Chapter 5

Saturday Kevin gassed up his bike early – he could remember when "early" had meant noon, but today it was 8 or so in the morning – and took off for Santa Fe. He hadn't been there since he'd been in New Mexico, and wanted to take a look. He hadn't, in fact, been out of Albuquerque since he'd come to town. He'd roamed all over California, and into Arizona and Nevada on occasion, when he was riding with the Skulls, but he'd been a homebody in Albuquerque – strange as that would seem to anyone who'd known him before he came east.

Santa Fe, he found, was an interesting city – the only state capitol, as far as he knew, which had lots of dirt roads. Of course he wasn't an expert on state capitols, or much of anything else outside of how to fix a Harley. But it did seem weird. He clumped around the Plaza in his boots, and found that the city was the oldest state capitol in the United States – founded in 1610 and older even than Boston. The Palace of the Governors was the oldest government building in the country too, it turned out; they'd built it the same year they'd founded the city. He'd known, vaguely, that the Spaniards had been in the southwestern United States long, long ago – somewhere he'd heard of some Spanish explorer crossing the Mojave Desert in 1776 – but he'd never known any of the details. I was always too wasted on booze or drugs, or too hungover, or too caught up in some broad, he realized, to pay any attention to any of that stuff. He'd started on all that when he was in school, and had been that way most of his life. Starting over at 45. He shook his head. Ain't life funny?

At one point he came across some bikers at a table in the shade of a park, and sat with them awhile, but he wasn't really comfortable. He couldn't decide if it was the language, or the fact that they were very obviously high on something, or the way they commented on the passing women as though the women were nothing but objects, but he got restless and sent his Hog rumbling away from there. There's a lot o' things I used to do that I just ain't comfortable doin' no more. Christianity was a learning experience for Kevin Farley – he was learning not only from the Bible, and from what he heard in church, but from his own experiences. There's things that just don't go with God, he decided.

He tooled the Hog along back down the freeway to Albuquerque in the afternoon sun, his leather vest flapping in the wind. His ponytail was a flag behind him, and the noise of the exhaust kept him company on the road. He ran his fingers through his beard, and rested one hand on his leg, letting the other guide the bike. This is a whole lot better than gettin' beat on and kicked – an' a whole lot better than doin' stupid stuff all night an' then dealin' with the hurt head all the next day.

And the sun descended toward the western horizon.

And the next day was Sunday again. Kevin found he was looking forward to it as he'd not looked forward to a Sunday in his life. Findin' the right church makes a difference, he said to himself as he started his bike that morning. It was a crisp December day, and he almost went back upstairs for his leather jacket, which was hanging ready on a hook by the door. But he decided not to: Let's see if I'm still as tough as I was. He nearly decided he wasn't, for once he got moving it was cold enough. He'd known it would be, too, but he hadn't really thought about it in the excitement of getting to church.

He parked his bike, got his Bible out of the saddlebag, and walked toward the door. He hadn't put his hair in a ponytail this morning, and it fell over his shoulders, parting naturally in the middle. He could remember when he'd never worn a ponytail, and no one else had either, but somewhere along the line it had become the fashion for long-haired men, and he'd started doing it without thinking much about it. I like it this way, he thought. Maybe I'll keep on.

Karin was handing out bulletins again, and she smiled when she saw him coming. "Hey, Kevin! Good to see you!"

"Good to be visible, Karin. How're you?"

"I'm just fine – and it's a beautiful day the Lord's given us." She took a bulletin from her stack and handed it to him. "I saw my mother yesterday, and told her about you, and she said that if I wanted to I could visit on Saturday, and talk to you on Sunday. So we've got however much time we need."

"Every week?"

"Yes, if you want. Do you think it's going to take several weeks?"

Kevin scratched his beard. "Karin, I'm so new to all this I don't even know what questions to ask."

"Perhaps you ought to talk to the elders, then."

"Maybe I will one of these times. But I got this feeling that you can help me as good as they can, at least for the beginning stuff."

She smiled again, and he saw the dimples that formed when she did. I like dimples, he thought, surprised at the notion. "Okay, Kevin," she said, "if that's what works for you, then we can do that. Let's meet out here after the service and decide where we'll go."

"Sure thing." He realized that he was blocking traffic, and that Karin was gently moving him along. It was a new sensation, and he found that he liked it. It was so much better than someone growling, Get on that bike and ride, and don't come back either. He'd heard that enough. "Look, I'll go sit down so these other people can get in, but thanks." And he stepped through the door.

The sound man had a tape on, or a CD, and an instrumental version of some hymn or another was coming through the speakers. Kevin was still learning the hymns. Singing along with Boston or AC/DC or Bad Company was something he could do, but the hymns were a whole different matter. The tunes were unfamiliar, and the style was strange, and he didn't know the words. Still, he could see why Christians had been singing them for so long. In his pew Kevin leafed through the hymnal that he took from the rack. Here was one from 1523, one from 1824, and another from 1776. Not every hymn was two or three or four hundred years old, but enough of them were. I guess the good stuff lasts. And he nodded. Just like a Hog – it just keeps rollin'.

Before long the service started, and the first hymn was one he didn't know. As he sang, though, he found he liked the words. "The church's one Foundation/Is Jesus Christ her Lord;/She is his new creation/By water and the Word." That was good stuff. The church rests on Jesus, not on me or any other man. He sang along, thinking on that fact. So if men screw everything up, it don't affect the church, 'cause it don't rest on them. It rests on Jesus. Kevin was learning theology the way the first Protestants did – from the Scriptural messages of the hymns he sang. Martin Luther's preaching converted many, but his hymns taught the new saints their doctrine. And Kevin was learning his doctrine in the same way.

He was learning about prayer too. When one of the men of the church came forward to read a Scripture passage and pray, Kevin noted how the man prayed. There were people who said they were Christians, but whose prayers were as dry as a biker after crossing Death Valley. There were those who prayed almost the same words every time, as though they prayed on automatic pilot, without thinking about their prayers. But this man prayed as though he were talking to God one on one. It was one side of a conversation, not a ritual or a list of demands. It was humble, but not groveling; the man knew he was a servant of God, but he also knew – or so it seemed to Kevin – he knew that the God he served sought intelligent response, not blind submission. Kevin nodded to himself. He was hardly conscious of all he was learning, for he didn't have the knowledge or the vocabulary to articulate it even to himself, but he was hearing what prayer is supposed to be all about.

The sermon that morning was on Galatians 3:7. The preacher, an elder named Jim Garrison, made the point that merely being a member of a church, or saying you're a Christian, doesn't mean you are a Christian. "I could tell you I'm a Christian all day and all night," he said, "but if I'm not of faith it's empty words, meaning nothing. I could act like a Christian all my life, but it would be hypocrisy. I'd be pretending to be a Christian, because only those who are of faith are children of Abraham." Kevin nodded at that too. He understood that much. I was once a child of the devil, and I wasn't a Christian. Now I'm a child of God, and I am a Christian. He didn't entirely understand how that had happened, but he knew it had. I'm "of faith." That means I'm a child of Abraham – a part of God's church.

At the end of the sermon, though the church didn't have an invitation the way most of the churches Kevin visited did – there was no "altar call" for people to come to the front of the auditorium – Garrison offered an invitation that worked well enough. "If you're not of faith now, you can be – if you'll just believe. You can believe right where you are, without moving a muscle. You don't have to stand, you don't have to raise your hand, you don't have to walk down the aisle. Just believe. Just trust Jesus to save you. That's all it takes. 'Look unto me, and be ye saved, ' says the Lord." Kevin had recognized the old fashioned language earlier and knew Garrison was using the King James Version, though that verse was one he didn't know in any translation. "Looking is the easiest thing you can do. You can look even if you can't do anything else. If your legs are paralyzed, you can still look. If your arms and hands don't work, you can still look. If you're mute, and can't speak a word, you can still look. You don't need to do anything – just look to Jesus.