Chapter 1: Expectation

All in all, Levi concluded, this was probably not the best time in history to greet the world as a conspicuous virgin. And probably not the best time to believe, as he’d once been told to believe, that all anyone needed was the Bible and a regular practice of prayer to be successful in life.

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,” the Savior had said. “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

Levi felt that he had the “dove” part down pretty well. He was confident that he’d seldom been overbearing, or hurtful, or reckless as he prepared for the Exaltation that would come when the Lord returned in Glory. Like everyone he knew, he was eager for the Rapture. His rural county was losing population every year, and it seemed like the people who were leaving were being rewarded. But he was sure the Rapture would reset the world to the way it should be: so he had a tendency to feel guilty when he acknowledged any kind of discontent.

You could be happy anywhere. His parents said that. His minister said that, too.

Expectation.

A lot of life was just expectation. You could live a better story, people said, if you were realistic. If you understood the stories that might be possible for you. Not “hoping for the moon”. Not wanting what other people had.

“Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor’s... ‘ He translated that to mean that the modest boundaries of Elsinore would always be enough for him.

Other people had escaped Elsinore. But he just had to assume that the Lord had other things in mind for them. As a matter of fact, he wondered if even Elsinore was too much. That was one of the frequent doubts he had now. That he was too much in the world. That he was thoroughly unprepared: even for small town America.

A few years before—when he’d asked one of his high school teachers, a high profile Catholic—about becoming a monk, she’d just laughed. ‘It’s more than you can handle,’ she said. But now it was “rent week” again, and life in a peaceful monastic house with a bunch of silent brothers at the end of a remote and seldom-traveled road didn’t seem like such a bad idea, to tell the truth.

Speaking of “remote”, Rent Week was a perfect pain in the ass because Gordon—the owner of the apartment complex which Levi had been hired to manage— lived in a pretty remote part of Spain.

Levi had a boss who was 5,000 miles away. And yet the miracle of the Internet meant that Gordon checked his online accounts every day during this critical first week of the month.

All the money, from all the properties, had to be in by the fifth of the month.

Signed, sealed, and delivered.

As had been crisply and impatiently explained to Levi during the job interview, Gordon—and his surfer “friend”, Cassady—needed the money in their accounts by that deadline so they pay, in turn, for the sun-dappled whitewashed cottage on the Costa del Sol, from which they posted all those colorful, carefree, quirky photos on social media.

One thing very much affected another.

People needed to pay up, Gordon reminded him. On time. Every month. He wasn’t running a charity, or a soup kitchen, or low-income housing. Adults could read a calendar—and everyone who understood grown up life should understand grown-up responsibilities. If someone didn’t pay up by the fifth, then Levi needed to get them out.

The cops would help. They were always on the landlord’s side. Levi just needed to call them if there was someone trying to game the system.

Gordon had made it all seem simple during that first conversation. The calendar page would change—people would eagerly drop by with their checks, or with money, in plenty of time to get to the bank—Levi would accumulate it all—and write out a deposit slip. Just a matter of keeping track of who paid what.

In carefree, colorful, sun-dappled Spain, Gordon would never have to interrupt his delicious days with festering concerns about money, and Levi wouldn’t need to have long international confrontations offering up rambling, stammering, and ultimately unconvincing explanations.

As long as everyone got their money in on time.

Which was why Rent Week turned out to be such an ordeal. Even in the Heartland—where people were thought to be upright and responsible—Levi had to chase people down. Knock on doors. Peek in windows. Try to catch people on their way to their cars. Call them at work. Wake them up at night.

Forced to do things that he wouldn’t quite call “Christian”.

And, more than that: forced to see how people lived their lives outside the tidy bubble of his mother’s immaculately kept home and his self-satisfied, self-absorbed, self-congratulating Full Bible church.

So it was Rent Week. His comfort zone being violated almost every day: beginning a couple of days ago, when he’d forced himself to go down to Casey’s place, Apartment #4, because—after six months of seeing her wait until the last minute—he knew she had no intention of coughing up until he was standing right in front of her.

#4 was along the row in the basement. The cheapest places. The grimmest. And only occupied because rentals in Elsinore were so hard to find.

Levi hated them.

Even Gordon called them “dungeons”.

But Casey, high school age but no longer going to school, seemed comfortable making a bad thing even worse. She could have spent a few seconds cleaning the place up—trying to make it brighter—trying to make it more of a home.

But Casey was all video games. All the time.

And today: exactly the same.

He could hear her baby crying from outside the door. But Casey was confident she could outbellow her child, and just yelled “Come in!” after his knock.

He’d gotten the usual strong whiff outside. But no sooner was he inside than he was slammed in the face with the dense smells of spoiled milk, unwashed clothes, fermenting diapers, and crusted food. Once again, the baby red-faced and crying in his crib—all alone in the world, it seemed—while his mother was welded to a bean page chair, watching animated shapes shifting swiftly across the screen.

Enchanted by the screen. Using both hands to wrestle with some sort of black pod.

The baby cried a little louder, while Casey barely looked up.

He’d been doing this job since the winter months. Still, he remained mystified by people who seemed mystified by his visits. As always, he didn’t want to sound insulting. That would hardly be Christian. But the girl reacted as though she had no idea why he was there, or what he might be talking about.

‘What do you mean it’s that time of the month? I had my period a week ago. I keep track now! If you think I’m ever getting knocked up again you’re crazy!’ ‘There’s rent due every month.’ After a slight hesitation, he went on: ‘And I think your baby might need something. How long has he been crying like this?’ ‘Mom’ll be by in a minute. She’s picking him up. She’ll have your money.’ As usual, Levi could see that he was majestically irrelevant to the urgent, essential, existential events on the shifting screen. Casey never took her eyes away from it—and he imagined that conversing with a sleepwalker might not be that much different.

‘When will she have the money? Your mother, I mean. When is she coming by?’ But why bother with questions? he wondered. Casey might be on another planet, but he was on this planet and the baby’s obvious misery provoked him to start picking his way toward the crib. There seemed to be a path through the astonishing chaos in the apartment, now that he looked at it more carefully. The little guy—standing at the rail, his diaper hanging very low—didn’t seem frightened, and it was impossible for Levi to be intimidated by a baby. The third child of nine, he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t handling little ones every day.

But no one in his church would ever allow a baby to know this kind of misery. This little guy’s hair was matted to his head with grease and sweat—tears and snot coated his face—and his voice was raspy from crying. It must have hurt him to keep making all that noise.

Levi stroked the little guy’s head: although that wasn’t going to do much good in the long term. In the short term, just the fact that someone was willing to pay attention to him prompted the baby to move more toward a whimper.

Which was something, to Levi’s surprise, that caused the mother some concern.

‘What the f•©k are you doing over there?’ ‘I’m acting like it’s a baby!’ The wrong tone, thought Levi. The Sin of Impatience. But he still thought he was being pretty tolerant—considering all the other things he could have said to this useless girl who seemed to be blaming him for something.

‘I told you: my mom’s on her way!’ ‘But she’s not his mother. You’re his mother—’ ‘Jesus Christ, you never walk in here without another f•©king sermon! My parents made me have it! Now they can take care of it!’ ‘That doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make you any less his mother—’ ‘F•©k you!’ He’d noticed that Casey always seemed to use this as a closing argument. The end of any discussion. But Levi wanted to make it clear that there wasn’t any particular wit in just dropping an f-bomb.

‘Swearing doesn’t prove anything. And it doesn’t change anything.’ He located a dirty t-shirt on the floor and wiped the baby’s nose.

Picking him up, making some of the clucking noises that babies liked, and bouncing in a gentle way seemed to get the baby to the point where he started to quiet down. He was soaking wet and needed to get out of his urine marinade. But Levi had no idea where to even look for a dry diaper.

Still bouncing, and keeping up the nonsense sounds, Levi decided there was only one method of getting the girl’s attention.

Casey ignored him in a conspicuous way, until he discovered a position where he could see a surge suppressor glowing on the floor. He would have guessed that the thing would be hopelessly buried. But, by some miracle, most of it was visible.

Everything was running from that box, and—when he tapped the main switch with his toe—the whole game system went instantly dark and silent.

Which was when Casey went nuclear. ‘You motherf•©ker! You motherf•©ker!’ She rolled like an angry bear out of her place near the floor and rushed at him: pounding her fist against his free shoulder.

‘None of this is any of your business, motherf•©ker! Bible motherf•©ker!’ She went back to her game console: frantic with grief. ‘Get out! Get out!’ She ran her fingers through her hair.

‘How the f•©k do I get high score now?’ She would have paced up and down in fury—but there was no room for any kind of free movement. ‘Now you’ve ruined the whole day!’ ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ Levi murmured. ‘That’s what Jesus said.’ Casey didn’t take that well, either: ‘Shut the f•©k up! I don’t have anything to do with your Jesus! Shut the f•©k up!’ The girl had no intention of doing anything other than video gaming. So another kind of comical game started up as she tried to get back to the switch that would bring everything she adored back to life. While she tried to dodge around him, Levi did his best to block her way: casually sidestepping here and there.

A little mean. But he had to admit that it was funny.

‘Where do you keep the diapers?’ ‘How the hell should I know?’ ‘Because you live here—’ ‘Shut the f•©k up, and stop getting in my way!’ Later he knew he would regret this childishness, but the sins of Impatience (and maybe Pride) were starting to get some traction in his voice now.