Let me tell you about Sharon. This chick is hot—flaming red hair, close cropped on the sides and styled on top, a couple of really cool piercings, and you can see the edges of tats next to the top button on her blouse. And her face is, like, gorgeous.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” She moved around the desk, put a hand in the middle of my back, and guided me toward a neon sign reading “Tattered Pages,” where she ordered a cup of black coffee for herself and a hazelnut latte for me. “It’s not a very big group, but every member is a lover of the tome, as I like to say. And it’s not just a reader’s club. We also write.”
“Works for me.”
“Good. Tell me about yourself.”
“Do I have to?”
She laughed. “No. I can figure it out.”
“How are you gonna do that?” I don’t know why I was feeling confrontational; that part of me rises up on its own, whenever.
“By the books you like,” she said. “And the books you don’t.”
Of course.
“One rule,” she said. “What’s said in book club, stays in book club. Cool?”
“Like, no rats. That’s all?”
“Unless there’s anything you want to know.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“Are there boys?”
“In the club? Of course.”
“How do you know they’re not in there just because . . . you know, how you look.”
“I couldn’t care less why they’re there, as long as they read, write, and participate.”
“But . . .”
Her lips pursed and she leaned forward. “I’m married with two kids, young lady—kids I would murder Jesus for—with a husband who plays in a band and rocks my world and is twice as hot as any guy you’ll meet before you’re twenty-five. What kind of question was that?”
“I was kind of messing with you.”
“Well, you need to get better at it if you want to mess with me.” She got up and walked behind the counter for a refill. “So you like books.”
“I do. A lot.”
“What do you like about them?”
“I don’t know . . . you know . . . they tell the truth. At least the characters do.”
“Want to know what got me interested in being a librarian?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “The Color Purple.”
“You became a librarian because of a movie?”
She laughs. “It was a book first. One you might really like.”
“What did you like about it?”
“Did you watch the movie?”
“On cable.”
“Then you know the general story. I guess I read it at the right time. It didn’t matter that Celie was an uneducated black girl living in the south in the nineteen-thirties with a life completely different from mine. It mattered that she stood up. She took off her mask and stood up.” She frowned at me, like she was trying to decide something. Then, “I was a foster kid, and I grew up scared, trying to be good just so I could stay.”
“You were a foster kid?”
She nodded. “So are you, I’ll bet,” but again, didn’t wait for an answer. “I felt so good after reading that book, I wanted to stand up, too, and write stories just like it. Trouble was, I couldn’t write for shit, if you’ll pardon the expression, so the next best thing was to find more books like it, read them, and hand them out.”
“How’d you know I’m a foster kid?”
“Same way you recognize other kids like you.”
So I’ve been part of our group for three years, and when I think of all the things I have going for me, it would be one of the last I’d be willing to give up. It’s like, the world you have is the world you have, but books are the secret tunnel to the world you want.
Today Sharon asks us to introduce ourselves, because we have a new member, a tall, sandy-haired kid who doesn’t seem to blink, but he also doesn’t look right at anybody.
“Folks,” she says, “this is Seth. Seth assures me he is a voracious reader who will be instantly willing and capable to add to our discussions. Did I get that right, Seth?”
“Most certainly,” Seth says. His voice kind of booms.
We start clockwise around the circle giving just our names and the titles of one or two of our favorite books. Sharon knows anyone who stays any amount of time will come to their own conclusions about each of us and doesn’t like to waste time on what kind of car or animal we’d be.
Judging from his shifting glances Seth will remember Maddy for her outstanding cleavage and the fact that she’s sitting next to him and smells really good.
Sharon says, “Who wants to bring Seth up-to-date?”
Layton says, “I’ll do it.”
Maddy says, “Speak up, Lay. Make your voice like your pecs.”
Blood rushes into Layton’s face like he was flipped on his head. Maddy messes with him all the time. If he does make his voice like his pecs, it will be loud and clear. Layton is a dedicated non-steroid body-builder who’s almost as shy as he is built, and though he never comes in show-offy tank tops, almost any T-shirt fits him like a coat of paint. “We’re discovering heroes,” he says. “For a while it looked like we’d never actually start reading another book because no one could agree on what that was, but then Sharon said we were all right—as in correct—and gave us a list of a hundred books to find them in.”
“Which were just suggestions,” Maddy says. “We can choose from that list or any book in any bookstore that can get us enough copies.”
“So,” Seth says, “any book.”
Sharon nods. “Fiction, nonfiction, biography, science, history, you choose. We’ve fallen headlong into print looking for heroes.” She hands Seth a sheet of her hundred picks. “The idea being, if we define them in print we might also find them in real life.”
“And decide if we have any personal characteristics that could define us as heroes,” Layton says.
Seth glances quickly at the list and sets it aside. “I think you will all ascertain in very short order that I am not a hero.”
“We’ll see,” Sharon says, then looks to the rest of us. “If I remember correctly, and I always do, the final statement last week was, ‘There are no heroes. Only heroic acts.’ Did I get that right, Oscar?”
Oscar says, in his captivating accent, “Word for brilliant word.”
“Go.”
Oscar nods. “Like I said last time, choose any hero you wish, give me a little time, and I’ll find something in his or her history that is definitely not heroic.” Oscar came here from Cape Town, South Africa, several years ago, and always brings a different slant on any conversation. He was born “in the middle” of a black South African mother and a Dutch father, which, if you live in South Africa, creates an interesting life for you.
Mark says, “What about Jesus?” Very little of what we discuss doesn’t go back through Nazareth for Mark.
“Dude,” Oscar says, “I’m talking about somebody real.”
“Nobody more real than Jesus,” Mark says. Mark’s what you might call an enigma—dresses head to foot in camo—head to knees in the summer—and holds tight to his Christian beliefs, though he never pushes them on you like some people. He also acts on them.
“Pinocchio is more real than Jesus,” Oscar says back. “But let’s remove Jesus and Muhammed and Buddha and Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi from the equation for now. If you consider so-called heroes we can trace, whether they’re famous like Martin Luther King, Junior, or Nelson Mandela or Michael Jordan or the American Sniper guy or simply some lady who leaped in front of a car to snatch a rolling baby buggy from its path, they all may have performed heroic acts, but that’s it. We create heroes because we don’t like what human beings are really like.”
Mark says, “Man, you are a hard-ass in the truest sense.” He says it with humor and a certain admiration.
“That’s because it’s dangerous to have heroes,” Oscar says.
Sharon says, “Because . . .”
“Because they aren’t the truth. They get you thinking there’s something wrong with you because if you’re honest, you know you can never be like them.”
Sharon nods. “Anyone else?”
Leah, my good friend, Hoopfest mate, and crazy-fast black chick (her term) from the A swim team, who joined about the same time I did, says, “I gotta go with Oscar. Last summer I’m lifeguarding at Witter pool and just as we’re switching guard stations, two kids come running up from the river hollering that somebody’s drowning. It’s wicked hot and I’ve been listening to kids behind me jumping off the Mission Street bridge all afternoon. Anyway, I run across the park lawn, get over the fence and down to the edge where I see a kid trying to help another kid about fifteen yards from shore, but he’s just making it worse. So I swim out, push the helper kid away, and pull the other one out. Head of the park department hears about it, calls the newspaper and a couple of TV stations, and next thing I’m a hero.”
“Well, shoot,” Mark says, “you were.”
Leah scoffs. “That was easier for me than you carrying a sack of groceries across the street for an old lady, which is nice but not heroic. The TV and newspaper reporters were bending over backward to make me look like a way better person than I am. And braver. That kid couldn’t have pulled me underwater with a rope tied to a sack of barbells. And I sure wasn’t about to tell the reporters some of the shit I’ve done while they were busting their asses to make this a story about how not all teenagers threaten humanity.” She laughs. “Especially African-American teenagers.
Sharon says, “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying it wasn’t even a heroic act and they made me a hero. People want things black or white—no pun—so that’s how they wrap them.”
“My point,” Oscar says, “only things black and white are zebras and American referees.”
Layton says, “American referees are zebras. We call ’em that.”
“Zebras are striped horses,” Oscar says. “Remember where I’m from.”
Sharon closes her eyes. “Focus, people.”
“I’ve been in church every Sunday and Wednesday night since, like, before I can remember,” Mark says. “That’s where all my heroes come from, starting with Jesus.” He nods toward Oscar. “Sorry man, I just couldn’t leave Him in with Yoda and Obi-Wan.”
“The hero Jesus,” Leah says.
Mark’s eyebrows go up. “I guess. That WWJD thing . . . In my church you actually ask yourself that. And isn’t that what a hero is—somebody you would follow?”
Leah laughs. “You’d get a better answer if you asked what I would do.”
“I can end this foolishness.” All eyes on Seth. His hand is raised, and he sits erect as a soldier. This kid would be out of place among out-of-place kids.
I say, “That would be deeply appreciated.”
“I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice which I choose to ignore because I could be mistaken this early in our relationship,” he says. “I should warn you I lack social skills. At least that’s what I’m told, so if I offend you, don’t be offended.”
I say, “If you knew my family, you’d know social skills are lost on me.”
“Be that as it may,” he says, turning his head to include the rest of the group, “while many of you seem to have buried yourselves in make-believe—my favored terminology for fictitious tales—I have long been on a quest for real information, much of which I’ve found among the brain scientists.”
Oscar whispers, “Uh-oh.”
“Cynical facial expressions do not faze me, Oscar. As I was saying . . . it would seem that the reason for the confusion experienced within your group—our group now that you’ve included me—likely comes from immaturity, and before you take issue, I mean that in the scientific sense.”
Sharon says, “We don’t take issue. Go on.”
“The part of your brains that could logically put this all together,” Seth says, “is simply not developed yet. Nor should it be. If my calculations are correct, the average age in this room, absent, of course, that of our leader,” and he nods toward Sharon, “is about sixteen years, if my eyeballing of your ages were to prove accurate. Had I your birthdates I’d be more precise. At any rate, the frontal lobe, the rational portion of the brain, generally reaches full development around age twenty-three or twenty-four. Approximate numbers, but that means your brains are seven to eight years from making sense of some very obvious truths, so it’s easy for you to create your heroes from emotion.” He turns his palms up.
Leah says. “What about your brain, Seth?”
“There are a number of studies focused on brains like mine, and though the jury is still out, they may be quite advanced.” He smiles slightly. “Of course there’s no real jury.”
“So while your brain is awaiting a verdict,” Maddy says, “the jury is in on ours. What’s the verdict?”
“Stupidity, pretty much,” Seth says.
I laugh. “And you say you don’t have social skills.”
Seth ignores me. “It’s not your fault, really, and it will get better. But until then, you are pretty much relegated to relying on wishes to take the lead in your decision-making. That’s why the confusion. What is right only seems like maybe it is, but what you want to be right seems like it really is. That’s why you’re obsessed with this hero thing, and why you can’t agree on it. Understand?”
“Thank you, Seth,” Sharon says.
“Don’t thank me; I’m merely the messenger. Thank the neuroscientists, whose books are out there for all of you to read. When you get tired of make-believe, that is.”
“Apart from the unusual delivery,” Sharon says as she backs Seth off with a look, “. . . thoughts?”
The unusual delivery doesn’t bother me a bit. I come from roots where almost any delivery doesn’t get delivered. “Is he right?”
“About what?” Sharon says.
“That we make things up to fit what we want them to be because we’re . . . stupid?”
Mark sits forward, seemingly disturbed. “That’s not exactly what he said. My takeaway is that we believe what we’re told until there’s reason not to, and the reasoning comes later. So, like, we buy into heroes someone else is selling.”
Oscar shrugs, “Which makes my case. No heroes, just heroic acts. That must be disturbing to you, Mark.”
Mark is pulling on the back of his hair. “C’mon man. Even if I let you put Jesus in the Yoda box, there’s Gandhi? Einstein? Eisenhower? Abraham Lincoln?”
Leah says, “Serena Williams? Amelia Earhart? Jerrie Mock? Marilyn vos Savant?” She nods toward Mark. “Just balancing out the testosterone there, Camo Boy.”
“Pray tell,” says Oscar. “Who are Jerrie Mock and Marilyn vos Savant?
“Jerrie Mock,” Leah says, “is the first woman to fly solo around the world, and Marilyn vos Savant has the highest-recorded IQ, like, ever.”
Oscar says. “We’re slipping from hero to famous, and still, my theory holds. Gandhi was a racist, and Eisenhower cheated on his wife. Don’t even know where to start on Lincoln. My lord, do I know more about your own folklore than you? Look, if you have to have heroes, simply choose anyone who’s done more good than harm.”
Seth’s hand shoots up again. “Allow me to complicate things further. Imagine if you will, it’s the summer of eighteen ninety-four in Leonding, Austria. You’re twenty-five years old—therefore your frontal lobe is completely developed—and you’re walking past a house fully engaged in flames. You hear the cries of a five-year-old boy coming from inside; you pull your shirt up over your face, rush in, and drag him out at great risk to life and limb. Are you a hero?”
“Hell yeah,” Mark says. “They should have a parade for me.”
I’m thinking: 1894, Leonding, Austria? That’s pretty specific.
“And well they might,” Seth says. “You just saved a very young Adolf Hitler from the agony of going up in flames.” r />
Mark deflates. “Very funny. Besides, that question was hypothetical.”
“Smart people answer hypothetical questions with great frequency,” Seth says. “It’s an indicator of imagination, which Albert Einstein, whom you just cited as a hero, deemed quite essential to intelligence. Now add this to the mix, since you’ve proven yourself intelligent in the eyes of Albert Einstein. Imagine witnesses to this inferno begging you to save the boy, but you’re magically blessed with foresight and therefore know how Baby Adolf will turn out. Would you let the future dictator roast and save the lives of six million Jews along with countless other various and sundry world citizens, at the risk of those witnesses forever damning you as a coward, or would you dash in and pull him out so you could have your parade?”
The trace of a smile crosses Mark’s face. “Man, who are you?”
“I’ll assume that question is rhetorical,” Seth says. “Mine, on the other hand, is not. Have you an answer?”
Mark doesn’t have an answer, neither does anyone else. You’re either letting a child roast or killing six million Jews.
But Seth is on a roll. “Allow me to bring it closer to your sphere of influence,” he says, and Mark breathes in. You don’t want to judge Mark from appearance. All that camo stuff reminds me of Duck Dynasty dildos and elephant killers and other people who think if God didn’t want us to shoot things he wouldn’t have given us a trigger finger. But Mark must just like green and brown, because he always listens. “Bring it, Seth.”
“My pleasure,” Seth says. “Take the Nikos Kazantzakis book, The Last Temptation of Christ.”
“I haven’t read it,” Mark says.
“I’m not surprised.”
Sharon glances at her watch. “Short version, Seth.”
Seth nods. “I won’t go into the temptation itself, just the dilemma. Jesus needs to be betrayed to push the crucifixion/resurrection thing into action. Only one guy in His entourage is up to it. Judas. Toughest of the bunch and loves Him most fiercely. If he agrees, Judas will be the scourge of all Christianity for all time. If he doesn’t, the whole savior thing grinds to a halt. Judas says ‘You’re asking too much.’ Jesus says, ‘I know it’s a lot.’ Judas says, ‘Master, could you do it?’ Jesus says, ‘No, you’re the stronger one, Judas.’ So basically, you have the hero to billions over two thousand plus years, saying to the villain to billions over that very same span, that he’s the bigger hero. Hence Judas does what looks like a really bad thing but is actually a really good thing, if you happen to be a Christian and require a dead savior, that is.” With a satisfied nod, Seth folds his arms. “Good and bad being relative, of course.”