Free Towing Jehovah by James Morrow Page A

fifties and early sixties? I'm thinking in particular of Roger Milton's Post Mortem Dei, Gabriel Vahanian's Culture of the Post-Christian Era, and Martin Buber's Eclipse of God. True, these men had no actual body on their hands (nor do we, as of yet). I sense, however, that if we look beyond our immediate angst, we may find some surprises. In an odd way, this whole business is a ringing vindication of Judeo-Christianity (if I may use that mongrel and oxymoronic term), proof that we've been on to something all these centuries. From a robust theothanatology, I daresay, some surprising spiritual insights may emerge."
    Truth to tell, Thomas did not believe these brave words. Truth to tell, the idea of a robust theothanatology depressed him to the point of paralysis. A dark and violent country lay beyond the Corpus Dei, the old priest felt in his heart—a landfall toward which Ultra Large Crude Carriers sailed only at their peril.
    "Dear Professor Ockham," Di Luca wrote back on July 5, "at the moment we are not interested in Martin Buber or any other atheist egghead. We are interested in Anthony Van Horne. Did the angels pick the right man? Does the crew respect him? Was his decision to dive into Hurricane Beatrice wise or was it rash?"
    In drafting his answer, Thomas addressed Di Luca's concerns as forthrightly as he could. "Our captain knows his ropes, but I sometimes fear his zeal will jeopardize the mission. He's obsessed with the OMNIVAC's deadline. Yesterday we entered a new time zone, and it was only with the greatest reluctance that he ordered the clocks set forward . . ."
    Thomas typed the reply on his portable Smith-Corona—the same antique on which he'd written The Mechanics of Grace. He signed his name with an angel feather dipped in India ink, then carried the letter up to the wheelhouse.
    It was 1700, an hour into the second mate's watch. From the very first, Big Joe Spicer had struck Thomas as the smartest officer aboard the Valparaíso, excluding Van Horne himself. Certainly he was the only officer who brought books to the bridge—real books, not collections of cat cartoons or paperback novels about telekinetic children.
    "Good afternoon, Joe."
    "Hi there, Father." Rotating ninety degrees in his swivel chair, the hulking navigator flashed a copy of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. "Ever read this?"
    "I assign it in Cosmology 412," said Thomas, glancing nervously at the AB on duty, Leo Zook. The day before, he and the Evangelical had engaged in abrief, unsatisfactory argument about Charles Darwin, Zook being against evolution, Thomas pointing out its fundamental plausibility.
    "If I understand this stuff," said Spicer, drumming his knuckles on A Brief History of Time, "God's out of a job."
    "Perhaps," said Thomas.
    "Don't be ridiculous," said Zook.
    "In the Stephen Hawking universe," said Spicer, pivoting toward the Evangelical, "there's nothing for God to do."
    "Then Stephen Hawking is wrong," said Zook.
    "What would you know about it? You ever even heard of the Big Bang?"
    "In the beginning was the Word."
    Thomas couldn't decide whether Zook truly wished to discuss A Brief History of Time or whether he was irritating Spicer merely to relieve his boredom, the ship being on autopilot just then. Declining the bait, the navigator turned back to Thomas. "Celebrating Mass today?"
    "Fifteen hundred hours."
    "I'll be there."
    Good, the priest thought—you, Follingsbee, Sister Miriam, Karl Jaworski, and nobody else. The sparsest parish this side of the prime meridian.
    As Thomas started toward the radio shack, wondering which profited the world more—the rhapsodic atheism of a Hawking or the unshakable faith of a Zook—he nearly collided with Lianne Bliss. Eyes darting, she dashed up to the navigator, swiveling him like a barber aiming a customer at a mirror.
    "Joe, call the boss!"
    "Why?"
    "Call him! SOS!"
    Six minutes later Van Horne was on the bridge, hearing how a Hurricane