The Lord and pink neon had arrived simultaneously at the Del Mar Diner, a train-car diner sandwiched between John's Brakeworks and the La Fontana Inn at the intersection of Bridge Street and Route 10. After thirteen months of hints and innuendoes, the Del Mar's owner, George Hall, had finally succumbed to his wife Gloria's irrepressible need to redecorate. Gloria left the train car structure intact, as George had demanded, but the marine-themed lithographs were gone, as were the yellowed portraits of notable patrons of the Del Mar (all were gone, that is, except Tony Bennett--here George drew an indelible line). In came a mind-boggling array of religious paraphernalia: crucifixes sized from toddler to big and tall, illuminations, crocheted inspirational phrases, a splinter purported to be from the cross of one of the thieves hung with Christ, and Gloria's crowning achievement, a phosphorescent creche. Gloria had found religion during her most recent mid-life crises and although she found the vagaries of doctrine convoluted, she loved the resurrection. As he watched the renovation move forward, George swore to high heaven about Gloria's exploitation of his permission to decorate. Why couldn't she have a normal mid-life crisis and change her damn hair color?
Almost as an afterthought, Gloria installed pink neon around the diner's windows. George found this color scheme so appalling and was already so flabbergasted by the religious decoration that he simply could not find the words to comment. Gloria took his silence as approval.
The minute the renovation work was finished, Gloria began to work up the next step of her scheme. Now that she had come to consider God a personal friend, she couldn't bear not sharing Him. George, however, did not take to this as she had hoped, did not joyfully leap for the Lord, not even to the point of allowing her to change menu items to the Hallelujah! Burger and what not. It would be, she realized, harder than she had expected. She would have to wait to spring the Lord upon George until he was in the midst of a moment of psychic weakness and his guard was down.
Gloria watched George during the late night hours of the holiday season, when the crush of customers could beat a man down to a childhood tantrum and destroy his spiritual resistance. She noted the times of day when he was wont to crash plates onto their piles with a little extra vigor, when he would mis-add, swear, and re-add bills two and three times. She planned; she notated.
At long last, she was sure that the day had come. Christmas had passed two days previously and George was exhausted from shoveling an early snowstorm and serving an unexpected influx of late night patrons. In addition, the cash register had broken again, sending his irritation into resigned apathy. He slumped against the cash register with a blank stare and weak smile, a man wide open, she believed, to ecclesiastic suggestion. Gloria placed the coffee pot in the brewer at the far end of the counter, measured coffee into the filter, and pressed the starter button. It was 12:43 in the morning and the rest of the staff had left early to avoid the snow. Noting that the pink neon looked especially pretty reflected on the snow, Gloria turned to her prey.
As she walked toward the cashier's stand, Gloria habitually tuned into the conversation between the only customers left from the night rush. Two men, one heavy, muscular, gregarious, and one quite different, a sickly opposite to the first, sat in conversation over coffee and fries. Gloria knew the larger man, Tommy Ramos, but knew nothing of his shadowy companion.
Tommy was a bear-sized man, maybe six foot two, with thick, black, curly hair. He grinned and laughed with hopeful persistence, as if simple belief might change the course of history. Still, those who knew him were not fooled by his apparently dopey simplicity. They knew that, once crossed, he had the capacity to keep his laugh going while beating a man to tears. But as one of the union representatives at the steel mill, Philips Steel Works, he was usually on better behavior than that, a smooth talker and an organizer. Lately, however, his job had grown more difficult as the mill gradually and gracelessly fell apart. Sinking orders and increasing layoffs had taken their toll.
"Happy belated birthday, Lenny," Tommy Ramos said, grinning. "You get twice the presents when your birthday is on Christmas, or you just get fucked by the confusion?"
Tommy laughed to himself and, along with Gloria, eyed the man across the table and awaited a reply. Gloria assumed that this other man worked at the steel mill with Tommy. The other man rubbed his stubbly beard and fell into contemplation. His skin was fair and dark circles loitered under his eyes. His brown hair was thinning on top and it was styled long in back. He wore a navy blue parka vest.
"Well," the other man said, and then paused. "I've been thinking about that a lot these days."
Tommy nodded and motioned for the skinny man to continue.
"You see, I'm Jesus. You know, back from the dead. I know that sounds weird, but this birthday/Christmas thing got me thinking, and I think I just might be Christ," he said.
"Huh?" Tommy said.
At this moment Gloria felt a joyous exaltation shudder through her body from crown to heel, something re-configured in the very fiber of her being. The sign she had awaited with such constipated ecstasy had arrived; the Son of God was in her diner. George would be forced to face up to Him, no matter what George might desire. With an exhalation that almost emptied her, Gloria turned aside in apostrophe and whispered thank you. Then, not wanting to be seen eavesdropping nor wanting to miss a word, Gloria turned to her left and began vigorously scrubbing the counter. She slid slowly to her right as she scrubbed, easing up to, and then past, the table.
"That's the crazy thing, you see. I'm not exactly sure if I am or I'm not. I'm pretty sure, you know, but I'm not positive. And you'd think somebody would know if he was Jesus, right? The other day I almost had myself convinced that I wasn't, because of my confusion. But then I thought to myself, maybe this is a test. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I'm supposed to find myself before I can really do anything."
"What makes you think you're Jesus, other than having the same birthday?" Tommy said slowly.
Because he is, Gloria thought, look at that hair.
"It's a lot of stuff," the man answered. He looked around nervously. "Tommy, you won't tell anyone, will you? I need to be sure before I tell people."
I don't envy you. Look at what happened to you last time.
Gloria realized that she had begun to stare at Tommy and his friend. The Christ-Child looked to Gloria and smiled benignly. Gloria blushed, turned back to the counter and gave the formica a final swipe. She then walked back to the cashier's station.
"That guy over there with Tommy is Jesus Christ." Gloria motioned to the Christ-Child with her eyes. She spoke with palpable excitement.
"What?" George asked as if just waking. Gloria noticed that his curly grey hair, usually so neat, had fallen into disarray. She pitied his anguish and executed a quick prayer for his acceptance of religion.
"He said that he thinks that he's Jesus come back, you know, for the second time. Like they said he would in the Bible," she said, and paused. "And his birthday's on Christmas."
Gloria leaned close to George's face and nodded.
"He really said that he thinks he's Jesus?" George asked doubtfully.
"I heard it with my own ears."
"You're sure he didn't say that his name is Jesus, like the Spanish name. Ramos' dad is Puerto Rican. Maybe the guy is one of his Puerto Rican friends or a cousin or something like that." George shrugged and smiled.
"I said I heard it with my own ears," Gloria said, more heatedly.
"Okay, Gloria."
"He said that although he wasn't quite sure, he thought that he was Jesus Christ come around again, and his birthday is the same. And he looks like Jesus, with that hair," Gloria demanded, frustrated by George's unwillingness to face facts.
"Gloria, don't be pathetic." George paused.
"You're such a crab, George," Gloria said, her frustration visible in her sad eyes and downturned lips. "Why can't you ever open up? It's just like that time you wouldn't even consider those rhinestone jumpsuits for the waitresses."
George shook his head and wiped his hands on his apron. He began to walk toward the kitchen.
"God bless you," Gloria said, mostly to herself, and stomped her foot. Poor, poor man.
Gloria eyed Ramos and the Christ-Child as they talked intently. She just knew it was all true.
* * *
Several weeks passed and the holidays segued into pleasant memory. George's mood brightened and he took to greeting customers with his usual ferocious cordiality. Although happy with George's surging mood, Gloria was appalled by how little respect he paid to the appearance of a possible savior. It seemed strange and careless, even for a doubter like himself.
Then, George's mood again began to wane as he suffered from the dismal attitude of the customers. Philips Steel Works had announced new layoffs and, though the pink slips hadn't been distributed yet, those on the chopping block knew who they were. Gloria watched helplessly as George's mood sunk with the rest.
Gloria had considered giving up proselytizing to George on the pious life, feeling, along with him, the weight of the town on her back. However, it seemed to her that to not keep virtue on the front burner would be a failure beyond redress; when George went to judgment, she reasoned, there would be no extenuating circumstances.
On a night when she had planned to make another strong push for God (she'd conferenced with several Jehovah's witnesses and a local cable-access televangelist earlier that day), Tommy and the Christ-Child returned. She did not know whether to take this as a sign or a chance occurrence, but it seemed inevitably part of a larger plan. The diner was packed. Tommy and the Christ-Child dodged Mary Harper and Lynn Reed, the two waitresses on duty, and walked down the aisle to the last available booth. The Christ-Child looked more ragged than before, and his eyes were underlined with darker pouches. This is the last supper, thought Gloria, and this idea fascinated her.
After getting them the coffee they ordered, Gloria walked behind the counter and picked this time to polish the glasses stacked directly opposite their table. George looked at her quizzically and then, noticing the table she faced, began to laugh.
"I know you predicted that things were going to go bad in this town. And you were right. But figuring that out just doesn't make you a religious figure. I'm sorry, bro," Tommy said. "Everybody knows that the mill is in trouble. Just because you made your prediction and then the mill announced layoffs doesn't mean you have a direct line to God. It's not like it was hard to predict. You just got to stop telling me how you're Jesus, because I'm starting to think you're fucked in the head. At first it was funny, but..." Tommy shook his head and looked at the Christ-Child with a mixture of concern and irritation.
"You just don't see it, do you? The same thing happened the last time I was here. Did you know that? At first, nobody believed me. They thought I was a scam artist. And they killed me." As the Christ-Child spoke, his voice picked up strength and confidence.
Right on.
"We need to have a serious discussion of strategy. Shit. You can't be having these fantasies. I got a job to do." Tommy shook his head and sipped his coffee.
Gloria began to polish the glasses for a second time.
"I know what you're saying. I used to think that way, that I was nothing but a workgroup leader at a mill. But now I see. I will lead them to the promised land," the Christ-Child said.
"Oh, God, please help me," Tommy mumbled to himself. "Just so the promised land is keeping our jobs. What you do in your spare time is your own problem."
"Yes. That's true," the Christ-Child said. He smiled into the distance. "Wasn't that wonderful, what happened at lunch the other day?"
The Christ-Child seemed proud.
"What?" Tommy said, amazement opening his eyes wide as he realized the Christ-Child's reference. "My God. Antonio's delivered you an extra order of fries, so you got two for the price of one. You didn't feed the masses. You just gave french fries to people in the lunchroom. Get that through your thick head," Tommy said.
The Christ-Child looked into his coffee, as if looking for a sign from the Father. He shook his head sadly and said nothing.
"How's the wife?" Tommy asked in an abrupt shift. "You guys worked it out yet?"
"Tina's still at her mother's," the Christ-Child began, his lips pursed sadly. What that woman is missing, thought Gloria, the Son of God must be great in the sack. "She thinks I'm going nowhere and that I'm not realistic."
"And?" Tommy asked. "Just shut up about the Jesus thing, take her out to dinner, buy her flowers, and for Christ's sake wash your hair."
"I know," the Christ-Child mumbled. "I just have so much on my mind."
Gloria walked to George's place at the cashier's station. She realized that the entrance of the Christ-Child had lifted George's spirits, but suspected that they had not been lifted for the purely ecclesiastical motives she desired.
"I know, I know. Jesus is back again," George said. He chuckled.
"He really does think he's the second coming," Gloria whispered.
"Wouldn't this be the fifth or sixth coming for him, at least around the diner here?" George asked and laughed.
"He can feed the people, like in the loaves and fishes story," Gloria said adamantly.
"You don't believe in this, do you? He's just some friend of Tommy, that's all. Tommy has to talk to everybody at the mill, even the strange ones. That's his job," George explained, worry creeping into his voice.
"No, listen, there's something really big going on here," Gloria insisted. "Don't make fun of me."
"That's bullshit!" a young man in a red flannel shirt said loudly. He sat in the third booth behind the cashier's stand. George and Gloria quickly turned, both alerted to the possibility of damage to their establishment. George poised to enter the fray. Gloria squeezed his arm with concern.
The young man stood up. The man seated opposite him was older, perhaps sixty, with a thick grey pompadour and a lined, but expressionless, face. The old man looked into his coffee.
"'They know what's best for the company.' My ass. Them people don't know shit about how to run a mill. That's why I'm out of a job."
The old man did not look up from the table. Instead, he calmly lifted his coffee and took a dignified sip. This seemed to infuriate the man in the flannel.
"I know you can hear me, old man. Just because you didn't get fired this time around don't mean everything's okay. You're next. You're just too stupid to see that."
At the end of this diatribe, the young man's voice had turned into a yell and his pale face had begun to flush to the red color of his shirt. The old man took one more sip from his coffee. The diner had otherwise fallen silent except for the sound of grease sputtering on the grill.
The old man looked up at the young man's face and smiled, almost sadly.
"Whatever happens," he said, then paused. "Is God's will."
The young man slapped his hands down upon the table and then swiped the coffee cup to the floor. He lifted his hands to his face and shook his head.
"Shit," he said.
The young man threw two dollars onto the table and stomped out of the diner. The conversation returned to most of the tables, with the general consensus being, as Gloria heard it, that the young man was right about the owners but wrong to act in the style he did.
"Might as well be God's will," Gloria heard one man say.
George walked over to the old man's table and offered the man another cup. After he silently declined, the old man paid. With his face still expressionless, he too walked out the door.
* * *
Over the next two weeks, things at the mill grew worse. The range of layoffs was expanded. The last-hired, first-fired axiom was in place as always, but twenty year employees were getting their pink slips. The customers at the Del Mar got surlier, sadder, and many arrived sunk in the melancholy of defeat, men who needed a few coffees and a little time before they returned home to their wives and children and bills. They sat silently and sipped coffee. It came with free refills.
Beside the bars, the diner was the only place in town that was experiencing a business boom. It was open twenty-four hours a day to accommodate the business, and it was almost always full. Those with pink slips suddenly had an unwanted vacation on their hands.
Tommy came in every day to strategize, and to keep the people unified, but the Christ-Child was nowhere to be found. Gloria did not ask, not wanting to let on to Tommy that she had overheard their conversations. She watched and waited, and prayed (oh, did she pray) for two weeks, but there was still no sign of Him.
* * *
It was late one Thursday night when the Christ-Child reappeared. He was even more bedraggled than his last visit; his hair was matted and clumped into vague dreadlocks and his army jacket was spotted with grease stains and paint. He shuffled to the booth where Tommy sat alone.
Tommy had arrived at the Del Mar four hours before and had been continuously kibitzing with other union officials. When the various emissaries arrived, they would sit for several minutes, sip distractedly from their coffees, and talk in muted tones. As she passed by to refill their cups, Gloria heard words of strikes, and lawsuits, and other difficult things. She spoke to George about the approaching events, the upcoming crusade, but he was distracted. George did not have hope for the workers, even with their strikes and lawsuits. Gloria tried to speak to him about the sustaining power of faith, about how it was often better sustenance than food, but George would not listen, simply refused.
Tommy had just finished one of his impromptu meetings when the Christ-Child arrived. The Christ-Child sat without greeting Tommy and began to pick at the grease and dirt under his nails. He barely looked up when Tommy spoke to him, and his only responses were nods and shrugs. When Gloria asked him if he wanted coffee, he grunted affirmatively.
"He's back," Gloria said to George. He did not answer.
"Did you hear me?" Gloria added, honestly more worried than her contentious question suggested.
"Gloria, I love you, I really do," George began. "And I really mean that. But you just don't understand. I don't have time for this right now."
George's face did not move when he spoke and he did not meet Gloria's eyes. His words seemed to slip out of his mouth like speech coming from a mannequin.
"This is the last good business you and me are going to see," George said. "Right now I can't be thinking about some guy who thinks he's God. Hell, maybe he is for all I know. I just don't have the time right now."
George shook his head sadly. His eyes pleaded for understanding. Something in the way George spoke and moved told Gloria not to reply, told her that this was just not the time, and she tried to take heed.
"Don't worry so much, George. Remember," Gloria said. "I love you."
"I know," George said, his voice tender.
Gloria walked back behind the counter towards the table where Tommy and the Christ-Child sat.
As Gloria began to rearrange the forks, she was again surprised by how bedraggled and downtrodden the Christ-Child looked. Four of his fingers were wrapped in some kind of makeshift bandage and there was a skein of dirt on his face.
After he had finished cleaning out his fingernails, the Christ-Child began to nibble on a callous. Tommy quietly lectured the Christ-Child as he did this, and Gloria had to strain past the sounds of cooking food and scraping flatware to hear the conversation.
"The pickets begin on Saturday at ten a.m. so we can get TV coverage and so everybody can sleep off their drunk. We start at the bridge right at ten. You got it? " Tommy said.
The Christ Child nodded noncommittally.
"We will overcome this," the Christ-Child began, then paused. "You see, this is just like what happened when the Romans saw that I was converting the people. They tried to stop me. But in the end, I overcame them."
Tommy looked as if he was planning to yell at the Christ-Child, but then he checked his anger and spoke calmly.
"Maybe you need to get some counseling or something. For you and Tina," Tommy continued. "Are you guys talking?"
"No," the Christ-Child admitted.
"Have you tried?" Tommy asked with genuine concern.
"She wouldn't talk to me. I know her."
"You've got to call her. Have a little humility," Tommy advised and Gloria agreed. She had trouble swallowing this. Christ's got a pride problem. Still, it made sense. With all that power and such, she supposed it would be hard to admit mistakes.
"But for now, all I care about is that you call the people from your workgroup to come out for the picketing. I have to be able to count on you. Don't flake out on me." Tommy spoke without pretense of politeness.
"Yeah. I've always been there for you." For a moment, it seemed to Gloria that the Christ-Child had returned to his earthly personality. He sounded like nothing more than a tired and worried man.
"I know," Tommy said, smiling with true friendship.
"They will follow in my footsteps," the Christ-Child said serenely, once again in full religious fervor.
Tommy shook his head.
"Whatever. See you Saturday." Tommy paused, tapping a tattoo upon the table top. "And call Tina."
Tommy rose to leave. Gloria's heart skipped several beats as she thought about the strike and pickets and about the Son-of-God's family drama. The last union action had gone violent.
* * *
On Friday, the Philips Commerce broke the story of a secret Board of Directors meeting. The mill was going to close when all current orders had been filled. There was just no way around it. No one needed a mill like that. They'd like to stay open, the board members said, but it was just impossible. Disbelief turned to sadness and then segued to anger.
The mayor called the governor and the governor called the National Guard. The National Guard colonel begged Tommy to stop the march, but there was no backing down.
* * *
The march came together at the borough line, where Bridge Street crosses the canal into Mount Rena, with Tommy and the shop stewards and union officials at the front. The Christ-Child walked two rows behind Ramos and, though he did not speak, the tension of the moment clouded his face. The workers milled around and talked loudly. Demonstrators continued to pour in, well after the march was slated to begin. The turnout was far beyond what anyone had expected. The National Guardsmen paced.
George had, at the last moment, joined the march. In spite of his warning to wait at the restaurant, Gloria went directly to her sister Anna's house, which had a second floor porch on Bridge Street directly opposite the mill's management offices. That was also where the guardsmen stood, ready to stop any unruly passions. Gloria fingered her cross pendant and prayed for George, for the Christ-Child, for Tommy, and for whomever she might have missed.
* * *
Gloria could hear the protesters begin to shout as the march commenced. At first it sounded like a mess of hoots and screams, but then the voices came together into the chants Gloria had heard in past strikes and in the union hall when she had gone with her father. The crowd seemed to go on for miles and the guardsmen nervously shifted their weight from left foot to right. As the crowd of marchers came closer, they shouted the slogans with new volume. Their words seemed to push the guardsmen back. Gloria forgot about the diner, and about the Christ-Child, and about everything but the march.
They came closer. Their marching and their chants became even more tightly organized. Gloria began to believe that no one on Earth would dare turn down their demands, that no Board of Directors could say no.
The marchers came close to the guardsmen and stopped, directly in front of Gloria. They fell silent. Tommy turned his back to the guardsmen and faced the marchers. He said something Gloria could not hear and the mass of marchers began to sing. At first, Gloria could not decipher what song they were attempting, as their singing was so off-key, but then it dawned on her that it was the national anthem. At the end of the song there was a profound silence, and everyone, with the exception of the guardsmen, began to cheer.
Somewhere from the middle of the march, a brick flew through one of the plate glass windows on the front of the management office building. The cheering fell off and turned ugly and Gloria then understood that, no matter how many songs and marches they had, the mill would close.
Gloria was looking down at her feet, saddened by her realization, when she heard her sister Anna gasp. She looked up and saw the Christ-Child walk out from the front of the crowd, toward the line of guardsmen. He held his arms wide. Gloria saw Tommy start to yell at what the Christ-Child was doing.
Suddenly, the Christ-Child dropped his left arm and, with his right arm, threw a rock directly into the mass of guardsmen. The sudden movement threw the scene into chaos and one of the guardsmen fired a shot. It made a small and lonely pop and the Christ-Child fell to the ground.
The crowd fell into a complete silence. Marchers then began to yell as surprise gave way to anger. The colonel of the guardsmen quickly ordered a retreat. Gloria watched Tommy as he yelled vainly at the marchers to stop, but most ran after the guardsmen. Some did stay, however, and proceeded to loot the management building. Gloria looked frantically for George and was relieved to see him far behind the other marchers, following after the guardsmen. He was safe there, too slow to get into the action. She ran down to the street to see the Christ-Child.
Gloria walked, trance-like, to where Tommy was crouched over the Christ-Child. She stopped about five feet from Tommy, and stared down at him and the Christ-Child. The Christ-Child opened his eyes and spoke in a feeble voice.
"They're going to kill me again," he said, clutching his abdomen. "Tell Tina I love her."
"You tell her that you love her. You're not going to die," Tommy yelled back at him. "It was a warning shot, into the air. You're fine. No one's going to die. See?"
Tommy ripped open the Christ-Child's shirt. There was no wound. Tommy pointed at this, but the Christ-Child did not take notice.
"The ignorant will always persecute the righteous. It is our fight, to help them see the light," the Christ-Child said.
"Shut the fuck up," Tommy screamed. "You're going to be fine. Do you understand?"
Tommy slapped the Christ-Child's face. The Christ-Child smiled vacantly.
"Ours is not to reason why," the Christ-Child said. "Ours is but to do and die."
He passed out again, smiling.
"That's an army slogan, not a Bible quote. Shit. Don't you understand?" Tommy screamed, shaking the Christ-Child. "It's all over." He stopped, his breath heavy and ragged. "Don't you know how much I wish you were Jesus-fucking-Christ?"
Gloria thought about the Christ-Child and his wife, and wondered if they had lost their virginity before marriage. This struck her as an odd thought to be having at that time and place, but probably as good as any other. Tommy turned toward Gloria and they stared at each other silently. It was then that she realized she had begun to cry.
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