Crossroads

by Jonathan Franzen

The sky broken by the bare oaks and elms of New Prospect was full of moist promise, a pair of frontal systems grayly colluding to deliver a white Christmas,

The pulsing nowness of it all, body and soul in sync, his skin registering each degree of falling temperature as he approached the third floor of the Crappier Parsonage, his nose the mustiness of the cold air flowing down toward the door at the bottom of the stairs, which he’d left open in case his mother came home unexpectedly; his ears the assurance that she hadn’t, his retinas the slightly less gloomy December light in windows nearer to the sky, less shaded by trees, his soul the almost déjà vu familiarity of climbing these stairs alone.

The idea was that God was to be found in relationships, not in liturgy and ritual, and that the way to worship Him and approach Him was to emulate Christ in his relationships with his disciples, by exercising honesty, confrontation, and unconditional love.

Her cumulus of hair reeked of pot smoked in chill autumn air, which had hardened the nipples clearly visible through the crepe of her blouse, beneath her unzipped biker jacket.

People who weren’t seriously Catholic didn’t understand that Satan wasn’t a charmingly literate tempter, or a funny red-faced devil with a pitchfork. Satan was pain without limit, annihilation of the mind.