toward him. Maria trailed behind, pleading.

“Stay back with the kids, Maria! I need to have a talk with this priest.”

Father Mike addressed the crowd. “Excuse me. When you speak with substance, you’re bound to offend someone.”

He peeled off from the knot of people and moved to intercept Dr. Cielo in the church’s vestibule. As curious as some in the crowd were, none were bold enough to get involved in a fight between a community parent and their priest. Some melted away to observe from a safe distance, but most had the decorum to head back to their cars. Parish gossip would fill in any details they missed.

“So? You too, Father?”

“Me too, what?”

“Don’t play games with me. I’ve always known Christianity was superstitious horseshit, but at least there was a tradition. Dignity!”

“And what does dignity have to do with human compassion? Or truth? Open your eyes. That sermon was largely for you.”

“And what’s for you, Father?” His voice dropped to a menacing whisper. “When you went to that nut house out in the desert, did you see an easier way to get to little boys than you already have here? That’s what you righteous scumbags like, isn’t it?”

Father Mike’s voice fell to an even lower register than Dr. Cielo’s, but there was gravel in it. His eyebrows knitted above blazing eyes. “I have been here for twenty years. In all that time, no one has ever had reason to accuse me of anything. While you! So afraid of anyone that threatens your dignity you’ll beat whoever does with the biggest, most obvious stick. Doesn’t matter if it’s a priest or your own son.” 

Dr. Cielo was astonished to be resisted so strongly by a man he had unconsciously classified as a weakling. He tore himself away.

“Come on, Maria! We’re never coming back here.” He stormed out of the church.

Maria Cielo followed, clutching her two younger children. She was obviously mortified.

“I’m sorry, Father. He—”

“It’ll be okay, Maria. Go home.”

Alex brought up the rear, hands in his pockets, walking with an exaggerated, mocking gait. 

“Well, that fuckin’ worked, didn’t it!”

Father Mike watched Dr. Cielo stomp to his car through the open door. He answered without turning his head. “You can’t convince a man like that by trying to convince him. You only build up his defenses more.”

“Then thanks for building them higher for me, dipshit.” Alex scoffed as he loped out of the building. 

The interaction with Alex’s father had angered Father Mike, but his mind was untroubled. Even the boy’s mockery didn’t bother him now that he knew the right path forward. Everyone would come around to his way of seeing things in time.