NOT THAT STRICT OF A CHRISTIAN

The Hold Steady ground “Stuck Between Stations” through the speakers of Mark’s ’88 Mustang, cutting above the rush of humid air, and he smiled. Craig Finn belted out the lyrics in his gravelly baritone-—She was a really cool kisser, and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian-—and, as always, it brought the memories cascading back. Mark was on autopilot, the growling 5.0 devouring the road, and he was back in high school and in church and in youth group and Angie’s red hair curling across her shoulders light from stained glass windows cutting across pale skin pale almost translucent naked and she snaked her arms around his shoulders and she was against him there and lips smooth soft wet her tongue twisting on his and the attic where no one ever went dust dancing in the light and sheets limp over pews old smelling of rot and damp pages of hymnals under canvas the smell of old books old things and dust that billowed when they fell together where the cloth was piled entwined with each other and urgent moving together Angie crying out yes yes and he tasting salt and dust on her neck all of him in one place one warm center and she said oh oh there and clutched him hard nails dug and scratched shaking and he was there too and attic dust dancing disappeared and he disappeared all in one warm center and then breathing deep damp skin sliding smiling lips and green eyes flashing nothing to say but together tasting salt and dust and the air through the windows smelled of cut grass and summer, and Mark laughed aloud. Not that strict of a Christian. Not then, anyway.

Later, after he moved away, she called him to apologize. She was sorry, she said, for leading him astray. She had gone to camp and found Jesus again, and she was sorry to have interfered with his Christian walk, sorry for sinning with him in that way. “I forgive you,” he said. “I’m sorry too,” he said, because he knew that’s what she wanted to hear.

Now the fields flashed by in greens and yellows and browns, and Mark turned up the radio to hear The Hold Steady finish getting stuck between stations. That night he would meet Maria at her beach house, where the windows opened to the sound of the waves. They would swim in the ocean, and later he would kiss her neck and taste the salt. He would taste the salt, and, for the briefest of moments, he would long to taste dust as well.

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