[Original Novel] Pariah of the Little People, Part 4

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That’s when I saw him approaching down the hallway. Yet another new person I’d soon be trapped in a room with and forced to explain myself to. But I’m no stranger to psychologists, so I at least had some idea of what to expect and understood the format our discussion would follow. Wasn’t much, but it did calm me down somewhat.

The chubby, mustachioed man who greeted me as he arrived didn’t come across nearly as severe as the principal. Somewhere between forty and fifty if I had to guess, with a blonde combover and a beige sweater vest. “We don’t have to meet in this office if you like. I imagine this doesn’t feel like a safe space by now, am I right?” I nodded silently and he led me to a modestly furnished room on the other end of the hallway.

All sorts of framed pictures lined the walls, one of which was apparently his degree in “Christian mental health counseling”. I puzzled over why it didn’t say psychologist, but nevertheless took the seat he offered me and before long we were ready to begin.

I launched right into a defense of what I’d said, and carried on like that until he stopped me. “You’re not here to justify yourself. There are no wrong answers in this room. I’m not a referee either, my job is really just to get to know you. This is all a big misunderstanding. You’re new and come from a very different world. I’m sure that between us we can find a way to smooth things out and integrate you neatly into the community.”

He said it as if that was ever what I wanted. Maybe a very long time ago, but since then “the community” is exactly what I’ve been trying to escape from. “Now, why don’t you tell me what happened. Remember that I’m on your side.” Now more at ease, I told him my recollection of events. This time slow enough to be intelligible.

He laughed uproariously. I seized up, thinking he’d joined the others in laughing at me. Just the opposite. “I see what the problem is. Wanna know a secret? I don’t believe in a lot of that stuff either.” I was shocked. At last, a voice of reason! Or so it seemed. “I’m a Catholic. If you think you were hazed on your way in you should’ve seen the ribbing I got from the other faculty members.”

He explained that Catholicism is the correct, intelligent, defensible version of Christianity that came first while Protestantism, what everybody else here believes, is a layman’s bastardization of it. “At a Catholic school none of this would ever have occurred. They teach evolution, you see.” Sign me up, I thought. Couldn’t possibly be a step down from this place.

“But wait”, I thought aloud. “If they teach evolution, don’t they also have to teach that Genesis is wrong?” His demeanor subtly changed and he paused to think before answering. “No, of course not. The Bible can never be wrong about anything, because God can’t be wrong. It’s our interpretation of it that’s faulty.”

I recognized this line of reasoning as having much in common with the principal’s admonition that I always interpret the world from the starting point that the Bible is correct. To hear it also from this fellow was troubling.

“For example” he offered, “Genesis says that everything we see today was created in six days. But the word used for day can also mean a work period. So who’s to say how long each of them was?”

I cracked open the Bible on the table next to me and soon found the verse I was looking for. “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

I closed the Bible and looked expectantly at him. “Literal days are light out” I said, “literal nights are dark. Literal days have evenings and mornings. This passage very plainly specifies that the authors meant actual days rather than multi-million year “work periods”.

The softness left his face. For a moment he stared at me as though I’d shit on the rug before his composure returned. “Look, keep in mind how young you are. You lack the finesse and intuition for exegesis that comes with age. Many brilliant theologians have interpreted Genesis in a way that reconciles evolution with Christianity to the satisfaction of millions.”

I shrugged. “I don’t doubt that, as it is their job to render it more defensible and they’ve collectively had nearly two thousand years to do so. It is also no doubt exactly what those millions badly want to hear.”

As the exchange continued, his easygoing manner continued to erode. I worried about what he’d be like by the time we were finished. “It is written that a day to God is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day” he said. I pointed out this yielded a figure of 6,000 years for the creation of the Earth, cosmos and life and asked if he found that estimate credible.

“You’re picking too many nits” he complained. Which translated, near as I could figure, to “You’re not giving this material the same extreme benefit of the doubt that I do”. The next example he introduced was the Garden of Eden narrative.

“Now of course, all of humanity cannot have descended from just two people. It is a genetic impossibility. Did you know Adam means Man?” I didn’t. But I did know that Genesis contains a genealogy which traces all the way back to Adam and Eve as the literal progenitors of humanity.

“Nowhere”, I pointed out, “is the genealogical record interrupted with a note that says “a couple hundred million years passed here. And as I recall, Adam eating of the fruit is how original sin was incurred, which is why we’re all in need of salvation even from birth. Right?” He nodded, looking impatient and disgruntled. “If Adam did not exist and never ate from the fruit” I inquired, “why did Christ need to die on the cross?”

Again he insisted I was taking things out of context or misinterpreting them but no matter how I pressed, he would not specify how. “This is much simpler than you’re making it”. I found that dubious, but heard him out. “If your interpretation were correct, the Bible would be wrong. The Bible cannot be wrong as it is God breathed, it says so in second Timothy 3:16. Therefore, your interpretation is faulty.”

As before, it seemed to me that he was deliberately thinking about the Bible in a way which simply did not allow it to be wrong about anything, no matter what. It could say that the freezing point of water is thirty degrees Fahrenheit and he’d find a way to make it true. Impressive in its own way, reminiscent of what lawyers do for a living.

It also seemed slanted to me that he mounted all of these impassioned, sophisticated defenses of Genesis, but was content to allow the creation stories of other religions to simply be wrong. When I asked him about the Egyptian creation story, or the Norse creation story, he dismissed them as obvious fables. The products of minds with a “comparatively primitive understanding of nature”.

Realizing we could go in circles like this forever if I kept “picking nits” as he put it, I pretended his argument was persuasive. We’d already gone over the allotted hour, and indeed when I exited into the parking lot my visibly bored parents were waiting for me. As I got into the car I noticed three more crates of motor oil in the back, plus one I didn’t recognize. Business must really be booming.

“So, you gonna tell us why they kept you an hour later or do I have to guess?” Always straight to the point with Dad. “You weren’t fighting again, were you?” Mom queried, a hint of motherly concern in her voice making it sound a smidgen less accusatory than it otherwise might’ve.

“No, no fighting. Don’t worry, it’s taken care of.” Of course it wasn’t. But right then, it was enough for me that I’d survived my first day. The prospect of 1,459 more like it ahead of me was too daunting, so I just didn’t think about it. Not a lasting solution but the best I could manage.

More unloading when we got home. I took the opportunity to study the new crate. Goji berry juice? I asked Dad about it and he gave me some long spiel about how Goji berries are a super food with all sorts of remarkable health benefits. “My buddy from work who got me into selling motor oil originally worked for another network marketing firm that sells health foods. I bought some of his leftover stock to try it out.”

The cans were enormous. Twice the height of a soda can and a bit thicker, like some of Dad’s fancy beers. Gave me some ideas of what the little fellows could do with them, before I remembered we were no longer on good terms. My heart sank. They were my refuge from monster world until the fire. Now I have nothing.

I headed for my room. Larger than the last but also mostly bare. A structure becomes a home by being lived in for long enough, doesn’t it? But I don’t handle change well. Everything had been exactly how I wanted in the old house. This one felt strange, sterile and somehow hostile. I expected that’d fade as I settled in more completely.

The desk was littered with various pieces of tiny furniture in the process of being whittled, miniature contraptions of various types I’d prototyped, and all manner of other odds and ends I intended for the little fellows’ benefit. Even if I am no longer in their hearts, they’ll always be in mine. I suppose that’s just how I’m wired.

I carefully swept it all aside to make room for my Bible and laptop. The events of the day still fresh in my mind, I resolved that if there were any explanation for why things turned out as they did, it would be found in this book. I also pulled up a web browser so I could look up the words I didn’t know.

Searching nearly anything Bible related with evolution in the search string yielded a first page canvassed with apologetics websites assuring me that evolution is impossible (“a new age religion based on misguided faith”) while Biblical six day creation is the truly scientific model of origins supported by all available evidence.

I may not have much experience yet, and I’ve made my share of mistakes so far, but I know when somebody’s blowing smoke up my ass. It’s like they wanted to make sure anybody searching those terms only got their side of it. Many of the websites looked to be targeted specifically at kids of various age groups, advertising Biblical cartoons and games.

This greatly complicated my research. Some of the sites were designed to superficially resemble legitimate information resources but if you clicked “about us” or went to the main page it turned out they were yet another ministry focused on combatting evolution. Next I searched “What does the Bible say about boys who like boys”.

I sort of wish I hadn’t. It explained a lot, but left me feeling strung out and gutted. Many of the pages were resources for boys like Tyler who’d been kicked out onto the street by their families. Some were chat lines for suicide prevention.

...But also page after page of justifications for those things, which did indeed look Biblically sound. I counted three condemnations of homosexuality in the New Testament, two in the Old. I could imagine reasons to dismiss any one of them by itself if I tried hard enough, but taken together, they painted a pretty clear picture.

It was sobering to imagine his home life. I returned to reading ahead into Exodus, trying to get a leg up and some insight into how such a school could exist. But all the while, in the back of my mind I’d begun thinking of some way to help Tyler.

If I could convince the other students in my classes that the Bible was wrong about big, important stuff, it could also be wrong where it says that boys can’t like boys. Then they’d leave him alone. Reinvigorated, the path ahead now clear to me, I studied long into the night. I must’ve fallen asleep at my desk because I woke up there, pages stuck to my cheek peeling away as I sat up.

On the drive over I discovered by peeking into my pack lunch that Dad tucked a can of Goji berry juice into it. Sweet, maybe? I had a weird feeling about it. But then, I’ve always been a picky eater. Breakfast was uneventful if you don’t count the constant whispered chant of “monkey boy” as I ate. It sucks that I can’t let them see me eating bananas now, I miss those.

Bible reading was also refreshingly placid. There was little to object to this time and I knew better than to write anything critical now anyway. The same vague discomfort I’d felt when searching for what I could say to the principle when presented with the statement of faith returned again. I went over every sentence I’d written searching for anything which could be construed as a lie.

Nothing today. A small victory! But I wondered how long it could last in a place like this. Near the end of the period, the teacher handed out a surprise quiz based on what we covered yesterday. I quite like tests! I’m good at them, they’re like puzzles where you try to discern the answer most likely intended by the author. It’s usually possible to score well in that way even if you’ve not studied the material.

My smile was short lived. “1. Who created the universe and living things?” Even the first question was a problem. Not much wiggle room either. “2. How long did it take?” I began to sweat and fidget with my pencil. “3. Write a number by each of the days of creation below to indicate which order they took place in.” It just keeps getting worse. What could I possibly write that would satisfy me, but also the teacher?

Then it came to me. “According to the Bible, it was God”. If they didn’t think too hard about how I worded that and why, it should pass. A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders as I found I could answer every question with that prefix and it didn’t trouble me in the least.

“4. True or false: The universe is billions of years old”. This one proved tougher. The Bible doesn’t specify the age of the universe anywhere. Based on my research the night before, somebody once added up the ages of everyone in the genealogy from the latter half of Genesis and arrived at 6,000 years give or take.

I answered that the Bible doesn’t say. Next up, “5. What did animals and people eat in the garden of Eden?” I answered that according to scripture, they were vegetarians. Something about all this still felt wrong. “6. True or false: If an animal has sharp teeth, that must mean it’s a meat eater.” I raised an eyebrow at this one, not understanding the relevance to Genesis.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 5!}