Good (from the Munich Tales)

GOOD
By Michael Kroetch

On his wall he has a tote bag from Saviorland. It´s one of the first things he shows to people who visit. He took his girlfriend there last fall. She had not seemed to enjoy it as much as he did. It may have been part of why they were no longer seeing each other. He wasn´t sure. He did not understand why she had wanted to leave the Biblical theme park so soon. It made no sense to journey all those thousands of miles to be there at the replica of where Jesus first broke bread with the Apostles and then suddenly want to go back home. He had looked into her eyes searching for an answer. She was usually a very logical and loyal person who made sense in all her decisions. But not now. Now her arms were crossed and she kept turning away from him. Now all he could see were her shoulder blades. He liked seeing her shoulder blades. He had to admit this. He had never yet touched them, but he knew it would be nice to feel their round curves. He felt strange thinking about these curvings of her bones in the way that he was while being under the curious eyes of the big plastic Jesus hunched over on the mound surrounded by the gang of life-sized apostles. He thought maybe he should take her somewhere else a little more private so they could talk. But she said no, she didn´t want to talk. She wanted to leave. It troubled him she was speaking so loudly, almost yelling. There was no reason for her to be acting this way. Other visitors were starting to look over at them instead of being enthralled by the magnificent spectacles of the park. He began to worry that if she kept shouting one of the Saviorland officials might come over to escort them out through the beautiful pearly gates. He didn´t understand what he had done wrong. Only a few moments earlier everything was so perfect, so ideal. They were walking around harmoniously through the simulated Holyland with him almost ready to hold her hand—he hadn´t ever dared yet, but was just about to when out of the blue she grew so distant and cold and said she didn´t understand why they had come here in the first place. He hadn´t known what to say. What do you possibly say to such a thing? He felt dazed inside. It was as if Jesus had waved to him from the side of the road and, when he stopped the car and rolled down his window to say hello, Jesus had pulled out a gun and asked him for his wallet. It was impossible. And yet it had happened. He doesn´t remember much of t he Saviorland trip after that. It is a blur. He has the bag on the wall not so much to remind him of what did happen so much as what he wanted to happen. He doesn´t completely blame Jesus for things turning out wrong, but he does think Jesus could have given him some sign of what to do to make things go better and less violently. He didn´t think his girlfriend needed to break off the arm of John the Baptist and swing it at the guard. That hadn´t been necessary. None of it had. He knew he was partly to blame for saying the things he did about the coldness of his girlfriend and her family (especially her mother!), but he was upset. And saying the thing about her being like Mary Magdalen before the conversion may have only escalated the tension. But what was he supposed to say? She´d said he dragged her screaming and kicking to Saviorland and had lied about what was there, which... well, to be honest, was partially true. He had maybe made the place sound a bit more like Disneyland than it actually was, but he´d wanted her to go and knew once she was there she would be mesmerised. There was no screaming, no kicking. At least not until he pushed her a little—purely by accident—after she´d said he was an uptight church freak. And Jesus wasn´t helping—just standing there like a dummy while things got worse and worse. But he really didn´t like to think about all of it and how he would never be able to return to Saviorland because of the police involvement toward the end. He wanted to stay positive. Optimistic. At least the Saviorland bag was a nice color and matched his couch. That was one good thing. He always liked to see the good in things no matter what happened.