The Movies
by George Gauthier
Chapter 2
Watery Graves
Ever since my boyfriends and I took up windsurfing we have been practicing the techniques of rescue swimming. Our skills proved useful not long ago in saving most of the passengers of a van which ran off the road and then fell into a river before sinking completely out of sight.
Kyle and I were out in the country riding our touring bikes (the kind you pedal not those noisy motorcycles). It was high summer so we wore just clingy tan-thru cycling shorts, gloves, cycling shoes - the kind with flat soles and no toe clips - and helmets. Our route followed a narrow winding two-lane county road through a landscape of farms and small towns some dating back to colonial times.
The county road had no real shoulders but instea was flanked by shallow ditches. So we were careful to allow passing traffic all the room we could, hugging the painted lateral line and signaling to any vehicle which came up behind us when it was safe to pass.
One particularly winding stretch provided few opportunities to overtake slower vehicles since there was considerable traffic coming from the opposite direction. As luck would have it a van with an impatient driver pulled up close and honked for us to get out of the way. Where he expected us to go, I had no idea.
When we finally came to a straight and clear stretch of road we waved for them to pass. Both the driver and a church lady in the front seat glared disapprovingly at us as they went by. I knew her for a church lady by the logo on the side of the van "Calvary Baptist Church" and the sour look she gave us. She must have noticed the rainbow flag decals on our helmets.
Moments later, after the van had passed out of sight, we heard sounds of a crash up ahead. When we reached where it all happened we saw a mangled animal carcass lying in the road which showed that the van had collided with a deer trying to get across. Not surprisingly the driver had lost control and veered off the road and into the river which ran alongside. We arrived on the scene just in time to see the van sink out of sight.
Kyle got on his iPhone and ran the What3Words app to establish our exact location which I relayed to 911. I was assured that fire and rescue and ambulances were on the way.
Meanwhile it was up to us. We got off our bikes and lay them down in front of a SUV which had pulled over to the edge of the road just short of the deer carcass. The driver helpfully set out an emergency road triangle and set his flashers going. That halted or diverted traffic to the other side of the road. Then the driver took over as liaison with 911. So far so good.
Stripping off helmet, shoes, and gloves Kyle and I slipped into the water and swam with the slow current downstream to where we had seen the van go under having used a distinctive bush on the far side to mark the location. We both dove to the wreck to assess the situation. My nanites helped by sliding a membrane over my pupils so it was like I was wearing swim goggles. Kyle's view of things was murkier.
We saw that the rear axle of the van was hung up on a boulder while the front slanted down to the clay bottom at about a sixty degree angle. Divers later measured the depth there at twenty-three feet, a result of scour by currents around that boulder. Most of the river in that stretch had to be less than ten feet deep. It wasn't that much of a stream. That slanted configuration fortuitously created an air pocket in the back of the van for six kids. Unfortunately the impact with the deer and the crash into the river had killed the two adults up front.
After coming up for air we decided that my role would be to pull the kids out of the wreck through the broken windshield and bring them to the surface while Kyle would swim them to shore. That would take advantage of my ability to hold my breath longer and do so repeatedly. Also, with my smaller size, I could get through the shattered windshield more easily. Strong swimmer that he was Kyle would have no trouble swimming with pre-teen children to the riverbank.
For my first rescue I dove to the bottom and entered via the opening where the windshield had been. As I popped out of the water I told them cheerily:
"Hi, kids! It's me, your friendly neighborhood rescue swimmer. We will soon have you out of this van and back on dry land."
That brought less of a cheer than I had hoped, but at least no one was bawling.
"You're bleeding!" a tow-headed boy said pointed to my left shoulder blade. He was right. I had not noticed that I had cut myself on a shard still in place in the frame of the windshield.
"Thanks for catching that son. This means I had better clear the opening of any remaining glass. Now what to use..."
As I cast about for some tool to accomplish this task, the same boy told me to look for the steering wheel lock. I fished around and found it under the driver's seat. That earned him a thumbs up, putting a smile on his young face for the first time.
The kids were pretty scared but no one was panicking. They nodded as I explained that when I pulled them out they should just take a deep breath and let their limbs trail behind them. In other words they should leave the swimming up to me.
Working for the front toward the back I slid each kid through the opening and swam to the surface where I handed him or her over to Kyle. When I brought the second child up I saw that Kyle too was bleeding, though in his case it was from his legs. It seemed that some old barbed wire fencing which had been swept into the river in the past by a flood had lodged just under the surface at the spot were we were aiming to bring the kids ashore.
Kyle reconnoitered and thereafter landed the kids a little way downstream. We were just clambering out of the river after a final check in the van when the official first responders arrived, though in this case they were really second responders. Thanks to seat belts the kids were fine having suffered no real injury from the collision with the deer or the plunge into the river. Only one kid got some water in her lungs on the way up to the surface.
After treating our cuts the EMTs insisted that we go to the ER for a tetanus booster. OK, but what about our bikes? We couldn't just leave them there and there wasn't enough room not even with two ambulances. That was where the driver of the SUV stepped in and offered to drive us and our bikes to the hospital which was not so very far out of his way.
Besides this driver who went by the name of Phil Marston was taking photos and video of the rescue with an eye to not only posting on social media but for possible sale to the news media. So by taking us to the hospital he got more of a story to sell. And more power to him. So off we all went to the hospital which was only a mile from our spooky old mansion.
The grateful parents and the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church met us at the hospital and thanked Kyle and me for the rescues. I acknowledged Marston's contribution, after which he went on his way. As for the tow-haired boy, I commended him on his presence of mind and ruffled his hair. Smart kid.
Meanwhile professional rescue drivers recovered the bodies of the driver and the church lady. A wrecker eventually dragged the van out of the river.
Karl and were once again in the news. At least this time it was not for a confrontation, either with the four guys in the SUV who had forced us off the road or those pro-Hamas thugs. That second confrontation had actually came to blows. No, this time we were unambiguously the good guys who had rescued six children trapped underwater. The media were delighted with pictures of those personable kids and of their handsome, sexy, and oh so scantily clad rescuers.
Pastor Taunton
The Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, the Reverend Jonah Taunton, called that Thursday to invite us to Sunday service, the main purpose of which was giving thanks to Almighty God for the deliverance of the six children.
Now just the way he put it rubbed me and Kyle the wrong way. We were the ones who had delivered the children from drowning. That made it fair to ask what thanks were owed to the Almighty who had not helped out in the slightest -- not that we could see. How simple it would have been for an omniscient and omnipotent deity to have prevented the entire tragedy in the first place by simply making that deer hesitate till after the van had passed by. It's the old story that Almighty God is given credit for anything good which happens but gets a pass on any misfortune which befalls the faithful through his indifference, his callousness really.
Nevertheless, since Pastor Taunton had business in the city on Saturday anyway, we agreed to hear him out. Somewhat to our surprise he unhesitatingly agreed to meet for Saturday brunch at Lapis Lazuli.
After re-introducing ourselves, Taunton ventured a mild joke:
"So this is what you two look like in clothes."
"Yep, we clean up pretty good, don't we Kyle? Admittedly there wasn't much to our biking outfits just body hugging shorts and shoes."
The pastor agreed that what we wore that day was entirely appropriate for our original purpose and for swimming to the rescue of the children.
"Now clothes like those you have on now, casual and comfortable, are fine for church. Folks don't dress in their Sunday best any more. And I appreciate it that there is nothing flamboyant about your attire, either."
"Meaning we don't look gay?"
"Actually you do, but in a subdued and self-confident way. You're not getting in people's faces but you are not hiding it either. So more power to you. Would I be wrong in thinking that you are a couple?"
"You are not wrong at all though actually we are two members of a menage a quatre though we all have separate homes. I have to say that for a Baptist pastor you seem quite accepting of gays."
"In that respect I am ahead of my congregation more than a few of whom cling to the old ways -- enough so that, though the times they are a-changing, I won't be officiating at a same sex marriage at Calvary Baptist any time soon."
I asked whether Taunton had ever dined on Afghan cuisine. He assured us that he had.
"I may be a Southern Baptist, but my culinary experience is far wider that hominy and grits and chicken fried steak. My introduction to Afghan cuisine came been during a tour of duty to that unfortunate country as a chaplain in the Reserves"
"Now we were always careful about where we ate -- for security reasons as much as for concerns about sanitation -- but we did try their food. Also, and please don't put this about, I am inordinately fond of Ethiopian food as well."
"Now those lands, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, are located in a huge swath of territory stretching from Africa to Central Asia where folks eat with their fingers. The Ethiopians at least tear off a bit of enjera bread to scoop food from a communal plate, which does curtail the spread of germs. However Afghans do not and simply use their bare fingers. So I phoned to make sure that this restaurant would provide knife and fork upon request."
"They do so as a matter of course to spare their customers the embarrassment of having to ask." Kyle pointed out. "We prefer to eat that way ourselves, however inauthentic it may be."
On that note of agreement we tucked into our food talking only of inconsequential matters. When we mentioned that we both had apartments in our spooky old mansion, the pastor said that he was familiar with our building and its distinct architecture from visiting his in-laws nearby. I had noticed during our handshake that Taunton had the rough hands of a workman and asked him about it.
"I come by these rough hands honestly enough. I am a roofer by trade. It's the family business. I still pitch in once a week. You get real satisfaction building something tangible like a tile or shingle roof which will not leak no matter how hard it rains. And you are working alongside members of your own family. It is a break from having to deal with other people's problems. Don't get me wrong. I get a lot of satisfaction from pastoral work, and I am good at it, but at times it can be trying. So many problems, so many of which do not have good solutions."
While waiting for dessert Taunton brought up the planned Sunday service. We tried to demur, explaining that neither of us was a churchgoer.
"I understand. These days churchgoing is more about occasional rites of passage like marriages and funerals than every week, and if that means less in the collection basket on a Sunday then so be it. We make do and get by well enough. But what you boys did the other day showed your true hearts. It was a very Christian thing you did, never doubt that."
"As a man of the cloth it is not surprising that your views would be parochial in that way, er no pun intended. While what we did could fairly be called altruistic, there was nothing specifically Christian about it. Altruism is built into human nature. We could hardly have survived as a species without it."
"I will concede your point, but surely you are both Christians."
We shook our heads. Kyle told him:
"My folks are freethinkers and the next thing to outright atheists so the way I was raised I had no familial exposure to religion."
"Nor do I hold with any creed." I added.
"All right, but that means you cannot have any denominational objections to attending, so might I ask if you have any philosophical objections to participating in our service?"
I answered for the both of us.
"At the risk of being frank to the point of giving offense, our position is that giving thanks to a Supreme Being whose very existence we find problematic would be completely inappropriate for us. Impossible really."
"Impossible because it would run contrary to your most basic beliefs?"
Kyle shook his head.
"Rather contrary to our lack of beliefs. We are rationalists. On epistemological grounds we have no use for faith or mere belief. We entirely discount the notion of any supernatural realm beyond the natural world. It is not that we are certain that there are no gods. What we are certain about is that we do not believe in God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit or the gods of any other pantheon. We view religions as just another manifestation of the cultures in which they arose."
"So it would stick in our craws to stand silent while everyone was giving credit to some imaginary being for what the two of us did at the river. I am sorry Pastor, but as we see it, your God did nothing the other day. He left it up to us, Troy and me, two fallible mortals, to save the kids. Your congregation may thank Him. We won't."
"I don't mind admitting to disappointment, but your lack of faith in no way diminishes our theistic view of what transpired. As we see it, your presence at the accident was literally providential. Mortals though you be, on that day you were those children's guardian angels. Our service of Thanksgiving will go ahead as planned. I will make your excuses to the congregation as best I can."
"Thank you Pastor for being so reasonable about this."
He shrugged.
"Yours is an outlook I encounter frequently in these secular times. More important, you have my heartfelt thanks for saving the lives of those children. However, you should know that not everyone in my congregation is as reasonable as I am. Our archdeacon in particular is narrow-minded and censorious toward unbelievers. So you might catch some flak if only on social media.
With that we parted on good terms.
Discord
I wish I could write that we all went well afterward, but alas, that did not prove to be the case. Though most folks acknowledged Kyle and me as heroes a minority of the faithful at Calvary Baptist Church suspected us of being unwitting cat's-paws of the Devil.
I was not a witness to the discussions and events at the church, but the pastor had for many years made a practice of recording pastoral interviews on an unobtrusive audio recorder, especially when he was closeted alone with a woman or a child. The recordings would protect him against honest misunderstandings, groundless suspicions, disturbed personalities, and potential blackmail. The following account draws on those recordings.
The trouble started when the pastor told the three deacons that Kyle and I would not be attending the Sunday service but that the service would go ahead as planned nevertheless.
"It is just as well." The archdeacon Simon Caulfield opined.
"We don't need a pair of queers profaning the House of the Lord. How could you have missed that about them when you met them at the hospital, Pastor Taunton?"
"Who says that I missed the orientation of those two boys? It was pretty obvious if you know what to look for."
"Yet you asked sinners like them to join us in prayer in our church?"
"We are all of us sinners, Simon, aren't we? I trust in the mercy of God, so I hope that when they face judgment for their deeds in this earthly life their rescue of six innocent children will weigh heavily in their favor. Their sins of the flesh and mistaken theology aside, these two young men are good persons. Your problem is that you always look for the worst in people. I look for the good in them."
"No Joshua, I am not so rabidly anti-gay as you suppose. I will grant you that those two boys were heroes and even that they acted from the best of motives the other day. You admiration for them has blinded you to the trap which the Devil has set for you and our congregation precisely because what they did was praiseworthy and they did it for all the right reasons.
"How so?"
"As always the Devil tries to weaken the faith of believers in a merciful god. What better way to undermine that faith than to juxtapose the inaction of our God who did not save the two adults in the van with the success of two personable young gay atheists in saving the children. It is all part of the eternal war of good versus evil with the souls of the faithful the ultimate prizes. That is why the the Devil waited till he could use two morally flawed heroes to effect the rescue. The Good Book has a name for males who consort with their own gender. That word is abomination."
"The good book also uses that same term for the consumption of shellfish, but that has never kept you away from seafood restaurants, has it?"
"That's not the same thing at all!
"Our Good Book says otherwise and in so many words."
"Sometimes Joshua, when I am confronted with your wishy washy moral sense, I have to wonder why you are ever entered the ministry at all."
"You asked so I will be frank. For me the ministry was a calling whereas for you the ministry is merely a way of making a living. That difference is why I am effective at pastoral care while you, for all your talents as an administrator, are a failure as a people person."
"Sin is sin. The elders should have chosen me to head the congregation. That school of divinity you attended is next thing to a diploma mill while I attended the Fletcher School in Atlanta."
"As I have explained before and more than once. I went to a local divinity school since I had to work my way through, putting in long hours at the family roofing business. Unlike you, I didn't have a wife willing to support me while I studied. I should say your former wife."
Taunton's reference to his the opponent's ex-wife was a reminder of what everyone knew. That once he was established in the ministry he had turned away from his wife, neglecting her entirely in favor of other women, which ultimately lead to their divorce. In private counseling she had complained to Taunton that when Simon had sought her hand he had taken advantage of her poor marriage prospects due to her rather plain looks. Flattered by his attention and hopeful that he would give her children once they were established she had accepted his proposal and worked to support both of them through divinity school.
It was only later that she learned that he had never wanted children. His marriage was just a means to an end. A temporary one till his career advanced and he could trade up. He was not really attracted to her. In their last two years, he had stayed away entirely from their marriage bed. Here it was only four months since their divorce and the deacon was stepping out regularly with a younger Lutheran lady.
Taunton had long pegged the man as a self-serving cad, publicly inflexible about propriety and morality except when it suited him to be otherwise. That was why the pastor himself lead the youth group rather than let such a man influence the teens of the congregation by his bad example. Not that Joshua suspected physical or sexual abuse, but scandals in other denominations had made Taunton protective of the youngsters in his care. His love of children not his own was one reason he was so grateful to Will and me for rescuing six of them from a watery grave.
After their confrontation, the two clergymen reduced their contacts to a bare minimum. Meanwhile Caulfield started a whispering campaign against the good pastor, portraying him as a moral weakling unwilling to confront the forces of the Devil in the cosmic war of Good versus Evil. This was a key aspect of a strain of Christianity more often found in evangelical or even fundamentalist churches but which nevertheless struck a cord with a number of mainstream Baptists as well. Still most of the congregation aligned with their pastor.
At least the County Executive appreciated our efforts. Our story was added to an exhibit at the county historical society about praiseworthy locals including outstanding educators, business persons, and soldiers. Kyle and I also got our names added to the Christmas card lists of the five families -- five families because two of the six kids were a brother and sister.
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