Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 31 - The Holidays: Courting Maureen

This is Episode 31 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version []  from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store or from Amazon.

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Holidays: Courting Maureen

Lana’s scent permeated her entire office. The wall of plaques and paper awards protested her self-awareness. I practiced wording an apology and legal statements of non-committal. “I don’t remember. I can’t comment.” I should’ve called some lawyer. Lana certainly knew my scheme. Why did I still hope to stay? Why did I retain the belief I could ruin Magic Theater? I had hoped my background in marketing would solve the dilemma. I hadn’t foreseen my lack of talent, even to destroy a product instead of selling it. I also understood the origins of youth’s idealism. Youth not only feels it is immortal, but also omnipotent. One day I would realize the constraints of earthly time and talent. But not yet.

Lana entered, and the spicy air exploded with her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You asked for this meeting.”

“How’d you get in?”

“The janitor was cleaning here.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I just sat down.”

“You’re nervous about something, Jonathan. Do you need another vacation day?”

“I wish.”

“Maybe you should’ve.” Her blouse and bra expanded out at the “V,” where she had missed a button. “So, Jonathan, how are the games? You’ve adjusted much better to the rigorous playing schedule.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about at the Gala.”

“Do you still have anxieties about the games?” she asked. “Is that why you were out this week?”

“They’re very exhausting.”

“Jonathan, you should talk about them. Is it the way certain games set up their plots?”

“I can’t say.”

“Jonathan, stop being ridiculous. This access level excuse is simply an evasion for you, a reason to hide within yourself. You obviously find the games disquieting. And that’s not good for Vincula’s future. Tell me about the games you reviewed.”

“I won’t talk about it with you. It’s not important anyway.”

“Jonathan, you’re a friend of Mike Coggins, right?” Her phone rang. She stared at me for a second, then took up the phone. Her demeanor cheered immediately as she talked into the receiver.

I was struck with the realization of my present. In the next few moments, my failure would crush me.

Minutes later, she hung up.

“Where were we? Oh, which games do you want to talk about?”

“I already told you, I can’t.”

“Okay, that’s your choice. Now, I was asking about Mike Coggins, right?” She paused for me.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why his absence rate has been so high lately?”

“No.”

“Are you sure, Jonathan? He has no medical excuses. Is it psychological? Is he in a relationship?”

“No. His girlfriend broke up with him late last summer. He must be over it by now.”

“I’m baffled by it. Three months ago, he was a star performer. Now he averages two or three absences a week. You don’t have any idea?”

“I’m not good friends with him anymore.”

“As a Vincula Human Development representative, I’m concerned for our company’s well being. But I also happen to like Mike and his energy and personality. I’m very concerned.”

“I don’t think I can help you, Lana. Is that all you wanted this morning?”

“For now, Jonathan. By the way, your access...”

“Yes?”

“I don’t expect it to change, unfortunately,” she said. “Scott Rodman didn’t fit very well for the slot. In any of the positions. As you know, you need to go to the right lengths to succeed in key positions.”

“Whatever.”

“Besides, upper management has decided not to invest in a background check for another Phase 3 access, even as a replacement for you. Now, I need to run to my status meeting.”

***

That night, clouds made the darkness arrive even earlier than usual. I drove across the bridge, the same one I had scaled with Winnie, to the beach community. My smart card waited for me. The streets at Mike’s condominium were empty.

These latest developments will certainly persuade Mike to end our ruse. I was sure Lana knew of it, but she toyed with us. That day, Maureen verified that the retinal scanners identified users with complete accuracy. But in my young omnipotence, I still hoped that the data was somehow fouling up. Maybe my retinal code was faulty; maybe Kevin had permanently jumbled mine. Maybe some of Kevin’s bugs still existed. Maybe Lana had been denied permission to see usage reports.

Mike’s condominium, of course, resembled all the others on the street. Was this the right one? Its open windows lit my way from the street. A silhouette stood in one. No, two people were there. I slinked closer. Were they looking at me? They were moving, undulating. I hustled closer, to the nearest tree, and crouched behind it. Mike? In the window, Mike and Lana moved together in the unmistakable dance of sex. His orange and red curtains billowed around them.

***

I thought about my next ad for the remaining two days of the work year. That dauntless faith in my past marketing efforts, insubstantial though they were, still surged in me. I even imagined Mike persuading Lana to absolve us. But I twitched whenever the phone rang or a stranger appeared at my cubicle. I could be served a lawsuit and a termination slip at any time. Nothing, however, could be worse than facing Lana.

Meanwhile, my co-workers dawdled as they waited for the mandatory post-Christmas vacation. Many would meet families in the north. More often, visitors traveled to the peninsula. Bright, chilly skies justified these journeys. For ten days, everyone could forget the ambiguities, mistakes, and bustle of the office, and remember freedom.

“I’m playing golf all week,” Perry Farrell said to someone over the partition wall.

“I’m gonna download Moon Volleyball,” one vacationer said. “I will make it to the finals by New Years’. Watch the ‘net.”

For Maureen and me, the ten days were more substantial. We discovered how our wills could surpass appetite and sociality, which were never as inconsequential.

Concerning appetite, we remained chaste despite tantalizing sleeping arrangements. We continued our experiment of sharing an apartment. We slept separately, but sometimes embraced under warm comforters. Maureen wanted us to remain clothed and apart. Her nearness and delicate kisses more than fulfilled me.

Concerning sociality, we remained outside the former circle of friends, which had drifted away from us. On Friday, the last day of work before the free days, Scott Geary assailed me.

“I heard someone saw you at Mikato’s last night with that short chick.”

“Maureen’s her name. Have you eaten there? Excellent sushi.”

“You went out with that? Why?” Scott frowned.

“What does it matter to you?”

“I hate to see it. What happened with Winnie? You can do much better than the short chick.”

As my anger rose to my temples and flowed to my fists, I turned and left.

“What’s the matter? Hey, send me an e-mail next week. Hey! Has the new Rollerball game...” The voice tapered as I turned a corner.

***

On Christmas Eve, Maureen and I attended Mass at her Church.

“Let’s see what they say,” Maureen said. “We do have a reason for all this ‘X-mas’ festivity, although it’s hard to remember what it is.”

“It’s when Jesus was born.”

“You are up on your religion. But what’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’re supposed to give presents. And buy.”

The gray circular chapel sprouted out of the ground like a misshapen live oak stump. We walked through one of its ten glass doors and descended eight stairs into the roots. Below, an auditorium spread out before us. Dozens of churchgoers circled the altar at the bottom of the pit. Twenty singers and guitarists stood next to it, strumming contemporary versions of carols.

I felt dragged into a hole, into the earth. Whoever designed the building must have known something about our depravity, or the importance of being in touch with nature. I always had pictured churches as cathedrals, as places where one’s mind soars and ascends new mountains.

“Do you like this church?” I asked her before the service started.

“I love it.”

“I mean, the building.”

“Well, not really. It’s the nearest one to me. I prefer the old one in Palm Beach. But old ones are rare in Florida.”

For an hour, we sat, stood, and kneeled there. The ladies next to us chattered about the dresses the other women wore. The man behind us noted how different the priests’ gowns were this year.

During the rituals, the priest recounted some ancient events. They spouted platitudes as rehearsed from their texts. The words were unrelated to any experience I had ever had.

They said many scripted prayers and readings that I didn’t entirely absorb.

In the sermon part, the priest was more understandable.

He told us to be nice to each other.

He told us to treat others as we ourselves wanted to be treated, omitting to instruct how we should want to be treated.

He told us that everyone is saved, so we should be happy.

He told us heaven is a big reunion of all our family and friends.

Then, finally, he and a few others executed some rituals, with what looked like a wafer and a gold cup.

The entire congregation lined up to obtain what appeared to be more wafers, which enraptured some of those who ate them. In fact, the entire ceremony built up to this one absurdity.

All those thoughts hit me, but scattered. During this part of the ritual, I noticed a sharpness in my sight. My eyes focused on the crisp details of the people, the felt banners, the glint of the gold chalices and plates, the Christ on the Cross, the prayers, and Maureen as she walked from the front with a bowed head.

For me, and probably the many infrequent holiday attendees in the audience, much of the Truth went unheard that day.

“Did you get anything out of that, Maureen?” I asked after I told her what I had seen and heard. We intertwined our fingers as we walked to the car.

Maureen smiled. “You’re not supposed to be entertained by it, Jonathan. But sometimes I think like that too. Then I remember that it’s about receiving the Sacrament, and the prayer and sacrifice before it. My mom grew up with the Mass being said in Latin, with the priest facing away from the crowd. Just imagine how much that would emphasize the sacrifice and the Sacrament, instead of the show. But that’s how we participate in what God did for us. Not only that, sometimes I hear something there that touches me.”

“Like what?”

“Like today, when they said that the birth and death and rising of Jesus is a mystery. Today they didn’t explain what they meant by ‘mystery.’ It means we’ll never know exactly how and why Jesus was born, why He came here and died and rose. We know for sure that God did that for each of us, because of how bad we’ve always been. But besides that, it’s a lot like what you said about God, that we can’t possibly know Him fully, but only by analogy. Maybe those who’ve thought about it for two thousand years can help us and get us closer, don’t you think?”

“But it seems like people could hear some of those teachings tonight, then worship whatever makes them feel good. Why not simply believe that John Lennon is a god, or that the only church you need is a Magic Theater. Doesn’t it seem dangerous for everyone to worship their blissful feelings?”

“Yeah, that’s what some people do,” she said. “But maybe if we continue to look for God, we’ll find out that what the priests, and the Church, and the Bible, actually have said are as close to the Truth as we could ever get.”

“Why do we need the Church to get closer to whatever God is.”

“Keep asking questions like that,” she said quickly as she squeezed my hand tighter. “But the billions of people who came before us asked all that

too. I need to know others are seeking the same Truth I am. I need help.

“The Church is not a building or a bunch of priests,” she continued. “It’s the body of people who are on a pilgrimage. You must admit that what the Church teaches us to strive for is very sublime. It’s not merely a harmony with the universe. It’s not merely becoming one with it, or coming back as another creature later. It’s the search for that all-powerful, personal, and human, God, in others and in ourselves, but separate. It’s love for others, using the example of a man who was God, who was tortured and killed, and rose from His tomb.

“I forget and overlook this too much. The Church is the vessel through which God’s Truth is revealed to us. God gave us mysteries, moral codes, and other Truths, just like you found out. And the Bible is the key part of that. It’s the main thing the Church, as a body of knowledge, interprets. When you start your meetings in a week or so, you’ll find all this out.”

***

The next morning, on Christmas Day, we visited the orange grove where Maureen was raised. We drove north along the rural coast for an hour, past antiquated tourist stores and restaurants. We crossed a bridge from the mainland to an island encircled by a river. The grove held on to a corner of the island.

We walked through the rows of round trees, down the paths on which she ran as a child. The branches sagged with oranges now. Her mother’s twin brother was a short, ruddy man. He disliked talking with strangers. He often spoke to Maureen as if she was one. He had difficulty negotiating the orchard because of arthritis and injuries he got in Vietnam. He preferred his wheelchair and his fishing. He preferred the river view and his trailer house near it. The main house had too many stairs. They used it as a warehouse for supplies and Maureen’s furniture.

“I can see you running down these paths. I can see you and the neighbor girls down the road climbing in the biggest trees, laughing, hiding from each other. You must’ve enjoyed growing up here.”

“Yeah. I remember the sunny days best of all. We had this yellow Labrador who used to jump up and grab the oranges and beg us to throw for him. He didn’t fare too well against the pigs that ran around. And life here was never easy, Jonathan. My mother and Uncle Pat were not the best managers. The workers would trick them. We had a freeze once. We weren’t rich people.”

We sloshed up and down the paths until the chill in the air sent us inside the house.

For three days, we helped Uncle Pat fix various parts of the housing structure and accessories. Our main role was to shuttle back and forth to the local hardware store, carry tools and materials to him, and go up ladders where he could not.

One night, Maureen dragged out her cello.

“It’s almost taller than you.”

“Funny. It’s actually a slightly smaller version than the standard.”

She spent about twenty minutes tuning it. But that effort was worth it. She played three songs, one of which caused my eyes to water.

During the days, Maureen spoke to two developers who stopped by. One built single-family, Bahama-style houses on tiny lots. Another built twenty-plus story high-rise condominiums.

A couple of days before New Years’ Eve, we retrieved a sitting chair and a table for my apartment. Back there, we clung to one another through the rest of the vacation, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We laughed at each other’s quirks. We remembered our pasts. Sometimes, we talked about perfect futures. Our days together seemed to satisfy her longing for knowledge of me.

***

Before Winnie returned, on New Year’s Eve, Maureen moved her belongings into Jonathan’s apartment overlooking the parking lot. On New Year’s Day, she performed the annual reflection comparing herself to a year ago. Now she aimed for a handsome but unpredictable, confused, but reflective man, instead of last year’s unattractive but stable ogre. She scolded herself. Did she base her risen self-estimate merely on the exterior, or interior, quality of the man who desired her?

The past year taught that she depended on another’s embrace. She missed Winnie, but Jonathan touched her with a rigidity and strength that comforted her beyond Winnie’s care. They touched for too long, it seemed. Her priest had cautioned her about the mortal dangers of these near occasions of sin, and he was right. She brushed away Jonathan’s hands often, but he always conceded. They slept in separate rooms, and their clothes separated them like walls. They could press close to the other’s back, but then their lips and gazes could not meet. When they faced one another, the distance loomed large.

This need to span the chasm developed into her passion in the next six weeks. Once she accidentally caught a glimpse of him, in a mirror, coming out of the shower. This almost broke her. The male body had always alarmed her, especially certain parts. But his somehow had made her crave, for the pleasure, and for what he could cause. Still, she would be disobeying her Savior now, and she remembered the dead she helped lift.

But her heart often raced in panic: she might lose him. Perhaps her linear body would not please him as Winnie’s roundness or Lana’s perfection had. Or maybe he now held close to her because of that one potential act. When she fulfilled it, whether worse or better than his previous bedmates, would he flee to enhanced points of beauty, even after Marriage?

***

The start of the new year careened by me.

Maureen occasionally lunched with Gina and Lisa. But she never saw Winnie, except once across a crowded mall. Winnie’s center must have become completely unbalanced when she learned of Maureen’s pairing with me.

At work in the glass tower, I avoided Scott and Scott. I rarely saw Mike. All our friends gained impressive stature on the newly-released set of games and left Maureen and me far behind.

I learned about the Catholic Church in the weekly class at the Palm Beach parish, which Maureen suggested; she felt I needed their more old-fashioned approach, although I had a longer drive. In between, I read old books, and considered, and knew. I found out about how the things I had learned since June fit, actually fit, within a history and a structure that hundreds of holy men and women had written about, defended, and revealed. Still, questions amassed and spilled over to Maureen.

“I told the trainers… is that what you call them? Anyway, I told them what I thought about God, perfection, knowing by analogy, and about His creating us with an unchanging design. One of them said this is like what Aquinas wrote about, 800 years ago.”

“Really?”

“There’s so much to learn. Like how are we supposed to think about this and feel it all the time? There’s so much distracting us, so many pointless thoughts running around in us. So many worries. About being embarrassed, losing face, being ignored. About all the little tasks to remember to do. About dying, and missing so much life. About failing someone or making them mad. Not to mention missing out on good food or…”

“Good sex, Jonathan?”

“Well, you know what I mean. Leering at others’ bodies is basically fear you won’t get enough of… whatever. And then there’s fear that we’re actually alone, no God. And the fear of hell. Or not fearing hell enough.”

“Why would we fear hell? Aren’t we guaranteed heaven?”

“Maybe not. Don’t we need to fully accept God first? And does ‘accept’ mean a lot more than just declaring allegiance? That’s what the ancient saints said.”

“These are all good questions,” Maureen said. “You’re trying so hard to digest it all. I wish I could help. But just by asking those questions, you’re helping me.”

They taught us about the concept and blessing of Penance. I wrote down everything I thought I needed to confess to God, and roughly how many times they happened: denying this religion for so many years, cursing, failing to ever go to any church service, disrespecting my parents, drinking too much alcohol, disregarding the poor when they approached me, and talking about people without their knowledge. And of course, I noted the numerous sexual sins: lusting, looking at magazines, especially performing the acts themselves, and leading girls into sin, notably what happened with Meredith.

Next week: Episode 32 - The Medical Library Research Part One: Harvesting cells

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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