Part 24: Robert

Robert Melrose (he wasn’t Bobby until he entered the entertainment industry) liked Sundays better than any other day of the week. Church was fine - school’s more dramatic cousin - but Youth Group, that was where he really shined. That was where he got to be what felt like his truest self: a little asshole. He loved asking questions that would get the priests and nuns and Community Members all riled up, knowing they would never kick him out because it would mean giving up on a pure sweet innocent lamb. In fact, he spent most of the duller parts of school and church thinking up particularly good questions to ask on Sunday afternoon. A recent one he had been particularly proud of: “If the people in Heaven are so good, then how come it doesn’t bother them that all their friends got sent to Hell?”

At first, this had started as an exercise to see how far these people were willing to play along. Then, somewhere around the age of ten, it occurred to him that they actually believed it. Or else they were the best actors in the world. Either way, he was in awe of them. They had an answer for everything.

Your prayer wasn’t answered? Pray harder. Or longer. Or with more purity of heart. Be patient. Have faith. God works in mysterious ways. That one was their favorite.

The words never changed, but Robert had become a connoisseur of tone. He loved watching the transformation from the kind, patient “God works in mysterious ways” to the frustrated one that just meant, "Shut up.”

Lately, though, he had another source of fascination at Youth Group. This was another youth, a girl named Christina. His interest in her was about twenty-five percent physical attraction and seventy-five percent pure loathing. She was his nemesis. A true believer and devout rule-follower. When they told them to close their eyes and count backwards from ten, you could practically watch the numbers descending in her mind.

If Robert had to choose whether the head priest of the church believed all the crap he spewed or if Christina did, he would choose Christina without hesitation. 

Christina versus the Pope - Christina again.

Christina versus Christ himself - that was an easy one. Robert believed that Jesus of Nazareth would be shocked if he could see all the people who had decided to follow him. Not in a “these people aren’t practicing what I preached” kind of way so much as a “I knew I was good, but not this good” sort of way. He actually kind of admired Jesus as one of history’s greatest scammers. Mary was up there, too, of course. Apple and tree.

So on one particular Sunday afternoon in October, Robert made sure to sit across from Christina when they formed their little circle of gym chairs in the church basement. Watching her face was part of the fun. Her brown hair was always pulled back in a tight ponytail, and Robert oscillated between fantasies of pulling it and cutting it off with his pocket knife. He was twelve.

Youth Group was led by Jacob, who was not officially a part of the Church but seemed to practically live there. Jacob was probably around forty, but had that weird vibe that led people to call him “boyish,” never used to describe actual boys. Unmarried, childless. Blonde hair in a bowl-cut, dress shirt tucked into jeans type of guy. 

“So, my friends, did anyone have any thoughts on Father Michael’s sermon today?”

“Yeah,” Robert Melrose said, half-raising his hand.

“Yes, Robert?” Jacob visibly braced himself. The other youths, fifteen of them in all, exchanged smirks and knowing glances - except for Christina, who only sighed.

“So are people born good or bad?”

“Well, as Father Michael said today in his sermon, we are all sinners. But we can be saved through the redemptive power of Christ’s sacrifice. All we must do is accept Him as our Lord and Savior, my friends.”

“Yeah, yeah, but like, what about babies? Are babies sinners too?”

“The Bible teaches . . .”

“I asked Sister Mary about it and she said no. She said you can’t be a sinner until you’re old enough to know right from wrong.”

Jacob looked flustered. “Well, technically, official Church doctrine is . . .”

“I don’t care about that,” Robert insisted. The other kids laughed, but that wasn’t what drove him and they knew it. “I want to know what you think.”

“They’re one and the same, my dear boy,” Jacob said, smiling patiently. The more positive words they heaped upon you, the more pissed off they were on the inside.

Christina was clenching her teeth.

“How is that possible, though? Are you saying you don’t have a brain?”

“No, no, quite the opposite.” Jacob folded his hands and placed them in his lap. “I am saying that I use my brain to follow the teachings of the Church and the will of God. Don’t be so proud to think that you know everything, my good sweet dear child. Remember that pride is a sin.”

“But didn’t you just say we’re all sinners, anyway?”

Christina was starting to twitch. Robert sometimes compared her to a robot that started to malfunction when it was overwhelmed with too much questioning.

“Perhaps this is a conversation that would be better held in private,” Jacob said tactfully, sensing that he had lost command of the group. They were listening to Robert’s arguments more than his own rebuttals, which was always a danger of entertaining the boy’s questions. And he couldn’t allow his youth group to become a venue of corruption rather than straightening-out.

“Or maybe he should just shut up and listen for once!” Christina burst out.

Robert felt a welling of joy inside his heart, too great for a smile.

“My dear girl, while I appreciate your passion for your friend’s soul, you must remember that he is on his own journey to God . . .”

“No, he’s not!” Christina snapped. “He’s an instrument of the Devil! He’s here to lead us astray from the truth and fill our heads with poison.”

“I know it may seem that way,” Jacob conceded, “and I will admit that I have entertained such misgivings myself in the privacy of my heart. But we must remember that all human beings are made in the image of God and are deserving of His Grace.”

Robert leaned back in the chair - one of those gym-quality, metal folding chairs - and rested his hands behind his head. Without even meaning to, they were debating the exact question he had asked: were people good or bad? This was a question he had been asking everyone lately, though he wasn’t expecting a satisfying answer. He just figured that if everyone gave a different answer then it meant no one knew and he didn’t need to worry about it.

“Everything he says is just so wrong,” Christina pleaded to Jacob, as if he could change it.

(Was she crying? This really was the best day ever.)

“Perhaps God has put him here to test our resolve,” Jacob suggested.

They were on their own little island now, oblivious that the others were still there, watching their moment of human connection.

“Jacob, can you teach me to be patient with him? Like you are?”

“No, my child, you are the patient one. I am spiteful in my heart. Any appearance of goodness is only from the grace of the God. You must submit yourself to His Will and accept.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying!”

“Do not try so hard, my child.”

“I’ll try.” Christina closed her eyes tightly and, for some reason, tilted her head back and put her arms out. This was a pose that Robert and his friends would mimic for months, until they forgot it had anything to do with Christina and just became funny in itself. (It would ultimately be ruined, like so many things, by a latecomer, a hanger-on, a kid called Bryan-with-a-y who performed the gesture so often and so arbitrarily, despite not even being there for Christina’s attempted apotheosis, that the rest of the kids started to think of it as Bryan’s thing and stopped doing it.)

Jacob stood up, walked over to Christina. and grabbed her arms. “Yes, dear sweet child of the Lord. When in doubt, ask God for assistance!” This was good; finally, something was happening in one of his youth groups, something he could tell the others about. A genuine moment of spiritual conversion. Brought about by that horrible Melrose child. God works in mysterious ways, indeed.

Christina shut her eyes tighter and tighter, trying to feel the presence of God and sense what He wanted her to Do about The Robert Problem.

Seeing that Jacob’s eyes were now shut as well, the rest of the youth, led by Robert, figured that they were free to go, and absconded to the playground, which was maybe a four out of ten, equipment-wise, but was the perfect venue to process what had just happened. A breath of fresh air, a return to real life. Here, they could laugh about it. Laughter had seemed impossible when the funny thing was actually happening.

This was not a particularly formative experience in young Robert’s life. It didn’t change him or anything. He was already a cynical little asshole before that and the only one of those three descriptors that ever really changed was his size. But it was one that he thought about rather frequently. And whenever he heard a question like, “What was the happiest day of your life?” there was a part of him - the part that wasn’t scoffing at the stupidity of the question or the people who lied and said it was their wedding or the day they gave birth - that automatically fell back upon that day, when he made Christina cry.